Giving Day is Wednesday, March 16th!
Cornell’s one-day fundraising marathon, Giving Day, is this Wednesday, and we’d greatly appreciate any donation you can afford to give. Your support helps ensure we can continue providing high-quality film presentations worthy of any city thirty times our size! Though it won’t be active until Wednesday, the direct link for donations is here. But you can make a gift at anytime during the year by visiting our regular donation page here. Thanks!
Announcements
All patrons must adhere to Cornell’s public health requirements for events. If a patron does not have a current Cornell ID, they must provide proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test. As of March 14, masks are no longer required, but encouraged nonetheless. Up-to-date guidance, including acceptable proof of vaccination or test, is available here.
Popcorn fans rejoice!
Our concession stand is now open on a limited basis Thursdays–Saturdays with popcorn, water & some candy available until further notice.
This Week's Films
One of our marquee events of the Spring semester is this Friday night: Josef von Sternberg’s Underworld (pictured), with live musical accompaniment by the Anvil Orchestra! The Anvil Orchestra consists of 2/3 of the widely popular Alloy Orchestra, who performed regularly at Cornell Cinema from 1999–2019. They’ll be accompanying a 35mm film print of Sternberg’s excellent silent gangster picture, which features rival crime bosses and a love triangle set during Chicago's Prohibition Era. All-Access Passholders get a discount on tickets! Get your tickets today!
Acclaimed Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) was recently introduced to von Sternberg's silent films and was blown away:
“The lighting techniques in them are simply wonderful. People are lit from behind, which emphasizes their silhouettes, and the way smoke is captured is remarkable. In Underworld, George Bancroft is lit from the back as he tries to kill the person who hurt his lover—that image is indelible.”
Don't forget—it's the final week of the Sudanese Film Group Shorts! You have until this Thursday to watch this on-demand and highly recommended program of short films from Sudan, part of our Sub-Saharan Cinema series.
Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa’s second feature film, Casa de Lava (never before released in the US!) screens Tuesday, part of our Experimental Landscapes series.
On Wednesday, the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Faya Dayi screens, with a pre-recorded discussion between Ethiopian/Mexican filmmaker Jessica Beshir and Cornell faculty Natasha Raheja (Anthropology/PMA) & Daniel Pfeffer (PMA) following the film. It’s a sublime work of trance-state cinema, and it won the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2022 Independent Spirit Awards just last week!
Paragraph 175 criminalized male homosexual activity in Germany and remained on the books from 1871 to 1994. Great Freedom (Thur & Sun) tells the story of a gay man liberated from a concentration camp only to be imprisoned again for the crime of homosexuality. Franz Rogowski was magnificent in Christian Petzold’s recent films Transit and Undine, and he delivers another piercing performance in this film. Winner of the Jury Award, Un Certain Regard, Cannes, and Austria’s entry for Best International Feature Oscar, for which it was shortlisted. Read the "must-see" reviews here.
Our Satoshi Kon series ends this week with his final masterpiece Paprika (Thur & Sat), and our Saturday Night Noir series continues with a new restoration of Poverty Row classic Detour!
Finally, take a peek at the sideshow with Guillermo del Torro’s Nightmare Alley (Fri & Sun), filmed in good old Buffalo, NY and up for 4 Academy Awards!
