The Cinematheque NOV + DEC 2017 by The Cinematheque

EXPERIENCE ESSENTIAL CINEMA

SALT FOR SVANETIA

NOV

DEC 2017

1131 Howe Street | Vancouver | theCinematheque.ca

EUFF 2017 THE SOVIET FILM VANGUARD CANADA ON SCREEN CONTEMPORARY IRANIAN CINEMA ERIC ROHMER ANCIENT + MODERN

Europe without the Jetlag!

F i l m Fe s t i v a l

European Union y NOVEMBER + DECEMBER 2017 20th Annual

20th Annual

European Union F i l m Fe s t i v a l Europe without the Jetlag!

Nov 24–Dec 4

eufilmfestival.com

ow celebrating its 20th year, The Cinematheque’s annual showcase of new cinema from the European Union is proudly presented with the Vancouver consulates and the Ottawa embassies of the member states of the European Union and the Delegation of the European Union to Canada. This year’s festival features entries from 25 EU members.

Acknowledgments: For assistance in making Vancouver’s European Union Film Festival possible, The Cinematheque is grateful to Diodora Bucur, Press Officer, Delegation of the European Union to Canada (Ottawa); Tom McSorley, Executive Director, Canadian Film Institute (Ottawa); and the Embassies and Consulates of all European Union member states. Program subject to change.

Estonia

The Dissidents

The Fixer

Estonia/Finland/Latvia 2017. Dir: Jaak Kilmi. 90 min. DCP

Romania/France 2016. Dir: Adrian Sitaru. 98 min. DCP

Estonian filmmaker Jaak Kilmi has made a career plumbing the comic side of his country’s Soviet past, from personal documentaries (the award-winning Disco and Atomic War) to period dramas (Revolution of Pigs). His latest, an ’80s-set action comedy, follows three Estonian dreamers who flee the Soviet Union in search of the suave “free world” peddled on American TV shows like Miami Vice and Knight Rider. Welcomed in Sweden as rebellious heroes who broke through the Iron Curtain, they’re soon regarded as run-of-the-mill immigrants, unable to find work, let alone the opulence – posh cars, cool clothes, arm candy – of their aspiredto lifestyle. But a surefire plan is in the works, guaranteed – or so they believe – to turn a profit in the Western world.

The heightened realism of Romania’s much-celebrated New Wave is masterfully deployed in prolific Romanian director Adrian Sitaru’s understated moral drama, inspired by true events. Radu (Tudor Istodor), an eager journalism trainee working as a fixer for a French news network in Bucharest, is hungry for his career-making break. He believes he’s found it in the story of two underage Romanian girls at the heart of an international sex-trafficking scandal: abducted then forced into prostitution in France, they were discovered by authorities and repatriated back to Romania. With his local connections and command of Romanian, Radu resolves to interview one of the victims, now in hiding at a monastery, venturing onto dubious moral ground in the process. Romania’s official entry for the upcoming Oscars.

(Sangarid)

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24 – 6:30 PM OPENING NIGHT SPONSORED BY:

Poland

Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge

Poland/Germany/France 2016. Dir: Marie Noëlle. 100 min. Blu-ray Disc

The courageous, controversy-courting life of trailblazing PolishFrench physicist and chemist Marie Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize – and the first person ever to win it twice – is poetically explored in French writer-director Marie Noëlle’s lavishly-shot biopic. Opting to focus more on the intimacies of Madame Curie’s private life than the intricacies of her groundbreaking scientific achievements, Noëlle’s turn-of-thecentury melodrama – derived in large part from Curie’s personal diaries – navigates her career mainly through romantic courtships, first with husband and research partner Pierre (Charles Berling of Elle and Summer Hours), then, following Pierre’s tragic death, with a married colleague – a near-ruinous cause célèbre. Polish actress Karolina Gruszka is superb as the fiercely intelligent, emotionally complex Curie, whose tenacity in the face of institutionalized sexism remains inspiring and relevant as ever. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24 – 8:30 PM

Romania

(Fixeur)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 6:30 PM

France

Les ogres

France 2015. Dir: Léa Fehner. 144 min. DCP

A freewheeling, intergenerational theatre troupe tours Chekhov and emotional minefields in French rising-star director Léa Fehner’s sophomore film, winner of the Audience Award at Rotterdam. Partially based on the helmer’s own upbringing with on-the-road theatre folk (aka “ogres”), and featuring superb turns by Fehner’s real-life mother, father, and sister – as well as in-demand Adèle Haenel (The Unknown Girl, BPM [Beats Per Minute]) and Almodóvar staple Lola Dueñas – this moving ensemble piece is a personal and decidedly familial project for the young cinéaste. Unsurprisingly, its dramatic notes – pregnancy, infidelity, alcoholism – ring of experienced truth, steering the movie clear of soap-opera schlock. Co-written by Philippe Garrel thesp Brigitte Sy. “A raucous, ribald romp . . . Crowdpleasingly big hearted” (Neil Young, Hollywood Reporter). SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 8:30 PM

Luxembourg

Mammejong

Luxembourg/Belgium 2015. Dir: Jacques Molitor. 85 min. DCP

The odd and decidedly unhealthy relationship between an adult son and his smothering, widowed mother is explored in Luxembourgian director Jacques Molitor’s fiction-feature debut. After the suicide of his father, Flëpp, an emotionallystunted twentysomething, becomes his mother’s sole companion – and near-substitute husband. When he meets a cute, fiery runaway who exploits the independence he’s denied, Flëpp starts to question his devotion to his overbearing, inappropriately-affectionate mother. The director’s previous film was the well-received 2012 documentary Sweetheart Come, a portrait of sexual diversity in Luxembourg. “Molitor has challenged himself to go even further in his portrayal of complex human interactions” (Cineuropa). SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 – 6:30 PM

Sweden

Bulgaria

11th A Grade

aka The 11th Grade (XI A) Bulgaria 2015. Dir: Michaela Komitova. 84 min. Blu-ray Disc

A strong-willed, competitive dancer tests her mettle as a high-school substitute teacher in Bulgarian director Michaela Komitova’s comedic, crowd-pleasing first feature, set and shot in Bulgaria’s capital city of Sofia. “Lina Nikolova (national TV star Yana Marinova), a former dancer and inexperienced educator, is appointed as a replacement in an elite school. Surrounded by collegial distrust and wayward students, she quickly realizes that standard methods will not be effective. Combining a fighting spirit, honest behaviour, and innovative teaching techniques, Lina manages to overcome the challenges posed by her students, eventually winning them over. But with the city’s prestigious dance hall reopening after lengthy renovations, she must choose between her newfound profession and her lifelong dream of running her own dance studio” (Bulgarian National Film Center). MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27 – 8:45 PM

Portugal

Eternal Summer (Odödliga)

Sweden 2015. Dir: Andreas Öhman. 107 min. Blu-ray Disc

The fourth feature from Swedish phenom Andreas Öhman (Simple Simon, Bitch Hug) is an amour-intoxicated, lovers-on-the-lam tale in the tradition of epochal American classics Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands. Young and in love – a potent cocktail – new couple Em and Isak (Filip Berg, A Man Called Ove) embark on an impromptu summer road trip through scenic northern Sweden in Em’s father’s vintage Saab convertible. Rest stops, cigarettes, and night swims punctuate their carefree, passion-fueled adventure – that is, until the money runs out and the activities turn criminal. “Complemented by Niklas Johansson’s striking cinematography, director Öhman carefully crafts a cutting, emotionally genuine lovers-on-the-run story” (Seattle I.F.F.). SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 – 8:20 PM

Lithuania

Saint George (São Jorge)

Portugal/France 2016. Dir: Marco Martins. 112 min. DCP

The gritty third feature from Portuguese writer-director Marco Martins (Alice, How to Draw a Perfect Circle) is a brooding, bareknuckled drama that holds a sobering mirror to Portugal’s recent economic hardships. Taciturn former-boxer Jorge (Nuno Lopes) is barely scraping by, like many after the 2011 crash. At risk of losing his family without a steady pay cheque – his wife wants to return to her native Brazil with their son, whom he adores – a desperate Jorge takes a job as a debt collector, providing muscle to the agency’s lowlife, door-knocking goons. When he refuses to rough-up a local businessman who’s defaulted on his loans, the onetime pugilist, now in deep with the sharks, must deal with the consequences. “Martins shows that he has fully taken on board took the lessons learned from masters Wim Wenders, Pedro Costa, and Manoel de Oliveira” (Camillo de Marco, Cineuropa). TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 – 6:30 PM

Hungary

Emilia

aka Emilia: Breaking Free (Emilija) Lithuania 2017. Dir: Donatas Ulvydas. 120 min. DCP

Life for an artist behind the Iron Curtain is powerfully portrayed in top Lithuanian director – and two-time EUFF alumnus – Donatas Ulvydas’s searing, politically-charged period drama. “Set in the early 1970s in Soviet-occupied Lithuania, Emilia is the story of an aspiring young actress in pursuit of a career in theatre, who’s torn between loyalty to the system and dreams of freedom. Drawing strength from a mystery buried deep in her memories of childhood, Emilia walks a fine line between passion, intrigue, and betrayal, only to become a symbol of national defiance” (Fralita Films). MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27 – 6:30 PM

Kincsem

Hungary 2017. Dir: Gábor Herendi. 121 min. Blu-ray Disc

Hungary’s highest price-tagged film – a cool $10 million – is also its highest-grossing homegrown hit in a decade! Based on the true story of the legendary thoroughbred Kincsem – to this day, the most decorated racehorse ever – Herendi’s lavish period piece, set in Budapest during the height of the AustroHungarian Empire, follows a penniless, orphaned playboy (Ervin Nagy) as he trains “untrainable” Kincsem into a recordbreaking mare, and courts the high-society daughter of his father’s killer. In its decadent, 19th-century costume design and set décor, Herendi’s domestic blockbuster resembles the eyecandy opulence of Baz Luhrmann’s most operatic works. “Full of torrid passions, blazing saddles, and thundering hooves . . . A lively gallop” (Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter). TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 – 8:45 PM

Austria

Netherlands

Night of a 1000 Hours

The Fury

Austria/Luxembourg/Netherlands 2016. Dir: Virgil Widrich. 92 min. DCP

Netherlands 2016. Dir: André van Duren. 112 min. DCP

A fantastical blend of historical fiction, whodunit thriller, and beyond-the-grave horror, this second career feature from veteran Austrian short-film director Virgil Widrich (2001’s Oscarnominated Copy Shop) was shot by regular Michael Haneke cinematographer Christian Berger and won the Audience Award at the Busan Film Festival. “When the Ullichs gather at their Vienna palace to determine who will inherit the family business, the matriarch drops dead just as she’s about to sign on the dotted line. But much to everyone’s surprise, she reappears . . . and she’s not alone! Generations of befuddled, deceased ancestors also rise up, bringing with them long-buried family secrets, including unsavory ties to Austria’s fascist history. This inventive, Clue-like mystery-cum-love-story comes to terms with the past – as it’s happening.” (Chicago Film Festival).

Hannah Hoekstra took top acting honours at both the Montréal World Film Festival and the Netherlands Film Festival for her role as an acerbic-tongued germophobe in Dutch film and television director André van Duren’s smart adaptation of the eponymous 2013 novel by A. F. Th. van der Heijden. “The Fury is a tragi-comedy centring on the relationship between ‘Tidy Tini’ (Hoekstra), a nitpicky woman suffering from mysophobia, and her nephew Albert. As a boy, Albert spied on his aunt and tried desperately to understand her semi-explicit fault-finding. Now a father, Albert is poised for a major confrontation with his past, in which all family secrets will be revealed” (Cineuropa).

(Die Nacht der 1000 Stunden)

(De Helleveeg)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – 8:30 PM

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – 6:30 PM

Slovenia Cyprus

Nightlife

(Nocno zivljenje)

Boy on the Bridge (To agóri sti géfyra)

Cyprus 2016. Dir: Petros Charalambous. 85 min. DCP

A country kid finds himself at the centre of a murder investigation in Cypriot filmmaker Petros Charalambous’s much-praised debut feature, co-written by novelist Eve Makis. “Cyprus 1988. Twelve-year old Socrates (superb newcomer Costantinos Farmakas) spends the hot summer days hurtling through the street of his sleepy mountain village on his bicycle, setting off home-made firecrackers and tormenting the local residents. His carefree life comes to an abrupt end when he finds out that the family of his cousin and best friend are being physically abused by their violent father Hambo. What starts as a naive attempt to teach Hambo a lesson leads Socrates to the heart of a homicide and the exposure of a dark family secret” (London Greek Film Festival).

Slovenia/Macedonia/Bosnia and Herzegovina 2016. Dir: Damjan Kozole. 85 min. DCP

Acclaimed Slovenian auteur Damjan Kozole (subject of a Cinematheque retrospective in 2005) was awarded Best Director at Karlovy Vary for this taut, chilling, noir-minded thriller, the writer-director’s long-awaited fiction follow-up to 2009’s A Call Girl. When a high-profile attorney is found naked, mutilated, and barely conscious in what appears to have been a savage dog attack, his traumatized wife (Pia Zemljic, in a powerhouse performance) resolves to discover the truth and, in damagecontrol mode, minimize the media frenzy. The film, full of moral corruption and mounting speculation, is based on a shockingly real 2010 Slovenian scandal, in which a well-connected doctor was discovered in similar macabre circumstances. “Haunted and haunting, atmospheric and absorbing” (Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter). FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1 – 6:30 PM

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – 8:30 PM

Italy Finland

Little Wing

(Tyttö nimeltä Varpu) Finland/Denmark 2016. Dir: Selma Vilhunen. 100 min. DCP

The fiction-feature debut of Finnish filmmaker Selma Vilhunen, director of the Oscar-nominated short Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?, is a smart and sensitively-handled coming-of-age tale about an adolescent girl in search of her birth father. Twelveyear-old Varpu, bright and independent, is overwhelmed by the erratic behaviour of her oft-absent, increasingly-negligent single mother. Nagged by her nosey peers about her home life – to which she coolly conjures up invented stories – Varpu starts digging into her biological father’s identity and whereabouts, before embarking on a runway journey to find him. “Authentic and emotionally gratifying, Vilhunen’s debut is an earnest and endearing drama, one that’s often elevated by a lens that’s both solicitous and sweet in capturing this poetically wistful examination of early adulthood and lost innocence” (Will Ashton, The Playlist). THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – 6:30 PM

Leopardi

(Il giovane favoloso) Italy 2014. Dir: Mario Martone. 143 min.

A multiple prize winner at Venice, this latest work from admired Italian auteur Mario Martone (L’amore molesto, We Believed) is a prestigious film biography of the great 19th century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi. Stunningly shot in Rome, Florence, and Naples, Martone's engrossing, impassioned costume drama chronicles the abbreviated life of the literary icon, whose chronic ill health and crumpled physique – the result of a congenial bone deformation, tactfully rendered by actor Elio Germano – engendered an anguished worldview that populated his oeuvre. Leopardi was a solitary wordsmith whose life was devoid of scandal or public romance; kudos go to Martone for fashioning drama – and cinematic stardust – largely out of Leopardi’s outpouring of ideas. “A sweeping, swooning historical drama, unashamedly high-flown and performed with conviction” (Xan Brooks, The Guardian). FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1 – 8:20 PM

Malta

Love to Paradise

Malta/Australia 2017. Dir: Julian Galea. 80 min. DCP

A tour of the Mediterranean archipelago of Malta ignites passion between an American backpacker and a local artist in the sunkissed debut feature of Julian Galea, an Australian writer-director of Maltese heritage. Starring Myko Olivier (Glee) and Marysia S. Peres (Assassin’s Creed), this steamy two-hander doubles as a lover letter to the director’s motherland – a “postcard for the destination,” Galea admits – with the country’s medieval villages, megalithic temples, and turquoise lagoons as stunning as the film’s scantily-clad leads. (It also boasts some of the final footage of the world-famous Azure Window before its natural collapse earlier this year.) Named best film at the Malta International Film Festival. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 5:00 PM

Belgium

Baden Baden

Belgium/France 2016. Dir: Rachel Lang. 96 min. DCP

“A very smart film from a very smart first-time feature director” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian), the astonishing full-length debut of French writer-director Rachel Lang – whose 2010 short For You I Will Fight won the Silver Leopard at Locarno – wowed critics at last year’s Berlin Film Festival with its droll, nuanced observations on quarter-life aches and pains. A fleshing out of her two preceding short films, it stars returning actress Salomé Richard (utterly beguiling) as Ana, a malaise-afflicted twentysomething who’s arrived in her native Strasbourg after driving off a Belgian movie-set with the production’s Porsche. Bored and unemployed, she rekindles a romance with her a-hole ex-boyfriend, a video artist, and attempts to remodel her grandmother’s bathroom. “Vigorously inventive . . . A beautifully aimless study of near-adulthood” (Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice). SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 6:45 PM

Ireland

In the Name of Peace: John Hume in America

Ireland 2017. Dir: Maurice Fitzpatrick. 90 min. DCP

“In the Name of Peace: John Hume in America is a feature documentary that tells the extraordinary story of Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume. Inspired by Martin Luther King, Hume rose from the riot-torn streets of North Ireland to enlist American presidents and other world leaders in an effort to secure peace in his homeland. Narrated by Liam Neeson and scored by Bill Whelan, the film includes interviews with Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, John Major, and others. At a time of political instability, In the Name of Peace is a timely film examining steady leadership and international cooperation” (Galway Film Fleadh). SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 – 2:00 PM

Latvia

Mellow Mud (Es esmu šeit)

Latvia 2016. Dir: Renārs Vimba. 106 min. DCP

Winner of a Crystal Bear in the youth section of the Berlin Film Festival, the feature debut of Latvian writer-director Renārs Vimba is an intimate and absorbing portrait of adolescent angst that impresses with its naturalistic visual grammar and a riveting performance by gifted first-timer Elina Vaska. After the death of their father, disaffected 17-year-old Raya (Vaska) and her little brother are placed in the custody of their paternal grandmother Olga, who lives in a small, tucked-away cottage in rural Latvia. When Raya returns home to find Olga dead, she decides to bury the body, keep hush-hush about it, and pursue a tenuous trail that may lead to her estranged mother in London. “A resonant entry in the hard-knock-life tradition epitomized by The 400 Blows . . . Will be appreciated by arthouse fans of all ages” (Alissa Simon, Hollywood Reporter). SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 – 4:00 PM

Germany Croatia

As We Were Dreaming (Als wir träumten)

Germany/France 2015. Dir: Andreas Dresen. 117 min. DCP

Premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, this pulsating, techno-scored drama from prolific German director Andreas Dresen (whose Stopped on Track won Cannes's Un Certain Regard section in 2011) has been dubbed the East German Trainspotting. Set in the GDR city of Leipzig during 1990’s reunification, the film centres on a gang of tight-knit teenage males who, after the fall of the Wall, revel in belligerent, antisocial behaviour – drinking, drugging, thieving, fighting – in the face of an uncertain future. Dresen’s stylish handling of the material – adapted from the acclaimed same-name novel by countryman Clemens Meyer – includes Polaroid-tinted flashbacks, splashy chapter headings, and the sporadic use of voice-over by the film’s impressive lead, Merlin Rose (Wetlands). “Dresen’s fastest-paced work to date . . . Moving and thrilling” (Bénédicte Prot, Cineuropa).

All the Best (Sve najbolje)

Croatia 2016. Dir: Snježana Tribuson. 102 min. DCP

“A Christmas tale with singing and poisoning.” That’s the cheeky tagline for this award-winning festival favourite from seasoned Croatian writer-director Snježana Tribuson, cocreator of the successful, long-running domestic sitcom Take a Rest, You Deserve It (Odmori se, zaslužio si). “Pastry-shop worker Verica and opera singers Brankica and Martin are the protagonists of this story about loneliness and the search for love, set during the Christmas holidays. An accidental series of events, which include cockroaches, gingerbread cookies, and an opera aria, will entwine their destinies and resolve seemingly unsolvable situations” (Croatian Audiovisual Centre). SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 – 6:15 PM

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 8:40 PM

Denmark

Spain

Barcelona Christmas Night

The Commune

Spain 2015. Dir: Dani de la Orden. 95 min. DCP

Denmark/Sweden/Netherlands 2016. Dir: Thomas Vinterberg. 111 min. Blu-ray Disc

Amor is in the frosty air in director Dani de la Orden’s Yuletide reprise of his 2012 romantic-comedy hit, Barcelona Summer Night. Along with a change in temperature, this latest collection of Barcelona-based love stories – all unfolding on Christmas Eve – features a fresh ensemble of both established and up-and-coming Catalonian actors, and an original pop soundtrack composed specifically for the film. Among its crisscrossing, seasonal scenarios: a young couple copes with first-time parenthood over the holidays; a closeted grandmother comes out during Christmas dinner; roommates table the pros and cons of a proposed ménage à trois; and a jaded Saint Nicholas actor has an unexpected encounter, which rekindles his flame for a long-lost love. “A fun and festive comedy delight” (Spanish Film Festival, Australia).

The latest acerbic work from eminent Danish auteur and Dogme 95 vet Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration, The Hunt) is a biting, bittersweet – and semi-autobiographical – “family” drama about a taboo-free commune in 1970s Copenhagen. Trine Dyrholm (In a Better World, A Royal Affair) won Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival for her portrayal of Anna, a TV newscaster whose husband (Ulrich Thomsen), a university professor, inherits his father’s sizable home when the family patriarch dies. Seen by Anna as an opportunity to stave off middle-age ennui, they decide to experiment in communal living – all the rage in ‘70s Scandinavia – with a motley crew of bohemian friends and acquaintances, sending their marriage into freefall. “Vinterberg captures family dysfunction like no other . . . As its lingering emotional impact attests, the film’s simplicities are quite deceptive” (Laura Kern, Film Comment).

(Kollektivet)

(Barcelona, nit d’hivern)

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 – 8:15 PM

MONDAY, DECEMBER 4 – 6:30 PM

Slovakia

The Teacher (Ucitelka)

Slovakia/Czech Republic 2016. Dir: Jan Hřebejk. 103 min. Blu-ray Disc

Marvelous Slovak player Zuzana Mauréry garnered heaps of praise and a Best Actress prize at Karlovy Vary for her ferocious performance as a shady gradeschool educator in this caustic, Communist-era drama from seasoned Czech cinéaste Jan Hřebejk (Divided We Fall, Up and Down). Comrade Drazdechová (Mauréry) is a newly-appointed teacher and Communist Party chairperson at a middle school in early-1980s Bratislava. After taking an odd interest in the occupations of her students’ guardians, it is revealed that the untouchable new teach is behind an extortion racket that has the school’s parents performing personal favours – say, a haircut, an appliance repair, the smuggling of an illegal package! – in order to keep their kids’ academic standings in check. “Exceptional . . . A multifaceted understanding of human nature with a fastidious control of technique and style” (Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times). MONDAY, DECEMBER 4 – 8:40 PM

The National Film Board of Canada and The Cinematheque present In Person: Ann Marie Fleming

Window Horses

(The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming) Canada 2016. Dir: Ann Marie Fleming. 88 min. DCP

Written and directed by award-winning Vancouver filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming, Window Horses is an extraordinary animated tale of art, history, family, and culture. Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. When she is invited to perform at a poetry festival in Shiraz, Iran, Rosie decides to embark on a trip that will change her life. She finds herself in the company of poets and Persians who tell her stories that force her to confront her past – the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her – and the nature of poetry itself. Voiced by a cast that includes Sandra Oh, Ellen Page and Don McKellar, Window Horses is a film about love, finding your own path, and learning how to forgive. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 – 4:00 PM

Membership in The Cinematheque is not required for this event. This special public screening of Window Horses is presented as part of Taking the Creative Lead, a two-day masterclass for animation creatives designed to develop a set of tools to assist participants in their own creative development, led by some of B.C.’s finest animators. The masterclass is presented by The National Film Board of Canada and Creative BC in participation with Drawn Together Vancouver, and will be held at The Cinematheque on Saturday, November 25 and Sunday, November 26, 2017. For more information or to register for the masterclass, please visit www.nfb.ca/animation-masterclass

NEW RESTORATIONS

THE GREAT SILENCE

Written by Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes!

“One of the three most important and influential horror

New Restoration!

First-ever Restoration!

Time to Die (Tiempo de morir) Mexico 1965. Dir: Arturo Ripstein. 90 min. DCP

Two of Latin America’s literary heavyweights, Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes, and one of Mexican cinema’s great masters, Arturo Ripstein (here a precocious 21-year-old making his directing debut), are the talents behind this splendid Mexican Western (or “Chili Western”), now beautifully restored and receiving its first North American release. Returning to his home village after 18 years in prison for murder, Juan Sáyago (Jorge Martínez de Hoyos) longs to live a peaceful life, but the two sons of the man he killed are thirsty for vengeance. Mexican screen legend Marga López, top-billed, plays Sáyago’s old flame. Ripstein, a disciple of Buñuel’s, crafts a spare, striking, elemental drama that effectively and unsentimentally treats themes of honour, pride, machismo, and family. This was Marquez’s first realized screenplay; its plot has parallels with his 1981 novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Marquez’s dialogue was “Mexican-ized” by Fuentes. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 4:30 PM & 8:30 PM SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 6:30 PM

films ever made.” — Kim Newman, Sight & Sound

Night of the Living Dead USA 1968.

Dir: George E. Romero. 96 min. DCP

A radical, game-changing work of savage socialcommentary-cum-horror, the landmark first film by splatter icon George E. Romero – who died in July in his adopted hometown of Toronto – established the rules of the zombie playbook we’ve stuck to ever since. A drive-in cash cow that ushered in an entire generation of American indies, Romero’s DIY cheapie, shot outside Pittsburgh with a cast of unknowns, tells the smart, slyly-simple story of a group of strangers barricaded inside a farmhouse besieged by a horde of lumbering, flesh-eating ghouls. (“Zombie” isn’t even uttered.) Romero, bucking convention of the era, casts a black actor (Duane Jones) as the hero, offs the assumed white hero in the first reel, and delivers a shock ending that still unsettles. Though the film caused a furor for its amped-up gore, it’s the Trojan-horsing of ’60s protest issues – Vietnam. American racism – that proved what the genre was truly capable of. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 8:15 PM

New Restoration!

The Great Silence

(Il grande silenzio) Italy/France 1968. Dir: Sergio Corbucci. 105 min. DCP

Widely considered to be a masterwork of its genre and the magnum opus of its maker, this subversive, hard-R cult curio from Django director Sergio Corbucci may be the most influential Spaghetti Western you’ve never seen! Shelved in North America for its radical politics and wallop of a downer ending – the deaths of Che Guevara and Malcolm X were cited inspirations – Corbucci’s bleak, wintry shoot-’em-up, set during Utah’s Great Blizzard of 1899, has grown legendary in reputation, with renegades Alex Cox and Quentin Tarantino at the top of its list of admirers. (The latter borrows liberally from it in his own “snow Western,” The Hateful Eight.) Herzog madman Klaus Kinski plays a bloodthirsty bounty hunter who locks horns with a mute gunslinger (Jean-Louis Trintignant, of recent Haneke). Spaghetti maestro Ennio Morricone scores. “Corbucci’s best and his bleakest . . . A classic of transgressive cinema” (Alex Cox). FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3 – 8:15 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 6:30 PM SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 8:15 PM

“Unapologetically odd . . . An increasingly weird mix of Heart of Darkness and The Wizard of Oz.” – Steward Mason, AllMusic.com New Restoration!

Roadkill

Canada 1989. Dir: Bruce McDonald. 80 min. DCP

When Bruce McDonald’s debut feature, the rock-and-roll road movie Roadkill, won the $25,000 prize for best Canadian film at TIFF in 1989, the maverick Toronto director famously quipped that he was going to buy “a big chunk of hash.” Now a Canadian cult classic – and newly restored – Roadkill stars Valerie Buhagiar as naïve Ramona, intern at a concert agency, who’s sent on a quest to find the Children of Paradise, a band missing somewhere in Northern Ontario. Canuck mainstay Don McKellar plays a would-be serial killer and wrote the film’s script. Musicians Nash the Slash, Leslie Spit Treeo, and Joey Ramone make appearances. The soundtrack features a wealth of Canadian indie rock. Hipster McDonald would rock-androll and road-movie it all over again in Highway 61, his awardwinning follow-up, also featuring Buhagiar and McKellar. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10 – 8:30 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 6:30 PM

R e v o l u t i o n a r y

R i s i n g

The Soviet Fi lm Vanguard The Cinema That Shook the World N

ovember marks the 100th anniversary of Russia’s October Revolution (November by the Gregorian calendar), an event that not only shook the world (to paraphrase John Reed) but revolutionized the world of cinema.

"Of all the arts," Lenin would famously declare, "for us cinema is the most important." For a time, through the 1920s and into the 1930s, a remarkable cinematic revolution flourished in the USSR, lead by a visionary vanguard that included pioneers and innovators such as Vertov, Eisenstein, Dovzhenko, and Pudovkin. Individually and collectively, these artists and thinkers expanded the expressive possibilities of cinema and created some of the most extraordinary films ever made. They also, in their experiments with film editing, with montage, with the juxtaposition (or context) of images as the basis of cinematic meaning and communication, developed one of the paramount theoretical frameworks for understanding the art form and its language. This creative explosion was both state sponsored and avant-garde. While it was undeniably intended to extol the virtues of the Revolution and advance the Soviet project, it was also, if not immune from official criticism or censorship, still relatively free of the creative shackles that would hamper (and imperil) artists after the early 1930s, when, under Stalin's tightening grip, there was stricter enforcement of Socialist Realism, with its disdain for “formalism,” as the approved Soviet aesthetic. This 100th anniversary program – celebrating not Soviet communism but a historic period in Soviet and world cinema – does not neglect the canonical works, but is built around the rarer opportunity to view lesser-known but important films that, in the aggregate, demonstrate the breadth of this influential and transformative cinematic movement. Acknowledgements: Alla Verlotsky, Seagull Films, New York

Battleship Potemkin

Old and New

USSR 1925. Dir: Sergei Eisenstein. 69 min. 35mm

USSR 1929. Dirs: Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov. 120 min. DCP

(Bronenosets Potyomkin)

Eisenstein’s revolutionary masterpiece is one of cinema’s immortal works. Commissioned to mark the 20th anniversary of the failed Russian revolution of 1905, it centres on a mutiny launched by the crew of a naval vessel against their Tsarist officers. Potemkin’s “Odessa Steps” sequence – complete with bouncing baby carriage careening perilously down the stairs – is one of the most analyzed and imitated in cinema history. The power and excitement of Eisenstein’s artistry are astonishing; the film is a sensational showcase for the director’s legendary genius at montage – at imparting ideas, emotion, rhythm, and tone through the juxtaposition of images. It is also, like most Eisenstein works, too full of visual, aesthetic, and intellectual derring-do to have ever passed muster as the mass art it was intended to be. This version includes a recent recording of Edmund Meisel’s rousing original score. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 6:30 PM MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – 9:10 PM

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (Neobychainye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov) USSR 1924. Dir: Lev Kuleshov. 94 min. DCP

Pioneering film theorist Lev Kuleshov lampoons Western stereotypes of Soviet life in this fresh, frenetic satirical comedy, inspired by American slapstick cinema. The madcap plot has Mr. West, a gullible American executive, and Jed, his cowboy bodyguard, visiting Moscow. The two expect to find a land of brutes and bandits; they quickly fall prey to a criminal gang of con artists quite happy to exploit those prejudices. After several misadventures, the visitors discover the “real” USSR. Kuleshov – whose famed “Kuleshov Effect” advanced the then-radical idea that meaning in cinema is created through montage, the juxtaposition of images – was a mentor to Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and other Soviet greats. This intelligent, gag-filled farce, the first feature from his seminal Kuleshov Workshop, was a hit at home in its day and has proved a lasting classic of silent comedy. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 8:00 PM

(Staroye i novoye)

Also known as The General Line, Eisenstein’s last silent picture is one of his most beautiful works – and one of his least seen (it was unavailable for The Cinematheque’s Eisenstein retrospective in 2012). The film dramatizes the collectivization of Soviet agriculture through the tale of Marfa, a peasant woman battling hostility and superstition in her efforts to modernize (and Sovietize) local farms. The use of an individual protagonist, rather than the “mass” hero, was a departure from Eisenstein’s usual practice. The “cream separator” sequence is celebrated; this visually-sophisticated film is throughout a remarkable display of overtonal, or polyphonic, montage, an advanced editing technique Eisenstein likened to symphonic music (or “the filmic fourth dimension”). Eisenstein interrupted production to make October; when he returned to the project, the political situation had changed and he was forced to re-edit. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 4:00 PM

Salt for Svanetia (Sol Svanetii)

USSR 1930. Dir: Mikhail Kalatozov. 58 min. DCP

Little known outside the former Soviet Union, this startling, surreal ethnographic treasure anticipates Buñuel’s Las Hurdes (aka Land Without Bread) and was directed by Georgia-born Mikhail Kalatozov, whose long career includes the Palme d’Or-winning The Cranes Are Flying (1957) and the remarkable I am Cuba (1964). The film depicts, with visual bravado and lyrical intensity, harsh living conditions and medieval traditions in a mountain community in the Caucasus cut off from civilization. Many of the film’s images – pagan-like animal sacrifices; a mother squeezing breast milk onto the grave of her child – retain their power to shock. “Sur-realist in the literal sense of the term . . . I wish that Kalatozov’s early masterpiece were better known” (Jay Leyda, Kino). MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – 6:30 PM

THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA

"Of all the arts, for us cinema is the most important." - LENIN

The Man with a Movie Camera

Fragment of an Empire

USSR 1929. Dir: Dziga Vertov. 68 min. Blu-ray Disc

USSR 1929. Dir: Friedrich Ermler. 80 min. DCP

(Chelovek s kinoapparatom)

Dziga Vertov’s renowned ciné-poem, a landmark of documentary and avant-garde practice, remains an exhilarating experience. A “City Symphony” in the manner of certain other non-fiction films of the silent era, it offers a dazzling “kino-eye” portrait of a day in the life of a large Soviet city. It is also radically selfreflexive, never ceasing to remind us that its actualities are filmed actualities. With elaborate montage, camera tricks, and other cinematic pyrotechnics, The Man with a Movie Camera constantly calls attention to the process of its own making. Vertov’s ultimate concern is the relation between film and reality – and the revolutionary power of the former to transform the latter. In recent polls conducted by Sight & Sound magazine, Vertov’s masterpiece was voted one of the ten best films of all time and the greatest documentary ever made!

(Oblomok imperii)

A young man who lost his memory during WWI regains it years later in Friedrich Ermler’s impressive attempt to render the process of remembrance on film. Filimonov (Feodor Nikitin), the protagonist, suddenly sees the world of 1928, and the new Soviet society, through the eyes of Tsarist-era 1915. Nothing is as he remembers, including the fact that St. Petersburg is now Leningrad and modernized. Recalling too that he had a wife (Lyudmila Semyonova), he sets out to find her. The film is a winning mix of political parable, social satire, and complex psychology, and displays terrific location photography. Director Ermler was described by esteemed French critic Georges Sadoul as “a major filmmaker” and by the Film Society of Lincoln Centre as “one of the many Soviet-era artists in need of serious re-evaluation, or just plain discovery.” MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13 – 8:30 PM

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – 7:45 PM

Outskirts

(aka The Patriots) (Okraina)

USSR 1933. Dir: Boris Barnet. 98 min. DCP

Relatively unsung, but admired by several giants (including Godard, Rivette, and Tarkovsky), Boris Barnet, a disciple of Lev Kuleshov, was one of the finest Soviet filmmakers of his time. The ambitious Outskirts, Barnet’s first sound work, is an enduring Russian masterpiece. The film is a tragicomedy set in a small town on the Russian-German border during WWI. Its drama of rising nationalism, divided loyalties, and revolutionary fervor includes Yelena Kuzmina as a young Russian woman who falls in love with a German POW. Outskirts impresses with its visual and aural expressiveness and Chekhovian sensibility. “One of the best films made anywhere in the ’30s – droll, pathetic, powerful, charming, and atmospheric” (Georges Sadoul). “It’s rare that a textbook classic proves wildly exciting to watch years later, but this sure does” (Tony Rayns, Time Out).

Aelita, Queen of Mars (Aelita)

USSR 1924. Dir: Yakov Protazanov. 111 min. DCP

The most celebrated Soviet film until Battleship Potemkin – and the world’s first-ever feature about interplanetary travel – is an extravagant wonder of Russian Constructivist decor and costume. Based on a novel by Alexei Tolstoy, and directed by the prolific Yakov Protazanov (whose The Tailor from Torzhok also screens in the series), this futuristic fantasy has a half-mad Moscow engineer, a Red Army soldier, and a bungling amateur detective rocketing off to Mars. The Red Planet, they discover, is ruled by the autocratic but seductive Queen Aelita, whom the engineer promptly falls for, while the soldier attempts to foment a Soviet-style revolution. The film’s fast-paced comic plot takes a backseat to the out-of-this-world design. Aelita is perhaps second only to Lang’s Metropolis as the most influential science-fiction movie of the silent era. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – 6:30 PM

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13 – 6:30 PM

SALT FOR SVANETIA

New Moscow

The Tailor from Torzhok

USSR 1938. Dir: Alexander Medvedkin. 100 min. DCP

USSR 1925. Dir: Yakov Protazanov. 65 min. DCP

(Novaya Moskva)

Alexander Medvedkin, the visionary Soviet filmmaker portrayed in Chris Marker’s 1993 documentary The Last Bolshevik, directed this utopian marvel, the surreal, comic tale of a young designer from Siberia who invents a “living model” of Moscow’s future. “New Moscow is an eye-popping amalgamation of country comedy, musical romance, and science fiction . . . Medvedkin shocks through the sheer audacity of his project. His willingness to mix popular culture with avant-garde techniques looks back to an earlier period of Soviet life and politics even as the film envisions an impossibly bright, technologically advanced future” (Richard Peña, Film Society of Lincoln Center). “As playful as a Marx Brothers movie . . . Rife with sight gags, patriotic musical numbers, a giddy love triangle, and visual ingenuity” (Aaron Hillis, Village Voice).

(Zakroyshchik iz Torzhka)

Made shortly after his acclaimed futuristic fantasy Aelita, Queen of Mars (screening November 16), director Yakov Protazanov’s brisk, lively comedy is set against everyday life in a small Russian town during the time of Lenin’s New Economic Policy. Comic actor Igor Ilyinsky (the amateur detective in Aelita) is Petya, a humble tailor working in the shop of widow Shirinikina. The strong-willed widow decides she wants to take Petya for a husband – and is not going to take no for an answer! Petya, meanwhile, is falling in love with Katya, a local domestic. The purchase of a lottery ticket, and its subsequent loss, plays a major part in the comic antics. The film was commissioned by the USSR’s State Lottery Loan. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 6:30 PM

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – 8:40 PM

Bed and Sofa A Sixth Part of the World (Shestaya chast mira)

USSR 1926. Dir: Dziga Vertov. 73 min. DCP

“Man with a Movie Camera” Dziga Vertov sent eight camera crews – kino-oki, or cinema-eyes – to the far-flung corners of the USSR to create this kino-eye travelogue capturing the diverse peoples and lands that then made up one-sixth of the planet. Shot in Ukraine, Siberia, Leningrad, Uzbekistan, and other points, and assembled by master editor Vertov, the film was designed as a clarion call for Soviet unity, and a demonstration of Soviet resources and potential, as the tenth anniversary of the Revolution approached. “A Sixth Part of the World is more than a film . . . Whether it is a newsreel, a comedy, an artistic hit-film, A Sixth Part is somewhere beyond the boundaries of these definitions; it is already the next stage after the concept of ‘cinema’ itself” (Vertov).

(Tretya meshchanskaya)

USSR 1927. Dir: Abram Room. 74 min. DCP

“One of the most delightful and outrageous early Soviet films” (Richard Peña, Film Society of Lincoln Center), Abram Room’s subversive silent comedy sets a surprisingly frank treatment of adultery, free love, and abortion against an unvarnished depiction of privations and housing shortages in 1920s Moscow. Husband Kolya and wife Liuda live in an already-cramped Moscow flat when they’re joined by newto-town Volodya, Kolya’s old pal. Liuda’s initial resentment of the intrusion soon gives way to illicit romantic attraction; before long, all three are happily involved in a ménage à trois. The film’s sexual candour caused it censorship troubles in the U.K. The unusual honesty about Soviet social conditions wouldn’t be possible in the 1930s. The screenplay was allegedly based on poet Vladimir Mayakovsky's love life, which led some to accuse the filmmakers of indelicacy. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 7:50 PM

preceded by

Kino-Pravda No. 21: Leninskaya USSR 1925. Dir: Dziga Vertov. 29 min. DCP

From Dziga Vertov’s famous Kino-Pravda (“Cinema Truth”) newsreel series, this commemoration of the first anniversary of Lenin’s death includes animated effects. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 4:30 PM

SOVIET SIDEBAr The Revolution in 16mm!

THE END OF ST. PETERSBURG

16mm prints from The Cinematheque Archive All seats: $8.00 (single or double bill; adults, students, and seniors) $3 annual membership required

The End of St. Petersburg (Konyets Sankt-Peterburga)

USSR 1927. Dir: Vsevolod Pudovkin. 90 min. 16mm

Vsevolod Pudovkin is often called the second great director of Soviet silent cinema. Like Eisenstein, he was a master of sophisticated montage; unlike Eisenstein, who favoured the mass protagonist and a more intellectual cinema, Pudovkin, influenced by D. W. Griffith, was partial to personal drama, to psychology and emotion, to the plight of individuals caught up in epic events. His films were more popular as a result! Pudovkin’s second feature, like Eisenstein’s October, was commissioned by the government to mark the tenth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution. It relates events through the tale of a peasant youth who moves to St. Petersburg and is swept up in the turmoil of WWI and the Revolution. Pudovkin’s visually-dynamic epic is a wonder to behold; this is exhilarating filmmaking – rightly regarded as one of the classics of Soviet silent cinema. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20 – 6:30 PM

Arsenal

USSR 1929. Dir: Alexander Dovzhenko. 99 min. 16mm

The Ukrainian Alexander Dovzhenko stands, with Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Vertov, as one of the giants of the Soviet silent era. Many consider Dovzhenko the most radical, innovative, and intensely personal Soviet filmmaker of the period; Georges Sadoul has called him “cinema’s greatest epic poet.” Arsenal, one of Dovzhenko’s two major masterpieces (the other is Earth), is a work of breathtaking lyrical beauty and daring formal experimentation. Nominally the story of a humble Ukrainian soldier during the First World War and the beginnings of the Russian Revolution, the film uses folklore, caricature, comedy, allegory, agit-prop, drama, and myth to expose, in highly symbolic, imagistic, and non-narrative fashion, the horrors of war and the misery of oppression. Soviet film expert Jay Leyda called Arsenal “the first masterpiece of the Ukrainian cinema” and compared its visionary power to Picasso’s Guernica. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20 – 8:15 PM

Storm Over Asia

(aka The Heir to Genghis Khan) (Potomok Chingis-Khan)

USSR 1928. Dir: Vsevolod Pudovkin. 95 min. 16mm

Pudovkin’s last great silent work is, with Mother and The End of St. Petersburg, part of a loose trilogy of Pudovkin films about the awakening of revolutionary consciousness in the face of tyranny. In Soviet Central Asia during the Russian civil war, a nomadic Mongol trapper, taken for a descendent of Genghis Khan, is set up as puppet ruler of Mongolia by British interventionist forces. Gradually, he comes to realizes that he is being used to oppress his own people, and turns against the imperialists who control him. A tour de force of luxuriant visuals, hyperbolic symbolism, ethnographic detail, and virtuoso editing, the film, a popular success at home and abroad, was criticized by Soviet officials for its “formalist indulgence.” Pudovkin remained active in the sound era but never again achieved such magnificent heights. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21 – 6:30 PM

October (Ten Days That Shook the World) (Oktyabr)

USSR 1928. Dirs: Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov. 90 min. 16mm

Commissioned by the Soviet government to honour the tenth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, Eisenstein’s third feature is a sweeping historical epic re-creating the events that brought the Bolsheviks to power. It is also a magnificent showcase for the director’s use of intellectual montage – the juxtaposition of two disparate images to convey an idea or concept not inherent in either image alone. Celebrated examples of the technique include a baroque figure of Christ reduced, through successive images, to a primitive idol; and Kerensky, head of the preRevolutionary provisional government, compared to a preening mechanical peacock. Such metaphorical experiments met with official disapproval; the authorities complained that October was unintelligible to the masses, and Eisenstein was attacked, for neither the first nor last time, for “formalism”. The work remains a remarkable testament to Eisenstein’s artistry and genius. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21 – 8:20 PM

ERIC ROHMER:

Ancient + Modern

erhaps no other filmmaker has mined the interior moral life with more success – and more wit, irony, and intelligence – than Eric Rohmer (1920-2010). 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.

As evidenced by our retrospective heretofore, the bulk of Rohmer’s distinguished, decades-spanning career can be surveyed through his trio of acclaimed cycles: Six Moral Tales (1962-1972), Comedies and Proverbs (1981-1987), and Tales of the Four Seasons (19901998). But some of the cinéaste’s most accomplished and formally-audacious films were crafted outside of those series, as stand-alone works untethered to an overarching theme or conceit. This program of four series outliers, which we've affectionately titled "Ancient and Modern," features three of Rohmer’s dazzling and daring historical literary adaptations The Marquise of O (1976), Perceval (1978), and The Lady and the Duke (2001), plus a playful, oft-neglected comedy about modern life, 4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987).

Perceval

(Perceval le Gallois)

France/Italy/West Germany 1978. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 138 min. DCP

There’s a growing tide of opinion that views this 1978 oddity, easily the most uncharacteristic film in Rohmer’s massive, inimitable oeuvre, as the auteur’s unsung masterpiece. Shot entirely on a soundstage adorned with painterly mise-en-scène (artificial lights and theatre props eschew any semblance of Rohmerian realism), Perceval, Rohmer’s second literary adaptation after The Marquise of O (also screening), faithfully transposes Chrétien de Troyes’s 12th-century Arthurian poem to the screen, rhyming couplets and all. It chronicles the escapades of young, naïve Perceval (Fabrice Luchini), who, upon discovering that knights exist, vows to one day pull up a chair at King Arthur’s Table. Despite the film’s formal departures, Rohmer’s signature is very much in evidence: ironic wit, moral dilemmas, and familiar faces (Pascale Ogier, Marie Rivière) all factor in, as does the rapturous cinematography of master Néstor Almendros. “Undoubtedly one of the most original, daring, and meticulously devised films in all of cinema” (Andréa Picard, Cinema Scope). SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 – 6:00 PM SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16 – 8:30 PM

The Marquise of O

(Die Marquise von O… / La Marquise d’O…) West Germany/France 1976. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 102 min. DCP

Eric Rohmer’s first historical drama was this elegant, visually-exquisite adaptation of German Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist’s 1808 novella. Set in northern Italy during the Napoleonic Wars, it features Edith Clever in the title role as a virtuous widow who one day finds herself inexplicably pregnant. Bruno Ganz co-stars as the Russian count who months before had saved her from being raped by soldiers of the invading Russian army. Rohmer is said to have learned German so he could make the film in the language of Kleist. The beautiful cinematography of Néstor Almendros, a frequent Rohmer collaborator, references artworks by painters of the period such as Caspar David Friedrich, Henry Fuseli, and Jacques-Louis David. “A dazzling testament to the civilizing effects of several different arts . . . Witty, joyous, and so beautiful to look at” (Vincent Canby, New York Times). SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 – 8:40 PM MONDAY, DECEMBER 11 – 6:30 PM SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17 – 4:00 PM

PERCEVAL

ROHMER IN RETROSPECT! This is the concluding program in an ongoing Rohmer retrospective presented at The Cinematheque in 2017. Rohmer's film cycles Six Moral Tales, Comedies and Proverbs, and Tales of the Four Seasons screened previously.

The Lady and the Duke (L’anglaise et le Duc)

France 2001. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 129 min. 35mm

Rohmer entered the aughts, as well as his eighties, with this hyper-stylized costume drama, the director’s first literary adaptation since his astonishing, misfit masterpiece Perceval (also screening) 23 years earlier. Based on the memoirs of Scottish courtesan and spy Grace Elliot, who aided monarchists in France during the Reign of Terror, it casts Lucy Russell (Toni Erdmann) opposite Jean-Claude Dreyfus (Delicatessen) as the titular aristocrats and former lovers – she a royalist sympathizer, he a throne-renouncing revolutionary. Rohmer, ahead of the curve, shot the film on burgeoning digital video and used blue-screen exteriors to superimpose his costumed players onto an uncanny, 18th-century Paris fabricated through CGI and matte painting. The result, elegant and unusual, adds a ravishing visual palette to this talkative tale of political intrigue and right-leaning historical revisionism. “Exquisite . . . Visually innovative and intellectually astute” (Glenn Kenny, Premiere). MONDAY, DECEMBER 11 – 8:30 PM SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17 – 6:00 PM MONDAY, DECEMBER 18 – 8:25 PM

4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (4 aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle) France 1987. Dir: Eric Rohmer. 99 min. 35mm

A summery charmer, Rohmer’s underrated 4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle follows two young women – naïve country girl Reinette (Joëlle Miquel), worldly city slicker Mirabelle (Jessica Forde) – over the course of four Rohmerian adventures, three of them set in Paris and involving the moral and philosophical quandaries posed by modern urban life. As always in Rohmer’s cinema, wit, irony, intelligence, and the pleasures of conversation are paramount. The film was made quickly during a break in the production of The Green Ray, one of Rohmer’s masterworks; the two movies are also linked by their parallel references to evanescent atmospheric marvels: the “green ray” of sunset there, the “blue hour” of pre-dawn in the “Blue Hour” episode here. 4 Adventures is a loving, generous, low-key delight from a master of the modern comedy of manners, morals, and misunderstandings. “Delightful . . . Which other filmmaker loves us, warts and all, so perceptively or so generously? Therein lies Rohmer’s abiding genius” (Geoff Andrew, Time Out). SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16 – 6:30 PM SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17 – 8:30 PM MONDAY, DECEMBER 18 – 6:30 PM

SUN

MON

TUES

WED

TICKETS

THURS

Canada on Screen

Le vieux pays où Rimbaud est mort – 6:30 pm

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.

NOVEMBER

Soviet Film Vanguard

Old and New – 4:00 pm

Salt for Svanetia – 6:30 pm

Time to Die – 6:30 pm

The Man with a Movie Camera – 7:45 pm

The Great Silence – 8:15 pm

Battleship Potemkin – 9:10 pm

New Restorations

Canada on Screen

On est au coton – 3:00 pm

Soviet Film Vanguard

Outskirts – 6:30 pm

New Restorations

Time to Die – 6:30 pm The Great Silence – 8:15 pm

Not a Love Story + Bûcherons de la Manouane – 2:00 pm Time to Die – 4:30 pm The Great Silence – 6:30 pm Time to Die – 8:30 pm

DIM Cinema

Big Boy – 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

New Restorations

Canada on Screen

Picture of Light + Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper – 6:30 pm

New Restorations

Night of the Living Dead – 6:30 pm

GUEST

Frames of Mind

Beyond the Spectrum: A Family’s Year Confronting Autism – 7:30 pm

Soviet Film Vanguard

Aelita, Queen of Mars – 6:30 pm

New Moscow – 8:40 pm

New Restorations

Roadkill – 6:30 pm Night of the Living Dead – 8:15 pm

Roadkill – 8:30 pm

La femme de l’hôtel – 8:25 pm

Lantouri – 4:00 pm

Lantouri – 7:00 pm

SAT

For November 1 film descriptions, please consult our previous program guide or visit theCinematheque.ca

People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose – 9:00 pm

Contemporary Iranian Cinema

Battleship Potemkin – 6:30 pm

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West… – 8:00 pm

Elvis Gratton + Very Nice, Very Nice + La lutte – 8:40 pm

HOW TO BUY TICKETS

Soviet Film Vanguard

FRI

Canada on Screen

Back to God’s Country with Live Musical Accompaniment – 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner – 7:00 pm

Fragment of an Empire – 8:30 pm ALL SCREENINGS ARE RESTRICTED TO 18+ UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED $3 ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED FOR THOSE 18+

theCinematheque.ca

Cinema Sunday | Canada on Screen

Constructing Canadiana – 1:00 pm Soviet Film Vanguard A Sixth Part of the World: + Kino-Pravda #21 – 4:30 pm

The Tailor from Torzhok – 6:30 pm

Soviet Sidebar

The End of St. Petersburg – 6:30 pm

Soviet Sidebar

Storm Over Asia – 6:30 pm

70 Years of Polish Animation – 7:00 pm

The Dissidents – 6:30 pm

EUFF 2017

The Fixer – 6:30 pm Les ogres – 8:30 pm

Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge – 8:30 pm

October (Ten Days That Shook the World) – 8:20 pm

Arsenal – 8:15 pm

EUFF 2017

Bed and Sofa – 7:50 pm

IN THIS ISSUE

EUFF 2017 2–6

Window Horses – 4:00 pm

EUFF 2017

In the Name of Peace: John Hume in America – 2:00 pm

Emilia – 6:30 pm

11th A Grade – 8:45 pm

EUFF 2017

Saint George – 6:30 pm

Kincsem – 8:45 pm

All the Best – 6:15 pm

POLISH ANIMATION 23

Barcelona Christmas Night – 8:15 pm

Contemporary Iranian Cinema

Nahid – 7:00 pm

EUFF 2017

The Commune – 6:30 pm

The Teacher – 8:40 pm

Mellow Mud – 4:00 pm

CANADA ON SCREEN 16–22

ESSENTIAL CINEMA 24-25

EUFF 2017

Night of a 1000 Hours – 6:30 pm

Boy on the Bridge – 8:30 pm

DIM CINEMA 26

Eric Rohmer

The Marquise of O – 6:30 pm

The Lady and the Duke – 8:30 pm

FRAMES OF MIND 26

DIM Cinema | Canada on Screen

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World (Part I) - 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media – 7:00 pm

EUFF 2017

Little Wing – 6:30 pm The Fury – 8:30 pm

Eternal Summer – 8:20 pm

ERIC ROHMER 12–13

CONTEMPORARY IRANIAN CINEMA 23

Mammejong – 6:30 pm

NEW RESTORATIONS 7

SOVIET SIDEBAR 11

Special Presentation EUFF 2017

WINDOW HORSES 6

SOVIET FILM VANGUARD 8–11

GUEST

DIM Cinema | Canada on Screen

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World (Part II) - 7:00 pm

EUFF 2017

Nightlife – 6:30 pm Leopardi – 8:20 pm

Canada on Screen Loyalties + Black Soul – 7:00 pm

Love to Paradise – 5:00 pm Baden Baden – 6:45 pm

DECEMBER GUEST

EUFF 2017

GUEST

Canada on Screen

Two Generators – 7:00 pm

As We Were Dreaming – 8:40 pm

Eric Rohmer

Perceval – 6:00 pm The Marquise of O – 8:40 pm

Canada on Screen

Rude + Save My Lost Nigga Soul – 7:00 pm

Contemporary Iranian Cinema

Nahid – 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing + The Sand Castle – 6:30 pm

Eric Rohmer

4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle – 6:30 pm Perceval – 8:30 pm

Sonatine – 8:30 pm

CINEMA SUNDAY 27

Cinema Sunday

A Christmas Story – 1:00 pm

Rated G

Eric Rohmer

Rated PG

The Marquise of O – 4:00 pm The Lady and the Duke – 6:00 pm

Rated 14A

Rated R BACKGROUND IMAGE:

Eric Rohmer

4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle – 6:30 pm

Frames of Mind

Harvey – 7:30 pm

Canada on Screen

Black Christmas – 7:00 pm

Essential Cinema

City Lights – 6:30 pm

City Lights – 4:30 pm

Paris, Texas – 8:15 pm

Black Orpheus – 6:30 pm

The Lady and the Duke – 8:25 pm

Ikiru – 8:40 pm

4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle – 8:30 pm

Rated 18A

4 ADVENTURES OF REINETTE AND MIRABELLE

GUEST

Closed for the Holidays December 24–25

Essential Cinema

Ikiru – 4:00 pm Paris, Texas – 6:45 pm

Essential Cinema

Days of Heaven – 6:30 pm

Black Orpheus – 8:20 pm

Essential Cinema

City Lights – 6:30 pm Days of Heaven – 8:15 pm

Essential Cinema

Black Orpheus – 6:30 pm

Paris, Texas – 8:40 pm

Essential Cinema

Days of Heaven – 4:00 pm Ikiru – 6:00 pm City Lights – 8:45 pm

presents

Perfect Holiday Gifts for the Film Lover! 2018 Annual Film Pass $350 10 Double-Bill Pass $120 / $140

Gift Certificates $10

PURCHASE AT THE BOX OFFICE ON SCREENING NIGHTS OR CALL OUR OFFICE AT 604.688.8202

SUN

MON

TUES

WED

TICKETS

THURS

Canada on Screen

Le vieux pays où Rimbaud est mort – 6:30 pm

NOVEMBER

Soviet Film Vanguard

Old and New – 4:00 pm

Salt for Svanetia – 6:30 pm

Time to Die – 6:30 pm

The Man with a Movie Camera – 7:45 pm

The Great Silence – 8:15 pm

Battleship Potemkin – 9:10 pm

New Restorations

Canada on Screen

On est au coton – 3:00 pm

Soviet Film Vanguard

Outskirts – 6:30 pm

New Restorations

Time to Die – 6:30 pm The Great Silence – 8:15 pm

Not a Love Story + Bûcherons de la Manouane – 2:00 pm Time to Die – 4:30 pm The Great Silence – 6:30 pm Time to Die – 8:30 pm

DIM Cinema

Big Boy – 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

New Restorations

Canada on Screen

Picture of Light + Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper – 6:30 pm

New Restorations

Night of the Living Dead – 6:30 pm

GUEST

Frames of Mind

Beyond the Spectrum: A Family’s Year Confronting Autism – 7:30 pm

Soviet Film Vanguard

Aelita, Queen of Mars – 6:30 pm

New Moscow – 8:40 pm

New Restorations

Roadkill – 6:30 pm Night of the Living Dead – 8:15 pm

Roadkill – 8:30 pm

La femme de l’hôtel – 8:25 pm

Lantouri – 4:00 pm

Lantouri – 7:00 pm

SAT

For November 1 film descriptions, please consult our previous program guide or visit theCinematheque.ca

People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose – 9:00 pm

Contemporary Iranian Cinema

Battleship Potemkin – 6:30 pm

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West… – 8:00 pm

Elvis Gratton + Very Nice, Very Nice + La lutte – 8:40 pm

HOW TO BUY TICKETS

Soviet Film Vanguard

FRI

Canada on Screen

Back to God’s Country with Live Musical Accompaniment – 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner – 7:00 pm

Fragment of an Empire – 8:30 pm ALL SCREENINGS ARE RESTRICTED TO 18+ UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED $3 ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED FOR THOSE 18+

theCinematheque.ca

Cinema Sunday | Canada on Screen

Constructing Canadiana – 1:00 pm Soviet Film Vanguard A Sixth Part of the World: + Kino-Pravda #21 – 4:30 pm

The Tailor from Torzhok – 6:30 pm

Soviet Sidebar

The End of St. Petersburg – 6:30 pm

Soviet Sidebar

Storm Over Asia – 6:30 pm

70 Years of Polish Animation – 7:00 pm

The Dissidents – 6:30 pm

EUFF 2017

The Fixer – 6:30 pm Les ogres – 8:30 pm

Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge – 8:30 pm

October (Ten Days That Shook the World) – 8:20 pm

Arsenal – 8:15 pm

EUFF 2017

Bed and Sofa – 7:50 pm

IN THIS ISSUE

EUFF 2017 2–6

Window Horses – 4:00 pm

EUFF 2017

In the Name of Peace: John Hume in America – 2:00 pm

Emilia – 6:30 pm

11th A Grade – 8:45 pm

EUFF 2017

Saint George – 6:30 pm

Kincsem – 8:45 pm

All the Best – 6:15 pm

POLISH ANIMATION 23

Barcelona Christmas Night – 8:15 pm

Contemporary Iranian Cinema

Nahid – 7:00 pm

EUFF 2017

The Commune – 6:30 pm

The Teacher – 8:40 pm

Mellow Mud – 4:00 pm

CANADA ON SCREEN 16–22

ESSENTIAL CINEMA 24-25

EUFF 2017

Night of a 1000 Hours – 6:30 pm

Boy on the Bridge – 8:30 pm

DIM CINEMA 26

Eric Rohmer

The Marquise of O – 6:30 pm

The Lady and the Duke – 8:30 pm

FRAMES OF MIND 26

DIM Cinema | Canada on Screen

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World (Part I) - 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media – 7:00 pm

EUFF 2017

Little Wing – 6:30 pm The Fury – 8:30 pm

Eternal Summer – 8:20 pm

ERIC ROHMER 12–13

CONTEMPORARY IRANIAN CINEMA 23

Mammejong – 6:30 pm

NEW RESTORATIONS 7

SOVIET SIDEBAR 11

Special Presentation EUFF 2017

WINDOW HORSES 6

SOVIET FILM VANGUARD 8–11

GUEST

DIM Cinema | Canada on Screen

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World (Part II) - 7:00 pm

EUFF 2017

Nightlife – 6:30 pm Leopardi – 8:20 pm

Canada on Screen Loyalties + Black Soul – 7:00 pm

Love to Paradise – 5:00 pm Baden Baden – 6:45 pm

DECEMBER GUEST

EUFF 2017

GUEST

Canada on Screen

Two Generators – 7:00 pm

As We Were Dreaming – 8:40 pm

Eric Rohmer

Perceval – 6:00 pm The Marquise of O – 8:40 pm

Canada on Screen

Rude + Save My Lost Nigga Soul – 7:00 pm

Contemporary Iranian Cinema

Nahid – 7:00 pm

Canada on Screen

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing + The Sand Castle – 6:30 pm

Eric Rohmer

4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle – 6:30 pm Perceval – 8:30 pm

Sonatine – 8:30 pm

CINEMA SUNDAY 27

Cinema Sunday

A Christmas Story – 1:00 pm

Rated G

Eric Rohmer

Rated PG

The Marquise of O – 4:00 pm The Lady and the Duke – 6:00 pm

Rated 14A

Rated R BACKGROUND IMAGE:

Eric Rohmer

4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle – 6:30 pm

Frames of Mind

Harvey – 7:30 pm

Canada on Screen

Black Christmas – 7:00 pm

Essential Cinema

City Lights – 6:30 pm

City Lights – 4:30 pm

Paris, Texas – 8:15 pm

Black Orpheus – 6:30 pm

The Lady and the Duke – 8:25 pm

Ikiru – 8:40 pm

4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle – 8:30 pm

Rated 18A

4 ADVENTURES OF REINETTE AND MIRABELLE

GUEST

Closed for the Holidays December 24–25

Essential Cinema

Ikiru – 4:00 pm Paris, Texas – 6:45 pm

Essential Cinema

Days of Heaven – 6:30 pm

Black Orpheus – 8:20 pm

Essential Cinema

City Lights – 6:30 pm Days of Heaven – 8:15 pm

Essential Cinema

Black Orpheus – 6:30 pm

Paris, Texas – 8:40 pm

Essential Cinema

Days of Heaven – 4:00 pm Ikiru – 6:00 pm City Lights – 8:45 pm

presents

Perfect Holiday Gifts for the Film Lover! 2018 Annual Film Pass $350 10 Double-Bill Pass $120 / $140

Gift Certificates $10

PURCHASE AT THE BOX OFFICE ON SCREENING NIGHTS OR CALL OUR OFFICE AT 604.688.8202

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-image 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 be 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.

Free Admission!

Entrée gratuite!

Not a Love Story: A Film about Pornography

C’est surtout pas de l’amour : Un film sur la pornographie

“Bonnie Sherr Klein’s tough-minded interrogation of the 1980s pornography boom was released into a volatile political environment that practically guaranteed the film instant notoriety and misunderstanding. Deeming pornography a danger, some prominent feminists had made unlikely common cause with the burgeoning religious right to advocate censorship — a tactic which infuriated many leftists. Klein’s film gives space to both sides of the debate — feminist thinkers such as Margaret Atwood and Kate Millet; pro-porn advocates such as poet, performance artist, and stripper Lindalee Tracey — even as it refuses to conceal the filmmaker’s shock at what she witnesses in the ‘adult entertainment’ industry. Not a Love Story remains a tough and exceedingly uncomfortable viewing experience — not to mention a still-relevant one” (Steve Gravestock, Canada on Screen digital catalogue).

« L’enquête sans concession menée par Bonnie Sherr Klein sur le boom de la pornographie durant les années 1980 a été lancée dans un contexte politique instable menant à sa notoriété, mais aussi à son incompréhension. Estimant que la pornographie est un danger, certaines féministes réputées ont, contre toute attente, uni leurs efforts avec la droite religieuse en plein essor pour revendiquer la censure; une tactique qui a contrarié la gauche. Le film de Klein donne la parole aux deux clans du débat : d’une côté, les féministes comme Margaret Atwood et Kate Millet, et de l’autre, les défenseurs de la porno comme l’artiste et stripteaseuse Lindalee Tracey. Une œuvre qui refuse de dissimuler le choc ressenti par la réalisatrice tandis qu’elle plonge dans les secrets de l’industrie du «divertissement pour adultes», et qui occasionne une expérience de visionnement inconfortable, mais tout à fait pertinente encore aujourd’hui. » (Steve Gravestock, catalogue numérique de Canada à l’écran).

Canada 1981. Dir: Bonnie Sherr Klein. 69 min. DCP

Canada 1981. Réal. : Bonnie Sherr Klein. 69 min. DCP

Warning: Contains material that may offend some viewers. Avertissement : Contenu susceptible de heurter la sensibilité de certains spectateurs.

preceded by

précédé de

Bûcherons de la Manouane (Manouane River Lumberjacks) Canada 1962. Dir: Arthur Lamothe. 28 min. DCP

The influential social documentarian Arthur Lamothe, “Canada’s greatest ethnographic filmmaker” (Take One), was born in France and immigrated to Quebec in the 1950s; he worked for a time in a lumberjack camp. His first film, depicting lumberjack life in central Quebec, is one of his greatest: a masterful portrait of a traditional existence on the verge of disappearing. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 2:00 PM

Entrée gratuite!

Bûcherons de la Manouane (Manouane River Lumberjacks) Canada 1962. Réal. : Arthur Lamothe. 28 min. DCP

Né en France, Arthur Lamothe a immigré au Québec au cours des années 1950, où il est devenu « le plus grand réalisateur ethnographe du Canada » (Take One) et a signé plusieurs documentaires sociaux influents. Mais il a aussi travaillé dans un camp de bûcherons dans le Centre-du-Québec; une expérience qui a nourri son premier film, le portrait maîtrisé d’un mode de vie traditionnel en voie de disparition. SAMEDI 4 NOVEMBRE – 14 H

Free Admission! New Restoration!

Entrée gratuite! Nouvelle copie restaurée!

Picture of Light

Peter Mettler, the visionary Canadian cinematographer (Manufactured Landscapes) and director (Gambling, Gods and LSD), sets out to film the unfilmable in this awe-inspiring documentary. Mettler’s impossible quest, which takes him to chilly Churchill, Manitoba, with a small crew and a specially-designed camera, is to capture the Northern Lights on celluloid. The quixotic effort yields truly wondrous visual results and a wealth of other heady pleasures: explanations, scientific and spiritual, for the aurora borealis phenomenon; memorable portraits of the eccentrics inhabiting Churchill’s subarctic environs; the filmmaker musing, philosophically and ironically, on his mission, his medium, and our modern devotion to images. “Extraordinary . . . An investigation of knowledge and representation worthy of Werner Herzog or Chris Marker “ (Tom McSorley, Take One).

Directeur photo (Paysages manufacturés) et réalisateur (Gambling, Gods and LSD) canadien visionnaire, Peter Mettler a réalisé un tour de force en tournant ce documentaire fascinant. Sa quête impossible, qui visait à capter des aurores boréales sur pellicule, l’a entraîné à Churchill (Manitoba) avec une petite équipe et une caméra conçue sur mesure. Le projet chimérique a toutefois mené à de formidables résultats : de superbes images, des explications scientifiques et spirituelles du phénomène, des portraits mémorables des habitants de région subarctique de Churchill, ainsi que des réflexions philosophiques ou ironiques du réalisateur concernant sa mission, son médium et notre attachement moderne aux images. « Extraordinaire… Une enquête sur le savoir et la représentation qui est digne de Werner Herzog ou Chris Marker. » (Tom McSorley, Take One).

Canada/Switzerland 1994. Dir: Peter Mettler. 83 min. DCP

Canada/Switzerland 1994. Réal. : Peter Mettler. 83 min. DCP

précédé de preceded by

Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper

In Vancouver experimenter David Rimmer’s mesmerizing structuralist short, a fragment of found footage depicting a female factory worker shaking out large sheets of cellophane is repurposed, via image looping and optical-printing manipulation, into something wondrously alchemical and almost otherworldly. Set to a propulsive soundtrack by Don Druick.

Dans ce court métrage structuraliste hypnotique, David Rimmer réemploie un fragment de pellicule montrant l’employée d’une usine en train de transformer de grandes feuilles de cellophane. Le cinéaste expérimental vancouvérois utilise des images en boucle et des effets d’optique pour obtenir un résultat merveilleux, alchimique et presque surnaturel. Avec une trame sonore propulsive signée par Don Druick.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9 – 6:30 PM

JEUDI 9 NOVEMBRE – 18 H 30

Canada 1972. Réal. : David Rimmer. 9 min. 16 mm

Canada 1972. Dir: David Rimmer. 9 min. 16mm

BÛCHERONS DE LA MANOUANE VARIATIONS ON

NOT A LOVE STORY

A CELLOPHANE WRAPPER

PICTURE OF LIGHT

Free Admission! New Restoration!

Entrée gratuite! Nouvelle copie restaurée!

La femme de l’hôtel

(A Woman in Transit)

Canada 1984. Dir: Léa Pool. 89 min. DCP

Canada 1984. Réal. : Léa Pool. 89 min. DCP

The second feature from Swiss-born Léa Pool (Emporte-moi), who emerged as one of Québécois cinema’s boldest new talents in the 1980s, is a rumination on cinema, identity, loneliness, and desire in the European mode of Marguerite Duras – or Bergman’s Persona. It is set in a Montreal hotel, where Andréa (Paule Baillargeon), a filmmaker suffering from creative block, becomes obsessed with Estelle (Louise Marleau), a mysterious woman she encounters in the hallways. Marthe Turgeon plays the actress cast in the lead of Andréa’s stalled project. The identities of all three women intermingle, and life and art begin to imitate each other, as Pool’s stylish modernist drama unfolds. The film won Best Canadian Feature honours at TIFF and earned Marleau the Genie for Best Actress.

Le second film de Léa Pool (Emporte-moi), une réalisatrice d’origine suisse considérée comme l’une des créatrices émergentes les plus audacieuses du cinéma québécois des années 1980, porte sur le cinéma, l’identité, la solitude et le désir, avec une sensibilité européenne près de Marguerite Duras ou de Bergman, avec Persona. Dans un hôtel de Montréal, Andréa (Paule Baillargeon), une cinéaste en panne d’inspiration, devient obsédée par Estelle (Louise Marleau), une femme mystérieuse qu’elle croise dans les couloirs. Marthe Turgeon incarne pour sa part l’actrice principale du projet d’Andréa. Au fur et à mesure que le drame moderne et stylisé de Pool se déploie, l’identité de ces trois femmes s’entremêle, tandis que l’art et la vie s’imitent. Ce film a remporté le Prix du meilleur long métrage canadien au TIFF et a valu à Marleau le Génie de la meilleure actrice.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9 – 8:25 PM

JEUDI 9 NOVEMBRE – 20 H 25

Free Admission!

Entrée gratuite!

On est au coton

(Cotton Mill, Treadmill)

Canada 1970. Dir: Denys Arcand. 159 min. DCP

Canada 1970. Réal. : Denys Arcand. 159 min. DCP

Denys Arcand, fêted director of The Decline of the American Empire and Jesus of Montreal, first made a name for himself with this allegedly subversive socio-political documentary, suppressed in one of Canada’s most notorious cases of film censorship. On est au coton – literally “we are in cotton,” but connoting “we are fed up” – chronicles harsh working conditions and the history of union struggle in Quebec’s textile industry, and highlights the Anglo-American domination of Quebec’s economy. Completed around the time of Quebec’s October Crisis, Arcand’s provocative film was banned (ostensibly for “untruths”) by NFB commissioner Sydney Newman, circulated on samizdat video, and not officially released until 1976. A storyline in Arcand’s 1974 feature Gina dramatizes the documentary’s making.

Denys Arcand, le célèbre réalisateur du Déclin de l’empire américain et de Jésus de Montréal, s’est d’abord fait connaître grâce à ce documentaire sociopolitique subversif. On est au coton a été au cœur de l’une des plus célèbres histoires de censure cinématographique au Canada. Tout en soulignant les conditions de travail difficiles dans l’industrie textile et l’histoire du syndicalisme au Québec, le film expose la mainmise du capital anglo-américain dans l’économie québécoise. Achevé à l’époque de la crise d’Octobre, il a été banni (car considéré « mensonger ») par le commissaire de l’ONF, Sydney Newman. Des copies clandestines ont toutefois circulé jusqu’à sa sortie officielle, en 1976. Un autre long métrage d’Arcand, Gina, renvoie à la création de ce documentaire. DIMANCHE 12 NOVEMBRE - 3 H

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12 – 3:00 PM

Free Admission! New Restoration! Live Musical Accompaniment!

Entrée gratuite! Nouvelle copie restaurée! Accompagnement musical en direct!

Back to God’s Country

Victoria-born silent film star and female film pioneer Nell Shipman had her greatest international hit with this Far North adventure, Canada’s most successful silent feature. Shipman plays Dolores LeBeau, a “nature girl” living with her father in the remote Canadian wilderness. Falling in love with Peter, a writer and government official, then fleeing villainous Rydal, who attempts to rape her, Dolores boards a whaling schooner bound for the Arctic — captained by none other than Rydal. Shipman reworked the original story to change Dolores from a damsel in distress to a brave and capable action heroine. "Back to God’s Country is notable for its romantic naturalism, activist heroine, scenes of Shipman interacting with a bear in its natural habitat – and, of course, the first nude scenes in Canadian cinema” (TIFF/Canada on Screen). DCP courtesy of Library and Archives Canada.

Nell Shipman est une vedette du cinéma muet et une pionnière du cinéma féminin née à Victoria. Cette aventure dans le Grand Nord est son plus grand succès international, et aussi le film muet canadien le plus renommé. L’actrice y incarne Dolores LeBeau, une «amoureuse de la nature» vivant isolée avec son père dans une région sauvage du Canada. Après s’être éprise de Peter, écrivain et fonctionnaire, et avoir fui le cruel Rydal, qui tente de la violer, Dolores monte à bord d’une goélette qui se dirige vers l’Arctique… et dont le capitaine est nul autre que Rydal. Shipman a transformé Dolores en héroïne brave et débrouillarde, contrairement au récit d’origine la décrivant comme une demoiselle en détresse. « Back to God’s Country est reconnu pour son naturalisme romantique, son héroïne militante, les scènes où Shipman interagit avec un ours dans son habitat naturel et, bien entendu, les toutes premières scènes de nudité du cinéma canadien. » (TIFF/Canada à l’écran). DCP offert par Bibliothèque et Archives Canada.

Canada 1919. Dir: David M. Hartford. 79 min. DCP

Live musical accompaniment by Gabriel Thibaudeau, Canadian composer, pianist, and conductor, and silent film pianist in residence at the Cinémathèque Québécoise in Montreal. Mr. Thibaudeau will perform the original score he wrote to accompany the restoration of the film.

Canada 1919. Réal. : David M. Hartford. 79 min. DCP

Accompagnement musical en direct par Gabriel Thibaudeau, compositeur, pianiste et chef d’orchestre canadien en résidence à la Cinémathèque québécoise de Montréal. Monsieur Thibaudeau interprétera la trame sonore originale qu’il a composée pour accompagner la version restaurée du film.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17 – 7:00 PM VENDREDI 17 NOVEMBRE – 19 H

LA FEMME DE L’HÔTEL BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY

ON EST AU COTON

CONSTRUCTING CANADIANA

ATANARJUAT, THE FAST RUNNER

LAMENTATIONS

Free Admission!

Entrée gratuite!

Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner

Atanarjuat, la légende de l’homme rapide

Canada 2001. Dir: Zacharias Kunuk. 170 min. DCP

Zacharias Kunuk’s spellbinding epic, the first-ever feature in the Inuktitut language, was voted one of Canada’s All-Time Top Ten films in 2004 and 2015 polls conducted by TIFF. In 2015, it ranked first – “likely the first time that a film by an indigenous filmmaker has topped a poll of national cinema” (Steve Gravestock, TIFF). Based on a centuries-old Inuit legend, Atanarjuat transports us to an utterly convincing, meticulously recreated pre-Colombian Inuit world, and enthrals us with a mythic, magical tale of love, jealousy, family rivalry, and revenge. The film’s many laurels include the Camera d’Or for best first feature at Cannes – the first (and, to date, only) Canadian film to be so honoured – and the Genie for best picture. A memorable and timeless milestone. DCP courtesy TIFF’s Film Reference Library. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18 – 7:00 PM

Cinema Sunday

Canada 2001. Réal. : Zacharias Kunuk. 170 min. DCP

Cette fascinante épopée de Zacharias Kunuk, qui est aussi le tout premier film tourné en inuktitut, a été nommée l’un des 10 meilleurs films canadiens de tous les temps à l’issue de sondages menés par le TIFF en 2004 et en 2015. En 2015, il s’est hissé en première position, « vraisemblablement la première fois qu’un film réalisé par un cinéaste autochtone a atteint la tête d’un palmarès national » (Steve Gravestock, TIFF). Basé sur une légende inuit remontant à plusieurs siècles, Atanarjuat nous transporte dans un monde inuit précolombien convaincant et méticuleusement recréé. Son récit mythique et magique est rempli d’amour, de jalousie, de rivalités familiales et de vengeance. Parmi les nombreux prix qu’il a récoltés se trouvent le Génie du meilleur film et la Caméra d’or décernée par le Festival de Cannes au meilleur premier long métrage (il s’agit d’ailleurs à ce jour du seul film canadien à avoir remporté ce prix). Une œuvre charnière mémorable et intemporelle. DCP est une gracieuseté de TIFF Film Reference Library. SAMEDI 18 NOVEMBRE - 19 H

Free Admission!

Cinema Sunday

Constructing Canadiana A media-literacy workshop presented by The Cinematheque’s Education and Outreach Department

How do advertising, television, and film tap into Canadian clichés like hockey, maple syrup, and igloos? Are these stereotypes comforting or cringe-worthy? Join us as The Cinematheque’s Education and Outreach Department screens and discusses Canadian ads and clips from popular Canadian TV programs and movies, deconstructing our constructed Canadiana. Discover how Canadian media reflects this country and shapes our ideas about what it is to be Canadian. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 1:00 PM

This special Canada on Screen event is presented in conjunction with The Cinematheque’s Cinema Sunday film program for children and their families. See page 27 for more details.

Entrée gratuite!

Constructing Canadiana

Un atelier d’éducation aux médias présenté par le département « Education and Outreach » de The Cinematheque Comment la publicité, la télévision et le cinéma puisent-ils dans les clichés du Canadas, comme le hockey, le sirop d’érable et les igloos? Ces stéréotypes sont-ils réconfortants ou désagréables? Participez à cet atelier du département « Education and Outreach » de The Cinematheque, qui comprend la projection de pubs et d’extraits d’émissions ou de films canadiens déconstruisant les représentations typiques de la culture canadienne. Découvrez comment nos médias sont le reflet de notre pays et forgent notre conception de l’identité canadienne. DIMANCHE 19 NOVEMBRE – 13 H

Free Admission!

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World

Cet événement spécial de Canada à l’écran est présenté dans le cadre de Cinema Sunday, un programme de The Cinematheque destiné aux enfants et aux familles. Consultez la page 27 pour obtenir plus de renseignements.

Canada 1985. Dir: Bruce Elder. 437 mins. DCP

“Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World belongs to a 35-hour film cycle, The Book of All the Dead, which comprises the bulk of Toronto-based Bruce Elder’s filmmaking from 1975 to 1994. In ancient Egyptian culture, the Book of the Dead consisted of religious texts intended to help preserve the spirit of the departed in the afterlife – but in Elder’s reading, that comforting idea of continuity takes on a rather darker cast. Lamentations is comprised of a complex audio and visual patchwork: a philosophical meditation superimposed as text throughout the film; vignettes featuring a comical but disturbing Franz Liszt, a debate between Isaac Newton and George Berkeley, an angry, deranged man in an alley, and an arrogant psychiatrist; and a final search for salvation in the forests of British Columbia, the American Southwest, and Mexico’s Yucatan. Lamentations earned Elder praise from avant-garde legend Stan Brakhage, who said: ‘I feel closer to this epic-maker Elder than to any other living filmmaker’” (Jim Shedden, Canada on Screen digital catalogue). Note: Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World will screens in two parts over two nights PART I: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 7:00 PM PART II: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6 – 7:00 PM

This special Canada on Screen event is presented in conjunction with The Cinematheque’s monthly DIM Cinema program. See page 26 for more details.

Entrée gratuite!

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World Canada 1985. Réal. : Bruce Elder. 437 min. DCP

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World fait partie du cycle filmique de 35 heures The Book of All the Dead, qui rassemble l’essentiel de l’œuvre du réalisateur torontois Bruce Elder de 1975 à 1994. Dans la culture de l’Égypte ancienne, le Livre des Morts renfermait des textes religieux portant sur la préservation de l’esprit des morts dans l’au-delà. Mais selon le point de vue d’Elder, cette idée réconfortante d’une continuité adopte un côté bien plus obscur. Lamentations est une courtepointe complexe formée d’éléments sonores et visuels. En plus d’être traversé par une méditation philosophique superposée sous forme de texte, le film comprend des vignettes mettant en vedette un Franz Liszt comique mais dérangeant, un débat entre Isaac Newton et George Berkeley, un homme cinglé et en colère dans une ruelle, un psychiatre arrogant et une quête finale de salut dans les forêts de la Colombie-Britannique, du Sud-Ouest américain et du Yucatan, au Mexique. Ce film a été salué par la légende de l’avant-garde Stan Brakhage, qui a déclaré : ‹ Je me sens plus près d’Elder, ce créateur d’épopées, que de tout autre cinéaste. ›» (Jim Shedden, catalogue numérique de Canada à l’écran) Note : Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World sera projeté en deux parties lors de deux soirées distinctes PARTIE I : MARDI 5 DÉCEMBRE – 19 H PARTIE II : MERCREDI 6 DÉCEMBRE – 19 H

Cet événement spécial de Canada à l’écran est présenté dans le cadre du programme mensuel DIM Cinema de The Cinematheque. Consultez la page 26 pour obtenir plus de renseignements.

BLACK SOUL

MANUFACTURING CONSENT

TWO GENERATORS LOYALTIES

Free Admission! In Person: Anne Wheeler

Entrée gratuite! En présence d’Anne Wheeler

Loyalties

Canada 1986. Dir: Anne Wheeler. 99 min. 35mm

Anne Wheeler’s powerful 1986 drama (her first fiction feature) is a highlight of a distinguished filmmaking career devoted to bringing authentic, socially conscious Canadian stories – and particularly women’s stories – to the screen. Framed as a psychological thriller, the film relates the growing friendship between two very different women in a small Alberta town. Lilly (Susan Wooldridge), a prim, upper-crust Englishwoman, is the lonely wife of the town’s new doctor (Kenneth Walsh). Rosanne (Tantoo Cardinal) is a local Métis single mother and barmaid. The eruption of male violence in both the “Native” and “white” communities causes each woman to question her personal loyalties and forges a bond between them. Wheeler’s film impresses with its potent sense of place and intelligent treatment of class, race, and gender. Print courtesy TIFF’s Film Reference Library. Guest in attendance: Anne Wheeler preceded by

Canada 1986. Réal. : Anne Wheeler. 99 min. 35mm

Ce puissant drame réalisé par Anne Wheeler en 1986 (son premier long métrage de fiction) est un moment-clé de son illustre carrière. Reconnue pour sa manière de raconter avec authenticité et conscience sociale des histoires canadiennes – en particulier, celles des femmes –, la cinéaste signe ici un suspense psychologique portant sur l’amitié de deux femmes en Alberta. Lilly (Susan Wooldridge), une Anglaise issue d’un milieu aisé et plutôt guindé, est l’épouse solitaire du nouveau médecin du village (Kenneth Walsh). Rosanne (Tantoo Cardinal) est pour sa part une mère célibataire et une barmaid métisse. La violence masculine émergeant dans les deux communautés – celle des « Blancs » et celle des « Autochtones » – incite ces deux femmes à remettre en question leurs allégeances et à développer un lien particulier. Le film de Wheeler impressionne par son sens du lieu et l’intelligence de son approche des classes sociales, des races et des genres. La copie est une gracieuseté de TIFF Film Reference Library. Invitée présente : Anne Wheeler précédé de

Black Soul (Âme noire)

Âme noire

Canada 2000. Dir: Martine Chartrand. 10 min. DCP

(Black Soul)

A beautiful exemplar of paint-on-glass animation, Haitian Canadian filmmaker Martine Chartrand’s award-winning, music-filled short traces the history of black culture in North America through the stories told to a young Montreal boy by his grandmother.

Canada 2000. Réal. : Martine Chartrand. 10 min. DCP

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7 – 7:00 PM

Lauréate de plusieurs prix, cette magnifique animation peinte sur verre par Martine Chartrand, cinéaste canadienne originaire d’Haïti, est portée par la musique. Un court métrage qui retrace l’histoire de la culture noire en Amérique du Nord, selon les histoires racontées par une grand-mère à son petit-fils à Montréal. JEUDI 7 DÉCEMBRE – 19 H

Free Admission! In Person: Rodney Graham

Two Generators

Entrée gratuite! En présence de Rodney Graham

The first film work by acclaimed Vancouver-based artist and musician Rodney Graham – affiliate of the so-called Vancouver School of photoconceptualism – throws into relief the mechanics, labour, and economics of cinema, from production to consumption. Shot on location at night, it depicts a river in landscape illuminated by generator-powered lights that muffle the natural soundtrack with their discordant, machine noise. Its theatrical exhibition – as crucial to Two Generators as the film itself – requires the projectionist to dim the house lights, manually load and project the four-minute film, then bring the house lights up, rewind and re-thread the film, and repeat the process. “Seeing the film for an hour is like watching the institution of cinema as a whole operate for a long period of time” (Jeff Wall).

Canada 1984. Réal. : Rodney Graham. 4 min [projeté pendant 60 min]. 35 mm

Canada 1984. Dir: Rodney Graham. 4 min. [screening for 60 min.] 35mm

Guest in attendance: Rodney Graham, who will introduce a 60-minute presentation of the installation. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 7:00 PM

Two Generators

Cette première œuvre de l’artiste et musicien acclamé Rodney Graham, reconnu pour son affiliation à l’« école du photoconceptualisme » de Vancouver, met en évidence les mécaniques, le travail et l’économie derrière le cinéma, de la phase de production à la consommation. Tourné en extérieur la nuit, Two Generators présente une rivière éclairée par des lumières dont l’alimentation est assurée par des génératrices. Les bruits discordants des machines étouffent les sons de la nature. La représentation en salle de l’œuvre, qui est tout aussi cruciale que le film en soit, demande au projectionniste de tamiser l’éclairage, de charger manuellement et projeter le film de quatre minutes. Il doit ensuite rééclairer la salle, rembobiner et réarmer la pellicule, puis recommencer l’ensemble du processus. « Assister à ce film pendant une heure correspond à observer l’institution cinématographique en tant que tout pendant une longue durée. » (Jeff Wall) Invité présent : Rodney Graham, qui introduira l’installation présentée pendant 60 minutes VENDREDI 8 DÉCEMBRE – 19 H

Free Admission!

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Canada 1992. Dirs: Mark Achbar, Peter Wintonick. 165 min. DCP

Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick’s dynamic exploration of the life and thought of Noam Chomsky, the controversial American author, linguist, political dissident, and critic of the press, was an early primer on the manufacture of fake news. Using an entertaining blend of original material, archival footage, and graphic illustrations, it examines Chomsky’s provocative critique of mainstream media as an instrument of ideological persuasion. Chomsky argues that corporate media was complicit in the first Gulf War, and analyzes how genocides in Cambodia and East Timor were covered (or not covered) by the press in the 1970s. This unlikeliest of hit films – the highest-grossing Canadian documentary to that time – is throughout a compelling, thought-provoking, and sobering call to what Chomsky terms “intellectual self-defence.” TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12 - 7:00 PM

Entrée gratuite!

Chomsky, les médias et les illusions nécessaires

Canada 1992. Réal. : Mark Achbar, Peter Wintonick. 165 min. DCP

Mark Achbar et Peter Wintonick livrent une exploration dynamique de la vie et de la pensée de l’écrivain américain controversé Noam Chomsky. Également linguiste, dissident politique et critique des médias, ce dernier a été parmi les premiers à dénoncer la création de fausses nouvelles. En employant un mélange divertissant de matériel original, d’archives et d’illustrations, le documentaire se penche sur sa critique provocatrice des médias traditionnels, exposés en tant qu’outils de persuasion idéologique. Chomsky soutient que les grands médias étaient complices de la première guerre du Golfe, et il analyse la manière dont les génocides au Cambodge et au TimorOriental ont été couverts (ou non couverts) par la presse au cours des années 1970. À sa sortie, le film a connu un succès inattendu, fracassant les records de box-office pour un documentaire canadien. Un œuvre stimulante, qui suscite la réflexion et lance un appel à l’« autodéfense intellectuelle », selon les termes de Chomsky. MARDI 12 DÉCEMBRE - 19 H

Free Admission! New Restoration!

Entrée gratuite! Nouvelle copie restaurée!

Rude

Canada 1995. Dir: Clement Virgo. 90 min. DCP

Canada 1995. Réal. : Clement Virgo. 90 min. DCP

Toronto filmmaker Clement Virgo’s debut feature is an ambitious exploration of Black Canadian identity made with a predominantly Black crew. Set over an Easter weekend in Toronto, the film interweaves the stories of an ex-con trying to rebuild his life; a young boxer conflicted about his sexuality; and a young woman struggling in the aftermath of an abortion and breakup. All the while, a pirate-radio DJ aptly named Rude raps poetically and profanely about race, gender, and Armageddon. Virgo recently directed CBC’s The Book of Negroes. “Bracingly gritty and alluringly stylized . . . In its fearless examination of Black male sexuality, Rude anticipates more recent social dramas such as Moonlight . . . A landmark of African Canadian cinema” (TIFF). preceded by

Créé avec une équipe à prédominance noire, ce premier long métrage du cinéaste torontois Clement Virgo est une exploration ambitieuse de l’identité noire au Canada. Le film se déroulant à Toronto, durant le week-end de Pâques, présente des histoires croisées : un ex-prisonnier tente de rebâtir sa vie, un jeune boxeur s’interroge sur sa sexualité, et une jeune femme éprouve des difficultés après avoir subi une rupture et un avortement. Pendant ce temps, un animateur radio de la station clandestine « Rude » propose son rap aussi poétique que profane, qui porte sur la race, le genre et l’Armageddon. Virgo a récemment réalisé The Book of Negroes (CBC). « Saisissant, audacieux et formidablement stylisé… Explorant bravement la sexualité des hommes noirs, Rude est un prédécesseur de drames sociaux plus récents tels que Moonlight… Une œuvre-clé du cinéma afro-canadien. » (TIFF) précédé de

Save My Lost Nigga Soul Canada 1993. Dir: Clement Virgo. 24 min.

Clement Virgo’s acclaimed short, made at the Canadian Film Centre, is an intense, stylish Cain-and-Abel tale of two brothers and their friend, an aspiring stand-up comedian, living together “on the dark side of Eden.” Best Canadian Short, TIFF 1993. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 7:00 PM

Save My Lost Nigga Soul Canada 1993. Réal. : Clement Virgo. 24 min.

Créé par Clement Virgo au Centre canadien du film, ce court métrage encensé est un intense récit à la Caïn et Abel présentant deux frères et leur ami aspirant humoriste qui cohabitent « du côté obscur de l’Éden ». Meilleur court métrage canadien, TIFF 1993. MERCREDI 13 DÉCEMBRE – 19 H

New Restoration!

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing

Nouvelle copie restaurée!

Patricia Rozema’s much-loved debut feature, winner of the Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes, is a charmer. Sheila McCarthy gives an endearing performance as Polly, an awkward, “organizationally impaired” temp who develops a crush on boss Gabrielle (Paule Baillargeon), sophisticated owner of a chic art gallery. When Gabrielle’s old flame Mary (Canadian novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald) arrives on the scene, Polly finds herself in the midst of an apparent art fraud. Polly’s direct-address video confessions and whimsical fantasies structure Rozema’s told-in-flashback film. This low-budget wonder was a landmark in feminist and queer cinema in Canada; a breakthrough work of the Toronto New Wave; and one of the rare English-Canadian movies to actually make money! McCarthy and Baillargeon won Genies.

Canada 1987. Réal. : Patricia Rozema. 83 min. DCP

Canada 1987. Dir: Patricia Rozema. 83 min. DCP

preceded by

The Sand Castle

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing

Récompensé du Prix de la jeunesse à Cannes, le premier film de Patricia Rozema est rempli de charme. Sheila McCarthy livre une performance émouvante dans le rôle de Polly, une employée intérimaire maladroite et désorganisée qui développe un intérêt pour Gabrielle (Paule Baillargeon), propriétaire d’une galerie d’art sophistiquée. Quand Mary (jouée par l’auteure canadienne Ann-Marie MacDonald), l’ancienne flamme de Gabrielle, refait surface, Polly se trouve au beau milieu d’une histoire de fraude d’œuvres d’art. Plusieurs éléments fantaisistes et les confessions vidéo de Polly structurent le film de Rozema, qui se dessine par retours en arrière. Cette merveille du cinéma à faible budget occupe une place majeure dans le cinéma féministe et queer du Canada. I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing est aussi une œuvreclé de la Nouvelle Vague de Toronto et l’un des rares films canadiens-anglais à avoir obtenu un grand succès commercial. McCarthy et Baillargeon ont remporté des prix Génie. précédé de

(Le château de sable) Canada 1977. Dir: Co Hoedeman. 13 min. DCP

Le château de sable

Dutch-born, Montreal-based animator Co Hoedeman’s stop-motion, sand-sculpted fable, the magical tale of a sandman who comes to life and builds himself companions and a home, won the Oscar for Best Animated Short.

(The Sand Castle) Canada 1977. Réal. : Co Hoedeman. 13 min. DCP

L’animateur montréalais d’origine néerlandaise Co Hoedeman signe une fable en stopmotion sculptée dans le sable. Ce récit magique, lauréat de l’Oscar du meilleur film d’animation, montre un homme de sable qui apparaît puis se crée des compagnons et une maison.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15 – 6:30 PM

VENDREDI 15 DÉCEMBRE – 18 H 30

RUDE

THE SAND CASTLE

I'VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING

BLACK CHRISTMAS

SONATINE

Free Admission!

Entrée gratuite!

Sonatine

Memorable in La vraie nature de Bernadette and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, actress Micheline Lanctôt took up directing in the late 1970s. Sonatine, her atmospheric second feature, won the Silver Lion at Venice and Canada’s Genie for Best Direction. Structured in three movements, this beautiful, strangely haunting film concerns friends Chantal and Louisette, alienated teens venturing out into the inscrutable world of adults. Chantal has a relationship with a bus driver; Louisette hops aboard a Bulgarian freighter. Both return disappointed by the pettiness and complacency of adult life. In the film’s third segment, they decide upon a drastic response. Future star Pascale Bussières, in her debut, plays Chantal. Sonatine drew comparisons to the work of Bresson and Antonioni.

Après s’être fait connaître en tant qu’actrice dans La vraie nature de Bernadette et L’apprentissage de Duddy Kravitz, Micheline Lanctôt s’est tournée vers la réalisation à la fin des années 1970. Son deuxième long métrage, Sonatine, a remporté le Lion d’argent à Venise et lui a valu le Génie du meilleur réalisateur. Magnifique et étrangement ensorcelant, ce film en trois mouvements porte sur les adolescentes Chantal et Louisette, des amies marginales qui s’aventurent dans l’impénétrable monde des adultes. Chantal a une liaison avec un chauffeur d’autobus, tandis que Louisette monte à bord d’un navire bulgare. Les deux se trouvent déçues par la mesquinerie et la complaisance des adultes, et le troisième mouvement expose leur réponse drastique. Chantal est le premier grand rôle de Pascale Bussières, qui est par la suite devenue une grande vedette. Sonatine a suscité des comparaisons avec les films de Bresson et d’Antonioni.

Canada 1984. Dir: Micheline Lanctôt. 91 min. 35mm

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15 – 8:30 PM

Canada 1984. Réal. : Micheline Lanctôt. 91 min. 35mm

VENDREDI 15 DÉCEMBRE – 20 H 30

Free Admission!

Black Christmas

Canada 1974. Dir: Bob Clark. 98 min. DCP

An unknown killer stalks the halls of a sorority house at Christmas time in this Canuxploitation classic and box-office hit from Canadian cinema’s much-maligned “tax shelter” years. Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, and Margot Kidder star; director Bob Clark later made the fearsome Porky’s (and family-favourite A Christmas Story, also screening at The Cinematheque this month). “Clark’s creepy, atmospheric Toronto-shot thriller may be our country’s most influential contribution to the horror genre, its inventive camerawork, ruthlessly clever scares, and shocking violence crystallizing the tropes that would define the ‘slasher’ cycle of the 1980s and beyond . . . Black Christmas retains its unnerving power to this day — a true-north testament to its innovative and sophisticated approach to supposedly cheap thrills” (Paul Corupe, Canada on Screen digital catalogue). THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21 – 7:00 PM

Entrée gratuite!

Noël tragique

Canada 1974. Réal. : Bob Clark. 98 min. DCP

Dans ce film canuxploitation classique ayant connu un grand succès populaire à l’époque des « abris fiscaux » du cinéma canadien, un meurtrier inconnu parcourt les couloirs d’une résidence pour étudiantes durant le temps des Fêtes. Après ce film mettant en vedette Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea et Margot Kidder, le réalisateur Bob Clark a signé les Porky’s (et le succès familial A Christmas Story, également présenté par The Cinematheque ce mois-ci). « Tourné à Toronto, ce film à suspense atmosphérique et sinistre figure parmi les films d’horreur canadiens les plus importants. Sa caméra inventive, ses sursauts bien pensés et ses scènes de violence choquantes sont par la suite devenus des caractéristiques typiques du style slasher, qui s’est popularisé à partir des années 1980. Noël tragique demeure à ce jour un témoignage de l’innovation et de la créativité nordiques dans sa manière d’aborder un genre trop souvent relégué au deuxième plan. » (Paul Corupe, catalogue numérique de Canada à l’écran) JEUDI 21 DÉCEMBRE – 19 H

THE VOYAGE

70 YEARS OF POLISH ANIMATION

he extraordinary history of animation in post-war Poland is celebrated in this program of masterworks and prize-winners, organized with the assistance of the Polish Film Institute, the Polish National Film Archive (FINA), and the Polish Cultural Institute New York. By the early 1960s, Poland had become a world leader in the production of artist-driven, often daringly experimental animation, with a signature style – the “Polish School” – that combined a certain Polish pessimism, rooted in the country’s historical and political circumstances, with a remarkable visual creativity rooted in Poland's rich tradition of graphic design. The program includes Once Upon a Time… (1957), a seminal work by Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica, innovators whose surrealist, absurdist films greatly influenced the golden age of Polish animation in the 1960s; Tango (1980), the startling, Oscarwinning short by Zbigniew Rybczyński; and important landmarks by such leading figures as Mirosław Kijowicz, Daniel Szczechura, Ryszard Czekała, Jerzy Kucia, Witold Giersz, and others.

“F

ilm critics and audiences agree – the seventy-year history of Polish animated film is full of mini masterpieces. Polish animation is synonymous with artistic craftsmanship and mastery and the titles that can be found in this selection have for many years been conquering world festivals and been an inspiration for artists throughout the world. Nothing highlighted the absurd reality of communist Poland more accurately than the animated films of the 1950s through to the 1970s. Metaphors and nonsensical humour easily passed the censors. The concise language of images needs no comment because it creates its own language. Since its golden era of the 1960s, animated cinema has consistently been one of the flagships of Polish culture abroad. Presented here are the most famous award-winning titles, groundbreaking works which have permanently etched themselves into the canon of animation films. I invite you to discover Polish animation on the occasion of the jubilee celebrating 70 years of Polish animated film.” – Magdalena Sroka, Director of the Polish Film Institute

Once Upon a Time… | Był sobie raz… ● Walerian Borowczyk, Jan Lenica/1957. 19 min. Red and Black | Czerwone i czarne ● Witold Giersz/1963. 6 min. Sweet Rhythms | Słodkie rytmy ● Kazimierz Urbański/1965. 7 min. The Flag | Sztandar ● Mirosław Kijowicz/1965. 7 min. The Voyage | Podróż ● Daniel Szczechura/1970. 7 min. Son | Syn ● Ryszard Czekała/1970. 10 min. A Hard-Core Engaged Film. Non-Camera | Ostry film zaangażowany non camera ● Julian Józef Antonisz/1979. 8 min. Tango | Tango ● Zbigniew Rybczyński/1980. 8 min. Solo in a Fallow Field | Solo na ugorze ● Jerzy Kalina/1981. 7 min. Splinters | Odpryski ● Jerzy Kucia/1984. 10 min. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22 – 7:00 PM

Contemporary Iranian Cinema Acclaimed and accomplished new films from Iran are in the spotlight in this new monthly showcase presented by The Cinematheque in partnership with the Phoenix Cultural Centre of Toronto and Pacific United Productions, a Vancouver-based motion picture production and distribution company.

Lantouri

Nahid

Iran 2016. Dir: Reza Dormishian. 115 min. DCP

Iran 2015. Dir: Ida Panahandeh. 105 min. DCP

A female social activist and journalist who opposes eyefor-an-eye justice is viciously attacked with acid by a would-be suitor from a criminal gang in this stylistically bold, breathlessly paced, and highly troubling social drama from writer-director Reza Dormishian, whose I’m Not Angry! screened in this series in September. Maryam Palizban, Navid Mohammadzadeh, and Baran Kosari head the cast. “Unreeling with near-cyclonic force in nonlinear style, Lantouri marks another ambitious examination of the churning frustrations of Iran’s disenfranchised younger generation from Dormishian . . . A must-see for those wanting to take the pulse of what’s happening in Iran” (Alissa Simon, Variety). “Profoundly shocking . . . One of the most original, outspoken voices in young Iranian cinema, Dormishian raises the stakes in Lantouri” (Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter).

Iran’s unusual concept of “temporary marriage” is the backdrop to emerging writer-director Ida Panahandeh’s emotionally rich drama, awarded the Avenir (“future”) prize in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes in 2015. Sareh Bayat (caretaker Razieh in Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning A Separation) plays eponymous Nahid, a debt-ridden divorcee and single mom struggling in a coastal town in northern Iran. A romance with Masoud (Pejman Bazeghi), a decent, well-off widower, offers Nahid the prospect of stability and happiness. But remarriage will violate the terms of her child custody settlement with Ahmad (Navid Mohammadzadeh), her deadbeat ex-husband. Panahandeh’s precise, unhurried film is wellserved by Morteza Gheidi’s moody, painterly cinematography. “Strong performances ground this socially poignant drama . . . Nahid is a compelling companion piece to A Separation” (Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter).

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12 – 7:00 PM MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13 – 4:00 PM

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10 – 7:00 PM THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14 – 7:00 PM

E S S E N T I A L C INEMA ESSENTIAL BIG SCREEN // HAPPY HOLIDAYS The Cinematheque celebrates the festive season with a special selection of much-loved classics, all works of affecting beauty, all must-sees on the big screen! Happy holidays and happy viewing!

DAYS OF HEAVEN

City Lights

USA 1931. Dir: Charles Chaplin. 87 min. DCP

Albert Einstein is said to have cried with laughter at the world premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights in Los Angeles in 1931. Described by Chaplin himself as “a comedy romance in pantomime,” this winning mix of slapstick, sentiment, and social criticism has Chaplin’s beloved Little Tramp falling in love with a blind flower girl. When he discovers that her sight can be restored through expensive surgery, he goes to extraordinary lengths to raise the necessary money, including an hilariously ill-advised turn as a prizefighter. She, for her part, believes her unseen benefactor to be a handsome millionaire. A synchronized musical score and comic sound effects were Chaplin’s only concessions to the new sound era; the film has nary a word of spoken dialogue. James Agee called the famed final scene “the highest moment in the movies.” Orson Welles cited City Lights as his favourite film. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23 – 4:30 PM THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30 – 8:45 PM

Paris, Texas

West Germany/France/Great Britain USA 1984. Dir: Wim Wenders. 148 min. DCP

Character actor Harry Dean Stanton (who died in September) had his first-ever lead role in Wim Wenders’s moody existential odyssey, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and was a major art-house hit. Adapted by Sam Shepard (who died in July) and L. M. Kit Carson from Shepard’s “Motel Chronicles,” and set against the epic landscapes of the American Southwest. Paris, Texas casts Stanton as Travis, a drifter seeking to reconnect with his young son (Hunter Carson, Kit’s son) and find his estranged wife (Nastassja Kinski). Wenders had long wanted to make a film with Shepard, whose work has affinities with that of Austrian writer Peter Handke, a favourite Wenders collaborator. Featuring a haunting slide-guitar score by Ry Cooder, and masterly cinematography by Robbie Müller, whose visuals evoke both the paintings of Edward Hopper and the films of John Ford, Paris, Texas is one of Wenders’s finest achievements. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22 – 8:15 PM TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26 – 6:45 PM FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29 – 8:40 PM

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro)

Brazil/France/Italy 1959. Dir: Marcel Camus. 107 min. 35mm

A mad frenzy of Brazilian colour, music, and dance, French filmmaker Marcel Camus’s intoxicating bossa nova version of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice was an international sensation in 1959, capturing the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Oscar for best foreign-language film. Set against Rio de Janeiro’s famed Carnival, and made with a non-professional cast, Black Orpheus lays on the exotic splendour as it relates the tale of charismatic streetcar conductor Orfeu (Breno Mello), betrothed to hot-tempered beauty Mira (Lourdes de Oliveira), but destined to fall for ill-fated country girl Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn). Celebrated Brazilian poet and composer Vincius de Moraes co-wrote the screenplay, adapting his own his own hit play Orfeu da Conceição. He and Antônio Carlos Jobim, co-composer of the film’s popular soundtrack, would later co-author the bossa nova anthem “The Girl from Ipanema.” SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23 – 6:30 PM WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27 – 8:20 PM FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29 – 6:30 PM

Ikiru

(To Live)

Japan 1952. Dir: Akira Kurosawa. 143 min. 35mm

Many Akira Kurosawa admirers cite this deeply-affecting piece of humanist cinema as one of the great director’s pinnacle achievements; it was Kurosawa’s own favourite. A low-key gendai-geki (film of contemporary life) dating from the same period that produced the celebrated historical dramas Rashomon and Seven Samurai, Ikiru features Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura as Watanabe, a hidebound minor government official. Discovering that he has but months to live, Watanabe realizes that he has accomplished nothing of significance in his time on earth, and so sets out to do something that will give his life a meaning. Kurosawa’s portrait of postwar Japanese life is both poignant and pointed. The “swing in the snow” scene is sublime. “An intensely moving film, elegiac and sometimes quirkishly funny in the manner of Kurosawa’s elective model, John Ford. Shimura is superb in the central role” (Tom Milne, Time Out). SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23 – 8:40 PM TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26 – 4:00 PM SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30 – 6:00 PM

Days of Heaven USA 1978. Dir: Terrence Malick. 94 min. DCP

Terrence Malick, American cinema’s great philosopher-poet, confirmed his genius with this ravishing masterwork, one of the most beautiful films ever made. Set in the 1910s, it stars Richard Gere as Bill, a Chicago steelworker who accidentally kills his foreman and goes on the lam with his sweetheart Abby (Brooke Adams) and his teenage sister (Linda Manz), the film’s blind-spotted, raspy-voiced narrator. Finding refuge in the Elysian wheat fields of the Texas Panhandle, they’re hired as seasonal harvesters by an ailing farmer (the late Sam Shepard, RIP) – who falls in love with Abby, believing she’s Bill’s sister. Malick motifs are here in sublime supply: hushed, reverie-like voiceover; endless magic hour; the indivisibility of man, nature, and God (biblical locusts literally appear). Néstor Almendros’s impressionistic, Oscar-winning cinematography is a benchmark for the art form; Malick’s visionary prowess won him Best Director at Cannes. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27 – 6:30 PM THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28 – 8:15 PM SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30 – 4:00 PM

HARVEY

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!

Beyond the Spectrum: A Family’s Year Confronting Autism Canada 2017. Dir: Steve Suderman. 86 min. DCP

When their son Oskar is diagnosed with severe autism at the age of two, parents Carly and Stef are not completely unprepared. Their older son, Ted, had been diagnosed with (less severe) ASD eight years previously, but Oskar’s situation soon turns out to be different. When ABA/IBI (the most common and generally accepted treatment for autism) doesn’t seem to have the same positive effect on Oskar it did on Ted, Carly and Stef determine that they won’t try to eliminate Oskar’s “undesirable” behaviours but instead try to understand them and how he experiences the world. Taking a year off to focus on Oskar, Carly and Stef explore a wide range of therapies and treatments, while always in the back of their minds remains the question: “Where does the autism end and Oskar begin — or is the autism a fundamental part of who he is?” Post-screening discussion with Dr. Suzanne Lewis, Chief Medical Officer and V.P. of Research at the Pacific Autism Family Network. Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia.

All Ages Welcome!

Harvey

USA 1950. Dir: Henry Koster. 105 min. DCP

Fans of Jimmy Stewart (and who isn’t!) are sure to be charmed by this offbeat, whimsical comedy in which the screen legend stars as Elwood P. Dowd, a congenial man of leisure who spends most of his time in the bar with his best friend Harvey – an invisible six-foot-tall rabbit! Although the big bunny is accepted at Charlie’s Bar (the barman always brings two drinks to the table), back at home Elwood’s socially-ambitious sister Veta (Josephine Hull, in an Oscar-winning role), is at her wit’s end. Convinced that Elwood’s behaviour is hurting her daughter Myrtle Mae’s marriage prospects, Veta sets out to have him committed to a mental hospital. Named to the AFI’s lists of the 100 funniest American comedies and top ten American fantasies of all time, Harvey is worth getting to know! Post-screening discussion with Dr. Randall F. White, a clinical professor of psychiatry at UBC and the medical director of the B.C. Psychosis Program at UBC Hospital. Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20 – 7:30 PM

Co-sponsored by Pacific Autism Family Network. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15 – 7:30 PM

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

Los Otros

Programmed by Allison Collins DIM Cinema presents a double-bill evening of Philippinesmade feature works by filmmakers Shireen Seno and John Torres, plus a selection of short works by Miko Revereza. The program contemplates what it means to be both in and ‘of’ a place while interrogating nationalisms and the lasting effects of Western imperialism. America’s checkered past of influence in Southeast Asia forms the backdrop: as a cultural measuring post in Seno’s experimental feature Big Boy; and in Torres’ latest film, People Power Bombshell, as the catalyzing force for a fictional account of Vietnamese refugees fleeing to the Philippines. As prelude to each feature, short works by Miko Revereza, an emerging voice in Filipino-American filmmaking, have been selected as contemplative inscriptions of direct commentary, and for awareness of how national identity traverses literal borders.

Big Boy

Philippines 2013. Dir: Shireen Seno. 89 min. DCP

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8 – 7:00 PM

Free Admission! Canada on Screen: Experimental Film and Video Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World is presented as part of Canada on Screen, a celebration of Canada’s 150 essential movingimage 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 16.

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World Canada 1985. Dir: Bruce Elder. 435 min. DCP

“It represents the consciousness of a man who stands at the end of time and who surveys the flotsam left behind by the historical process.” Bruce Elder “Look, what I need is an ending,” confesses one of the characters in Bruce Elder’s maximalist 7-hour film-poem epic, composed of over 7000 shots layered with text, stills, dialogue, and music. “Lamentations contains a whirlwind encyclopedic tour of Old World philosophy from Plato to Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Freud, historical personages (Newton, Berkeley, Liszt), art (imagery and music) from the Renaissance to Romantic architecture, medicine’s therapies from analysis to electroshock, New World ruins from pre-Columbian to urban contemporary in mineral, animal, and human form . . . Both philosopher and film artist, Elder occupies a unique place in Canadian filmmaking, combining in a distinctly Canadian synthesis the cosmic emotionality of a Stan Brakhage with the didacticism of a Jean-Luc Godard” (Michael Dorland, Cinema Canada). Note: Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World will screen in two parts over two nights.

People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose Philippines 2016. Dir: John Torres. 89 min. DCP

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8 – 9:00 PM

Part I: The Dream of the Last Historian (195 min.) TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 7:00 PM

Part II: The Sublime Calculation (240 min.) WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6 – 7:00 PM

A CHRISTMAS STORY

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.

A Christmas Story USA/Canada 1983. Dir: Bob Clark. 93 min. DCP

Free Admission! “Constructing Canadiana,” a media-literacy workshop created by The Cinematheque’s Education and Outreach Department, 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. Events are free of charge. For more information, see page 16.

Constructing Canadiana A media-literacy workshop presented by The Cinematheque’s Education and Outreach Department

This holiday season, cozy up to the comforts of one of cinema’s most hilarious and endlessly rewatchable Christmas movies – set in 1940s Indiana but shot mostly in 1980s Toronto! The life of nine-year-old Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) is filled with much schoolboy drama: conflicts with bullies, the attentions of an overprotective mother (Melinda Dillon), and daily discipline meted out by “the Old Man” (Darren McGavin). With Christmas rapidly approaching, Ralphie’s desperate desire for a BB gun overwhelms any good sense the boy can muster, while warnings from his mother, teacher, and even Santa that he’ll “shoot his eye out” only send him deeper into reverie. The film, directed by Porky’s helmer Bob Clark (whose other Christmas story, Black Christmas, screens for decidedly older audiences as part of our Canada on Screen series), appeals to the seasonal nostalgic in all of us – where love, warmth, and varying degrees of minor tragedy all factor into holidays at home with the family. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17 – 1:00 PM

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 1:00 PM

Sweet Talk: Commissions (Beirut 1994) Walid Raad OCT 12 – DEC 9 2017 Audain Gallery

We Call Cathy Busby

Ongoing until APR 28 2018 Teck Gallery

AU DAIN GALLERY

TECK GALLERY

SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts 149 West Hastings Street Vancouver BC, V6B 1H4

SFU Harbour Centre 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver BC, V6B 5K3 778.782.4266

TUE, WED, SAT / 12 – 5PM THU, FRI / 12 - 8PM 778.782.9102

Open during campus hours sfugallery@sfu.ca sfugalleries.ca

IM AG E W a l i d R a a d, S w e e t Ta l k: B e i r u t (C o m -

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5th Annual

Italian Film Fest Vancouver January 5 - 11, 2018 Vancity Theatre 1181 Seymour St

ifffest.ca

P U S H F E S T I VA L . C A @PUSH FESTIVAL

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE

VOLUNTEERS

THE CINEMATHEQUE PROGRAM GUIDE

200 – 1131 Howe Street Vancouver, BC V6Z 2L7 Phone: 604.688.8202 Fax: 604.688.8204 Email: info@theCinematheque.ca Web: theCinematheque.ca

Theatre Volunteers: Aya Alvarez, David Avelino, Mark Beley, Taylor Bishop, Sasha Bondartchouk, Eileen Brosnan, Jeremy Buhler, Nadia Chiu, Eddie D'Agostino, Rob Danielson, Steve Devereux, Bill Dovhey, Yaz Ebrahi, Moana Fertig, Kevin Frew, Lesli Froeschner, Andrew Gable, Shokei Green, Paul Griffiths, Sam Herle, Savannah Kemp, Tash King, Ray Lai, Christina Larabie, Sharon Lee, Britt MacDuff, Abbey Markowitz, Liam McClure, Dawn McCormick, Vit Mlcoch, Sean Murphy, Adrian Nickpour, Brad Reed, Chahram Riazi, Will Ross, Tori Schepel, Sweta Shrestha, Raimondo Spano, Stephen Tweedale, Nathaniel Vossen

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 + Outreach Coordinators: Tash King, Cameron Mackenzie Venue Operations Manager: Linton Murphy Assistant Theatre Managers: Sarah Bakke, Gabi Dao, Aryo Khakpour, Emma Pollard, Paige Smith Head Projectionist: Al Reid Relief Projectionists: Ryan Ermacora Tim Fernandes, Jessica Johnson, Ron Lacheur, Cassidy Penner, Helen Reed, Film Archive Resident: Olivia Babler

Distribution: Hazel Ackner, Horacio Bach, Michael Demers, Gail Franko, Jeff Halladay, Alan Kollins, Martin Lohmann, Lynn Martin, Vincent Tao, Matthew Shields, Lora Tanaka, Vanessa Turner, Harry Wong, Sungpil Yoon Office: Jo B., Betty-Lou Phillips Education: Michael van den Bos Archive: Charlotte Cavalié And a special thanks to all our spares!

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. The Cinematheque gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the following agencies:

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chair: Jim Bindon Vice Chair: David Legault Members: Moshe Mastai, Erin Mussolum, Wynford Owen, Tim Reeve, Eric Wyness

Front Cover Image: Baden Baden MEDIA SPONSOR

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