Upcoming Events​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Fri June 27 - QUEEN OF DIAMONDS (Nina Menkes, 1991, 77 mins, Color, Sound, 35mm to Digital)  - Over the past 30 years “cinematic sorceress” Nina Menkes has produced a visually stunning and uncompromising body of work that stands alone in the landscape of American Independent cinema. Fearlessly confronting violence, female subjectivity and isolation in iconically lensed locales ranging from the American Southwest to Israel and North Africa, Menkes work only becomes more vital and relevant with the passage of time.  ~  Produced, written, directed, and shot by Menkes, Queen of Diamonds follows the alienated life of Firdaus (played by the director's sister and early muse, Tinka Menkes), as a Blackjack dealer in a Las Vegas landscape juxtaposed between glittering casino lights and the deteriorating desert oasis. Negotiating a missing husband and neighboring domestic violence, Firdaus’ world unfolds as a fragmented but hypnotic interplay between repetition and repressed anger. Shot with a beautiful compositional rigor echoing Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, Queen of Diamonds is a remarkable and demanding masterpiece of American independent filmmaking. Heralded as one of the most challenging and subversive filmmakers working today, the restoration and re-release of this film marks the start of a new critical recognition for Menkes’ groundbreaking body of work.  ~  "Queen of Diamonds is my painting of the U.S.: an over-enlarged, profit motivated core surrounded by mute and arid alienation. The protagonist, Firdaus, is both deeply estranged and psychically powerful. Her loner position is the backside of centuries of Western Heroes: she stands in the center as watcher and victim of a system which is starting to crack.” -Nina Menkes  ~  "[Menkes’] provocative and visually arresting art films hover between experimental and narrative, fearlessly exploring the alienated feminine, the subconscious and violent patriarchal outer realities…" -Sight & Sound  ~  View trailer HERE  (presented from a new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative!)

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Sat July 12 - LIQUID ADJUSTMENT: soap opera experimental (guest programmed by Sean Dickerson & co-presented by PRROBLEM Press) - A program of experimental video work that appropriate or draw inspiration from the soap opera format, interspersed with segments from a new, locally produced reworking of a Joanne Kyger radio play.  ~  FULL PROGRAM: General Hospital / Olympic Women Speed Skating (Dara Birnbaum, 5:30), Vault (Bruce & Norman Yonemoto, 12:01), All Smiles and Sadness (Anne McGuire, 7:14), The Dark, Krystle (Michael Robinson, 9:34), Swamp (Abigail Child, 33:00).  (new radio play will be available to attendees on cassette, probably!)

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Fri July 25 - WANDA (Barbara Loden, 1970, 103 mins) - "With her first and only feature film - a hard-luck drama she wrote, directed, and starred in - Barbara Loden turned in a groundbreaking work of American independent cinema, bringing to life a kind of character seldom seen on-screen. Set amid a soot-choked Pennsylvania landscape, and shot in an intensely intimate vérité style, the film takes up with distant and soft-spoken Wanda (Loden), who has left her husband, lost custody of her children, and now finds herself alone, drifting between dingy bars and motels, where she falls prey to a series of callous men - including a bank robber who ropes her into his next criminal scheme. An until now difficult-to-see masterpiece that has nonetheless exerted an outsize influence on generations of artists and filmmakers, Wanda is a compassionate and wrenching portrait of a woman stranded on society’s margins." -Criterion  ~  View trailer HERE  (presented from a beautiful Kodachrome 16mm film print!)

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Fri Aug 8, 5-8pm - MAX NORDILE: Janitor of the Seasons [art exhibition opening reception] - Painting/sculpture by Olympia Washington-based artist & musician. Live musical performance & refreshments provided.

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Fri Aug 22 - Rotating Signals: The Contemporary Korean Avant-Garde - A program of short films curated by Chicago-based critic/programmer/educator Joshua Minsoo Kim that highlights work created 2024-2025 by some of the best Korean experimental filmmakers today.

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Fri Sept 26 - the short films of GRETA SNIDER - A mini-retrospective of works created 1989-2025  (filmmaker in attendance from San Francisco + post-screening Q&A)

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late-OCT (date tbd) - SANTET (directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra, 1988, 94 mins) - Indonesia’s beloved scream queen, Suzzanna, stars in this decidedly demented supernatural revenge thriller which boast not just over-the-top gore set-pieces, but an abundance of slimy creatures, wild plot twists, and even impromptu musical numbers! After poisoning his wife, a local gangster blames her death on the village cleric and instigates an outraged mob to burn down his hut, killing him in the process. The cleric's wife escapes into the jungle, eventually meeting Nyi Angker, a half-crocodile half-witch who gives her diabolical powers, thus allowing her to commence a bloody revenge. (presented from a new 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative!)