You only get one shot at fame.

The scintillating feature debut of Mary Harron (American Psycho) and one of the most controversial independent films of the 1990s, I Shot Andy Warhol stars an electric Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas, a militant feminist whose attempted murder of Andy Warhol brought instant fame to her radically anti-male SCUM Manifesto. 

Dropping out of grad school in the midsixties, the brilliant yet volatile Solanas survived in New York City as a destitute artist, sex worker, and panhandler, soon striking up a friendship with Warhol superstar Candy Darling that brought her briefly into the orbit of the world’s premier pop artist. 

Featuring a blistering score by John Cale as well as covers of sixties hits by some of the nineties’ most iconic bands (R.E.M., Wilco), I Shot Andy Warhol is an incisive portrait of a rebel without an outlet and the soon-to-be-lost generation she came to define.

In remembrance of filmmaker and artist Marjane Satrapi, we are screening a week of her 2007 animated masterpiece Persepolis.

Growing up in revolutionary Iran, young Marjane is outspoken, curious, and determined to chart her own path in a world growing increasingly restrictive. Sent abroad by her family for safety, she navigates adolescence, exile, love, and loss while struggling to reconcile the person she has become with the homeland she left behind. Through it all, Marjane searches for a place to belong.

Rendered in striking black-and-white animation, Persepolis captures both the upheaval of political change and the intimate joys and heartbreaks of growing up. It stands as a testament to Satrapi’s singular voice: a filmmaker who turned memory into art and invited audiences around the world to see history through the eyes of one unforgettable life.

We are celebrating ten years of our beloved volunteer Sammy Trujillo, as his Volunteer of the Month pick for July is the very timely Jafar Panahi film Offside! 

During the 2006 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, numerous young women are caught and rounded up for dressing as men so they could gain access to the game. Guarded by several soldiers in a holding pen, the women attempt to keep updated on the score.

Shot during a real World Cup qualifier, Offside crackles with the energy of live sports and the immediacy of documentary filmmaking. Panahi crafts a film that is as entertaining as it is politically resonant, always showcasing his knack for quiet acts of resistance Nearly two decades later, Offside is rarely seen on the big screen, so thank to Sammy for highlighting it!

Our Staff Pick for the moth of July comes courtesy of our wonderful Director of Box Office Operations, Jill, as she has chosen Olivier Assayas’s live-wire international breakthrough Irma Vep!

Starring an absolutely magnetic Maggie Cheung as a version of herself, she plays a Hong Kong action movie star who arrives in Paris to play the latex-clad lead in a remake of Louis Feuillade’s classic 1915 crime serial Les vampires. What she finds is a behind-the-scenes nightmare as egos clash, romantic attractions simmer, and an obsessive director (a cannily cast Jean-Pierre Léaud) drives himself to the brink to realize his vision.

Balancing elements of silent cinema, martial arts flicks, and the music of Sonic Youth and Ali Farka Touré into a hallucinatory swirl of postmodern cool, Irma Vep is a witty reflection on the nineties French film industry and the eternal tension between art and commercial entertainment.