Cinematheque Film Schedule

Norway | 2017 | Joachim Trier

The much-praised new film from the director of Reprise and Louder than Bombs was Norway’s official submission for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Thelma tells of a shy young college freshman, raised in a fundamentalist religious family, whose confounding, “impure” feelings for a fellow female student trigger seizures, nightmarish visions, and telekinetic powers. Though reminiscent of Carrie, this movie is “less interested in supernatural horror than in contemplating the effects of an...

Spain | 2015 |

Winner of the Goya Award (Spanish Oscar) for Best Animated Feature, this haunting, darkly comic, almost Buñuelian tale is set in a grim post-apocalyptic world. Yearning for a better life, a teenage mouse and her anthropomorphic animal friends hatch a dangerous plot to escape the bleak island on which they are stranded. From Alberto Vázquez’s graphic novel. Not for children. “Casts an undeniable spell.” –Hollywood Reporter. Subtitles. DCP. 76 min. Birdboy will be preceded at...

Spain | 2015 |

Winner of the Goya Award (Spanish Oscar) for Best Animated Feature, this haunting, darkly comic, almost Buñuelian tale is set in a grim post-apocalyptic world. Yearning for a better life, a teenage mouse and her anthropomorphic animal friends hatch a dangerous plot to escape the bleak island on which they are stranded. From Alberto Vázquez’s graphic novel. Not for children. “Casts an undeniable spell.” –Hollywood Reporter. Subtitles. DCP. 76 min. Birdboy will be preceded at...

Sweden | 1957 | Ingmar Bergman

A knight (Max von Sydow) returns from the Crusades to a plague-ravaged Sweden where he searches for God and plays chess with Death. Ingmar Bergman’s medieval morality play cemented his international reputation and remains one of the seminal works of world cinema. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 96 min.

Sweden | 1957 | Ingmar Bergman

A knight (Max von Sydow) returns from the Crusades to a plague-ravaged Sweden where he searches for God and plays chess with Death. Ingmar Bergman’s medieval morality play cemented his international reputation and remains one of the seminal works of world cinema. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 96 min.

United States | 2017 | Alexandra Dean

This eye-opening new documentary chronicles the life and career of the glamorous Austrian-born Hollywood beauty who also invented a wartime radio technology that, decades later, contributed to the development of cell phones, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Includes archival material and original interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, Mel Brooks, et al. “Critic's Pick…Very enjoyable.” –NY Times. DCP. 90 min.

Norway | 2017 | Joachim Trier

The much-praised new film from the director of Reprise and Louder than Bombs was Norway’s official submission for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Thelma tells of a shy young college freshman, raised in a fundamentalist religious family, whose confounding, “impure” feelings for a fellow female student trigger seizures, nightmarish visions, and telekinetic powers. Though reminiscent of Carrie, this movie is “less interested in supernatural horror than in contemplating the effects of an...

United States | 2017 | Alexandra Dean

This eye-opening new documentary chronicles the life and career of the glamorous Austrian-born Hollywood beauty who also invented a wartime radio technology that, decades later, contributed to the development of cell phones, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Includes archival material and original interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, Mel Brooks, et al. “Critic's Pick…Very enjoyable.” –NY Times. DCP. 90 min.

United States | 2017 | Brett Morgen

This magnificent new portrait of pioneering British primatologist Jane Goodall is largely derived from hours of previously unseen 16mm color footage (shot for National Geographic during the 1960s) of her interacting with chimpanzees in the African wilderness. It’s topped off by a new Philip Glass score. Hard to believe this universally acclaimed movie was not nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature! DCP. 90 min.

United States | 2017 | Jason Wise

Before she played tough, sarcastic TV writer Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show and became one of the hippest of the Hollywood Squares, singer-comedienne Rose Marie worked in vaudeville, radio, nightclubs, Broadway, and Vegas. Her incredible nine-decade career, which began when she was four years old and was once nurtured by the Mob, is recounted in this fascinating new film that includes archival film clips and new interviews with Carl Reiner, Dick Van...

United States | 2017 | Damon Cardasis

When his father dies suddently, Ulysses, a shy and effeminate 14-year-old Bronx teen grappling with gender identity, suddenly finds himself “the man of the house.”. To escape his repressive home life and new responsibilities, Ulysses retreats into imagined musical numbers (realized on screen) and starts attending a weekly community program for LGBTQ youth. “Blending sensitive drama with musical fantasy and a heart worn unapologetically on its sleeve, Saturday Church is a modest charmer.” –Hollywood Reporter....

Sweden | 1953 | Ingmar Bergman

The earliest film in our current Bergman series is arguably the director’s first great work. It’s an expressionistic, psychosexual tale of love, betrayal, and degradation about an aging circus owner, his young mistress (Harriet Andersson), his estranged wife, and a haunted, heavy-drinking clown. Has a 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 92 min.

United States | 2017 | Jennifer Lebeau

In 1978, Bob Dylan confounded his fans by declaring himself “born again.” Then between 1979 and 1981, he released a trilogy of Christian albums: Slow Train Coming, Saved, and Shot of Love. He also embarked on a three-part, 79-show “Gospel Tour” that lasted from November 1979 through May 1980. This new concert film features rare performance footage from two of those shows (Buffalo & Toronto). New “sermons” written by Luc Sante and delivered by Michael...

France | 2017 | Philippe Garrel

Philippe Garrel’s latest film stars his youngest child Esther Garrel (she was Marzia in Call Me By Your Name) as a desperate 23-year-old who returns home after a devastating breakup with her boyfriend, only to discover that her father is involved with a young woman exactly her age. It’s an awkward situation. “Wonderful, quintessentially French.” –Screen Int’l. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 76 min.

United States | 2017 | Damon Cardasis

When his father dies suddently, Ulysses, a shy and effeminate 14-year-old Bronx teen grappling with gender identity, suddenly finds himself “the man of the house.”. To escape his repressive home life and new responsibilities, Ulysses retreats into imagined musical numbers (realized on screen) and starts attending a weekly community program for LGBTQ youth. “Blending sensitive drama with musical fantasy and a heart worn unapologetically on its sleeve, Saturday Church is a modest charmer.” –Hollywood Reporter....

Sweden | 1953 | Ingmar Bergman

The earliest film in our current Bergman series is arguably the director’s first great work. It’s an expressionistic, psychosexual tale of love, betrayal, and degradation about an aging circus owner, his young mistress (Harriet Andersson), his estranged wife, and a haunted, heavy-drinking clown. Has a 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 92 min.

Germany | 2017 | Fatih Akin

Winner of the 2018 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film (but snubbed by Oscar), this acclaimed drama also won the 2017 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress prize for its star, Diane Kruger. She plays a Hamburg woman who seeks revenge or justice after her Kurdish husband and son are killed in a hate crime by Neo-Nazis. From the Turkish-German director of Head-On. “An edge-of-seat thriller…Leave(s) the audience shaken.” –Hollywood Reporter. Subtitles. DCP. 106...

France | 2017 | Philippe Garrel

Philippe Garrel’s latest film stars his youngest child Esther Garrel (she was Marzia in Call Me By Your Name) as a desperate 23-year-old who returns home after a devastating breakup with her boyfriend, only to discover that her father is involved with a young woman exactly her age. It’s an awkward situation. “Wonderful, quintessentially French.” –Screen Int’l. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 76 min.

1982 | Tony Richardson

Scott Edwards, author of the new book Quintessential Jack: The Art of Jack Nicholson on Screen (McFarland, 2017), appears in person to introduce and lead a discussion after a lesser-known Nicholson film that has contemporary relevance. In The Border, Nicholson plays a new Texas immigration enforcement agent who succumbs to the corruption of his colleagues (Harvey Keitel, Warren Oates) before trying to make amends by helping a young immigrant mother. With Valerie Perrine; music by...

Yugoslavia | 1956 |

This beautifully shot WWII film follows two young Slovenian children living under German occupation. When their families and homes are destroyed in an air raid, the kids set off to find a fabled “Valley of Peace.” Along the way they meet a downed African-American GI (John Kitzmiller, who won the best actor prize at Cannes for his performance, the first black person to do so), and he protects them on their journey. This new restoration...

Germany | 2017 | Fatih Akin

Winner of the 2018 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film (but snubbed by Oscar), this acclaimed drama also won the 2017 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress prize for its star, Diane Kruger. She plays a Hamburg woman who seeks revenge or justice after her Kurdish husband and son are killed in a hate crime by Neo-Nazis. From the Turkish-German director of Head-On. “An edge-of-seat thriller…Leave(s) the audience shaken.” –Hollywood Reporter. Subtitles. DCP. 106...

Austria, Germany | 2017 | Ali Soozandeh

This new animated feature by an Iranian-born writer and director who’s now a German citizen offers an unflinchingly frank portrait of life in the Islamic Republic. A prostitute, a musician, and other young people intersect and interact in this movie that depicts sex, violence, and drugs and shows how women in particular are repressed by Iran’s politics and religion. “An audacious debut.” –Hollywood Reporter. Adults only! Subtitles. DCP. 96 min.

Brazil, Portugal | 2017 | Daniela Thomas

A widowed Portuguese settler who owns a failing estate in colonial 1821 Brazil takes a 12-year-old bride, removing her from her family. Left mostly alone at her husband’s remote, rugged farmhouse, the girl finds solace and companionship in the similarly displaced and oppressed African slaves around her. But by associating with them, she crosses a barrier that is not to be breached. The first solo directorial outing by frequent Walter Salles collaborator Daniela Thomas is...

Brazil, Portugal | 2017 | Daniela Thomas

A widowed Portuguese settler who owns a failing estate in colonial 1821 Brazil takes a 12-year-old bride, removing her from her family. Left mostly alone at her husband’s remote, rugged farmhouse, the girl finds solace and companionship in the similarly displaced and oppressed African slaves around her. But by associating with them, she crosses a barrier that is not to be breached. The first solo directorial outing by frequent Walter Salles collaborator Daniela Thomas is...

Sweden | 1957 | Ingmar Bergman

One of Ingmar Bergman’s most famous films! An elderly professor (Swedish silent-era film master Victor Sjöström/Seastrom) relives episodes from his life via dreams and memory flashbacks while traveling by car to a distant city to accept a lifetime achievement award. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 91 min.

Sweden | 1957 | Ingmar Bergman

One of Ingmar Bergman’s most famous films! An elderly professor (Swedish silent-era film master Victor Sjöström/Seastrom) relives episodes from his life via dreams and memory flashbacks while traveling by car to a distant city to accept a lifetime achievement award. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 91 min.

France | 1993 | Philippe Garrel

In this Philippe Garrel classic that’s undistributed in the U.S. (tonight’s print has been imported from France), Jean-Pierre Léaud and Lou Castel play two middle-aged friends on opposite romantic trajectories. Castel is a married actor who turns to younger lovers to escape the oppression of his family life. Léaud is a writer who seeks reconciliation with his wife who has left him for another man. With Johanna ter Steege. Cinematography by Raoul Coutard; original score...

Austria, Germany | 2017 | Ali Soozandeh

This new animated feature by an Iranian-born writer and director who’s now a German citizen offers an unflinchingly frank portrait of life in the Islamic Republic. A prostitute, a musician, and other young people intersect and interact in this movie that depicts sex, violence, and drugs and shows how women in particular are repressed by Iran’s politics and religion. “An audacious debut.” –Hollywood Reporter. Adults only! Subtitles. DCP. 96 min.

United States | 2016 | Laura Paglin

In 2009, Cleveland police discovered the bodies of eleven women decomposing in the Imperial Avenue house and yard of known sex offender Anthony Sowell. Why weren’t these women missed or their disappearances more thoroughly investigated? How did this killing spree go unnoticed for so long? These and other troubling questions about the invisibility of women on the margins of society are raised in this powerful work by local filmmaker Laura Paglin (Nightowls of Coventry, Facing...

Russia | 2007 | Andrey Zvyagintsev

The epic movies of Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan, Loveless) explore moral dilemmas and spiritual torment in a measured, visually stunning manner that evokes Tarkovsky. They are like great Russian novels on film. Because such works are daunting to most American moviegoers, Zvyagintsev’s follow-up to his award-winning debut feature The Return was never released in the U.S. until now (after two of his subsequent films garnered Oscar nominations). The Banishment follows a young family spending two months...

Germany | 2017 | Valeska Grisebach

Macho German construction workers building a dam in a remote region of Bulgaria spark distrust and resentment among the locals who have had quite enough of German outsiders. This slow-burn thriller that captures the economic and cultural tensions between certain groups of Europeans evokes classic oaters. A 2017 New York Film Festival selection. “Could be viewed as a wry reflection of the European Union’s sometimes fractious present-day state—though much of its character conflict hinges on...

Sweden | 1960 | Ingmar Bergman

Max von Sydow stars in Ingmar Bergman’s gripping medieval fable about a deeply religious father who wreaks terrible revenge on infidels who rape and murder his innocent young daughter. This Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film was remade by Wes Craven as The Last House on the Left. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 88 min.

United States | 2017 | Taron Lexton

Dayton native Nancy Cartwright, the longtime voice of Bart Simpson, co-wrote this semi-autobiographical tale of a sheltered Ohio girl who travels to Italy to meet Federico Fellini after his films open her eyes to a new world of fantastic possibilities. The movie’s American scenes were shot in greater Cleveland! With Maria Bello. “A charming drama about the love of movies and youthful passion…Ms. Cartwright creates a Felliniesque fantasy of her own.” –NY Times. DCP. 103...

United States | 2008 | Greta Gerwig, Joe Swanberg

Lady Bird was Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut. But ten years ago, she co-directed an indie drama that she also co-wrote and co-starred in, along with her co-director and co-writer Joe Swanberg. (Swanberg essentially “discovered” Gerwig and cast her in her first four films, all directed by him.) Nights and Weekends is an ultra-low-budget “mumblecore” movie about two twentysomethings who live separately in New York and Chicago but try to maintain a long-distance relationship. Indie...

Sweden | 1960 | Ingmar Bergman

Max von Sydow stars in Ingmar Bergman’s gripping medieval fable about a deeply religious father who wreaks terrible revenge on infidels who rape and murder his innocent young daughter. This Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film was remade by Wes Craven as The Last House on the Left. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 88 min.

United States | 1971 | Arthur Hiller

Right before he wrote Network, Paddy Chayefsky penned this savagely funny black comedy about modern health care. Like that subsequent TV satire, it won Chayefsky an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. George C. Scott stars as the beleaguered Chief of Medicine at a metropolitan hospital beset with problems ranging from ineptitude to murder. Though the doctor himself suffers from impotence and depression, he carries on in the face of disaster. This rarely revived classic has...

Japan | 2001 | Takashi Miike

Takashi Miike’s ultra-violent gangster comedy—one of the seminal splatter films of the past 20 years—has been given the full 4K restoration treatment, in a complete, previously unseen director’s cut! This outlandish thriller follows a sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer who, while searching for his missing boss, encounters Ichi, a psychotic killing machine who is even more ruthless than he is. Originally premiered in Cleveland at the Cinematheque, Ichi the Killer was banned in Norway, Germany, and Malaysia....

United States | 1956 | Walter Lang

Yul Brynner (repeating his Broadway role and winning an Oscar for it) plays 19th-century King Mongkut of Siam, and Deborah Kerr is the widowed British schoolteacher who becomes governess and teacher of the King’s many children, in this lavish, award-winning film version of the famous Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Today’s screening, which is co-presented by The Musical Theater Project, will be introduced at 3:00 by TMTP founding director Bill Rudman (and Cinematheque director John Ewing)....

France | 1979 | Philippe Garrel

Anne Wiazemsky (Au Hasard Balthazar) and another of Bresson’s “models” (as opposed to “actors”), Henri de Maublanc of The Devil, Probably, play an impoverished Parisian couple (he’s a filmmaker, she’s a single mom) who fall in love and then fall to pieces, descending into drug addiction and mutually-enforced self-destruction. Inspired by the director’s former relationship with the singer Nico, this transitional film in Philippe Garrel’s career pivots from his previous experimental work into narrative. “A...

Germany | 2017 | Valeska Grisebach

Macho German construction workers building a dam in a remote region of Bulgaria spark distrust and resentment among the locals who have had quite enough of German outsiders. This slow-burn thriller that captures the economic and cultural tensions between certain groups of Europeans evokes classic oaters. A 2017 New York Film Festival selection. “Could be viewed as a wry reflection of the European Union’s sometimes fractious present-day state—though much of its character conflict hinges on...

Russia | 2016 | Dmitrii Kalashnikov

Dashcam videos from across Russia record some of the damnedest things you’ve ever seen—from road rage and weather events to car crashes, cows, and comets—in this unbelievable (but true) compilation film that, thankfully, shuns showing bloody, mangled bodies. “Between the defensive driving and offensive behavior, and vice versa, The Road Movie is a gleeful rubbernecker’s large popcorn’s worth of crazy.” –L.A. Times. Subtitles. DCP. 67 min.

France | 1928 | Carl Theodor Dreyer

By and large, moviegoers who saw Carl Dreyer’s silent masterpiece on the big screen last December, with Richard Einhorn’s 1994 oratorio “Voices of Light” on the soundtrack, found it an overwhelming experience. So we’re bringing it back. Voted the ninth best movie of all time in a 2012 Sight & Sound poll of international film critics and curators, this visually stunning re-creation of the heresy trial of the 15th-century French freedom fighter is based on...

Sweden | 1966 | Ingmar Bergman

One of Bergman’s greatest and most admired works! Two women—a famous actress afflicted with a psychosomatic loss of speech (Liv Ullmann) and a garrulous nurse (Bibi Andersson)—share a remote seaside cottage where their identities overlap, blur, and eventually merge. This singular psychological drama is an indescribable film experience that influenced Altman, Lynch, Fincher, Aronofsky, and von Trier, among others. Original, uncut version; adults only! Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 83 min.

France | 1989 | Philippe Garrel

Members of the Garrel clan—director Philippe, his actor father Maurice, his then-wife Brigitte Sy, and his then five-year-old son Louis (making his screen debut)—essentially play themselves in this tender, wrenching drama showing here in a rare 35mm print imported from France. The movie follows a philandering filmmaker who foments family discord when he refuses to cast his actress wife in a role largely based on her. “[A] masterpiece.” –Sight & Sound. Subtitles. 90 min.

Sweden | 1966 | Ingmar Bergman

One of Bergman’s greatest and most admired works! Two women—a famous actress afflicted with a psychosomatic loss of speech (Liv Ullmann) and a garrulous nurse (Bibi Andersson)—share a remote seaside cottage where their identities overlap, blur, and eventually merge. This singular psychological drama is an indescribable film experience that influenced Altman, Lynch, Fincher, Aronofsky, and von Trier, among others. Original, uncut version; adults only! Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 83 min.

Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States | 1964-2017 | various directors

This annual animation compilation fills the void left by the International Tournée of Animation, Spike and Mike’s Festival of Animation, and The Animation Show. The 19th edition of this popular touring program features 16 internationally acclaimed short films from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.S. Among this year’s highlights are Niki Lindroth von Bahr’s extraordinary, award-winning stop-motion musical The Burden; David O’Reilly's visually stunning Everything, based on a 1973 talk...