The Grand Illusion

Shortlisted for Best International Feature for the 2025 Academy Awards, FROM GROUND ZERO is an anthology project comprised of 22 short films created by filmmakers from Gaza. Launched by renowned Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, the initiative was created during the current 2023/2024 conflict and aims to provide a platform for young Palestinian artists to express themselves through their craft.

Each film, ranging in length from three to six minutes, presents a unique perspective on the current reality in Gaza. The project captures the diverse experiences of life in the Palestinian enclave, including the challenges, tragedies, and moments of resilience faced by its people. Using a mix of genres including fiction, documentary, docu-fiction, animation, and experimental cinema, FROM GROUND ZERO presents a rich diversity of stories that reflect the sorrow, joy, and hope inherent in Gazan life.

Despite harsh filming conditions, Gaza’s vibrant artistic scene shines through this stunning anthology film, which offers an intimate and powerful portrait of daily life in modern-day Palestine – and the enduring spirit of its people.

In Arabic with English subtitles.

More showings added: Jan 19, 21, & 25!

“The fact that this film even exists seems miraculous… [From Ground Zero] aims to humanize, to empathize, to go beyond the headlines and geopolitics. It aims to convey the hopes and dreams of everyday people, which persist even in dire circumstances.” Jennifer Green, Alliance of Women Film Journalists

“A powerful cry to the world that these filmmakers, collaborators, and people walking in the background are still there, still living under worsening conditions, and still need help. From Ground Zero is an unforgettable exhibition of the human spirit.” Monica Castillo, RogerEbert.com

We asked our volunteers to pick films to show this month and this is one of them!

With the idiosyncratic American fable HAROLD AND MAUDE, countercultural director Hal Ashby fashioned what would become the cult classic of its era. Working from a script by Colin Higgins, Ashby tells the story of the emotional and romantic bond between a death-obsessed young man (Bud Cort) from a wealthy family and a devil-may-care, bohemian octogenarian (Ruth Gordon). Equal parts gallows humor and romantic innocence, HAROLD AND MAUDE dissolves the line between darkness and light along with the ones that separate people by class, gender, and age, and it features indelible performances and a remarkable soundtrack by Cat Stevens.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

“Harold and Maude is the kind of cinema that draws you in for the storyline and keeps you there for the beating heart. It’s a film unapologetically of its time – the wardrobe, cinematography and Cat Stevens soundtrack place it firmly in the 70s – but its themes of joy and redemption resonate now more than ever.” Elizabeth Quinn, The Guardian

“Harold and Maude continues to resonate with viewers of all ages who feel a natural kinship with misfits and oddballs, and many claim it has changed their lives forever.” Pat Saperstein, Variety

FREE SCREENING! Constructed from a wealth of archival footage, KING: A FILMED RECORD...MONTGOMERY TO MEMPHIS is a monumental documentary that follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1955 to 1968, in his rise from regional activist to world-renowned leader of the Civil Rights movement. Rare footage of King's speeches, protests, and arrests are interspersed with scenes of other high-profile supporters and opponents of the cause, punctuated by heartfelt testimonials by some of Hollywood's biggest stars. This cinematic national treasure was restored by the Library of Congress, in association with Richard Kaplan, and utilizing film elements provided by The Museum of Modern Art.

“A piece of history of immense power” The Los Angeles Times

“Stunning…the events are allowed to speak for themselves.” The New York Times

“When [young people] see this film, they will not only understand it, but will also experience it to the depths of their souls.” The Washington Daily News

We asked our volunteers to pick films to show this month and this is one of them! 40th anniversary!

Desperate to escape his mind-numbing routine, uptown Manhattan office worker Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) ventures downtown for a hookup with a mystery woman (Rosanna Arquette). So begins the wildest night of his life, as bizarre occurrences—involving underground-art punks, a distressed waitress, a crazed Mister Softee truck driver, and a bagel-and-cream-cheese paperweight—pile up with anxiety-inducing relentlessness and thwart his attempts to get home. With this Kafkaesque cult classic, Martin Scorsese—abetted by Michael Ballhaus’s kinetic cinematography and scene-stealing supporting turns by Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O’Hara, and John Heard—directed a darkly comic tale of mistaken identity, turning the desolate night world of 1980s SoHo into a bohemian wonderland of surreal menace.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

“Martin Scorsese’s After Hours mines urban anxiety to unsettling yet often hilarious effect.” Budd Wilkins, Slant Magazine

“Scorsese’s orchestration of thematic development, narrative structure, and visual style is stunning in its detail and fullness.” Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

“It’s not that they don’t make comedies like After Hours anymore. The fact is there’s never been a comedy quite like this one.” Peter Travers, People Magazine

Join us for this special fundraiser screening of Howard Hawks's classic screwball comedy, BRINGING UP BABY. The proceeds from your $25 ticket will go towards our relocation, plus you'll get to see one of the funniest movies ever made with an audience.

Screwball sparks fly when Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn let loose in one of the fastest and funniest films of all time—a high-wire act of invention that took American screen comedy to new heights of absurdity. Hoping to procure a million-dollar endowment from a wealthy society matron for his museum, a hapless paleontologist (Grant) finds himself entangled with a dizzy heiress (Hepburn) as the manic misadventures pile up—a missing dinosaur bone, a leopard on the loose, and plenty of gender-bending mayhem among them. BRINGING UP BABY’s sophisticated dialogue, spontaneous performances, and giddy innuendo come together in a whirlwind of comic chaos captured with lightning-in-a-bottle brio by director Howard Hawks.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

For all of our fundraiser screenings, if you see a “Sold Out” message on the ticketing page it means we sold all of our 68 seats. We’ll start a wait list for door sales, but no guarantees we’ll have extra tickets.

“If you catch me on the right day and ask what I think the best comedy of all time is, it’s very likely I’ll say it’s 1938’s screwball classic Bringing Up Baby.” Sara Michelle Fetters, MovieFreak.com

“Hawks [keeps] his performers busy with a torrent of one-liners and physical comedy moves that only the extremely talented could even hope to grapple with. It’s perfect.” Phelim O’Neill, The Guardian

“Countless films have imitated Bringing Up Baby, but it is futile to look for its equal.” Angie Errigo, Empire Magazine

30th anniversary!

2029: A female cybernetic government agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi, and the Internal Bureau of Investigations are hot on the trail of "The Puppet Master," a mysterious and threatening computer virus capable of infiltrating human hosts. Together with her fellow agents from Section 9, Kusanagi embarks on a high-tech race against time to capture the omnipresent entity. Director Mamoru Oshii's award-winning cyber-tech thriller, based on the manga by Shirow Masamune, is lauded as one of the greatest and most influential anime movies of all time.

In Japanese with English subtitles.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

“Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell will always strike a chord with those directly affected by bodily displacement. By being brave enough to confront its themes of identity, Ghost in the Shell stands tall as one of the very best films ever made about being an alien in your own skin.” Willow Maclay, Rogerebert.com

“This is a work of profound and melancholic beauty; every bit as essential in the 21st century as it was in the 20th.” Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

20th anniversary!

Two young men are haunted by similar events from their past, though the effects manifest themselves in very different ways, in this powerful drama from director Gregg Araki. Neil is a rebellious teenager who engages in risky behavior. Brian is a socially awkward young man who suffers from blackouts and is convinced that he was abducted by aliens. As their paths converge, the painful truth about their shared past gradually comes to light.

Featuring unforgettable performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet (director of THE BRUTALIST), MYSTERIOUS SKIN is a poignant, sensitive, and deeply moving story about sexual abuse and its long aftermath.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

“A complex and challenging emotional experience.” Roger Ebert

“Mysterious Skin is infused with remarkable tenderness and beauty.” A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“The movie sugarcoats nothing, but it doesn’t revel in its own darkness either. It sheds a clear, compassionate, illuminating light.” David Ansen, Newsweek

"In the heart of every victim is a hero and he'll tear apart a city to prove it..."

A tough ex-cop goes on a citywide rampage when his daughter is mistakenly kidnapped by a racist, scumbag psycho. This slab of analog glory is 100% non-stop action as our protagonist violently bounces from here to there encountering corrupt cops, his ex-wife, pimps, prostitutes, bouncers and street gangs along the authentically seedy strips of late 70s New York in his quest to find his daughter. We gotta warn ya, with language and violence reaching face-melting levels, this one isn't for the faint of heart.

“It’s a B-movie plot with A-level production values, as well as one of the scuzziest major releases of that era. Best of all, the film is also a glorious love letter to late-’70s New York City — back when the Big Rancid Apple was littered with graffiti-strewn subway trains and dingy sex parlors, the South Bronx looked like someone dropped a nuke, and it all felt like one huge, wonderful, degenerate cesspool…” Shock Cinema Magazine

“Unfortunately, this movie is not available on [modern] home video…And what’s even more unfortunate, that in spite of the racist, pervy antagonist meeting his doom, the social discomfort of this movie may ensure that it never sees the light of day in any official release… Four stars.” Medium.com

Never released on DVD! Only on VHS! Only $3!

Join us for a special screening of the film that inspired our cinema's name—Jean Renoir's humanist masterpiece, THE GRAND ILLUSION! For $25 you get to see one of the all-time greatest films ever made and help us relocate.

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin), grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim), who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu. In French, German, Russian with English subtitles.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

For all of our fundraiser screenings, if you see a “Sold Out” message on the ticketing page it means we sold all of our 68 seats. We’ll start a wait list for door sales, but no guarantees we’ll have extra tickets.

“One of the true masterpieces of the screen!” Pauline Kael

“If I had only one film in the world to save, it would be Grand Illusion.” Orson Welles

“All the democracies of the world must see this film.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

HAPPY CHEW YEAR! Our tenth and eleventh encore screenings!! The last chances to catch the beavers at our current space.

In this 19th century, supernatural winter epic, a drunken applejack salesman must go from zero to hero and become North America’s greatest fur trapper by defeating hundreds of beavers.

Created by Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, the duo behind the modern cult hit LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER (2018).

Named one of the 10 best movies of 2024 by Ty Burr of The Washington Post and Amy Nicholson of The Los Angeles Times.

“Starts strange, gets stranger, and yet remains resolutely adorable… embraces the defiant glee of art cinema and distills it into something so thoroughly pure and sincere that it is surely hard not to fall in love with it.” Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Alliance of Women Film Journalists

“It’s sure to develop a significant cult following with its unique mix of silent-era slapstick, animation elements, theme-park-style critter costumes, and general air of inspired absurdity.” Dennis Harvey, Variety

“Steroidally swollen with gags and smarts.” Guy Maddin

We asked YOU to pick a film for us to show this month and this is what won!

Maybe the New Wave’s most anarchic entry, Vera Chytilová’s absurdist farce follows the misadventures of two hedonistic young women, both name Marie (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová). Believing the world to be “spoiled,” they embark on a gleefully debauched odyssey of gluttony, giddy destruction, and antipatriarchal resistance, in which nothing is safe from their nihilistic pursuit of pleasure. Matching her anarchic message with an equally radical aesthetic, director Chytilová and cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera unleash an optical storm of fluctuating film stocks, kaleidoscopic montages, cartoonish stop-motion cutouts, and surreal costumes. DAISIES is the most defiant provocation of the Czechoslovak New Wave, an exuberant call to rebellion aimed squarely at those who uphold authoritarian oppression in any form.

In Czech with English subtitles.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

“A feminist triumph, Chytilová’s film satirizes the bourgeoisie, authoritarianism, and the patriarchy, all while being unabashedly girly.” Marya E. Gates, Cool People Have Feelings, Too

“One of the great outpourings of cinematic invention in an age of over-all artistic liberation.” Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“As subversive as it is hilarious.” Kate Muir, The Times (UK)

85th anniversary!

Romance becomes psychodrama in the elegantly crafted REBECCA, Alfred Hitchcock’s first foray into Hollywood filmmaking. A dreamlike adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel, the film stars the enchanting Joan Fontaine as a young woman who believes she has found her heart’s desire when she marries the dashing aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter (played with cunning vulnerability by Laurence Olivier). But upon moving to Manderley—her groom’s baroque ancestral mansion—she soon learns that his deceased wife haunts not only the estate but the temperamental, brooding Maxim as well. The start of Hitchcock’s legendary collaboration with producer David O. Selznick, this elegiac gothic vision, captured in stunning black and white by George Barnes, took home the Academy Awards for best picture and best cinematography.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

“A gorgeous treat from one of cinema’s masters. Not to be missed.” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“An altogether brilliant film, haunting, suspenseful, handsome and handsomely played.” Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times

“Tense, engrossing and deliciously deceitful.” David Parkinson, Empire

40th anniversary!

H.P. Lovecraft and Lucio Fulci did not team up to make the most amazing gore-sex grotesquerie of 1985. But thanks to RE-ANIMATOR, they didn't have to. Feeling like an amalgam of FRANKENSTEIN, THE BEYOND, and REVENGE OF THE NERDS, RE-ANIMATOR is where science meets chaos to produce an hyperactive overdose of gruesome insanity.

Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is a new student at Miskatonic University. He also moonlights as a mad scientist, intent on perfecting a serum that “re-animates” corpses. Soon, everyone wants a piece of the action, including an evil professor and his army of slime-covered deadites. With berserker direction from Stuart Gordon, career-defining roles from horror icons Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs, and a scene of two adults chasing an undead cat in a basement, RE-ANIMATOR isn’t just a masterpiece of the horror genre -- it’s a masterpiece of life.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

“Re-Animator is splatter heaven. Based on the sci-fi novel by H.P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator’s gore is exceeded only by its wit.” Paul Attanasio, The Washington Post

“It’s simply the best, funniest Grand Guignol horror picture to come along in ages.” Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

Join us for this special fundraiser screening of Giuseppe Tornatore's CINEMA PARADISO. The proceeds from your $25 ticket will go towards our relocation, plus you'll get to see one of the most beloved films ever made.

Funny, moving and unabashedly sentimental, CINEMA PARADISO swept the world’s major film awards, reinvigorated Italian cinema, and has become a true classic.

Young Salvatore Di Vita discovers the perfect escape from life in his war-torn Sicilian village: the Cinema Paradiso movie house, where projectionist Alfredo instills in the boy a deep love of films. When Salvatore grows up, falls in love with a beautiful local girl and takes over as the theater’s projectionist, Alfredo must convince Salvatore to leave his small town and pursue his passion for filmmaking.

Told in flashback, with a gorgeous score by maestro Ennio Morricone and a legendary ending montage, CINEMA PARADISO is a love letter to the movies, community, and the power of art to give meaning to our lives.

Note: We are screening the 124 minute award-winning 1990 international release version.

Part of our Farewell to 1403 series.

For all of our fundraiser screenings, if you see a “Sold Out” message on the ticketing page it means we sold all of our 68 seats. We’ll start a wait list for door sales, but no guarantees we’ll have extra tickets.

“An alluring blend of postmodern self-referentiality and old-fashioned sentimental nostalgia, [it] plays like a parable or a fable, a paean to the inspirational power of the moving image.” Mark Kermode, BFI Player

“This is one of the finest films about innocence ever made.” Camilla Long, Sunday Times (UK)

“Both emotional and sentimental, Cinema Paradiso shows nostalgia for the mythical magic of collective movie-going in the past, before the age of television, when movies were the main source of entertainment.” Emanuel Levy