Spring 2022 Schedule Announced!

Starting this Wednesday, Cornell Cinema launches its Spring ’22 schedule with four exquisite foreign language films offered on demand via our virtual cinema platform from January 26–February 6 to coincide with Cornell’s remote teaching schedule for the first two weeks of the semester.

Then, a thrilling schedule of in-person screenings & events will begin on Monday, February 7 in Willard Straight Theatre when teaching is scheduled to return to the classroom. 

Patrons who purchase an All-Access Pass for the Spring semester will be able to watch all virtual programs for free in addition to over 75 other films being offered in-person over the course of the Spring. It’s an amazing deal!  Cost for a single title being offered virtually is $6. (Individual ticket prices for our regular in-person screenings can be found here.)

Once we reopen for in-person screenings, all patrons must adhere to Cornell’s public health requirements for events which include wearing high-quality (N95 or equivalent) masks while indoors, and, if a patron does not have a current Cornell ID, provide proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test. Up-to-date guidance, including acceptable proof of vaccination or test, is available at covid.cornell.edu/events 

A highlight of our virtual offerings is American documentarian James Blue’s sole narrative feature, The Olive Trees of Justice (1962) (pictured), shot in Algiers during the Algerian War (the only film production to do so), shown in a new digital restoration that just premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of its “To Save and Project” series.  The film launches our semester-long Francophone Film Festival. We’re thrilled that former Cornell Cinema director Richard Herskowitz has provided an introduction for the film, which will run in front of our virtual screenings.

Positive reviews are rolling in for this rediscovered gem, showing as part of our Restorations & Rediscoveries series, with one describing it as “a fascinating cinematic time capsule, a glimpse at the last days of French colonial Algeria. As you might expect from a filmmaker who worked mostly on non-fiction films, it’s a picture that immerses us in a reality, with real locations and ‘the real people of Algeria’ as its co-stars.” (Movie Nation)

Herskowitz has been involved with the James Blue Project for the past ten years and was involved with the film’s restoration. His introduction provides an excellent primer on James Blue and the production and reception of the film. To learn even more about Blue, watch this 10-minute video that also shows the beginnings of Richard's involvement and also the website he built for the James Blue Project. 

Our virtual offerings include another mid-century classic, Fellini’s fairy tale road movie La Strada (1954), which kicks off our Fellini, Masina & Rota series. Winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, La Strada has been described as Fellini’s most autobiographical. It will be offered in a recent digital restoration, as will Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao- hsien’s atmospheric Flowers of Shanghai (1998), adapted from a nineteenth-century novel and set amidst the world of courtesans, featuring the filmmaker’s characteristic formal daring.

Finally, for all those who saw and loved Drive My Car (2021) and want to see more by acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, you’re in luck! We’re offering the virtual Ithaca premiere of his other film from 2021, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, a triptych of short stories inspired by life’s tiny miracles, bound together by memory, regret, deception, and fate.

That’s it from us for now! Be sure to check out everything we’re offering for the Spring on our website and purchase your semester-long All-Access Pass, so you can begin experiencing fantastic films curated especially for the Ithaca and Cornell communities, located both near and far!

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image from the film OLIVE TREES OF JUSTICE
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