March In Theater
MARCH IN THEATER
End of Youth selected by Edward Berger
opens March 3
In celebration of the Netflix production All Quiet on the Western Front, Metrograph screens a program of the works that preceded and inspired it, culminating with a presentation of Edward Berger’s Oscar-nominated film.
Series Includes:
All Quiet on the Western Front - Come and See - Full Metal Jacket
Gallipoli - Son of Saul - The White Ribbon
Late Nites: Pam Grier
opens March 3
The first American-born female action star, one of the pre-eminent sex symbols of the 1970s, and an actor who brought the same sensitivity and intelligence to her early genre projects as she did to her “comeback” showcase, Jackie Brown, North Carolina native Pam Grier’s screen persona was a remarkable combination of toughness and tenderness that made her the undisputed queen of the blaxploitation boom. Bringing together the crown jewels of her reign, this Late Nites tribute shows Grier at her best and most merciless, putting the fear of God into drug pushers, political assassins, prison guards, and a voodoo vampire, and doing it with style. The poster for Coffy says it all: “The baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad that ever hit town!”
Series Includes:
Sheba, Baby - Scream Blacula Scream - Foxy Brown
Coffy - The Big Bird Cage - Friday Foster
Oscars 2023
OPENS March 3
Before you fill up your Oscar ballot, catch up with a few exceptional films going for the big prize that may have gotten past you: Sara Dosa’s Best Documentary nominee Fire of Love, following the life and work of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft; Santiago Mitre’s Best International Feature nominee Argentina, 1985, a gripping legal drama about the trial of members of the cruel military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983; and Dean Fleischer Camp’s Best Animated Feature nominee Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a poignant 21st-century comic fable combining live-action and stop-motion animation.
Series Includes:
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On - Fire of Love
Argentine, 1985 - Close
Autofiction at Work:
An Intimate Portrait of Christophe Honoré
opens March 10
One of today’s most prolific French filmmakers, Christophe Honoré joins Metrograph this March to present a curated selection of his most personal films, alongside titles that have deeply influenced his autofictional work. “As a queer auteur and a grandchild of the French New Wave, Christophe Honoré has challenged audiences with his genuine representations and explorations of family, death, and sexual desire, always putting the sheer joy of filmmaking at the heart of his cinema. Whether based on real-life events or memories of them, Honoré’s films act as fictionalized echoes of his own emotions, and at the same time they offer ways to overcome these emotions through the fiction-making process. This program, created in partnership with Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, reveals how life and cinema have, for over two decades, nurtured Honoré’s artistic process, and draws an intimate portrait of the filmmaker at work.”—Series curator Adeline Monzier
With appearances from Christophe Honoré Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11.
Presented with the support of Unifrance and Villa Albertine.
Series Includes:
36 Fillette - Dans Paris
Sorry Angel - Manchester by the Sea - Providence
Sex, Power, and Money: Films of Beth B
Opens March 10
Beth B made an immediate and meteoric impact on the New York City’s art scene after graduating from the School of Visual Arts in 1977, producing Super 8 films with partner Scott B that invented a cinematic analog to the No Wave avant-garde in music. Her uncompromising innovative work as a solo artist has accelerated and expanded through time, as is proven by this cross-section of her extraordinarily prolific career to date, which includes her two provocative narrative features, Salvation! (1987) and Two Small Bodies (1993); a selection of her sui generis documentary feature films; and several short films—like Thanatopsis (1991), one of several collaborations with Lydia Lunch—that bring together aspects of fiction and non-fiction. A long-overdue Downtown showcase for a true Downtown legend.
Series Includes:
Exposed + High Heel Nights- Two Small Bodies + Glowing Annie
Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over + Black Box
Salvation + The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight
Metrograph Selects: Graham Carter
Opens March 10
Select films, chosen specially by Metrograph staff. For the latest iteration of our recurring series, Metrograph Marketing Coordinator Graham Carter picks some of his personal favorites, In Theater and on Metrograph At Home.
“Of course all the films I chose are special to me, but two in particular changed my life—Eagle Pennell’s The Whole Shootin’ Match and Andrew Bujalski’s Beeswax. Truly independent films from Austin. The star and co-author of Shootin’ Match, Sonny Carl Davis would later star in my first feature film, and Bujalski would become my professor at University of Texas at Austin. I hope New Yorkers like them too.”—Graham Carter
Series Includes:
The Whole Shootin’ Match - Beeswax - Between the Lines
MET Opera Presents:
The Red Violin: Introduced by François Girard
March 17
The Metropolitan Opera and the Québec Government Office in New York co-present the Metrograph film screening of the 1998 drama The Red Violin.
Spanning four centuries and five countries, this evocative film follows the mysterious story of a violin from its creation in 1681 Cremona to an auction house in modern-day Montreal.
Following the screening, join director François Girard and Metropolitan Opera dramaturg and former Sony Music VP of Film and Television Paul Cremo for a conversation about directing in cinema, opera, and theater.
The screening of The Red Violin coincides with two significant premieres for Mr. Girard in New York this spring. On February 26, Mr. Girard’s production of Wagner’s Lohengrin opens at the Metropolitan Opera, running until April 1, and between March 16 and April 15, his production of The Hunting Gun runs at Baryshnikov Arts Center.
Also Starring... Karen Black
Opens March 17
Many moviegoers got their first striking glimpse of Karen Black in Dennis Hopper’s 1969 Easy Rider, playing an employee of a New Orleans brothel who goes on a wild LSD trip with “Captain America” and Billy. This breakout role would mark the beginning of an extraordinary run of collaborations with the most innovative directors of so-called New Hollywood, including Robert Altman, Bob Rafelson, and Ivan Passer. Whether playing a Bakersfield hash-slinger, a glamorous Nashville diva, or a transwoman returning to her Texas hometown, Black was a potent, piquant, and unforgettable presence in most every film she appeared in, earning her an ardent cult following who will have reason to rejoice with our selection of some of Black’s finest roles.
John Early Selects
March 18
Actor, comedian and friend of Metrograph, John Early returns to Metrograph to introduce a marathon screening of the web series Zhe Zhe, followed by a Q&A with series creators Emily Allan, Leah Hennessey, and Ruby McCollister.
“Sometime between the sexy noughties and the apocalyptic free fall of the 2020s, there existed something known as Zhe Zhe. A cult phenomenon watched only by the freakiest of the fringe, the increasingly legendary web series begs the question—if a web series predicted the future but no one was around to hear it, how did our world become Zhe Zhe? Kind of like if Josie and the Pussycats were directed by John Waters (in his sleep), Zhe Zhe chronicles the delusional struggles of a doomed rock ’n’ roll band. Satirizing everything from the corporate co-option of gender fluidity to the ascendency of Trump, the jaw-droppingly irreverent, timelessly hip show was made over the course of eight years by New York superstars (in the truest Warholian sense) Ruby McCollister, Leah Hennessey, Emily Allan and E.J. O’Hara on a nano budget. Each episode features original music by the fictional band Zhe Zhe and an array of cameos that almost make you believe New York in the 2010s was the coolest imaginable underground you were just square enough to miss.”—John Early
Blank Check Presents
March 19
For one night only, Blank Check podcasters Griffin Newman and David Sims join Metrograph to present a personal favorite, Danny Boyle’s 2007 thriller Sunshine, in honor of their latest series Trainspodcasting: The Films of Danny Boyle.
“Sunshine is the film that almost broke Danny Boyle, though it might also be the pinnacle of his ambitious, wide-ranging career, a sci-fi adventure that squeezes every dollar of its robust budget but is told with the indie fiendishness that had put him on the map. It sees a glittery international ensemble including Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Michelle Yeoh, Rose Byrne, and Hiroyuki Sanada try to save the world by rebooting our dying sun; as they get closer and closer, Alex Garland’s script fleshes out how that heavenly body wreaks havoc on the psyches of the puny humans trying to contend with it.”—David Sims, Blank Check
Expanded: Botanical Imprints
Opens March 17
In Herbaria, Leandro Listorti’s second feature, the filmmaker and archivist draws an extended parallel between the world of cinema and the world of botany, exploring the urgent work of preservation in both, and how plant life can persevere through the moving image. Listorti’s lovely film, and its thoughtful entwining of cinema and flora, planted the proverbial seed for “Botanical Imprints,” a program of eclectic works—including a lobby installation of Nguyễn Trinh Thi’s 2013 single-channel video Landscape #1 and a selection of shorts curated by the Counter-Encounters collective—that encourage the viewer to think more deeply about the plant kingdom in all its diversity, beauty, and vulnerability.
Series Includes:
Herbaria - Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind - Landscape Series #1
Samples from: Encounters Over Several Plants - Temple Lily - Farmacopoea
Studio Parasite - To Pick a Flower - Musa - Suite!
China’s Sixth Generation
Opens March 24
Born in the tumult and immediate aftermath of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966-’76), the filmmakers of Mainland China’s “Sixth Generation” have witnessed their country’s transformation from a relatively isolated semi-agrarian nation to an international economic force dotted with teeming super-cities. They have responded to these unprecedented times with unprecedented approaches to making movies, frequently working independent of government oversight and bringing a new spirit of formal experimentation to Chinese cinema, all to reflect the true face of the changing country to their fellow citizens and the wider world. Accompanying Metrograph’s run of Suzhou River by Lou Ye, and including films by Jia Zhangke, Wang Xiaoshuai, and Zhang Yuan, this program celebrates a generation of filmmakers working to get a better view of the revolutionary change the state has wrought in everyday life.
Series Includes:
East Palace, West Palace - Pickpocket (Xiao Wu) - Beijing Bicycle
Suzhou River
Opens March 24
Taking its name from the polluted river that flows through Shanghai, director Lou’s hometown, the brooding Suzhou River uses the singular first-person perspective of its unseen videographer-narrator to explore the grubby underbelly of the city, observing the story of an unsuspecting motorcycle courier who finds himself snared in a kidnapping plot and murder rap. A seductive, intricately structured stylistic coup from the sixth generation filmmaker, drawing on influences from film noir to Vertigo while developing its own idiosyncratic and haunting visual vocabulary.
New 4K restoration supervised by Lou Ye himself from the original 16mm A-B negative of the image.