EDITH CARLMAR: The Comedies

Edith Calmar

A singularly witty and dexterous auteur, Norway’s pioneering female filmmaker Edith Carlmar is ripe for a reappraisal in world cinema. Carlmar and her husband Otto co-managed their own production company, Carlmar Film A/S, with which they collaborated with a diverse community of technicians, artists and performers – including the then-teenage Liv Ullman, whose debut lead at 21 was Edith’s final film as director, The Wayward Girl. Making ten movies in as many years, the Carlmars built an astonishing resume in the 1950s before abandoning filmmaking forever when they were at the top of their game.

Today Edith’s legacy suggests a nearly clear split between flinty, ice-cold film noirs – often evincing a rare female perspective – and romantic comedies that’ll make your jaw drop even today with their sexual candor. She was in particular a master of eroticized close-ups and devastating quiet moments, never flinching from emotions (pleasurable or painful) most American directors wouldn’t touch with a fork.

That said, Carlmar Film A/S was an unabashedly commercial enterprise, at a time of deeply felt prudishness in Norway. The Carlmars made hits for a popular audience, and proudly paid all their grants back to the government. Never betraying her blue-collar roots, Edith left the distribution rights to her entire catalog to FILMVETERANENE, a union of Norwegian industry veterans. Alongside them, Spectacle is thrilled to team up with the Norwegian Film Institute to blow the dust off these classics of Scandinavian cinema this autumn.

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( Series poster by Adria Mercuri )


Lend Me Your Wife

LEND ME YOUR WIFE
(Lån meg din kone)
dir. Edith Carlmar, 1958
83 mins. Norway.
In Norwegian with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 7:30pm
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15 – 10pm 

Bjorn, a clueless and coiffeured young executive in Norway’s most prestigious company for all things baby – toys, diapers, pacifiers – is angling for a promotion. There’s just one little problem: his company trades on an especially conservative imprimateur, and no young executive can advance himself without proving beyond a shadow of a doubt his own family-man status. For poor Bjorn, this means going out and finding a fake “wife” whom he can bring to company functions. Anita, the wife of Bjorn’s woebegotten best friend, is more than game – but her addition to the seedy society of top-brass cocktail parties proves too much for both her husbands (fake and otherwise) to bear. As the young businessman falls deeper and deeper into his “innocent” white lie, his “wife” becomes the toast of the company for the widowed, horndog CEO – while his daughter falls head over heels for Bjorn, in a classic “complication comedy”.

Carlmar’s final comedy approaches male-female relations with a razor-sharp skepticism, immediately sniffing out both the perverse (the boss’ obsession with his young, hotshot executive’s sexpot wife) and profound (Bjorn’s longing for a sweet, innocent girl) in equal measure. The filmmaker pulls no punches in her depiction of a backwards society that calls on men to be fake-macho and women to be fake-whorish in order to achieve higher career aspirations, the only relief doled out to the audience who are (rather generously) in on all the jokes. Lend Me Your Wife is a bruising, scintillating comedy in the tradition of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, sure to resonate with anyone ducking for cover in the eternal war between men and women.


Fjols te Fjells

FJOLS TIL FJELLS
(Morons in the Mountains)
Dir. Edith Carlmar, 1957
90 mins. Norway.
In Norwegian with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8th – 10pm
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13th – 7:30pm

“You are a disgrace to the Norwegian hotel trade.”

Fjols til Fjells concerns an overworked concierge named Poppe (Leif Juster) at the swankiest ski lodge in the country, who takes on a bellboy to mitigate his stresses. Unbeknownst to Poppe, young “Rudolf” is actually Ruth, the bored socialite daughter of the lodge’s owner, out to prove herself to her skeptical parents and get a taste of the working stiff’s life. At the same time, renowned actor and playboy Teddy Winter checks in – ostensibly for some fresh mountain air, but in fact to prey on his legions of adoring female fans on skiing holiday.

A dour ornithologist checks in as well – only wrinkle is, Poppe can’t tell him and the movie star apart (both characters are played by the same actor.) Hijinks, highballs and even a little romance ensue. Warm-hearted yet remarkably saucy, Fjols Til Fjells was one of the most biggest box office successes in Norwegian cinema and has endured as a cherished TV staple every Easter.


 

Better Than Their Reputation

BETTER THAN THEIR REPUTATION
(Bedre enn sitt rykyte)
Dir. Edith Carlmar, 1955
87 mins. Norway.
In Norwegian with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2nd – 7:30pm
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20th – 7:30pm

A high school story every bit akin to Dazed and Confused or Can’t Hardly Wait, Better Than Their Reputationfollows a sweet-natured French student named Dag in love with his 20-something teacher Tone. But Dag’s love is complicated by his hard-charging overachiever ex, Karin – and her ongoing liaison with Roald, Dag’s best friend. Dag’s classmates are quick to tease, but the film explores the ins and outs of the concept that their skepticism might have more to do with jealousy.

The screenplay (written by Carlmar and her husband Otto) doesn’t miss a step, giving every character just enough gravity to make every class period and Friday night get-together loaded with the potential for an emotional – or comedic – blowout. Encircling the exam-obsessed final month of senior year, Carlmar paints a tender portrait of solidarity among friends nevertheless subject to change. Her teenagers are neither monsters nor squeaky-clean; just, the boys are boorish, and the girls are bored.

CAPITALIST VAMPIRES & KINKY WITCHES: Corrado Farina’s Counterculture Horror

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In the spirit of our annual Spectober horror film series, we present a retrospective on the Italian director Corrado Farina. Primarily known in his native Italy for his work as a novelist and a plethora of directing gigs outside of the film industry (television, news, documentary, industrial, advertising, etc), Farina also made two feature horror films in the early 70s that perfectly encapsulate the era’s counterculture headiness in surreal fashion.

Following a stint at an advertising agency as a copywriter and commercial director, Farina moved to Rome to concentrate on pitching films. THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR FACE, his first feature, transported the Transylvanian Dracula myth to the Italian countryside for a scathing satire of ‘vampires-as-capitalists.’ His follow-up, BABA YAGA, was even more ambitious, adapting adult comic legend Guido Crepex’s surreal adventures of sexy Valentina and her be-witching compatriots to the big screen.

Farina faced difficulty in getting his third feature off the ground (the subject mater of his proposed third film- a variation on The Phantom of the Opera– eventually became his first novel, A Place In The Dark). Following his dissatisfaction, he soon returned to the world of advertising and documentary, and to this day remains active in Italy’s media landscape: in 2006, Farina and his son, Alberto, completed a documentary called “Motore!” designed to be shown in Turin’s “Museo del cinema” during the Winter Olympic Games!

His successful career notwithstanding, it’s a shame that Farina wasn’t able to secure financing for a third proper horror effort, as both THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR FACE and BABA YAGA are unique anomalies in Italian horror. Less concerned with scares than exploring themes like anti-establishment and repressed sexuality, Farina employed the classic horror tropes of vampires and witches to channel the political, social, and sexual turmoil of early 70s Italy into two deliciously strange and subversive films.

Working with Italian distributor Videa CDE and US distributor Blue Underground, Spectacle is proud to present a two-film retrospective on a bold but neglected genre contortionist.

Special thanks to Corrado Farina, Alberto Farina, Federica Funaro, and William Lustig


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THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR FACE
(aka …Hanno Cambiato Faccia)
Dir: Corrado Farina, 1971.
91 min. Italy.
In Italian with English subtitles.

Special thanks to Videa CDE

U.S. PREMIERE!
WITH CUSTOM ENGLISH SUBTITLES CREATED BY SPECTACLE!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4TH – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20TH – 10PM

Mild-mannered Dr. Alberto Valle is a diligent but low-level employee of a car company. Out of the blue, he is summoned to the estate of Giovanni Nosferatu, the company owner, to discuss a potential large promotion. Following an encounter with a topless hippie hitchhiker, Dr. Valle arrives at the gothic mansion and exchanges pleasantries with Nosferatsu, but then the boss mysteriously disappears for large chunks of time, leaving Dr. Valle to enjoy the company of Nosferatu’s obedient, extremely pale secretary Corrina (played by Deep Red‘s Geraldine Hooper). Soon enough though, Dr. Valle discovers a casket crypt on the outskirts of the villa and a mysterious chamber with newborn children and a large book containing his own baby photo with an inscription: C.E.O.

Complimented by classic vampire film staples (endless heavy fog, superstitious villagers), Farina manages to breathe new life into the genre with a strong current of sly humor throughout the film, including an eerily foretelling running gag involving advertising slogans blasting through speakers whenever Dr Valle uses a household appliance. However, the film’s dark nature comes not from the amount of on-screen deaths, but its scathing political tone.

While infused with a devilish wit and satirical edge (including a showstopper boardroom scene that brilliantly riffs on organized religion, deceptive sloganeering, legalized drug use, Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini, AND Marquis de Sade), THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR FACE unveils itself as a harsh critique of consumerism as vampirism, portraying corporate heads as bloodsucking capitalists hellbent on ensuring marketplace dominance and the eradication of individual freedom. Instead of biting necks to keep living, its to convert the free spirits to a submissive, business-minded lifestyle. Ultimately, Farina suggests the true horror is that the current system will never be defeated, but inevitably grow and accumulate more lobotomized victims.

Unreleased in America for over 40 years, Spectacle is proud to host the US premiere of a vital piece of 70s Italian horror cinema, complete with custom English subtitles created exclusively for these screenings!


baba-yaga-posterBABA YAGA
(aka Kiss Me Kill Me)
Dir: Corrado Farina, 1973.
91 min. Italy.
Dubbed into English.

Special thanks to Blue Underground

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3RD – 10PM
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27TH – 7:30PM

Loosely based on the incredible black & white erotic fumetti comics of Guido Crepax, Farina brings to life the story of Valentina (doe eyed Isabella de Funes), a liberated fashion photographer who finds herself unwittingly thrown into a psychedelic nightmare of sapphic proportions.

On her way home from a soiree one evening, Valentina is almost struck by a vehicle while attempting to save a stray dog. It’s there she crosses paths with the peculiar Baba Yaga (legendary sex symbol Carroll Baker), a mysterious, brooding woman who soon fixates upon her. Unsettled by their encounter, Valentina begins to suffer a surreal collection of erotic and fetish-inspired dreams featuring executions, Nazi soldiers and dark holes with no bottom.

One of the most stylish and hallucinatory horror offerings of the 70s, BABA YAGA sees Farina trying out bold editing techniques (including a sex scene that incorporates Crepax’s comic strips) and interweaving Valentina’s reality with her dreams until their indistinguishable, leading to a kinky and mind-bending climax.

Awash in impeccable, zeitgeist-y costume design and a slick layer of soft core playfulness, BABA YAGA is Euro-mod-sleaze at its most entertaining and bizarre.

SPECTOB3R: More Unknown, Mysterious, and Shocking Films

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For the third year, Spectacle is proud to present a month-long lovingly-selected series of unknown, mysterious, and shocking films from around the world: SPECTOB3R.
This we’ve cranked out out our leanest, meanest monster yet.
SPECTOB3R is all chiller, ALL CHILLER: Gothic mindbenders? Czech! Freaky Norwegian water spirits? <Exhales bubbles and gives underwater thumbs up>. Spanish horror-rotica? Mmmmm. Satan? Hail yes! Brooke Shields? Duh! Sex Olympics? Go for the gold!


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ALICE SWEET ALICE
(aka COMMUNION)
(aka HOLY TERROR)
Dir. Alfred Sole, 1976.
107 mins. USA.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27 – 10:00 PM

“God always takes the pretty ones.”

Typifying a crucial point in the lineage of international horror is ALICE SWEET ALICE, a stylish and deeply unnerving American giallo that features a mask-wearing, knife-wielding killer, yet predates the slasher craze by a number of years.

Alice is a peculiar, angry 12-year-old in a devout Catholic household with a far-too-perfect sister, absent father, impatient mother, overbearing aunt and licentious, obese landlord. After her sister is burned to death in a pew at her first communion, Alice understandably becomes the prime suspect. Gradually, her strange, volatile behavior escalates, continuing to alarm her family as the unspeakable violence against those around her persists. Is Alice’s deformed, two-faced doll just a toy… or is it also a metaphor?

Perhaps most notable for being the first screen appearance of budding-sexpot Brooke Shields –who plays Alice’s angelic sister Karen– the real star of ALICE SWEET ALICE is the deranged titular character herself, played with disturbing efficacy by a 19-year-old(!) Paula Sheppard (who would later go on to star in 1982’s sci-fi synth-punk opus LIQUID SKY, her only other screen credit). Originally premiering as COMMUNION in 1976, the film was re-titled by skittish censors as ALICE SWEET ALICE upon distribution in 1978, then again as HOLY TERROR in 1981, when it was re-released (after the successes of PRETTY BABY, THE BLUE LAGOON and ENDLESS LOVE) with promotional materials foolhardily inflating Shields’ role.

Literally rounding out the cast is astoundingly weird horror foot-note Alphonso de Noble, the immense, cat-crazy landlord whose revolting on-screen persona was scarcely an act. Also appearing in a couple of Joel M. Reed movies before dying at the age of 31, de Noble was discovered while working as a bouncer at a gay nightclub in New Jersey, where he was alleged to regularly drum up passive income by dressing as a priest and hanging out in cemeteries, soliciting money from grieving family members under the guise of donations to the church.

Alfred Sole’s sole triumph as a writer/director –neither 1972’s porn drama DEEP SLEEP nor 1982’s horror comedy PANDEMONIUM were able to save him from a subsequent career as Production Designer on VERONICA MARS– ALICE SWEET ALICE is an undisputed 1970s horror classic: a film that sustains a disquieting, sinister vibe arguably better than many of its better-known Euro predecessors or subsequent American offspring.


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LAKE OF THE DEAD
Kåre Bergstrøm, 1958.
Norway. 76 min.
In Norwegian with English subtitles.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22 – 10:00 PM

In this Norwegian cinema classic, a group of old friends sets out to visit one’s brother at his cabin in the woods only to find the man missing and his dog apparently killed. As the strangeness of the circumstances settles in, one recalls the legend of a previous inhabitant who killed his sister and her lover before drowning himself in the lake. Now, occupants are said to hear phantasmic cries in the night and feel compelled if by siren song to the lake — and perhaps drawn to repeat the earlier tenant’s crimes. As the characters represent a cross-section of arts, sciences, and humanities, they engage in spirited debate about faith, superstition, and reason; yet it’s not long before pontification gives way to some truly creepy happenings. Smart, atmospheric, and unnerving, LAKE OF THE DEAD is a classy chiller that stands as one of the all-time highlights of international horror cinema.


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MORGIANA
Juraj Herz, 1972.
Czechoslovakia. 99 min.
In Czech with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4 – 10:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30 – 7:30 PM

Special introduction by film programmer Irena Kovarova on Wednesday, October 30! Kovarova’s full-career retrospective of Jan Nemec runs November 8 – 14 at BAM.

In this florid masterpiece of psychotic cinema, Iva Janzurová plays both sisters Klára and Viktorie, as the brooding Viktorie yearns to undermine her more favored sibling through slow poisoning. Beautifully rendered from Alexander Grin’s novel by Juraj Herz, MORGIANA is a kaleidoscopic rabbit hole of insidious gothic tropes and stunning Art Nouveau production design. Encompassing murder, romance, blackmail, duplicitous wills, and crossed identities, it’s a film best appreciated by casting literal interpretations aside and viewing it in the spirit of something like REPULSION as a surrealistic portrait of a fracturing mind told through roving, wide-angle camerawork, obtuse reflections, nightmare interludes, and a memorable score by Lubos Fiser. Though THE CREMATOR is considered Herz’s masterpiece, MORGIANA is arguably the more staggering achievement and a film often considered the swan song of the Czech New Wave.

Special thanks to David Budský of Ateliery Bonton Zlin and Irena Kovarova.


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SATAN’S BLOOD
(aka ESCALOFRIO)
Dir. Carlos Puerto, 1978
Spain, 82 mins.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 10:00 PM
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22 – 7:30 PM

Andres and Ana are a couple living in Madrid. One fine day they decide to pack the car and wrangle their dog and set out for a fun time in the Spanish countryside. Not long into their trip, they encounter another car on the road. The couple in the other car, Bruno and Berta, flag them down. Bruno is excited to see his old college buddy – Andres, but Andres isn’t so sure they know each other. Never-the-less, the two couples set out for Bruno and Berta’s gigantic house for a grand reunion and a nice hot meal. But once they arrive, a storm rolls and in the as the weather gets worse and worse, Andres and Ana decide to stay the night. When the foursome decide to tamper with the spirit world in the form of a Ouija board, things really start to get weird. But that’s the least of their problems. Drug fueled orgies, suicide, creepy living dolls, and a freezer full of who knows what become a disorienting whirlpool and the helpless couple can’t get out. Trapped by a coven of devil worshipers, the film builds to a terrifying, twisting climax.

Produced by none other than Juan Piquer Simon (PIECES, SLUGS) SATAN’S BLOOD is a veritable cornucopia of sin and debauchery. A gothic tale of Satanic panic who’s influence can be seen as recently as Ti West’s throwback jam HOUSE OF THE DEVIL while showcasing the Spanish countryside and a score by Simon regular Librado Pastor.


SNAKE_bannerTHE SNAKE GIRL AND THE SILVER-HAIRED WITCH
(aka Hebi musume to hakuhatsuma)
Dir: Noriaki Yuasa, 1968.
84 min. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13TH – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30TH – 10PM


Based on the Japanese manga comic series by the legendary Kazuo Umezu (and directed with accomplished flair by Gamera/Ultraman helmer Noriaki Yuasa), THE SNAKE GIRL AND THE SILVER-HAIRED WITCH is a delirious, phantasmagorical fantasy-horror relic that screams for re-discovery.

Young girl Sayori leaves the attentive care of an orphanage to live with her distant relatives. Upon arrival, her new father promptly leaves for business and her mother remains strangely quiet. Meanwhile, Sayori begins having visions of someone peeping through her ceiling hole and dropping snakes on her. The dread increases as Sayori discovers another young girl in the house with a macabre, waxy face with cracks on the sides of her mouth. Sayori’s dreams intensify to the point of horrid, Freudian nightmares featuring enormous witches, snakes, spiders, and demons atop lavish heaps of psychedelic dissolves! But after she awakes, she soon realizes that the nightmares are becoming real…

Remarkably subversive and sinister for what was ostensibly a family picture about sibling rivalry, Snake Girl is a demented kids’s film not to be recommended to kids. While the puppetry FX may slide into (adorably) kitsch territory at times, there’s no denying the film’s imagination and occasionally brazen sadistic tone. With the mixture of a young girl’s narrative and FX-laced dream sequences, Snake Girl comes across as a precursorer or sorts to Nobuhiko Obayashi’s funhouse masterpiece Hausu, but made all the more sinister in that it was originally aimed at children!

Wildly inventive and effectively creepy, this is 60s Japanese studio horror of the highest, most surreal order.


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SYMPTOMS
José Ramón Larraz, 1974.
86 min. UK.
In English.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 10:00 PM

In this somber horror gem, Helen (Angela Pleasance, daughter of Donald) brings Anne (Lora Heilbron, star of Freddie Francis’ THE CREEPING FLESH, 1973) to her family’s creepy, rarely used forest estate where they can unwind from the stress of city life and focus on their writing. The woods may be lovely, dark, and deep, but the promises they keep lead to sex, murder, and insanity!

From Jose Ramon Larraz, the director of the vampire cult classic VAMPYRES (1974), comes SYMPTOMS (1974), part-Lewis Carroll forest fantasia, part-erotic thriller, part-Bergman-esque chamber of trauma, and 100% mental mindfuck. SYMPTOMS fits into a loose series of films by Larraz made in the early 1970s that includes the aforementioned VAMPYRES, as well as WHIRLPOOL (1970), DEVIATION (1971), and THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED (1974), all of which revolve around a small core cast of characters who venture into the woods and find themselves in a surreal, sexual, and psychotic nightmare.

Striking sustained notes of quiet unease that crescendo into madness, SYMPTOMS epitomizes the minimalist narrative, pastoral beauty, ethereal ermines, and genre revisionism that characterized Larraz’s work in this period. As Joseph A. Ziemba wrote online at Bleeding Skull!, “If you’re gonna go crazy, this is the way to do it.”


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THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS
Dir. Michael Elliott & Nigel Kneale, 1968
UK, 105 min.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2 – 10:00 PM
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6 – 7:30 PM

A 1968 television movie, The Year of the Sex Olympics is the best science fiction film you’ve never heard of, a socio-political satire originally created as a criticism of the hippie/youth movement, but that became a prophecy of contemporary lowest common denominator reality-TV.

Author Nigel Kneale was a major figure in the UK sci-fi/horror genre genres, creating and writing all the well-regarded “Quatermass” films, and many others including Ray Harryhausen’s The First Men in the Moon and Hammer Pictures’ The Abominable Snowman, as well as scripting the non-genre films Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer.

Like Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451, The Year of the Sex Olympics examines a “soft totalitarianism” future, in this case where keeping the population calmed to the point of nullification is the goal, and TV and drugs are the method—not a boot to the face.

This future (“Sooner than you think,” the opening titles warn) is so far-gone that the controllers have created “the Sex Olympics,” where the world’s most beautiful people make love under the cameras—to distract the billions of viewers from doing any fornicating themselves and overpopulating the world further. “Sex is not to do, but to watch,” says one character. In the future this is “Apathy Control.”

When we glimpse the audience of “the Sex Olympics” through the control room’s monitors, they look like blobby ghosts, or fat ghouls.

But trouble’s brewing: the ratings indicate that the viewers are getting bored with the copulation marathons, and something will have to be done.

Since thinking has been discouraged (the chess machines play themselves, only to be watched), people in this world find it harder and harder to express themselves, even if they’re given the chance. It’s a high-tech world full of humans whose thought processes have been stunted—reflected in the almost incomprehensible torrent of slang-laden jargon and slogans spewed.

When the on-air suicide of a distressed designer sends ratings through the roof, the programmers realize they are on to something. “What are we supposed to do? Kill someone every night?!?” demands a conscientious TV exec who doesn’t realize he’s created a formula for success.

As two members of the ruling class begin to question the way things are, trouble and sorrow can only follow, especially after they allow themselves to be ensnared in the Apathy Control’s next project… “In the old days I think they called that ‘despair,’ right?” says a programmer, planning something evil. “It’s a show—something’s gotta happen!”

Don’t let The Year of the Sex Olympics’ sub-Doctor Who budget deter you: As Steven Puchalski has written in Shock Cinema, “What begins like a simple satire of modern sexual openness turns into a powerful dystopian vision of modern voyeurism and inhumanity, with a surprisingly emotional pay-off. Its sci-fi trappings are often crude, with characters talking into plastic wristbands, eating from toothpaste-like tubes, sporting outlandish hairdos, and resembling an Ed Wood production of THE JETSONS. What it lacks in production values, it makes up for in admirably straight-faced performances and bold conceits, in what has to be one of Kneale’s most unpredictably provocative works.”

The shocking thing about The Year of the Sex Olympics is how damn accurate it was in predicting not only the rise of ubiquitous pornography (what do you think Victoria’s Secret ads are anyway?), but the cruel and rotten “reality” shows like Fear Factor, Survivor or Big Brother, where suckers are debased routinely for the masses’ entertainment—and control: if everybody’s in front of their TV on Thursday night, it’s one less thing for the security patrols to worry about.

The film is also prescient in its depiction of a total surveillance state that is unquestioningly accepted—since the concepts of “family,” “home” and “love” have been eliminated, what’s “privacy”? And yes, “Art” has been eliminated, as well.

Starring Kubrick regular Leonard Rossiter and an unbelievably young Brian Cox, The Year of the Sex Olympics was long considered lost due to the incompetence of the BBC, but can be found if you look—like at places like the Spectacle.

TIMELESS, BOTTOMLESS BAD MOVIE

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TIMELESS, BOTTOMLESS BAD MOVIE
Dir. Jang Sun-woo, 1997
South Korea, 144 min.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10th – 8PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th – 8PM

The key is in the title, its praxis succinctly delineated in four words: Timeless, Bottomless Bad Movie (Nappeun Yeongwha) is exactly what it suggests it is, a film purportedly unaffected by time and utterly bad. In this rabbit hole excursion into the urban topography of Seoul (the skirmishes in dark alleyways, the hazing in the high-school restrooms, sexual liaisons in karaoke bars, morning hangovers in motel rooms, the wasted hours spent in the video arcades), where the teenage street urchins of Seoul run amok and the old bums sit defiantly on subway floors, the film operates, as Nicole Brenez has pointed out, between the representational regimes of fiction and documentary.

Timeless, Bottomless Bad Movie cares little for beginnings, ends, and all the particular concerns of a typical, narrative film; nor does it quite work as documentary, not when there are moments so patently contrived. The film was shot amongst three different camera operators working in several different formats (35mm, 16mm and digital video) and purports to bethe brainchild of the kids on screen. But don’t be fooled. The gaudy, ostentatious displays only belie the elaborate arrangement and direction behind it all. The ultimate “makeshift” film. Where are those kids now? Timeless, Bottomless Bad Movie promises to be nothing more than what it says it is, really, truly bad.

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Poster by Kim Westfall

20 YEARS OF CUFF

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20 YEARS OF CUFF
Chicago Underground Film Festival is the longest running underground film festival in the world. Founded the same year as the now defunct NYUFF, it remains a vibrant & evolving home for radically dissenting filmmaking, and the defining example for underground film events all over the world. This program brings together legendary shorts from the festival’s first twenty years.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 – 8:00 PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – 8:00 PM

LINEUP & NOTES FROM FESTIVAL DIRECTOR BRYAN WENDORF:

LIGHT FUSE GET AWAY Dir. Ivan Lerner, 1994, 17 min.
When we began work on the first Chicago Underground Film Festival one of the first things we did was place a call for submissions ad in the Film Threat Video Guide which in those pre-internet years was THE source for info on contemporary underground film. We also sent submission info to every film reviewed in the magazine including this video by former Screw editor and current Spectacle programmer Ivan Lerner.

MONDAY 9:02 AM Dir. Tyler Hubby, 1995, 11 min.
Tyler Hubby was one of many graduates of George Kuchar’s Electro-graphic Sinema classes at the San Francisco Art Institute who was a regular fixture during the early years of CUFF. This 16mm film, comprised of a single unedited 11-minute take shot from inside a second-floor apartment is inspired by the idea Michael Snow’s avant-garde classic Wavelength. Although if my memory is correct Tyler didn’t actually actually see Wavelength until AFTER making this. Today Tyler lives in Los Angeles and has edited a number of great independent documentaries like The Devil and Daniel Johnson.

CLIT-O-MATIC: THE ADVENTURES OF WHITE TRASH GIRL
Dir. Jennifer Reeder, 1996, 8 min.
Chicagoan Jennifer Reeder made a name for herself in the 90s underground film scene with this Waters/Kuchar inspired feminist super-hero series she produced as a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She still lives in Chicago where she’s constantly inspiring new generations of image makers as Associate Professor Moving Image at the University of Illinois Chicago. She continues to screen her experimental narratives around the world including CUFF.

DANCE HABIBI DANCE Dir. Usama Alshaibi, 1998, 3 min.
Usama Alshaibi was a graduate of Columbia College Chicago when he produced this video inspired by Richard Kern’s Submit to Me series. His work has followed two distinct strains exploring his Iraqi heritage and his interest in transgressive sexuality. In 2006 he directed the feature length documentary Nice Bombs about his journey back to Iraq after the fall of the Hussein regime. He is currently pursuing his masters degree at Boulder Art Institute and is completing a new documentary feature American Arab produced with Kartemquin Films.

THE BATS Dir. Jim Trainor, 1998, 8 min.
Jim Trainor was a Manhattan bartender when he made his first amazing animated film The Fetishist which had its world premiere at CUFF in 1997. He followed up with The Bats which firmly established him as one the great contemporary underground filmmakers working in animation. He lives in Chicago now and teaches at the School of the Art Institute and is currently completing his first live action film using human actors to portray the mating habits of wasps.

MEAT FUCKER Dir. Shawn Durr, 1999, 32 min.
Shawn Durr had a brief but important place in the late 90s Chicago underground. Meat Fucker was his best known film. Following in the Kuchar tradition of over the top queer melodrama but upping the ante on the ridiculous. NYUFF’s Ed Halter once referred to his work as “Kuchar on crack” while Chicago experimental film critic Fred Camper compared Meat Fucker favorably to Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks. Shawn followed Meat Fucker with the features Fucked in the Face and The Last Fuck before retiring from filmmaking. He still lives in Chicago.

THE PSYCHOTIC ODYSSEY OF RICHARD CHASE Dir. Carey Burtt, 1999, 6 min.
Another New York filmmaker who was a regular at CUFF at the turn of the millennium. When we showed this film in 1999 to notoriously prickly Chicago Reader film critic Fred Camper at a press screening I remember him looking at me as the film ended and asking “Did you like THAT?” “yes” I nervously responded, “Good, because I think its GREAT!” replied Camper. Camper’s printed review said “The film’s antiliteralism is a wonderful rebuke to our glut of graphically violent movies… Burtt’s playful depiction of the gruesome story encourages us to think about it rather than wallow in it.”

THE FABULOUS STAINS: BEHIND THE MOVIE
Dir. Sarah Jacobson & Sam Green, 2000, 11 min.
The importance of San Fransisco filmmaker Sarah Jacobson to CUFF in our early years can’t be overstated. After attending the festival’s inaugural year with her short I Was a  Teenage Serial Killer, Sarah became a one woman word of mouth PR machine for the festival. Spreading the word about us everywhere she went and encouraging filmmakers she met to send us their work. In our third year we opened with the world premiere of her feature Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore and in 1998 she presented the first public screening in 15 year’s of Lou Adler’s proto-riot girl comedy Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains. Footage of that screening appears in this documentary co-directed by another SF based CUFF alumnus Sam Green (The Rainbow Man/John 3:16 and The Weather Underground) and originally produced for Jon Pierson’s IFC series Split Screen. Sadly, Sarah died of cancer in 2004 but her legacy lives on through a grant program for women filmmakers set up by Sam and Sarah’s mother.

WUSTENSPRINGMAUS Dir. Jim Finn, 2002, 3 min.
Jim Finn also studied at Columbia College where he was part of the same graduating class as Usama Alshaibi. Wustenspringmaus combines his love of animals and his interest in marxist political theory. Themes he continued to explore in his “Communist Trilogy” of features; Interkosmos, The Juche Idea and La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo. Today he lives in Boston and is an Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute in New York.

AMERICA’S BIGGEST DICK Dir. Bryan Boyce, 2005, 4 min.
San Francisco’s Bryan Boyce first attended CUFF in 1997 with a little seen comedic short called Lard but he soon became internationally known for his critiques of American culture using appropriation and found footage. He continues to screen his work at festivals like CUFF and Ann Arbor but also releases work directly through his YouTube channel in order to keep his satire timely and fresh.

HOLD ME NOW Dir. Michael Robinson 2008, 5 min.
This karaoke video by prolific experimental film and video artist Michael Robinson was originally produced for the sadly defunct Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Festival (better known as PDX). We showed it at CUFF soon after where it won an award for best music video. For best results sing along.

THE ETERNAL QUARTER INCH Dir. Jesse McLean, 2008, 9 min
Jesse McLean began screening her work at CUFF while she was a student in Pittsburgh. PA but I didn’t actually meet her until she moved to Chicago to pursue her master’s at UIC. Upon graduating she relocated to Iowa City where she continues to be a fixture on the international experimental and underground film and video scene. Her work looks at the intersection of culture, technology and human behavior using a combination of found footage and original material.

THIS IS MY SHOW Dir. Lori Felker, 2009, 15 min.
Chicago based media artist Lori Felker has worn many hats with CUFF over the years. Co-programming and coordinating the festival, serving as projectionist and technical director as well as participating as a filmmaker herself. This video is part of a series of works that celebrate and spoof cable access television. Lori had to leave the projection booth during the 2009 festival to participate in the Q&A after this piece screened. It also received an honorable mention from the jury that year. Lori recently scaled back her CUFF duties to focus on her new position as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

THE STORY OF THE EYE Dir. Nicole Jefferson Asher, 2012, 12 min.
This feminist musical adaptation of the infamous transgressive novel by Georges Bataille screened at the 20th CUFF this past March. It stars and features music composed by performance artist Kevin Blechdom–Kristin Erickson, a member of the faculty of The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts and was directed by Nicole Jefferson Asher who has numerous credits in theater, film and television, creating projects for HBO, MTV, Nickelodeon Movies and Spike Lee’s 40 Acres and a Mule Film Works. She is currently writing and directing her first feature Betty, the story of funk singer Betty Davis, the second wife of jazz musician Miles Davis.

TRIGGER WARNING: STROBE EFFECTS

MOLODOST: Films on Soviet Youth

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Molodost: Films on Soviet Youth

“What do you want from life? What do you want from life?” “I just want to contribute to society.” A prominent subject of late-perestroika cinema was the molodezh or the ‘youth’ generation. Similar to current discourse surrounding the “millennial” generation, Soviet youth were often portrayed as either a symbol for hope and reformation, or as lost and apathetic. Disenchantment with old Soviet ideologies led to a questioning of authority, both in the political arena and the home. As the Soviet Union’s cultural symbols lost power, Gorbachev’s implementation of glasnost in the late ’80s simultaneously opened up a floodgate of western music, fashion, and movies, widening the communication gap between youth and authority. The new cultural influences led to various forms of agitation and rebellion: rock music, drugs, and civil disobedience. At the same time, however, it fostered inaction, indifference, and apathy. While perestroika-era films explored a new openness in social and civil critique, they were also overwhelmingly pessimistic and cynical. Paradoxically, and despite such portrayals, Soviet Union’s mainstream culture publicly accepted its youth subculture, and turned it into a symbol, if not an actual catalyst, for radical change. Molodost—meaning the time of youth— explores three different coming of age stories taking place on the cusp of the perestroika era, before the ultimate disillusionment of the Soviet Union. Assa, credited with bringing underground rock music into the mainstream, follows an underground rocker and his relationship with a girl, her Mafioso lover, and the police. Igla often described as a precursor for late Soviet/Kazakh new wave, and also featuring underground rock stars, is a surreal, postmodern cacophony of social collapse and drug use. Lastly, and perhaps the most sobering of the three, Kuryer tells the story of a high school graduate trying to make sense of his life. With no prospect for a college education, a grim mandatory military service awaits in his future.


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Dir: Sergei Solovyov, 1987
Soviet Union, 153 min.
Russian with English subtitles

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 – 8:00 PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 – 8:00 PM
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 – 10:00 PM

Assa came to recognition and cult status as one of the first films to bring underground rock culture into the Soviet mainstream, featuring songs by bands such as Aquarium, Soyuz Kompozitorov, Bravo, and Kino (whose lead singer Viktor Tsoi, also featured in Igla, plays himself in the film). Assa reflected a time of change in the USSR, as emphasized in Tsoi’s song “We Wait for Change,” consequently adopted by the real-life Russian opposition movement Solidarnost as its anthem. Set in Crimea during the late 1980s, Assa follows the story of Alika, a young nurse who is romantically involved with Krymov, her much older patient and the leader of an organized crime group. Despite her relationship with Krymov, Alika starts falling for a young rock musician named Bananan (played by the avant-garde artist Afrika). Bananan introduces Alika to his countercultural world of music and art. When the jealous Krymov begins to notice a change in Alika’s emotions toward him, he stages a plan to eliminate Bananan from Alika’s life forever. Assa has a playful, absurdist touch, combining sober moments with dreamlike sequences. Experimental scenes of hand-painted abstract patterns and inter-titles explaining youth slang are interspersed throughout the film. One amusing subplot that develops follows Krymov reading a book of the assassination attempt on Russia’s Tsar Paul I—the “Mad Tsar”. As he reads, a fantasy reenactment plays parallel to the main story. Perhaps this text foreshadows the inevitable fate of the Union: according to the assassins, they were only abolishing a power from Russia that had gone mad.


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Dir: Rashid Nugmanov, 1988
Soviet Union, 81 min.
Russian with English subtitles

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – 10:00 PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 – 7:30 PM

Igla is a disjointed, narratively unconventional film, and a precursor to the Kazakh new wave. Its beautifully austere and surreal scenes are set in the collapsing, virtually lawless Soviet Union. While Igla touches upon taboos and political subjects such as drug use and organized crime—two of perestroika’s biggest social afflictions—Rashid Nugmanov, Igla’s young Kazakh director, described the film as just a fun project made by a few friends, and more of an homage to “Soviet television” than a social critique. Viktor Tsoi, (Kino’s front man) plays Moro, a stoic and nonchalant young man. Moro travels to Almaty to collect an unpaid debt, getting into trouble with a local gang on the way. Eventually, he finds himself helping Dina, his morphine-addicted ex-girlfriend, and rescuing her from a drug ring led by an insidious doctor (played by Peter Mamonov, front man of the band Zvuki Mu). In an attempt to get Dina clean, Moro takes her to the dry Aral Sea in the Kazakh desert, where she suffers through withdrawal. When they return, however, Dina relapses and Moro confronts the doctor. In the end, Dina’s fate remains ambiguous, as does the direction of Moro’s own future. Igla launched Viktor Tsoi into the mainstream, and many of his songs used in the film became huge hits. His own untimely death in 1990 marked him as a cult icon and symbol for freedom and romance during the end times of the USSR.


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Dir: Karen Shakhazarov, 1987
Soviet Union, 88 min.
Russian with English subtitles

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 7:30 PM

Largely ignored on release, Kuryer eventually came to critical acclaim over the years. Stylistically and narratively more straightforward than the other films in this series, Kuryer explores the frustration of being young and at a crossroads in life—especially if the roads lead to nowhere. It follows Ivan Miroshinokov, a clever young magazine courier struggling to find himself after his parent’s divorce and his rejection from University. Ivan’s admiration for his father begins to wane after he leaves his mother for a younger woman and goes off to Africa to pursue his dreams. Ivan is left to live with his mother, who has a difficult time dealing with the divorce. Through one of his deliveries, Ivan meets Katya, the daughter of an authoritarian professor. Ivan is forced to confront the expectations of Katya’s father and measure up to her elite group of friends, leading him to entirely re-evaluate his prospects in life. Grappling between unattainable dreams and a bleak reality, Ivan’s choices echo the rebellious lost generation, plagued by both their parents’ and their own disappointments with the collapsing Soviet existence.

IMPACT

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IMPACT
Dir. Arthur Lubin, 1949
USA, 111 min

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 – 10:00 PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 – 10:00 PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 – 7:30 PM

“Hell hath no fury like a [man] scorned.”

Noir-staple Brian Donlevy stars in Arthur Lubin’s subtle, melodramatic 1949 sleeper IMPACT. Typically relegated to tough-guy supporting roles more suited to his threatening scowl, Donlevy plays very successfully against type as love-struck automotive mogul Walter Williams, a sensitive man who unfortunately puts far too much faith in the wrong sort of gal.

Anything but a strict urban film-noir, Lubin’s sunny, meandering picture progresses from tense romantic thriller to on-the-road action flick, moving through thick swamps of melodrama before landing in courtroom theatrics, ultimately proving to be surprisingly cohesive and affecting.

Despite its B-grade production and modest return, Impact also features an unusual number of on-screen brand/product placements for an era in which the practice remained very uncommon. Pioneering trade journal Harrison’s Reports –a rag that focused on independent theaters long before the independent film movement (and was also notable for an ahead-of-its-time criticism of film advertising)– notes upon its release that in Impact there are “advertising plugs worked in for such products as Blue Ribbon beer, Raleigh cigarettes, Coca Cola, Mission Orange soda pop, Mobiloil gasoline, oil and tires, Gruen watches, and the trade name, Rexall.” Curiously overlooking a Bekins moving van that plays an integral role in one key scene, the review provides evidence that brand exposure was just as offensive to contemporary audiences in its early-stages 65 years ago as it is (to some) in today’s Hollywood™. Interestingly, this aspect of Impact merely enhances the film; more than half-a-century’s distance lends the practice a paradoxical value, illuminating an authentic aspect of late-1940s America not usually seen on the silver screen.

Finally, keep an eye out for a key location also used prominently in a little film called Vertigo…

THE EAST IS RED – A SONG AND DANCE EPIC

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THE EAST IS RED
Dir. Wang Ping, 1965.
PRC. 117 min.
Mandarin.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 – 10:00 PM

What can we say? We’re damn surprised this hasn’t yet screened in the peeling walls of Spectacle, everyone’s favorite “lost and forgotten” community screening space; our cozy creaking frame around the questionable and curious. Is it low-hanging fruit? Maybe just a bit back and to the left? Is it a glorious paean romanticizing radical resistance role-play amongst ravenous refurbishing and reselling of riverside residency? Here’s an “r” word – RED.

Sisters and brothers, presenting the biggest, loudest, most glorious Mao-sical ever – THE EAST IS RED: A SONG AND DANCE EPIC. Produced and released by the real BIG RED MACHINE on the eve of the mid-60’s Cultural Revolution, THE EAST IS RED trumpets the trials and tribulations of the Communist Party in China – from its birth in proletarian imperialist resistance, through the final boWW of the Japanese, all the way to the last steps of the Kuomin-tango. The massive cast is studded with beautiful voices and movement, clad in costumes of a time long crushed. Think of Diane Warren if Michael Bay was Chairperson. Been jonesing for a bit of that 2008 Summer Olympics ceremony jazz, minus the Budweiser food trucks and brown M&Ms with the UPS logo? Throw out your Adidas, put this on your social list and invite your comrades to take a proper gander at this propaganda.

BANDIDO’S GOLD: Unearthed Spaghetti Western Treasures

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This quartet of lesser known, yet truly great spaghetti westerns is chocked full of gripping action, relentless violence, and brooding intensity with gritty style to spare.


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BANDIDOS
Dir. Massimo Dallamano 1967.
Italy. 91 min.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 – 10:00 PM

Outlaw Billy Kane holds up a train only to find his former mentor-of-arms, renowned gunman Richard Martin, is one of the passengers. Kane shoots Martin’s hands before letting him escape. Years later Martin meets Ricky Shot (!), an escaped convict who was falsely accused for the robbery. He takes Shot under his wing and together they head on the trail of vengeance.

This standout spaghetti western was the directorial debut of A Fistful of Dollars cinematographer Massimo Dallamano. It was also his last western, though he went on to make other excellent films, including the infamous giallo What Have they Done to Solange? and the poliziotteschi Colt .38 Special Squad. Though uncredited, it is reported that Dallamano also shot Bandidos, which would explain its incredibly accomplished and distinct look, featuring brilliant panoramas and deep focus. A tight, compelling, highly revered, and ESSENTIAL spaghetti western.

Read more about BANDIDOS on the Spaghetti Western Database, whose reviewer states that “Dallamano probably comes closer to Leone than any other director of spaghetti westerns.”


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$10,000 BLOOD MONEY
Dir. Romolo Guerrieri 1967.
Italy. 94 min.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – 10:00 PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 – 10:00 PM

Rogue bounty hunter Django mockingly taunts low-life bandit Manuel, who only has a measly $3,000 price on his head. Inspired by spite, hatred and villainous pride, Manuel ups the stakes, first with murder, and then by kidnapping a land baron’s daughter, finally netting Django’s $10,000 bounty minimum. But when Manuel ruthlessly targets Django’s saloon girl lover Mijanou (Loredana Nusciak from Django), vengeance becomes the main incentive, transforming the hunt into an ornery blood feud.

The first in a pair of inspired bounty hunter films from the crafty production team of Mino Loy and the late Luciano Martino (brother of Sergio), and the pen of prolific screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi. Featuring spaghetti western stalwart Gianni Garko (Sartana) as the ‘good’ and Claudio Camaso as ‘the bad.’ Its high style, surreal touches, fully loaded tropes, extreme anti-heroics, amorality and existentialism all add up to an exemplary spaghetti western. NOT TO BE MISSED!

Read more about $10,000 BLOOD MONEY on the Spaghetti Western Database, which calls it “one of the best unofficial Django films … beautiful, almost surreal” and “one of the finest Italian Westerns ever made.”


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VENGEANCE IS MINE
Dir. Gianni Fago 1967.
Italy. 91 min.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 10:00 PM

Gianni Garko and Claudio Camaso breathe more life into their anti-hero and villain roles from $10,000 Blood Money, here with an added Cain-and-Abel-like classicism. This time it’s John the bounty hunter (Garko) versus army deserter-turned-outlaw Clint (Camaso), half-brothers, embittered with extreme mutual hatred. John just served time, falsely accused of his father’s murder by none other than Cint. Can John keep his promise to his mother to bring Clint in alive?

Vengeance is Mine (aka $100,000 Per Killing) further explores morality via bounty hunters and bandits strongly linked by their existential attitudes towards money, life, and death; provocative ideas thrillingly played out against a satisfyingly gritty landscape. High production values, surprising plot twists, violent set pieces, and a hint towards profundity prove both films top entries in the genre.

Read more about VENGEANCE IS MINE on the Spaghetti Western Database, whose reviewer states that it is “probably as close as an Italian genre movie from the sixties … could get to Greek and Victorian drama.”


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CEMETERY WITHOUT CROSSES
Dir. Robert Hossein 1969.
Italy. 85 min.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 – 10:00 PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 – 7:30 PM

CEMETERY WITHOUT CROSSES (Robert Hossein, 1969) from Spectacle Theater on Vimeo.

After her husband is mercilessly hanged by a ruthless land baron, Maria implores Manuel, an old flame, to infiltrate the killer’s ranch and wreak vengeance. Manuel reluctantly leaves the ghost town where he lives to embark on the mission, but is ever haunted by his unrequited affection for Maria

Prolific French actor Robert Hossein directed and starred in this inspired homage to his friend Sergio Leone. As sharpshooter Manuel, he dons one black glove (channeling the cool of garage rock band The Music Machine?) and imbues the whole production with laconic ennui. A visually striking and brooding picture, the requisite gritty and violent tropes are delivered with an artistic fervor ahead of its time. A MUST SEE!

Read more about CEMETERY WITHOUT CROSSES on the Spaghetti Western Database, whose reviewers call it “not your average spaghetti,” and “a truly moving classic of the genre.”

WELCOME TO APPLIED FICTION: The Films of Jean Pierre Bekolo

“We shouldn’t just be making movies, we should be changing reality.”

Director Jean Pierre Bekolo has been making spirited, avant-garde films in and about his native Cameroon for the past twenty years. His imaginative work criticizes both his country’s dictatorship, as well as Western cinematic conventions, offering a fresh perspective of Africa, of cinema, and especially of African cinema.

This month, Spectacle is proud to present a full retrospective of Bekolo’s films, along with the North American premiere of his latest, The President.


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QUARTIER MOZART
dir. Jean Pierre Bekolo, 1992
80 mins. Cameroon.
In French with English subtitles.

THURSDAY AUGUST 8th – 7:30PM
SATURDAY AUGUST 24th – 10PM

Bekolo’s rolicking debut Quartier Mozart takes on the politics and magic of gender roles in Yaounde’s working class district. The adventure begins when schoolgirl “Queen of the Hood” asks a local sorceress what it would like to be a man. Mama Thekla puts her into the body of a ladykiller to find out. Chaos ensues when he falls for the police chef’s daughter, Thekla is not far behind, and while she guides the freshly-minted “My Guy”, she’ll take the penis off any man who shakes her hand. Bekolo’s impish editing and hip-hop score give new meaning to a popular folktale.

(Winner of the 1992 Prix Afrique en Creation at the Cannes Film Festival.)


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ARISTOTLE’S PLOT
dir. Jean Pierre Bekolo, 1996
72 mins. France/UK/Zimbabwe
In English, and French with English subtitles.

FRIDAY AUGUST 9th – 10PM
FRIDAY AUGUST 30th –  7:30PM

In 1996, the British Film Institute commissioned Bekolo as the African filmmaker for its series celebrating the first 100 years of film. Poor BFI, it couldn’t have been ready for Aristotle’s Plot. This is a balls-to-the-walls meditation on the meaning and purpose of “African film” with aesthetic, rather than geographic, ambition. As critic Michael Dembrow has observed, you need to listen as much as you watch to understand this movie. “Much the experience comes from the sound-track–from the lyrics to songs and, more importantly, Bekolo’s voice-over narration. As we try to put all the pieces together, the plot turns back on itself, scenes are repeated, characters prance around like the pawns and symbols that they are.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.



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LES SAIGNANTES
(The Blood-lettes)
dir. Jean Pierre Bekolo, 2005
Cameroon. 97 mins.
In French with English subtitles

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31st – 8PM (as part of THE FUTURE WEIRD: VISIONS OF EXCESS)
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10th – 10PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 23rd – 10PM

Les Saignantes is the best African sci-fi vampire political satire with homoerotic overtones you’ve ever seen. Best friends Majolie and Chouchou are two beautiful young women trying to get ahead in a near-future Cameroon. After accidentally killing a powerful politician during sex, the two come up with a plot to dispose of the body, and get into the glamorous wakes that have taken over the local nightlife.

As the girls tear their way through the corrupt ruling class, using their their feminine wiles and magical powers, Bekolo drops inter-titles into the film, commenting on the difficulties of filmmaking in an oppressive political climate. With a feminist subtext and cinematography like a blacklight rave, Les Saignantes is a beautiful, disorienting, and truly original work.


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LE PRESIDENT
(The President)
dir. Jean Pierre Bekolo, 2013
Cameroon. 64 mins.
In French with English subtitles

US PREMIERE!

THURSDAY AUGUST 15th – 7:30PM
THURSDAY AUGUST 22nd – 7:30PM
TUESDAY AUGUST 27th – 10PM

“Our president was betrothed to Cameroon with great love and passion, yet over the years the fire has died. He spends more time in Switzerland than in Cameroon. What is he – too good for us now?” – JEAN-PIERRE BEKOLO

The night before an important summit in the near-future, the head of state vanishes into ostensibly thin air. Potential heirs and overthrow-ers converge around the capitol, while bloggers, hangers-on and talking heads tussle with the president’s problematic legacy. Never snarling, Bekolo gestures both unmistakably towards Cameroon’s own 31-year president Paul Biya as well as the varied bigshots across the continent who have consolidated post-colonial power in the vacuum of leadership.

Bekolo’s newest film is a fake documentary that asks barbed, tough-love questions of his homeland’s catastrophic experiments with democracy. “It was through the small screen that he punctuated every moment of my life!”