Classic Thrillers by Hitchcock & Wenders, 2 Great Docs & Miyazaki's Ponyo

Have you filled out our Spring 2022 Programming Survey yet? Your input on these questions will help us guide not only our film selection for next semester, but also what we do with our All-Access Pass in coming years. Hurry, responses are due Tues Nov 16 by midnight!

It’s the penultimate week of screenings for the Fall semester! We kick things off Tuesday with a FREE screening of Fire Will Come, the new film by Galician filmmaker Oliver Laxe. A reformed arsonist lives peacefully with his aging mother in their mountainside village, until one night a devastating fire ignites that threatens to engulf the entire region. Sr Lecturer Cecelia Lawless (Romance Studies) will introduce this gorgeously photographed film. 

Our 50th anniversary series wraps up this week with Wim Wenders’ The American Friend (Wed & Thur). Dennis Hopper (pictured) oozes quirky menace as an amoral American art dealer who entangles a terminally ill German everyman, played by Bruno Ganz, in a seedy criminal underworld as revenge for a personal slight—but when the two become embroiled in an ever-deepening murder plot, they form an unlikely bond. This Patricia Highsmith adaptation features cameos by filmmakers Jean Eustache, Samuel Fuller, and Nicholas Ray! A perfect way to finish our 50th celebration. 

On Thursday we're screening The American Sector, which shouldn’t be confused with The American Friend, as they are entirely different. Still, one informs the other, as The American Sector documents sixty remnants of the Berlin Wall here in the United States, which was very much still in place during Wim Wender’s filming of The American Friend. Filmmakers Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez (Manakamana) visit these sections of wall, interviewing those who maintain or interact with them, slowly building up a portrait of contemporary American culture through these Cold War relics. The American Sector will be preceded by Mitch McCabe’s short film Civil War Surveillance Poems, Pt 1, the first iteration of a five-part feature film of speculative experimental nonfiction which contemplates an impending American civil war. 

Our Hitchcock series continues apace with the Cary Grant cliffhanger North by Northwest (Fri & Sun), which will be shown in a brand new restoration!

We’re also showing the recent documentary The Rescue (Fri & Sun), about the miraculous rescue of 12 teenagers and their soccer coach who were trapped in a Thai cave following a monsoon. Even if you think you know this story, this excellent documentary is full of new revelations. It's sure to be shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature Oscar.

And finally, we’re showing Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo on Sunday! In collaboration with the Asian & Asian American Center and the Hasbrouck Community Center, we’re hosting our first kid-friendly matinee screening since March ’20—and tickets are just $5 each!

After our Sunday screenings, we’ll close up for the week of Thanksgiving and return for some final screenings in early December. See you all at the movies!

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Image from the film THE AMERICAN FRIEND
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