NOVEMBER IN THEATER
NOVEMBER IN THEATER
zeitgeist films at 35
opens november 3
Founded in New York City in 1988 by film lovers Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo, Zeitgeist Films would quickly distinguish itself as a distribution company that would both take big risks in acquisitions and provide hands-on care in its release rollout. Now in its 35th year, and with five Academy Award-nominated films, including one winner, to their name, Zeitgeist is well-established as an incubator of emerging talents (Todd Haynes, Guy Maddin, Laura Poitras, and Olivier Assayas) and standard-bearer of curatorial curiosity and excellence—a tradition we salute in this anniversary celebration that reviews the highlights of a remarkable collection of films.
The series features premieres of new 4K remasters of Guy Maddin’s Archangel and Marc Rothemund’s Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, plus an exclusive series closing night Member Preview of Ken Loach’s forthcoming The Old Oak.
Special series guests include Guy Maddin, Raoul Peck, Richard Press, Astra Taylor, Christine Vachon, and more, in addition to Zeitgeist Co-Founders Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo.
20+ Titles from Zeitgeist Films stream on demand on Metrograph At Home.
Series Includes:
A Zed and Two Noughts - Archangel - Bill Cunningham New York
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story - Examined Life - The Garden - Irma Vep
Last Train Home - Lumumba - Nowhere in Africa - The Old Oak
Paris Was a Woman - Poison - Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
Taste of Cherry - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Animal Farm: Dogs
opens november 3
Man’s best friend is also a loyal companion to cinema, as proven in this veritable kennel club show of canines on film, exploring the full range of breeds and temperaments as they’ve appeared onscreen. Among the very good boys and girls joining us will be the stop-motion pack of Isle of Dogs, the Pekingese puppies of Diamantino (both 2018), and the golden retriever who’s one half of the title duo in Wendy and Lucy (2008)—director Kelly Reichardt’s own—as Metrograph goes to the dogs in the latest installment of our ongoing Animal Farm series.
Series Includes:
Address Unknown - All Dogs Go to Heaven - Barking Dogs Never Bite
Diamantino - Isle of Dogs - One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog - Up - Wendy and Lucy
Look Who is Coming For Dinner
opens November 3
Just in time for Thanksgiving, a collection of films that explore the cinematic possibilities of the dinner table as a battleground, featuring lavish spreads—and vicious spats—in English country estates (Gosford Park), medieval Italian castles (The Masque of the Red Death), a Manhattan penthouse with views to die for (Rope), and much, much more. A 9-course meal serving up awful in-laws, outrageous bad behavior, and even a touch of cannibalism, and all the other cinematic delicacies for which we give thanks.
Series Includes:
The Birdcage - Clue - The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover
Eating Raoul - Gosford Park - Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
The Masque of the Red Death - Rope - Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Alfredo Castro, A Political Retrospective
Opens November 3
“Marking the 50th anniversary, this September 11, of the military coup against President Allende in Chile, this retrospective is dedicated to Alfredo Castro, the internationally acclaimed Chilean actor whose work is essential to a deep exploration of the cruelty of the dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989). Inspired by the French playwright Antonin Artaud, Castro has theorized the ‘third body,’ a key concept in the study of unknown and unconfessed human drives. In this retrospective, we privilege Castro’s close, decades-long collaboration with the Chilean director Pablo Larraín.”—Series curators Javier Guerrero and Juana Suárez
Alfredo Castro in person for Introductions and Q&As on November 3rd and November 4th
Series Includes:
El Conde - No
Post Mortem - Tony Manero
metrograph selects: chef eric feurtado
opens november 5
Select films, chosen specially by Metrograph staff. For the latest iteration of our recurring series, Metrograph Commissary Chef Eric Fuertado pick some of her personal favorites.
Series Includes:
Heat - Face/Off - The Mummy
Youth (Spring)
Opens November 10
Wang’s ongoing project of documenting the social and economic transformation of 21st-century China as reflected in the lives of those buffeted by the country’s emergence as an industrial powerhouse continues with Youth (Spring), a deeply empathetic account of the everyday routine of young migrant workers laboring in textile factories in the town of Zhili, outside Shanghai, and living together in their crowded dormitories. Shot over the course of five years, Youth (Spring) is an extraordinary portrait of the resilience and hope—often frustrated—of its subjects, most in their twenties, seeking to assert their humanity in these intense environments.
An Icarus Films release, from The dGenerate Films Collection.
The Wall
Opens November 10
A literally concrete representation of the ideological divide between the liberal democratic Western Bloc and the communist Eastern Bloc, the Berlin Wall split Germany’s largest city from 1961 to 1989, and its fall provided a picture-perfect moment to a world celebrating the disintegration of the Soviet-led world and the end of the Cold War. With two inventive nonfiction films—Jürgen Böttcher’s 1990 The Wall, and Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez’s 2020 The American Sector—this series looks at both sides of the Wall: the elation of its destruction, and the complicated reality of its aftermath.
The American Sector streams on demand on Metrograph At Home.
Directors of The American Sector Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez in person for Introduction and Q&A on November 10th
Series Includes:
The American Sector - The Wall
Poems in Space: Films & Rituals by Cecilia Vicuña
opens november 11
Best known as a poet, performance artist, painter, and practitioner of fiber arts, the Chilean multi-hyphenate and pioneer of experimental forms Cecilia Vicuña has also maintained a long-standing practice of producing vital, formally innovative, ardently anti-colonialist moving image-based works. In conjunction with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—which hosted a major Vicuña retrospective last year—Metrograph will present three programs of the artist’s too-little-seen shorts and midlength films, at each of which Vicuña will appear in person to discuss her craft and, on one special occasion, give one of her renowned ritual-oriented performances in-theatre. “Few artists so buffeted by a lifetime of political circumstances have found such uniquely poetic ways to respond to the winds of terror, change, and hope.”—Lucy R. Lippard, “Cecilia Vicuña: The Persistence of Joy”
Series Includes:
Prayers for Continuation of Life: Films & Performance
Quipus, What is Poetry? - Sacred Sounds
Also Starring... Jo Van Fleet
Opens November 17
Broadway star Jo Van Fleet was not yet 40 when she made her film debut in Elia Kazan’s East of Eden, but her role in that film—which would win her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress—is of a rather older woman, the madame of a Salinas Valley brothel, overflowing with a lifetime’s disappointment. This would establish a pattern for Oakland native Van Fleet, whose slim but impeccable filmography is filled with some of cinema’s toughest old battle-axes and bitterest biddies. A tender tribute to a great screen specialist in hard-backed women.
Series Includes:
Cool Hand Luke - East of Eden - Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
I’ll Cry Tomorrow - The Rose Tattoo - The Tenant
Wild River
MAKA: Many Eyed Vessel
one night only - November 17
Metrograph and the Flaherty NYC Series present Miko Revereza’s Nowhere Near, the opening night film of “MAKA: Many Eyed Vessel,” Flaherty’s multi-part series taking place in various venues across New York, on Friday, November 17 In Theater. The screening will be followed by a discussion led by series programmers Emily Abi-Kheirs, Ha’aheo Auwae-Dekker, Isabel Rojas, and Raven Two Feathers.
Arriving at Metrograph for this special one-night-only screening event following its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and recent U.S. Premiere at New York Film Festival, Nowhere Near offers complicated and critical reflections on the filmmaker’s experience of home and self. The interconnected portrait of transition creates the doorway for the rest of the program.
Featuring works from artists around the world, this program is a curated response to the 2022 Flaherty Seminar, Continents of Drifting Clouds and the stirring reverberations that followed. With the intentions of nourishment, “MAKA: Many Eyed Vessel” reckons with the themes of its predecessor while navigating institutional spaces through its offerings of reflection, interconnection, and the future.
ABOUT FLAHERTY NYC
Flaherty NYC takes place twice a year, in the spring and in the fall. The series, now in its 25th season, invites curators to assemble programs on a theme of their choice, featuring innovative, engaging, challenging, and groundbreaking films. The screenings are followed by discussions, often including the makers, about the work and the curatorial process. This is the sister series of the Flaherty Film Seminar, and in 2023 we are excited to expand beyond the physical venues in New York City to online audiences around the world. Learn more about the series at www.theflaherty.org
A sincere thank you to our curatorial advisors and guides: Almudena Escobar-López and Sky Hopinka, 2022 Professional Development Fellow Angeline Gragasin, Poh Lin Lee of Narrative Imaginings, and our program partners at Humanities New York and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
Walton Ford Selects
Opens November 17
Walton Ford has curated a selection of films as part of a series co-presented by Gagosian and Metrograph. The program features five films that explore extreme psychological states in their storylines and use pioneering and sometimes unconventional acting and cinematographic techniques to achieve the result.
Ford explains,“These films dive deep into characters in ways that are sometimes harrowing and always completely surprising. None of these films are cliché or pat, and all share an unorthodox style or method. As a narrative painter, I seek to explore subjects and tell stories in this way.”
Pre-screening discussion between artist Walton Ford and designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia on Friday, November 19th
Presented with Gagosian
Series Includes:
At Land - Heat Lightning - Meshes of the Afternoon
Naked - Sword of Doom - Walton Ford and Waris Ahluwalia on Early Cinema
PRE-ECHO PRESS PRESENTS THE MARION STOKES PROJECT
one night only - November 19
On the occasion of the release of INPUT, director Matt Wolf’s publication on the life and practice of Marion Stokes, published by Pre-Echo Press, Metrograph presents a screening of Wolf’s documentary on Stokes, followed by a Q&A with Wolf and a book launch event and limited edition print produced by Metrograph, Pre-Echo Press, and Du-Good Press.
Q&A with director Matt Wolf and Matt Connors (Pre-Echo Press) moderated by Doreen St. Félix on Sunday, November 19th
Playground
Opens November 19
It’s never too early to get your kids started on quality cinema, and with that in mind Metrograph introduces “Playground,” a new recurring series that brings together the best of current and classic children’s films with colorful, exuberant experimental and educational shorts sure to delight everyone from tykes to grandparents.
Series Includes:
Art Cinema for Tots: All Colors of the Rainbow - Nimona
Bulletproof
one night only - November 19
Documentarian Chandler brings a coolly observant eye to a hotly debated issue in Bulletproof, a film that examine the shocking epidemic rise of violence in American schools through juxtaposing scenes of traditional school year rituals with new innovations like active shooter drills, metal detector queues, and other disturbing evidences of the fact that any place of learning in the United States stands at constant risk of becoming the scene of a massacre. “A quiet gut punch of a film, one that takes in the culture of violence in the US through observations of routine rather than infamous ruptures.”—The Guardian. Followed by the world premiere of Threat Assessment, a short film composed of never-before-seen material shot by Chandler during the making of Bulletproof.
Director Todd Chandler In Person
Hal Ashby as Editor
Opens November 24
Before he became one of the preeminent directors of New Hollywood with films like Harold and Maude (1971) and The Last Detail (1973), Utah-born Hal Ashby was one of the most sought-after cutters of the late ’60s, being nominated for an Academy Award for Film Editing with The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming (1966), and winning the next year for In the Heat of the Night. Bringing together these and other Ashby-cut works, this series spotlights a lesser-known aspect of its subject’s storied career, recognizing one of the most inventive editors in a period of unusual experimentation in American popular cinema.
Series Includes:
The Children’s Hour - The Cincinnati Kid - In the Heat of the Night
The Thomas Crown Affair - The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming
Eileen Chang: Page to Screen
Opens November 24
Born in Shanghai in 1920, where she had her first literary successes while in her early twenties, Eileen Chang would subsequently flee the Communist takeover of Mainland China to make her home in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States, the entire time adding to a body of work that would mark her as one of the most influential Chinese language authors of all time. Among Chang’s many admirers are some of Greater China’s most accomplished filmmakers, as illustrated by this series, which brings together film adaptations of Chang’s works from Ang Lee, Ann Hui, and Hou Hsiao-hsien, showcasing an extraordinary storytelling talent capable of moving fluidly from page to screen.
Series Includes:
Flowers of Shanghai - Lust, Caution - Love After Love