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Home » Greg Laemmle

NORTHERN LIGHTS restored.

May 21, 2025 by Jordan Deglise Moore Leave a Comment

Winner of the Camera d’Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, the sui generis Northern Lights marks one of the most moving and committed works of political cinema from the late 1970s. Dramatizing the formation of the populist Nonpartisan League in North Dakota in the mid-1910s, Northern Lights captures the plight of immigrant Dakotan farmers as they toil and struggle against the combined forces of industry and finance. Amid this paroxysm of class tension, two young lovers find themselves swept up in the tide. Shot on location (on grain-rich black-and-white 16mm) in the dead of winter and featuring an astonishing cast of non-professional actors, this handmade masterpiece remains a stirring monument to collectivity. 

Laemmle Theatres will open the restored Northern Lights June 13 at the Royal. The latest episode of Inside the Arthouse will feature the film.

Restoration Credits 

IndieCollect produced the new 4K restoration for Kino Lorber. It was created by scanning the 35mm Fine Grain Master Positive in 6.5K. Color correction by Jason Crump of Metropolis was personally supervised by co-director John Hanson. Special thanks to Mike Pogorzelski & Josef Lindner of the Academy Film Archive for their cooperation. The 4K restoration was funded by Kino Lorber, IndieCollect donor John Ahlgren, and additional support from the Golden Globe Foundation and Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust.

About the Production 

Northern Lights was filmed from 1975 to 1977 in northwestern North Dakota near the Canadian border in an area settled by Norwegian immigrants, some of whom still spoke their homeland dialect at the time of production. 

Back in 1915, small farmers banded together to organize the Nonpartisan League, the grassroots movement that is the backdrop for the film’s love story. Their descendants threw their full support behind the production. Co-Directors John Hanson and Rob Nilsson cast many of them in speaking roles alongside lead actors Robert Behling, Joe Spano and Susan Lynch. Acting for the first time in scripted roles, these rural folk gave the film a gritty authenticity in the tradition of the Italian Neorealist film movement. Made for just over $300,000 with a small crew from San Francisco, Northern Lights was a production of Cine Manifest, the film collective that Hanson and Nilsson had co-founded. 

Filmed in stark black and white, Northern Lights captures the stunning imagery of the High Plains landscape, its farmers silhouetted against the immense northern sky. Widely acclaimed for its cinematography, it was shot in 16mm and was one of the first independent films to be blown up to 35mm at the DuArt Film Lab. After its 1978 world premiere at the Dakota Theater in Crosby, North Dakota, Hanson, Nilsson and Associate Producer Sandra Schulberg took the movie to the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the prestigious Camera d’Or Award for Best First Feature. 

The Cannes Festival recognition led to other festivals. It won the Grand Prize at the Portugal International Film Festival and Special Jury Awards at the U.S. Film Festival (the forerunner to Sundance) and at Houston’s WorldFest. At the 1979 New York Film Festival, Northern Lights was shown opening night of the Festival’s “American Independents” sidebar. 

Initially, Hanson, Nilsson and Schulberg distributed Northern Lights themselves, going theater to theater throughout the Dakotas and Upper Midwest. In 1980, with filmmakers Maxi Cohen, Joel Gold, Deborah Shaffer, Stewart Bird, Glenn Silber & Barry Brown, they founded First Run Features, hiring veteran Fran Spielman from New Yorker Films to get their films book in theaters across the U.S. 

In 1982, for the second season of the PBS “American Playhouse” series, Lindsay Law acquired the broadcast rights to Northern Lights and it won the Neil Simon Award for Best Dramatic Screenplay. It has since been acclaimed worldwide as one of the best American Independent movies of all time.

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Filed Under: Featured Films, Films, Greg Laemmle, Inside the Arthouse, Royal, Theater Buzz

“Laura Piani’s splendid debut balances reality with the effervescent charm of vintage swooners.” JANE AUSTEN WRECKED MY LIFE opens May 23.

May 13, 2025 by Jordan Deglise Moore Leave a Comment

If you are in need of some escapism that piques rather than insults your intelligence, we strongly recommend the new French rom-com Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. We open it May 23 at the Royal and May 30 at all but one of our other theaters. (Its writer-director, Laura Piani, is interviewed on the latest episode of Inside the Arthouse.)

Variety’s Chief Film Critic Peter Debruge perfectly captures the film’s charms in his review, whose subhead reads “Laura Piani’s splendid debut balances reality with the effervescent charm of vintage swooners.”

Debruge’s review is worth quoting at length:

“A diet of romantic literature is a recipe for disappointment in real life, argues French director Laura Piani with Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, about an aspiring writer who’s convinced she was born in the wrong century, if only because she still believes in things like soulmates and courtship. Part homage, part referendum on all those love stories that make it look easy, Piani’s just-jaded-enough alternative fills the regrettable gap left by such feel-good classics as Four Weddings and a Funeral and the Austen-inspired Bridget Jones’s Diary. Sony Pictures Classics plans a limited release for May 23, going wide a week later.

“At a time when practically the entire rom-com genre has gravitated to streaming, this bilingual theatrical offering from Sony Pictures Classics feels like the best kind of throwback. Presented as a lighthearted farce, complete with characters stepping (naked) through the wrong doors and a tense cross-country ride, in which Agathe complains in French (not realizing her companion speaks the language), the film is at once old-fashioned and refreshingly, realistically up to date in its take on modern courtship.

“Blocked in both love and literature, Agathe (Camille Rutherford) is an exasperated Frenchwoman working at Shakespeare and Company, the adorably cluttered English-language bookstore situated just a few meters from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. According to Austen’s standards, Agathe — who identifies most closely with Anne Elliot in Persuasion — might seem at genuine risk of spinsterhood, having made it to her mid-30s without a prospect. It’s been years since she’s had so much as a kiss, and the hopeless singleton finds herself pouring all of her idealism and frustration into futile creative writing exercises until … inspiration strikes during a solitary dinner as she stares deep into a novelty sake cup.

“Behind Agathe’s back, her encouraging (if frequently inappropriate) best friend Félix (Pablo Pauly) sends off the first few chapters of this new project to a writer’s residency at Austen’s onetime abode, hoping to give Agathe the “kick in the arse” she needs. Friendship, as Austen herself wrote, is “the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.” The next thing she knows, Agathe is crossing the Channel to visit the author’s estate. There, she spars with (but also falls for) one of the author’s distant relatives: Austen’s priggish great-great-great-grandnephew Oliver (Charlie Anson).

“Piani shot the entire film in France, but it truly feels as if it has a foot in both cultures. Anson could be a young Rupert Everett’s bookish brother, and has clearly studied every wince and eye flutter in Hugh Grant’s arsenal, combining such tools into a 21st-century version of the Mr. Darcy archetype. From the frosty first encounter between Agathe and Oliver, in which she steps off the ferry and promptly retches on his loafers, audiences should find themselves rooting for these two to recognize how compatible they are.

“But Agathe is wrestling with more than just her insecurities, as kissing Félix just before she took the ferry has stirred up newfound feelings for her old friend. Félix is a serial womanizer and a classic cad with whom she’s always felt a certain unexplored sexual tension, despite their many years of platonic companionship, and even in his absence, this development stands to complicate whatever she feels for Oliver. (Lest one doubt where viewers’ allegiances should lie, composer Peter von Poehl’s score practically quotes “Yumeji’s Theme” from In the Mood for Love, a romantic melody that’s all but impossible to resist.)

“A few decades ago, a film like this might have had little chance of success competing with Hollywood-made rom-coms, but that steady stream has moved to, well, streaming, leaving a space wide open for audiences still looking to laugh and swoon at their local art house. As its almost defeatist title implies, Jane Austen Wrecked My Life has an intriguing relation to such escapism, recognizing that fiction in all its forms (whether literary or cinematic) has spoiled so many people’s expectations of what love can be.

“Piani casts a gangly, wide-eyed actor to play Agathe. Rutherford is far from the dime-a-dozen ingénues so often seen in French movies, with their voluptuous figures and vacant expressions — and so much the better, as it sets an unrealistic standard for young women to aspire to (while no such standard exists for their gargoyle-like male co-stars). Instead, she excels at being awkward, incorporating pratfalls and physical comedy into a role that doesn’t turn the head of every man she meets. Although Agathe is quite lovely in a less conventional way, Piani allows her intellect and personality to be the character’s most attractive traits.”

Click here to read the rest of the review.

 

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Filed Under: Claremont 5, Featured Films, Featured Post, Films, Glendale, Greg Laemmle, Inside the Arthouse, Newhall, NoHo 7, Royal, Theater Buzz, Town Center 5

Argentine film MOST PEOPLE DIE ON SUNDAYS “squeezes magic out of melancholy.”

May 7, 2025 by Jordan Deglise Moore Leave a Comment

Starring and written and directed by Iair Said, Most People Die on Sundays is about grief, but it’s also funny, outrageous, surprising, and utterly unique, with a deadpan tone that recalls Jim Jarmusch movies. We follow the protagonist David as he returns home to Argentina for his uncle’s funeral. Said has a sui generis quality of classic screen comics like Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati, and the rest of the cast plays off him perfectly. A sensation when it premiered in the Acid Section at Cannes, Most People Die on Sundays is a comic gem that we’re thrilled to open this Friday at the Royal and Town Center. (Check out Said’s interview on the latest Inside the Arthouse.)

“Said’s finely calibrated writing produces situations that organically and succinctly flesh out the interpersonal dynamics in his family.” – RogerEbert.com

“Said squeezes magic out of melancholy…brings this somewhat mournful portrait to a quietly moving grace note suggesting the silver lining of loss is a motivational reminder to the living.” – Ioncinema

“[A] treatise on the right to fail…a tender tribute to the misfits, to those who, from their peripheral and marginal position, see the world better than the winners.” – Troiscouleurs

“A tragicomedy that lives up to the term, as it finds eruptions of welcome absurdist humor (with something of Martín Rejtman’s cinema) even in the most tragic moments…Said’s cinema in all its dimensions, constantly deepens and evolves.” – Otros Cines

“A marvel, chaotic, sweet and sour, emotional and purely detailed…The filmmaker manages to immerse the viewer in his cathartic state of shock; he manages to connect with the audience in a pain so unique.” – Spanglish Cinema

“A burlesque and touching story about the difficulty of being an adult when you are immature on a relational, emotional and sentimental level…with intelligent writing and without anything superfluous, [Said] describes universal relationships with complex roots, a family life without warmth but not without affection. The lovely ending scene between David and his mother is the perfect example.” – Le Bleu du Miroir

“Most People Die on Sundays is a testament to Said’s ever-expanding list of talents…[a] clever approach to a delicate subject.” – International Cinephile Society

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Filed Under: Featured Films, Films, Greg Laemmle, Inside the Arthouse, News, Royal, Theater Buzz, Town Center 5

“I wanted to bring to light the inner lives of these women, their mutual attraction, their powers, the ways in which they conceal in order to reveal at their own pace.” BONJOUR TRISTESSE opens Friday.

April 30, 2025 by Jordan Deglise Moore Leave a Comment

Based on Françoise Sagan’s controversial 1954 novel, published when she was only 18 years old, the new adaptation of Bonjour Tristesse follows teenage Cécile (Lily McInerny). Her relaxing summer with her father (Claes Bang) in the south of France is upended by the arrival of the enigmatic Anne (Chloë Sevigny), her late mother’s friend.

First-time filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose is a writer, editor, and filmmaker living in Montreal. Prior to making Bonjour Tristesse, her film writing and interviews have focused on a range of international directors, from Abbas Kiarostami to Mia Hansen-Løve, Mike Leigh, Olivier Assayas, and many more. She is a devoted cinephile and has spoken on the works of masters of the craft from Michelangelo Antonioni to Hsiao-Hsien Hou at numerous screening retrospectives around the world. Her study continued with the gorgeous collaboration she achieved on this film with her crew, especially her cinematographer and costume designer. As she says in her just-posted interview on Inside the Arthouse, “From the beginning, I had a strong sense of who I wanted to build this world with and, honestly, learn from, because I was going to be the least experienced person on the set. You’re very aware of every individual who is there making it with you because you only get this finite amount of time to do it.”

In another interview, Chew-Bose was asked, “What made you want to tell this story?”

A: I was drawn to the women. There was still more to tell. My understanding of what an adaptation could be, for a book as beloved as Bonjour Tristesse, that had also been previously adapted, was entirely based on…potential. I wanted to bring to light the inner lives of these women, their mutual attraction, their powers, the ways in which they conceal in order to reveal at their own pace, of course. Françoise Sagan was a singular force and I was inspired to use my voice to continue the story of Bonjour Tristesse, instead of simply retelling it. In some ways, it’s a very simple story. But is jealousy ever simple? Is growing up as a girl and feeling misunderstood by those you trust most, simple? Is finding love in the same places you might find pain, ever simple? I found myself under the influence of Cécile, even if on paper, we had little in common. I admired her ability to contradict herself, to experience the full-blown capacity of her feelings. There’s real freedom in that. I admired Anne, but wanted to write a version that felt truer to my understanding of womanhood, free of expectations, bright, funny, soft. I was excited to tell this story, scene by scene, allowing these women to compose a rhythm for the movie. Their choices are its momentum.

Q: The cinematography in the film is gorgeous, what was the process like of striking the right tone for the visual language of the film?

A: Max and I spent a long time simply watching movies. We’d watch a movie and then talk about it, even if it wasn’t an obvious inspiration for Bonjour Tristesse. In fact, we seemed drawn to films that weren’t sun dappled or set on beaches. We loved movies with dramatic blocking, where conversations were made tense, simply by how the characters were or were not facing each other. I wanted stillness, and Max encouraged me to seek moments where we could favor movement. We found a sweet spot in Ozu’s use of “pillow shots,” these sort of ‘place setting’ moments where cutaways of everyday life at the Villa provided an opportunity for composition and color, gentle rhythm, and summer’s natural appeal to time passing in a more poetic way.

I wanted certain scenes to feel like theater, on a stage, but in order to achieve that for our movie, Max and I found ways to bring the outdoors inside and vice versa, so our stage, so to speak, still involved shadows, a breeze.

We also focused our attention on photographers like Luigi Ghirri or painters like Félix Vallotton. The former was a huge source of inspiration for the movie’s faded blues and browns. The latter inspired us to favour dark interiors, stylized with a single lamp. One painting in particular, titled “Le Diner, effect de lamp” was the blueprint for a dinner scene in the movie where I insisted our characters should look like they are floating in space at the table, surrounded by blackness. We planned a lot and then forgot everything, finding our rhythm each day on set. We played. We listened to our surroundings.

Also, while it isn’t totally related to the movie’s cinematography, it is related to its visual style. We worked closely with the designer and artist, Cynthia Merhej, whose work inspired the world of Anne’s designs. Cynthia’s eye for color, fabric, detail, was a collaborative no-brainer for Miyako. Together, they imagined a sophisticated, romantic, dancerly, and sometimes handsome design language for Anne. Cynthia’s dresses provide real moments of beauty in the movie, and personally, reminded me of so many classic films where costume encouraged an otherworldly quality to a scene. We can marvel, be awed. She makes clothes for twirling and twirling is so cinematic.

Q: The music in the film is singular and incredibly thoughtful—can you talk through your decisions and inspiration for it?

A: I’ve always loved movie soundtracks. If I was going to make my first film, I was going to make one with a singular soundtrack. Aliocha Schneider was a huge source of inspiration for our music, given his talent and voice. I rewrote scenes for his character, Cyril, after he and I went for a walk a couple years ago in Montreal. He was learning how to sing in Italian, the rest is history.

Our composer, Lesley Barber, designed a score that feels timeless but also spooky, and in moments, very romantic. I loved working with her in Toronto, watching as she played the piano, feeling out a scene’s many movements. We referenced everything from Disney movies to John
Adams to Laraaji to Ravel to Harold Budd, but ultimately, we found our own sound. My friend Hailey Gates recorded an original song for the movie with Z berg—something like a narration of Cécile’s summer. It’s haunting and totally out there but also, like everything with Bonjour, it feels familiar (and again, a little bit Disney). Early in the movie, a song by Dorothy Ashby plays. Something about her harp always sets forth a dreamier side of my imagination, and I wanted that same stirring quality to awaken our audience.

Q: How did your own research of Francoise Sagan inform your approach to Bonjour Tristesse?

A: I researched for my own curiosity. I’ve always found it strange that book covers of Bonjour Tristesse are designed with photos of Françoise. She became fiction, in some ways, and I wanted to preserve her original story, and in turn preserve her, separate from the book. She was so much more. I was under the influence of her love of cars, though, and made sure we had plenty of road, so to speak, and moments of speed (in image and score), to pay tribute to her love of racing. She loved an accelerated life. Personally, I’m much…slower. I tried to strike a balance. I loved reading about her life and learning about her life, through her son, Denis and her longtime publisher Editions Julliard.

Q: Where did the shoot take place and how long did you film for?

A: Beautiful Cassis. There wasn’t a day that passed where I wasn’t acutely aware of our breathtaking location—white rocks, blue water, wild, 300 year old pine trees that our Villa was actually built around. I loved our Villa. It was the first one we saw and I couldn’t unsee it. A real
coup de cœur. It was designed by the architect Fernand Pouillon and what drew me to it was how it was all at once unassuming but rich with character, like sneaky colors here and there, heavy doors and shallow stairs. It had an inside-outside build with windows that provided something voyeuristic to the design. There were multiple terraces which is ideal for a movie with a lot of sitting and talking—I was able to adapt the script to the Villa’s character easily, as if it was all preordained. Max choreographed the camera movements to bring out the Villa’s
particularities, and in some ways, I think the Villa encouraged our imagination, challenged our imagination. We listened to the Villa; we spent time there at various moments in the day, to understand what it looked like at sunset or midday, how the stone walls shifted their varieties of warmth. Even our costume designer, ever-thoughtful in her thinking, Miyako Bellizzi, joined us at different times of day, to understand how her costumes might look against the Villa’s walls, among the trees. We shot for 30 days.

Q: Talk about the casting process and how you came to cast such an extraordinary group of actors here?

A: I always knew I wanted a very international cast, built entirely on instinct. I wanted to make a contemporary version of Bonjour Tristesse and that included updating the characters’ pursuits, sensibilities, sensitivities. I had known Lily for years and personally, just had a feeling she would become Cécile beyond what was on the page. The moment we cast her, Cécile was no longer mine. She was Lily’s. And Lily took the role and ran, with intensity, with subtlety, with an Audrey Hepburn-type grace.

Many years ago, when I was only outlining Bonjour, my producers joined me in Montreal to go over my vision for the film. We talked a lot about Anne and I expressed my deep love for this woman who wants to protect her powers but also, who moves with elegance, who is tender with those that she loves, who is visionary and a romantic. Chloe was an immediate choice. Her immense talent, the roles she takes and the directors she takes chances on, her wit, her style, her deep love for her family and friends, it was so obvious. It took us years to make this movie and years to reach the moment we would cast her, but like everything with this process, there’s been some magic, some destiny. The day we wrapped Chloe, there were tears on set. Nobody wanted her to leave.

It took us a long time to find our Elsa but the moment I saw Naïlia, I knew she was the one. Her smile, her impossible coolness, her kindness. Elsa, in our adaptation, is probably the biggest departure from the book, and Naïlia was very excited and passionate about giving Elsa a story
beyond her relationship to Raymond. There’s a softness, too, to Elsa that isn’t obvious, but Naïlia has a natural tenderness to her. She’s an observer. She pays attention to everyone’s feelings in the room. I learned so much from Naïlia about the power of subtlety.

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Filed Under: Claremont 5, Director's Statement, Featured Films, Featured Post, Filmmaker's Statement, Films, Glendale, Greg Laemmle, Inside the Arthouse, Newhall, News, NoHo 7, Royal, Theater Buzz, Town Center 5

The Upper Westside Cinema — a new art house is coming to Manhattan.

April 23, 2025 by Jordan Deglise Moore 2 Comments

The raison d’être of Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge’s video podcast Inside the Arthouse is to shine a light on the finest American independent and international films, the people who make them, and the cinemas that screen them to audiences who appreciate the value of seeing movies as they were meant to be seen, on big screens in dark auditoriums with crowds of fellow movie-mad strangers. With that in mind, this week’s episode is called “The Future of Arthouse Cinema in New York & Reasons To Be Happy with N.Y. Indie Guy Ira Deutchman.” Deutchman is the leader of the campaign to open a new art house theater on the Upper Westside of Manhattan, the Upper Westside Cinema. The location is significant because it has long been an article of faith among art house distributors that if you can get a film off to a strong start in Manhattan, success in the rest of the country will fall into place. But how can you succeed in New York if there aren’t enough art house screens in the city to properly exhibit the films that want to open?
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Greg and Raphael discuss this and more with Deutchman, a professor of film at Columbia University and a veteran art house distributor, to talk about the history of art houses in New York, the current dearth of cinemas on the Upper West Side, the reasons behind the predicament, and, most importantly, some hope for the future.
More about the Upper Westside Cinema from its website:

A Light in the Darkness

The UWS Cinema Center is ecstatic to announce that it has completed the purchase of the former Metro Theater! This brings us one step closer to creating a much-needed state-of-the-art, five-screen cinema, education center and community hub on the Upper West Side.

The goal is not just to reclaim a building, but to revitalize a neighborhood and reconnect a community. We believe that cinema is more than entertainment; it is a portal to understanding different lives, cultures, and perspectives. As legendary film critic Roger Ebert profoundly noted, “Movies are empathy machines,” capable of transporting us into the lives and experiences of others.

As polarization threatens the fabric of our society, the UWS Cinema Center stands for the transformative power of shared storytelling—creating spaces where diverse audiences can collectively experience narratives that challenge, inspire, and illuminate our shared humanity. Our vision extends beyond film screenings to creating a cultural hub where dialogue flourishes, education thrives, and community bonds strengthen.

The Journey Ahead

Having successfully secured the Metro Theater property—a triumph made possible by the extraordinary generosity of neighbors, film enthusiasts, and civic leaders—we now embark on the next chapter of our story: transforming this architectural gem into a vibrant five-screen cinema arts and education center with a welcoming community bistro. This will require a capital campaign to raise the money to build out the facility and restore the landmarked facade. You can help us make this happen by donating to UWS Cinema Center, a 501(c)(3). Your donations are 100% tax deductible. You can donate by CLICKING HERE.

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Filed Under: Greg Laemmle, Inside the Arthouse

“This is lived reality. It’s not a period drama.” Powerful West Bank-set THE TEACHER opens Friday in Glendale.

April 16, 2025 by Jordan Deglise Moore Leave a Comment

This Friday in Glendale we are pleased to open The Teacher, a drama starring Saleh Bakri and Imogen Poots about colleagues at a West Bank school who try to help a student cope with a tragedy.
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Palestinian-British filmmaker Farah Nabulsi was interviewed on the latest episode of Inside the Arthouse. After receiving an Oscar nomination for her short film The Present, Nabulsi spoke about taking audiences on an intense, emotional journey into the Israeli-occupied West Bank through a story based upon the actual experiences of her relatives. The story lifts the curtain on the hardships and difficult choices they have to make.
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“Extraordinary…riveting.” ~ Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter
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“Captures the intimate horrors of life under harrowing circumstances — and the lifesaving power of the relationships that people still manage to forge and nurture.” ~ Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic
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“Gripping and full of tension, The Teacher not only makes for a wonderful cinematic experience, but poses some all-important questions the wider world has seemingly avoided answering for too long.” ~ Grace Dodd, Little White Lies
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“Nabulsi hits the dramatic beats with confidence and Bakri has genuine distinction.” ~ Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
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“Ground zero here – for the characters, for the nations, for the filmmaker – is futility. Nabulsi drops us on that ground and doesn’t let us pretend it’s anything else.” ~ Steve Pond, TheWrap
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“Ultimately, it’s this imbalance of power and relative worth (or the lack of it) of human lives that is the font of Nabulsi’s creative anger that propels her film.” ~ Namrata Joshi, The New Indian Express

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Filed Under: Featured Films, Featured Post, Filmmaker's Statement, Films, Glendale, Greg Laemmle, Inside the Arthouse, Press, Theater Buzz

The bio-documentary JANIS IAN: BREAKING SILENCE opens tomorrow.

April 2, 2025 by Jordan Deglise Moore 2 Comments

Tomorrow we’ll be opening Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, the new documentary about the singer-songwriter. Filmmaker Varda Bar-Kar will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:00 o’clock shows on Thursday, April 3 at the Laemmle NoHo and April 4 and 5 at the Monica Film Center, as well as after the 1:00 o’clock show at the Laemmle Glendale on April 5.  Ms. Ian will join her for the NoHo and Santa Monica screenings. The filmmaker is also featured on the latest episode of Raphael Sbarge and Greg Laemmle’s video podcast Inside the Arthouse.

Director’s Statement: “The pandemic began when I finished my music documentary Fandango at the Wall (HBO/MAX), about a transformative musical convergence at the border between the United States and Mexico. Before Fandango, I had made another music documentary called Big Voice (Netflix) about a high school choir director and his most advanced ensemble. I love experimenting with the alchemy of combining film with music and wanted to continue working in that genre.

“Conversations about identity and how we identify were buzzing at that time. I considered my own identity. How do I identify? Do I feel represented in mainstream media? I resist defining my identity since definitions mainly serve to box us in. I am a free thinker, a bisexual woman, born Jewish, now with a Buddhist bent, and an artist. Like all artists, I am an outsider. I am capable, a roll-up-your-sleeves can-do-it kind of person, and I am an optimist. I don’t see many women like me represented in the media.

“I sat with the question, ‘If I made a film about a female artist with whom I closely identify, who would she be?’ Janis Ian popped into my mind. Her name hit me like a lightning strike. Yet I knew nothing about her outside of a lingering high school memory of listening to her masterful album Between the Lines and crying because her music penetrated my isolation, making me feel seen and heard. Her music assured me that I was not alone. Her music meant the world to me at that time.

“Through research, I discovered that Janis Ian has a significant body of work spanning 60 years. I compiled lengthy playlists of my favorite of her songs – many I had never heard before. I discovered she had written a riveting autobiography called Society’s Child. I could not put the
book down. I learned that not only has Janis made significant contributions to the music world, but she is also a social justice champion and an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. She has endured tremendous hardships and overcome them one after another. Her story of commitment to
artistry and incredible resilience inspired me.

“How could it be that a film had not yet been made about her? This might sound crazy, and maybe it is, but I felt it was my destiny to make a film about Janis.

“I am forever grateful that Janis entrusted me with her magnificent musical story, and I am excited to share it with the world. I am also thankful to my unstoppable producing team and creative collaborators for working with me to overcome a myriad of obstacles and challenges to bring Janis Ian’s story to the screen so that today’s audiences can feel seen and heard just as I did when I listened to Between the Line so many years ago.”

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Filed Under: Director's Statement, Featured Films, Featured Post, Filmmaker in Person, Films, Glendale, Greg Laemmle, Inside the Arthouse, Monica Film Center, NoHo 7, Q&A's, Santa Monica, Theater Buzz

“Modest and moving, it’s a new sports-movie classic, as sneakily effective as the pitch which gives it its title.” ~ EEPHUS opens Thursday.

March 12, 2025 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Perhaps no other sport lends itself as well to cinema as baseball, and there have been some memorable ones over the years. The Natural, Moneyball, 42, Field of Dreams and Bull Durham spring to mind. Well, we have a funny, soul-soothing treat for you this week at our Glendale and Santa Monica theaters. “Modest and moving, it’s a new sports-movie classic, as sneakily effective as the pitch which gives it its title.” ~ Nick Schager, The Daily Beast

The filmmakers will participate in Q&A’s in Glendale after the 7:10 PM screenings on 3/13 with writer-director Carson Lund and actor Keith William Richards and moderator Amber A’Lee Frost (Chapo Trap House) and 3/15 with writer Mike Basta, writer-actor Nate Fisher, and moderator Brandon Harris (writer, filmmaker, baseball fan). Lund is also featured on the latest episode of Greg Laemmle (huge Dodger fan and former youth baseball coach) and Raphael Sbarge’s podcast Inside the Arthouse.

Film critics adore Eephus. As of this writing, its Rotten Tomatoes score is 100% with 37 reviews.

“Its pearls of practical wisdom and jewels of melancholic wit make Eephus a gem, which is fitting, for a movie about a game played on a diamond.” ~ Jessica Kiang, Variety

“Many a true devotee will tell you that part of the game’s charm lies in its ability to facilitate socialization… Eephus is a film that understands this, and the script shuffles along with the rhythm of a baseball game.” ~ Christian Zilko, indieWire

“A modest but poignant hangout film that resonates long after the last pitch.” ~ Tim Grierson Screen International

“Carson Lund treats the power of a shared interest with profound, elegiac empathy.” ~ Jake Cole, Slant Magazine
*
“Eephus isn’t exactly a baseball movie — it’s something closer to movie-baseball, where characters endlessly jostle back and forth under no real time constraints, watching the day slowly pass them by, simply out of love for the sport.” ~ Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter
*

“Has about it a mournful, lightly absurd poetry of the mundane, a rapt attention to the intimacy of transience and the meanings we make from relics and rituals of a time we’re passing through.” ~ Isaac Feldberg, RogerEbert.com

“Baseball is the star, the game is the story, and the only conflicts that matter are the ones that the athletes resolve in play. Nonetheless, in Lund’s keenly discerning view, the game is inseparable from the human element.” ~ Richard Brody, The New Yorker
*

“Something about Eephus reminds me of Wiseman’s long, slow, methodical probing of institutions and of human behavior more broadly.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times

“We come to Eephus expecting a metaphor for life and instead we are faced with life itself.” ~ Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture
*

“Eephus luxuriates in an unhurried afternoon of leisure.” ~ Dan Kois, Slate

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Filed Under: Actor in Person, Featured Post, Filmmaker in Person, Films, Glendale, Greg Laemmle, Inside the Arthouse, Monica Film Center, Press, Q&A's, Santa Monica, Theater Buzz

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