APRIL IN THEATER
PERMEABLE BOUNDARIES
THE FILMS OF URSULA MEIER
opens march 31
With her first theatrically released feature, the 2008 Isabelle Huppert vehicle Home, French Swiss director and screenwriter Ursula Meier established herself as a filmmaker with a singular ability to describe complicated family dynamics and the delicate relationship between environment and psychology. A rural utopia threatened by a new highway in Home; a housing project in a luxe ski resort in Sister; a family home surrounded by a do-not-cross boundary in The Line—Meier explores the strange energy and dramatic potential of liminal settings in her boundary-obsessed films, which can’t be fenced in by simple description.
Presented in collaboration with and the support of SWISS FILMS
Series Includes:
Home - Kacey Mottet Klein, Birth of an Actor
Sister - The Line - Quiet Mujo
LENSED BY AGNÈS GODARD
opens march 31
It’s impossible to imagine the films of Ursula Meier, subject of her own Metrograph retrospective, without the contribution of cinematographer Agnès Godard—but you could say this about just about any film that Godard ever worked on. Very arguably the pre-eminent French DP of her generation and a crucial player in developing the tactile, intimate style of longtime confederate Claire Denis, Godard has played a crucial part in producing a startling number of the most indelible images produced in cinema since 1991, when she had her first feature credit on Agnès Varda’s Jacquot de Nantes. Presented alongside the Meier series, take this opportunity to take a closer look at the products of an infallible eye.
Presented with the support of Unifrance, Association Française des directrices et directeurs de la photographie Cinématographique, and Strand Releasing.
Series Includes:
Beau Travail - Jacquot De Nantes - L’Intrus
Nénette et Boni - Trouble Every Day
Making Waves
New Romanian Cinema
OPENS march 31
Beginning with breakthrough films by Cristi Puiu, Cristian Mungiu, and Corneliu Porumboiu, the sudden appearance of a Romanian New Wave in the mid-aughts was one of the great stories of 21st-century film culture—and in the years since, startling new talents have continued to emerge from this fecund national cinema. Playing as part of the 17th Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema Festival, this program showcases some of the most exciting to appear on the scene, with the work of Monica Stan, George Chiper, and Victor Canache revealing how contemporary Romanian cinema continues to evolve from its neo-neorealist origins, finding new ways to challenge and surprise audiences.
Making Waves 17 is presented by Insula 42, in partnership with Metrograph, Roxy Cinema New York, DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema, and Film Forum. With lead funding from the Trust for Mutual Understanding and the support of Dacin Sara, the Romanian Filmmakers Union, Blue Heron Foundation, Mastercard, the Romanian National Film Center, and individual donors.
Series Includes:
Immaculate - The Goat and Her Three Kids
ANIMAL FARM
DONKEYS
opens APRIL 7
The surprise arthouse hit of last year, Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO, invented its own revolutionary visual language to, among other things, show viewers the world as seen through the eyes of a donkey. Skolimowski cites Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar and its donkey protagonist as a key inspiration for his film, and we in turn were inspired to go a little deeper into the humble jackass and its glorious history in cinema, from Bresson to Jacques Demy to, yes, Shrek—which, much like EO, was in competition for the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Giddy-up!
Series Includes:
Au Hasard Balthazar - Donkey Skin
EO - Shrek
Filmcraft
Reed Morano
Opens April 7
After first making a name as a prolific and distinctive cinematographer, Reed Morano proved herself to also be a gifted director with her searing 2015 drama Meadowland. Equally adept and acclaimed in her film and television work, which includes the Emmy- winning pilot of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, there’s no limit to what Morano may yet do; in the meantime, we’re happy to celebrate the remarkable things she’s done so far, inviting her to screen some of her most exemplary works as both DP and director, as well as some films that have inspired her in her meteoric, multifaceted career.
Series Includes:
I Think We’re Alone Now - The Shining
Little Birds - Fish Tank
Meadowland - Paris, Texas
Mona Simpson Presents
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
April 8
Mona Simpson, esteemed author and publisher of The Paris Review, comes to Metrograph on Saturday, April 8 to celebrate the publication of Commitment, her anticipated seventh novel.
Simpson will present a screening of Miloš Forman’s 1975 film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, followed by a special conversation in theater with Rebecca Panovka, co-editor of The Drift, that raises questions over the enduring influence of the film today.
Ken Kesey’s 1962 cult novel of the same name found its ideal interpreters in Forman and his star Jack Nicholson, deliciously devilish in the role of Randle “Mac” McMurphy, a rowdy Irish-American reprobate who worms his way out of hard labor in the slammer by copping an insanity plea, only to find life in the mental ward under the dictatorial regime of Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) is no bed of roses. A cinematic blast of rude, rebellious laughter in the face of authority, with a peerless ensemble cast that includes Brad Dourif, Christopher Lloyd, and Danny DeVito.
Put Me In Coach!
Opens April 8
“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart,” A. Bartlett Giametti famously wrote of the game of baseball, but every fan of the national pastime is still an optimist when winter turns to sweet springtime, and the cinematic dingers we’ve brought together here are brimming with the elation of getting back to the ballpark. With an all-star line- up that includes Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn, the Rockford Peaches, Bingo Long throwing high heat on the bump, and Morris Buttermaker coaching, who knows... we might actually go all the way this year.
Series Includes:
A League of Their Own - For Love of the Game
Major League - The Bad News Bears
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings - Weeds on Fire
Helena Wittmann In Focus
Opens April 14
In conjunction with Metrograph’s run of Human Flowers of Flesh, German director/ cinematographer Helena Wittmann’s astonishing, elemental, meditative new feature, we’re taking the opportunity to look back over the impressive body of work—and the truly astonishing images—she’s already created in her young career. With her hypnotic, ravishing 2017 feature Drift, an in-theater hybrid-lecture performance from Wittmann inspired by Éric Rohmer’s The Green Ray, and a selection of Wittmann’s shorts, this small retrospective is an ideal introduction to a massive force in contemporary European cinema.
Series Includes:
Human Flowers of Flesh - Helena Wittman Shorts + Lecture Performance
Ada Kaleh - Drift - 21.3°C
Later - The Wild
10th Old School Kung Fu Fest
Swordfighting hEROES Edition
OPENS April 21
“The Old School Kung Fu Fest is back, and this time we’re flying through the air and chopping down fools with the biggest retrospective of Taiwanese wuxia (swordfighting heroes) movies ever seen in New York City. We’re showing everything from the US premiere of The King of Wuxia, an epic documentary about King Hu, the maestro who made it art, to an all-marionette wuxia movie, three rare Polly Shang-kuan stabbers, and even the Hou Hsiao-hsien-directed modern-day deconstruction of the genre, The Assassin. And don’t miss our screening of King Hu’s monumental A Touch of Zen, and the restoration of Joseph Kuo’s bleak masterpiece, The Swordsman of All Swordsmen. By the time this thing is over, there won’t be anyone left standing.”—Subway Cinema
Presented by Metrograph and Subway Cinema, in association with Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan)
Series Includes:
A City Called Dragon - A Touch of Zen - Iron Mistress
Night Orchid - The Assassin - The Bravest Revenge
The Daring Gang of Nineteen From Verdun City - The Ghost Hill - The Grand Passion
The King of Wuxia - The Legend of the Sacred Stone - The Swordsman of All Swordsmen
The Valiant Ones - Vengeance of the Phoenix Sisters
Gagosian Presents:
Titus Kaphar
Opens April 28
“Film is a uniquely powerful medium. Its ability to tap into our emotions is unlike anything else for me. This is not a top ten list. Here are seven films that serve to validate joy, pain, fear, or a sorrow that felt so specific to me that I believed my experience to be unique and unrelatable. This is a decidedly subjective selection of films that, through their vulnerability and specificity, have made me feel less alone.”–Titus Kaphar
Titus Kaphar will be in attendance Friday, April 28 for a special screening of his short films I Hold Your Love and Shut Up and Paint, followed by a conversation with Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance.
Series Includes:
Boyz N the Hood - Drive My Car - The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Moonlight - The Babadook - Blue Valentine - Do the Right Thing
Titus Kaphar: In Conversation