Calling all Deadheads! We’re screening the new documentary Summer Tour!
Few American demographics are more easily caricatured than Deadheads, those swirling, dosing, hippy-dressed vagabonds. But in his infinitely sweet and wise documentary, director Mischa Richter offers us the Deadheads as complex, self-aware and resourceful members of a wandering commune, one that’s admirable for its kindness and care.
Filmed across Dead & Company’s 2023 Goodbye Tour, the film is reminiscent of a classic American road movie and paints a tender portrait of one of the country’s last remaining countercultures. Following two young Deadheads as they follow the band from state to state, the film never shows the band performing but instead celebrates the fans who have kept their legacy alive for decades.
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An auteur emerges from America’s underclass.
From migrant farmworker to revolutionary artist, Luis Valdez changed American culture. His El Teatro Campesino performed on flatbed trucks and helped mobilize California’s farm workers. His Zoot Suit was the first Chicano play on Broadway. Despite critical rejection that killed the show’s New York run, he persevered, creating La Bamba, a blockbuster that brought Mexican-American life to a global audience.
Now in its 60th year, El Teatro continues to be a beacon for Latino creators. American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez is the first feature documentary about this American original, narrated by Edward James Olmos reprising his legendary El Pachuco role, featuring Cheech Marin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dolores Huerta, and Linda Ronstadt. The film weaves 4K-restored archival footage, including over 80,000 feet of deteriorating 1970s celluloid rescued and digitized for the first time, with the story of a man who proved that Chicanos have always been America.
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Directors. Dorks. Deviants. This ain’t no Multiplex.
It’s the 10th anniversary of Out of Print, so we’re bringing it back to The Frida Cinema! And make sure to stick around after the film, as we’ll be joined by the director of the film, Julia Marchese, for a very special in-person Q&A!
Out of Print is catnip for anyone who has ever fallen in love with a movie theater. Director Julia Marchese’s affectionate documentary celebrates the dying, and now thankfully enduring, art of repertory cinema and 35mm film exhibition through the legendary New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Featuring interviews with filmmakers and cinephiles including Edgar Wright, Rian Johnson, Joe Dante, Patton Oswalt, Kevin Smith, and more, it’s both a time capsule of a pivotal moment in film history and a passionate defense of seeing movies the way they were meant to be seen.
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Ten states. 10,825 miles. 123 theaters.
In his latest feature The Last Picture Shows, filmmaker Rustin Thompson (who will be joining us for an in-person Q&A after the movie!) journeys into the American West on a search for traces of what was once a center of small-town life: the movie theater.
On the trip, he finds long abandoned and forgotten cinemas; movie houses that have fallen into disrepair; theaters recently closed, theaters struggling to hold on, and theaters that—thanks to their thoughtful caretakers—are not only surviving but thriving.
Between the stops along the way, Rustin poetically intersperses excerpts from Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic film The Last Picture Show, as well as reflections on past and present hardships facing the film exhibition industry. The Last Picture Shows reminds viewers that even in vast cinema deserts, there are oases of community and gathering that remain, where the movie house continues to be a place of wonder.
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The Frida Cinema is teaming up with our friends at VAALA to screen the critically acclaimed documentary Jimmy in Saigon! And stick around after the screening for a special conversation with the director of the film, Peter McDowell!
Jimmy in Saigon begins as a personal exploration into the mysterious death and radical life of Jimmy McDowell, an American 24-year-old Vietnam veteran who died as a civilian in Saigon in 1972, when filmmaker Peter McDowell was only five. While investigating Jimmy’s drug use and sexuality, Peter takes us from the US Midwest to Vietnam, France and back home again. In his quest to get to know his brother, he uncovers a hidden romance, new family ties and a remarkable global love story.
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Coroner to the Stars, the new documentary about the life and controversial career of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, is coming to The Frida Cinema for a special one night only event! And make sure to stick around after the screening, as director Ben Hethcoat and producer Billy Ray Brewton join us for a Q&A!
The doc chronicles Noguchi, whose celebrity autopsies forever shaped American culture. From Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy to Sharon Tate and Natalie Wood, Dr. Noguchi’s death investigations pushed forensic science into the spotlight, even as Hollywood elites and political adversaries sought to silence him. A Japanese American who unwittingly rose to fame in a city driven by stardom, Noguchi’s commitment to “tell it like it is” often put him within the crosshairs of controversy.
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Celebrate Pride Month with a signature themed cocktail and 30th anniversary FREE screening of The Celluloid Closet, a documentary adaptation of Vito Russo’s groundbreaking book and lecture series exploring LGBTQ+ representation in film.
The Celluloid Closet is an epic story, by turns surprising, hilarious, and disturbing. Academy Award-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman assemble clips from over 100 Hollywood movies and interviews with many of the filmmakers and actors who created them (including Tom Hanks, Shirley MacLaine, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Curtis, and Gore Vidal).
“Thoroughly enjoyable…a colorful overview with the popular appeal of a ‘That’s Entertainment’…sheer fun.” – The New York Times
“TWO THUMBS UP…terrific” – Siskel and Ebert
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We’re teaming up with the fine folks at Muzeo to present a very special screening of the legendary documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys! And make sure to stick around after the screening for a Q&A with our very special guests, Craig Stecyk and Jim Fitzpatrick!
This award-winning, thrilling story is about a group of discarded kids who revolutionized skateboarding and shaped the attitude and culture of modern day extreme sports. Featuring old skool skating footage, exclusive interviews and a blistering rock soundtrack, Dogtown and Z-Boys captures the rise of the Zephyr skateboarding team from Venice’s Dogtown, a tough “locals only” beach with a legacy of outlaw surfing.
Directed by former pro skater Stacy Peralta and narrated with gravelly cool by three-time Academy Award winner Sean Penn, this electrifying documentary that chronicles how a scrappy crew of skateboarding misfits revolutionized youth culture forever. Come see it on the big screen, loud and proud!
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This visionary music documentary traces the turbulent, transcendent life of Gregg Allman, from a childhood ruptured by his father’s murder to the soulful emergence that reshaped American music. Through archival recordings, candid interviews, and electric performances, the film follows Gregg’s musical awakening amid the blues he worshipped, the creation of the Allman Brothers Band with his brother.
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We are presenting a free screening of Sophie Calle & Greg Shephard’s documentary/art experiment Double Blind (No Sex Last Night)!
Armed with camcorders, French artist Sophie Calle and American photographer Greg Shephard head West across the United States in his Cadillac convertible to produce and document a narrative of their journey and relationship. Independently, they create a kind of cinematic diary where two completely different emotional realities begin to emerge…
A fascinating intersection between autobiographical filmmaking and conceptual art, Calle was already internationally known for work that specialized in blurred surveillance, and this film extended those themes into deeply, deeply uncomfortable territory.
“Sophie Calle: Overshare” is the French artist’s first Orange County exhibition put on by our friends at UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. Make sure to catch it before it closes on May 24th!
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