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Allison Janney & Bryan Cranston in EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE GREAT ~ “Buy One, Get One Free” Father’s Day Screenings!

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Lions Gate Films and Laemmle Theatres are pleased to present the new comedy-drama from the writer and producer of I, Tonya, Everything’s Going to Be Great.

In honor of Father’s Day, be the first to see Everything’s Going to Be Great starring Bryan Cranston and Allison Janney on June 15 at the Monica Film Center and Town Center. The 3:20 P.M. screening in Santa Monica and the 3:00 P.M. screening in Encino are “Buy One, Get One Free” screenings. Offer good online and in person at the box offices.

ABOUT THE FILM: There’s no business like show business — for Buddy and Macy Smart (Emmy-winner Bryan Cranston and Oscar-winner Allison Janney) that means an unpredictable life in regional theater while trying to raise their radically different sons, Lester and Derrick. Through it all, Buddy pursues his unstoppable dreams, and Macy is left to pull it all together and keep the family afloat. As the family grapples with identity and belonging, they share a funny, heartfelt journey of self-discovery and learning the power of owning your spotlight, no matter what stage of life you’re in.

A Big Screen Must-See, THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH 70th Anniversary Screening June 25.

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THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH 70th Anniversary – Marilyn Monroe classic comedy screens at Laemmle’s historic Royal Theatre on June 25.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 70th anniversary of THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955), which features one of the signature pop culture images of the 20th century and of its star, Marilyn Monroe (standing astride a subway grate while her skirt billows up to her shoulders). Billy Wilder produced, directed, and, with George Axelrod, cowrote the film version of Axelrod’s smash Broadway comedy about marital infidelity. It provided a prime vehicle for Monroe. The film screens one night only, Wednesday, June 25 at 7:00 P.M. at the historic Laemmle Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles.

Axelrod’s play opened on Broadway in 1952 and ran almost three years before being adapted for the screen. Seasoned stage actor Tom Ewell scored a major career hit and a Tony Award for his portrayal of a philandering New York publisher who agonizes over straying with “the Girl Upstairs” while his wife and young son are on a two-month summer vacation in Maine. Wilder wanted to cast newcomer Walter Matthau, but Ewell was permitted to reprise his role when Monroe was cast as “the Girl” and the vehicle was rewritten to showcase her. Despite this shift, Ewell won a Golden Globe for his skillful comedic performance, the best of his career.

Wilder had taken on the project for its farcical approach to adultery but was “straitjacketed” by the censorious Production Code and could not sidestep its restrictions as he first thought. Therefore, the emphasis was placed on Monroe’s character, which some reviewers felt unbalanced the story. However, the film is still told from Ewell’s point of view, and even though his milquetoast is no match for Monroe, their innocent sexual bantering still registers, with his lustful fantasies countered by Monroe’s sweet sexuality. Perhaps the best way to view the film is as a satire on mid-century morals and 1950s sexism. Wilder takes a somewhat broad approach, and the light cartoonish style works effectively to generate copious laughs.

Monroe is delightful and incandescent, and the film, a major box-office hit, remains memorable because of her. At the time of its original release in 1955, Delmore Schwartz in The New Republic called her a different type of screen siren, representing “a new attitude, which Miss Monroe embodies with such natural and joyous ebullience.” Who could argue? The subway grate image, depicted in a 26-foot statue, Forever Marilyn, by artist Seward Johnson in 2011, further immortalized Monroe’s legacy as the greatest star in movie history. You can currently see the statue in downtown Palm Springs, and now you can see the movie that inspired it on June 25 at the Royal. It is a perfect opportunity to see on the big screen the magnetism of Marilyn Monroe that resonates to this day.

A new comedy that draws inspiration from the great ones of the past, BAD SHABBOS opens Friday.

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A huge hit last weekend in New York, we’re excited to open the comedy Bad Shabbos this Friday at the Royal and Town Center with expansion runs planned around L.A. County in the subsequent weeks. The film follows David and his fiancée, Meg, who are about to have their parents meet for the first time over a Shabbat dinner. Things get far more complicated because of an accidental death (or murder?). With Meg’s Catholic parents due any moment, the family dinner soon spirals into a hilarious disaster.

Bad Shabbos director Daniel Robbins is interviewed on the latest episode of Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge’s video podcast Inside the Arthouse and also wrote the following about his film:

“My grandfather liked to joke that Christians will tell you they’re Christian, Muslims will tell you they’re Muslim, but Jews will tell you they’re Jew…ish.

“There’s a wide range to Judaism and the characters in this film fall in the middle of the spectrum. They’re people who take their faith seriously, but also interact with the secular world. People who, instead of planting their flag on one end of the spectrum, try to exist in between. People who try to manage the polarities of a secular life and a religious one.

“I chose to portray this segment of Judaism not just because it’s how I grew up, but because of the metaphor it presents for a family. Each family is constantly managing its own polarities. Between familial expectations and personal freedoms. Between unconditional love and constructive criticism.

“Between tradition of the old and tolerance for the new. This film is about a family trying to find its place, on a night when they’re meeting the in-laws for the first time, while there’s a dead body in their bathroom.

“It’s a fun, kinetic ride that pulls from the great comedies of the past. There are pieces stolen from Ernst Lubitsch’s blocking, Billy Wilder’s efficiency, Woody Allen’s aesthetic, Mike Nichols’s performances, and Nora Ephron and Neil Simon’s dialogue. But the greatest heist is probably from the early 2000’s comedies I grew up watching. The films Meet the Parents and My Big Fat Greek Wedding were constantly playing on my parents’ TV, broken up with whatever commercials TNT decided to include. These two films were comedies with tight scripts, big laughs, some heart, and authentic portrayals of their subcultures — Chicago Greeks and Long Island Christians. Additional influences were The Birdcage and Death at a Funeral.

The film was shot entirely on location on the Upper West Side. It was important to make it as authentic as possible and stay true to that setting – including shooting at the iconic Upper West Side staple Barney Greengrass and giving the owner Gary Greengrass a small role. The apartment was an actual apartment on 81st Street on the 16th floor, however the lobby was shot in a different building on Riverside drive, the same building they used for Tom Hanks’s lobby in You’ve Got Mail (also a favorite of ours).

Our team’s first goal with Bad Shabbos was to make a film that authentically portrays my subculture — New York Jews. My family gathered for Shabbos dinner every Friday night and, even on the more chaotic nights, there was an underlying warmth. Then our second and, perhaps, main goal was to take everything we love about the comedies of old and — like the characters in this film — try to adapt to modern times.”

From Bob Strauss’s review in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Jews and gentiles in love have been comically upsetting their respective families for at least 103 years, since the popular stage play “Abie’s Irish Rose” debuted. Dinner parties gone awry are also a theatrical — and by extension, movie and television — staple.

“Mix them together with an inconvenient corpse, and you’ve got the recipe for Bad Shabbos. More crucial ingredients in Daniel Robbins’ New York farce include verbal dexterity and spry visuals, which give the sense of a well-done theatrical production that’s a real movie as well.

“Primarily set in an Upper West Side apartment, the film also boasts a game ensemble, each member of which knows just how to take their moments in the spotlight. Characters aren’t deep but not stick figures either; their flaws and needs become more pronounced as the pressure mounts from a sudden death  — or was it murder?

“Sure, certain roles bear unmistakable traces of stereotype, but no one is solely defined by the fact that they’re a Jewish mother or Midwestern Catholic. Everyone’s core impulses take them to surprising and darkly funny but believable places. And growth is a nice, nourishing dish on this Sabbath comedy’s table.

“Jon Bass (“Miracle Workers”) and Meghan Leathers (“For All Mankind”) are David and Meg, facing their final hurdle to getting married: her Catholic parents coming in from Wisconsin to meet his Jewish family, the Gelfands, for Friday night dinner.

“Observant but not super orthodox, David’s mom Ellen (Kyra Sedgwick) has issues with her future daughter-in-law’s not quite kosher kitchen skills (for starters), while his dad Richard (David Paymer) seems more devoted to his self-help psychology books than to the Talmud.

“Also at the Shabbat is David’s scrawny kid brother, a wannabe Israel Defense Forces commando named Adam (Theo Taplitz, who has the looks and intensity of a very young Adrien Brody), their sister Abby (Milana Vayntrub) and her crummy boyfriend Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman). They all work up believable irritations and concerns before the deadly incident hijacks everyone’s attention.

“With varying success, they attempt to carry on like nothing’s wrong when Meg’s parents, Beth (Catherine Curtin) and John (John Bedford Lloyd), arrive. Prayers and rituals get made up to keep the visitors distracted and away from the body in the kitchen. There are high degrees of cleverness and silliness to all of this.

“But top comic delivery honors go to Vayntrub (of AT&T commercials and, more recently, the Menendez brothers “Monsters” fame) as an unhappy woman who becomes both increasingly drunk and the situation’s moral center. When Ellen disapprovingly learns she drove over on the Sabbath, Abby replies, “How is this worse than murder?”

“Likewise, Lloyd is a slow-burn marvel who builds John from a subtle to a loudly aggrieved fount of micro-anti-semitisms.

“Honorable mention goes to Clifford “Method Man” Smith, who as the building’s doorman Jordan makes it his business to help the only resident family he likes. Additionally, Jordan brings a suspensefully useful ticking clock element as his shift change approaches.

“As noted, Bad Shabbos is about growth as well as laughs, and no one exemplifies that better than Leathers. Lightly touching on Meg’s resentment at having to convert while her fiancé needn’t do anything, she nonetheless gleans practical insights from her rabbinical studies and has a gift for sharing what she knows. As does writer-director Robbins, who modeled the Gelfands on his own family.

“Without making a big deal out of any of their traits, he gives us specific, authentic characters who live their traditional beliefs with modern attitudes. Neither too “oy vey” nor “Weekend at Bernie’s” but steeped in the best aspects of both Jewish and black comedy, Bad Shabbos is a treat any night of the week.”

The brilliant documentary A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY opens June 12 with in-person Q&A’s.

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Thirty years after her mother’s death, photographer Rachel Elizabeth Seed discovers her mother’s work — more than 50 hours of interviews with the greatest photographers of the 20th century, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lisette Model, Gordon Parks, Cecil Beaton, William Albert Allard, Brian Lanker, Cornell Capa, Bruce Davidson and Eliot Porter. When Rachel threads in the audio reels and presses play, she hears her mother’s voice for the first time since she was a baby. Sheila Turner-Seed, a daring, world-traveling journalist ahead of her time, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm when Rachel was just 18 months old. Moved to uncover more of what she left behind, Rachel sets out to revisit her mom’s subjects, family and friends, revisiting the photographers she interviewed decades before. As new truths emerge, Rachel builds an unlikely relationship with her mother through the audio recordings, photographs, and films her mother made during her brief life, crafting an imagined conversation through the cinematic medium. As she discovers the shocking secrets which may have led to her mother’s untimely death, Rachel’s ability to forge her own path hinges on how these revelations affect her own life. The film draws from footage of Rachel’s visits to the photographers her mother interviewed, Sheila’s award-winning audio-visual work, Super 8 family films, still photography, audio letters and journals, weaving together personal and photo-historical media to tell a universal story — about facing mortality and loss, the construction of memory and the restoration of a legacy. Along this path, Rachel explores the question of whether it is possible to get to know someone through the things they leave behind.

We are planning several special screenings with the A Photographic Memory filmmaker and its champions:

June 12, 7:30 P.M. at the Laemmle NoHo:
This screening of A Photographic Memory is co-presented by Video Consortium with a Q&A to follow featuring filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed, co-writer/editor Christopher Stoudt, and special guest, moderated by Video Consortium organizer Lauren Mahoney.
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June 14, 10:00 A.M. at the Laemmle Monica Film Center:
 
This screening of A Photographic Memory is co-presented by From the Heart Productions and Authentic Global Film Awards, with a Q&A to follow moderated by Variety film critic Carlos Aguilar, featuring director Rachel Elizabeth Seed in conversation with producer Ana Lydia Monaco and additional special guests. In this discussion, they will pull back the curtain on the visionary production of A Photographic Memory‘s recreation sequences, produced by Monaco in Los Angeles.
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June 16, 7:00 P.M. at the Laemmle Monica Film Center:
Q&A with director Rachel Elizabeth Seed + Gallerist Peter Fetterman to follow this screening. Co-presented by Peter Fetterman Gallery.

Ms. Seed wrote the following statement about her film:

“In my photography and creative work, I am driven by the desire for connection. Perhaps this is because my mother died when I was a baby; I’m always seeking to reconcile this loss in my life. It’s this drive that inspired me to make my debut feature documentary, A Photographic Memory.

“My work as an artist, photographer, photo editor, curator, writer, arts community founder, and cinematographer have greatly informed my knowledge and aesthetic sensibility in the media arts, paving the way for this film project and for my transition from photography to filmmaking. From 2004-2011 I created an audio-visual series about motherless women, interviewing and photographing 40 women and girls around the world, but it wasn’t until I turned the camera on my life in A Photographic Memory that I began to make sense of my loss. As I just turned the age my mother was when she died, it is also a personally timely project. I hope for the result to be cathartic for myself and for an audience who relates to losing someone close or being estranged from a parent. At the same time, I aim to memorialize my mother’s legacy as a woman ahead of her time who contributed to the canon of photography history. She died in her prime but left an undeniable mark through her work and great compassion for humanity. This legacy would be forgotten without this film.

“What excites me aesthetically about A Photographic Memory is the challenge of weaving the archival footage, photographs and audio along with contemporary footage together in a cohesive, artistic whole. Using my mother’s raw interviews with photographers as a thematic backbone, I draw from 100 years of our family’s Super 8 films, still photographs, contact sheets, letters, my mother’s journals, her journalistic tear sheets, and the footage I have shot of my own life and journey. My aim is for the disparate elements to transcend their individual meaning in order to tell the greater story of my search to know my mother, and through that, to make sense of life’s ephemerality. I have always been interested in the space where “real” elements are woven together to create a fabricated reality, which is both indisputable yet non-factual, representing my objective vision.

“The film plays on the tensions between remembering and forgetting, recovery and loss, and the probing of relationship and portraiture through lost archives, juxtaposition and cinematic form.”

THE LAST TWINS Q&A’s June 19-21 at the Royal and Town Center.

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Join us for The Last Twins Q&A’s at Laemmle Royal on Thursday, June 19th at 7:30 P.M. with filmmakers Perri Pelt & Matthew O’Neill, and Judith Richter, who is a participant in the film; Jonathan Jacoby will moderate; and at Laemmle Town Center on June 20th at 5:20 P.M. with the filmmakers and Judith Richter; and June 21st at 7:30 P.M. with Judith Richter and Dr. Nancy Segal moderating the discussion.

 

Upcoming films in our Worldwide Wednesday series include movies from Brazil, Japan, France, Australia and Kazakhstan.

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Laemmle Theatres’ weekly series of fresh international films, Worldwide Wednesdays! Most are newer obscure films that we want to bring to a broader L.A. audience, screening in multiple venues all over L.A. County so cinephiles will not have to schlep to a single location. The films, however, come from many thousands of miles away! Screenings are Wednesday evenings with encore showings on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

PERFECT ENDINGS June 4, 7 & 8. After a decade-long relationship ends, filmmaker João finds himself at a crossroads in both his personal and professional lives. While trying to break into the film industry, he ends up directing amateur erotic films. With the support of loyal friends, João embarks on a dating journey, navigating modern romance and finding inspiration. Directed by Daniel Ribeiro. (Brazil, 2024)

BLOCK PASS June 11, 14 & 15. A queer motocross coming-of-age drama—sensitive, deeply felt, and quietly profound—that establishes Antoine Chevrollier as a filmmaker to watch. Reminiscent of Rebel Without a Cause but with dirt bikes as the vehicle for defiance, the film follows blood-brothers Willy (Sayyid El Alami) and Jojo (Amaury Foucher) as they navigate grief, masculinity, and unspoken desires. Directed by Antoine Chevrollier. (2024, France/United States)

ZÉNITHAL JUNE 18, 21 & 22. Ti-Kong, the famous kung fu master, is found dead. Could the assassin be the Machiavellian Dr. Sweeper? Insecure Francis falls into his clutches as he becomes a crucial part of Sweeper’s scheme to preserve absolute male domination over the globe. That is, unless Sonia, Francis’ girlfriend, decides to take action to save him, restore their relationship, and establish peace between the sexes. Directed by Jean-Baptiste Saurel. (France, 2024)

SHALL WE DANCE? June 25, 28 & 29. Shohei Sugiyama seems to have it all — a high-paying job as an accountant, a beautiful home, a caring wife and a doting daughter he loves dearly. However, he feels something is missing in his life. One day while commuting on the train he spots a beautiful woman staring wistfully out a window and eventually decides to find her. His search leads him head-first into the world of competitive ballroom dancing. Directed by Masayuki Suô. (Japan, 1996)

SHANGHAI BLUES July 2, 5 & 6. In 1937, a soldier and a young woman meet in darkness under a bridge as they seek refuge during a bombing. Although they can’t see each other’s faces, they promise to meet again after the dust settles. Ten years later, the soldier, now a burgeoning songwriter and tuba player, is back in town desperately searching for his would-be soulmate. As fate would have it, they unknowingly end up living in the same building. Through a series of mishaps, he mistakes her new roommate for his love interest, and love triangle hijinks ensue. Directed by Tsui Hark. (Hong Kong, 1984)

THE SURVIVAL OF KINDNESS July 9, 12 & 13. In a cage on a trailer in the middle of the desert, BlackWoman is abandoned. But BlackWoman seems not ready to pass…she escapes, and walks through pestilence and persecution, from desert to canyon to mountain to city, on a quest that leads to a city, recapture and tragedy. BlackWoman, escaping once more, must find solace in her beginnings. Directed by Rolf de Heer. (Australia, 2022)

THE POLISH WOMEN July 16, 19 & 20. Rio de Janeiro, early 20th century. Escaping famine in Poland, Rebeca (Valentina Herszage), together with her son Joseph, arrives in Brazil to meet her husband, who immigrated first hoping for a better life for the three of them. However, she finds a completely different reality in Rio de Janeiro. Rebeca discovers that her husband has passed away and ends up a hostage of a large network of prostitution and trafficking of Jewish women headed by the ruthless Tzvi (Caco Ciocler). To escape this exploitation, she will need to transgress her beliefs. Directed by João Jardim. (Brazil, 2023)

A WORLD APART July 23, 26 & 27. Arriving during a snowstorm to take a post at a tiny rural school on the verge of closure, Cortese (Antonio Albanese) finds himself far from the comforts of Rome and faced with a lively, multi-age class. With the support of Agnese (Virginia Raffaele), the school’s passionate vice-principal, he gradually sheds his urban habits and rediscovers the true meaning of teaching — rooted in empathy, resilience, and the power of community. Directed by Riccardo Milani. (Italy, 2024)

FORBIDDEN GAMES July 30, August 2 & 3. When her parents are killed in an air strike while trying to flee Paris during the German invasion, five-year-old Paulette (Brigitte Fossey) (“in a performance that rips the heart out” – New York Times) wanders into the French countryside, where she encounters 11-year-old peasant boy Michel (Georges Poujouly). As they build a special, secret friendship, the adults play their own games of buffoonish peasant feuds. A masterpiece of French post-war cinema, Forbidden Games won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival — and then became a worldwide art house smash. Directed by René Clément. (France, 1952)

THE TIME IT TAKES August 6, 9 & 10. A devoted father shares a special bond with his young daughter, but as she grows, the enchantment begins to fade. Adolescence brings distance and disillusionment. She spirals into drug use, concealing her struggles from her father. Refusing to turn away, he takes a decisive step — bringing her to Paris in a final attempt to rekindle their connection and guide her back to herself. Directed by Francesca Comencini. (Italy/France, 2024)

THE TIES THAT BIND US August 13, 16 & 17. A poignant adaptation of Alice Ferney’s L’Intimité, Carine Tardieu’s The Ties that Bind Us explores how unexpected bonds can transform our beliefs and definitions of family. Sandra (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), a librarian who never wanted children, reluctantly agrees to care for her neighbor’s young son Elliot while his mother gives birth. When tragedy strikes, Sandra, Elliot, and his father find their lives unexpectedly intertwined. Tender and empathetic, Tardieu’s film is a moving meditation on grief, connection, and the forms love and family can take. Directed by Carine Tardieu. (France/Belgium, 2024)

BAURYNA SALU August 27, 30 & 31. In Kazakhstan, the ancient nomadic tradition of “bauryna salu” dictates that firstborn children are raised by their grandparents. Following this custom, Yersultan is sent to live with his grandmother from birth, growing up in her care while feeling increasingly abandoned by his parents. Though he forms a deep bond with his grandmother, Yersultan remains emotionally distant from his parents. At age 12, his world is shattered by his grandmother’s death, which forces him to leave the only home he’s ever known and return to live with a family he barely recognizes. Directed by Askhat Kuchinchirekov. (Kazakhstan, 2023)

CROUPIER 25th Anniversary Screening with Clive Owen in Person June 4 at the Royal.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 25th anniversary screening of ‘Croupier,’ the sleeper hit that helped to save the specialized movie business during a dry period at the beginning of the 21st century. Mike Hodges, the director of the British crime thriller ‘Get Carter’ with Michael Caine, had his most acclaimed film since then when he directed ‘Croupier.’

Clive Owen, who had mainly appeared in British television dramas before this, rose to full-fledged movie stardom as a result of this movie. He plays an aspiring writer who takes a job at a casino where he juggles a few romantic relationships and also has to contend with a robbery threat. Alex Kingston, Gina McKee, Kate Hardie, and Nicholas Ball costar. The script was written by Paul Mayersberg, who also wrote Nicolas Roeg’s ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ and ‘Eureka,’ as well as Nagisa Oshima’s ‘Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.’

The film opened in England in 1999 but made few waves at the box office. When it came to America in 2000, veteran marketing executive Mike Kaplan (who had worked frequently with Stanley Kubrick, Lindsay Anderson, Robert Altman, Alan Rudolph, and Malcolm McDowell) devised a whole new marketing campaign that highlighted Owen’s resemblance to tough-guy Hollywood stars like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark. The strategy worked, and the picture lit up art house screens for several months, eventually reaching mainstream theaters as well.

The New York Times’ Stephen Holden called the film “a breezy meditation on life as a game of chance,” and he added, “Clive Owen conveys a sharp, cynical intelligence that rolls off the screen whenever he widens his glittering blue eyes.” Newsweek’s David Ansen declared, “Coolly hypnotic, the lean British sleeper ‘Croupier‘ is a reminder that movies don’t have to wave their arms and scream to hold our attention.” Roger Ebert wrote that Owen has “the same sort of physical reserve as Sean Connery in the Bond pictures.”

Newsday’s Gene Seymour wrote, “Not since 1971 has British director Mike Hodges made a movie as deep, dark and compelling as this thriller.” British film journal Sight and Sound concurred that “Hodges is unfailingly professional in matching style to story.”

The movie’s success catapulted Owen to full-fledged stardom, and he went on to work with many of the world’s top directors and stars. He earned an Oscar nomination when he costarred with Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman in Mike Nichols’ ‘Closer.’ He costarred in Spike Lee’s ‘Inside Man’ with Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster. Owen was part of the large ensemble cast in Robert Altman’s Oscar-winning ‘Gosford Park.’ He had the leading role in Alfonso Cuaron’s futuristic thriller ‘Children of Men.’ He played Sir Walter Raleigh to Cate Blanchett’s Queen Elizabeth in ‘Elizabeth: The Golden Age,’ then re-teamed with Roberts in ‘Duplicity.’ He also starred with Juliette Binoche in Fred Schepisi’s ‘Words and Pictures.’

Owen scored on television as well, starring in Steven Soderbergh’s acclaimed medical series ‘The Knick.’ He earned an Emmy nomination playing Ernest Hemingway in Philip Kaufman’s ‘Hemingway and Gelhorn,’ co-starring with Nicole Kidman. In Ryan Murphy’s TV miniseries ‘American Crime Story,’ Owen played President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky affair. And he recently played an older version of detective Sam Spade in ‘Monsieur Spade.’

Mike Kaplan will introduce the screening by reporting on its troubled but ultimately triumphant history. Owen will participate in a Q&A after the film.

The Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) @ Laemmle NoHo ~ The World’s Greatest: Photography On and Off Stages.

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The Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) @ Laemmle NoHo

The World’s Greatest: Photography On and Off Stages

Artists: Candace Biggerstaff, Ryder Collins, Thouly Dosios, David Hanes-Gonzalez, Kevin Salk  

Curator: Dr. Rotem Rozental, Executive Director and Chief Curator, LACP

Opening reception: May 29, 6:00 to 8:00 P.M.; walk-through with Candace Biggerstaff, Thouly Dosios, David Hanes-Gonzalez and Dr. Rotem Rozental at 6:30pm. 

Free and open to the public, follow this link to RSVP.

The World’s Greatest: Photography On and Off Stages marks the second collaboration between LACP and the Laemmle Theatres, organizing exhibitions and public programs around photography and visual storytelling.  

Exploring spaces for storytelling and their importance for popular culture in the American west and beyond, this exhibition turns its attention to that as of entertainment that usually remain on the edges of mainstream culture—but that is precisely where they thrive and build micro-communities, formed by shared interests, rituals and creative languages. In that sense, this exhibition is interested in vernacular spaces of entertainment that created, reflected and amplified collective traditions and cultural interests. With particular relevance to the Laemmle Theatres, a beloved space for cultural consumption and production in Los Angeles, this exhibition regards the relationships between communities and their entertainers, traveling forms of spectacle and amazement, and the people who turn such spaces into reality.  

With that in mind, The World’s Greatest is interested in self-proclaimed heroes and beloved underground icons, athletes that drive national passions and seasonal entertainers that have built a loyal fan base for decades. The exhibition is interested in the people that define these communities—both the performers and their audiences–but it also traces the histories of these spaces and the ways in which their past continues to inform their present. 

The participating artists capture the shifts in the lives of the events and the people behind them, focusing on the human experience that defines what live shows, fairs, boxing matches and circus arenas might have in common. These projects also speak about the formation of alternative families and tightknit communities, which would not have existed without performative spaces. Perhaps this is also a way to consider family life as a performative space, which exists in different ways in public and private spaces. These stories, in essence, are stories of belonging. 

Candace Biggerstaff found herself at the circus because of her father-in-law, who was a circus historian. She and her husband traveled with him for two years in the mid 1970s, starting with Circus Vargas when she was 20 years old. In other words, Biggerstaff got to run away with the circus almost every year since she was a very young adult; her adulthood was in fact defined by her relationship with a place that insists on fantasy, magic and the illusions we tend to attach to childhood and early life. That colorful vibrancy came to define both her compositions and outlook on the world. The experience of not only running away with the circus, but also capturing traveling companies became integral to her photographic practice.  The performers became familiar friends, the elephants became cherished beings, and the connections between them and their audience became the focal point of her documentary work. She has been following them ever since, capturing the animals and the humans entrusted with their well-being, witnessing the formation of nontraditional family structures behind the scenes. Biggerstaff’s work begins with life in the circus outside the big top, processing her own views about what a family is, or what it could be. 

For David Hanes-Gonzalez, the discovery of Mexican boxing style became an entry point to his own cultural genealogy; a way to overcome the frustration he felt about his lack of connection to his Mexican roots, as a first generation Mexican American. What began as a short project turned into years-long preoccupation, which also led him to move to Mexico while capturing an intimate story about the prominence of the sport within local culture and its diasporic communities. This is an important point of connections between Mexico and Los Angeles, where a strong tradition of Mexican and American-Mexican boxers who rose to prominence persists. There are rivalries, fans, traditions and legacies that provide a close and intimate connection between communities on both sides of the border; an important point of cultural contact between individuals with complex identities and collective experiences. 

Kevin Salk began documenting punk bands while barely in high school. They were his friends, and they were emerging right in front of him as cultural heroes of the underground scenes in Southern California. Decades later, he picked up his camera again and went back to chronicle the energies, dedication and reach of his friends and their peers in the metal and punk domains of California. His work provides both a glimpse into the origins and a look toward the present and future of these sub-cultures and their veteran protagonists.  

When Ryder Collins documents county fairs in the state of Washington, he observes shifting economic circumstances and the demise of a form of entertainment that was once vital for agricultural communities across the country. County fairs became part of the American landscape in the early eighteenth century, after having emerged as agricultural markets in 1765. In that sense, the fair predates the union. Elkhana Watson from New England is often credited as the “Father of US agricultural fairs,” after introducing a hybrid event: An exhibit of animals that included a competition. Collins’s extended documentary project takes such histories into account, while considering his family’s own agricultural histories and the impact of shifting financial circumstances. 

Thouly Dosios have been capturing the streets of Los Angeles, her adoptive home, for nearly a decade. Taken by the city’s openness and cultural tapestries of traditions, cultures, traditions, approaches and lived experiences, Dosios captures contradictions and the constant pivots that define this place. In that sense, the county fair amalgamates these loose ends into an unexpected meeting point, of performativity and entertainment, collective experiences and individual impressions.