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“I just wanted to look at that moment of girlhood where you are shifting away from being ostensibly under the protection of your parents, but also realizing like, ‘Oh, I’m actually not protected by the world. I have to figure out my own, my own way forward.’” India Donaldson on her new film GOOD ONE.

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In India Donaldson’s fantastic debut film Good One, 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) embarks on a three-day backpacking trip in the Catskills with her dad, Chris (James Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy). As the two men quickly settle into a gently quarrelsome, brotherly dynamic, airing long-held grievances, Sam, wise beyond her years, tries to mediate. But when lines are crossed and Sam’s trust is betrayed, tensions reach a fever pitch, as Sam struggles with her dad’s emotional limitations and experiences the universal moment when the parental bond is tested. Selected for both Sundance and Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, Good One is an emotionally expansive work that probes the limits of familial trust, understanding, and ultimately, forgiveness.

We open Good One this Friday in Santa Monica and a week from Friday in North Hollywood.

The nation’s film critics are not holding back. A small sample:

“Collias captures something gossamer here, a quiet shift into adult womanhood that happens, literally, overnight. She’s the new moon, ready to emerge. But unlike the moon, she makes her own light.” ~ Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine

“In its lived-in quality and gathering churn, Good One is a dream of an indie, from the craft in every frame to the humor, epiphanies and mysteries that gird its portraiture.” ~ Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

“Its most distinctive quality is how much Donaldson and her trio of actors … trust the subterranean, and allow it to do its work far beneath the surface, between the words.” ~ Sheila O’Malley, RogerEbert.com

“So much of the grace and, ultimately, the emotional resonance of Good One lies in Collias’ performance, and how she turns a symphony of reaction shots into a portrait of a woman caught in a crossfire of middle-aged male malaise.” ~ David Fear, Rolling Stone

“Subtly dark, humorous, and wise, Good One leans into its wilderness backdrop in all of its liberating (and, sometimes, paradoxically claustrophobic) properties.” ~ Tomris Laffly, Harper’s Bazaar

Donaldson has sat for several recent interviews to talk about her film. Here’s an excerpt from one with Jordan Raup of The Film Stage:

The best directorial debut of the year, India Donaldson’s Good One, is a carefully-observed portrait of both womanhood and fatherhood, capturing the 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias, in a revelatory breakthrough performance) who embarks on a camping trip in the Catskills with her father (James Le Gros) and his best friend (Danny McCarthy). As the men are in the middle of a midlife crisis of sorts, Sam is witness to their mindless banter and subtle indecencies, culminating in a piercing point of no return.

Ahead of the film’s limited release beginning this Friday, I spoke with Donaldson about the character dynamics, the film’s subtle accumulation of details, the Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Kelly Reichardt films she watched as inspiration, and the journey from Sundance to New Directors/New Films to the Cannes Film Festival.

The Film Stage: Can you talk about how you initially formed the dynamic between these three characters? In some ways, it feels like an update on Old Joy but with an entirely new perspective.

India Donaldson: When I wrote the script, it was like deep COVID, and I was living back at home for the first time since high school, basically. And I have two half-siblings who at the time were in high school and I was kind of reflecting. I never thought about, before this moment, exploring that moment in film or writing. But through them this triangulation happened where I was reflecting on my own teen years and memories, of the ways that I dealt with conflict, the ways that I was avoidant of conflict, just my qualities of being in the world as a teenager. And how I felt like I had spent my 20s kind of trying to beat back certain instincts I had––to please or this kind of thing that had worked for me as a teenage girl, I feel like it wasn’t working for me in my professional life. I felt like I didn’t have the confidence to really pursue what I wanted to pursue, all these things. I just wanted to look at that moment of girlhood where you are shifting away from being ostensibly under the protection of your parents, but also realizing like, “Oh, I’m actually not protected by the world. I have to figure out my own, my own way forward.”

If you just look at the logline you could think it’s like a coming-of-age movie, but I feel like throughout the movie you learn she’s actually more mature in some ways, and level of maturity is not defined by age. She’s picking up on different social cues. What was it like writing her character and after you met Lily, did her character expand? 

The character was on the page for sure, but the moment I met Lily and saw her audition, she just had added this edge to the character. I was always kind of nervous about the character that she would come across as too much of a doormat. That it would be sort of unsatisfying to watch somebody repeatedly act kind of in service of these men and their needs and struggle with that. Lily just had this quality where even when the character’s at her most obedient, I could always feel her pushing against it. Because I think Lily herself has a natural kind of rebellious [spirit]. She’s a real freethinker and has this incredible confidence that the character doesn’t have. But I think it bleeds into the performance and so it evolved in that sense. As soon as it was sort of in her hands, the character became more powerful to me. Which was a cool thing to discover.

Repertory Central – Upcoming Classics include THE CONVERSATION, ARMY OF SHADOWS, PARIS, TEXAS and BASQUIAT.

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Wasn’t it fabulous getting to see Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI on the big screen?  Well, there’s more where that came from. Get fired up for Francis Ford Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION, Jean-Pierre Melville’s ARMY OF SHADOWS, Wim Wenders’s PARIS, TEXAS, and Julian Schnabel’s BASQUIAT in the coming weeks, plus our one-night screening of LEGENDS OF THE FALL (with director Ed Zwick in person for a Q&A).  We’re planning even more for the fall. Add to these all the award-season films coming to Laemmle screens, that is a lot of rewarding moviegoing!
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THE CONVERSATION follows lonely wiretapping expert and devout Catholic Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), who is hired to record a seemingly innocuous conversation in San Francisco’s Union Square between two lovers (Frederick Forsythe and Cindy Williams). Upon re-hearing the tapes, however, Caul believes he may put the couple in danger if he turns the material over to his client (Robert Duvall). But what one hears can ultimately turn out to be quite different from what was actually recorded. Opens this Friday at the Laemmle Royal, Town Center, and Glendale.
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ARMY OF SHADOWS opens August 16 at the Royal and Town Center: A gorgeous restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 epic of the French Resistance during World War II, starring Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret. Based on the novel by Joseph Kessel (perhaps best known for Belle de Jour), the film draws on the wartime experiences of Kessel and Melville himself, both active members of the Resistance and Free French Forces. This is the first time the film has been released in the U.S.
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PARIS, TEXAS opens August 30 at the Royal. New German Cinema pioneer Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) brings his keen eye for landscape to the American Southwest in Paris, Texas, a profoundly moving character study written by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Sam Shepard. PARIS, TEXAS follows the mysterious, nearly mute drifter Travis (a magnificent Harry Dean Stanton, whose face is a landscape all its own) as he tries to reconnect with his young son, living with his brother (Dean Stockwell) in Los Angeles, and his missing wife (Nastassja Kinski).
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BASQUIAT, opening September 13 at the Laemmle NoHo, depicts the meteoric rise of the brilliant artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, played by Jeffrey Wright in one of his first roles. Starting out as a street artist, living in Thompkins Square Park in a cardboard box, Jean-Michel is “discovered” by Andy Warhol’s art world and becomes a star. But success has a high price, and Basquiat pays with friendship, love, and, eventually, his life.

LEGENDS OF THE FALL 30th Anniversary Screening Director Ed Zwick in person August 15.

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LEGENDS OF THE FALL (1994)
30th Anniversary Screening
Director Ed Zwick in person, signing his book Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions
Thursday, August 15, at 7 PM, Royal Theatre

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 30th anniversary screening of Ed Zwick’s ‘Legends of the Fall,’ his hit Western epic starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Henry Thomas, and Julia Ormond. The screening is presented in conjunction with the recent publication of Zwick’s best-selling memoir, ‘Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood.’ Zwick will participate in a post-screening Q&A along with the film’s award-winning editor Steven Rosenblum (Oscar-nominated for his work on Zwick’s ‘Glory’ and ‘Blood Diamond’), and he will be selling and signing copies of his book.

‘Legends of the Fall‘ was based on a highly praised novella by Jim Harrison and centers on a family in Montana during the early years of the 20th century. Susan Shilliday and William Wittliff wrote the screenplay. Hopkins plays the patriarch of the family, and his three sons are played by Pitt, Quinn, and Thomas. The film deals with the mistreatment of indigenous people during that period in history and also includes vivid scenes set during World War I, when all three brothers enlist to fight Germany. After the war, they become entangled with Irish bootleggers during the Prohibition era. Ormond is the Eastern woman loved by all three brothers. The cast also includes Karina Lombard, Tantoo Cardinal, and Gordon Tootoosis.

The film won an Oscar for John Toll’s stunning cinematography and also received nominations for art direction and sound. The following year, Toll won a second Oscar for shooting Mel Gibson’s ‘Braveheart.’ Steven Rosenblum, who edited many of Zwick’s movies, also worked on ‘Braveheart.’ The score for ‘Legends‘ was composed by another of Zwick’s frequent collaborators, James Horner (an Oscar winner for ‘Titanic’).

Made on a budget of $30 million, the film earned $160 million, making it a major hit and one of the most popular films during the 1994-1995 Oscar season. Although reviews were mixed, many critics praised the film. Variety wrote, “Zwick imbues the story with an easy, poetic quality…the actors, working as an ensemble, are near perfect in their service of the material.” Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers singled out Brad Pitt, declaring that Pitt “proves himself a bona fide movie star, stealing every scene he’s in.” The Chicago Tribune’s Michael Wilmington wrote, “the landscapes, photographed by John Toll, majestically backdrop all the personal and cultural furies.” Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer concurred: “Check your cynicism at the door, and just revel in its enormity.”

Zwick’s book chronicles his career from his early days writing for television and includes piercingly candid reminiscences of his landmark shows ‘thirtysomething’ and ‘My So-Called Life,’ along with his features ‘About Last Night,’ ‘Glory,’ ‘Courage Under Fire,’ ‘The Last Samurai,’ ‘Blood Diamond,’ ‘Defiance,’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love’ (for which he won an Oscar for Best Picture). The book recounts his conflicts with Matthew Broderick, Julia Roberts, and Pitt, as well as studio executives like the infamous Harvey Weinstein. But Zwick also includes praise for his closest collaborators and many incisive reflections on the essential tenets of moviemaking.

THE TERMINATOR 40th Anniversary Screening with Producer Gale Anne Hurd Thursday at the Laemmle NoHo!

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 40th anniversary screening of one of the most popular sci-fi films of all time, THE TERMINATOR, the movie that spawned one of the screen’s most profitable film franchises. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his most iconic role, Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn. We’re screening it as part of Art House Theater Day on Thursday, July 25 at 7 PM at the NoHo and will host producer Gale Anne Hurd for a Q&A. You might ask, is this really an indie film? Spoiler alert…it is!

“Knowing that many people have never seen the film or missed out on seeing it on the silver screen, I couldn’t be more thrilled to celebrate THE TERMINATOR‘s 40th anniversary with its return to cinemas on Art House Theater Day,” said producer Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead, Armageddon). “People may wonder if THE TERMINATOR is truly an indie film. As the film’s producer, I can assure you it is. Jim Cameron and I made the film for $6.4 million, which included a completion bond and a 10% contingency. We had a variety of co-financiers, pre-sold rights and our distribution was through Orion Pictures rather than a major studio – the very definition of an indie film, both then and now. We hope you’ll enjoy the nostalgic experience of seeing it this summer!”

Writer-director Cameron and producer Hurd had both apprenticed at Roger Corman’s low-budget factory, New World Pictures, in the late 1970s and early 1980s when they joined forces to create THE TERMINATOR. Their original screenplay (with co-writer William Wisher, inspired by works of Harlan Ellison) chronicles the battle for the survival of the human race against Skynet, a synthetic intelligent machine network of the future. In 2029, an automaton killer, T-800 (Schwarzenegger) is dispatched through time to assassinate an unsuspecting waitress, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) in 1984, who turns out to be the future mother of the twenty-first–century human resistance leader, John Connor. To protect her, Connor sends guerrilla fighter Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). The ensuing chase, with the seemingly unstoppable Schwarzenegger, a laconic, leather-clad, and lumbering destruction machine pursuing Connor and Reese through the streets of Los Angeles, is a model of low-budget efficiency and resourcefulness.

Contemporary critics embraced the sci-fi suspense thriller, with Kirk Ellis of the Hollywood Reporter calling it “a genuine steel metal trap of a movie.” Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader characterized its “almost graceful violence…(has) the air of a demented ballet,” and Janet Maslin in The New York Times cited it as a “B-movie with flair.” The film was a genuine sleeper, and its success led to several sequels, a television series and video games. The latest incarnation of the series, Terminator: Dark Fate, with Cameron returning to a creative role, is set to open theatrically later this year. The film that started it all, THE TERMINATOR, was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2008.

Cameron, of course, became one of the most sought-after filmmakers in Hollywood, staying in the sci-fi world for several landmark films (Aliens, The Abyss, Avatar) and winning Oscars for a venture into the past, Titanic, the biggest box-office hit of the twentieth century. Schwarzenegger went on to movie superstardom and political success. His terse line reading in the film, “I’ll be back,” is ranked 37th of the American Film Institute’s all-time great movie quotes, and his character Terminator is ranked as the 22nd greatest movie villain. Our guest, Gale Anne Hurd emerged as one of the most successful female producers of the era, with Aliens, Alien Nation, and Armageddon among her hits.

“I set out to make a film about solidarity and finding the small gestures of kindness and understanding between strangers and family alike.” Levan Akin on his film CROSSING, opening July 19 at the Royal.

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Next week at the Royal we open Crossing, the acclaimed new film by the Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin (And Then We Danced). It follows Lia, a retired teacher living in Georgia, as she tries to fulfill a promise to find her long-lost niece, Tekla. The search takes her to Istanbul, a beautiful city that seems full of connections and possibilities. There she meets Evrim, a lawyer fighting for trans rights, and Tekla starts to feel closer than ever.
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Akin will attend the July 20 evening screening for a Q&A.
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“A piercing portrait of forgiveness across generations…Dumanli, making her screen feature debut here, is a pure joy to watch, enveloping the movie in a sense of warm coziness and safety as, just being in her presence, you feel like everything will somehow work out.” ~ Ryan Lattanzio, indieWire

“It’s seductive, fragmented, involving.” ~ Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International

“Akin makes a calculated choice to raise awareness of the trans community in Istanbul, but he does so through representation rather than manipulation.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety

“This novelistic drama takes time to connect its central triangle but does so with a suppleness and restraint that amplify the emotional rewards of its lovely open-ended conclusion.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

Director’s statement: With Crossing I set out to make a film about solidarity and finding the small gestures of kindness and understanding between strangers and family alike. I also wanted to show rooms and places that are rarely explored in stories from the region. 

The film is based on a true story I was told whilst researching And Then We Danced, about a grandmother traveling from Georgia to Turkey in search of her trans granddaughter. Just like with my previous film, making Crossing was very challenging. The existence of LGBTQ+ people in Georgia and Turkey is under large pressure and Turkey’s president Erdogan ran most of his  recent presidential campaign around anti-LGBTQ+ rhetorics. 

In my film we follow retired schoolteacher Lia who is looking to fulfill her recently deceased sister’s dying wish – to find her lost trans daughter, Tekla. Together with a down on his luck  young man, Achi, who claims to have Tekla’s address in Istanbul, she travels from Georgia to  Turkey to find her niece. Lia and Achi are from different generations and as such don’t have  much in common even though they live in the same country. There is a great divide of ideology in Georgia between the Soviet and the post-Soviet generation. Achi desperately wants to leave Georgia as he lives under the oppressive rule of his older brother and he knows there is no future in Georgia for his young western leaning generation. 

As the journey unravels, so does Lia. Through her relationship to Achi and her encounters with  the trans community in Istanbul, specifically with Evrim (a trans woman who works as a lawyer for an NGO in Istanbul), Lia begins to open up and see the world and her place in it differently. All three main characters have made great sacrifices in limiting their lives and inhibitions in order to not upset the ruling hegemony. 

I myself am Georgian born in Sweden (my ancestry is from Batumi), and I have ties to Turkey (both my parents were born there). The journey from Batumi in Georgia, along the Black Sea to Istanbul is a journey I have taken many times myself as a child. I am a mix of many cultures, traditions and norms and the themes of modernity versus tradition are very personal and  something I have struggled with myself. I drew a lot from my own experiences, asking myself if  my grandparents were living today, would they accept me for who I am? Probably not – but in  showing these examples of acceptance I hope to inspire new ways forward.

40th Anniversary Screening of SUBURBIA with Writer-Director Penelope Spheeris in Person Celebrating Art House Theater Day.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 40th anniversary of SUBURBIA (1984), the first narrative feature film of acclaimed writer-director Penelope Spheeris. Co-produced by Roger Corman, with Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in an ensemble cast of mostly non-actors, the film plays one night only: Wednesday, July 24 at 7:30 pm at the Laemmle NoHo as a preview of Art House Theater Day (AHTD, officially July 25). AHTD is a celebration of the contributions that art house theaters and independent films make to the cultural landscape.

SUBURBIA was a follow up to Spheeris’ debut film, the landmark documentary ‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ (1981), which focused on the emerging punk rock/hardcore scene in Southern California in the early 1980’s. While the documentary (and its two sequels) dealt with the bands, SUBURBIA looks at their audiences, displaced and disaffected children of the Baby Boomer generation who rejected the consumerism and conservatism of their parents. The movie follows a group of kids (ranging from ages 6 to 18) who squat in a condemned tract-housing development, forming a family unit of punks who call themselves The TRs (the rejected). Although the TRs commit petty crimes to survive, the ostensible villains of the movie are a pair of gun-toting working men who view them as responsible for every crime imaginable and eventually hunt them down.

Spheeris approached Roger Corman to complete financing for the film. He viewed it as a teen exploitation movie that fit into his wheelhouse of low-budget genre pictures, a formula that worked very well for him for decades. Spheeris, however, saw it as a social statement, and chose to use mostly non-actors along with a few musicians (e.g., Flea) for authenticity, pointing out, “It’s easier to teach punks to be actors than actors to be punks.” Flea now cites the film as “the punk rock bible.”

Perceptive critics of the day supported Spheeris’ vision. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it “a clear-eyed compassionate melodrama…far better than Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Outsiders’ and ‘Rumblefish.’” This view was echoed by Time Out, noting the movie “combines intelligent social comment with the conventions of the teen-in-revolt exploiter to gripping effect. A justifiably angry film, fast and full of violent action, though there’s plenty of humour too; and the lack of originality is amply compensated for by its manifest sincerity.” And Clayton Dillard in Slant said, “In the end, SUBURBIA‘s greatest strength lies in its assertion of youth as a political state of mind.”

Penelope Spheeris is a multitalented film director (SUBURBIA, ‘The Boys Next Door,’ ‘Wayne’s World,’ ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’) producer (‘Real Life’), documentarian (‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ trilogy, ‘We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n Roll’), actress, screenwriter, and videographer. She has enjoyed success in both the independent film and Hollywood studio arenas, collecting numerous honors and currently receiving well-earned lifetime achievement awards. She joins us to introduce SUBURBIA and discuss her five-decade career making cinematic art.

A SUMMER PLACE 65th Anniversary Screening July 11.

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A SUMMER PLACE 65th Anniversary Screening July 11 with special introduction by film music historian Steven C. Smith celebrating the career of composer Max Steiner.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 65th anniversary of the teen angst romance classic A SUMMER PLACE (1959) starring Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue on Thursday, July 11 at 7 PM at the historic Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles. Written and directed by Delmer Daves, the lavish melodrama is now best remembered for introducing the phenomenally successful “Theme from A Summer Place,” the best-selling instrumental in pop music history.

Adapted from a popular novel by Sloan Wilson (The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit), the film deals with two families intertwined through their teenage children while on summer holiday at a coastal resort in Maine. Bert and Sylvia Hunter (Arthur Kennedy and Dorothy McGuire) are the proprietors of a faded resort and the parents of a teenage son Johnny (Troy Donahue) who play host to a vacationing wealthy businessman, Ken Jorgensen (Richard Egan), his wife Helen (Constance Ford), and their daughter Molly (Sandra Dee). Johnny and Molly embark on a summer romance while Ken and Sylvia rekindle an illicit affair, reuniting twenty years after Ken worked at the resort. The rest of the film deals with the hot button topics (this was the 1950s after all) of infidelity, scandal, divorce, and teenage pregnancy, which raised the hackles of the watch-guard censors.

Warner Bros. hoped to emulate the box office smash Peyton Place, which had depicted similar subject matter just two years earlier, even casting one of its Oscar-nominated supporting actors (Arthur Kennedy). Lushly mounted, with Technicolor cinematography by veteran Harry Stradling, Sr. and a sumptuously romantic score by Max Steiner, the film also echoes the extravagant 1950s melodramas of Douglas Sirk. Sandra Dee, who had become a teen favorite in Gidget and Sirk’s Imitation of Life that same year, was elevated to a four-year run as a top ten box office star, while Troy Donahue, who had been in small parts in a few previous films (including Imitation of Life) had a star breakthrough.

The box office success of A SUMMER PLACE overrode contemporary critics’ concerns. Howard Thomson in The New York Times called it a “raucously sensual drama…and one of the most garishly sex-scented movies in years.” Variety also pointed out its obvious appeal, saying “it makes the most of Hollywood’s newly discovered freedom to display the voluminous vocabulary of sex,” while the Harvard Lampoon kiddingly named it one of the ten worst movies of the year. The dubious notices and controversial subject matter, combined with the repressive morality of the era, made the film ripe for “camp” evaluation. Seemingly innocent dialogue like Molly’s inquiry “Johnny, have you been…bad…with girls?” and Constance Ford’s overwrought performance as Molly’s shrewish mother unknowingly contributed to that camp reputation, with one wag citing Ford’s part as the “Wicked Witch of the West.”

Daves had been an accomplished director in different genres since the 1940s (Pride of the Marines, Dark Passage, Broken Arrow, 3:10 to Yuma, An Affair to Remember), but after the commercial success of A Summer Place he finished his career mostly helming similar but inferior melodramas like Parrish, Susan Slade, and Youngblood Hawke in the 1960s. Despite critical reservations, A SUMMER PLACE remains a consummate example of top-notch craftsmanship at the end of the studio era. It has also achieved extended notoriety by its inclusion in a memorable scene in Barry Levinson’s Diner (1982) and the use of its hit instrumental theme in a number of films over the past 60 years.

Max Steiner was one of the original founders of the Hollywood Sound in motion picture scoring, and “did more than any other composer to introduce and establish the language of film music.” Over the course of a four-decade film career he provided memorable scores to such classics as King Kong, Gone with the Wind, Now, Voyager, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, White Heat, and The Searchers, among many others, while winning three Academy Awards. “Theme from A Summer Place” was recorded by Percy Faith and had a then record-breaking nine week run at the top of the pop charts, winning the Grammy as Record of the Year, while Steiner collected a nod for Song of the Year and a bounty of royalties.

Our guest commentator Steven C. Smith is a four-time Emmy-nominated journalist and producer of more than 200 documentaries about music and cinema. He is the author of the definitive biography, “Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer,” which will be available for sale and signing.

A SUMMER PLACE and the celebration of Max Steiner shows one night only: Thursday, July 11 at 7:00 PM at the historic Royal Theatre, enjoying its centennial year as a continuously operating movie theatre since opening in 1924. Coming attractions for the Anniversary Classics Series include the 40th anniversary of Suburbia on July 24 at the NoHo with guest writer-director Penelope Spheeris as a preview of Art House Day.

Agnieszka Holland’s unforgettable new film GREEN BORDER opens Friday at the Royal.

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We are proud to open filmmaker Agnieszka Holland’s powerful new film Green Border this Friday at the Royal Theater in West L.A. Thirty years after her Oscar-nominated film Europa Europa, Green Border is set in the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so-called “green border” between Belarus and Poland. Here refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are trapped in a geopolitical crisis cynically engineered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Finding themselves pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life; Jan, a young border guard; and a Syrian family intertwine.

“By replicating the process of dehumanization, the film’s form forces us to confront our own inaction. Green Border is unforgettable, in all senses of the word.” ~ Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture

The “cruelty can be shocking, and while there are moments in this tough movie when I wept, the rigor of Holland’s filmmaking, and the steadfastness of her compassion, help steady you as a viewer.” ~ Manohla Dargis, New York Times
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“A heart-in-mouth thriller… Agnieszka Holland‘s bruisingly powerful new refugee drama ultimately comes from a place of optimism.” – Jessica Kiang, Variety

“A righteous, infuriating and woefully compelling watch.” – Laura Babiak, Observer

“Profoundly moving, flawlessly executed… if cinema is an empathy machine, to paraphrase the late Roger Ebert, then Agnieszka Holland‘s new film is one precision-tooled specimen.” – Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter

“A humanitarian masterpiece.” – Damon Wise, Deadline