In what we may call a transitional work from Michael Haneke, the Austrian provocateur introduces several themes that will prove central to his career: video, surveillance, and the viewer’s own implicit role in the perpetuation of violent imagery. Featuring Funny Games’s Arno Frisch!
A minimalist deadpan comedy—Jim Jarmusch goes to South America?—this is a deliciously eccentric, hazy quest for a young woman’s sense of self amidst a world of would-be doppelgängers. Committed to hilarity in all forms, Martín Rejtman’s cinema conjures humor and warmth in equal measure.
Only an outsider like the great Jean Renoir, who worked in America during WWII, could so beautifully reveal American life. Renoir received his only Oscar nomination for this neglected masterpiece, which applies his warmth, empathy, and generosity to a distinctly American story.
Persecuted Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof—who is currently facing and appealing a 1 year prison sentence—ceaselessly continues to make films that challenge the powers that be. An allegory of authoritarianism and state corruption, this stirring thriller pulses with imperative social critique.
Later tackled by Fritz Lang in Human Desire, Émile Zola’s classic novel acts as source material in the great Jean Renoir’s influential, impressively atmospheric psychological thriller—a fascinating forerunner to film noir. A hotblooded, high-powered, lurid love triangle, led by Jean Gabin.
A stunning success at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, Kieślowski’s A Short Film About Killing sets out to explore the origins and manifestations of evil in late-Communist Poland. A staggering portrayal of both victim and perpetrator, the film is an extended take on his TV episode Decalogue: Five.
Promising or assured, yes, but rare is a first film that is visionary. But visionary indeed is the debut of art-house provocateur Bruno Dumont, who already sought that bracing mix of rural specificity, precise form, and philosophic-spiritual turmoil would be characteristic of masterpieces to come.
Michael Haneke turned heads right from the start with this assured and intelligent debut, which established a vision that is simultaneously bleak and impossible to ignore. As Haneke himself said, the film is about what happens every day. The fourth in our series on the Austrian master.
We’re excited to launch a retrospective dedicated to the cinema of Martín Rejtman! His debut, Rapado, is today regarded as the film that launched the New Argentine Cinema, and prefigures what would become his trademark style: comedies imbued with a languid melancholy and hilarious deadpan humour.
Selected at the prestigious Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, and later a prizewinner at Rotterdam, this is an experimental wander through an abandoned theme park (Casablanca’s Arab League Park) — intriguingly juxtaposing footage of children at play with their lives online.
Based on a true story, this breakthrough film from Poland’s Agnieszka Holland (In Darkness, Spoor) is an exceptionally extraordinary historical drama, an intelligent and inventive fusion of fantastic elements with the terrible reality of WW2. An adventure epic—also featuring a young Julie Delpy!
Made straight after his breakthrough feature Campaign, this candid doc from director Kazuhiro Soda is a full-hearted look at the complex world of mental health. Adopting his raw yet deeply alluring approach to filming, Mental unearths the lives of those who are often left on the margins.
Our season dedicated to Krzysztof Kieślowski continues with this acclaimed romantic comedy-drama, a full-length feature that developed and expanded out from an episode of Kieślowski’s 10-part Dekalog. An ironic tale of voyeurism and a compelling, cerebral approach to the feeling—or idea—of love.
This playful documentary adopts a personal approach to explore the issue of gender performance and the damaging expectations of so-called femininity. Shot during dinner parties and using childhood photos, this festival gem is refreshing in its tongue-in-cheek tone, while fierce in its condemnation.
A key film in that early-00s microbudget movement with the contentious moniker “mumblecore,” Hannah marks the first leading role of the endlessly fascinating actor-filmmaker Greta Gerwig. Also featured in front of the camera: directors Mark Duplass, Ry Russo-Young, and Andrew Bujalski!
A documentary which observes cows… if this doesn’t sound like the most exciting pitch one’s ever heard, the end result is however a surprisingly enchanting and captivating affair. With intricate sound design and a compelling sense of observation, Bovines will let you g®aze peacefully.
We’re incredibly proud to spotlight this short film from Eric Baudelaire, a voice of unique commitment with reality’s representation, that makes politics its very own poetry, and viceversa. [sic] is a quietly playful meditation on the nature, power and significance of images.
Directed by a duo of up-and-coming documentary filmmakers, this travelogue vibrantly portrays life as a transsexual man in modern day Brazil. With a vein of enthusiasm pervading the entire journey, Look at Me Again advocates the right of being accepted in a world often affected by prejudice.
From the multitalented writer-director Julie Delpy (2 Days in Paris), this witty, insightful comedy-drama is a delight: a lively period piece charting the chaos that comes with an extended family gathering. Two legends of French cinema, Emmanuelle Riva and Bernadette Lafont, star alongside Delpy.
“Through generous cooperation with the original artists, byNWR has accessed the best possible materials to completely restore and remaster this collection of films and truly showcase their artistry, visually and sonically. These restorations are all premiering here for the first time.” —NWR
Fascinated by the idea of how many different paths a life can possibly take—and later influencing such films as Mr. Nobody, Sliding Doors, Run, Lola, Run— Blind Chance is one of Kieślowski’s most political films. Censored in Poland for many years, this is a work of sublime poetry.
Exploring Zambia’s little-known culture of “witch camps,” this debut feature is a masterful combination of comedy, tragedy, magic, and dazzling visuals. A portrait of a defiant young girl and an acerbic criticism of women’s oppression and corruption through tourism, media, and societal superstition.
Shot with an amateur digital camera by a teenager, My Life on Ice is a diaristic experiment in telling a fictional story from a first-person perspective. This false home movie depicts a youngster’s attempt to comprehend the world and his burgeoning sexuality through the camera lens.
A student of Japanese horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Yui Kiyohara has imbued her impressive first film—a graduation project!—with an eerie ambiguity that is as elusive as it is irresistible. A ghost story of sorts, where two storylines mysteriously overlap, echoing the polyphony of Bach’s music.
Through their adaptations, the films of Straub-Huillet transmit history and its re-interpretations of the world. Thus in this extraordinary, dense drama the story of a Greek proponent of communal utopia is written by a German poet at the time of the French Revolution—and then filmed in Sicily.
Our season on Swiss documentarian Christian Frei comes to a close by venturing into space! While following billionaires as they leave the Earth to reach 245 miles above us, this enthralling doc questions our very hunger for adventure and discovery. A Directing Award winner at Sundance in 2010.
Our Krzysztof Kieślowski retrospective continues with No End: a more serious and severe tonal 180 from the director’s previous Camera Buff. Condemned in Kieślowski’s native Poland on its initial release, this ghost story of sorts puts forth a potent political argument in its two parallel plots.
Eric Rohmer, the French New Wave’s realist par excellence (and a master of witty, literate, deliciously ironic dialogue) spent the 60s making a now legendary series of “Six Moral Tales”. With La collectionneuse, he took the “Moral Tales” into darker territory and created an arthouse classic!
German auteur Fritz Lang’s second Hollywood film, this thrilling, pioneering film noir stars Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda. With its great influence on cinematic versions of Bonnie and Clyde, Lang’s taut, romantic masterpiece stands as yet another testament to the great films he made in America.
With a style that recalls the Dardenne brothers and a vision of their very own, filmmaking duo Jean-Pierre Duret and Andrea Santana have crafted a beautifully told documentary about two boys and their dream of escaping the merciless poverty of Brazil’s northeast. A deeply moving coming-of-age tale.