The Cinematheque MAR + APR 2017 by The Cinematheque

EXPERIENCE ESSENTIAL CINEMA

THE SWEATER

MAR

APR 2017

1131 Howe Street | Vancouver | theCinematheque.ca

MIZOGUCHI THE MASTER: SEVEN FILMS BC FILM HISTORY CANADA ON SCREEN BRUNO DUMONT: MATERIAL BODIES CHAN CENTRE CONNECTS

ERIC ROHMERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SIX MORAL TALES y MARCH + APRIL 2017

溝口健二 MIZOGUCHI THE MASTER: SEVEN FILMS New Restorations of Ugetsu and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums

ne of cinema’s towering talents, and arguably the preeminent master of classic Japanese film (although Ozu and Kurosawa have their champions, to be sure), Kenji Mizoguchi (1898-1956) was responsible for some of the most ravishingly beautiful films ever made.

Mizoguchi, born in Tokyo, began making films in 1922. During his 34-year career he directed more than eighty features, of which only some thirty survive today. His much-belated international discovery came near the end of his career, when three of his greatest works – The Life of Oharu (1952), Ugetsu (1953), and Sansho the Bailiff (1954) – were showcased (and won major awards) in successive years at Venice. Mizoguchi’s films are renowned not only for their painterly beauty but for their poetic humanism. The visual hallmarks of Mizoguchi’s celebrated style include the breathtakingly elegant use of fluid camera movement and of long-take sequence shots (in which spatial and temporal continuity is uninterrupted by editing); a fondness for long shots (“I hate close-ups,” Mizoguchi one said); and a stunning sense of composition. He is, with Renoir, Murnau, Welles, and Ophüls, one of the classic cinema’s great masters of mise-en-scène aesthetics, and his long takes and mobile camera exerted a profound influence on the French New Wave.

祇園の姉妹 Sisters of the Gion (Gion no shimai)

Japan 1936. Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi. 69 min. 35mm

One of the finest Japanese films of the prewar era, Mizoguchi’s powerful drama, set in Kyoto’s red light district, was condemned as “decadent” by government censors for its realistic treatment of society’s exploitation of women. As Umekichi (Yoko Umemura), a geisha faithful to the old traditions, initiates her younger sister Omocha (Isuzu Yamada) into the trade, the decidedly modern ideas of the latter bring the two into conflict. Sisters of the Gion is an exemplar of Mizoguchi’s characteristic thematic concerns (the social position of women; the redemptive power of their love) and his celebrated visual style (long takes; composition-in-depth; elaborately choreographed sequence shots). It was a landmark in the development of realism in Japan’s cinema – and the sole Mizoguchi work ever to win the Kinema Junpo award (Japan’s top film prize) as best Japanese film of year. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1 – 6:30 PM THURSDAY, MARCH 2 – 9:00 PM

西鶴一代女 The Life of Oharu (Saikaku ichidai onna)

Japan 1952. Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi. 136 min. 35mm

Considered by Mizoguchi to be his chef d’oeuvre, The Life of Oharu was the film that (belatedly) established the director’s international reputation – the first of a string of mature Mizoguchi masterpieces, including Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff, to astonish viewers in the West in the mid 1950s. Mizoguchi diva Kinuyo Tanaka – “giving one of the greatest of screen performances” (Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide) – stars in the title role as a beautiful court lady gradually reduced by circumstances to prostitution and beggary. The drama, adapted from a picaresque 1686 novel by Ihara Saikaku, unfolds in a painstakingly-recreated 17th-century Kyoto; the film’s exquisite compositions and breathtaking sequence shots display the director’s talents at their very peak. “Should further enhance Mizoguchi’s reputation as the cinema’s greatest-ever director of women, and as one of the most meticulous craftsmen of the period film” (Rod McShane, Time Out). THURSDAY, MARCH 2 – 6:30 PM FRIDAY, MARCH 3 – 8:30 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 4 – 6:30 PM

歌麿をめぐる五人の女 Utamaro and His Five Women (aka Five Women Around Utamaro) (Utamaro o meguru gonin no onna) Japan 1946. Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi. 95 min. 35mm

Mizoguchi’s first postwar masterpiece is one of cinema’s great biographical works about artists – often mentioned in the same breath as Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev! It is set circa 1800 in Edo-period Japan, where legendary painter and woodblock portraitist Kitagawa Utamaro (Minosuke Bando) finds creative inspiration not in the classical arts but in the courtesans of Edo’s brothels – and finds himself in trouble with powerful figures as a result. The five women of the title are Utamaro’s models, one of them played by the great actress Kinuyo Tanaka. The screenplay is by Yoshitaka Yoda, who wrote or co-wrote virtually all Mizoguchi’s major works; Yoda later claimed to have unconsciously modelled this portrait of an artist on Mizoguchi himself. The director’s renowned sympathy for the plight of women is very much in evidence in this exquisitely beautiful film, perhaps his most erotic work. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1 – 8:00 PM SUNDAY, MARCH 5 – 6:OO PM

“The greatest of Japanese filmmakers. Or, quite simply, one of the greatest of filmmakers.” – Jean-Luc Godard “If the cinema has yet produced a Shakespeare, its Shakespeare is Mizoguchi.” – Robin Wood “Better than Ozu and Kurosawa . . . Mizoguchi is not just the greatest Japanese director but one of the handful of the greatest filmmakers ever.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Mizoguchi’s central thematic interests, intrinsically linked to his visual style, can be catalogued – “the interplay of art and life, the transience of life, vanity of human ambition, transcendence through love after death” (James Quandt) – but the key concern of his art was the social condition of women, in both feudal and modern times. In film after film, Mizoguchi’s protagonists were complex, capable women struggling to cope in a society that subjugated or exploited them; often, his heroines were prostitutes. His compassion for women and his angry critique of their social oppression were such that he was long considered one of the leading “feminist” filmmakers. Although Mizoguchi’s exaltation of female self-sacrifice may no longer seem “feminist” in the contemporary sense, his work remains remarkable for its profound empathy with women and their plight. He is, without doubt, one of the great directors of female actors. This select retrospective, featuring seven of Mizoguchi’s finest films, is occasioned by the recent restorations of Ugetsu and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939), two of the director’s most beautiful achievements.

New Restoration!

雨月物語 Ugetsu

(Ugetsu monogatari) Japan 1953. Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi. 97 min. DCP

Mizoguchi’s supreme masterpiece – screening here in a radiant new restoration – is one of cinema’s canonical works and one of the most beautiful films ever made. During Japan’s feudal wars of the 16th century, an ambitious village potter abandons his devoted wife for the wealth of the city and the seductive pleasures of a ghost woman, only to realize too late what he has lost. Simultaneously realistic, allegorical, and supernatural, Ugetsu is a film of rare lyricism and emotional power. It has elements of Noh theatre and, in its acceptance of human suffering, evidence of the director’s recent conversion to Buddhism (his earlier films had been more strident in their politics and feminism). The magnificent use of elaborate, panoramic, long-take sequence shots attests to Mizoguchi’s status (with the likes of Renoir, Ophüls, Welles, and Murnau) as one of cinema’s masters of mise-enscène aesthetics. Like Rashomon before it, Ugetsu was instrumental in introducing the Western world to the glories of Japanese cinema. FRIDAY, MARCH 3 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 4 – 4:30 PM & 9:00 PM WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8 – 6:30 PM

New Restoration!

残菊物語 The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Zangiku monogatari)

Japan 1939. Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi. 143 min. DCP

Mizoguchi’s emotional epic, a gorgeous period piece set in the world of Kabuki theatre in late-19th-century Japan, is one of his most moving explorations of female self-sacrifice (a favourite Mizoguchi theme). When mediocre actor Kiku (Shotaro Hanayagi), spoiled scion of a famed Kabuki family, falls for Otoku (Kakuko Mori), a humble servant, it leads to his estrangement from the family and a life of poverty and hardship. Only through Otoku’s devotion and selflessness does Kiku begin to build a successful acting career for himself. Mizoguchi’s miraculous melodrama, made up of masterfully mobile long-take sequence shots (a Mizoguchi trademark), is a majestic accomplishment and ranks amongst his very finest works. “The Mizoguchi of Sisters of the Gion and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums is no doubt the greatest of all Japanese directors” (Noël Burch). SUNDAY, MARCH 5 – 7:45 PM FRIDAY, MARCH 10 – 8:50 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 11 – 6:00 PM

赤線地帯 Street of Shame

(Akasen chitai)

Japan 1956. Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi. 85 min. 35mm

Street of Shame – the Japanese titletranslates as “Red-Light District” – was Mizoguchi’s last completed film; several months after its release, the director died of leukemia at the age of 58. Mizoguchi had gained international acclaim in his final years for a series of magnificent period pieces; this heartbreaking drama has a contemporary setting but keeps with Mizoguchi’s hallmark concern, the exploitation and suffering of woman. Superbly acted by a fine ensemble cast, the film set in a Tokyo brothel called “Dreamland,” where several diverse women working as prostitutes contend with the tribulations of their trade and the difficult socio-economic realities of postwar Japan. The film appeared in the midst of a public debate about a proposed anti-prostitution law, and may have played a part in its passage. “Of all the films about prostitution, Street of Shame is perhaps the greatest” (David Denby, The New Yorker). WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8 – 8:30 PM SUNDAY, MARCH 12 – 6:30 PM

山椒大夫 Sansho the Bailiff (Sansho dayu)

Japan 1954. Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi. 124 min. 35mm

A stunning period piece that sets humanism and democratic ideals on a collision course with cruelty and barbarism, Sansho the Bailiff was the third Mizoguchi work in a row to win a major prize at Venice (after The Life of Oharu and Ugetsu). In 11th-century Japan, a liberal-minded provincial governor is forced into exile by enemies who cannot abide his politics. When his wife and children set out to join him, they fall prey to slave traders. The film, based on an ancient Japanese folk tale, is sumptuously shot by Ugetsu and Rashomon cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. “One of the director’s most awesome achievements . . . The long takes, lingering long shots, and the weaving camera create an elegiac mood and a deep involvement in the unfolding tale, making it often unbearably moving” (Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide). FRIDAY, MARCH 10 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 11 – 8:45 PM SUNDAY, MARCH 12 – 4:00 PM

THE IMAGE A HISTORY OF FILM IN BRITISH COLUMBIA - TAKE 3 Continued from January-February – Curated by Harry Killas “Culture filters things, telling us what we should retain and what we must forget. In this way it gives us some common ground, with regard to mistakes as well as truths.” – Umberto Eco, This is the Not the End of the Book

n our third season of “The Image Before Us: A History of Film in British Columbia,” we do a curatorial zoom out to include some of the most culturally and historically significant works ever produced in British Columbia. At the same time, we stay on message with familiar themes woven through this multi-year series — films that are personal responses to the contemporary social contexts of place and family, and expressions of the autobiographical. With every year, our series has widened its frame, as more homegrown films and filmmakers worthy of scrutiny and study, remembering and screening and celebrating, present themselves, just as new and daring films continue to be made. Our series continues to draw inspiration from Colin Browne’s pleasurable critique of films made in B.C., The Image Before Us (1986), a film that asks us to carefully examine the images before us — what is shown, what is intended, what stories and experiences are omitted, and why? I hope that the various thematic strands of the series and the films themselves allow audiences to reflect on our present situations here in British Columbia, and that new generations of filmmakers might ask new questions and tell new stories in their films, as they seek inspiration from filmmakers and films that have come before. – Harry Killas Harry Killas’s historical documentary films about British Columbia include Spilsbury’s Coast; Glowing in the Dark, on the history of Vancouver’s neon art and design; and Picture Start, about the first generation of Vancouver’s “photo-conceptual” artists. A graduate of NYU’s grad film program, Killas is currently working on an expanded version of Picture Start, entitled Is There a Picture, and an autobiographical documentary, Greek to Me. He is Assistant Dean of Dynamic Media at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Violent Canada/Norway 2014. Dir: Andrew Huculiak. 102 min. DCP

The feature debut of Andrew Huculiak, drummer for Vancouver rockers We Are the City, won the Best B.C. Film and Best Canadian Film prizes at VIFF, earned eight of B.C.’s Leo Awards (including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Cinematography), and was named to Canada’s Top Ten 2014. Made by Huculiak and his bandmates in Norway – and in Norwegian, a language they don’t speak – this beautiful, mysterious, surrealist-tinged work concerns Dagny (Dagny Backer Johnsen), a young woman who moves to the city to escape her small-town life. As she copes with a hinted-at catastrophe, Dagny recalls the five people in her life who have loved her the most. “Spectacularly confident storytelling . . . One of the best B.C. feature debuts ever.” (Ken Eisner, Georgia Straight). preceded by

Never Steady, Never Still Canada 2015. Dir: Kathleen Hepburn. 18 min. DCP

In Vancouver filmmaker Hepburn’s award-winning short (recently remade as a feature), a troubled young man returns to northern B.C. from the Alberta oil fields and finds solace in family and home. Guest in attendance: Kathleen Hepburn Introduced by Curtis Woloschuk, Canadian Shorts Programmer, VIFF

FAMILIES

Flower & Garnet Canada 2002. Dir: Keith Behrman. 103 min. 35mm

After a series of impressive short dramas, typically about strained family relations, SFU grad Keith Behrman made an arresting long-form debut with Flower & Garnet, a haunting, meditative film about grief and broken family bonds. Garnet (Colin Roberts, superb), a young boy burdened by the knowledge that his mother died giving birth to him, lives with his uncommunicative, emotionally-distant father Ed (Callum Keith Rennie), who resents him, and his beloved teenaged sister Flower (Jane McGregor), who has more or less raised him. When Flower starts to make a life for herself outside the family, it threatens Garnet and forces Ed to make up for lost time. Behrman’s confident, delicate, observant film, shot in B.C.’s interior and making evocative use of its landscapes, won a host of B.C. and Canadian honours, including nine Leo Awards and the Genie for best first feature. preceded by

Hardwood Canada 2005. Dir: Hubert Davis. 29 min. DCP

In this moving, Oscar-nominated documentary short, filmmaker Davis, the mixed-race son of a Vancouver woman and a Harlem Globetrotters basketball player, examines the complicated personal decisions made by his father that affected families in two countries. Guest in attendance: Keith Behrman

MONDAY, MARCH 6 – 7:00 PM MONDAY, MARCH 13 – 7:00 PM

VIOLENT

FLOWER & GARNET

BEFORE US The Iris Film Collective Responds to “The Image Before Us” This program of work by Iris Film Collective includes sixteen short films screening in a number of formats, including super 8 and dual-channel 16mm. Made in and around B.C., this collection constitutes a multiform experience of place: recreational life in Opening Day; an alternate tour of abandoned monuments and plazas that Expo left behind in Legacies; a fence impenetrable but revealing in 86 SE Marine Drive. Colin Browne’s 1986 essay film The Image Before Us, which inspired The Cinematheque’s “Image Before Us” series, asks what aren’t we seeing in the movies about Vancouver. This program also hints at something beyond the frame that cannot be filmed or heard, something inexpressible in words, images, or sounds alone. Curated by Zoe Kirk-Gushowaty and Amanda Thomson. 86 SE Marine Drive (lisa g/2016. 3 min.) ● Opening Day (Zoe Kirk-Gushowaty/2016. 3 min.) ● Why Bring Your Toddler to Vegas? (Ariel Kirk Gushowaty /2016. 3 min.) ● Catharsis (Sydney Southam/2016. 3 min.) ● Slow Motions (Ryder Thomas White/2016. 3 min.) ● Before After Again (Zoe Kirk-Gushowaty, Michele Simone Smith/2015. 7 min. Dual-channel 16mm) ● Ice Cream (Sydney Southam/2010. 5 min.) ● Effulgence (Alex MacKenzie/2014. 5 min.) ● Winter (lisa g/2014. 7 min.) ● Legacies (John Woods/2012. 3 min.) ● Flood (Ariel Kirk-Gushowaty/2015, 6 min.) ● Sleeping Mountains Lie (Amanda Thomson/2014. 3 min.) ● 1:64,000,000,000 (Ryder Thomas White/2015. 2 min.) ● Totem (Alex MacKenzie/2015. 5 min.) ● Good Birthday Night (Amanda Thomson/2017. 3 min.) ● Night Walk (John Woods/2014. 6 min.)

AN EVENING WITH MO SIMPSON Moira “Mo” Simpson has made a significant contribution to social activism, film culture, and documentary practice in Vancouver as a director, film editorand - a role still alltoo-rare for women - cinematographer. The subjects of her projects have included missing and murdered aboriginal women, aid in Africa, and, in the two films presented here, female addicts in Vancouver and strife in the Balkans. She has throughout her career demonstrated a commitment to using film as an instrument for social change.

Turnaround: A Story of Recovery Canada 1984. Dir: Mo Simpson. 47 min. DCP

In this documentary, five women physically and psychologically dependent on alcohol and/or drugs seek help at the Aurora Treatment Centre, a women-only facility in Vancouver.

+ Kosovo: Fragile Peace Canada 2002. Dir: Mo Simpson. 53 min. DCP

“This documentary offers a rare glimpse into the frontlines of democracy-building through the eyes of a Canadian mother and her daughter. In the heart of Kosovo, an international mission struggles to bring democracy to a land torn apart by bloodshed. There, Canadian lawyer Carolyn McCool works to build bridges between Kosovo Albanians, and Serbs, while her 20-year-old daughter Kate travels with a musical roadshow to generate grassroots support for the election among the youth” (National Film Board of Canada). Guest in attendance: Mo Simpson MONDAY, MARCH 27 – 7:00 PM

Iris Film Collective is a Vancouver-based group of independent artists creating and exhibiting film-based works – single channel, expanded, sculptural, installation – with the goal of increasing the visibility and accessibility of experimental media art. The collective is interested, above all, in ciné film – actual celluloid – at a time when this medium is shifting to a post-industry model. Guests in attendance. MONDAY, MARCH 20 – 7:00 PM

The Grocer’s Wife

The Snow Walker

Canada 1991. Dir: John Pozer. 100 min. DCP

Canada 2003. Dir: Charles Martin Smith. 103 min. 35mm

John Pozer’s audacious no-budget film, the first feature made by a UBC film student, launched the West Coast Wave of the 1990s; its crew included a notable number of fellow students who would become feature filmmakers themselves, including Mina Shum, Bruce Sweeney, Reg Harkema, Lynne Stopkewich, and Ross Weber! “Set in the industrial hell of Trail, B.C., The Grocer’s Wife is a decidedly bent comic drama about a young man who spends his days checking the emissions from the town’s giant smoke stack. After his domineering mother dies from the pollution, his life takes a bizarre turn when an itinerant American stripper moves into her bedroom. To make matters worse, the local grocer’s wife lusts after him” (Take One’s Essential Guide to Canadian Film). The cast includes Simon Webb, Andrea Rankin, Susinn McFarlen, Jay Brazeau, and (in the title role) Nicola Cavendish. The film won Genies for best first feature and supporting actress (Cavendish). DCP courtesy Library and Archives Canada.

Charles Martin Smith, the veteran American actor (American Graffiti, The Untouchables) and director (Air Bud, Dolphin Tale) who now divides his time between Vancouver and Los Angeles, fell in love with the stories of Canadian author Farley Mowat while starring in 1983’s Never Cry Wolf, a Mowat adaptation. Smith returned to Mowat and to the Canadian North to direct 2002’s The Snow Walker, the 1950s-set tale of a cocky bush pilot (Barry Pepper) and his passenger, a seriously ill Inuit woman (Annabella Piugattuk), who are forced to rely on their wits to survive after crash-landing in the Northwest Territories. Smith’s stirring adventure film takes full advantage of the austere beauty of its northern setting. It won six of B.C.’s Leos, was nominated for nine of Canada’s Genies, and features an impressive turn from the perpetually-underrated Pepper. Print courtesy Library and Archives Canada.

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Stroke

Trawna Tuh Belvul

Canada 1993. Dir: Mark Sawers. 16 min. 35mm

Canada 1994. Dir: Martin Rose. 14 min. DCP

A highly-driven executive is overly-reliant on technology in this Cannes-selected, Genie-nominated short black comedy from Vancouver writer-director and UBC grad Sawers. The cinematography is by Gregory Middleton.

Vancouver animator Rose’s interpretation of an Earl Birney poem uses beautiful cut-out animation - and vocal performance by Birney himself – to relate a memorable journey from Toronto to Bellevue, Ontario.

Guests in attendance: John Pozer, Jay Brazeau, Nicola Cavendish, Susinn McFarlen, and Simon Webb. Introduced by Tom Scholte, award-winning Vancouver stage and screen actor and Professor, Acting and Directing, Department of Theatre and Film, UBC

Introduced by Allan Harmon, Chair, Director’s Guild of Canada - British Columbia District Council MONDAY, APRIL 10 – 7:00 PM

MONDAY, APRIL 3 – 7:00 PM

Canada on Screen

Canada à l’écran

A year-long program celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday and its rich cinematic heritage

Une année complète de programmation célébrant le 150e anniversaire du Canada et la richesse de son patrimoine cinématographique.

The Cinematheque is proud to celebrate Canada’s 2017 sesquicentennial with Canada on Screen, an exciting national initiative co-produced by TIFF, The Cinematheque, Library and Archives Canada, and the Cinémathèque québécoise. Canada on Screen is the most ambitious retrospective of Canada’s moving-image heritage ever mounted. In honour of Canada’s 150th birthday, a list of Canada’s 150 essential moving-images works, based on a countrywide poll of critics, scholars, and industry professionals, has been compiled across nine categories: feature films, documentaries, shorts, animation, experimental film and video, moving-image installations, music videos, commercials, and television shows. These 150 masterworks, many of them newly restored, will made available to Canadians everywhere in 2017. A full list of the essential 150 is available at tiff.net/canadaonscreen Throughout the year, The Cinematheque will be presenting special free screenings showcasing many of these 150 works. Please join us and discover – or rediscover – the breadth, boldness, and wealth of Canada’s cinema history, a remarkable cultural legacy.

The Cinematheque est fière de célébrer en 2017 les 150 ans du Canada avec Canada à l’écran, une initiative nationale stimulante coproduite par le TIFF, The Cinématheque, Bibliothèque et Archives Canada et la Cinémathèque québécoise. Canada à l’écran est la rétrospective consacrée au patrimoine cinématographique et vidéographique canadien la plus ambitieuse jamais organisée. En l’honneur du 150e anniversaire du pays, une liste de 150 œuvres canadiennes essentielles a été établie selon un groupe pancanadien de critiques, de chercheurs et de membres de l’industrie. Elles sont présentées en neuf catégories : longs métrages de fiction, documentaires, courts métrages, films et vidéos expérimentaux, installations vidéo, vidéoclips, films publicitaires et émissions de télévision. Ces 150 œuvres, dont plusieurs ont fait l’objet d’une restauration récente, seront présentées aux Canadiens partout au pays en 2017. Une liste complète des 150 œuvres essentielles est disponible ici : tiff.net/canadaonscreen. Tout au long de l’année, The Cinematheque présentera gratuitement des séances de projection spéciales mettant en vedette plusieurs de ces 150 œuvres. Venez découvrir – ou redécouvrir – avec nous la portée, l’audace et la richesse de l’histoire cinématographique canadienne et de son héritage culturel.

Acknowledgment As we commemorate Canada 150, The Cinematheque acknowledges that Vancouver is located on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples, including the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Reconnaissance Tandis que nous soulignons le 150e anniversaire du Canada, The Cinematheque reconnaît que Vancouver est située sur les terres ancestrales des Salish du littoral, y compris les territoires traditionnels des nationsdes nations Musqueam, Squamish, et Tsleil-Waututh.

THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ

THE SWEATER

Free Admission!

Entrée gratuite!

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

L’apprentissage de Duddy Kravitz

Canada 1974. Dir: Ted Kotcheff. 121 min. DCP

Canada 1974. Réal. : Ted Kotcheff. 121 min. DCP

Ted Kotcheff’s lively 1974 adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s seriocomic novel is one of the enduring – and endearing – classics of Canadian film. A rare commercial success for the era’s EnglishCanadian cinema, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz stars a young Richard Dreyfuss as the cocky, hyper-ambitious title character, a poor kid from the Jewish ghetto trying to push, scheme, and hustle his way to the top in late-1940s Montreal. Future filmmaker Micheline Lanctôt (Sonatine, also a Canada on Screen selection) co-stars as Yvette, Duddy’s French-Canadian “shiksa” girlfriend. The fine cast also includes Jack Warden, Randy Quaid, and Denholm Elliot. Duddy won the 1974 Golden Bear at Berlin, earned an Oscar nomination in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, and was voted one of the ten best Canadian films of all time in 1984 and 1993 polls of Canadian critics. DCP courtesy TIFF’s Film Reference Library

Signée par Ted Kotcheff en 1974, cette adaptation dynamique et attendrissante du roman comico-sérieux de Mordecai Richler figure parmi les plus grands classiques du cinéma canadien. Et, fait rare à l’époque pour un film du Canada anglais, L’apprentissage de Duddy Kravitz a aussi connu un grand succès commercial. Incarné par Richard Dreyfuss, son personnage principal est un jeune homme ambitieux et arrogant. Issu d’un quartier juif, il est prêt à tout pour réussir dans le Montréal des années 1940. L’actrice et future cinéaste Micheline Lanctôt (Sonatine, également parmi la sélection de Canada à l’écran) interprète à ses côtés Yvette, sa petite amie shiksa d’origine canadienne-française. L’excellente distribution du film est complétée par Jack Warden, Randy Quaid et Denholm Elliot. En 1974, Duddy a reçu l’Ours d’or à Berlin et une nomination aux Oscars dans la catégorie du meilleur scénario adapté. Et deux fois plutôt qu’une (en 1984 et en 1993), il a figuré dans le palmarès des 10 meilleurs films canadiens de tous les temps, selon le vote d’un jury composé de critiques cinématographiques du Canada.

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DCP est une gracieuseté de TIFF Film Reference Library.

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The Sweater

Le chandail

(Le chandail)

Canada 1980. Réal. : Sheldon Cohen. 10 min. DCP

Canada 1980. Dir: Sheldon Cohen. 10 min. DCP

Cette adaptation d’une célèbre nouvelle de Roch Carrier par le cinéaste d’animation montréalais Sheldon Cohen est l’un des films les plus populaires de l’Office national du film du Canada. Elle raconte l’histoire à la fois comique et troublante d’un petit garçon épris des Canadiens de Montréal, mais qui reçoit en cadeau de sa mère un chandail de la mauvaise équipe de hockey.

A National Film Board of Canada favourite, Montreal animator Cohen’s adaptation of Roch Carrier’s classic short story tells the hilarious, heartbreaking tale of a Montreal Canadiensloving boy in rural Quebec whose mother orders him the wrong team’s hockey sweater from the Eaton’s catalogue. THURSDAY, MARCH 9 – 7:00 PM

JEUDI 9 MARS – 19 H

Photo: Nicole Fréchette / Collection

SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND

Cinémathèque québécoise

Free Admission!

Entrée gratuite!

Bar Salon

Bar salon

Montreal iconoclast André Forcier (Une histoire inventée, La comtesse de Bâton Rouge) established himself as an enfant terrible of Quebec cinema with this desperately funny, sex-and-boozesoaked nightmare set in a seedy Montreal neighbourhood. Charles (Guy L’Écuyer), the good-natured proprietor of a bar on the verge of bankruptcy, is forced to take a second job managing another establishment, where he begins an ill-advised affair with a topless dancer. Forcier’s breakthrough film, observational and anecdotal in tone, has drawn comparisons to the bittersweet comedies of Milos Forman and the Czech New Wave, but also displays Forcier’s idiosyncratic poetic-absurdist sensibility, rooted in Québécois humour and a fascination with urban Montreal life on the fringes. “A major event in the history of Quebec cinema” (Cinema Canada).

La réputation d’enfant terrible du cinéma québécois du réalisateur montréalais André Forcier (Une histoire inventée, La comtesse de Bâton Rouge) est en grande partie tributaire de ce film hilarant, mais cauchemardesque se déroulant dans un quartier mal famé de Montréal. Charles (Guy L’Écuyer) possède un bar qui est sur le point de faire faillite. Pour joindre les deux bouts, il trouve un second emploi en tant que gérant d’un autre établissement, où il entame une liaison avec une danseuse érotique. La capacité d’observation et le sens de l’anecdote dont fait preuve Fortier dans ce film lui ont valu maintes comparaisons avec la Nouvelle Vague tchèque et les comédies douces-amères de Milos Forman. Mais Bar salon traduit aussi une sensibilité poétique et un goût de l’absurde qui sont résolument ancrés dans l’humour québécois, et on y décèle une grande fascination pour la marginalité urbaine de Montréal. « Un événement majeur dans l’histoire du cinéma québécois. » (Cinema Canada)

Canada 1973. Dir: André Forcier. 84 min. 35mm

Print courtesy Cinémathèque québécoise.

preceded by

Canada 1973. Réal. : André Forcier. 84 min. 35 mm

La copie est une gracieuseté de la Cinémathèque québécoise. précédé de

Springtime in Greenland Canada 1981. Dir: John Paizs. 24 min. DCP

A young man strains against suburban values in this sendup of 1950s-era cinematic conventions, made by pioneering prairie postmodernist John Paizs (Crime Wave), one of the oddball talents (with Guy Maddin and others) who created the distinctive Winnipeg Film Group style. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29 – 7:00 PM

Springtime in Greenland Canada 1981. Réal. : John Paizs. 24 min. DCP

Réalisé par John Paizs (Crime Wave), un pionnier postmoderniste des Prairies ce film raconte le combat d’un jeune homme contre les valeurs banlieusardes. Springtime in Greenland est une riposte aux normes cinématographiques des années 1950 qui porte la signature de l’un des artistes hors du commun ayant donné naissance au style du Winnipeg Film Group, aux côtés de Guy Maddin. MERCREDI 29 MARS – 19 H

National Canadian Film Day 150 / Canada on Screen April 19, 2017 The Cinematheque is pleased to mark this year’s National Canadian Film Day 150, a one-day, coast-to-coast-to-coast celebration of Canadian cinema in honour of our nation’s sesquicentennial, with an evening of free Canada on Screen screenings! Launched in 2014, National Canadian Film Day is an annual event, held in April, organized by REEL CANADA. reelcanada.ca

Journée du cinéma canadien 150 / Canada à l’écran 19 avril 2017 Cette année, The Cinematheque est heureuse de souligner la Journée du cinéma canadien 150, une célébration pancanadienne d’un jour dédiée au cinéma canadien, en l’honneur du 150e anniversaire de notre pays. Pour l’occasion, nous présenterons une soirée de projections Canada à l’écran gratuites! La Journée du cinéma canadien 150 est un événement annuel organisé en avril par REEL CANADA depuis 2014. reelcanada.ca

STORIES WE TELL

YOU TAKE CARE NOW

Free Admission!

Entrée gratuite!

Stories We Tell

Sarah Polley’s celebrated documentary, her follow-up to the features Away from Her and Take This Waltz, is a highly personal, Rashomonlike exploration of the stories families tell, the secrets they hide, and the elusive nature of truth and memory. “Using a captivating combination of archival footage, faux Super-8 reconstructions, still photos, and testimonials, Polley examines the disagreements and varying narratives of her own family as they look back on decades-old events. The result is a lively and richly textured documentary which seamlessly blends past and present, the real and the imagined — one filled with tender and powerful moments” (Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo, Toronto I.F.F.). “The result, with its flashing perspective and stealthy wit, is unique and unforgettable” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone).

Réalisé par Sarah Polley à la suite de Loin d’elle et de Take This Waltz, ce documentaire primé est une quête familiale très personnelle à la Rashomon. La réalisatrice y aborde les histoires qu’on raconte, les secrets qu’on cache ainsi que le caractère fuyant de la vérité et de la mémoire. « Employant un captivant mélange de faux Super 8, de photos et de témoignages, Polley observe les discordances et les variations entre les discours des membres de sa propre famille, qui se remémore des événements survenus il y a plusieurs décennies. Il en résulte un documentaire aux textures vives et riches qui marie avec brio le présent et le passé, le réel et l’imaginaire. Une œuvre remplie de moments tendres et évocateurs. » (Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo, TIFF) « Ce film au regard vif et lumineux est unique et inoubliable. » (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone).

Canada 2012. Dir: Sarah Polley. 108 min. 35mm

Canada 2012. Réal. : Sarah Polley. 108 min. 35 mm

Print courtesy TIFF’s Film Reference Library. preceded by

You Take Care Now

Canada 1989. Dir: Ann Marie Fleming. 12 min. DCP

This early student film from Vancouver’s Ann Marie Fleming (Window Horses) is a perfect exemplar of her idiosyncratic vision and stands as one of her signature works. Made on 16mm, and incorporating found footage, original material, animation, and processed images (Vancouver’s groundbreaking avant-garde cinema of the 1970s is a decided influence here), Fleming’s film offers a visually dazzling, emotionally wrenching, oddly humorous account of two profound personal traumas. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 – 6:00 PM

La copie est une gracieuseté de TIFF Film Reference Library. précédé de

You Take Care Now

Canada 1989. Réal. : Ann Marie Fleming. 12 min. DCP

You Take Care Now, un film étudiant, illustre parfaitement la vision caractéristique d’Ann Marie Fleming (Window Horses) et se démarque en tant qu’œuvre-clé. Conçu en 16 mm, il incorpore de la pellicule trouvée, du matériel original, de l’animation et des images traitées, évoquant l’influence du cinéma avant-gardiste de Vancouver des années 1970. Fleming y offre un récit visuellement impressionnant, doté d’un humour curieux et d’une grande puissance émotionnelle, qui porte sur deux profonds troubles personnels. MERCREDI 19 AVRIL – 18 H

ARCHANGEL

RYAN

Free Admission!

Entrée gratuite!

Archangel

Canada 1990. Dir: Guy Maddin. 83 min. 35mm

Canada 1990. Réal. : Guy Maddin. 83 min. 35 mm

Guy Maddin’s wild and warped Archangel sits between Tales from the Gimli Hospital and Careful in the phantasmagoric Maddin filmography and showcases the faux early-cinema aesthetics and surrealist sensibility for which the Winnipeg arch genius is renowned. The film sets a delirium-dream tale of obsessive love in the remote Russian Arctic town of Archangel during the Great War. The war may actually be over, but no one’s remembered to tell one-legged Canadian soldier Boles (Kyle McCulloch), beautiful Veronkha (Kathy Marykuca), whom Boles confuses for his dead love Iris, or any of the film’s other amnesiac characters, all lost in murky, melodramatic memories of lovers lost or misremembered. “Shot in sumptuous blackand-white worthy of Josef von Sternberg, Maddin’s second feature is a masterpiece” (Take One’s Essential Guide to Canadian Film).

Dans la filmographie fantasmagorique de Guy Maddin, ce film tordu et déjanté trône entre Tales from the Gimli Hospital et Careful. Archangel illustre à merveille deux éléments majeurs de la signature du cinéaste : sa son goût pour le surréalisme et sa volonté de simuler l’esthétique des débuts du cinéma. À la fois une fable onirique et une histoire d’amour poussée à l’extrême, le film se déroule à l’époque de la Grande Guerre, dans un village russe perdu dans l’Arctique nommé Archangel. La guerre a beau être terminée, personne n’a prévenu Boles (Kyle McCulloch), un soldat canadien unijambiste, ni la belle Veronkha (Kathy Marykuca), que Boles méprend pour Iris, son amoureuse décédée. En fait, aucun des personnages amnésiques du film n’est au courant : tous sont perdus dans les souvenirs flous et mélancoliques de leurs amours d’autrefois. « Somptueusement tourné dans un noir et blanc digne de Josef von Sternberg, le second long métrage de Maddin est un chef-d’œuvre. » (Take One’s Essential Guide to Canadian Film)

preceded by

précédé de

Ryan

Canada 2oo4. Dir: Chris Landreth. 14 min. DCP

Chris Landreth’s mind-blowing short, a triumph of CGI animation, offers a moving portrait of Ryan Larkin, once one of Canadian’s most acclaimed animators, who wound up living on welfare and panhandling in Montreal. Larkin died in 2007, but the success of this 2004 film – which won a Genie, an Oscar, and an array of other honours – helped get him off the streets and back in the studio. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 – 8:30 PM

Ryan

Canada 2oo4. Réal. : Chris Landreth. 14 min. DCP

Signé Chris Landreth, ce court métrage visionnaire (une animation CGI très réussie) brosse le portrait touchant de Ryan Larkin, qui était autrefois l’un des cinéastes d’animation les plus estimés au Canada. Mais l’homme est hélas devenu prestataire de l’aide sociale et mendiant dans les rues de Montréal. Le succès de ce film, qui a remporté un Génie, un Oscar et plusieurs autres prix à sa sortie en 2004, aura permis à Larkin de retourner en studio avant son décès, survenu en 2007. MERCREDI 19 AVRIL – 20 H 30

Cinema Sunday / Canada on Screen ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

Free Screening! New Restoration! Miniseries Marathon!

Séance de projection gratuite! Nouvelle copie restaurée! Une minisérie en mode marathon!

Anne of Green Gables

Anne… la maison aux pignons verts

Canada 1985. Dir: Kevin Sullivan. 199 min. DCP

Winner of an Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program, Anne of Green Gables, CBC’s seminal miniseries, is one of Canadian television’s most prized, perennial works. The first of four televised adaptations of Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Victorian-set novels – all produced and written by Kevin Sullivan, who here directs as well – this two-part, fanadored series launched the career of Toronto-born actress Megan Follows (despite concerns she might be, at 16, a tad too old for the part). Anne chronicles the coming-of-age adventures of sweet-natured, tough-willed, red-topped Anne Shirley, an orphan adopted by two elderly P.E.I. siblings (played by screen veterans Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth), who were expecting a boy. A homegrown phenomenon and international hit, it ranks as the most watched Canadian television drama of all time! Anne of Green Gables screens in two parts, each approximately 100 minutes in length. There will be a 15-minute intermission between Part 1 and Part 2. SUNDAY, APRIL 23 – 1:00 PM

This special Canada on Screen presentation of Anne of Green Gables screens in conjunction with The Cinematheque’s Cinema Sunday film program for children and their families. See page 19 for more details.

Canada 1985. Réal. : Kevin Sullivan. 199 min. DCP

Lauréate d’un prix Emmy, cette incontournable minisérie de CBC est l’une des œuvres télévisuelles canadiennes les plus légendaires et intemporelles. Il s’agit de la première des quatre adaptations télévisuelles des romans victoriens de l’auteure canadienne Lucy Maud Montgomery. Produite, scénarisée et réalisée par Kevin Sullivan, cette série chaudement accueillie a propulsé la carrière de l’actrice torontoise Megan Follow, sélectionnée parmi 3 000 filles pour jouer Anne (même si à 16 ans, on la croyait peut-être un peu trop vieille pour le rôle). Anne suit les apprentissages d’une jeune orpheline rousse, caractérisée à la fois par sa douceur et son courage. À l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard, Anne suit les aventures et découvertes d’Anne, une orpheline à la fois douce et courageuse, tandis qu’elle grandit à l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard. La jeune rousse a été adoptée par un duo frère-sœur vieillissant (interprété par les acteurs chevronnés Richard Farnsworth et Colleen Dewhurst), qui s’attendait à ce qu’elle soit un garçon. Cette minisérie a remporté un immense succès au Canada et à l’étranger, s’illustrant en tant que série canadienne la plus populaire de tous les temps! Anne… la maison aux pignons verts sera présentée en deux périodes d’une durée approximative de 100 minutes. Il y aura un intermède de 15 minutes entre la partie 1 et la partie 2. DIMANCHE 23 AVRIL – 13 H

Cette projection spéciale Canada à l’écran d’Anne… la maison aux pignons verts est présentée conjointement avec notre programmation « Cinema Sunday » de films destinés aux enfants et à leurs familles.

SUN

MON

TUES

WED

TICKETS

HOW TO BUY TICKETS

Day–of tickets go on sale at the Box Office 30 minutes before the first show of the evening. Advance tickets are available for credit card purchase at theCinematheque.ca ($1 service charge applies). Events, times, and prices are subject to change without notice.

The Cinematheque is recognized as an exempt non–profit film society under the B.C. Motion Picture Act, and as such is able to screen films that have not been reviewed by the B.C. Film Classification Office. Under the act, all persons attending cinematheque screenings must be members of the Pacific Cinémathèque Pacifique Society and be 18 years of age or older, unless otherwise indicated.

ALL SCREENINGS ARE RESTRICTED TO 18+

Kenji Mizoguchi

Sansho the Bailiff – 4:00 pm Street of Shame – 6:30 pm

GUEST

Violent + Never Steady, Never Still – 7:00 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

The Life of Oharu – 6:30 pm

BC Film History

Flower & Garnet + Hardwood – 7:00 pm

Cinema Sunday Hockey Night – 1:00 pm

New Cinema Weirdos – 4:30 pm

GUEST

BC Film History

The Iris Film Collective – 7:00 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

Ugetsu – 6:30 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

Ugetsu – 4:30 pm

The Life of Oharu – 8:30 pm

Sisters of the Gion – 9:00 pm

The Life of Oharu – 6:30 pm Ugetsu – 9:00 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

Ugetsu – 6:30 pm Street of Shame – 8:30 pm

GUEST

SAT

Canada on Screen

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz + The Sweater – 7:00 pm

GUEST

Frames of Mind

Granny’s Dancing on the Table – 7:30 pm

New Documentary

The Skyjacker’s Tale – 6:30 pm

New Cinema

Anda Union – From the Steppes to the City – 7:00 pm

Sansho the Bailiff – 6:30 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums – 6:00 pm

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums – 8:50 pm

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees – 6:30 pm

Chan Centre Connects

Kenji Mizoguchi

Sansho the Bailiff – 8:45 pm

New Cinema

Weirdos – 6:30 pm

New Documentary

GUEST

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees – 4:30 pm

New Documentary

New Cinema

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees – 8:15 pm

New Documentary

Weirdos – 6:30 pm The Skyjacker’s Tale – 8:15 pm

New Cinema

Sieranevada – 7:00 pm

New Cinema

Sieranevada – 7:00 pm

Weirdos – 8:00 pm

New Cinema Weirdos – 8:00 pm Eric Rohmer

GUEST

New Cinema

Sieranevada – 3:00 pm Sieranevada – 7:00 pm

IN THIS ISSUE

BC Film History

Mo Simpson’s Turnaround: A Story of Recovery + Kosovo: Fragile Peace – 7:00 pm

MIZOGUCHI 2–3

Eric Rohmer

Claire’s Knee – 4:15 pm

Love in the Afternoon – 6:30 pm

ERIC ROHMER 12-13

The Bakery Girl of Monceau + Suzanne’s Career – 8:30 pm

BRUNO DUMONT 14 CHAN CENTRE CONNECTS 15 NEW RESTORATIONS 15

BC Film History

New Documentary The Skyjacker’s Tale – 6:30 pm

REQUIRED FOR THOSE 18+

CANADA ON SCREEN 6–9

The Skyjacker’s Tale – 8:15 pm

$3 ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP

BC FILM HISTORY 4–5

Sisters of the Gion – 6:30 pm

FRI

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums – 7:45 pm

UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED

theCinematheque.ca

Utamaro and His Five Women – 6:00 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

Utamaro and His Five Women – 8:00 pm

MARCH

Kenji Mizoguchi

THURS

NEW CINEMA 16–17

Eric Rohmer

La Collectionneuse – 6:30 pm

Love in the Afternoon – 8:15 pm

NEW DOCUMENTARY 16–17

GUEST

BC Film History

The Grocer’s Wife + Stroke – 7:00 pm

BC Film History

The Snow Walker + Trawna Tuh Belvul – 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

Bar Salon + Springtime in Greenland – 7:00 pm

New Cinema

Sieranevada – 7:00 pm

Opening Night

Doors – 6:00 pm The Bakery Girl of Monceau + Suzanne’s Career with introduction – 7:00 pm

Eric Rohmer

La Collectionneuse – 6:30 pm Claire’s Knee – 8:15 pm

My Night at Maud’s – 8:50 pm

APRIL GUEST

The Cinematheque’s 44th Annual General Meeting – 6:00 pm

GUEST

Eric Rohmer

My Night at Maud’s – 6:30 pm The Bakery Girl of Monceau + Suzanne’s Career – 8:40 pm

DIM Cinema

Peter Hutton: Near and Far – Program One – 7:30 pm

GUEST

Frames of Mind

Asperger’s Are Us – 7:30 pm

Chan Centre Connects

Cabaret – 7:00 pm

Eric Rohmer

Claire’s Knee – 6:30 pm

Eric Rohmer

My Night at Maud’s – 6:30 pm La Collectionneuse – 8:40 pm

Love in the Afternoon – 8:35 pm

New Restorations

Pelle the Conqueror – 7:00 pm

New Restorations

Pelle the Conqueror – 3:30 pm The Tree of Wooden Clogs – 7:00 pm

New Restorations

The Tree of Wooden Clogs – 7:00 pm

FRAMES OF MIND 18 DIM CINEMA 18 CINEMA SUNDAY 19

Rated G

New Restorations

The Tree of Wooden Clogs – 3:00 pm

New Restorations

Pelle the Conqueror – 3:30 pm

Pelle the Conqueror – 7:00 pm

The Tree of Wooden Clogs – 7:00 pm

Cinema Sunday / Canada on Screen

Bruno Dumont

National Canadian Film Day 150 / Canada on Screen

Stories We Tell + You Take Care Now – 6:00 pm Archangel + Ryan – 8:30 pm

GUEST

Bruno Dumont

New Cinema

Bruno Dumont

Opening Night

Before the Streets – 6:30 pm

La vie de Jésus – 6:30 pm

La vie de Jésus with Introduction – 7:00 pm

Bruno Dumont

L’Humanité – 8:25 pm

La vie de Jésus – 8:30 pm

Rated PG Rated 14A Rated 18A

Anne of Green Gables – 1:00 pm

La vie de Jésus – 6:30 pm

New Cinema

DIM Cinema

Peter Hutton: Near and Far – Program Two – 7:30 pm

Bruno Dumont

L’Humanité – 7:00 pm

Bruno Dumont

P’tit Quinquin – 7:00 pm

New Cinema

Before the Streets – 4:30 pm Bruno Dumont

P’tit Quinquin – 7:00 pm

Before the Streets – 8:25 pm

Before the Streets – 6:30 pm

BACKGROUND IMAGE:

Streets of Shame

New Cinema

Before the Streets – 4:30 pm

Bruno Dumont

P’tit Quinquin – 7:00 pm

Bruno Dumont

P’tit Quinquin – 7:00 pm

MAY A TWO-WEEK FILMMAKING PROGRAM FOR ASPIRING ARTISTS AGES 14–19 GET INSPIRED, DEVELOP YOUR CRAFT, AND CREATE A SHORT FILM TO BE PROUD OF

44th Annual General Meeting MARCH 28 - 6PM All members welcome! www.theCinematheque.ca | 1131 Howe Street | 604.688.8202

indielab.ca

SUN

MON

TUES

WED

TICKETS

HOW TO BUY TICKETS

ALL SCREENINGS ARE RESTRICTED TO 18+

Kenji Mizoguchi

Sansho the Bailiff – 4:00 pm Street of Shame – 6:30 pm

GUEST

Violent + Never Steady, Never Still – 7:00 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

The Life of Oharu – 6:30 pm

BC Film History

Flower & Garnet + Hardwood – 7:00 pm

Cinema Sunday Hockey Night – 1:00 pm

New Cinema Weirdos – 4:30 pm

GUEST

BC Film History

The Iris Film Collective – 7:00 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

Ugetsu – 6:30 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

Ugetsu – 4:30 pm

The Life of Oharu – 8:30 pm

Sisters of the Gion – 9:00 pm

The Life of Oharu – 6:30 pm Ugetsu – 9:00 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

Ugetsu – 6:30 pm Street of Shame – 8:30 pm

GUEST

SAT

Canada on Screen

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz + The Sweater – 7:00 pm

GUEST

Frames of Mind

Granny’s Dancing on the Table – 7:30 pm

New Documentary

The Skyjacker’s Tale – 6:30 pm

New Cinema

Anda Union – From the Steppes to the City – 7:00 pm

Sansho the Bailiff – 6:30 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums – 6:00 pm

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums – 8:50 pm

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees – 6:30 pm

Chan Centre Connects

Kenji Mizoguchi

Sansho the Bailiff – 8:45 pm

New Cinema

Weirdos – 6:30 pm

New Documentary

GUEST

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees – 4:30 pm

New Documentary

New Cinema

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees – 8:15 pm

New Documentary

Weirdos – 6:30 pm The Skyjacker’s Tale – 8:15 pm

New Cinema

Sieranevada – 7:00 pm

New Cinema

Sieranevada – 7:00 pm

Weirdos – 8:00 pm

New Cinema Weirdos – 8:00 pm Eric Rohmer

GUEST

New Cinema

Sieranevada – 3:00 pm Sieranevada – 7:00 pm

IN THIS ISSUE

BC Film History

Mo Simpson’s Turnaround: A Story of Recovery + Kosovo: Fragile Peace – 7:00 pm

MIZOGUCHI 2–3

Eric Rohmer

Claire’s Knee – 4:15 pm

Love in the Afternoon – 6:30 pm

ERIC ROHMER 12-13

The Bakery Girl of Monceau + Suzanne’s Career – 8:30 pm

BRUNO DUMONT 14 CHAN CENTRE CONNECTS 15 NEW RESTORATIONS 15

BC Film History

New Documentary The Skyjacker’s Tale – 6:30 pm

REQUIRED FOR THOSE 18+

CANADA ON SCREEN 6–9

The Skyjacker’s Tale – 8:15 pm

$3 ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP

BC FILM HISTORY 4–5

Sisters of the Gion – 6:30 pm

FRI

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums – 7:45 pm

UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED

theCinematheque.ca

Utamaro and His Five Women – 6:00 pm

Kenji Mizoguchi

Utamaro and His Five Women – 8:00 pm

MARCH

Kenji Mizoguchi

THURS

NEW CINEMA 16–17

Eric Rohmer

La Collectionneuse – 6:30 pm

Love in the Afternoon – 8:15 pm

NEW DOCUMENTARY 16–17

GUEST

BC Film History

The Grocer’s Wife + Stroke – 7:00 pm

BC Film History

The Snow Walker + Trawna Tuh Belvul – 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

Bar Salon + Springtime in Greenland – 7:00 pm

New Cinema

Sieranevada – 7:00 pm

Opening Night

Doors – 6:00 pm The Bakery Girl of Monceau + Suzanne’s Career with introduction – 7:00 pm

Eric Rohmer

La Collectionneuse – 6:30 pm Claire’s Knee – 8:15 pm

My Night at Maud’s – 8:50 pm

APRIL GUEST

The Cinematheque’s 44th Annual General Meeting – 6:00 pm

GUEST

Eric Rohmer

My Night at Maud’s – 6:30 pm The Bakery Girl of Monceau + Suzanne’s Career – 8:40 pm

DIM Cinema

Peter Hutton: Near and Far – Program One – 7:30 pm

GUEST

Frames of Mind

Asperger’s Are Us – 7:30 pm

Chan Centre Connects

Cabaret – 7:00 pm

Eric Rohmer

Claire’s Knee – 6:30 pm

Eric Rohmer

My Night at Maud’s – 6:30 pm La Collectionneuse – 8:40 pm

Love in the Afternoon – 8:35 pm

New Restorations

Pelle the Conqueror – 7:00 pm

New Restorations

Pelle the Conqueror – 3:30 pm The Tree of Wooden Clogs – 7:00 pm

New Restorations

The Tree of Wooden Clogs – 7:00 pm

FRAMES OF MIND 18 DIM CINEMA 18 CINEMA SUNDAY 19

Rated G

New Restorations

The Tree of Wooden Clogs – 3:00 pm

New Restorations

Pelle the Conqueror – 3:30 pm

Pelle the Conqueror – 7:00 pm

The Tree of Wooden Clogs – 7:00 pm

Cinema Sunday / Canada on Screen

Bruno Dumont

National Canadian Film Day 150 / Canada on Screen

Stories We Tell + You Take Care Now – 6:00 pm Archangel + Ryan – 8:30 pm

GUEST

Bruno Dumont

New Cinema

Bruno Dumont

Opening Night

Before the Streets – 6:30 pm

La vie de Jésus – 6:30 pm

La vie de Jésus with Introduction – 7:00 pm

Bruno Dumont

L’Humanité – 8:25 pm

La vie de Jésus – 8:30 pm

Rated PG Rated 14A Rated 18A

Anne of Green Gables – 1:00 pm

La vie de Jésus – 6:30 pm

New Cinema

DIM Cinema

Peter Hutton: Near and Far – Program Two – 7:30 pm

Bruno Dumont

L’Humanité – 7:00 pm

Bruno Dumont

P’tit Quinquin – 7:00 pm

New Cinema

Before the Streets – 4:30 pm Bruno Dumont

P’tit Quinquin – 7:00 pm

Before the Streets – 8:25 pm

Before the Streets – 6:30 pm

BACKGROUND IMAGE:

Streets of Shame

New Cinema

Before the Streets – 4:30 pm

Bruno Dumont

P’tit Quinquin – 7:00 pm

Bruno Dumont

P’tit Quinquin – 7:00 pm

MAY A TWO-WEEK FILMMAKING PROGRAM FOR ASPIRING ARTISTS AGES 14–19 GET INSPIRED, DEVELOP YOUR CRAFT, AND CREATE A SHORT FILM TO BE PROUD OF

44th Annual General Meeting MARCH 28 - 6PM All members welcome! www.theCinematheque.ca | 1131 Howe Street | 604.688.8202

indielab.ca

ERIC ROHMER’S SIX MORAL TALES “A moralist,” the French writer-director Eric Rohmer (1920-2010) once explained, “is someone who is interested in the description of what goes on inside man. He’s concerned with states of mind and feelings.” Perhaps no other filmmaker has mined the interior moral life with more success – and more wit, irony, and intelligence – than Rohmer. His sublime cinema navigates the gaps that exist between our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions – the differences between what we think and what we feel, between what we say and what we do. It is an intimate, literate, and remarkably nuanced cinema, revealing an artist with the deftness and depth of a great novelist, an artist more than worthy of the impressive literary comparisons (Stendhal, Balzac, Pascal, Jane Austen, Henry James et al.) so often invoked to describe his work. Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales (Six contes moraux) is an extraordinary cycle of films made between 1962 and 1972, focusing on sexual temptation and the rationalization of desire. In each film of the series, typically, a man committed to one woman finds himself temporarily attracted to another, and so begins to questions his initial choice. “What I call a conte moral is not a tale with a moral, but a story that deals less with what people do than with what is going on in their minds while they are doing it. A cinema of thoughts rather than actions . . . In the six stories, there are no tragic or violent events. No deaths, no mysteries to solve. Everything is in the mind. Only the heroes’ thoughts lend meaning to their acts” (Eric Rohmer).

ROHMER IN RETROSPECT! This presentation of Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales is the first program in an ongoing Rohmer retrospective to be presented at The Cinematheque in 2017.

OPENING NIGHT FRIDAY, MARCH 31

Refreshments & Introduction 6:00 pm - Doors 7:00 pm - The Bakery Girl of Monceau + Suzanne's Career | Introduced by Robert Ingram 8:50 pm - My Night at Maud’s Robert Ingram is co-editor of the French Film Directors Series (Manchester UP) and author of two monographs on François Truffaut, including François Truffaut: The Complete Films (2003, Taschen).

SIX MORAL TALES, 1

THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU (La boulangère de Monceau) France 1962. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 23 min. DCP

This charming short was the first of Rohmer’s Moral Tales, and introduced the cycle’s basic structure and themes. Future director Barbet Schroeder (who also produced all of the Moral Tales) is the narrator-hero, a young man who glimpses an alluring young woman on the street and instantly falls in love. Not knowing how to get in touch with the object of his desire, he searches the neighbourhood daily, and lets himself be tempted by sensuous Jacqueline, a shop assistant at the local bakery.

FOLLOWED BY

SIX MORAL TALES, 2

SUZANNE’S CAREER (La carrière de Suzanne) France 1963. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 55 min. DCP

The second of Rohmer’s Moral Tales has Bertrand, a timid Parisian student, trapped in a difficult game of romantic cat-andmouse. Unable to reveal his feelings for out-of-his-league Sophie, he finds himself fending off the affections of Suzanne, who’s recently been dumped by – and is actually still sweet on – Bertrand’s philandering pal Guillaume. Like The Bakery Girl of Monceau, Suzanne’s Career is a low-budget, 16mm, black-and-white, shot-on-the-streets effort made at the height of the French New Wave. After the subsequent success of his more polished follow-ups, Rohmer resisted re-releasing the first two Tales, fearing they might seem “too amateurish”. They are instead fascinating precursors of the four major films to come! FRIDAY, MARCH 31 – 7:00 PM

Opening Night with Refreshments & Introduction 6:00pm Doors / 7:00pm Screening SUNDAY, APRIL 2 – 8:30 PM TUESDAY, APRIL 4 – 8:40 PM

SIX MORAL TALES, 3

MY NIGHT AT MAUD’S (Ma nuit chez Maud)

France 1969. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 110 min. DCP

Officially the third of Rohmer’s Moral Tales – but filmed and released fourth, after La Collectionneuse, due to the earlier unavailability of star Jean-Louis Trintignant – this surprise art-house hit established Rohmer’s international reputation, and earned Oscar nominations for Best Foreign-Language Film and Original Screenplay (in separate years, oddly enough). Trintignant is Jean-Louis, a conservative engineer and strict Catholic convinced he’ll marry a woman he sees in Church, but forced by wintry circumstance to spend an erotically-charged night with free-thinking divorcée Maud (Françoise Fabian). While she attempts to seduce him with witty, intelligent conversation, he struggles to remain true to his moral code. This talky, tantalizing, immenselysatisfying film displays Rohmer’s talents at their finest. Photographed in exquisite black-and-white by Nestor Almendros, it was shot (and is set) in Clermont-Ferrand in December. Each Moral Tale was filmed at the exact time and place in which its story is set.

FRIDAY, MARCH 31 – 8:50 PM TUESDAY, APRIL 4 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, APRIL 8 – 6:30 PM

SIX MORAL TALES, 4

LA COLLECTIONNEUSE (The Collector)

France 1967. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 88 min. DCP

The fourth of Rohmer’s Moral Tales (although actually made and released third, before My Night at Maud’s) is set in Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera. There, during a tranquil summer, antique dealer Adrien and painter friend Daniel ponder the enigma of Haydée, a young, bikini-clad woman they dub “la collectionneuse” (“the collector”) because of her succession of one-night conquests. Intellectual Adrien professes to be puzzled by Haydée’s appeal and disapproving of her libertine ways; soon enough, however, he finds himself struggling to resist her charms – and attempting to rationalize his jealousy of Daniel, who has already succumbed. Rohmer’s wry and witty film, his first in colour, won a Special Jury Prize at Berlin. “The perversity of human nature and the various subterfuges of desire – themes unifying all six tales – acquire greater complexity and malignancy in La Collectionneuse” (Molly Haskell). SATURDAY, APRIL 1 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, APRIL 8 – 8:40 PM SUNDAY, APRIL 9 – 6:30 PM

SIX MORAL TALES, 5

CLAIRE’S KNEE (Le genou de Claire)

France 1970. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 106 min. DCP

The famous fetishized body part of Rohmer’s celebrated film belongs to a sunny 17-year-old completely absorbed in her young boyfriend. Its obsessive admirer is Jérôme, a mature, mid-thirties, about-to-be-married diplomat embroiled in the characteristic Rohmerian conflict between head and heart, and embarking on a final fling or two during a summer in Annecy. Jérôme’s half-hearted pursuit of teenaged sisters Laura and Claire has narrowed and fixated into a strange “undefined desire” to caress Claire’s knee. Observing the proceedings is enigmatic writer and old flame Aurora, who encourages Jérôme’s philandering ways in order to use them as fodder for her latest novel. This gloriously intelligent work, one of the director’s supreme achievements, has a “carefully constructed ambiguity, so typical of great literature and life . . . [and] a level of civilized dialogue and intellectual subtlety practically unknown in the cinema” (Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art). SATURDAY, APRIL 1 – 8:15 PM SUNDAY, APRIL 2 – 4:15 PM FRIDAY, APRIL 7 – 6:30 PM

SIX MORAL TALES, 6

LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON (aka Chloe in the Afternoon) (L’amour l’après-midi) France 1972. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 97 min. DCP

The sun-lit, seductive final chapter of Rohmer’s miraculous Moral Tales concerns Frédéric (Bernard Verley), a successful professional man who – unlike the male protagonists of the other Tales - is married, and happily. He’s also consumed by sexual fantasies about other women, but convinced this is healthy for his marriage and his emotional balance. Upsetting that balance is alluring Chloe (Zouzou), who offers Frédéric a terrifyingly real choice: actual extra-marital sex! Meanwhile, Frédéric’s wife Hélène (Françoise Verley) contemplates an affair of her own. In a charming touch, the film features cameos from the female leads of the previous Moral Tales; they appear as the women Frédéric fantasizes about. Frédéric and Hélène are played by an actual married couple (a typical example of Rohmer’s scrupulous attention to detail), while Paris is lovingly captured in the luminous cinematography of Rohmer and Truffaut regular Nestor Almendros. SUNDAY, APRIL 2 – 6:30 PM FRIDAY, APRIL 7 – 8:35 PM SUNDAY, APRIL 9 – 8:15 PM

BRUNO DUMONT MATERIAL BODIES To celebrate the 20th anniversary of polarizing French auteur Bruno Dumont’s still-startling debut feature, La vie de Jésus (1997) – a work that, for many, signalled the arrival of a modern artistic heir to master Robert Bresson – The Cinematheque presents a 35mm revival of that landmark film, along with screenings of Dumont’s controversial masterpiece L’Humanité (1999) and his brilliant, baffling one-eighty into Inspector Clouseau-style comedy (and French television), P’tit Quinquin (2014). Opening Night Remarks (Thursday, April 20) by Shaun Inouye, Programming Associate, The Cinematheque

“It’s a measure of Dumont’s strong, classical filmmaking that La vie de Jésus can stand with [the films of] Bresson and Buñuel.” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice Imported 35mm Print!

La vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus)

France 1997. Dir: Bruno Dumont. 96 min. 35mm

Bruno Dumont’s audacious, uncompromising first feature – ringing in its 20th anniversary this year – is, in retrospect, a career-defining film that roughed out the contours of the director’s forthcoming and fiercely contested body of work. Hardly the religious biopic promised by its title, La vie de Jésus is instead a blunt, dispassionate, austerely beautiful portrait of unemployed, uneducated, and not always sympathetic youth in a small northern French town (a geographical fixture for Dumont). Mixing widescreen vistas with intimate, extreme close-ups, featuring a uniformly excellent cast of non-professionals, and very much bearing the influence of Robert Bresson, the film centres on Freddy, an epileptic 20-year-old who lives with his mother, dates supermarket cashier Marie, and rides a motor bike with his pack of ennui-afflicted pals. When a young Algerian immigrant crosses paths with the bored and frustrated lot, events take a decidedly dark turn. Winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes, as well as France’s prestigious Prix Jean Vigo. Print courtesy Institut Français/Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

THURSDAY, APRIL 20

Opening Night 7:00 PM - La vie de Jésus | Introduced by Shaun Inouye FRIDAY, APRIL 21 – 8:30 PM SATURDAY, APRIL 22 – 6:30 PM MONDAY, APRIL 23 – 6:30 PM

“A haunting, disturbing, daring – and misunderstood – masterpiece.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian “One of the best films of the last ten years.” – Mark Cousins, Sight & Sound

“P’tit Quinquin really is funny, in a sometimes surprisingly broad, knockabout way, while being utterly recognizable as the work of one of Europe’s most intransigently distinctive auteurs.” – Jonathan Romney, Sight & Sound The Best Film of 2014 – Cahiers du cinéma

Miniseries Marathon!

P’tit Quinquin (Li’l Quinquin)

France 2014. Dir: Bruno Dumont. 206 min. DCP

An unexpected, off-brand triumph for French cinema’s so-called “god of grim,” Bruno Dumont's critically-adored first foray into long-form television is a police procedural comedy – oui, comédie! – that shares DNA with Lynch and Co.’s metaphysical whodunit Twin Peaks. Created as a miniseries for French TV – but premiered and toured theatrically as a single-sitting film – P’tit Quinquin is not so much a departure as a tonal rejigging of Dumont’s signature themes and aesthetic into the register of farce. It follows a twitchy, bumbling, mustachioed police captain (mesmerizing non-actor Bernard Pruvost) assigned to a series of bizarre murders in rural northern France following the discovery of a dairy cow packed with human body parts. Buzzing around the crime scenes is P’tit Quinquin, the titular tween, and his gang of bored, backwater pranksters. Like a burlesque re-imagining of Dumont’s best films, this absurdist masterwork manages the rare feat of being an autocritique that enlivens the mysteries imbedded in the auteur’s morphing cinema. P’tit Quinquin is comprised of four chapters, each approximately 50 minutes. There will be a 15-minute intermission between the second and third chapters. FRIDAY, APRIL 28 – 7:00 PM SATURDAY, APRIL 29 – 7:00 PM SUNDAY, APRIL 30 – 7:00 PM MONDAY, MAY 1 – 7:00 PM

35mm Print!

L’Humanité (Humanity)

France 1999. Dir: Bruno Dumont. 148 min. 35mm

An unforgettable work of beautiful, brave, neo-Bressonian cinema, L’Humanité was philosophy-professor-turned-filmmaker Bruno Dumont’s controversial follow-up to the acclaimed La vie de Jésus (also screening). Set in the same economically-depressed region of northern France, it casts non-professional Emmanuel Schotté (Best Actor, Cannes) as a pensive, small-town cop investigating the horrible sex murder of a little girl. Non-professional Séverine Caneele (Best Actress, Cannes) is the lusty neighbour to whom he is attracted. Dumont’s outré art film, as spare as it is spectacular, unfolds in hypnotic, contemplative, anti-thriller form, marrying majestic vistas, intense close-ups, hyper-realism, and frank, graphic sex – all couched in Christian symbolism, all evoking a palpable physicality. What emerges is not so much the investigation of a murder as an inquiry into the larger mysteries of evil, suffering, transcendence, existence. Met with outrage when it won the Grand Prix at Cannes, Dumont’s sophomore film is, in our humble opinion, the final masterwork of the last millennium! Print courtesy Cinémathèque québécoise. SATURDAY, APRIL 22 – 8:25 PM THURSDAY, APRIL 27 – 7:00 PM

L'HUMANITÉ

ANDA UNION FROM THE STEPPES TO THE CITY

CHAN CENTRE CONNECTS Anda Union – From the Steppes to the City

Great Britain 2011. Dirs: Marc Tiley, Tim Pearce, Sophie Lascelles. 97 min.

Inner Mongolia is a distant province on the furthest edges of China, home to more than six million ethnic Mongolians and a traditional, nomadic way of life. This documentary provides rare insight into this forgotten land as it follows Anda Union, a ten-strong group of young and inspiring Inner Mongolian musicians, on a 10,000-km journey through their homeland. The music of Anda Union combines throat singing and long song with horsehead fiddles and two stringed lutes, bringing the powerful, hauntingly-beautiful ancient music of Inner Mongolia to life as never heard before. The film celebrates the group’s passion for their music and people, and also develops the personal stories of each group member as they encounter childhood friends, long-lost family members, proud nomads, devoted priests, and extravagant musicians, and continue to learn more about the rich and turbulent roots of Mongolian culture in China. (adapted from official synopsis). THURSDAY, MARCH 23 – 7:00 PM This special screening of Anda Union: From the Steppes to the City is presented in conjunction with the performance of Anda Union at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on Sunday, March 26 at 8:00 pm.

Cabaret

USA 1972. Dir: Bob Fosse. 123 min. DCP

Bob Fosse’s “divinely decadent” (and decidedly darkedged) film is one of the great movie musicals. Liza Minnelli, in her signature role, is starry-eyed, showstopping Sally Bowles, a Kit Kat Klub cabaret artiste caught up in the sophisticated sleaze of Weimar-era Berlin. Off-stage, the complications of her messy personal life play out against the imminent rise of the Nazis; on-stage, she shares the spotlight with the mysterious Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey), a wry observer of the perverse drama unfolding all around them. The film’s complicated lineage includes Christopher Isherwood’s “Berlin Stories”; I Am a Camera, a 1950s stage (and screen) adaptation of Isherwood; and the 1966 Kander and Ebb Broadway musical Cabaret. Cabaret’s hefty haul of eight Oscars – including Best Director, Actress (Minnelli), Supporting Actor (Grey), and Cinematography (Geoffrey Unsworth) – remains a record for a film that did not win Best Picture! THURSDAY, APRIL 6 – 7:00 PM This special screening of Cabaret is presented in conjunction with the performance of Max Raabe and Palast Orchester at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on Sunday, April 9 at 7:00 pm.

The Chan Centre Connects Series presents outreach activities related to visiting artists performing in the annual concert season at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC. For more information on these events, please visit chancentre.com/connects www.chancentre.com

PELLE THE CONQUEROR

NEW RESTORATIONS “A towering achievement . . . An exhilarating experience unlikely to be forgotten.” – Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

“A cinematic miracle . . . To see it is to be stirred to the depths of one’s soul.” – Andrew Sarris, Village Voice

New Restoration! 30th Anniversary Restoration!

Pelle the Conqueror (Pelle erobreren)

Denmark/Sweden 1987. Dir: Bille August. 157 min. DCP

An award-season juggernaut that collected two of cinema’s most prized trophies – the Palme d’Or and the ForeignLanguage Oscar – Pelle the Conqueror was the first unqualified masterpiece of Danish director Bille August (who’d win a second Palme d’Or for the Ingmar Bergmanpenned The Best Intentions), and a magisterial showcase for screen legend Max von Sydow’s extraordinary craft. Adapted from the first volume of Martin Andersen Nexø’s turn-of-the-20th-century novel, the film centres on an elderly farmhand and widower (von Sydow) who, with his young son Pelle (Pelle Hvenegaard), emigrates from impoverished Sweden to rural Denmark in hopes of a new, prosperous life. Employed but cruelly mistreated as lower-class labourers, the father and son lean on each other to endure. With lush location cinematography by Jörgen Persson (who previously shot Lasse Hallström’s evocative My Life as a Dog) and a heartbreaking, Oscarnominated turn by von Sydow, August’s prestigious epic is a tour de force of humanist cinema. THURSDAY, APRIL 13 – 7:00 PM FRIDAY, APRIL 14 – 3:30 PM SUNDAY, APRIL 16 – 7:00 PM MONDAY, APRIL 17 – 3:30 PM

The Tree of Wooden Clogs (L’albero degli zoccoli)

Italy 1978. Dir: Ermanno Olmi. 186 min. DCP

Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1978, Ermanno Olmi’s elegiac portrait of peasant life in late-19th-century Lombardy is rendered with a sublime understatement, humanism, and lyricism that recaptures the best of Italian neorealism. Made with an ensemble cast of non-professionals, and with an exquisite appreciation for the everyday, The Tree of Wooden Clogs is a contemplative, unhurried, deeply spiritual work that follows several peasant families through the quotidian rituals of rural life and the changing of the seasons. The injustices they suffer under their landlords, culminating in a heartbreaking incident involving the tree of the title, provide the film with its dramatic centre. Olmi – who wrote, directed, shot, and edited – intended this moving, intimate-yet-epic pastoral as a paean to the peasant roots of Italian civilization (and, perhaps, as an answer to the baroque bombast of Bertolucci’s 1900). The film’s great painterly beauty is perfectly showcased in this splendid new restoration!

Presenting Partner:

FRIDAY, APRIL 14 – 7:00 PM SATURDAY, APRIL 15 – 7:00 PM SUNDAY, APRIL 16 – 3:00 PM MONDAY, APRIL 17 – 7:00 PM

NEW CINEMA Nominated for Six Canadian Screen Awards!

“Julia Sarah Stone glows in every frame of this film . . . Stone has quickly emerged as one of the most promising actors of her generation.” – Matt Fagerholm, RogerEbert.com

Weirdos

Canada 2016. Dir: Bruce McDonald. 89 min. DCP

The latest gem from Canadian master maverick Bruce McDonald (Highway 61, Hard Core Logo, Pontypool) is a quirky coming-of-age road movie set in 1976 Nova Scotia – and set to a killer soundtrack of ’70s CanCon pop from the likes of Edward Bear, The Stampeders, Crowbar, and others. Scripted by noted Canadian playwright Daniel McIvor, Weirdos has misfit teen Kit (Dylan Authors) and his would-be girlfriend Alice (Vancouver’s Julia Sarah Stone) ditching smalltown Antigonish to visit Kit’s artsy, eccentric mom (Molly Parker) in bigcity Sydney. Along the way, Alice begins to doubt Kit’s sexuality, while Kit begins receiving advice from his “spirit animal” – the ghost of Andy Warhol! McDonald’s low-key charmer is shot in lovely monochrome by cinematographer Becky Parsons. As we went to press, it had been nominated for six Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Picture, Original Screenplay, and Supporting Actress (Parker). FRIDAY, MARCH 17 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 18 – 6:30 PM SUNDAY, MARCH 19 – 4:30 PM & 8:00 PM WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22 – 8:00 PM

“It earns respect and a cumulative awe in its intently amused vision of reality . . . A commanding and intellectually gratifying piece of work.” – Tim Robey, The Telegraph “Quietly absurd, blackly comic . . . A deeply involving, curiously mysterious experience.” – Dave Calhoun, Time Out “One of the best films of 2016 . . . Puiu is confirming himself as one of the most truly distinctive (and philosophically fascinating) voices of 21st-century filmmaking.” – Geoff Andrew, Sight & Sound

Sieranevada

Romania 2016. Dir: Cristi Puiu. 176 min. DCP

Writer-director Cristi Puiu (The Death of Mister Lazarescu), high priest of the Romanian New Wave, returns with a three-hour, deadpan domestic comedy that reasserts his place as one of contemporary cinema’s most acute, unsparing observers of human behaviour. Three days after the 2015 terrorist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, a sizable Romanian family gathers in a cramped Bucharest apartment to bid farewell to their recently departed patriarch. Over a (comically uneaten, continually interrupted) traditional Orthodox meal meant to usher their familyhead into Heaven, relatives (and oddball invitees) engage in a discomforting airing of grievances and offside opinions ranging from infidelity to 9/11 conspiracy – with plenty of prickly chatter in between. Claustrophobic in setting but expansive in the scope of its wide-ranging, discoursed ideas, the curiouslymisspelled (and curiously-titled) Sieranevada is an incisive, complex portrait of mourning on both a personal and societal level. FRIDAY, MARCH 24 – 7:00 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 25 – 7:00 PM SUNDAY, MARCH 26 – 3:00 PM & 7:00 PM THURSDAY, MARCH 30 – 7:00 PM

“A passionate eco-documentary . . . The film will make you see trees with new eyes.” – Alison Gillmor, Winnipeg Free Press Vancouver Premiere!

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees Canada 2016. Dir: Jeffrey McKay. 82 min. DCP

You can almost smell the forest in this beautiful new advocacy documentary featuring the Irish/Canadian author, conservationist, and botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger. “The film follows Beresford-Kroeger as she investigates our profound biological and spiritual connection to the woodlands and explores the most beautiful forests in the Northern Hemisphere. From the sacred sugi and cedar forests of Japan to the great boreal forest of Canada, Beresford-Kroeger relates the amazing history and legacy of these ancient forests while also explaining the science of trees and the irreplaceable roles they play in protecting and feeding the planet. We meet some of the world’s foremost experts in reforestation and are introduced to the activism of the Anishinaabe people of Pimachiowin Aki in Manitoba and Ontario. While calling for massive, global action, the film at heart is a story of triumph, proposing that each of us can combat climate change by planting trees in our own yards and neighbourhoods” (adapted from official synopsis). March 21 is International Day of Forests Guest in attendance – Saturday, March 18! THURSDAY, MARCH 16 – 6:30 PM FRIDAY, MARCH 17 – 8:15 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 18 – 4:30 PM

BEFORE THE STREETS

Borsos Award (Best Canadian Feature), 2016 Whistler Film Festival Best Film, 2016 American Indian Film Festival, San Francisco Nominated for Six Canadian Screen Awards! “Vivid . . . Evocative . . . A brave undertaking that tells a story almost never examined on film.” – Amanda Siebert, Georgia Straight Vancouver Premiere!

Before the Streets (Avant les rues)

Canada 2016. Dir: Chloé Leriche. 97 min. DCP

Writer-director Chloé Leriche’s debut feature – the first feature in Atikamekw (a dialect of Cree) – is a drama of powerful authenticity and insight. Made in collaboration with Quebec’s three Atikamekw communities, the film is set on the Manawan reserve, where aimless young Shawnouk (Rykko Bellemare) lives with his loving family, including sister Kwena (Kwena Bellemare-Boivin), and clashes with his mother’s no-nonsense boyfriend (Jacques Newashish), a policeman on the reserve. When a burglary gone wrong lands Shawnouk in deadly-serious trouble, the desperate youth seeks redemption though traditional native healing. Leriche has cited the social realism of Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, American Honey) as an inspiration for her own filmmaking. Before the Streets was named Best Canadian Feature at Whistler – and, at press time, had been nominated for six Canadian Screen Awards. “Gripping and spiritual . . . Raw naturalistic performances, spectacular sound design, and breathtaking camerawork weave Shawnouk’s story into an emotional knot” (Seattle I.F.F.). FRIDAY, APRIL 21 – 6:30 PM SUNDAY, APRIL 23 – 6:30 PM MONDAY, APRIL 24 – 8:25 PM SATURDAY, APRIL 29 – 4:30 PM SUNDAY, APRIL 30 – 4:30 PM

CALL OF THE FOREST: THE FORGOTTEN WISDOM OF TREES

NEW DOCUMENTARY “Tantalizing . . . This ambitious documentary teases out a story that continues to fascinate.” – Peter Howell, Toronto Star Vancouver Premiere!

The Skyjacker’s Tale Canada 2016. Dir: James Kastner. 75 min. DCP

Eight people massacred at a country club in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1972. A contentious trial that becomes a cause célèbre for American civil rights advocates. An American Airlines flight hijacked to Cuba on New Year’s Eve, 1984. A fugitive in exile who spends 30 years on the FBI’s “most-wanted” list and now may spend the rest of his life in prison – for a crime he may or may not have committed. There’s drama and mystery aplenty in this Canadian Screen Award-nominated documentary from Jamie Kastner (The Secret Disco Revolution). Digging into the strange tale of Ishmael Muslim Ali (aka Ronald LaBeet), former petty crook, U.S. soldier, and Black Panther militant, Kastner’s film probes a minefield of issues with contemporary resonance: race relations, income inequality, police misconduct, media sensationalism, and justice. “A layered portrait of the past that seems eerily, and sadly, much like our present (Steve Gravestock, Toronto I.F.F.) THURSDAY, MARCH 16 – 8:15 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 18 – 8:15 PM SUNDAY, MARCH 19 – 6:30 PM WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22 – 6:30 PM

LANDSCAPE (FOR MANON)

Moving-image art in dialogue with cinema www.dimcinema.ca Programmed by Michèle Smith, co-editor of Drawing Room Confessions.

Peter Hutton: Near and Far DIM Cinema pays tribute to Peter Hutton, the influential American filmmaker and educator (Ken Burns and Kelly Reichardt were among his students) who died last June. Cahiers du cinéma described his body of work as radical and singular: “A sort of primitive documentary, silent, which celebrates the beauty of the world without forgetting to observe people, the conditions they live and work under.”

Peter Hutton - Program One: Near

Peter Hutton - Program Two: Far

“Hutton’s black-and-white haikus are an exquisite distillation of the cinematic eye. The limitations imposed – no colour, no sound, no movement (except from a vehicle not directly propelled by the filmmaker), no direct cuts since the images are born and die in black – ironically entail an ultimate freedom of the imagination . . . If pleasure can disturb, Hutton’s ploys emerge in full focus. These materializing then evaporating images don’t ignite, but conjure strains of fleeting panoramas of detached bemusement. More than mere photography, Hutton’s contained-within-the-frame juxtapositions are filmic explorations of the benign and the tragic” (Warren Sonbert).

“Hit with a heavy case of wanderlust” as a young man, Hutton spent 15 years as a merchant marine, and from then on was rarely without his 16mm camera. His gorgeously textured depictions of cities and landscapes are, in his words, “diaristic without being autobiographical,” using long takes and silence to encourage the mind to roam. Whether near to home or far away, “Hutton handled his camera like a curious outsider, lingering on the flow of water or the movement of clouds, taking in people in brief, penetrating but oddly distant portraits, not staying in any one place too long” (Max Nelson, Film Comment).

Lødz Symphony | 1993. 20 min. At Sea | 2007. 60 min. Screening format: 16mm, silent.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26 – 7:30 PM

Screening format: 16mm, silent.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5 – 7:30 PM GRANNY'S DANCING ON THE TABLE

A Monthly Mental Health Film Series Presented by The Cinematheque and the Institute of Mental Health, UBC Department of Psychiatry

The Cinematheque is pleased to join with the Institute of Mental Health, UBC Department of Psychiatry in presenting “Frames of Mind,” a monthly event utilizing film and video to promote professional and community education on issues pertaining to mental health and illness. Screenings, accompanied by presentations and audience discussions, are held on the third Wednesday of each month. Series directed by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Director of Public Education, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. Programmed by Caroline Coutts, film curator, filmmaker, and programmer of “Frames of Mind” since its inception in September 2002.

Vancouver Premiere!

Granny’s Dancing on the Table

Asperger’s Are Us

Sweden 2015. Dir: Hanna Sköld. 85 min. DCP

Told in both live action and stop-motion puppet animation, this powerful and deeply disturbing film tells a story of intergenerational domestic abuse in dark, fairy-tale-like hues. In the live-action sections, 13-year-old Eini lives with her brutal, religious-zealot father deep in the woods, isolated from the outside world. Eini’s father demands complete obedience, violently punishing his daughter for the slightest infraction. For refuge, Eini retreats into a fantasy world where she imagines the life of her grandmother, who left the family and created a new life abroad. Told in stop-motion, Granny’s story reveals a family history of generations of women mistreated and controlled by men. As her father’s brutality reaches new depths (be warned: the violence depicted in the film is hard to watch), Eini tries to find the strength to plan her own escape. Post-screening discussion with Shannon Guiboche, a trauma counsellor with Family Services of Greater Vancouver involved in both Victim Services and Counselling programs. Shannon currently provides services through the VISAC (Vancouver Incest and Sexual Abuse Centre) Counselling Program. Co-sponsored by the Victim Services Programs at Family Services of Greater Vancouver, whose programs support people who experience a range of power-based crimes including domestic violence, criminal harassment, sexual assault, and childhood abuse. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15 – 7:30 PM

USA 2016. Dir: Alex Lehmann. 82 min. Blu-ray Disc

If you think it’s funny for a young man with Asperger’s to wear a T-shirt that reads “Ask Me About My Fear of Strangers,” then chances are you’ll enjoy the comedy of sketch troupe Asperger’s Are Us. Unafraid to present a can opener on a stool as a warm-up act before “thanking the opener,” Noah, Ethan, Jack, and New Michael met at a summer camp for kids on the Autism spectrum and have been performing around the Boston area since 2010. The film catches up with them as they write and rehearse new material for one last show before Jack leaves for a year to study abroad. Capturing camaraderie and occasional tensions, as well as sometimes-fraught family relationships, this quietly affecting documentary showcases the group’s “Aspie-centric” brand of absurdist deadpan humour and literal-minded wordplay. Fans of Andy Kaufman (a great inspiration for all four troupe members) will be amused! Post-screening discussion with and stand-up performances by David Granirer, comic, counselor, author, and founder of Stand Up For Mental Health (who himself suffers from depression), and Jari Wilkman and Paul Decarie, two graduates of the SUFMH program Co-sponsored by Stand Up For Mental Health, a non-profit that teaches stand-up comedy to people with mental health issues, giving them a powerful voice and helping to reduce stigma. Please note the date! Our April presentation of Frames of Mind will be held on the second Wednesday, rather than the regular third Wednesday, of the month.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12 – 7:30 PM

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

Cinema Sunday An Afternoon Film Program for Children and Their Families

$6 Children & Youths (under 18) $9 Adults (Cinematheque membership not required) In celebration of Canada’s big 150 (or sesquicentennial), Cinema Sunday patriotically presents “Made in Canada,” a yearlong engagement with family films hailing from the True North! Each month, we’ll screen an all-ages movie that showcases Canada’s extraordinary, diverse talents – both in front of and behind the camera – as well as the cities, landscapes, and cultures that make this country our home. Films will be introduced by Vancouver film history teacher and critic Michael van den Bos.

New Restoration!

Hockey Night

Canada 1984. Dir: Paul Shapiro. 76 min. DCP

One year before Megan (pronounced Mee-gan) Follows enchanted a nation as the pigtailed heart-tugger of Anne of Green Gables (screening in Cinema Sunday in April), she laced up her skates for this fondly-remembered ‘80s television movie, now the recipient of a lavish new 4K digital restoration. Set and shot in Parry Sound, Ontario – hometown of “Number Four, Bobby Orr” – the unabashedly Canadian Hockey Night casts Follows as a newly-arrived teen who’s determined to be the next netminder for an all-boys hockey team – much to the chagrin of the team’s sponsor, a local lumber tycoon. Maury Chaykin (A&E’s Nero Wolfe) is the town’s closed-minded broadcaster, who scoffs at the prospect of a girl in goal; Rick Moranis is the affable coach in her corner. Long available only on VHS, this fully-restored theatrical version has been tailor-made for the big screen, for a new generation of hockey-loving families! SUNDAY, MARCH 19 – 1:00 PM

Free Screening! Canada on Screen: Television Anne of Green Gables is presented as part of Canada on Screen, a celebration of Canada’s 150 essential moving-image works. Canada on Screen is a year-long, nation-wide program honouring Canada’s 150th birthday and its rich cinematic heritage. Screenings are free of charge. For more information, see page 9.

New Restoration! Miniseries Marathon!

Anne of Green Gables Canada 1985. Dir: Kevin Sullivan. 199 min. DCP

Winner of an Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program, Anne of Green Gables, CBC’s seminal miniseries, is one of Canadian television’s most prized, perennial works. The first of four televised adaptations of Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Victorian-set novels – all produced and written by Kevin Sullivan, who here directs as well – this two-part, fan-adored series launched the career of Toronto-born actress Megan Follows (despite concerns she might be, at 16, a tad too old for the part). Anne chronicles the coming-of-age adventures of sweet-natured, tough-willed, red-topped Anne Shirley, an orphan adopted by two elderly P.E.I. siblings (played by screen veterans Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth), who were expecting a boy. A homegrown phenomenon and international hit, it ranks as the most watched Canadian television drama of all time! Anne of Green Gables screens in two parts, each approximately 100 minutes in length. There will be a 15-minute intermission between Part 1 and Part 2. SUNDAY, APRIL 23 – 1:00 PM

HOCKEY NIGHT

A Sound Experience Noche Flamenca’s Antigona – MAR 12 Anda Union – MAR 26 Max Raabe and Palast Orchester – APR 9

Tickets and info at chancentre.com

Celebrating Canada 150

INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR Vancouver Convention Centre May 25th to 28th, 2017 www.artvancouver.net info@artvancouver.net Nadine Belliveau

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Program Notes: Jim Sinclair, additional program notes by Shaun Inouye Advertising: Lizzie Brotherston Proofreading: Lizzie Brotherston Design: Marc Junker

STAFF Executive + Artistic Director: Jim Sinclair Acting Managing Director: Lindsey Wasserman Managing Director: Kate Ladyshewsky (on leave) Operations + Programming Associate: Shaun Inouye Communications + Marketing Manager: Lizzie Brotherston Education Manager: Liz Schulze Education Coordinator: Hayley Gauvin Venue Operations Manager: Linton Murphy Assistant Theatre Managers: Sarah Bakke, Jessica Johnson, Aryo Khakpour, Justin Mah, Paige Smith Head Projectionist: Al Reid Relief Projectionists: Tim Fernandes, Ron Lacheur, Cassidy Penner, Helen Reed, Ryan Ermacora Film Archive Resident: Olivia Babler

Distribution: Hazel Ackner, Horacio Bach, Kyle Bowman, Gabi Dao, Michael Demers, Gail Franko, Jeff Halladay, Alan Kollins, Martin Lohmann, Lynn Martin, Vincent Tao, Matthew Shields, Lora Tanaka, Vanessa Turner, Harry Wong Office: Jo B., Betty-Lou Phillips Education: Michael van den Bos, Tash King,

Published six times a year with a bi-monthly circulation of 10–15,000. Printed by Van Press Printers. ADVERTISING To advertise in this Program Guide or in our theatre before screenings, please email advertising@theCinematheque.ca or call 604.688.8202. SUPPORT The Cinematheque is a charitable not-forprofit arts society. We rely on financial support from public and private sources. Donations are gratefully accepted — a tax receipt will be issued for all donations of $50 or more. To make a donation or for more information, please call our administration office at 604.688.8202.

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