The preeminent dramatist of China’s rapid 21st-century growth and social transformation, Jia Zhangke has taken his boldest approach to narrative yet with his marvelous Caught by the Tides.

The film mostly adheres to the perspective of Qiaoqiao (Jia’s immortal muse Zhao Tao) as she wanders an increasingly unrecognizable country in search of long-lost lover Bin (Li Zhubin), who left their home city of Datong seeking new financial prospects. The always captivating Zhao carries the film with her delicate expressiveness, while Jia constantly evokes cinema’s ability to capture the passage of time and the persistence of change: of people, landscapes, cities, politics, ideas.

Assembled from footage shot over a span of 23 years—a beguiling mix of fiction and documentary, featuring a cascade of images taken from previous movies, unused scenes, and newly shot dramatic sequences—Caught by the Tides is a free-flowing work of unspoken longing, carried along more by music than dialogue as it looms around the edges of a poignant love story.

Our A24orror series comes to a very spooky conclusion with Bring Her Back, a disturbing descent into psychological dread from directors Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou (Talk To Me).

Bring Her Back tells the story of a brother and sister that uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother. With another great performance from Sally Hawkins and a number of horrifying sequences, it’ll have you thinking long after you’ve left the theater.

Brace yourself for a haunting you won’t forget.

Often described as a film that doesn’t just depict dance, but becomes it, The Red Shoes is returning to The Frida Cinema as part of of our Technicolor Summer series. Directed by Powell & Pressburger, every frame is lush and painterly. The film’s 17-minute central ballet sequence remains one of the greatest ever filmed.

In this classic drama, Vicky Page is an aspiring ballerina torn between her dedication to dance and her desire to love. While her imperious instructor, Boris Lermontov, urges to her to forget anything but ballet, Vicky begins to fall for the charming young composer Julian Craster. Eventually Vicky, under great emotional stress, must choose to pursue either her art or her romance, a decision that carries serious consequences.

In the early 1930s, the 3-strip Technicolor process was introduced to audiences, inviting them to experience a world dripping with vibrant saturation for the very first time. The Technicolor Summer series ranges from familiar classics to rarely-screened gems all Summer long!

Frida Cinema Film Club members are invited to a treat for the senses as we present Krzysztof Kieślowski’s radical exploration of fate, Blind Chance! 

The story revolves around Witek, a young medical student disillusioned after the death of his father. At a train station, he runs to catch a train—and in a sudden narrative split, the film shows three divergent versions of Witek’s life, each depending on whether he catches the train, misses it, or is stopped by a guard.

Shot in 1981 but shelved by censors until 1987, the film resonates as both a deeply personal reflection and a subtle political critique.

For the first time in The Frida Cinema’s history, we are finally playing Juno! 

Juno MacGuff (Elliot Page), a smart, sarcastic 16-year-old in the Minneapolis suburbs, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a casual hookup with her shy best friend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Opting against abortion but not ready for motherhood, Juno sets out to find the perfect adoptive parents—a seemingly put-together yuppie couple played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman.

Written by Diablo Cody in her Oscar-winning debut, Juno pairs quippy, stylized dialogue with sincere emotional beats, carving out a space in indie film where teenage girls are allowed to be complicated, self-aware, and funny without being reduced to tropes.

See It On 16MM is back with another heater as we team up to present the 1974 Tobe Hoober horror masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre!

When a group of young friends take a detour through rural Texas, what begins as a sun-bleached road trip dissolves into something far more harrowing. In the middle of nowhere, they stumble upon a decaying farmhouse—and a family of cannibals. Chief among them: a towering, masked figure with a roaring chainsaw and a childlike rage. One by one, the travelers are pulled into a waking nightmare of violence, ritual, and bone-deep madness.

No comfort. No escape. Just heat, metal, and the sound of human terror.

Do you want to meet a ghost? June’s second Volunteer Of The Month screening is courtesy of Justin, who has chosen Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s heart-pounding Pulse.

After one of their friends commits suicide, strange things begin happening to a group of young Tokyo residents. One of them sees visions of his dead friend in the shadows on the wall, while another’s computer keeps showing strange, ghostly images. Is their friend trying to contact them from beyond the grave, or is there something much more sinister going on?