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“The future of cinema is where it started: in a movie theater.” ~ ANORA director Sean Baker in his Palme d’Or acceptance speech.

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Over the weekend, writer-director Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket) was awarded the Palme d’Or, the top prize, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Anora, his comedy about a sex worker. New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis called the film “a giddily ribald picaresque.” In his acceptance speech, Baker spoke eloquently about seeing movies in theaters. You can watch the whole thing online, but here’s the key excerpt:
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“This literally has been my singular goal as a filmmaker for the past 30 years. So I’m not really sure what I’m gonna do with the rest of my life, but I do know that I will continue to fight for cinema because right now, as filmmakers, we have to fight to keep cinema alive. This means making feature films intended for theatrical exhibition. The world has to be reminded that watching a film at home while scrolling through your phone and checking mail, emails and half paying attention is just not the way, although some tech companies would like us to think so. Watching a film with others in a movie theater is one of the great communal experiences. We share laughter, sorrow, anger, fear, and, hopefully, have a catharsis with our friends and strangers, and that’s sacred. So I see the future of cinema is where it started: in a movie theater.”

¡Hasta la victoria siempre! THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES 20th Anniversary Screenings May 15.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the next entry in our Anniversary Classics Abroad series, the biopic drama of the early years of Ernesto Che Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries (2004). The Academy Award-winning film by director Walter Salles (Central Station) will play for one show only on Wednesday, May 15 at 7:00 pm at five Laemmle locations: Claremont, Encino, Glendale, Newhall, and West L.A. In addition to the Oscar for Best Song, “Al Otro Lado Del Rio,” the film was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay by playwright Jose Rivera, based on Guevara’s memoir.

  

The film recounts the 1952 road trip by 23-year-old medical student Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his friend Alberto Granada (Roberto de la Serna) in a more than four-month, 8,700-mile journey across South America, initially by motorcycle. Originally intended as an adventure for fun and frolic, the two friends are exposed to indigenous peoples and cultural differences they had never experienced. These encounters plant the seeds of radicalization that would manifest as Guevara later emerged as a Marxist guerrilla leader and revolutionary, becoming a global countercultural symbol upon his murder at the age of thirty-nine.

The film is a notable combination of road movie travelogue and coming-of-age drama, beautifully captured by the lustrous cinematography of Eric Gautier as their odyssey traverses the South American continent. Critics of the day responded to this approach with due appreciation. Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle called it “a superb film about a physical and spiritual journey taken by a young Che Guevara, whose encounters with the unknown alter and affirm a life.” Peter Travers in Rolling Stone said, “in this wild ride of a movie that is part epic poem and part political provocation, it’s the man who holds the screen as a portent of history.”

“Quietly exhilarating, soulful and sincerely romantic.” ~ Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

“It’s about the gradual awakening into awareness, the graduation from carefree youth to responsible adulthood.” ~ Steve Murray, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“An involving, lyrical, and visually beautiful cinematic bildungsroman.” ~ Glenn Kenny, Premiere Magazine

“Whether you want to see The Motorcycle Diaries as entirely a personal story or as social and political allegory, it captures a far different and far more vulnerable Ernesto Guevara than the one we think we know.” ~  Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

“What Bernal and this well-wrought movie convey so well is the charisma that would soon become a part of human history and, yes, T-shirts.” ~ Desson Thomson, Washington Post
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“You get so caught up in the beauty of the images, and lost in the weathered faces found along the way, you quite forget that you’re traveling with Che Guevara — which is, of course, exactly what the original experience would be.” ~ Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
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“Revisits Guevara’s 8,000-mile tour of South America — and the origins of his personal revolution — with humor, exquisite compassion and visual grace.” ~ Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle
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“It’s got poetry to it — the poetry of humanity.” ~ Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
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“Reaches back to the past to suggest that life is full of turning points, some of which we recognize and some we don’t, and that, in a dangerous world, youth and friendship are to be treasured because, like life, they can pass so quickly.” ~ Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
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“If I was moved despite my ingrained skepticism about Ché Guevara and Castro’s Cuba, you probably will be too.” ~ Andrew Sarris, Observer
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Coming attractions in the Anniversary Classics Series include Dead Poets Society (May 22), From Russia With Love (May 28), The Lovers, Red Desert, A Sunday in the Country, and the Three Colors trilogy: Red, White, and Blue, among others.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes:” MACBETH with Ralph Fiennes & Indira Varma

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We’re thrilled to screen Shakespeare’s leanest, meanest tragedy, Macbeth with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, May 2 and 5 only, following its highly acclaimed U.K. tour. It was filmed live at Dock X in London especially for cinemas. Tony and BAFTA Award-winner Fiennes (Antony & Cleopatra, Schindler’s List, Coriolanus) and Olivier Award-winner Indira Varma (Present Laughter, Game of Thrones, Luther) star in this brand-new ‘full-voltage visceral’ (★★★★ Daily Telegraph) production of the Scottish play. Designed for a custom-built space, this gripping and breathtaking play about the couple utterly corrupted by their relentless lust for power is unmissable on the big screen. By the end of the run in London and following seasons in Liverpool and Edinburgh, this production played to sell-out audiences of over 100,000 people at 110 performances. We’ll show Macbeth at our Claremont, Glendale, Santa Monica, Newhall and Encino theaters.

Directed by Simon Godwin (Antony & Cleopatra, Romeo & Juliet, Hansard) with set and costume design by Frankie Bradshaw (Jerusalem, Blues for an Alabama Sky), this stunning production brings ‘Shakespeare’s tragedy pulsing into the present day’ (★★★★★ The I).

Regard this clip. It really gives one a (bloody) taste of what awaits:

Joining Ralph Fiennes as Macbeth and Indira Varma as Lady Macbeth are Ben Allen as Ross, Ewan Black as Malcolm, Levi Brown as Angus, Jonathon Case as Seyton, Danielle Fiamanya as Second Witch, Keith Fleming as King Duncan/Siward, Michael Hodgson as Second Murderer, Lucy Mangan as First Witch, Jake Neads as First Murderer/Donalbain, Richard Pepper as Lennox, Steffan Rhodri as Banquo, Rose Riley as Menteith, Lola Shalam as Third Witch, Rebecca Scroggs as Lady Macduff/Doctor, Ethan Thomas as Fleance, and Ben Turner as Macduff.

Patricia Rozema in person for the new 4K director’s cut restoration of her queer classic WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING + screenings of her latest, MOUTHPIECE.

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We’re proud to soon screen two films by Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozema: her just-restored 1995 romance When Night is Falling (May 7 at the Royal and May 8 at the NoHo) and her most recent film, Mouthpiece (May 13 & 14 at the Town Center, Monica Film Center, Glendale, and Claremont). Rozema will participate in Q&As after the Tuesday, May 7 and 8 screenings of When Night is Falling at the Royal and NoHo. Tracy E. Gilchrist, VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for equalpride, will moderate the Royal Q&A.

Long considered to be a pivotal entry in the LGTBQ+ canon, When Night is Falling is a sexy, daring and visually resplendent story about the thrilling temptations of passion. Camille, a Christian academic, is engaged to Martin, a fellow theologian. Then she meets Petra, a flamboyant performer in an avant-garde circus. To her surprise, Camille finds herself falling deeply and almost magically in love. Forced to choose between the woman she wants, and the man who loves her, Camille discovers that the only true duty of the soul is desire.

From WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING.

A Canadian classic that was in Official Competition at the 1995 Berlin International Film Festival, When Night is Falling tells a lesbian story beautifully photographed by Douglas Koch, catching a romantic, wintry Toronto landscape.

Adapted from the play by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, Mouthpiece follows Cassandra, an aspiring writer who, while struggling to compose a eulogy after the sudden death of her mother, comes to discover that her own rebelliousness is as much a response to the male gaze as her mother’s conformity. Enacting the two sides of Cassandra’s conflicting inner dialogue, playwright-performers Nostbakken and Sadava create a compelling portrayal of the tension between regression and progress that is often found within women.

From MOUTHPIECE

Mark Olson of the L.A. Times just published a good piece about Rozema and her work and also interviewed her, as did Gilchrist for The Advocate:

There’s a scene in Patricia Rozema’s 2018 film Mouthpiece where the main character, Cassandra, is flooded with a memory of her mother, who’s just died. The camera pans the room, lingering on Cassandra’s mother’s books and music. In the frame there appear works by Joni Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, and the groundbreaking lesbian author, actor, and activist Ann-Marie McDonald, who appeared in Rozema’s first feature, 1987’s I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing. Through Cassandra’s memories of her mother, Rozema pays tribute to Canada’s great women storytellers, and considering the filmmaker’s body of work, her name belongs among them…Throughout her canon and evident in the restored films is Rozema’s singular poetic film language that includes queer identity, interior monologues, and a duality in her characters or what she refers to as “twoness.” Unburdened by the machine of Hollywood and working from artists’ grants from Canada, Rozema cemented herself as a true auteur out of the gate with I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, a self-reflexive and heartfelt comedy about a quirky secretary to a lesbian art gallery owner. The film investigates the nature of art itself, something that Rozema would continue to examine throughout her career.

“But I think I was protecting my ability to make movies, because I was ambitious too. Not for fame or for money but for being able to make movies, which is the best job in the whole fucking world in my mind,” she adds. “I was terrified that I would be shut down. So I was careful, maybe too careful sometimes, so that I think some people wished was different sooner.”

Despite Rozema’s thoughts of being “too careful” at some points, as a progenitor of the Toronto New Wave with the likes of Atom Egoyan and Jeremy Podeswa, her contributions to cinema include making elevated films about queer women with happy or hopeful endings that expanded the notion of fixed sexuality.

“I also spoke quite early about fluidity, a gender continuum, and a sort of orientation continuum,” Rozema says. “At the time, it was very binary: You’re gay or you’re straight. Period. I felt like there’s got to be more colors in this human palette.”

Greg Laemmle on the return of the senior moviegoer.

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We know that over the past four years, you may have become accustomed to hearing bad news from us.  So we are pleased to share some good news. Qualified good news. But still, a sign of improvement.

It appears that older audiences are returning in larger numbers. That’s welcome news for all of us at Laemmle Theatres, and at art houses across the U.S. Before the pandemic, the hand wringing was about the “graying” of the arthouse audience. But since reopening, as arthouses have had success with younger-skewing films, the concern instead has been about how to reconnect with the older audiences that were once weekly guests at our theaters.  

Now, we love showing films like HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS and LOVE LIES BLEEDING. But we also love showing the English-language period films (i.e., Merchant Ivory films), foreign-language romantic dramas (pick your prototypical French film) and non-studio American independent films that are aimed at an audience that grew up in a world without cell phones and the internet. And since reopening, while we’ve had some success with films like THE DUKE, THE TASTE OF THINGS and MOVING ON, we can’t help but notice that the numbers are still not where they would have been in the days before COVID.

But starting at the end of 2023, it felt as if things were beginning to turn around a bit. Films like ANATOMY OF A FALL and THE HOLDOVERS made more of a mark at the box office than “comparable” films did in 2021 and 2022.  And you also have FALLEN LEAVES doing more business than almost any prior film from director Aki Kaurismäki.

So far this year, and leaving aside films that were part of the Oscar race, films like DRIVING MADELEINE, ONE LIFE, THE OLD OAK, FAREWELL MR. HAFFMANN, COUP DE CHANCE and WICKED LITTLE LETTERS are performing better. In fact, the latter four are hanging around, showing good word-of-mouth. These films are still doing a fraction of the business that they would have done pre-pandemic. But better is good. And hopefully, we and our distributor partners can build on this trend.

“When pandemic restrictions eased, many couldn’t wait to get back to the movie theater,” wrote Jon Keller of CBS last year. “But a new study found older adults are in no rush to return. And that trend is about more than just fear of COVID. Before the pandemic, people over 40 bought 41% of all movie tickets in the U.S. and Canada.”

It’s not COVID rates, which a quick check of the L.A. County Department of Public Health website shows are vanishingly low. And the fact remains that seeing a movie in a theater instead of at home is still 1000% better. (We’ll never tire of quoting the filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, who compared watching a movie at home to reading a novel while skipping every other word.)

According to one of Variety’s recent dispatches from the annual trade show CinemaCon, “the box office hasn’t recaptured its pre-pandemic stride — studios estimate that roughly 15% to 20% of frequent moviegoers have yet to resume their old entertainment habits now that COVID has dissipated. Plus, the labor strikes that consumed the media industry for much of the previous year as actors and writers hit the picket lines resulted in production delays that left theaters with fewer movies to hawk on their marquees.”

Big budget popcorn movies that mostly appeal to younger audiences can be fantastic and we happily screen them at some of our venues, but those kinds of films are not Laemmle Theatres’ popcorn and butter, to alter a phrase. The current drama CIVIL WAR may be a surprise hit because it combines action movie elements with serious subject matter, drawing cinephiles of all ages. But what about films with zero guns which are purely cerebral? If audiences don’t turn out for these films, fewer will get made or picked up for distribution; it’s just supply and demand.

How do we reach older moviegoers when the L.A. Times isn’t running reviews?

We are happy to see some new signs of strength recently. But more would be better. So if you know an older moviegoer who used to attend regularly, but no longer does, we’d like to hear why not. Because the existence of a local movie theater that can show, for example, classic reissues like CLASSE TOUS RISQUE (opening May 3 at the Royal!) or the artful woman-made Senegalese drama BANEL & ADAMA (opening June 14 at the Royal!) is not a given.

‘Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story’ Q&As at the Royal and Glendale.

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Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story LAEMMLE PANELS

ROYAL:

4/25 Thursday 7:30

Q&A with 

Jennifer Takaki / Director

George Hirose / Executive Producer 

Linda Lew Woo / Producer

Moderated by: Jeff Yang / Author and Friend of Corky Lee

GLENDALE:

4/26 Friday 4:30 

Informal Q&A with 

Jennifer Takaki / Director

George Hirose / Executive Producer 

Linda Lew Woo / Producer

4/27 Saturday 4:30

Q&A with 

Jennifer Takaki / Director

George Hirose / Executive Producer 

Linda Lew Woo / Producer

Moderated by: Chris M. Kwok / Community Organizer

4/28 Sunday 4:30

Informal Q&A with 

Jennifer Takaki / Director

George Hirose / Executive Producer 

Linda Lew Woo / Producer

Jazz musicians, politicians, painters, historians, and feminists: Our upcoming Culture Vulture films.

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We have the next several months of our Culture Vulture series set, and as always the films are eclectic and stimulating, featuring documentaries about artists and writers, gallery films, a National Theater Live stage production, and more.

April 22 & 23 ~ On the Adamant ~ Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Fest, this affecting, enlightening documentary from nonfiction master Nicolas Philibert (To Be and to Have) invites viewers to come aboard the Adamant and witness the transformational power of art and community. The Adamant is a one-of-a-kind place: a floating refuge on the Seine in the heart of Paris that offers day programs for adults with mental illnesses. Its attendees come from across the city and are offered care that grounds and helps them recover and stabilize.

April 29 & 30 ~ John Singer Sargent is known as the greatest portrait artist of his era. What made his ‘swagger’ portraits remarkable was his power over his sitters, what they wore and how they were presented to the audience. Through interviews with curators, contemporary fashionistas and style influencers, John Singer Sargent: Fashion & Swagger examines how Sargent’s unique practice has influenced modern art, culture and fashion.

May 6 & 7 ~ J’Accuse! ~ This blistering documentary recalibrates the dialogue between the Jewish People and Lithuania by demanding that the Lithuanian government stops telling Holocaust lies. Made on a shoestring budget of less than $30,000, this painful, angry film has has won over 120 Best Documentary Awards and film festival selections across the world and has become one of the key weapons in the ongoing fight for Holocaust Truth. J’Accuse! also powerfully challenges the silence of the EU, the UN and NATO… and asks if the Holocaust has ceased to have moral meaning.

May 13 & 14 ~ Patricia Rozema’s Mouthpiece centers on Cassandra, an aspiring writer who, while struggling to compose a eulogy after the sudden death of her mother, comes to discover that her own rebelliousness is as much a response to the male gaze as her mother’s conformity. Enacting the two sides of Cassandra’s conflicting inner dialogue, playwright-performers Nostbakken and Sadava create a compelling portrayal of the tension between regression and progress that is often found within women.

May 20 & 21 ~ In the vein of Frederick Wiseman’s work, Art Talent Show offers insightful commentary on the intergenerational cultural dissonance surrounding topics like identity politics and social justice in relation to art and its practice. A “documentary less about art or talent than about the Sisyphean task of assessing one and nurturing the other” (Variety), filmmakers Adéla Komrzý and Tomáš Bojar take a sensitive and ultimately light-hearted approach to the examination of art school admission.

June 3 & 4 ~ Nye ~ Michael Sheen plays Nye Bevan in a surreal and spectacular journey through the life and legacy of the man who transformed Britain’s welfare state. From campaigning at the coalfield to leading the battle to create the National Health Service, Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan is often referred to as the politician with greatest influence over the UK without ever being Prime Minister. Confronted with death, Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan’s deepest memories lead him on a mind-bending journey back through his life; from childhood to mining underground, Parliament and fights with Churchill.

June 10 & 11 ~ My National Gallery~ The National Gallery of London is one of the world’s greatest art galleries. It is full of masterpieces, an endless resource of history, an endless source of stories. But whose stories are told? Which art has the most impact and on whom? The power of great art lies in its ability to communicate with anyone, no matter their art historical knowledge, their background, their beliefs. This film gives voice to those who work at the gallery – from cleaner to curator, security guard to director – who identify the one artwork that means the most to them and why.

June 17 & 18 ~ Lyd ~ A sci-fi documentary that follows the rise and fall of Lyd — a 5,000-year-old metropolis that was once a bustling Palestinian town until it was conquered when Israel was established in 1948. As the film unfolds, a chorus of characters creates a tapestry of the Palestinian experience of this city and the trauma left by the massacre and expulsion.

June 24 & 25 ~ An informed and intimate portrayal of the jazz scene that offers revelatory glimpses for fans of the genre, Music for Black Pigeons strikes a universal chord in its pursuit of wider questions centered around creativity. How does it feel to play? What does it mean to listen? Is it even possible to put the emotions of music into words?

July 1 & 2 ~ My Name is Andrea ~ A hybrid feature documentary about controversial feminist writer and public intellectual Andrea Dworkin, who offered a revolutionary analysis of male supremacy with iconoclastic flair. Decades before #MeToo, Dworkin called out the pervasiveness of sexism and rape culture, and the ways it impacts every woman’s daily life.

July 8 & 9 ~ Apolonia, Apolonia ~ A talented Parisian painter grows up seeking her place in the art world while grappling with the agonies and joys of womanhood and relationships in a world dominated by patriarchy, capitalism, and war.

Featuring a “spine-tingling” lead performance, NOWHERE SPECIAL opens April 26.

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Uberto Pasolini’s new film Nowhere Special stars the gifted English actor James Norton as a single father who dedicates the last few months of his life to finding a new family for his four-year-old son. It’s based on a true story. We open Nowhere Special April 26 at the Royal and May 3 at our Claremont, Glendale and Encino theaters. Pasolini wrote the following about how he, his cast and crew were able to create this brilliant, understated movie:

“I wanted to make this film as soon as I read about the case of a terminally ill father attempting to find a new family for his toddler son before his death. Although the situation the main characters find themselves in is very dramatic, the decision at script level was to approach the story in a very subtle, “quiet” way, as far away from melodrama and sentimentalism as possible, as in a film by Yasujirō Ozu, or, more recently, the work of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. This approach was reflected in the style of the filmmaking we adopted, direct and free from distracting stylistic flourishes. Marius Panduru’s camera work was designed to be both fluid and unobtrusive, when appropriate even reflecting the child’s point of view. The main directorial challenge of the film was that of working with a very young child, and of creating a believable and moving father-son relationship on camera. Fortunately, in young Daniel Lamont, then four years old, we have an extraordinarily aware and sensitive natural performer, and in James Norton a most generous actor, who was happy to dedicate long days into creating a connection with the boy well ahead of the shoot, and to support and guide Daniel throughout what for any child would have been an intense and at times bewildering experience.”

“In spite of myself I invested totally in Norton’s spine-tingling, intimate performance; and, in spite of myself, the end had me in floods of tears.” ~ Cath Clarke, Guardian

“Uberto Pasolini’s film takes a real-life story as his starting block and turns this tiny Northern Ireland-set tale into an almost sensory experience.” Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International
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“Be warned: you will need to keep a box of tissues to hand, if not all the tissues in the world.” ~ Deborah Ross, The Spectator