From May 31st through June 7th, Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair will be returning to theaters for the fifth year. This festival, which has expanded globally this year to seventy-three cities, began in Los Angeles by the American Cinematheque to present a weeklong event that spotlights some of the greatest films from around the world that explore the darkest sides of humanity, as well as some of the bleakest points in human history. This year's series continues with some of the world’s greatest filmmakers who completely embrace a cinema of despair in pursuit of unpleasant truths and raw empathy.
Some of the films presented will include appearances by filmmakers and actors for discussions with highlights include French acting icon, Isabelle Huppert with six of her films that will feature "The Piano Teacher", "Elle" and the infamous, "Heaven's Gate"; filmmaker, Ari Aster will have a retrospective that will include his bleak classics, "Hereditary", "Beau is Afraid" and a director's cut of "Midsommar"; Steven Spielberg's timely, "A.I Artificial Intelligence" will celebrate it's 25th Anniversary with actor, Haley Joel Osment;
The Coen Brothers' underappreciated 2001 film, "The Man Who Wasn't There" with the theatrical world premiere of a new restoration and Q&A with cinematographer Roger Deakins; Theresa Russell will be present for a screening of "Bad Timing", a now cult classic that co-starred Art Garfunkel and directed by her then-husband, Nicolas Roeg; the U.S. premiere of a new 4K restoration of Jane Campion's Oscar-winning drama, "The Piano" from 1993; and Al Pacino will be in-person for a Q&A following a screening of "The Godfather Part II" on June 2nd.
The screenings will take place at the Los Feliz 3 Theatres, The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. For the complete list of films, please click below:
The esteemed Polish filmmaker, Krzysztof Kieślowski will be honored with a tribute by the American Cinematheque with a screening of his best known works which includes his celebrated "Three Colours" trilogy. The retrospective will begin on May 3rd and running through July 12th with screenings held at the Aero Theatre, Los Feliz 3 and Egyptian Theatre.
Kieślowski, who passed away in 1996 at the age fifty-four during open-heart surgery following a heart attack, had been awarded numerous prizes throughout his career that included a 1988 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize, the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion in 1993, the Berlin International Film Festival Silver Bear as well as receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay in 1995.
Born in Warsaw, Kieślowski had no real career goals, briefly attending firefighters' training school and then wanted to become a theatre director but lacked the proper education and settled on cinema. He applied to the Łódź Film School and was rejected three times before finally being accepted. After making several short films, Kieślowski's first major project was a documentary and his first film for television, "Workers '71: Nothing About Us Without Us" in 1972 which focused on workers discussing the reasons for the mass strikes of 1970. Frustrated by the censorship of his film by the government when it aired, Kieślowski decided to focus largely on fiction which would allow him more artistic freedom and control over his work.
His first feature film was "Personnel", a 1975 television drama about a young man who finds work as a tailor at an opera and becomes disillusioned by the harsh realities of stage productions, that would win numerous awards at national festivals including the Grand Prize at the Mannheim International Film festival. Kieślowski's work during his early period were shot in a documentary style with many nonprofessional actors which includes "Blizna (The Scar)", "Przypadek (Blind Chance)" and No End "Bez końca (No End)". This lead to the 1988 television movie, "Dekalog" which featured a series of ten hour-long episodes set in a Warsaw tower block, each loosely based on one of the Ten Commandments. The program helped Kieślowski attract foreign financing for his next films, mainly from France, which allowed him to have a bigger budget and expand his vision to create his work.
The first was "The Double Life of Veronique" in 1990 which starred Irène Jacob as two women, one Polish and the other French that do not know each other, who share a deep, emotional bond that transcends language and geography. This film became internationally acclaimed, winning the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the Best Actress award for Jacob.
His next project was the ambitious feature film trilogy, "Three Colours (Blue, White, Red)", which explores the virtues symbolized by the French flag. "Blue" (which symbolizes liberty) starred Juliette Binoche as a woman whose husband and daughter are killed in a car accident and then tries to isolate herself from life. "White", about equality, is a psychological comedy involving a Polish man (Zbigniew Zamachowski) living in Paris that suffers several humiliating circumstances after being left by his French wife (Julie Delpy). And Irène Jacob starred in "Red" (which represents fraternity) with her playing a model whose life dramatically collides with a bitter retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant). Despite the critical acclaim for these films, Kieślowski announced he was retiring in 1994 following the premiere of "Red" at the Cannes Film Festival. He had become physically and emotionally exhausted from the process of filmmaking as well as claiming to really never enjoyed making movies.
Whether this was true or not, Kieślowski revealed himself to be a true cinematic visionary, leaving behind an indelible collection of films ranging from the social realist examinations of life under communism to the universal complexities of the human condition.
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The American Cinematheque will celebrate the Danish-Norwegian filmmaker, Joachim Trier with a tribute featuring most of his movies to date beginning on January 2nd to January 8th. There has been plenty of buzz surrounding his most recent film, "Affeksjonsverdi (Sentimental Value)" which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, selected as the Norwegian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, was awarded or nominated for several film critics prizes and received seven nominations for the upcoming Golden Globe Awards. Trier and his long-time collaborator, Eskil Vogt (who has co-written all of Trier's films) will be in-person for a special screening of "Sentimental Value" on January 7th at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. They will also be appearing together following the screening of their previously acclaimed film from 2021, "Verdens verste menneske (The Worst Person in the World)" on January 8th at the Los Feliz Theatre in Los Angeles.
The work of Trier tends to be intimate ruminations involving romantic relationships, memory and an arduous search for a sense of identity. His arresting films are filled with dark moods, darker humor and subdued emotions while visually highly stylized yet naturalistic in tone.
Trier came from a family that had been involved in cinema with his father working as a sound technician and his grandfather was an experimental filmmaker in Norway. He first got involved with film himself by shooting and editing his own skateboarding videos. Trier later enrolled at the European Film College in Denmark and then the National Film & Television School in Britain. It was during this time that he made several short films with one, "Proctor" winning Best British Short Award at the 2002 Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Trier went to work on his feature film debut, "Reprise", released in 2006, about two friends who both want to become writers but whose lives take on different paths. This well-received film would go on to be selected as Norway's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. "Reprise" became the first feature in Trier's Oslo trilogy, a trio of standalone films all set in the Norwegian city, which was followed by "Oslo, August 31st" in 2011 and concluded with "The Worst Person in the World". Trier also directed "Louder Than Bombs" his first English-language film, the supernatural thriller, "Thelma", and the documentary "The Other Munch".
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The American Cinematheque will honor Gus Van Sant with a career retrospective beginning on December 4th through December 13th with screenings held at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica and Los Feliz 3 Theatres in Los Angeles. This master filmmaker of independent and mainstream cinema will have screened some of his best known and critically acclaimed works made early in his extraordinary career. The fest will end with an advance screening of his newest film, "Dead Man's Wire", a crime caper based on a true story set in the '70's involving a disgruntled customer who kidnaps his bank mortgager, then demands hostage money and an apology. Van Sant and screenwriter Austin Kolodney will be in person for a Q&A at the Aero, followed by a screening of the director's acclaimed 1989 dark comedy, "Drugstore Cowboy" that starred Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch.
With an interest in the visual arts as a young man, Van Sant attended the Rhode Island School of Design where he studied various avant-garde directors and began making Super-8 short films. Moving to Los Angeles in 1976, Van Sant found work as a production assistant while trying to break into the film business. During this period, he began to observe the colorful denizens living in the rougher sections of Hollywood.
After moving to Portland, this experience helped inspire him to adapt Walt Curtis' autobiographical novel, "Mala Noche" as his feature film debut in 1986. Shot in 16mm black & white film and a budget of $25,000, the story follows the relationship between Walt, a gay store clerk, and two younger Mexican boys. "Mala Noche" was well received in the film festival circuit, helping to kick off the new queer cinema movement, and Hollywood took interest in the young filmmaker. But the studios were not receptive to his non-mainstream ideas, so Van Sant went back to develop his own indie projects. "Drugstore Cowboy" became a critical hit and would be followed by "My Own Private Idaho", loosely based on Shakespeare's "Henry V" that featured stars, River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves, receiving wide praise, awards and moderate financial success.
Now the studios were more interested in what Van Sant had to offer. But his next film, a 1993 adaptation of Tom Robbins' "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" was considered a flop but his follow-up, the 1995 black comedy, "To Die For" was received as a great achievement and was the first film to properly showcase what Nicole Kidman, a rising performer at the time, could really do as an actor.
Van Sant would continue on making films his way, encountering major triumphs ("Good Will Hunting", "Milk". "Elephant", "Last Days") or less than stellar receptions ("Gerry", "Restless", "The Sea of Trees" and the still puzzling shot-for-shot remake of "Psycho") in the process.
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Park Chan-wook, the South Korean filmmaker widely regarded as a leading figure in current world cinema, is having a retrospective at the American Cinematheque that will feature some highlights from his storied career. Many of Park's films, largely rooted in the crime-thriller genre, have become celebrated for their stylized camerawork, black humor, and brutal violence.
Beginning November 16th, there will be an advance screening of his latest feature, the dark comedy-thriller, "No Other Choice", which will be followed by an in-person Q&A with Park and star, Lee Byung Hun at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. The other screenings, which will be held at the Los Feliz 3 and Egyptian Theatres through December, will include his unofficial Vengeance Trilogy: "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance", "Lady Vengeance" and "Oldboy", which is considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made and helped introduce Park to a wide global audience.
Originally intending to be become an art critic, Park decided to move into filmmaking after viewing the Alfred Hitchcock classic, "Vertigo". His feature film debut, "The Moon Is... the Sun's Dream" in 1992 and his follow-up five years later, "Trio" were not well received, and he has since tried to distance himself from these works. His breakthrough came (and what he considers his "first" film) with "Joint Security Area" in 2000, a riveting thriller involving deceit, misunderstanding and the senselessness of war (screening on December 6th at the Egyptian with Park in-person) which became one of the highest-grossing films in South Korean history. This was followed by other acclaimed works that include "Thrist", "I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK", the English-language film, "Snowpiercer", "Decision to Leave" (winning Park the 2022 Best Director prize at Cannes) and the celebrated erotic-thriller, "The Handmaiden" which be screened during this festival on December 5th.
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The American Cinematheque will present a thorough retrospective of the renowned Belgian filmmaker, Chantal Akerman. The film that this bold and visionary artist is best known for is "Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" from 1975 which found its way to be ranked "the greatest film of all time" in Sight & Sound magazine's 2022 critics poll. This film will be screened to start the festival on November 2nd and will feature several of Akerman's early short films, her first feature film and first documentary on various dates through December.
A pioneer of cinematic modernism, Akerman's filming style focused on capturing ordinary life which tends to move at an unhurried pace. And while she didn't regard herself as a "feminist", Akerman always tried to transcend female aesthetics of the cinema in her work.
Born in Brussels, Belgium, Akerman enrolled in INSAS, a Belgian film school, but dropped out during her first semester to make a short film, "Saute ma ville" in 1968. Akerman moved to New York City in 1971, staying for about a year, where she was exposed to the vibrant art scene that was happening during this period. She also met and began her long collaboration with French cinematographer, Babette Mangolte, who was living in the US at the time, making the documentary, "Hotel Monterey" and some short films.
Once back in Belgium, Akerman began working on her first feature film, "Je, Tu, Il, Elle" that focused on a young woman's unconventional sexuality which was a daring statement at the time. She would go on to make twelve feature films and sixteen documentaries and short films.
Sadly, Akerman ended her own life on October 5, 2015 in Paris, at the age of 65. Her last film prior to her passing was "No Home Movie", a documentary that featured a series of conversations she made with her beloved mother shortly before she died.
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Claire Denis, the distinguished French filmmaker, will be honored with a celebration of her work and career with an American Cinematheque retrospective beginning on June 4th through 7th which is also part of the Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair film festival.
While she was born in Paris, Denis was raised during her formative years in colonial West Africa as her father was a civil servant which he moved the family around every two years across the area. This experience would have a profound influence on her future career as a filmmaker as well as the old American films she would watch as a child.
By the time she returned to France as a teenager, Denis felt disconnected to her birth country. As as young woman, she searched for direction. She was briefly married to a photographer and studied various subjects before attending the prestigious film school, IDHEC (which is now La Fémis). After graduating in 1971, Denis would go on to be the assistant director for many acclaimed filmmakers which included Wim Wenders with Denis traveling to the US with the German director to film "Paris, Texas" and his return to Germany to make "Wings of Desire".
At this point, Denis was ready to call her own shots behind the camera and made "Chocolat" in 1988. This semi-autobiographical drama looks at a French woman reflecting on her childhood in Cameroon and her relationship with her family's African servant. This film, nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, brought her immediate acclaim.
Denis would go to have an extraordinary career with the now seventy-nine year old director having made sixteen feature films to date as well as numerous short films and documentaries. American Cinematheque will spotlight six of her movies which includes Denis' most acclaimed film, "Beau Travail", a 1999 drama loosely based on
Herman Melville's novella, "Billy Budd". The other films featured are "35 Rhums (35 Shots of Rum)"; the erotic-horror drama, "Trouble Every Day"; "Les Salauds (Bastards)", an homage to film noir starring Vincent Lindon and Chiara Mastroianni; her first English-language film, "High Life", a sci-fi horror with Robert Pattinson and "White Material" which has Denis returning to Africa with Isabelle Huppert as the owner of a struggling coffee plantation trying to hold on to it during the eruption of a civil war.
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Catherine Breillat, the French cinematic provocateur, will be the focus of an American Cinematheque Retrospective beginning on July 15th through August 15th. Throughout her almost fifty years as a filmmaker, she has fearlessly explored female sexuality and the politics surrounding the subject with audacious imagery, perplexing characters, brutal candor and uncompromising style.
She began her professional career at the age of seventeen with the publication of her first novel, "l'Homme facile (A Man for the Asking)". Due to it's sexual themes, the book was banned for readers under eighteen years old. Breillat continued this exploration when she moved into filmmaking in 1976 with her debut feature, "Une vraie jeune fille (A Real Young Girl)" which was based on her fourth novel about the sexual awakening of a fourteen year old girl. Once again, the graphic depiction of sexual scenes led to the film being banned in many countries and was not released to theatres until 2000.
Breillat suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 2004, causing a stroke and leaving her left side paralyzed. Yet after months of hospitalization and intense rehabilitation, the director was able to returned to filmmaking.
This fourteen film fest will lead off with Breillat's latest, "L'Été dernier (Last Summer)", her first film in ten years and based on the 2019 Danish film, "Dronningen (Queen of Hearts)". Léa Drucker stars as a lawyer who specializes in child protection. She is happily married with two children but after the troubled seventeen year old son (Samuel Kircher) from her husband's previous marriage moves in with them, an inappropriate intimate relationship begins between them.
Other films by Breillat to be screened include "Romance X" and "Anatomie de l'enfer (Anatomy of Hell)" which both feature hardcore sexual scenes and the famed Italian porn star, Rocco Siffredi; "Sex Is Comedy", a dramedy that revolves around a film director (played by Anne Parillaud) trying to film an intimate sex scene between two actors who can't stand each other and "Abus de faiblesse (Abuse of Weakness)", a semi-autobiographical film about a filmmaker (Isabelle Huppert) who suffers a cerebral hemorrhage that leaves her paralyzed. After therapy, the director begins to work on a new project about a working class man that falls in love with a famous actress, eventually beating her to death and decides to hire a real-life con-man to star in the film.
Also part of this retrospective will be the newest 4K restorations of Breillat's early works, "A Real Young Girl", "36 Fillette" and "Parfait amour! (Perfect Love)".
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Abel Ferrara has long made a career of making indie films set in worlds he knew and interested him: dark, gritty stories filled with deranged, low-life characters that engaged in bad, dangerous behavior. The American Cinematheque will honor this maverick director with a week-long screening of seventeen of his highly provocative films from June 9th to 15th at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica and Los Feliz 3 in Los Angeles. This event will feature Ferrara in person for a discussion as well a concert performed by the seventy-one year old filmmaker and his band Flyz.
Much like his fellow New York filmmaker, Martin Scorsese, Ferrara's work would be heavily influenced by his Catholic upbringing. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute with one of his teachers was avant-garde director Rosa von Praunheim. Ferrara scraped together funds to make several short films before making his first feature, a porno called "9 Lives of a Wet Pussy" under the name, "Jimmy Boy L" and starred his then-girlfriend in 1976. The resourceful filmmaker followed that up with a couple of low-budget yet artful slasher films, "The Driller Killer" and "Ms .45".
Ferrara's breakthrough was in 1984 with the neo-noir, erotic thriller, "Fear City" that featured Tom Berenger, Melanie Griffith and Billy Dee Williams. This lead to him connecting with Michael Mann and directing the pilot of the now-cult television series, "Crime Story" and a couple of episodes of "Miami Vice".
In 1990, Ferrara directed the crime drama, "King of New York" with Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishburne and Wesley Snipes which earned him critical praise and the film would become a cult classic. He followed this with "Bad Lieutenant" which starred Harvey Keitel as a NYPD lieutenant who becomes entwined with the criminal element he's supposed to be trying to stop. Ferrara went on to receive award recognition and another controversial film (originally rated NC-17) that later achieved cult status.
Hollywood courted him but he only managed to make two studio films; "Body Snatchers", a 1993 remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Dangerous Game", a Hollywood-set drama with Keitel and Madonna.
Other film highlights that will be screened include "The Addiction", "New Rose Hotel", "Mary", "Go Go Tales", "4:44 Last Day on Earth", "Welcome to New York", "Tommaso", "Siberia", "Zeros and Ones" and Ferrara's latest, "Padre Pio" from 2022 which is currently in theatrical release in the US.
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For the latest series by the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles, the complete film retrospective of the Austrian filmmaker, Michael Haneke will be presented beginning on May 4th and running through June 3rd. Haneke, the son of actors, Fritz Haneke and Beatrix von Degenschild, began his career working in the German television industry as a director before making his feature film debut in 1989 with "The Seventh Continent", a drama about the last years of an Austrian family told in three parts.
With his fourth film, "Funny Games" in 1997, Haneke would first become recognized internationally for creating disturbing yet thought provoking cinema. He had originally wanted to set this controversial film in the US but it was not possible at the time. But ten years later, Haneke would do a shot-for-shot remake of "Funny Games" in English and set in America with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth starring.
His subsequent films would also be intriguing and compelling works: "Code Unknown", "The Piano Teacher", "Time of the Wolf", "Caché", "The White Ribbon" (which won Haneke his first Palme d'or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival), "Amour" (which Haneke received a second Palme d'Or and the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar in 2012) and "Happy End", from 2017 which is his last film to date.
These films will be screened on selected dates at the Los Feliz Theatre in Los Angeles and the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. The eighty-one year old Haneke will be involved in a live virtual conversation about his career before the double feature screenings of "The Piano Teacher and "Amour" on June 3rd. Please click below for more information and to purchase tickets:
Forty years ago in 1982 is now considered by many to be a landmark year of summer movies. American Cinematheque and Beyond Fest have put together a festival called "1982: The Summer of Movies" that will screen some of the films that were released that year beginning on Tuesday, May 3rd through May 13th. The screenings will be held at the Los Feliz 3 Theatres in Los Angeles and the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.
The films that will be part of this celebration will include sci-fi thrillers ("Blade Runner"; "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"; "The Road Warrior"; "Tron"), comedies ("Night Shift"; "Dead Men Wear Plaid"), teen comedies ("Fast Times at Ridgemont High"; "The Last American Virgin"), musicals ("The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", "Grease 2", "Pink Floyd: The Wall"; "Annie"), horror ("Poltergeist"; "Friday the 13th: Part Three": "The Thing"; "Cat People") animated features ("The Secret of Nimh"; "The Last Unicorn") and action-adventure ("Conan the Barbarian"; "The Beastmaster"; "Rocky III").
All screenings will include exclusive clips from the upcoming documentary, "1982: Greatest Geek Year Ever!". For additional information and to purchase tickets, please click below:
I was almost twenty years old at the time and looking back at some of the films that were released over this three month period is actually quite mind-blowing: although varied wildly in style and quality, most of these movies have gone on to become true classics of cinema. Here are a few trailers of a few of my favorites:
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