Our Art House 101: Global Queer Cinema series is continuing its journey around the world with a landmark of contemporary African cinema: Rafiki.
When Kena and Ziki, the daughters of two rival politicians in Nairobi, meet and fall for each other, their friendship quickly blossoms into something deeper. But in a country where homosexuality remains criminalized and deeply stigmatized, their romance threatens to upend not only their families’ political ambitions, but their own lives. As the two young women attempt to carve out a space for themselves, they’re forced to confront a world that refuses to accept their love.
Directed by Wanuri Kahiu, Rafiki is a defiantly joyful story of young queer love. Bursting with an undeniable sense of youthful possibility, Kahiu’s film finds beauty and resilience in the simple act of falling in love.
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This year’s Art House 101 series is concentrating on Global Queer Cinema, and where better to start than the 4K restoration of Wong Kar Wai’s emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown: Happy Together.
Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung star as a couple traveling through Argentina that are locked in a turbulent cycle of infatuation and destructive jealousy. They break up, make up, and fall apart again and again. Setting out to depict the dynamics of a queer relationship with empathy and complexity on the cusp of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, when the country’s LGBT community suddenly faced an uncertain future, Wong crafts a feverish look at the life cycle of a love affair that’s by turns devastating and deliriously romantic.
Shot by legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle in both luminous monochrome and luscious saturated color, Happy Together is a beautiful exploration of displacement and desire.
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The bittersweet end to this year’s Walt Disney Studies series is the beloved animated classic Lady and the Tramp! And as an early holiday present, Theodore (Theo) Gluck will be joining us to give a very informative and entertaining post-screening presentation entitled “Walt on the Wide Screen”!
The film follows dog’s-eye-view adventures of Lady, a lovingly pampered cocker spaniel, and Tramp, a freewheeling mutt with a heart of gold in Walt Disney’s beloved classic—the first animated feature ever produced in the widescreen CinemaScope process. This heartwarming tale now charms a new generation of families and fans with its exquisite animation, unforgettable songs and one of the dog-gonedest love stories of all time.
“Walt on the Wide Screen”: Film authority Theo Gluck offers an overview of the era of the widescreen revolution as Hollywood—a response to the looming specter of television. Disney, like all the other studios, was not immune to this innovation, so they answered the call to mutually combat this threat by quickly gearing up to offer widescreen product.
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Cinematic Void is returning to The Frida Cinema to present Sofia Coppola’s haunting feature debut, The Virgin Suicides!
When the five beautiful Lisbon sisters are raised under the watchful eye of their strict, overprotective parents, their mysterious lives become an object of fascination for the neighborhood boys. But after the youngest sister takes her own life, the family retreats further from the outside world, leaving the boys to piece together the tragedy unfolding behind the walls of the Lisbon home.
Adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides’ acclaimed novel, The Virgin Suicides announced Coppola as a singular cinematic voice. Beneath its dreamy surface lies a deeply unsettling film about the impossibility of ever truly understanding someone else. 25 years later, it continues to entrance viewers worldwide.
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Our Classic Movie Nights series is closes out the year with the beloved Ernst Lubitsch romantic classic The Shop Around the Corner!
Alfred Kralik and Klara Novak are co-workers at a small leather goods shop in Budapest who can barely stand each other. What neither knows is that they have secretly fallen in love as anonymous pen pals, pouring their hearts out in letters to one another. As their relationship blossoms on paper, their prickly day-to-day rivalry becomes increasingly complicated by the realization that love may be hiding in the most unexpected place.
Starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, The Shop Around the Corner is one of Hollywood’s most enduring romantic comedies, balancing Lubitsch’s signature wit and sophistication with genuine warmth and tenderness. Its clever mistaken-identity premise and beautifully drawn characters have made it a lasting classic.
Please make sure to get to this showtime early, as our beloved Marketing Director, Bekah, will be doing a pre-screening presentation on the film!
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Our Classic Movie Nights series is getting real screwy as we present the Katharine Hepburn/Cary Grant comedy classic Bringing Up Baby!
David Huxley, a mild-mannered paleontologist on the eve of marrying his longtime fiancée, has his carefully ordered life thrown into complete disarray when he crosses paths with the wildly unpredictable Susan Vance. After Susan mistakes him for a zoologist, the pair become entangled in a series of increasingly ridiculous mishaps involving a tame leopard named Baby.
Starring Grant and Hepburn at their most effortlessly hilarious, Bringing Up Baby is one of the defining films of Hollywood’s screwball comedy era. Howard Hawks’ knack for balancing plates during the escalating absurdity (and of course the chemistry of the two legendary leads) make it a timeless comedy that must be seen on the big screen!
Please make sure to get to this showtime early, as our beloved Marketing Director, Bekah, will be doing a pre-screening presentation on the film!
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It’s a million dollars worth of adventure!
Our Classic Movie Nights series sets sail with the swashbuckling Errol Flynn classic Captain Blood!
Peter Blood, a wrongfully convicted Irish physician, is sentenced to slavery in the Caribbean after being accused of treason. But when he is purchased by the beautiful Arabella Bishop, Blood escapes captivity, takes command of a pirate ship, and sets out on a life of adventure on the high seas.
Captain Blood is the film that transformed Errol Flynn into an international movie star, launching one of the great screen careers of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, White Christmas), this rousing 1935 adventure is a landmark of the classic Hollywood swashbuckler. Sword fights, romance, pirates…it’s got it all!
Please make sure to get to this showtime early, as our beloved Marketing Director, Bekah, will be doing a pre-screening presentation on the film!
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Calling all blondes! Join us for Julien Temple’s gloriously goofy 1988 sci-fi musical Earth Girls Are Easy – a true essential in our Unsung 80’s Soundtracks series!
Geena Davis stars as Valerie, a manicurist whose boring life takes an unexpected turn when a a trio of extraterrestrials crash-lands in her San Fernando Valley swimming pool. Played by Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, and Damon Wayans, the three furry E.T.’s are soon given a makeover by Valerie and her ultra-bubbly best friend Candy (Julie Brown, who also served as co-screenwriter), and given the new names of Mac, Wiploc, and Zeebo. Valerie takes them out into the strange world of late-’80s Los Angeles, where they quickly discover the pleasures of Earth life, from dancing to romance to surfing to – why not? – even a couple of musical numbers.
Loaded with some of the era’s most recognizable alternative and new-wave sounds by British punk provocateur and music-video director Temple, Earth Girls Are Easy feels like a two-hour mixtape from the end of the 1980s. The soundtrack features the B-52’s, The Vandals, The Cramps, Devo, The Go-Go’s, and The Tubes, along with original songs performed by the film’s cast. The soundtrack was released as a companion album in 1988, and has become a sonic time capsule of the late-’80s neon, campy, “far out” alternative scene.
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It’ll come as no surprise to any Jonathan Demme fan to find one of his films in our Unsung 80’s Soundtracks series. From the filmmaker who gave us Q Lazzarus’ “Goodbye Horses,” Bruce Springsteen’s Oscar-winning “Streets of Philadelphia,” and, of course, the electrifying sounds of Talking Heads in Stop Making Sense, comes 1986’s Something Wild, a quirky romantic comedy that gradually turns into…well, something quite wild.
Jeff Daniels stars as Manhattan businessman Charles Driggs, a relatively square individual whose uneventful life is upended when he meets the mysterious and free-spirited Lulu (Melanie Griffith). After she impulsively “kidnaps” him from a restaurant, the two head out on a road trip that becomes increasingly unpredictable adventure when they cross paths with Lulu’s dangerous ex-husband, Ray Sinclair (Ray Liotta). Funny, sexy, strange, and surprisingly unsettling, Something Wild is one of the great genre-shifting movies of the 1980s, and an early showcase for the late, great Liotta.
Demme fills his film with a remarkably eclectic mix of ’80s new wave, punk, rock, and pop, featuring Talking Heads, New Order, The Feelies, The Pretenders, and others. The music doesn’t simply serve as background decoration; it helps chart the film’s transformation from playful road movie to something darker. The soundtrack was released as a compilation alongside the film, and like so much of Demme’s work, it reflects a director with an unusually sharp ear for music, and a knack for finding exactly the right song for the moment.
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The brand new Afrofuturist film Memory of Princess Mumbi is coming to The Frida Cinema!
In 2093, filmmaker Kuve travels to Umata to document the aftermath of a war that revived ancient kingdoms. There, he meets Mumbi, who challenges him to make his film without the use of AI. As Kuve searches for his own voice, he begins to realize that even in a broken world, beauty can be found in the small human moments we often overlook.
The film premiered at Venice Days (Giornate degli Autori) in 2025 and went on to TIFF, BFI London, Zurich Film Festival (where it won the Critics’ Jury Award for Best Swiss Film), and San Francisco International Film Festival (where it received an Honorable Mention in the Global Visions category).
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