Introverted and unqualified, Eva is unexpectedly tasked with foleying the sound for a commercial featuring a horse. As she slowly acclimates to the new job, her obsession with creating the perfect equine sounds grows into something more tangible. Eva harnesses this new physicality, becoming more confident and empowered, and lures an unassuming botanist into an intriguing game of submission. Shot on lush 16mm, PIAFFE is a visceral journey into control, gender, and artifice.

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

In German with English subtitles.

“CRITIC’S PICK! Piaffe is ideologically abstract and beguilingly weird… the film’s provocations have a playfulness and generosity that are enormously appealing.” Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

“Original and wholly captivating, Piaffe is a gender-fluid and cross-species exploration of sensual energy in all its varied forms.” Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Alliance of Women Film Journalists

“Nothing is phoned in here, everything is calibrated to a unique frequency so that even though you can trace the influence of Bette Gordon, Catherine Breillat, and Lucille Hadzhihalillovic, Piaffe is its own playful and majestic beast.” Sophie Monks Kaufman, indieWire

Experience the dark side of educational films: shorts designed to terrify you into “correct behavior!” For decades, scare films served as propaganda for compliance – and as forbidden thrills of the lowest kind. Tonight only, see rare 16mm prints of some of the most warped, heavy-handed, and infamous examples of the genre.

Shocking, lurid, and even stomach-churning, sights you can scarcely endure serve as dire warnings of a horrific fate beyond imagining! Pus-dripping doom from syphilis! The gory splatter of highway crashes! Atomic devastation! The godless threat of Communism! All of this and more could HAPPEN TO YOU!

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series and annual horror series All Monsters Attack!

Warning: this program includes uncensored scenes some may find disturbing. Recommended for mature audiences only! Co-presented by The Sprocket Society.

The Sprocket Society bids RIP to Mr. BIG with an all-16mm tribute to Bert I. Gordon, with one of his “best” early B-movie hits, plus a secret second feature, and shorts.

Fifty tons of creeping horror! In EARTH VS. THE SPIDER (1958), a tarantula the size of a house starts gobbling up residents of a tiny town! It’s up to plucky teenagers to save the day, despite their crazy lingo and mindless love of rock ‘n’ roll!

PLUS: another secret BIG classic, and spooky shorts!

Gordon, who died in March at age 100, was a jack-of-all-trades indie producer, director, screenwriter, and not-so-special effects artist. During a 35 year career, he made dirt-cheap but very profitable sci-fi, horror and fantasy cult classics like The Amazing Colossal Man, Village of the Giants, and Empire of the Ants. Mainstays of drive-ins and late-night TV, his shlocky treasures embody a lost era of movie fun.

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series and annual horror series All Monsters Attack!

Comedy shorts from the art house and underground cinema circuits of the 1960s and 1970s, all on 16mm film. A mix of favorites and forgotten gems made by ex-hippies and smartasses, with the screen debuts of several future stars, these independently produced films are hilarious examples of the last gasp of the theatrical comic short.

You’ll see spoofs of Ingmar Bergman and a certain sci-fi blockbuster; social satires on relationships, gender roles, and middle class somnambulism; skewerings of narcissistic losers (including a strangely familiar emotionally damaged president); and more. By turns zany and subtle, intellectual and goofy, stoned and straight laced — and usually with a political subtext — these shorts are sure to leave you laughing. Co-presented by The Sprocket Society.

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

Shot on tactile hand-processed black-and-white 16mm film and unfolding with the staccato rhythms of avant-garde cinema, British filmmaker Mark Jenkin’s breakthrough experimental drama marks a singular achievement: an idiosyncratic work of social realism fascinatingly pitched somewhere between documentary and political melodrama.

Martin Ward (Edward Rowe) is a cove fisherman, without a boat. His brother Steven has repurposed their father’s vessel as a tourist tripper, driving a wedge between the brothers. With their childhood home now a getaway for London money, Martin is displaced to the estate above the picturesque harbor. As his struggle to restore the family to their traditional place creates increasing friction with tourists and locals alike, a tragedy at the heart of the family changes his world. Winner of the 2020 BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a Director and Producers.

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

“A creeping, original British work that feels pounded into existence by hand, or possibly belched up by the angry sea.” Ian Mantgani, Sight & Sound

“It’s a genuine modern masterpiece, which establishes Jenkin as one of the most arresting and intriguing British film-makers of his generation.” Mark Kermode, The Guardian

Shot on 16mm color filmstock using his own Bolex H-16 SB clockwork camera, director Mark Jenkin’s ENYS MEN is a Cornish folk horror film that evokes the feeling of discovering a reel of never-before-seen celluloid unspooling in a haunted movie palace. This provocative and masterful vision of horror tells the story of a wildlife volunteer (Mary Woodvine) on an uninhabited island off the British coast who descends into a terrifying madness that challenges her grip on reality and pushes her into a living nightmare. Following his BAFTA-winning breakthrough film BAIT, ENYS MEN reasserts Mark Jenkin as one of the U.K.’s most exciting and singular filmmakers.

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

“Are its cultish mysteries for everyone? Undoubtedly not. But if there’s a place in your heart for dark, folky mind-benders that plug into the cosmic energy of remote, oceanic terrain, you should take a trip across Jenkin’s freaky landscape asap.” Philip De Semlyen, Time Out

“The kind of thing the victims in a horror film might watch, just after pulling it from the cellar of a derelict harbour cottage, and shortly before succumbing to some blood-curdling maritime curse.” Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

“Jenkin’s style is so unusual, so unadorned, it feels almost like a manuscript culture of cinema. There is real artistry in it.” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Check it out you stoners, heads, and vipers! Celebrate the 10th anniversary of legalized recreational weed in Washington state with a dank double bong hit of skunky cinema! No need to bogart, man – get both nugs for one low price!

First, mellow out with a lid of Acapulco comedy gold: Cheech and Chong’s UP IN SMOKE (1978), the first all-out stoner comedy. Burned out buddies Pedro and Man smuggle a van made entirely of marijuana from Mexico to LA, with incompetent Sgt. Stedenko (Stacy Keach) on their trail. Features the hit song “Earache My Eye”! 45th anniversary!

Then enjoy a stick of mighty mezz: a rare 16mm print of MARIHUANA: ASSASSIN OF YOUTH (1937), the infamous scare film inspired by the “gore files” of racist anti-pot narc, Harry J. Anslinger. An innocent high school girl gets mixed up with the wrong crowd, where smoking tea leads to wild all-night parties, skinny dipping, crime…and sex!! Plus stoned shorts and cartoons, also on 16mm film! Co-presented by The Sprocket Society.

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

Celebrate John Waters’ 77th birthday and the Grand Illusion’s 19th anniversary as a volunteer-run establishment with a 35mm screening of this wholly original trash art comedy epic from The Sultan of Sleaze, The King of Filth, The Duke of Dirt, The Prince of Puke, The Baron of Bad Taste…

Things get rocky at the Gravel household when paranoid Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) and her murderous maid Grizelda (Jean Hill) kill Peggy’s husband. They escape from the law, only to wind up in the crazy town of Mortville, where Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey) presides over a sleazy collection of misfits, including the vivacious Muffy St. Jacques (Liz Renay). When the Queen disinherits her daughter, Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivian Pearce), and decides she wants to infect the town with rabies, the citizens of Mortville decide that it’s time for a few changes!

Waters’ first feature made without Divine or David Lochary—the latter passed away the year of the film’s release—is a catalogue of horrors shot on 16mm that veers between comedy and disgust, or, as Waters himself described it, “a fairy tale for fucked-up children.”

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

“Unlike the Sirkian melodrama of Polyester or the period nostalgia of Hairspray, the political satire in Desperate Living is relentless and confrontational. I’ve now watched the film, joyously, at least a dozen times, but only recently did it dawn on me how disturbingly prescient it happens to be. It imagines an America that in 1977, during the early Carter years, must have seemed like preposterous parody but today [in January 2020] appears merely descriptive. Like a gaudy, gold-­plated revolver, Desperate Living points to our current political situation with unsettling aim.” Alex Halberstadt, New York Times

“I dare anyone not to take John Waters seriously after Desperate Living. He remains the visionary of camp and the den mother of the bizarre… This film is a triumphant example of the most vital bad taste in America.” Village Voice

“You could look far and wide to find a more pointlessly ugly movie than John Waters’s Desperate Living, but why would you bother?” Janet Maslin

ONE NIGHT ONLY SCREENING, 50 YEARS TO THE DAY OF THIS LEGENDARY PERFORMANCE!

This brand new feature-length concert documentary presents musical icon Carole King’s triumphant May 26, 1973 homecoming concert on The Great Lawn of New York City’s Central Park before an estimated audience of 100,000. Directed by George Scott and produced by Lou Adler and John McDermott, the film presents the complete multi-camera 16mm footage filmed and recorded by Adler in 1973 but never before released.

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

Alongside the complete performance footage is the behind the scenes story of King’s remarkable transformation from an in-demand, staff songwriter beloved for such timeless Goffin and King classics as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” to an iconic artist in her own right. The May 1973 performance captured King at her critical and commercial peak, basking in the enormous popularity of her definitive album, Tapestry.

Shy teenager Bastien experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl, Chloé, while on summer vacation with his family at a lake cabin in Quebec that is haunted by a ghostly legend. Shot on 16mm!

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

In English and French with English subtitles.

“Charlotte Le Bon’s exceptionally assured first directorial film is full of light mischief yet heavy with horror-movie mood.” Jessica Kiang, Variety

“Falcon Lake is effortlessly funny and sweet in a way that kids themselves just are sometimes, and yet the low-stakes narrative never condescends. In its own quiet and ruminative way, it’s a sweet and sharp elucidation of the agony and, well, inconsequentiality, of first love.” Steph Green, Little White Lies

“There is a wonderful collision of genres in this atmospheric cottagecore gothic that breathes new life into coming of age tropes. This story about the spark between two kindred spirits is infused with the moody 16mm visuals and menacing score of a horror film.” Laura Good, SIFF 2023 Programmer’s Pick

One of the best compilations of early “stag” footage, containing all those fabled favorites that once only saw the insides of brothels and affiliated “gentlemen’s clubs”. The earliest American stag movie known to survive, “A Free Ride” (ca. 1915), still contains seriously steamy threesome action between two commendably eager females and one ready, willing and very able male. The compilation’s true highlight is the legendary “The Nun’s Story” about a stunning Sister who sheds her habit to make genuinely passionate love with her Elvis-pompadoured boyfriend before re-donning the cloth at scene’s end. Compiled by, and featuring new stags produced by, the late great Alex de Renzy – one of the greatest erotic filmmakers of all time, with classics like FEMMES DE SADE and BABYFACE. A HISTORY OF THE BLUE MOVIE is an important and potent excursion into porno’s past.

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

PLEASE NOTE: This event is mask mandatory. Please bring a mask. There will also be masks available at the door.

*No one under 18 admitted.*

“A History of the Blue Movie is a model of its type: informative, honest, titillating. It gives the audience what it paid to see without teasing or condescending or masquerading.” Foster Hirsch, The New York Times

With two children in foster care, Gia, a pregnant single mother pitted against the system, fights to reclaim her family. In her close-knit Bay Area community, she works to make a life for herself and her kids in this singular debut feature from filmmaker Savanah Leaf, beautifully shot in 16mm.

Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

Please note: The 3:00 PM screening on Sunday, August 13 will be shown with open captions.

“CRITIC’S PICK! There are moments in Earth Mama, a drama about motherhood at its most fragile, when the movie’s quiet intensity seems to settle in your chest, as if a heavy stone had been placed over your heart.” Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Earth Mama is an unflinching, authentic portrait of when motherhood, sisterhood, and womanhood converge with class and race.” Peyton Robinson, RogerEbert.com

“A delicate stunner.” Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter

In 1941, sisters Thom and Mars have built a machine, LOLA, that can intercept radio and TV broadcasts from the future.

This allows them to listen to iconic music before it has been made, place bets knowing what the outcome will be, and embrace their inner punk well before the movement comes into existence.

But with the Second World War escalating, the sisters decide to use the machine for good to intercept information from the future that could help with military intelligence. The machine initially proves to be a huge success, rapidly twisting the fortunes of the war against the Nazis.

While Thom becomes intoxicated by LOLA, Mars begins to realize the terrible consequences of its power.

Shot on both 16mm and 35mm film. Part of our 16mm Centennial Celebration Series!

“[A] thrillingly inventive found-footage mockumentary… Shot on film, using vintage equipment, the picture has a scrappy, tactile quality, its ghostly black-and-white images scratched and scorched.” Wendy Ide, The Guardian

“LOLA is a sophisticated piece of science-fiction. Legge’s debut is a conversation-starting whirl through philosophy and strategy. Bound together by a dynamic duo of sisters, LOLA is simply breath-taking.” Kat Hughes, The Hollywood News