FEDAYIN
(فدائيين)
dir. Collectif Vacarmes Films, 2020
80 mins. Palestine/Lebanon/France.
In Arabic with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19 – 8PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY – in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com

Tickets for this event are on a suggested donation basis of $10; RSVP here. All proceeds will go towards the campaign to free George Abdallah.

In collaboration with our friends at Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and the Palestinian Youth Movement, Spectacle is thrilled to host a one-night only screening (and streaming) of Collectif Vacarmes Films’ new documentary FEDAYIN.

FEDAYIN traces the life of Georges Abdallah, Lebanese Arab Communist and struggler for Palestine and one of the longest-held political prisoners in Europe. It moves from the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon where his political consciousness was forged to the international movement to demand his liberation from French prisons.

The film includes a number of interviews, including with Palestinian leftist writer and activist Khaled Barakat; Samidoun international coordinator Charlotte Kates; Samidoun Europe coordinator Mohammed Khatib; former political prisoners Jean-Marc Rouillan and Bertrand Sassoye; lawyer Jean-Louis Chalanset; Georges Abdallah’s brothers Robert and Maurice Abdallah; and advocate for Georges Abdallah’s liberation Suzanne Le Manceau, among others.

On October 23, a national march and rally will gather outside Lannemezan prison in France once again, to demand the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the longest-held political prisoner in Europe. In the month prior to the march, solidarity groups around the world are organizing events to commemorate the anniversary of Abdallah’s arrest.

FEDAYIN is available with French, English, Arabic and Spanish subtitles. If you would like to organize a screening in your community, please email vacarmesfilms@gmail.com.

Special thanks to Kaleem Hawa and Samar Al-Saleh.

ZOO ZÉRO
dir. Alain Fleischer, 1978
France. 96 min.
In French with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28 – 10 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

During a cataclysmic rainstorm in a Paris largely reduced to ruins and rubble, guests in baroque animal masks crowd a smokey nightclub called Noah’s Ark. Here, Eva (Eden and After’s Catherine Jourdan) takes the stage to perform a riviting song of illicit interspecies desire and a formative erotic experience involving a lion mauling at the Berlin Zoo. It’s the last number, of the night, and maybe of the city — “an accident or a disease” has ravaged the streets as trucks trundle over cobblestones with news of the military government in crisis and the animal world seems poised to reclaim lost ground from a waning humanity. But an encounter with a stranger at the club (a tuxedoed, stammering Pierre Clementi) sends Eva out into this city of crumbling bordellos and verdant parks to a series of fateful meetings with a fragmentary family — a mother ogre, a ventriloquist chauffeur who narrates the failure of the Spanish revolution with a Donald Duck puppet, twin foley artists, and, narrating from a vocoder organ at the heart the liminal human-animal space of the city zoo, a mournful Klaus Kinski. But like other pulp peaks of the 70s, this is less a film that suggests tidy synopsis than a true cinematic dream, where nocturnal correspondences between Mozart, escaped large cats, and the grasping of all-too-temporary human edifices override the logic of the waking world and categories become blurred by their own mysterious logic.

Exquisitely shot in oneirically shadowed day-for-night (and night-for-night) by Bruno Nuytten (of such Spectacle essentials as INDIA SONG, MON COEUR EST ROUGE, and POSSESSION!), and with assistant direction by Claire Denis, ZOO ZÉRO has been all but unseeable outside of messy bootleg transfers for far too long. Now, at last, artist and director Alain Fleischer’s masterpiece has been newly restored from 35mm, in a gorgeous HD transfer.

Newly restored HD print courtesy of Alain Fleischer, with English subtitles newly corrected and custom retimed by Spectacle volunteers.

This October, in collaboration with our friends at Los Sures, Mi Casa Studios and the office of City Council Member Antonio Reynoso, Spectacle is thrilled to host the first-ever Southside Film Festival, a three-day celebration of Latino cinema (plus a block party on October 9) combining short documentaries about the neighborhood around South 3rd Street, a one-night-only outdoor screening of Leon Gast’s seminal Fania Records documentary OUR LATIN THING (1972) and a reprise of our classic LA BODEGA SOLD DREAMS program spotlighting Nuyorican cinema of the 1960s and 70s.

SOUTHSIDE SHORTS PROGRAM
dir. various, 2015-2021
approx 90 mins. United States.
In English, and in Spanish with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 – 7:30 PM in-theater
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 – 7:30 PM in-theater

FILMMAKERS IN PERSON FOR Q+A!

This program spotlights filmmakers working in Williamsburg’s South Side, focusing in particular on portrait documentaries of beloved figures such as Tonita (Caribbean Sports Club), Papa Frenchie (Frenchie’s Gym) and boxer Wesley Ferrer, AKA “El Bongocero”.

NATAS ES SATAN
dir. Miguel Ángel Álvarez, 1977
89 mins. United States.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 – 10 PM in-theater

Best known for his comic persona “El Men” back in Puerto Rico, Miguel Ángel Álvarez delivers a blood-curdling performance in the lurid 1977 exploitation thriller NATAS ES SATAN, as an NYPD officer who is literally the devil (re)incarnate. (Screenwriter Joe Zayas based his sordid tale of blackmail and murder on true events.) Despite being Satan, Natás is also a surprisingly plausible supervillain, at one point enacting vengeance on his enemy, a businessman named Victor (Frank Moro), by hiring a “double” (played by Moro again) to put him in a compromising position. Like LA TIGRESA, this film was shot entirely en español on location in Manhattan; while the dramatic stakes are small, NATAS ES SATAN succeeds as both a crime procedural and a hysterical psychodrama. Long before Natas has invited three transgender assassins over to his place to murder Victor during a DIY porn screening, you’ll agree the end product also feels not unlike an artifact from an alternate universe. Stay alert…. Natas may return!

NATAS ES SATAN is screening with English subtitles for the first time in the United States, translated by Aida Garrido and timed by Garret Linn.

YE YO
dir. Tony Betancourt, 1975
79 mins. United States/Puerto Rico.
In Spanish.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 – MIDNIGHT in-theater

Puerto Ricans were imposed U.S. citizenship in 1917 via the Jones-Shafroth Act. Lore recounts that Puerto Ricans were given citizenship so that they could be discharged as cannon fodder for the First World War and all succeeding wars that the U.S. engaged in thereafter. Produced by Changó International Films and shot by the prolific adult film cinematographer Larry Revene, YE YO tells the story of Rogelio Sotomayor, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war with PTSD who returns to New York after the war. Upon his return he finds his wife Nydia with a lover and murders them. In an epic, days-long run-off from corrupt cops, Ye Yo relies on his community for cover in this Blaxploitation inspired drama.

YE YO is screening with English subtitles for the first time in the United States, translated by Aida Garrido and timed by Garret Linn.

OUR LATIN THING
(NUESTRA COSA LATINA)
dir. Leon Gast, 1972
100 mins. United States.
In English and Spanish.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 – 7:00 PM – OUTDOOR at LOS SURES COMMUNITY CENTER (145 S 3rd St)
and at stream.spectacletheater.com

FREE! ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Among other legends, 2021 witnessed the passing of documentarian Leon Gast (WHEN WE WERE KINGS) and salsa legend / “El Judio Marvellosio” Larry Harlow. In honor of both – as well as the first-ever Southside Film Festival – we’re hosting a one-night-only outdoor screening of Gast’s classic Fania Records documentary OUR LATIN THING, widely heralded as one of the greatest concert films ever made.

Gast’s relationship with Fania predates OUR LATIN THING, as he had photographed seminal album covers released by the then-burgeoning salsa label. As a result, OUR LATIN THING benefits from an obvious camaraderie between the stars – which, beside Harlow, include Ray Baretto, Johnny Pacheco, Hector Lavoe, José Feliciano and Willie Colón – and the filmmaker. The film spans two days, interweaving an epic concert at the now-defunct midtown Cheetah nightclub with street scenes from the Lower East Side – santeria, domino games, shaved ice, a riveting cockfight – with a roving camera whose ambling style anticipates works like Richard Linklater’s SLACKER. At the center of it all is the unforgettable Fania All-Stars concert at Cheetah – a sweaty, panoramic drama in its own right.

Spectacle is thrilled to present OUR LATIN THING, one night only, outdoors and online, free of charge, in a gorgeous new digital restoration courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

Special thanks to Edda Manriques and Geri Spolan-Gast.

LA TIGRESA
dir. Glauco del Mar, 1969
85 mins. United States.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8 – MIDNIGHT in-theater

Glauco del Mar’s penultimate film LA TIGRESA is perhapsx his most accomplished, yet far less popular than his apogee, 1975’s TONO BICICLETA. It is in this bewilderingly feminist redemption narrative that we meet Patricia, a young woman living with her father, who is mercilessly ullied by her schoolmates, assaulted and raped in her home and is left with no resolve. Her alcoholic good-for-nothing father is killed during her attack. After inheriting some money and recovering her personal power, she sets off to avenge every single last person that did her wrong – making her list, and checking it twice. This classic redemption tale combines the amazing Perla Faith a legendary vedette with espiritismo, folklore, Miguel Poventud’s jangly guitar boleros, corrupt cops, and entrancing Harlem landscapes.

LA BODEGA SOLD DREAMS: SHORTS 1968-1980
dirs. Various
approx. 90 mins.
In English and Spanish with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 – 3PM in-theater

Bracketed by two short TV documentaries – PUERTO RICO: A COLONY THE AMERICAN WAY, and THE DEVIL IS A CONDITION – this program looks at depictions of both Puerto Rican and Nuyorican culture regarding the island’s de facto status as an outpost of American imperialism. The material screened will include interviews with Ruben Berrios, leader of the Independence party, Rafael Hernández Colón, governor candidate for the Popular Democratic Party, and Carlos Romero Barceló, governor of the islands, known murderer, and darling of the Pro-Statehood party, the PNP. (Today, the PNP is the same political party incriminated in the recent upheavals over the #rickygate, #rickyrenuncia, #wandarenuncia, etcetera.)

SHORT EYES
dir. Robert M. Young, 1977
100 mins. United States.
In English.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 – 5PM in-theater

Adapted by poet Miguel Piñero from his play of the same name, SHORT EYES is closely based on his experiences incarcerated at Sing Sing after an armed robbery charge. Robert M. Young (ALAMBRISTA!) shot the film on location in the infamous Tombs, on White Street, while the prison was fully operational; the plot follows a gang of Black and Puerto Rican inmates figuring out what to do with a bourgeois white inmate named Clark (Bruce Davidson, making his big screen debut) who has been accused of raping an underage girl. “Short Eyes” is the in-prison nickname for pederasts, and Piñero’s screenplay doesn’t hold back in dissecting the dog-eat-dog culture among the inmates – several of whom have designs on Clark, who they consider the lowest of the low. A flawlessly executed ensemble piece buttressed by a silky-yet-menacing Curtis Mayfield soundtrack, SHORT EYES is a gripping and surprisingly even-handed look at life behind bars, widely considered one of the greatest prison films ever made. Young’s compassionate realism and focus on authenticity is a perfect match for Piñero, who also acts in the film (as do Mayfield and Freddy Fender, in bit parts), and whose run-ins with law enforcement would continue during and after production.

(SHORT EYES will screen with a 17-minute clip of Miguel Piñero reading at Magic Gallery in 1984, preserved and digitized thanks to XFR Collective.)

OUT 1
dir. Jacques Rivette, 1971
773 mins. France.
In French w English subtitles.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 – 10AM EST
ONLINE TICKETS

Spectacle is back! And how better to hack away at your deficit of hours missed in the dark with strangers than a marathon screening of Jacques Rivette’s colossal New Wave touchstone, OUT 1.

Set in “Paris and its double,” Rivette’s improvisation-heavy film follows two theater troupes reimagining Aeschylus’s tragedies as gestural avant-garde theater. Their rehearsals intersect with two swindlers who uncover (or don’t) a string of conspiratorial messages (or not) hinting to the existence of a secret organization (or nobody). Inquiries abound, solutions, not so much, as a post-’68 malaise motivates energies of paranoia and discovery in this durational dissection of reality (or this thing that looks like it). This marathon screening will mark OUT 1’s return to Spectacle 11 years after it was first shown here in 2010, well before its 2015 restoration made it widely available.

Program Schedule
Ep 1: 10am to 11:30am
Ep 2: 11:30am to 1:20pm
Ep 3: 1:30pm to 3:20pm
Break: 3:30pm to 4:30pm
Ep 4: 4:30pm to 6:15pm
Ep 5: 6:15pm to 7:45pm
Ep 6: 7:45pm to 9:25pm
Break: 9:30pm to 10:30pm
Ep 7: 10:30pm to 12:10am
Ep 8: 12:15am to 1:30am

Special thanks to Kino Lorber.

PANELSTORY
dir. Věra Chytilová, 1979.
Czechoslovakia. 100 min.
In Czech with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 – 7:30P + 10P EST in-theater and at stream.spectacletheater.com
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
ONLINE TICKETS

Věra Chytilová’s 1966 DAISIES may be her best known work of radical cinema, but it’s neither her last, nor arguably most significant. A decade later, at time when most of her Prague Spring contemporaries had fled Czechoslovakia or drastically reigned in once-experimental visions, she came back with the equally daring and essential PANELSTORY. Framed as a sort of ensemble comedy circulating among the many lives contained within a new Soviet-bloc housing complex, the film is actually a scathing satire shredding every available ideal of home and family. The whole film can be understood by its audaciously critical setting: lost in a wasteland of debris and stalled construction, still incomplete yet already falling into disrepair, riddled with half-functional elevators, the housing complex precisely mirrors the disintegrating families contained within, whose individual stories form a catalogue of bleakly hilarious dysfunction and despair. It might have been all too believably familiar to those living under similar conditions in Czechoslovakia at the time, but Chytilova’s disillusionment, as always, extends far beyond her immediate surroundings to call into question the thwarted utopian hopes of an entire industrialized world.

As with all of Chytilová’s best work, form here deftly follows function. The urban malaise is caught near-entirely in verité-style hand-held camerawork decades ahead of fashion, and rhythmically fragmented under anarchic editing that mixes apartment interiors with dystopian architecture and massive earth-moving operations. Even the sound design follows suit, as the characters are beset by cataclysmic atonal score (contrasted against a synth-funk interlude straight out of an aspirational 70s home furnishings showroom). What PANELSTORY may lack from the sheer stylistic invention of DAISIES, it makes up for in thematic cohesion.

After the collapse of the Prague Spring, Chytilová was among those directors cut out of the studio system for their brilliant excesses, which meant that she spent the years from 1970 to 1976 secretly directing commercials under the name of her husband (Jaroslav Kučera, her frequent cinematographer and collaborator). Pressures from international film festivals and a bold letter from directly to the president restating her sincere Socialist values allowed Chytilová to release THE APPLE GAME in 1976. But if that work seemed comparatively restrained, she pulled out all the stops for PANELSTORY. It’s unbelievable that such a film could have been produced under the noses of the state censors, and following its release, Chytilova found herself banned for another two years for her troubles. Seeing it again all these years later, PANELSTORY seems well worth the risks of getting it made.

Having considered PANELSTORY our “lodestar film” since opening in 2010, Spectacle is thrilled to host this one-night-only engagement of Chytilová’s unsung classic as part of our reopening festivities.

Special thanks to Troy Swain and Janus Films.