Premieres

THURS., 9/11, 7 p.m.
CLOUD
Japan | DCP | 2024 | 124 min. | Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Cast: Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Masataka Kubota

After cashing in on flipping merchandise online, internet grifter Yoshii cashes out and retreats with his ill-gotten gains to an isolated house in the Japanese forest. But Yoshii’s shady past isn’t finished with him, and his dissatisfied customers are determined to settle the score. Japanese master of suspense Kiyoshi Kurosawa delivers a twisty, unpredictable thriller that strikes at the heart of the digital economy. (MK)

THURS., 9/18, 7 p.m.
Premieres
THE SECOND ACT
France | DCP | 2024 | 80 min. | French with English subtitles
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Cast: Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel

En route to meet his clingy girlfriend’s father, David tries to convince his dim friend Willy to swoop in and take her off his hands. But the plan quickly takes a back seat as the actors break the fourth wall to grouse, flirt, threaten to cancel each other, and try to get cast in a better movie. Featuring a quartet of A-list French stars spoofing their own images, Quentin Dupieux’s meta-movie also pokes fun at the absurdity of AI with hilarious irreverence. The Second Act was the Opening Night selection for the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. (MK)

THURS., 9/25, 7 p.m.
Premieres
DREAMS (DRØMMER)
Norway | DCP | 2024 | 110 min. | Norwegian with English subtitles
Director: Dag Johan Haugerud
Cast: Ella Øverbye, Selome Emnetu, Ane Dahl Torp

Hopelessly infatuated with her French teacher, Oslo teen Johanne pours her heart onto the page, detailing their close—possibly too close—relationship. Poring over this compulsively readable, potentially scandalous missive, her family faces several thorny questions: is this a diary or a novella? Has a line been crossed in real life? And should they try and get it published? This wise and compassionate tale of sexual awakening won the top prize at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival. (MK)

THURS., 10/2, 7 p.m.
Premieres
VIDEOHEAVEN
USA | DCP | 2025 | 173 min.
Director: Alex Ross Perry

Once so ubiquitous as to be taken for granted, now all but vanished, the video rental shop was a cultural fixture from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Whether the shelves contained a thoughtfully curated bounty or the frustration of a corporate shell stocking dozens of the same lousy title, browsing these aisles was a rite of passage for many cinephiles. Using narration read by Maya Hawke and a wealth of footage pulled from cinema, TV, instructional videos, and commercials, rental clerk turned filmmaker Alex Ross Perry (Pavements) charts the history and impact of home video before the streaming era. After basking in Videoheaven, you will surely be inspired to hit up Madison’s own Four Star Video (formerly Four Star Video Heaven), one of the few left standing. Presented with the support of Four Star Video. (MK)

THURS., 10/9, 7 p.m.
Premieres
STRANGER EYES
Singapore, Taiwan, France | DCP | 2024 | 125 min. | Mandarin with English subtitles
Director: Yeo Siew Hua
Cast: Wu Chien-Ho, Lee Kang Sheng, Anicca Panna

A young couple have just about given up hope of ever finding their missing child when mysterious packages start appearing on their doorstep. Inside are DVDs containing raw footage of their everyday lives, recorded by a voyeur with no clear motivation.  They begin to suspect a shifty neighbor (played by Tsai Ming-liang collaborator Lee Kang-sheng) of not only taking the videos, but taking their daughter, as well. This creepy thriller takes unexpected turns as it reflects on the nature of surveillance, from both sides of the camera. (MK)

THURS., 10/16, 7 p.m.
Premieres
IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT
Iran | DCP | 2025 | 101 min. | Farsi with English subtitles
Director: Jafar Panahi
Cast: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi

At a car repair shop in the middle of the night, a former political prisoner encounters a man he believes to be the guard who tortured him. But how can he be sure, when he was blindfolded the whole time? A revenge saga as only master filmmaker Jafar Panahi could make it, It Was Just an Accident is morally complex, darkly comic, and absolutely gripping.  Following a nearly 20-year ban on filmmaking—a period during which he nevertheless directed and starred in five daring hybrid features—Pahani’s triumphant return to narrative cinema deservedly won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. (MK)

THURS., 10/23, 7 p.m.
Premieres
$POSITIONS – Brandon Daley in Person!
USA | DCP | 2025 | 98 min.
Director: Brandon Daley
Cast: Mike Kunicki, Vinny Kress, Trevor Dawkins, Kaylyn Carter

He may be a straight-edge virgin with a dead-end job and eccentric personal life, but Mike’s convinced he’s got one thing up on everyone else: he’s a crypto investor. When his account suddenly hits the jackpot, Mike upends everything far too quickly, kicking off a spiral of bad decisions and worse solutions. Careening as wildly as the roller coaster of Mike’s crypto value, Brandon Daley’s frenetically funny debut feature is as insane as the new economy itself. Writer-director Daley will appear in person for a post-screening discussion. (MK)

THURS., 10/30, 7 p.m.
Premieres
SEPTEMBER SAYS
Ireland, UK, France | DCP | 2025 | 98 min.
Director: Ariane Labed
Cast: Mia Tharia, Pascale Kann, Rakhee Thakrar

A social outcast at her Oxford school, awkward teen July is in thrall to her charismatic older sister September and does whatever she asks, no matter how odd. Their imaginary games and arcane rituals alienate their peers, but when a horrific incident at school bursts the girls’ private bubble, their single mom relocates the family to a remote Irish cottage—where, of course, their behavior only grows stranger. Adapted from Daisy Johnson’s gothic novel, the freaky first feature by Ariane Labed is of a piece with her performances in the films of Yorgos Lanthimos. (MK)

THURS., 11/6, 7 p.m.
Premieres
LEFT-HANDED GIRL
Taiwan, France, UK, USA | 2025 | DCP | 108 min. | Mandarin with English subtitles Director: Shih-Ching Tsou
                                                                                 Cast: Janel Tsai, Shih-Yuan Ma, Nina Ye

In the bustling night markets of Taipei, an expat family returns home to open a noodle stand. Busy trying to make ends meet, single mom Shu-fen leaves her adorable five year-old I-Jing in the halfhearted care of her moody teen daughter. But in the market’s kaleidoscopic jumble, they begin to lose track of one another, and get mixed up in their own scams, scares, and curses. Anora’s Oscar-winning filmmaker Sean Baker, who co-wrote, edited, and produced, has long counted on co-writer/director Shih-Ching Tsou as one of his key collaborators. Left-Handed Girl shines with their shared sensibility of madcap comedy and humanist love for underdogs in over their heads. (MK)

THURS., 11/13, 7 p.m.
Premieres
DRUNKEN NOODLES
USA, Argentina | DCP | 2024 | 82 min.
Director: Lucio Castro
Cast: Laith Khalifeh, Ezriel Kornel, Matthew Risch

Alone in New York for a summer, art student Adnan spends his days manning the desk at a hole-in-the-wall gallery and his nights cruising delivery drivers in McCarren Park. The embroidered erotica currently on exhibition ignites a series of memories of past affairs upstate that unfold in dreamy reverse chronology. Argentine filmmaker Lucio Castro’s sensual reverie was an under-the-radar highlight of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. (MK)

THURS., 11/20, 7 p.m.
Premieres
PETER HUJAR’S DAY
USA | DCP | 2025 | 76 min.
Director: Ira Sachs
Cast: Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall

The director and costar of Passages reunite for an immersive portrait of a day in the life of a working artist. Over the course of a December day in 1974 New York, writer Linda Rosenkrantz interviews photographer Peter Hujar about everything he did the day prior—an accumulation of quotidian details that comes to resemble an artistic philosophy. Based on a recently discovered transcript, this evocative slice-of-life illuminates the downtown art scene of the mid-1970s more richly than an archival documentary. “The best film at Sundance… it is a masterpiece” (Vulture). “A miracle of a film” (Time Out). (MK)