Cinema Archives - 2012
Inni
May 7 - May 7, 2012
Director Vincent Morisset captures the band in dreamy, grainy, black-and-white images that slide and blur in a way that suggests David Lynch. —San Francisco Chronicle
The soul-stirring fusion of joy and heartache that burns like a current through the music of Sigur Ros comes through loud and clear in Inni. —Variety
The music of Iceland's Sigur Ros fills the cinema, as if reverberating off the walls of some darkly beautiful fjord. —Globe and Mail
Inni is Sigur Rós’s second live film following 2007’s hugely-celebrated Heima. Whereas that film positioned the enigmatic group in the context of their Icelandic homeland, providing geographical, social and historical perspectives on their otherworldly music, with uplifting results, Inni focuses purely on the band’s performance, which is artfully and intimately captured by French Canadian director Vincent Morisset. Interweaving archive material from the band’s first ten years with the sometimes gossamer light, sometimes punishingly intense, concert footage, Inni is a persuasive account of one of the most celebrated and influential rock bands of recent years. 1hr 14min | Iceland | in English & Icelandic | NR
Directed by: Vincent Morisset
Featuring: Jon Thor Birgisson, Orri P. Dyrason and Georg Holm
The Matchmaker
May 4 - May 10, 2012
- Best Actor, Actress — Awards of the Israeli Film Academy
- Best Feature Film — Chicago International Film Festival
A memory play gold-dusted with adolescent longing and a strong sense of fable, The Matchmaker seems singular among Israeli features in the way it juxtaposes guilt with hope, national birth pains with youthful hubris, and utilizes an underside of Israeli life not usually exposed to public view. —Daily Variety
The Matchmaker is a rich tapestry of a movie that is part memory play, part coming-of-age tale, part teen romance and part serious Holocaust film. —Tallahassee Democrat
Arik, a teenage boy growing up in Haifa in 1968, gets a job working for Yankele Bride, a matchmaker. Yankele, a mysterious Holocaust survivor, has an office in back of a movie theater that shows only love stories, run by a family of seven Romanian dwarves in the seedy area by the port. Yankele introduces Arik to a new world, built on the ruins of an old one. As Arik begins to learn the mysteries of the human heart through his work with Yankele, he falls in love with Tamara, his friend Beni’s cousin. Tamara has just returned from America and is full of talk of women’s rights, free love and rock and roll. The disparate parts of Arik’s life collide in unexpected, often funny and very moving ways as he lives through a summer that changes him forever. Avi Nesher’s latest film mixes comedy with drama as it tells a coming-of-age story unlike any you’ve ever seen before. 1hr 52min | Israel | in Hebrew | NR
Directed by: Avi Nesher
Featuring: Adir Miller, Maya Dagan and Tuval Shafir
Monsieur Lazhar
April 27 - May 3, 2012
- Best Foreign Language Film Nominee — Academy Awards
- Best Film, Director, Editing, Actor, Screenplay — Genie Awards
- Best Film, Screenplay — Valladolid International Film Festival
Monsieur Lazhar sustains an exquisite balance between grown-up and child's-eye views of education, teacher-student relations and peer-group interactions. —New York Times
The French-Canadian film Monsieur Lazhar has one of the most powerful openings I've ever seen in a movie. —Christian Science Monitor
It's a tapestry of fraught relationships, weaving issues of parental authority, social taboos and national boundaries. Empathy comes through understanding, but it's not easily achieved. It never is. —Toronto Star
In Montreal, an elementary school teacher dies abruptly. Having learned of the incident in the newspaper, Bachir Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag), a 55-year-old Algerian immigrant, goes to the school to offer his services as a substitute teacher. Quickly hired to replace the deceased, he finds himself in an establishment in crisis, while going through his own personal tragedy. The cultural gap between Bachir and his class is made immediately apparent when he gives them a dictation exercise that is beyond their reach. Little by little, Bachir learns to better know this group of shaken but endearing kids, among whom are Alice and Simon, two charismatic pupils particularly affected by their teacher’s death. While the class goes through the healing process, nobody in the school is aware of Bachir’s painful past; nor do they suspect that he is at risk of being deported at any moment. 1hr 34min | Canada | in French, English & Arabic | PG-13
Directed by: Philippe Falardeau
Featuring: Mohamed Fellag, Sophie Nélisse and Émilien Néron
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Play Again
April 21 - April 26, 2012
Play Again is an excellent and thought-provoking evaluation of how to promote a biologically and spiritually sustainable future for the next generation. —The Midwest Book Review
The film captures the helplessness of a generation hooked on virtual life, and the freedom the children taste when that cord is cut, even momentarily. Interspersed between the kids’ adventures, we hear from an impressive lineup of leading experts on childhood play, the neurology of screen-play, wilderness education, nature deficit disorder and childhood creativity. —Portland Tribune
A short tribute film to local environmental activist, Kathy Cantwell will precede all showings.
One generation from now most people in the U.S. will have spent more time in the virtual world than in nature. New media technologies have improved our lives in countless ways. But what are we missing when we are behind screens? Play Again explores the changing balance between the virtual and natural worlds. This moving and humorous documentary follows six teenagers who, like the “average American child,” spend five to fifteen hours a day behind screens. Play Again unplugs these teens and takes them on their first wilderness adventure. Through the voices of children and leading experts including environmental writer Bill McKibben, neuroscientist Gary Small, and geneticist David Suzuki, Play Again investigates the consequences of a childhood removed from nature and encourages action for a sustainable future. 1hr 22min | USA | NR
Directed by: Tonje Hessen Schei
Featuring: James Barret, Taylor Blake and Jerald Block
Water on the Table
April 20 - April 26, 2012
Exceptionally well done, and extremely informative, I would definitely recommend this film to anyone and everyone. Because in the 21st century where the term 'blue gold' holds more weight and significance than virtually any other, we must all raise our consciousness to this critical issue at hand and work together to protect our most vital natural resource, as well as our natural right to water. Our very futures, and those of our children, may wholly depend on it. —Niagra at Large
Barlow's battle is not a simple semantic debate: A human need can still be commoditized, whereas if water is declared a human right, it can no longer be sold, traded, or denied to those who cannot afford it. —Brittany Shoot
Water On The Table is a character-driven, social-issue documentary that explores Canada’s relationship to its freshwater, arguably its most precious natural resource. The film asks the question: is water a commercial good like running shoes or Coca-Cola? Or, is water a human right like air? Water On The Table features Maude Barlow, who is considered an “international water-warrior” for her crusade to have water declared a human right. ”Water must be declared a public trust and a human right that belongs to the people, the ecosystem and the future, and preserved for all time and practice in law. Clean water must be delivered as a public service, not a profitable commodity. The film intimately captures the public face of Maude Barlow as well as the unscripted woman behind the scenes. The camera shadows her life on the road in Canada and the United States over the course of a year as she leads an unrelenting schedule. From 2008 – 2009 Barlow served as the U.N. Senior Advisor on Water to Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the 63rd Session of the United Nations. More than a portrait of an activist, Water On The Table presents several dramatic opposing arguments. Barlow’s critics are policy and economic experts who argue that water is no different than any other resource, and that the best way to protect freshwater is to privatize it. It is proposed that Canada bulk-export its water to the United States in the face of an imminent water crisis. Cinematic haiku-style images by Director of Photography Steve Cosens CSC, linger on watersheds, wetlands, rivers, estuaries, waterfalls and lakes, bridging themes and questions and elevating water beyond the political and into the realm of our own soul as a species on Earth. While many embrace Barlow as a leader in the global water justice movement, her critics regard her as an alarmist. She became involved with the issue of Canada’s water in the mid-1980s, when it became clear that it was to be included as a tradable good in the Canada -US Free Trade Agreement. She tried very hard to get it removed, then stayed involved in the fight for Canada’s water when it was included in NAFTA as not only a good, but also as an investment. Water has since defined her. 1hr 19min | Canada | NR
Directed by: Liz Marshall
The Deep Blue Sea
April 13 - April 19, 2012
A shimmering exploration of romantic obsession and the tension between fitting in and flying free. —NPR
Rachel Weisz - in what has to be the performance of her career, and there have been lots of good ones - plays an intelligent woman in the grip of a lust that's too big to handle or suppress. She can either ride the tiger or be devoured. —San Francisco Chronicle
Exceptionally well-made and completely fearless in its depiction of the widest range of romantic emotions, this is a film as fiercely committed to passion as its heroine, and that's saying a lot. —Los Angeles Times
Master chronicler of post-War England, Terence Davies directs Rachel Weisz as a woman whose overpowering love threatens her well-being and alienates the men in her life. In a deeply vulnerable performance, Rachel Weisz plays Hester Collyer, the wife of an upper-class judge (Simon Russell Beale) and a free spirit trapped in a passionless marriage. Her encounter with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), a troubled former Royal Air Force pilot, throws her life in turmoil, as their erotic relationship leaves her emotionally stranded and physically isolated. The film is an adaptation of British playwright Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play, featuring one of the greatest roles for an actress in modern theatre. 1hr 38min | UK | R
Directed by: Terence Davies
Featuring: Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Ann Mitchell
This Is Not A Film
April 7 - April 12, 2012
An inspiring must-see for anyone who feels the urgent need to create something beautiful and meaningful, no matter the cost. —Christy Lemire
If this is not a film, it is, among other things, a statement of creative resistance in the face of tyranny and a document of intellectual freedom under political duress. —New York Times
Against all odds, an unquenchable artist has made yet another piece of powerful art. —Wall Street Journal
It's a political statement, an act of defiance, a master class in one auteur's body of work and process, and a document of a life unseen. —Village Voice
This clandestine documentary, shot partially on an iPhone and smuggled into France in a cake for a last-minute submission to Cannes, depicts the day-to-day life of acclaimed director Jafar Panahi during his house arrest in his Tehran apartment. Panahi, whose critically acclaimed work includes Offside and The Circle, and co-director Mirtahmasb are currently banned from filmmaking and from leaving the country. Both men are accused of fomenting anti-government propaganda through their movies. Panahi’s appeal was denied in October 2011. According to the Islamic Republic’s laws, he could be arrested and sent back to jail at any time. While appealing his sentence - six years in prison and a 20 year ban from filmmaking - Panahi is seen talking to his family and lawyer on the phone, discussing his plight with Mirtahmasb and reflecting on the meaning of the art of filmmaking. 1hr 25min | Iran | in Persian | NR
Directed by: Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
Featuring: Jafar Panahi
Splinters
April 3 - April 3, 2012
- Outstanding Achievement in Action Sports Filmmaking, Audience Award — Newport Beach Film Festival
The best film ever made about competitive surfing in Papua New Guinea... —Village Voice
A cool doc that pivots adroitly between viewpoints and ambitions. —New York Daily News
Not all of these players win in this capable account of their struggles, but all contribute to a valuable lesson in fair play. —New York Times
Splinters is the first feature-length documentary film about the evolution of indigenous surfing in the developing nation of Papua New Guinea. In the 1980s an intrepid Australian pilot left behind a surfboard in the seaside village of Vanimo. Twenty years on, surfing is not only a pillar of village life but also a means to prestige. With no access to economic or educational advancement, let alone running water and power, village life is hermetic. A spot on the Papua New Guinea national surfing team is the way to see the wider world; the only way. 1hr 25min | USA | NR
Directed by: Adam Pesce
Detachment
March 30 - April 5, 2012
- Critics Award, Revelations Prize — Deauville Film Festival
- Audience Award — São Paulo, Valenciennes International Film Festivals
The movie works, and, though it cries out against so much, you sense that the one thing it does not cry is wolf. —New Yorker
....[A] wrenching and powerful achievement... —Salon.com
Brody, as the semi-fallen idealist, has a haggard eloquence, and Tim Blake Nelson, Christina Hendricks, and James Caan, as his colleagues, act out a bitterly funny spectrum of desolation. —Entertainment Weekly
In Director Tony Kaye’s Detachment, Adrien Brody stars as Henry Barthes, an educator with a true talent to connect with his students. Yet Henry has chosen to bury his gift. By spending his days as a substitute teacher, he conveniently avoids any emotional connections by never staying anywhere long enough to form an attachment to either students or colleagues. When a new assignment places him at a public school where a frustrated, burned-out administration has created an apathetic student body, Henry soon becomes a role model to the disaffected youth. In finding an unlikely emotional connection to the students, teachers, and a runaway teen he takes in from the streets, Henry realizes that he’s not alone in his life and death struggle to find beauty in a seemingly vicious and loveless world. 1hr 37min | USA | NR
Directed by: Tony Kaye
Featuring: Adrien Brody, Christina Hendricks and Marcia Gay Harden
A Separation
March 23 - March 29, 2012
- Best Foreign Language Film — Academy Awards, Golden Globes, National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics
- Best Film, Actress, Actor — Berlin International Film Festival
- Best Screenplay — Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Durban International Film Festival, National Society of Film Critics
A Separation is a great movie, a look inside a world so foreign that it might as well be another planet, yet so universal that its observations are painfully familiar to anyone, anywhere. —Arizona Republic
Asghar Farhadi's A Separation serves as a quiet reminder of how good it's possible for movies to be. —Slate
Dynamically shot and paced like a thriller, the film has the density and moral prickliness of a good novel. —The Atlantic
Set in contemporary Iran, A Separation is a compelling drama about the dissolution of a marriage. Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and daughter Termeh. Simin sues for divorce when Nader refuses to leave behind his Alzheimer-suffering father. Her request having failed, Simin returns to her parents’ home, but Termeh decides to stay with Nader. When Nader hires a young woman to assist with his father in his wife’s absence, he hopes that his life will return to a normal state. However, when he discovers that the new maid has been lying to him, he realizes that there is more on the line than just his marriage. 2hrs 3min | Iran | in Persian | PG-13
Directed by: Asghar Farhadi
Featuring: Peyman Moadi, Leila Hatami and Sareh Bayat
Declaration of War
March 16 - March 22, 2012
- Best Film, Actor, Actress — Gijón International Film Festival
Both a persuasive brief for the single-payer system and a reverent, grateful exaltation of the high science of modern medicine... —New Yorker
Declaration of War turns autobiography into thrilling expressionist art. —Village Voice
A vibrant and heartfelt French film that captures the mood and the memories of young parents who found themselves in the trenches fighting for the life of their child. —Los Angeles Times
A critical and box office hit at home, Declaration of War was France’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2011 Academy Awards. Declaration of War is a domestic comedy as much as it is a medical drama. This movie has been made by the couple it is about, Valérie Donzelli and Jérémie Elkaïm. Drawing on the real life experiences of Donzelli and co-star/co-writer Elkaïm and what they went through when their own son fell ill, the film will bring tears to your eyes and dazzle you with its contagious vitality. She directed, they wrote it together, and in real life, their relationship also fell apart. They approach their fraught story with a surprising freshness. The visual approach is lively, there are shots of fancy and fantasy, and we know from the beginning that the child will survive. The opening night film at this year’s Critics Week at the Cannes Film Festival, this exuberant and deeply moving film follows a new couple, Romeo (Elkaïm) and Juliette (Donzelli), who must face the ultimate test when they discover their newborn child is very ill. Gathering their friends and family together, they confront this ordeal together as a form of warfare. Donzelli infuses the story with unexpected verve using a host of cinematic techniques, music and heartbreaking performances that results in a film about a contemporary couple who surprises even themselves with their ability to fight not only for the life of their child but for each other. 1hr 40 mins | France | in French | NR
Directed by: Valérie Donzelli
Featuring: Valérie Donzelli, Jérémie Elkaïm and César Desseix
Tomboy
March 9 - March 15, 2012
- Berlin International Film Festival — Teddy Jury Award
- Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival — Best Feature Film
Quiet and naturalistic in the best way, the French film Tomboy rolls out a tale of malleable pre-adolescent identity with a marked absence of sensationalism. —Los Angeles Times
Tomboy astutely explores the freedom, however brief, of being untethered to the highly rule-bound world of gender codes. —Village Voice
Open-minded and open-ended, Tomboy is a portrait of pubescence on the brink of chrysalis. —Philadelphia Inquirer
A French family with two daughters, 10-year-old Laure and 6-year-old Jeanne, moves to a new neighborhood during the summer holidays. With her Jean Seberg haircut and tomboy ways, Laure is immediately mistaken for a boy by the local kids and passes herself off as Michael. Filmmaker Céline Sciamma brings a light and charming touch to this drama of childhood gender confusion. Zoe Heran as Laure/Michael and Malonn Levanna as Jeanne are nothing less than brilliant. This is a relationship movie: relationships between children, and the even more complicated one between one’s heart and body. 1hr 24min | France | in French | NR
Directed by: Céline Sciamma
Featuring: Zoé Héran, Malonn Lévana and Jeanne Disson
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
March 2 - March 22, 2012
- Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay — Academy Award Nominee
- Best Adapted Screenplay, Outstanding British Film — BAFTA Awards
- Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay — San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy looks, sounds and feels exactly right. —Roger Ebert
In its attention to detail and awareness of betrayals both political and human, Tinker Tailor' is a movie for grown-ups. —Boston Globe
Alfredsen made the excellent vampire thriller Let the Right One In, and his knack for brackish, enveloping atmosphere is rare indeed. —Chicago Tribune
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the long-awaited feature film version of John le Carré’s classic bestselling novel. The thriller is directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In). The time is 1973. The Cold War of the mid-20th Century continues to damage international relations. Britain’s MI6, code-named the Circus, is striving to keep pace with other countries’ espionage efforts and to keep the U.K. secure. The head of the Circus, known as Control (John Hurt), is forced out of the Circus – as is his top lieutenant, George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a career spy with razor-sharp senses. Smiley is rehired in secret at the government’s behest, as there is a gnawing fear that the Circus has long been compromised by a double agent, or mole, working for the Soviets and jeopardizing England. Smiley parses the Circus’ activities past and present and, in trying to track and identify the mole, is haunted by his past. 2hr 7min | UK | R
Directed by: Tomas Alfredson
Featuring: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Tom Hardy
Albert Nobbs
February 24 - March 7, 2012
- Best Actress, Supporting Actress, Achievement in Makeup — Academy Awards Nominee
- Best Actress — Tokyo International Film Festival
- Best Supporting Actress — Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards
[It] sneaks up on the audience with the quiet discretion of the enigmatic protagonist at its center. And, like him, it contains multitudes beneath its prim surface. —Washington Post
Albert Nobbs is a film of great texture and tenderness, and the actors are a joy to behold. —Detroit News
Close's performance as this poor, wounded fellow resonates with depth and poignancy. —Philadelphia Inquirer
Award-winning actress Glenn Close plays a woman passing as a man in order to work and survive in 19th century Ireland. Some thirty years after donning men’s clothing, she finds herself trapped in a prison of her own making. Mia Wasikowska (Helen), Aaron Johnson (Joe) and Brendan Gleeson (Dr. Holloran) join a prestigious, international cast that includes Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Janet McTeer, Brenda Fricker and Pauline Collins. Rodrigo Garcia directs from a script that Glenn Close, along with Man Booker prize-winning novelist John Banville and Gabriella Prekop, adapted from a short story by Irish author George Moore. 1hr 53min | UK & Ireland | R
Directed by: Rodrigo García
Featuring: Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska and Aaron Johnson
The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012 - Animated
February 17 - February 28, 2012
Includes all 5 nominees plus select entries from the short list!
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see all five Academy Award nominees in the category of Best Animated Short and more! Program includes: “Dimanche/Sunday” (Canada), in which every Sunday, it’s the same old routine—the train clatters through the village, Grandma will get a visit, and Dad dreams about his toolbox in church; “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” (USA), a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story, inspired in equal measures by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz and a love for books; Pixar’s “La Luna” (USA), a timeless coming-of-age fable of a young boy whose Papa and Grandpa take him to work for the very first time, rowing in an old wooden boat far out to sea; “A Morning Stroll” (UK), a whimsical tale in which a New Yorker meets a chicken on his morning walk; and “Wild Life” (Canada), the story of an Englishman who moves to Calgary on the Canadian frontier in 1909, but is singularly unsuited to it. 1hr 20min | NR
My Week with Marilyn
February 10 - February 16, 2012
- Best Actress, Supporting Actor — Academy Awards Nominee
- Best Film, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress — BAFTA Awards Nominee
- Best Actress — Golden Globes, 7 National Critics' Awards
Something moved me deeply watching Ms. Williams as the tragic Marilyn, illuminating the girlish joy, erotic glamour and self-destructive suffering of a public icon who was privately a bottomless pit of need. —New York Observer
Williams brings Marilyn to life in all her permutations: little-girl-lost Norma Jean; sexy, kittenish Marilyn Monroe; and the confused woman trapped in between. —ReelViews
In the early summer of 1956, 23 year-old Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), just down from Oxford and determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant on the set of ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’. The film that famously united Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams), who was also on honeymoon with her new husband, the playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott). Nearly 40 years on, his diary account The Prince, the Showgirl and Me was published, but one week was missing and this was published some years later as My Week with Marilyn - this is the story of that week. When Arthur Miller leaves England, the coast is clear for Colin to introduce Marilyn to some of the pleasures of British life; an idyllic week in which he escorted a Monroe desperate to get away from her retinue of Hollywood hangers-on and the pressures of work. 1hr 39min | USA | R
Directed by: Simon Curtis
Featuring: Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne and Kenneth Branagh
Martha Marcy May Marlene
February 3 - February 9, 2012
- Directing Award — Sundance Film Festival
- Best Actress — Central Ohio Film Critics Association, Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards
- Most Promising Performer, Most Promising Filmmaker — Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Martha Marcy May Marlene stands among the best films of 2011. —MSN Movies
Martha Marcy May Marlene is an utterly gripping ride that will keep you guessing until the last second about what is real and what imagined, and whether Martha has entirely snapped the tether of sanity. —Salon.com
Martha Marcy May Marlene is a powerful psychological thriller starring Elizabeth Olsen as Martha, a young woman rapidly unraveling amidst her attempt to reclaim a normal life after fleeing from a cult and its charismatic leader (John Hawkes). Seeking help from her estranged older sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law (Hugh Dancy), Martha is unable and unwilling to reveal the truth about her disappearance. When her memories trigger a chilling paranoia that her former cult could still be pursuing her, the line between Martha’s reality and delusion begins to blur. 1hr 42min | USA | R
Directed by: Sean Durkin
Featuring: Elizabeth Olsen, Sarah Paulson and John Hawkes
Connected
January 27 - February 29, 2012
- Audience Award — Maui Film Festival
- Best of Fest — Portland Maine Film Festival
- Metta Media Award — Dallas Video Fest
... “Connected” unfolds like a manic burst of Internet browsing: a cinematic clickstream of Wikipedia-worthy overviews, Facebook family albums and Twitter-sized philosophizing. —New York Times
A combo documentary, memoir, and probe of technology that offers a creative look at the brave new world of interdependence and collaboration. —Spirituality and Practice
Have you ever faked a restroom trip to check your email? Slept with your laptop? Or become so overwhelmed that you just unplugged from it all? In this funny, eye-opening, and inspiring film, director Tiffany Shlain takes audiences on an exhilarating rollercoaster ride to discover what it means to be connected in the 21st century. From founding The Webby Awards to being a passionate advocate for The National Day of Unplugging, Shlain’s love/hate relationship with technology serves as the springboard for a thrilling exploration of modern life…and our interconnected future. Equal parts documentary and memoir, the film unfolds during a year in which technology and science literally become a matter of life and death for the director. As Shlain’s father battles brain cancer and she confronts a high-risk pregnancy, her very understanding of connection is challenged. Using a brilliant mix of animation, archival footage, and home movies, Shlain reveals the surprising ties that link us not only to the people we love but also to the world at large. A personal film with universal relevance, Connected explores how, after centuries of declaring our independence, it may be time for us to declare our interdependence instead. 1hr 20min | USA | PG
Sponsored by 
Directed by: Tiffany Shlain
Featuring: Tiffany Shlain
Le Havre
January 20 - January 26, 2012
- FIPRESCI Prize — Cannes Film Festival
- Top Foreign Language Film — National Board of Review
- Best Foreign Film — Munich Film Festival
Buster Keaton isn't dead, he's alive and well in Finland ... If the name Aki Kaurismäki doesn't mean anything to you, it should, and Le Havre may be the film to make it happen. —Los Angeles Times
"Le Havre" is utopian precisely because it shows everything as it is not. —Village Voice
A stylized and sentimental fairy tale about the way the world might be ... Aki Kaurismäki has become a major inheritor of the comic-humanist tradition of Charlie Chaplin, Jean Renoir and Jacques Tati. —New York Times
In this warmhearted portrait of the French harbor city that gives the film its name, fate throws young African refugee Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) into the path of Marcel Marx (André Wilms), a well-spoken bohemian who works as a shoeshiner. With innate optimism and the unwavering support of his community, Marcel stands up to officials doggedly pursuing the boy for deportation. A political fairy tale that exists somewhere between the reality of contemporary France and the classic cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville and Marcel Carné, Le Havre is a charming, deadpan delight. 1hr 33min | Finland | in French | R
Directed by: Aki Kaurismäki
Featuring: André Wilms, Blondin Miguel and Jean-Pierre Darroussin
Into the Abyss
January 13 - January 19, 2012
- Best Documentary — British Film Institute Awards
You come out shaken by the fathomless destructiveness of idiocy and the healing powers of belief and remediation. —New Yorker
Into the Abyss does what too few documentaries these days do - it gives ample play to all sides of the argument. Herzog allows us to think things through on our own. —Christian Science Monitor
The paradox of this film is that it is both unremittingly bleak and rigorously humane. —New York Times
In his fascinating exploration of a triple homicide case in Conroe, Texas, master filmmaker Werner Herzog (Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Grizzly Man) probes the human psyche to explore why people kill—and why a state kills. In intimate conversations with those involved, including 28-year-old death row inmate Michael Perry (scheduled to die within eight days of appearing on-screen), Herzog achieves what he describes as “a gaze into the abyss of the human soul.” Herzog’s inquiries also extend to the families of the victims and perpetrators as well as a state executioner and pastor who’ve been with death row prisoners as they’ve taken their final breaths. As he’s so often done before, Herzog’s investigation unveils layers of humanity, making an enlightening trip out of ominous territory. 1hr 47min | Germany | in English | PG-13
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Featuring: Jason Burkett, Werner Herzog and Michael Perry
Melancholia
January 6 - January 12, 2012
- Best Film, Best Actress — National Society of Film Critics
- Best Actress — Cannes Film Festival
- Breakthrough Performer — Hamptons International Film Festival
The most composed and beautiful and conspicuously adult film of [von Trier's] career... —Salon.com
One of the year's most emotionally resonant art movies. —New York Post
[The] mind-blowing Melancholia offers perhaps the gentlest depiction of annihilation one could imagine from any director, much less the Danish provocateur. —Variety
The end of the world—and the collapse of the spirit—has never been depicted as beautifully and wrenchingly as in Melancholia, the latest provocation from Lars von Trier (Dancer in the Dark). The title refers both to a destructive planet “that has been hiding behind the sun” and the crippling depression of new bride Justine (a revelatory Kirsten Dunst, rightful winner of the Best Actress award at Cannes this year), whose mental illness is so severe that she drives away her groom during their disastrous wedding reception. As the extinction of the planet looms ever larger, Justine is desperately tended to by her sister, Claire (an equally magnificent Charlotte Gainsbourg), herself gripped by anxiety over the impending doomsday. Melancholia‘s premise may be science fiction, but the feelings of despair it plumbs are the most heart-felt human drama. 2hrs 16min | Denmark | in English | R
Directed by: Lars von Trier
Featuring: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland