Author: Spectacle

THE HALT

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THE HALT
(ANG HUPA)
dir. Lav Diaz, 2019
276 mins. Philippines.
In Tagalog with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 – 5PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 – 2PM
ONLINE TICKETS

The Philippines, 2034: A world devastated by a pandemic, darkened by clouds of volcanic smoke caused by global warming, living under the thumb of a repressive dictator. Remind you of anything? Even if THE HALT premiered at Cannes in 2019, Diaz’ eerily prophetic sci-fi noir still more unnerving for its distressed portrait of society than the uncanny accuracy of its thought experiment.

At the root of this disturbing landscape is the senile military dictator President Navarre (Joel Lamangan), whose favorite hobby is feeding the bodies of drug users to his crocodiles and who plans on murdering all of the country’s political dissidents while blaming it on the raging pandemic. As a plot to assassinate Navarre slowly develops, the film offers a wide ranging mosaic people struggling through a world rife with brutality. Working with dozens of characters ranging from a gang of street orphans to an ex-rock star turned guerrilla revolutionary to a sex worker with an unquenchable thirst for blood, Diaz uses his measured, languorous rhythm to craft a portrait that layers its social commentary in observational richness and emotional depth.

With his lengthy runtimes and glacial editing speed, Diaz has long held a reputation as the king of what some have quickly called “slow cinema.” Boasting a 4 ½ hour-plus runtime, THE HALT is no exception to this eye-catching (and numbing) aesthetic approach. Hypnotic in its unique narrative rhythms and mesmerizing with its stark chiaroscuro cinematography which conjures up the dark psychological terrain of classic noir, THE HALT’s emotional and aesthetic power extends far beyond its aggressive political ambitions.

Special thanks to Lav Diaz and Spring Films.

THE FILMS OF TRACEY MOFFATT

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Tracey Moffatt may be best known in the art world as a photographer. But even her photographs have the precise staging, lighting, and narrative nuance of film stills, ambiguously illuminating troubled episodes of history and identity. When actually working in film, the effect is amplified further. Action unfolds in the isolated, artificial space of the photographic frame, where every element is perfected and fixed in place. Even when conveyed through the finely orchestrated swoop and pan of a sequence shot. Yet from these constructed scenes spring indelibly human subjects.

Daughter of an Aboriginal mother and white father, Moffatt grew up “between black relations and white relations” just as Aboriginal Australia was becoming politicized in the fight to reclaim its land rights. But disinterested in either the idealized or patronizing portrayals found in typical ethnographic cinema made about her community (and inevitably by outsiders), she sought more experimental approaches that could cut to the heart of the tales she told.

Programmed in collaboration with Women Make Movies.


beDEVIL
dir. Tracey Moffatt, 1993
90 mins. Australia.
In English.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 – 10PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 – 10PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 – 5PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 – 7:30PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com

Like a playful, lavishly-composed Australian folk horror triptych, beDEVIL tells three ghost stories unfolding along cultural fault lines in far-flung corners of the outback and offshore islands. In Moffatt’s Australia, though, it is modernity and not antiquity that threatens: her specters are trains, UFOs, and American soldiers. Through lavish stylization and kinetic editing (and embracing all artifice, even bits of digital manipulation), interviews are transformed into performance and memory into heightened drama, as the film blurs the lines not only between Aboriginal and immigrant (or colonial) worlds but also between modes of film and narrative. The resulting tableaux, fanciful and deeply saturated, will haunt not only for their brushes with the uncanny but their many-layered approach to the deeper questions of post-colonial life. At the time of its Cannes debut, beDEVIL was the first feature directed by an Aboriginal woman.


AN EFFECT OF THE REAL: THE SHORT FILMS
dir. Tracey Moffat, 1987-1999
74 mins. Australia.
In English.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 – 5PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 – 10PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 17 – 10PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 –  10PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com

NICE COLORED GIRLS
dir. Tracey Moffatt, 1987
16 mins. Australia.

Colonialist ethnographic narratives intertwine with a finely-crafted account of modern aboriginal women out on the town. To finance the night, they pick up a “captain” (old and white, of course) to exploit in turn, closing a historical cycle. The satisfaction of seeing these systems inverted is matched only by the pop verve of Moffatt’s filmmaking.

NIGHT CRIES: A RURAL TRAGEDY
dir. Tracey Moffatt, 1990
20 mins. Australia.

In an early expression of much of the stylization she’d later put to use in beDEVIL — matte paintings, stagey sets, otherworldly intercut memories — Moffatt explores a stifling interracial family relationship in the middle of nowhere. An aging black daughter cares for her ancient white mother alone in the arid outback, dreaming of freedom, but what else does she have? Meanwhile, popular Aboriginal crooner Jimmy Little haunts the margins of the story.

HEAVEN
dir. Tracey Moffatt, 1997
28 mins. Australia.

Flipping ingrained cinema codes, Moffatt exploits the unmediated POV possibilities of digital video in female gaze. No less intrusive than its male counterpart, Moffatt’s camera eye voyeuristically observes beefcake surfers changing clothes in beach parking lots or moves in for direct interrogation. But though her subjects speak to her, amused or irritated or perplexed, we never hear a word — the camera is too distracted, dropping regularly from chiseled pecs to bulging speedos.

ARTIST
dirs. Tracey Moffatt & Gary Hillberg, 1999
10 mins. Australia.

The plight of the artist as a viewed through cinema history: blocked inspiration, self-doubt, an uncomprehending public. Sometimes the only catharsis is to bring it all down. A transition point from Moffatt’s earlier films to later collage work.

WHO WILL START ANOTHER FIRE

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WHO WILL START ANOTHER FIRE
dirs. Nicole Amani Magabo Kiggundu, Jermaine Manigault, Olive Nwosu, Nicole Otero, Emily Packer & Lesley Steele, Faye Ruiz, Samira Saraya, Peier Tracy Shen & Alex Westfall, 2021.
130 mins. Israel-Palestine/Nigeria/Philippines/United States/Uganda.
In various languages with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 – 7PM ONLINE and IRL with filmmaker Jermaine Manigault in person for Q&A
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 – 7PM ONLINE and IRL with filmmakers Emily Packer and Lesley Steele in person for Q&A

An omnibus film featuring nine works by emerging filmmakers of color, WHO WILL START ANOTHER FIRE is the inaugural project of Dedza Films, a distribution initiative focused on showcasing underrepresented communities and the next wave of international storytellers. The collection’s title alludes to Malawian poet Jack Mapanje’s Before Chilembwe Tree (1981), in which he asks, “Who will start another fire?”, in other words, who will be the face of the next revolution? By omitting the question mark but retaining his language, the film proposes an answer to his question.

PEIER “TRACY” SHEN  is a Chinese writer-director currently based in Los Angeles. Her shorts were selected to GSA BAFTA Student Shortlist and Oscar-qualifying festivals such as Cleveland, LA Shorts, St. Louis, Nashville, and Cinequest, among others. Her feature screenplay A GRADUATION is selected to participate in the Cine Qua Non Script Revision Lab, sponsored by IMCINE and the Academy. She is also a member of the BAFTA LA Newcomers Program 2021. She graduated with honors from Columbia University, with a double major in English and Film & Media Studies, and recently obtained her MFA in Directing from the AFI Conservatory. She’s drawn to the incommunicable– the unexamined memories that shape a person, the nebulous connections between strangers, and the unconquerable distance between cultures and classes. Her characters, somehow always out of place, are set to embark on the challenging task of finding themselves in the world. Peier is currently in development of the feature LIKE FLYING, a coming-of-age dramedy about a young Chinese girl confronting her first heartbreaks at an English language camp in the U.S.

NICOLE AMANI MAGABO KIGGUNDU is a Ugandan-American writer, director, producer and journalist. Family Tree was inspired by the ambivalent nature of family. Nicole is currently writing a play about a past Ugandan president and his prime minister, and is developing her first feature, GOOD GIRL, about a woman’s struggle to choose between her truth and family.

OLIVE NWOSU (born in Lagos, Nigeria) is a BAFTA LA 2020 scholar, Alex Sichel Fellow at Columbia University School of the Arts, and one of four ‘African Promises’ directors selected for the Institut Français’ Africa-2020 program. Olive studied documentary filmmaking in Prague and worked in advertising in London, before moving to New York to attend Columbia University School of the Arts, where she will receive an MFA in Screenwriting and Directing. Her short film TROUBLEMAKER has received the Best Student Film Award at Discover Film Festival in London, and played as part of the African Perspectives Section at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Olive’s work is generally informed by the fragmentary nature of her experiences across various continents and identities. Themes typically focus on the place of the outsider and the African, challenging the status quo of whom and what we have grown accustomed to seeing on screen.

SAMIRA SARAYA is a Palestinian actor, writer, and director currently based in Tel Aviv. In her early twenties, Saraya began performing in drag as an LGBTQ+ activist, and was making her living as a hospital nurse. Saraya’s first career breakthrough occurred in 2011 when she landed a lead role in the successful Israeli TV show Minimum Wage, and has since continued acting in critically acclaimed films and TV shows— most notably, Fauda, the hit Israeli TV drama. For her 2017 performance in DEATH OF A POETESS, Saraya won the Best Actress Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival and won the Honorable Mention award for her short Polygraph in 2020 at TLVFest, Tel Aviv’s International LGBT Film Festival. Saraya has a graduate degree in directing from Tel Aviv University, and made her directing debut with Polygraph in 2020, which features the first openly lesbian relationship in Palestinian cinema.

FAYE RUIZ is a filmmaker based in Tucson, AZ. Her filmmaking is guided primarily by her experiences as a Latinx trans woman. Her interests lie first and foremost in telling the stories of trans women of color by unraveling the stereotypes, falsities and all things that flatten the lives of these women as they exist in fiction. In her work, she aims to express all the things that are contradictory, messy, fun and human about the trans experience. Finding new ways to push the boundaries of what trans narratives can mean is what drives her to make films.

EMILY PACKER is an experimental non-fiction filmmaker with an interest in border culture and geography. Emily was a fellow in the 2018-2019 Collaborative Studio at UnionDocs in Brooklyn, and is a proud alumna of the anomalous Hampshire College. Her work has been screened across the country, including at Anthology Film Archives, BlackStar Film Festival, DOCNYC, and others, including a three-day border art event that she organized in San Diego-Tijuana called “Arte on the Line”. In addition to her independent work, Emily is a freelance editor, producer, and serves on programming committees for film festivals in New York City. Emily collects voicemails for future use; consider yourself notified.

LESLEY STEELE is a visual storyteller with a background in video & film production and digital design. Originally a New York City native from The Bronx, Lesley obtained a BFA in Design Technology from Parsons The New School for Design, as well as a Masters in Directing from the School of Visual Arts. She writes, directs and edits short and long-form videos. Inspired by avant-garde experimental film, her work reflects the juxtaposition of mediums, including 16mm and analog tape, to explore new meaning in the moving image. Previously, Lesley has worked as a Shooter and Editor for Genius News, and a Digital Designer at MTV & Nickelodeon, Buzzfeed and HB.

ALEX WESTFALL (b. 1997, Manila, Philippines) is a visual artist interested in constructing inner worlds, interrogating cultural histories, and the relationship between dreams and memory. She graduated from Brown University in 2020 with a BA in Modern Culture & Media and is an alumna of the Telluride Film Festival Student Symposium.

NICOLE OTERO is a writer, director and editor. Her directorial debut SLIP screened in the shorts program at the 2019 Indie Memphis Film Festival. Nicole also shot and edited an experimental documentary on artist and founder of the Underground Museum, Noah Davis in 2016. Untitled: In Process was exhibited at the Frye Museum in Seattle and the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Nicole has also edited several works for major museum exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the New Museum in New York, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and more.

JERMAINE MANIGAULT (b. 1991, Queens, New York) is an African-American director, screenwriter, and producer. The son of a New York dancer and a Philadelphia writer, Jermaine studied Psychology and Film Studies while working on sets as a production assistant. While a PA, Jermaine began to write and experiment with visuals and courted investors for his debut short film, Language is Dead (2017). Starring James Physick and Academy Award® Nominee Kim Krizan, the film follows a man who seeks the aid of a therapist after questioning the validity of words when they fail to describe his emotions. It went on to win the Audience Choice Award for Best Short Film in New York at the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema, and Best Screenplay at the Sydney Indie Film Festival in Sydney, Australia. After returning from the European Premiere of Language is Dead at the Four Seasons Film Festival in London in 2018, Jermaine traveled to Charleston, South Carolina to visit multiple slave plantations while writing his second short film, NOT BLACK ENOUGH (2020). The film garnered a mention in The New York Times before its debut last fall and has thus far screened at 5 international festivals (3 Oscar & 4 BAFTA-Qualifying). In 2018, Jermaine launched 30 Hours Productions, a production company dedicated to illuminating the stories of underrepresented groups. As an active NAACP member, he created the Young Black Creators Initiative, a mentorship program for Black youths who will be invited to the set of all films produced by the company in an attempt to educate them on the wide range of roles behind the camera to help empower them when deciding a career path. Jermaine is currently writing the script for his debut feature film.

TO SLEEP SO AS TO DREAM

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TO SLEEP SO AS TO DREAM
(夢みるように眠りたい」フィルム修復)
dir. Hayashi Kaizô, 1986
73 mins. Japan.
Silent.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14 – 5 PM with filmmaker Hayashi Kaizô and makeup artist Yoshida Mika for combination Zoom/IRL Q+A!
(This event is $10.)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26 – 10PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

For those who remember Hayashi Kaizô’s MAIKU HAMA: #1 PRIVATE EYE trilogy we screened in 2018, a reprise of one of our favorites from this summer’s outdoor screenings in a gorgeous 2k restoration.

Born from the vestiges of some long forgotten dream, TO SLEEP SO AS TO DREAM is a hauntingly beautiful ode to the silent era that yearns for a distant past—back to an illusory world teeming with new excitements, novel invention and cryptic riddles. Under the faint glimmer of an electric lamp, an aging silver-screen starlet seeks the aid of two steadfast detectives when her darling daughter, the ethereal Bellflower, is kidnapped for ransom. The sleuths find themselves caught in a heady game of cat and mouse as they journey deeper into a sleepless realm of benshi performers, archetypal villainy and never-ending serials. Transposing the silent era’s cinematic language into a work that walks the line between antiquity and fantasy, dream and waking state, TO SLEEP SO AS TO DREAM casts a spell over the spectator in dream-like fashion, harking back to the magical, early days of cinema.

Special thanks to K.F. Watanabe, Tetsuki Ijichi and Arrow Films.

ALGUIEN TE ESTÁ MIRANDO

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ALGUIEN TE ESTÁ MIRANDO
(aka SOMEBODY IS WATCHING YOU)
dirs. Horacio Maldonado and Gustavo Cova, 1988
72 mins. Argentina.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, JULY 31 – 12:00 AM THRU 11:59pm
only at stream.spectacletheater.com

or

SUNDAY, AUGUST 1 – 7:30pm at Rubulad Backyard
ONLINE TICKETS

A group of students agree to be test subjects for American scientists for a new drug that allows people to share dreams. While on a trip to the countryside the students begin to be terrorized by a local punk gang, harassed at the gas station and later almost driven off the road. It turns out the trip is nothing but a dream being conducted at the Corman Labs research facility – but one of the students is beginning to control the dream and lead the rest in a much more macabre direction, putting them at risk of dying in their dream and potentially never waking up. With the scientists unable to help, it’s up to Pity (Ana María Pittaluga) to find out the grisly truth.

Produced as the thesis film for co-director Horacio Maldonado and Gustavo Coya’s studies at the Instituto de Arte Cinematográfico in Argentina, ALGUIEN TE ESTÁ MIRANDO presents the youthful energy of two filmmakers early in their career. Influenced by the American slasher films of the same decade, including sci-fi elements that will later seen in the post-internet boom film, along with future Latin American rock legends Soda Stereo as the soundtrack, ALGUIEN TE ESTÁ MIRANDO is a blend of B movie thriller and punk rock.

MASK POLICY: We want this to be a fun, safe screening for everybody. Given the recent resurgence of COVID-19 and the delta variant, we ask all attendees to keep their masks on at all times while indoor at Rubulad. For the safety of staff, Spectacle volunteers and fellow movie-lovers, we ask that non-vaccinated guests keep their masks on and maintain social distance in the backyard throughout the movie. Thank you in advance for understanding!

As a special treat ahead of SPECTOBER 2020, Spectacle is thrilled to present ALGUIEN TE ESTA MIRANDO in a gorgeous new 5K restoration courtesy of Gotika releasing. Programmed in collaboration with Anthony Chassi.

 

MORGAN’S CAKE + THE ETERNAL FRAME

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MONDAY, JULY 5 – 8PM EST only at The City Reliquary backyard

IRL… ONE NIGHT ONLY! 

ONLINE TICKETS ($5)

Schedule:
7 pm – Doors open, tunes by DJ Daniel DiMaggio (Home Blitz), refreshments
8 pm – Show begins, opening remarks, Spectacle trailers
8:10 pm – THE ETERNAL FRAME
8:35 pm – MORGAN’S CAKE

On the occasion of the post-Fourth of July comedown, Spectacle is pleased to present two classics of mondo Americana:

MORGAN’S CAKE
dir. Rick Schmidt, 1988
United States. 85 mins.

preceded by

THE ETERNAL FRAME
dirs. Ant Farm & T.R. Uthco, 1975
United States. 23 mins.

Can one have their cake and eat it too? Such is the guiding quandary in Bay Area filmmaker Rick Schmidt’s fourth feature, MORGAN’S CAKE, a largely improvised coming-of-age movie filmed on a shoestring budget of $15,000. Morgan (played by Schmidt’s real-life son, Morgan Schmidt-Feng) is down on his luck and turning 18. His girlfriend is pregnant and his bohemian parents don’t offer much stability. He’s conflicted about registering for the draft and spends his time meandering around the city, chatting with an assortment of local eccentrics. What elevates an otherwise straightforward premise is the realness of the performances, from the substanial—e.g. Morgan’s father, played by wily video artist Willie Boy Walker, regaling his son with his true-life story of loading up on LSD to deliberately tank his army psych exam—to the minor, like street-casted San Franciscan denizens sounding off on their feelings about the draft. A breezy pace and natural warmth make this a “slice” of life that is funny, outlandish, and gently elegiac.

It’ll be preceded by what’s maybe the magnum opus of both Ant Farm and T.R. Uthco, two stalwart art collectives from the heyday of heady West coast performance. Funded in part by National Lampoon and the Dilexi Gallery’s Jim Newman, THE ETERNAL FRAME documents the two groups’ efforts to re-enact the assassination of John F. Kennedy, meticulously costuming and choreographing a shot-for-shot remake of the Zapruder film (then not so easy to track down) in front of spectators in Dealey Plaza. Done not merely out of irreverence or post-Watergate bicentennial fatigue, the performance probes media and simulation’s disquieting roles in producing political mythology. Asked at the end of the video “Who killed Kennedy?” T.R. Uthco’s Doug Hall replies, “Who cares? We all did.”

 

INSPECTOR IKE

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INSPECTOR IKE
dir. Graham Mason, 2020
80 mins. United States.

ALL SCREENINGS FOLLOWED BY Q&A, $10/EACH!

FRIDAY, 2/18 – 7:30PM – Q&A MODERATED BY JOE PERA
SATURDAY, 2/19 – 7:30PM – Q&A MODERATED BY COLE ESCOLA
SUNDAY, 2/20 – 7:30PM – Q&A MODERATED BY JO FIRESTONE
TUESDAY, 2/22 – 7:30PM – Q&A MODERATED BY C. SPENCER YEH (AND A SET OF LIVE MUSIC FROM TREDICI BACCI)
WEDNESDAY, 2/23 – 7:30PM – Q&A MODERATED BY JEREMY LEVICK AND RAJAT SURESH
THURSDAY, 2/24 – 7:30PM – Q&A MODERATED BY JANE SCHOENBRUN

GET YOUR TICKETS!

After the conniving understudy of an avant-garde theater group knocks off the star actor, he finds himself in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with Inspector Ike, New York City’s Greatest Police Detective.

A lost “TV movie” from the 1970’s, INSPECTOR IKE is a warm-hearted satire, a celebration of detective serials, mixing visual gags, slapstick, gross food, and heartfelt emotion, featuring a rogue’s gallery of NYC’s best comedians carried out with a deadpan absurdist sensibility inspired by COLUMBO and THE NAKED GUN.

ANNA KARINA (1940-2019): A MEMORIAL – DEEP CUTS ONLY (REDUX)

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••• Previously scheduled for March 2020, this program was cut short due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. A year later we are delighted to celebrate Anna Karina and revive this series for online streaming. Full program notes below. •••

On December 14th, 2019, the film community mourned the loss of the iconic actress, director, writer, and quintessential joie de vivre of the French New Wave, Anna Karina. While fellow movie-houses paid countless tributes to the Nouvelle Vague starlet with screenings of some of her most recognizable roles, at Spectacle we decided to memorialize one of our favorite silver-screen icons with the lesser known masterworks, which together along with the Godard films, forged a career that is singular in its breadth and intercontinental impact. Anna Karina who had become the symbol for cinematic revolution in 1960’s France had an instinctual command of style, beauty, and mystique that is present in all of her performances.

This series, which selects films made from 1965-1974, is by no means absolute: but it serves to further illustrate Anna Karina’s worldwide reach and international stardom while highlighting some of her greatest works made outside the orbit of Jean-Luc Godard. Composed of four languages and produced with five countries, these films while uniquely different are unified by the dear Anna Karina, and it is to her charisma and ever-fascinating career that we dedicate this program of deep cuts and revivals.

Special thanks to: Greg Eggebeen, Cathérine Delvaux, Minerva Pictures, VITTO IT, Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, and Universal Music.

RENDEZVOUS À BRAY
(aka APPOINTMENT IN BRAY)
dir. André Delvaux, 1971
France/Belgium/Weat Germany, 86 min.
In French with English Subtitles

MONDAY APRIL 19 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com
TUESDAY, APRIL 27 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

“As much as I revere some of the Belgian films of Chantal Akerman, if I had to choose only one Belgian film to take with me to a desert island, I’d have a pretty rough time forsaking this 1971 masterpiece by André Delvaux.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum

Paris 1917: a young pianist (Mathieu Carrière) receives a note from an old friend in the Air Force to join him at his lush country estate that happens to be close to the front lines of World War I. He arrives but his friend is nowhere to be found, with only the quiet, beautiful housekeeper (Anna Karina) present. While he spends days waiting for his friend’s arrival, his mind wanders to past events. At night, the mysterious woman appears again…

Based on a short story from surrealist Julien Gracq, Belgian auteur André Delvaux marries his trademark amalgam of fantasy and reality to Gracq’s shape-shifting text. Much like the film protagonist, Delvaux got his start by playing the piano to silent films in 1950s Brussels, and his musicality is on full display in the film’s sonata-like form, weaving variations of memories and moments into an ambiguous, intriguing mood piece. Cloaked in dense Gothic atmospheres and muted colors, RENDEZVOUS À BRAY gives off a melancholy, dream-like aura, subtle in approach but haunted by unspoken desires and half-imagined nostalgia.

Working with Delvaux’s daughter, we’re honored to re-introduce this classic of Belgium cinema.


LE TEMPS DE MOURIR
(aka THE TIME TO DIE)
dir. Andre Farwagi, 1970
France. 82 mins.
In French with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, APRIL 20 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

A stylish, puzzling sci-fi mystery dealing with time travel and destiny, THE TIME TO DIE features loads of retro-cool technology futurisms and immaculate production design, but also manages to treat its subject matter with philosophical seriousness and respect. It supposes that the future is inevitable and the best we can do is hurl forwards towards our fated destiny.



LE SOLDATESSE
(aka The Camp Followers)
dir. Valerio Zurlini, 1965
Italy. 120 min.
In Italian and Greek with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, APRIL 22 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com
FRIDAY, APRIL 30 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

An intimate anti-war ensemble film about a group of prostitutes (led by Anna Karina & Marie Laforêt) who are being escorted through the treacherous mountains of Albania in order to service the Italian soldiers of World War II.

LE SOLDATESSE (aka, THE CAMP FOLLOWERS) is a Neo-Realist tour-de-force which demonstrates the futility of war and the magnitude of suffering through its black and white photography and its tragic inevitable conclusion. Filmed in a compositional mode evoking the lyricism of Antonioni, the film is also a delicate study on women camaraderie told through shared adversity and collective resistance.



ANNA
dir. Pierre Koralnik, 1967
France. 85 mins.
In French with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, APRIL 23 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com
MONDAY, APRIL 26th – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

A kaleidoscopic, energetic burst of bright colors, infectious musical numbers, and absurdly charming performances, ANNA, which played Spectacle in 2014, is a pop-art musical masterpiece that has been locked away for far too long.

Originally made as the first color film for French TV, Anna Karina stars as a shy artist who is unknowingly photographed one day and soon becomes the obsession of an advertising executive (played by French New Wave stalwart Jean-Claude Brialy).The Yé-Yé music, scored and soundtracked by French pop icon Serge Gainsbourg (who also makes several on-screen appearances), is some of the most infectious and catchy work of his career, with Karina’s vocals shining throughout,.Anna Karina also reunited with key Godard personnel, including editor Françoise Collin (BAND OF OUTSIDERS, PIERROT LE FOU, 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER) and DP Wally Kurant (MASCULINE FEMININE).

Impossible to resist, the film feels like a pitch-perfect melding of Godard’s A WOMAN IS A WOMAN and Demy’s THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, with Karina’s adorable beauty and effervescent charm as the center of attention. And be on the lookout for a Marianne Faithfull cameo.The film was a hit on French television in the late 60s and received a brief Japanese theatrical run in the 90s, but has since vanished and, to the best of our knowledge, has never screened before in the US. Working with Universal Music, Spectacle is enthralled to once again revive this lost gem of 60s French cinema.



LAUGHTER IN THE DARK
dir. Tony Richardson, 1969
United Kingdom & France. 104 mins.
In English.

SUNDAY, APRIL 25 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

Adapted from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel of the same name, LAUGHTER IN THE DARK deals with the obsession of a middle-aged man (Nicol Williamson) and his younger cunning mistress Margot (Anna Karina)– think Scarlet Street meets the British new wave. Tony Richardson trades Nabokov’s 1930’s Berlin for the Swinging 60’s of London in this lustful thriller of deceit which was never released on home video and has rarely-screened since its 1969 release. Anna Karina shines in her all-English role as the charming irresistible seductress who cultivates something mysterious behind her delicate, wide eyes.



L’INVENZIONE DI MOREL
(aka MOREL’S INVENTION)
dir. Emidio Greco, 1974
Italy. 110 mins.
In Italian with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, APRIL 29 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com
Please note this stream will only appear to viewers based in the United States.

Adapted from the novella which inspired LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, Emidio Greco’s MOREL’S INVENTION is a chilling slow-burning metaphysical oddity serving as a meditation on time, mortality, and the cinema itself. Starring Anna Karina as Faustine, a sort-of Fellini-esque femme-enigma who is forever lost in the island’s haunting secrets of art-deco, socialite costume, and jazz.

THE YEAR OF THE PLAGUE

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THE YEAR OF THE PLAGUE
(EL ANO DE LA PESTE)
dir. Felipe Cazals, 1979
109 mins. Mexico.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 – 10 PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 – 10 PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 – 7:30 PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 – 7:30 PM EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
ONLINE TICKETS


Ten years after we showed his anti-anti-communism horror masterpiece CANOA, Spectacle is thrilled to reprise living master Felipe Cazals’ THE YEAR OF THE PLAGUE: a little-seen adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year transposed to 1970s Mexico. Working from an original idea proposed by his friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cazals uses the outbreak of a pandemic to diagnose the ills of Mexican society as he saw it: political corruption, snake-oil pundits on television, municipal apathy to the basic needs of lower-income citizens. The result is a bracing, terrifying vision of life out of junct 40 years ahead of coronavirus.

“Gabo (Marquez) is known as the creator of magical realism, but there is no magic to this film. We inserted a plague to create a different reality, in order to reveal problems within society. What can change is the way authorities will react to a crisis of this nature. To hide the truth is a power move, essentially linking all forms of power together. The president must say whatever is convenient for private interests. The whole reason he is in power is to create a distorted reality. The president, the private interests—their form of reality becomes the official truth. To take the pandemic seriously would necessitate destroying preexisting forms of power.” – Felipe Cazals, Filmmaker Magazine

Special thanks to Felipe Cazals, Herandy Goytia and IMCINE.

WOMEN’S PUNK ART MAKING PARTIES

Posted on by Spectacle

The word “collective” brings to mind infinite potentials — an unlimited number of practices towards horizontality within an artistic ecosystem. Some of these practices are more tenable than others, but throughout history activist-minded artists have collectivized in an effort to change what the economic, social and political model of making arts looks like. From West Berlin to DC, the Second Wave to riot grrrl, we present a cross-section of female artists coming together in times of political need.

Organized in collaboration with Mary Billyou. Special thanks to Women Make Movies, Filmmaker’s Co-op, Facets, K8 Hardy and Wynne Greenwood.

UNDER THE PAVEMENT LIES THE STRAND
(aka UNTER DEM PFLASTER IST DER STRAND)
dir. Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1975
Germany. 99 mins.
In German with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

A sociological document on the working woman and abortion, an anti-matrimonial and anti-utopian communist manifesto, Unter dem Pflaster is an intimate chronicle of post-68 malaise and the growing schism between sexual and political revolutions. An illicit and ludic affair between two actors with a shared past in the student rebellions opens up onto the history of German revolution and fascism, the constraints of domestic monogamy and claustrophobia of private property, as they watch themselves become the very parents they mutinied against. Caught at a crux of early postmodernity, Sanders-Brahms pinpoints the exigency of a women’s movement in the stale husk of ’68 macho militancy and growing recuperation in post-Fordist women’s reformism.

WOMEN’S PUNK ART MAKING PARTY
dir. Mary Billyou, 1996.
US. 33 min.

TUESDAY, MARCH 16 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

A documentary in which a group of young women meet for an art-making party. Located at The Beehive Collective in Washington, DC, six individual episodes are loosely interspersed, allowing each participant a chance to represent themselves. Included: a feminist stripper preparing for work, a puppet show, and a music video.

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SHE HAD HER GUN ALL READY
dir. Vivienne Dick, 1978.
US. 28 min.

Vivienne Dick takes aim at reverence and power dynamics among women in one of her best known shorts, an 8mm Lower East Side-set psychodrama starring Lydia Lunch.

NEW REPORT ARTIST UNKNOWN
dirs. K8 Hardy and Wynne Greenwood, 2006
United States. 16 mins.

A collaborative project envisioning a news service in a post-feminist world, this comedic short features K8 Hardy (founder of the queer feminist art collective LTTR) and Wynne Greenwood (of Tracy and the Plastics) playing Henry Irigaray and Henry Stein-Acker-Hill, an anchor and roving correspondent for WKRH, a feminist TV news station whose tagline is “pregnant with information.”

THE ALL-ROUND REDUCED PERSONALITY
(aka DIE ALLSEITIG REDUZIERTE PERSÖNLICHKEIT)
dir. Helke Sander, 1979
Germany. 98 mins.
In German with English subtitles.

MONDAY MARCH 22 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com
WEDNESDAY MARCH 31 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

“Emancipation or not, you want to sell a story.”

Threatened by the increasing cost of living (not to mention of producing images), a women’s photography collective attempts to subvert a commission given to them by the politically and sexually repressive West German government. Drifting from private moments to Godardian accounting, urban survey to bureaucratic detentes, Sanders probes the possibility of reintegrating art into social space as a means of ending grey-on-grey capitalism and socialism, two sides of the same valueless coin.


THE HERETICS
dir. Joan Braderman, 2009
United States. 95 mins.

FRIDAY, MARCH 19 – 8PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

Tracing the influence of the Women’s Movement’s Second Wave on art and life, THE HERETICS is the exhilarating inside story of the New York feminist art collective that produced “Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics” (1977-92). On the road with her camera crew from New Mexico to Italy, Braderman reconnects with 28 other group members, including writer/critic Lucy Lippard, architect Susanna Torre, filmmaker Su Friedrich, and artists Ida Applebroog, Mary Miss, Miriam Schapiro, and Cecilia Vicuña. — Women Make Movies

Presented in partnership with Women Make Movies.

“Upbeat and affirmative…The stories these women tell envision a radically different moment in art-world history, one in which questions of career and market are barely mentioned, and philosophical arguments are firmly grounded in street-level politics.” — Ed Halter, Artforum

WOMANHOUSE
dir. Johanna Demetrakas, 1974
United States. 47 mins.

THURSDAY, MARCH 18 – 7:30 PM EST only at stream.spectacletheater.com

WOMANHOUSE is an historic documentary about one of the most important feminist cultural events of the 1970s. Judy Chicago (best-known as the creator of THE DINNER PARTY) and Miriam Shapiro rented an old Hollywood mansion and altered its interior through decor and set-pieces to “search out and reveal the female experience…the dreams and fantasies of women as they sewed, cooked, washed and ironed away their lives.”

Presented in partnership with Women Make Movies.

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EXCERPTS FROM THE A.I.R. GALLERY OPENING, 1972
dir. Hermine Freed, 1972
United States. 11 mins.

Re-edited by filmmaker Mary Billyou, this film presents footage shot at A.I.R. Gallery’s first opening, shot by Hermine Freed. A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence) is the first all-female artist-owned cooperative gallery in the United States. It was founded in 1972 with the objective of providing a professional and permanent exhibition space for women artists during a time in which the works shown at commercial galleries in New York City were almost exclusively by male artists.

TAKING RESIDENCE: A SHORT HISTORY OF A.I.R. GALLERY
dir. Meredith Drum, 2012
United States. 16 mins.
This documentary was made on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of A.I.R. Gallery at Fales Library and the Tracey/Barry Gallery at New York University.