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!
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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.
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In remembrance of filmmaker and artist Marjane Satrapi, we’re bringing you a one-week run 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.
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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.
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Abby, a brilliant, young neuroscientist who has recently lost her father, drowns her grief by spending her days working with a monkey named Dorey. Abby meets a programmer, Sam, who has created a technology that reconnects Abby with her beloved father. Her relationship with her digitized dad then forces her to re-examine everything from her romantic relationships to her life’s work.
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Welcome to the witching hour.
We’re teaming with our spooky friend Kialey Hail (aka Ghoul Host) for a special 30th anniversary screening of the ultimate teen occult classic, The Craft!
When new student Sarah arrives at a Catholic high school in Los Angeles, she falls in with a trio of outsider girls who practice witchcraft. As their powers grow, so do their ambitions, allowing them to finally take control of their lives. But what begins as empowerment soon spirals into consequences none of them can escape.
A fun mix of Thriller and coming-of-age Drama, The Craft remains a defining artifact of ’90s alternative culture and a certified Frida Cinema classic. Powered by unforgettable performances from Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney, and Rachel True, this endlessly quotable cult favorite still casts a spell three decades later.
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Our Spielberg Summer series ventures off-path and into the Fall as we visit the future in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a haunting Science Fiction fairy tale that stands among the director’s most ambitious and deeply misunderstood works.
In a world where advanced robots live alongside humans, a young android named David (Haley Joel Osment) is programmed with the ability to love. When he is abandoned by the family he was created to join, David embarks on an extraordinary journey to become “real,” believing it is the only way to win back the affection he longs for.
Originally developed by Stanley Kubrick and ultimately realized by Spielberg, A.I. is an unsettling vision of technological loneliness. Over two decades later, its questions about what it means to love feel more relevant than ever, revealing a far more profound than many audiences recognized upon its release.
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Our Spielberg Summer series turns its attention to one of the most powerful and influential war films ever made with Saving Private Ryan, a landmark achievement that forever changed how combat is portrayed on screen.
In the aftermath of the D-Day invasion, Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) and his squad are assigned an extraordinary mission: locate Private James Ryan (Matt Damon), whose brothers have all been killed in action, and bring him home. As the soldiers journey deeper into war-torn France, the mission forces each man to confront difficult questions about the value of a single life amid unimaginable loss.
Famous for its visceral opening depiction of Omaha Beach, Saving Private Ryan goes far beyond just technical brilliance. Spielberg combines staggering realism with his signature humanism, creating a film that honors both the chaos of war and the ordinary people “asked” to endure it.
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Our Spielberg Summer series takes a more sobering turn with Empire of the Sun, a sweeping coming-of-age epic full of chaos and loss of wartime innocence.
Based on J.G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel, the film follows young Jim “Jamie” Graham, a privileged British boy living in Shanghai whose life is shattered when World War II erupts and he is separated from his parents. Alone in an occupied city, he survives in a brutal internment camp while clinging to the fading grandeur of his former life.
One of Spielberg’s most ambitious and emotionally complex works, Empire of the Sun transforms war into a surreal landscape of endurance and disillusionment. Anchored by a remarkable early performance from a young Christian Bale, the film reveals Spielberg expanding his visual language to capture not just wonder, but its disappearance. Rarely shown theatrically, this 80s gem demands to be seen big and loud!
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He is afraid. He is totally alone. He is 3,000,000 light years from home.
Our Spielberg Summer series phones home with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, one of the most beloved family films ever made and a landmark of modern American cinema.
When a lonely young boy named Elliott discovers a stranded alien hiding near his home, the two form an unlikely friendship that changes both of their lives. As E.T. becomes part of Elliott’s family, the children must help their otherworldly companion evade government authorities and find a way back home before it’s too late.
Few films capture the wonder of childhood as beautifully as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Spielberg transforms a simple story of friendship into something genuinely magical. Decades after audiences first watched that bicycle lift off against the moonlit sky, the film, like so many others from Spielberg, continues to inspire awe from audiences across the globe.
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