The second film presented by Cinematic Void as part of this year’s January Giallo at The Frida is a free screening of A Hyena In The Safe, now with a brand new 4K restoration courtesy of Celluloid Dreams!
One safe. Six keys. Six robbers, each expecting their cut of a diamond heist when they finally meet to divide their spoils after months in hiding. But before they can open the safe that guards their glittering hoard, they are mysteriously killed, one by one. With fear and suspicion growing among the shrinking group of survivors, it becomes clear that one of them is trying to take all the diamonds for themselves!
Thank you to Celluloid Dreams for letting us present this beautifully restored version, bringing the film in high definition to the big screen for the first time!
This event is being co-presented by the fine folks at the American Cinematheque!
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Cinematic Void is back to invade The Frida Cinema with their annual January Giallo festivities, and this time they’ve presenting Mario Bava’s 1971 proto-Slasher A Bay Of Blood!
The story follows an elderly heiress that is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt to reduce the inheritance playing field, complicated by some teenagers who decide to camp out in a dilapidated building on the estate.
Few films in the Giallo canon cut as deep as A Bay Of Blood. Often cited as a major influence on Friday the 13th and a dozen other slashers, it’s Bava’s most cold-blooded (red-blooded?) masterpiece. Don’t miss your chance to see this newly restored cult classic on the silver screen!
This event is being co-presented by the fine folks at the American Cinematheque!
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From Chinese filmmaker Diao Yinan (Black Coal, Thin Ice), The Wild Goose Lake is a sleek, moody neo-noir that is headlining our Lost Films Of Covid series.
The story follows a gangster that ends up making a mistake that causes every gun on both sides of the law to point at him. While on the run, he comes across a mysterious woman who might get him out of trouble or make things worse.
The Wild Goose Lake is a fatalist love sotry that’s also a portrait of outcasts looking for a way out in a city that won’t stop closing in. Back in 2020, we streamed it online at our website during lockdown. But now is finally the time to see it on the big screen.
Thank you to our friends at Filmbot for their support in presenting this amazing series.
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Our Lost Films Of Covid series kicks off with Pig, one of those rare films that still found light in a time of theaters going dark.
Michael Sarnoski’s elegy of grief and grace follows a reclusive truffle hunter (Nicolas Cage, in one of his most effecting performances) as he searches for his stolen pig. The tagline is simple, but the story is so much more than revenge and spectacle. Returning to the big screen, it reminds us how cinema helps us feel human again.
Whether you’ve seen it since its release or have been waiting to watch it, come see Pig where it belongs–up on the big screen!
Thank you to our friends at Filmbot for their support in presenting this amazing series.
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A brand new 4K restoration of High And Low is coming to The Frida Cinema as part of fourteen film retrospective on the films of Akira Kurosawa! Thank you to Janus Films for restoring this masterpiece and allowing us to play it.
The story of High And Low follows an executive of a Yokohama shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur’s son is kidnapped by mistake and held for ransom.
This highly influential domestic drama, adapted Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society.
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We’re kicking off February with a Samurai double feature of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Sanjuro, both screening with brand new 4K restorations courtesy of the incredible talents at Janus Films!
Yojimbo: A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.
Sanjuro: Jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear. Less brazen in tone than its predecessor but equally entertaining, this classic character’s return is a masterpiece in its own right.
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Akira Kurosawa kicked off the 1960s with his underrated film noir piece The Bad Sleep Well, screening at The Frida Cinema as part of our ongoing retrospective on the works of the legendary Japanese director.
The story is simple: a vengeful young man marries the daughter of a corrupt industrialist in order to seek justice for his father’s suicide. What follows is a film that combines elements of Hamlet and noir to chilling effect in exposing the corrupt boardrooms of postwar corporate Japan.
Continuing his legendary collaboration with Toshiro Mifune, The Bad Sleep Well is a lesser-known stroke of genius in the filmmaker’s canon, but great nonetheless. See it on the big screen, where it rarely plays!
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Kick off our epic fourteen film retrospective on the works of legendary director Akira Kurosawa with his 1949 crime thriller Stray Dog, now restored in a brand new 4K restoration thanks to Janus Films!
A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.
Starring Toshiro Mifune, as the rookie cop, and Takashi Shimura as the seasoned detective who keeps him on the right side of the law, Stray Dog goes beyond a crime thriller, probing the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.
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Michael Powell’s (of the iconic directorial duo Powell & Pressburger) deeply disturbing Peeping Tom is coming to The Frida Cinema in a brand new restoration from Rialto Pictures!
Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he’s making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.
When Peeping Tom premiered in 1960, British critics savaged it. The film was immediately branded “vile,” “depraved,” and “disgusting.” 55 years later, it’s one of the most influential (and cleverly shot) thrillers ever made.
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Master animator Satoshi Kon’s masterpiece, Perfect Blue, returns to The Frida’s screen for some well-deserved encores! If you missed it the first time around, come see this amazing restoration from our friends at GKIDS on the big screen!
Former pop idol Mima Kirigoe (voiced by Junko Iwao) leaves her idol group to pursue acting. But as she trades microphones for movie sets, the lines between her past and present blur: a mysterious website chronicling her every move appears, an obsessed fan creeps closer, and the roles she plays begin to swallow who she thought she was. The camera follows Mima into a mirror-maze of perception and performance, where even the reflection cannot be trusted.
Rich with acute unease, Perfect Blue remains a landmark of adult animation—its influence stretching from horror to cinema and animation alike. With every cut-frame and every whispered echo, it undermines the fantasy of stardom and forces the audience to ask: Who am I when they’re watching?
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