Cinematheque Film Schedule

Russia | 1926 | Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg

USSR, 1926, Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg Two years after their sold-out Metropolis show at the Capitol Theatre (a Cinematheque presentation), the Alloy Orchestra returns to the Cinematheque! This time the Boston band that Roger Ebert calls “the best in the world at accompanying silent films” will lend their distinctive mix of clarinet, accordion, electronics, and junk metal percussion to two movies they have never before performed in Cleveland, both Soviet silents in rare 35mm...

Russia | 1929 | Dziga Vertov

For their second show tonight (see The Orchestra), Boston’s Alloy Orchestra will present the first Cleveland performance of what is often cited as their best score. It’s for Man with a Movie Camera, a Constructivist Soviet silent that, in this year’s Sight & Sound poll, was voted the eighth best movie of all time! Vertov’s dizzying city symphony is a whirling, swooping work that breathlessly employs every camera and editing trick known at the...

Australia | 2009 | Glendyn Ivin

Hugo Weaving plays a violent criminal who flees across the bleak Australian outback with his oft-neglected 10-year-old son in this lyrically photographed drama that The Village Voice calls “an Aussie variation on Badlands teeming with desolation, beauty, fear, and the discord between youthful fantasies and grim realities.” “A spare and wrenching road movie delving into the complexities of a fraught father-son relationship.” –The Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland theatrical premiere.

France | 1962 | François Truffaut

One of the most beloved, romantic, and influential French New Wave classics is now 50 years old! Truffaut’s intoxicating, lyrical love story, set in pre- and post-WWI Europe, tells of two artist friends—a German (Oskar Werner) and a Frenchman (Henri Serre)—who love the same enigmatic, free-spirited young woman (Jeanne Moreau). 35mm color & scope print! Subtitles.

France | 1962 | François Truffaut

One of the most beloved, romantic, and influential French New Wave classics is now 50 years old! Truffaut’s intoxicating, lyrical love story, set in pre- and post-WWI Europe, tells of two artist friends—a German (Oskar Werner) and a Frenchman (Henri Serre)—who love the same enigmatic, free-spirited young woman (Jeanne Moreau). 35mm color & scope print! Subtitles.

France | 1937 | Jean Renoir

Orson Welles once said, “If I had only one film in the world to save, it would be Grand Illusion.“ Jean Gabin, Erich von Stroheim, and Pierre Fresnay star in Jean Renoir’s great anti-war movie—a humanistic masterpiece set in and around a German POW camp during WWI. This exciting and moving film astutely demonstrates that it is social class—not nationality or language—that separates and divides people. Unmissable! New 35mm print! Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles.

1986 | Hayao Miyazaki

A young girl battles sky pirates and government agents for possession of a magical levitation stone that unlocks the secrets of Laputa, a mysterious floating island in the sky. This funny, thrilling, dazzling animated aerial adventure “may be Miyazaki’s most purely enjoyable movie” (Film Comment). Subtitles.

France | 1937 | Jean Renoir

Orson Welles once said, “If I had only one film in the world to save, it would be Grand Illusion.“ Jean Gabin, Erich von Stroheim, and Pierre Fresnay star in Jean Renoir’s great anti-war movie—a humanistic masterpiece set in and around a German POW camp during WWI. This exciting and moving film astutely demonstrates that it is social class—not nationality or language—that separates and divides people. Unmissable! New 35mm print! Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles.

1986 | Hayao Miyazaki

A young girl battles sky pirates and government agents for possession of a magical levitation stone that unlocks the secrets of Laputa, a mysterious floating island in the sky. This funny, thrilling, dazzling animated aerial adventure “may be Miyazaki’s most purely enjoyable movie” (Film Comment). Subtitles.

Australia | 2009 | Glendyn Ivin

Hugo Weaving plays a violent criminal who flees across the bleak Australian outback with his oft-neglected 10-year-old son in this lyrically photographed drama that The Village Voice calls “an Aussie variation on Badlands teeming with desolation, beauty, fear, and the discord between youthful fantasies and grim realities.” “A spare and wrenching road movie delving into the complexities of a fraught father-son relationship.” –The Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland theatrical premiere.

Spain | 2011 | Alejandro Bgrugués

Cuba’s first zombie movie is a clever, ballsy black comedy with a sharp satirical bite. (Moviegoers ate it up in July so we’re bringing it back.) When creatures in tattered clothes looking dazed, hungry, and sick start stumbling around Havana, local layabout Juan thinks nothing of it—just another day of depravation in Castro’s Cuba. But when their numbers grow, and the ineffectual government dismisses them as U.S.-sponsored “dissidents,” Juan sees a business opportunity: he...

United States | 1984 | David Lynch

David Lynch’s third feature (made after Eraserhead and The Elephant Man and just before Blue Velvet) was a 40-million-dollar flop. Kyle MacLachlan, Jack Nance, Patrick Stewart, Sting, Sean Young, Max von Sydow, and many others star in this lavish film version of Frank Herbert’s mammoth sci-fi novel, about the struggle to control a desert planet where an essential spice is mined and giant man-eating sandworms lurk. “Gets under your skin…Unforgettable images and an extraordinary...

France, Italy | 1953 | Max Ophüls

Andrew Sarris was the legendary film critic for The Village Voice and The New York Observer whose 1968 tome The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968 has been called the most influential American film book of the 20th century. The work introduced France’s auteur theory to America. Sarris, who died in June at age 83, will be remembered on Friday night by Cleveland Institute of Art President Grafton Nunes, who knew him for many...

United States | 1984 | David Lynch

David Lynch’s third feature (made after Eraserhead and The Elephant Man and just before Blue Velvet) was a 40-million-dollar flop. Kyle MacLachlan, Jack Nance, Patrick Stewart, Sting, Sean Young, Max von Sydow, and many others star in this lavish film version of Frank Herbert’s mammoth sci-fi novel, about the struggle to control a desert planet where an essential spice is mined and giant man-eating sandworms lurk. “Gets under your skin…Unforgettable images and an extraordinary...

France, Italy | 1953 | Max Ophüls

Andrew Sarris was the legendary film critic for The Village Voice and The New York Observer whose 1968 tome The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968 has been called the most influential American film book of the 20th century. The work introduced France’s auteur theory to America. Sarris, who died in June at age 83, will be remembered on Friday night by Cleveland Institute of Art President Grafton Nunes, who knew him for many...

France | 2011 | André Téchiné

The new film by master French filmmaker André Téchiné (Wild Reeds) is set in scenic Venice, where a blocked French crime writer (André Dussollier) rents an island getaway from a stunningly beautiful real-estate agent (Carole Bouquet) who proceeds to move in with him. He soon grows jealous of his new companion, so hires a female private eye to tail her. But the gumshoe is his girlfriend’s former lover—the first of many complexities. “Intriguing and...

Japan | 2001 | Hayao Miyazaki

Winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and Japan’s all-time box office champ at the time of its release (surpassing Titanic), Spirited Away is arguably Miyazaki’s most dazzling and imaginative masterpiece. It tells of a 10-year-old girl who is transported to a fantastic spirit realm after her parents are turned into pigs. There she goes to work for a witch in order to reverse the spell. Subtitles.

France | 2011 | André Téchiné

The new film by master French filmmaker André Téchiné (Wild Reeds) is set in scenic Venice, where a blocked French crime writer (André Dussollier) rents an island getaway from a stunningly beautiful real-estate agent (Carole Bouquet) who proceeds to move in with him. He soon grows jealous of his new companion, so hires a female private eye to tail her. But the gumshoe is his girlfriend’s former lover—the first of many complexities. “Intriguing and...

Japan | 2001 | Hayao Miyazaki

Winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and Japan’s all-time box office champ at the time of its release (surpassing Titanic), Spirited Away is arguably Miyazaki’s most dazzling and imaginative masterpiece. It tells of a 10-year-old girl who is transported to a fantastic spirit realm after her parents are turned into pigs. There she goes to work for a witch in order to reverse the spell. Subtitles.

Spain | 2011 | Alejandro Bgrugués

Cuba’s first zombie movie is a clever, ballsy black comedy with a sharp satirical bite. (Moviegoers ate it up in July so we’re bringing it back.) When creatures in tattered clothes looking dazed, hungry, and sick start stumbling around Havana, local layabout Juan thinks nothing of it—just another day of depravation in Castro’s Cuba. But when their numbers grow, and the ineffectual government dismisses them as U.S.-sponsored “dissidents,” Juan sees a business opportunity: he...

Denmark | 2010 | Mikkel Nørgaard

The Cinematheque returns to the Capitol Theatre to present “hands down the funniest film of the year (The Village Voice). It’s a twisted comedy from Lars von Trier’s always edgy Zentropa Productions—about a man who “kidnaps” his pregnant girlfriend’s 12-year-old nephew and then, to prove what a good parent he would be, takes him on a canoe trip—with his sex-crazed buddy. The pastoral outing soon turns into a weekend of debauchery and disaster! “Plays...

United States | 1992 | David Lynch

David Lynch’s prequel to his cult TV series (made after the show was canceled) is one of his darkest, creepiest, and most surreal works. Set in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington, the film depicts the events (including another murder) leading up to the mysterious death of teen Laura Palmer, where the TV series began. Kyle MacLachlan reprises his role as Special Agent Dale Cooper, and the movie boasts mesmerizing sequences, some truly...

France | 1967 | Jacques Tati

Tonight the Cinematheque welcomes the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland to University Circle—and congratulates them on the opening of their shiny new building at the northeast corner of Euclid and Mayfield—with a special showing of Jacques Tati’s epic comedy Playtime, a masterpiece of spatial cinema. In the film, Tati’s quaint and klutzy alter ego Monsieur Hulot finds himself trapped in a maze of modernist glass-and-steel buildings on the outskirts of Paris. Though it...

France | 2011 | Daniel Autuil

French actor Daniel Autueil, who first made a splash in America in the 1986 Marcel Pagnol adaptation Jean de Florette, stars and directs a Pagnol adaptation of his own. Set in sun-dappled rural Provence at the time of WWI, this color remake of a 1940 Pagnol classic stars Autueil as a working-man and widower with five girls. When his beloved oldest daughter becomes pregnant by a wealthy boy she loves, he kicks her out...

1986 | Hayao Miyazaki

Miyazaki’s lyrical coming-of-age comedy focuses on a broomstick-riding, 13-year-old witch-in-training—a good witch—who leaves home with her loquacious black cat to spend a year doing good deeds in a far-off seaside city. She sets up a delivery service with a local baker, but discovers that self-doubt and insecurity threaten her aerial abilities. Subtitles.

France | 2011 | Daniel Autuil

French actor Daniel Autueil, who first made a splash in America in the 1986 Marcel Pagnol adaptation Jean de Florette, stars and directs a Pagnol adaptation of his own. Set in sun-dappled rural Provence at the time of WWI, this color remake of a 1940 Pagnol classic stars Autueil as a working-man and widower with five girls. When his beloved oldest daughter becomes pregnant by a wealthy boy she loves, he kicks her out...

1986 | Hayao Miyazaki

Miyazaki’s lyrical coming-of-age comedy focuses on a broomstick-riding, 13-year-old witch-in-training—a good witch—who leaves home with her loquacious black cat to spend a year doing good deeds in a far-off seaside city. She sets up a delivery service with a local baker, but discovers that self-doubt and insecurity threaten her aerial abilities. Subtitles.

United States | 1992 | David Lynch

David Lynch’s prequel to his cult TV series (made after the show was canceled) is one of his darkest, creepiest, and most surreal works. Set in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington, the film depicts the events (including another murder) leading up to the mysterious death of teen Laura Palmer, where the TV series began. Kyle MacLachlan reprises his role as Special Agent Dale Cooper, and the movie boasts mesmerizing sequences, some truly...

United States | 1995-98 | Leighton Pierce

Leighton Pierce, chair of the Film & Video Department at NYC’s Pratt Institute, is one of America’s major avant-garde filmmakers. For over 30 years, he has explored memory and perception in a series of stunningly shot, impressionistic short films and videos that exploit cinematic space and time and expand the interplay between sound and image. His work has been exhibited at major museums and festivals (MoMA, the Whitney Biennial, Sundance, Ann Arbor, San Francisco,...

United States | 2011 | David Weissman & Bill Weber

This deeply moving documentary—the best-reviewed film of 2011 after A Separation, according to metacritic.com—chronicles how, two decades ago, the AIDS epidemic devastated and transformed San Francisco’s gay community, killing over 15,000. Eloquent eyewitness testimony and choice archival materials paint an indelible portrait of a community in crisis—and what they did about it.

United States | 1997 | David Lynch

David Lynch’s strange, surrealistic nightmare is a neo-noir mystery about an L.A. jazz saxophonist (Bill Pullman) who goes to jail for murdering his wife (Patricia Arquette)—something he doesn’t remember doing, though a mysterious videotape seems to implicate him. But in jail he’s a different person—literally—a mechanic (Balthazar Getty) with connections to a gangster (Robert Loggia) whose mistress (Arquette again) is the spitting image of the murdered wife! This sinister warm-up for the character doubles...

United States | 2011 | David Weissman & Bill Weber

This deeply moving documentary—the best-reviewed film of 2011 after A Separation, according to metacritic.com—chronicles how, two decades ago, the AIDS epidemic devastated and transformed San Francisco’s gay community, killing over 15,000. Eloquent eyewitness testimony and choice archival materials paint an indelible portrait of a community in crisis—and what they did about it.

United States | 1997 | David Lynch

David Lynch’s strange, surrealistic nightmare is a neo-noir mystery about an L.A. jazz saxophonist (Bill Pullman) who goes to jail for murdering his wife (Patricia Arquette)—something he doesn’t remember doing, though a mysterious videotape seems to implicate him. But in jail he’s a different person—literally—a mechanic (Balthazar Getty) with connections to a gangster (Robert Loggia) whose mistress (Arquette again) is the spitting image of the murdered wife! This sinister warm-up for the character doubles...

Czech Republic | 1966 | Vera Chytilová

Here’s a new 35mm color print of one of the most inventive and anarchic works of the Czech New Wave—a dada movie that will leave you gaga! (Czech officials banned it for a year.) It’s a madcap satire that follows two bored young women as they prank and otherwise stick it to modern consumer society—thumbing their noses at food, fashion, men, and politics. "Five stars (highest rating)...This Molotov cocktail of fizzy champagne and feminist...

1953 | Yasujiro Ozu

Recently voted the greatest film of all time by the filmmakers who participated in the latest Sight & Sound magazine poll to determine the best movies ever made (it finished #3 on the critics’ list), Ozu’s most famous film follows an elderly couple as they travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. But it soon becomes apparent that their presence is a burden to their busy offspring. This sublime portrait of intergenerational relationships...

1997 | Hayao Miyazaki

Mortals who have learned how to fashion weapons out of metal battle nature spirits, pagan gods, and forest creatures in Miyazaki’s sumptuous, ecologically-themed mythological epic. 16 years in the making, this is one of the most impressive animated features ever! Subtitles.

1953 | Yasujiro Ozu

Recently voted the greatest film of all time by the filmmakers who participated in the latest Sight & Sound magazine poll to determine the best movies ever made (it finished #3 on the critics’ list), Ozu’s most famous film follows an elderly couple as they travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. But it soon becomes apparent that their presence is a burden to their busy offspring. This sublime portrait of intergenerational relationships...

1997 | Hayao Miyazaki

Mortals who have learned how to fashion weapons out of metal battle nature spirits, pagan gods, and forest creatures in Miyazaki’s sumptuous, ecologically-themed mythological epic. 16 years in the making, this is one of the most impressive animated features ever! Subtitles.

Czech Republic | 1966 | Vera Chytilová

Here’s a new 35mm color print of one of the most inventive and anarchic works of the Czech New Wave—a dada movie that will leave you gaga! (Czech officials banned it for a year.) It’s a madcap satire that follows two bored young women as they prank and otherwise stick it to modern consumer society—thumbing their noses at food, fashion, men, and politics. "Five stars (highest rating)...This Molotov cocktail of fizzy champagne and feminist...