Premieres
The Premieres series returns with more early and exclusive looks at the very best in current arthouse cinema! This fall kicks off with Sebastian Stan in A Different Man, one of the best films from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, screening at the Cinematheque nearly a month before it hits theaters. For a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience, don’t miss Eno, a documentary portrait about the iconic musician which is digitally reconfigured every time it screens—the version you’ll see here on October 10 will never be shown again. Plus: wild new entertainments by boundary-pushing favorites Don Hertzfeldt, Harmony Korine, and Quentin Dupieux; equally adventurous and riveting nonfiction works by Mati Diop and Johan Grimonprez, and much more! This series was made possible by a generous donation from an anonymous cinephile. (MK)
- Thu., Aug. 29 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
An aspiring actor with severe facial disfigurement, Edward is resigned to a dreary day-to-day of infomercial gigs and pining for his next-door neighbor (Renate Reinsve of The Worst Person in the World). Things start to turn around when he undergoes a radical medical procedure (leaving him looking like star Sebastian Stan) and wins the role he was literally born to play, only to be foiled by his suave opposite number (Under the Skin’s Adam Pearson). Hinging on a transformative lead performance from Stan, this incisive, hilarious, and totally original dark comedy takes a scalpel to contemporary questions of identity. (MK)
- Thu., Sep. 5 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
ME, the latest short animated film from two-time Academy Award nominee Hertzfeldt, is an all-new musical odyssey. ME (2024, 22 min.) will be followed by It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012, 71 min.), the feature-length tale of a man named Bill who, faced with dark and troubling events, confronts the meaning of life. #12 on Vulture’s list of “Best Movies of the Decade,” It’s Such a Beautiful Day is a masterful hybrid of hand-drawn animation and experimental optical effects that was six years in the making! The program will begin with a special filmed introduction from Don Hertzfeldt.
- Thu., Sep. 12 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
This marvelously entertaining essay/memoir film by Emmy-winning television and film director Richard Shepard chronicles his youthful obsession with moviegoing in New York City of the 1970s and 1980s at beloved, now-vanished theaters. Constructed from over 200 film clips, including Shepard's early Super 8mm creations, Shepard’s story of his development as a cinephile and cineaste is interwoven with a poignant exploration of his enigmatic father. Shepard will appear in person to introduce Film Geek and participate in a post-screening discussion.
- Thu., Sep. 19 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
Sit in with seven psychics as they conduct intimate readings for their fellow New Yorkers in this fascinating documentary. Acclaimed filmmaker Lana Wilson takes us all the way behind the curtain, following the clairvoyants home and probing their individual personalities. Refreshingly uncynical, Look Into My Eyes mirrors the compassionate openness of its subjects, all of whom seek unknowable answers to life’s largest questions. Whether or not you personally believe in the authenticity of the readings becomes beside the point, as Look Into My Eyes convinces us that, either way, these people have something very real and profound to offer their clients. (MK)
- Thu., Sep. 26 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
Two former classmates reconnect in this perceptive and engaging portrait of a friendship that teeters on the edge of something more. Poetry teacher Mara’s settled down with a comfortable family life and steady job when her old college pal Matt (BlackBerry’s Matt Johnson, naturally funny as always) abruptly bursts back into her life and awakens part of her personality that’s gone dormant. Anyone can see these two have chemistry—strangers mistake them for a couple—and an impromptu road trip will test the depth of their connection. Matt and Mara perfectly captures the particular tensions and ambiguities of undefined relationships. (MK)
- Thu., Oct. 3 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
In rural Georgia, retired schoolteacher Lia sets off on a quest to bring her long-missing trans niece back home. A young neighbor informs Lia that he’s heard the runaway has landed in Istanbul, and then surprises her by tagging along for the search. The odd couple of stoic retiree and restless teen join forces to scour a foreign city’s subculture. Levan Akin’s moving followup to the acclaimed And Then We Danced boasts a pair of fantastic lead performances, and doubles as a rich portrait of contemporary Istanbul. (MK)
- Thu., Oct. 10 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
Roxy Music member; ambient music pioneer; producer of iconic records by David Bowie, Talking Heads, Devo, and more; composer of the Windows startup tone: Brian Eno’s resume rivals anyone in contemporary music. Drawing on Eno’s personal archives and conversations with the man himself, Gary Hustwit’s innovative profile emulates the artist’s forward-thinking creativity by using software to generate a different version of the movie every time it’s shown—the Eno screened at the Cinematheque will never be seen again. “There’s a pure joy to this documentary, a sense that creativity is miraculous and we ought to be grateful that we get to participate in it” (The New York Times). (MK)
- Thu., Oct. 17 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
Iconic surrealist Salvador Dalí gets a “real fake biopic” worthy of his mischievous legacy. Five actors swap in and out of the tiiiiitle role as the film anarchically stacks dreams within dreams, trips us up with false starts and fakeout endings, and generally has a blast thumbing its nose at every rule of conventional biopics. This daffy caricature comes courtesy of contemporary cinema’s clearest Dalí descendent, Quentin Dupieux, who proclaims it a “declaration of love to this man.” “Giddy, glitchy, and altogether delightful… a film that Buñuel surely would have appreciated” (Variety). (MK)
- Thu., Oct. 24 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
In rural China in the 1990s, a woman’s body washes ashore on a riverbank. Setting up shop in an abandoned cinema, the chief of police begins an investigation that only grows more mysterious with each suspect, clue—and additional body. Drenched in thick neo noir atmosphere and shot on tactile 16mm, this enveloping procedural justly earned comparisons to Bong Joon-ho’s classic Memories of Murder, and became one of China’s highest grossing independent films. (MK)
- Thu., Oct. 31 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
The self-professed World’s Greatest Assassin prepares to take on his biggest hit: a demonic crime lord lurking in a garish vision of Miami Beach. Shot entirely with infrared cameras and run through VFX that shift its color palette into a pulsing fluorescent rainbow, Aggro Dr1ft boasts a look like no narrative feature that’s come before. Still cinema’s unmatched enfant terrible at 50, Harmony Korine’s latest provocation is a fluid, wildly psychedelic dose of experiential moviemaking that must be seen to be believed. “I have seen the future of cinema, and it is Aggro Dr1ft. A hard-reset on filmmaking rules” (Variety). (MK)
- Thu., Nov. 7 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
In the dead of night in the Himalayas, a pair of scientists are studying moths in the wild. Standing before an illuminated sheet teeming with hundreds of specimens, their job is to make sense of an awe-inspiring array of sizes and colorings. Their lifespans may be less than a week, but moths have existed for millennia, and this documentary is a humbling reminder of humanity’s comparatively small place—yet large impact—in our planet’s history. Its subjects may fit in the palm of your hand, but the astonishing natural beauty and immersive soundscape of tiny fluttering wings make Nocturnes a definite big-screen experience. (MK)
- Thu., Nov. 14 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
The surprising link between American jazz and the fate of the Congo is brought to light in this riveting essay film. In the early 1960s, the US sent well-intentioned legends like Louis Armstrong to Africa as diplomatic ambassadors—and to act as a smokescreen for the coup against Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Soon after, drummer Max Roach crashed the United Nations assembly in protest. Propelled by a killer jazz soundtrack, this invigorating montage will open both your eyes and ears. “Crackling with energy, ideas, and formal daring. Political history has never felt so energizing and dynamically alive as it does here.” (Screen Daily). (MK)
- Thu., Nov. 21 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
After a century in France, 26 royal treasures plundered from the Kingdom of Dahomey return to their African home in present-day Benin. Atlantics director Mati Diop’s visionary documentary considers this act of repatriation from myriad perspectives, including, in a surreal touch, that of the statues themselves. Dahomey’s captivating centerpiece is a wide-ranging debate among Beninese university students about whether the return of a handful of thousands of stolen artifacts constitutes progress or an insult. Diop’s uniquely inquisitive and instructive film won the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. (MK)