Kick off March with us as we present brand new 2K restoration screenings of the rarely-screened Japanese film Love & Pop!
July 1997. Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends spend the summer going on dates with older men for money. Armed with only a cellphone, Hiromi sets out to date her way to ¥128,000 in order to purchase an expensive topaz ring before the mall closes for the day.
Based on the novel by Ryū Murakami, Love & Pop is the live action feature debut from Hideaki Anno, creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion, one of the most celebrated anime series of all time. The film is radical in its stylistic approach to teenage ennui, taking to the seedy streets of Shibuya with handheld digicams, distorted lenses, and a barrage of unconventional camera angles. Criminally underseen for years, Love & Pop remains a singular portrait of Japanese youth coming of age in the approach to the 21st century.
All screenings will be presented the original Japanese language with English subtitles.
Read More
Celebrate the 30th anniversary of the explosive French crime drama La Haine!
Director Mathieu Kassovitz took the film world by storm with his a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically the low-income Banlieue districts on Paris’s outskirts. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Koundé), and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui)—a Jew, an African, and an Arab—give human faces to France’s immigrant populations, their bristling resentment at their marginalization slowly simmering until it reaches a climactic boiling point.
A work of tough beauty, La Haine is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country’s ongoing identity crisis.
Read More
Just added: actor Sean Gunn (Guardians Of The Galaxy, The Suicide Squad, Gilmore Girls) has agreed to moderate the post-screening Q&A!
Join us for a free screening of the new indie found footage paranormal drama The Buildout, written and directed by local filmmaker and former Frida Cinema Board President Zeshaan Younus! Stick around after the screening as Zeshaan, Natasha Halevi, and other cast and crew from the film take part in a Q&A!
Produced by The Frida Cinema’s Programming Director Trevor Dillon, The Buildout stars Jenna Kanell (Terrifier, Faceless After Dark, Renfield), Hannah Alline (Doom Patrol, Mayfair Witches, The Hunt), and Natasha Halevi (Give Me An A). This Terrence Malick-inspired tale of high strangeness follows a friendship that is put to the ultimate test as two women experience something strange in the desert.
The Buildout is a feature film that was shot in 7 days, on a crowdfunded budget, entirely on location in the Southern California wilderness.
An official selection at Panic Fest, Chattanooga Film Festival, Popcorn Frights Film Festival, SoHo Horror Film Festival, MidWest Weirdfest, Oceanside Film Festival, and many more, this is a community event celebrating the VOD release of the film on 2/25/25.
Thank you to Ethos Releasing for making this screening possible.
Read More
Chantal Akerman Month winds down with 1982’s Toute Une Nuit, a hypnotic, atmospheric portrait of longing and fleeting connections over the course of a single summer night in Brussels.
The film unfolds as a series of vignettes depicting strangers, lovers, and lonely individuals moving through dimly lit streets, cafés, and apartments, engaging in brief encounters—some passionate, some melancholic, some wordless. Akerman’s poetic, observational style turns these ephemeral moments into a deeply immersive and evocative cinematic experience.
Read More
Chantal Akerman Month proceeds with Les Rendez-vous d’Anna, the director’s quietly haunting study of alienation and emotional detachment.
The film follows Anna (Aurore Clément), a reserved and introspective filmmaker, as she travels across Europe for a screening tour. Along the way, she drifts through a series of encounters — with strangers, old lovers, and family members — each conversation exposing unspoken loneliness and the difficulty of genuine human connection.
Read More
Up next in our Chantal Akerman Month series is Je Tu Il Elle, her 1974 feature film debut.
The movie follows a young woman (played by Akerman herself) as she withdraws into solitude, rearranging her sparse room, writing and rewriting letters, and engaging in mundane rituals of self-imposed confinement. Eventually, she leaves and hitches a ride with a truck driver, sharing a series of charged yet distant interactions before arriving at the home of a former lover, where the film culminates in an intense, extended love scene.
Stripped of conventional narrative structure, Je Tu Il Elle is a raw and minimalist meditation on loneliness, longing, and the fluidity of relationships, showcasing Akerman’s bold, uncompromising vision.
Read More
Our month-long tribute to iconic French filmmaker Chantal Akerman opens with Sight & Sound’s #1 film of all time: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, now celebrating its 50th anniversary!
The film follows Jeanne Dielman (portrayed by Delphine Seyrig), a widowed housewife living with her teenage son in a meticulously ordered existence in Brussels. Her days are structured around cooking, cleaning, and occasional sex work to make ends meet. Shot in a slow, observational style, the film captures the monotony of her daily routine in real-time, emphasizing the quiet oppression of domestic labor. As the film progresses, small disruptions in her routine foreshadow a shocking, climactic moment of rebellion, making for an unforgettable study of alienation and psychological breakdown.
With Seyrig’s mesmerizing performance and Akerman’s meticulous approach, Jeanne Dielman remains a touchstone of feminist and experimental cinema.
Read More
At Long Last Longworth continues with a very rare screening the 1993 film Arizona Dream!
Johnny Depp plays Axel Blackwell, a young man from New York City who is sent to Arizona to attend the wedding of his uncle Leo (Jerry Lewis), a car salesman who lives in the desert. While there, Axel finds himself tangled up in the eccentric lives of the people around him, including a passionate, somewhat unstable woman named Elaine (Faye Dunaway) and her stepdaughter, Grace (Lili Taylor), who has an unusual obsession with the idea of flying. Axel’s journey becomes a surreal exploration of freedom, longing, and the bizarre connections that people form in their lives.
Directed by Emir Kusturica and featuring an evocative soundtrack by Goran Bregović, the film strikes the perfect tone between a whimsical detachment and an almost-otherworldly feel. Set against the stark, colorful backdrop of the Arizona desert, it’s a perfect choice for those who enjoy a mix of whimsical fantasy and deep, introspective character studies.
At Long Last Longworth is a week-long guest programming takeover by author, critic, podcaster, and certified Frida Cinema favorite Karina Longworth. We gave her a promt for four different films: one of her “all-timers” (Trouble In Paradise), her favorite flop (At Long Last Love), a movie she thinks needs to be re-examined (Arizona Dream), and a movie she loves from her childhood (The Wizard Of Oz). Before each screening, there will be an exclusive introduction pre-recorded by Ms Longworth, with the exception of At Long Last Love, which will have an in-person conversation after the screening!
Read More
Cinematic Void is back and better than ever as they bring John Waters’ 1981 trashterpiece Polyester to The Frida in the most scentsational way! Each ticket purchased comes with a complimentary Odorama card courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures! 10 distinct scratch-and-sniff smells await!
Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine Fishpaw turns to the bottle as her life falls apart — until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow.
Foreber a Frida Favorite, John Waters’ films continue to radiate their own funky energy (and smell) to all audiences alike. There’s nothing like seeing a movie on the big screen by The Pope Of Trash himself!
Read More
Continuing to shine a spotlight on our dearly departed David Lynch, we have added final encores of his unsung masterpiece Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.
In the town of Twin Peaks, everyone has their secrets—but especially Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). In this prequel to his groundbreaking 1990s television series, David Lynch resurrects the teenager found wrapped in plastic at the beginning of the show, following her through the last week of her life and teasing out the enigmas that surround her murder. Homecoming queen by day and drug-addicted thrill seeker by night, Laura leads a double life that pulls her deeper and deeper into horror as she pieces together the identity of the assailant who has been terrorizing her for years.
Nightmarish in its vision of an innocent torn apart by unfathomable forces, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is nevertheless one of Lynch’s most humane films, aching with compassion for its tortured heroine—a character as enthralling in life as she was in death.
Read More
