Films

Now Playing

Space Is the Place

Directed by John Coney
(USA, 1974, 85 minutes, in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

Calling planet Earth! “Jazz on Film” presents a special 50th-anniversary screening of the Afrofuturist classic Space Is the Place. This unique iteration of Ra’s musical concepts and social commentary is a blend of science fiction B-movie, blaxploitation flick, and concert documentary.

Friday, June 14, 2024

7 p.m.
International Sweethearts of Rhythm | Maxine Sullivan: Love to Be in Love

Directed by Greta Schiller and Andrea Weiss
(USA, 1986, 80 minutes, in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, 16mm

This screening presents two short documentaries by filmmakers Greta Schiller and Andrea Weiss that spotlight often unsung women of jazz.

Saturday, June 15, 2024

7 p.m.
Jazz Films by John and Faith Hubley

Directed by John and Faith Hubley
(USA, 1957, 80 minutes, in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

Between the 1950s and 1970s, animators John and Faith Hubley made their own independent films with intelligence, passion, humor, and great music. Their poetic sensibility and whimsical, impressionistic visual style fit perfectly with jazz music.

Friday, June 21, 2024

7 p.m.
Let’s Get Lost

Directed by Bruce Weber
(USA, 1988, 119 minutes, in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital restoration

In the 1950s, Chet Baker’s jazz trumpeting, intimate crooning, and pretty-boy good looks epitomized West Coast cool. When photographer Bruce Weber caught up with him three decades later, time and drug addiction had ravaged Baker’s life and angelic beauty.

Saturday, June 22, 2024

7 p.m.
Disco Boy

Directed by Giacomo Abbruzzese
(France/Italy/Belgium/Poland, 2023, 92 minutes, in Ibo, French, English, and Polish with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

In this stylish feature, a Belarusian immigrant (the charismatic Franz Rogowski) is haunted by his actions as a mercenary in the French Foreign Legion.

Sunday, June 23, 2024

5 p.m.
Power Alley (Levante)

Directed by Lillah Halla
(Brazil/Uruguay/France, 2023, 92 minutes, in Portuguese and Spanish with English subtitles)
Lynn Wyatt Theater, digital

This gripping Brazilian drama weaves a tale of personal struggle and societal challenges. Set in São Paulo, it follows Sofia, a spirited teen volleyball player from a modest background, whose life takes a dramatic turn when she faces an unwanted pregnancy.

Friday, June 28, 2024

7 p.m.

Sunday, June 30, 2024

5 p.m.
The Boy and the Heron (Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka)

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
(Japan, 2023, 124 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles, except for the July 7 screening which is dubbed in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

Winner of the 2024 Oscar for Best Animated Film and over a dozen international awards, this latest film from Studio Ghibli follows young Mahito, who moves to his family’s countryside estate after losing his mother.

Friday, July 5, 2024

7 p.m.

Saturday, July 6, 2024

7 p.m.

Sunday, July 7, 2024

2 p.m.

Thursday, July 11, 2024

7 p.m.

Coming Soon

Classe tous risques

Directed by Claude Sautet
(France, 1960, 109 minutes, in French with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital restoration

Claude Sautet’s first major feature stars Lino Ventura as Abel Davos, a wanted man in Italy, who stages a robbery in order to get money to relocate his family. As the losses mount and the noose tightens, Davos must decide when to call it quits.

Saturday, July 13, 2024

7 p.m.

Sunday, July 14, 2024

6 p.m.
Divine Intervention (Yadon ilaheyya)

Directed by Elia Suleiman
(France/Morocco/Germany/Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2002, 92 minutes, in Arabic, English, and Hebrew with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

Writer/director Elia Suleiman stars in this collection of cinematic vignettes capturing the absurdity of everyday life under occupation. The dark comedy pokes fun at tragic situations in ironic, imaginative scenes about garbage, neighbors, and dating.

Friday, July 19, 2024

7 p.m.
Le samouraï

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
(France, 1967, 105 minutes, in French with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital restoration

An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean‑Pierre Melville, Le samouraï is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology.

Saturday, July 20, 2024

7 p.m.

Sunday, July 21, 2024

5 p.m.
Chicken for Linda! (Linda veut du poulet!)

Directed by Sébastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta
(France, 2023, 73 minutes, in French with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

This very French animated feature is a unique visual marvel of hand-painted animation with bright, color-blocked characters and a story that is an intoxicating blend of slapstick comedy, musical, and family drama.

Friday, July 26, 2024

7 p.m.

Saturday, July 27, 2024

7 p.m.
The Makioka Sisters (Sasame-yuki)

Directed by Kon Ichikawa
(Japan, 1983, 140 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, 35mm

Adapted from the 1948 literary classic by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters follows the lives of four siblings who have taken on their family’s kimono manufacturing business in the years leading up to the Pacific War.

Sunday, July 28, 2024

5 p.m.

Sunday, August 4, 2024

5 p.m.
Evil Does Not Exist (Aku wa sonzai shinai)

Directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
(Japan, 2023, 106 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles)
Lynn Wyatt Theater, digital

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning Drive My Car is a foreboding fable on humanity’s mysterious, mystical relationship with nature.

Thursday, August 1, 2024

7 p.m.

Friday, August 2, 2024

7 p.m.

Saturday, August 3, 2024

7 p.m.
Pictures of Ghosts (Retratos fantasmas)

Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho
(Brazil, 2023, 93 minutes, in Portuguese with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

The latest from celebrated director Kleber Mendonça Filho delves into the coastal city of Recife’s historical and human fabric, focusing on its iconic movie theaters that once served as hubs of social interaction during the 20th century.

Friday, August 9, 2024

7 p.m.
Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa
(Japan, 1954, 207 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, 4k digital restoration

One of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, Seven Samurai tells the story of a 16th-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits.

Saturday, August 10, 2024

5 p.m.

Sunday, August 11, 2024

2 p.m.

Sunday, September 1, 2024

2 p.m.
Man Ray: Return to Reason

Directed by Man Ray
(France, 1923, 70 minutes)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Le Retour à la raison, Sqürl, the Jim Jarmusch-Carter Logan combo, presents Man Ray: Return to Reason, with a newly recorded drone rock soundtrack for all four films. The band’s cosmic sounds complement Ray’s work by conjuring the beautiful, ineffable, haunting, and sublime.

Friday, August 16, 2024

7 p.m.

Saturday, August 17, 2024

7 p.m.
Aurora Picture Show Summer Filmmaking Camp World Premiere

Directed by various directors
(USA, 2024, 100 minutes)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

Walk the red carpet for Aurora’s annual Summer Filmmaking Camp World Premieres event, where young filmmakers’ visions come to life on the screen! This free screening showcases a wide range of creative short films made by Houston kids and teens (ages 7–15) through Aurora’s summer youth education program.

Saturday, August 17, 2024

1 p.m.
Green Border (Zielona granica)

Directed by Agnieszka Holland
(Poland/USA/France/Czech Republic/Belgium/Germany/Turkey, 2023, 147 minutes, in Polish, Arabic, English, and French with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

Along the treacherous forests (“green border”) between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa are lured by government propaganda promising easy passage to the European Union. Instead, they find themselves trapped in an escalating geopolitical standoff. Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland indelibly captures the migrant crisis in stark black-and-white, from multiple perspectives …

Sunday, August 18, 2024

2 p.m.

Sunday, August 25, 2024

2 p.m.
Best of the 2023 Ottawa International Animation Festival

Directed by various directors
(Various countries, 2023, 71 minutes, in original languages with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital

For adult audiences

The annual Ottawa International Animation Festival curates a selection of short films, both award winners and audience favorites, for the touring Best of Ottawa Program. The lineup of 10 short films highlights cutting-edge achievements in the art of animation, representing the myriad styles, techniques, and perspectives that animation is uniquely capable of realizing.

Friday, August 23, 2024

7 p.m.

Saturday, August 24, 2024

7 p.m.
Nostalghia

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
(Russia/Italy, 1983, 126 minutes, in Italian and Russian with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, 4K digital restoration

Newly restored in 4K from the original camera negative, this cult favorite is a mystical and mysterious collision of East and West, shot with the tactile beauty that only Tarkovsky can provide. Film critic J. Hoberman observed that “Nostalghia is not so much a movie as a place to inhabit for two hours.”

Friday, August 30, 2024

7 p.m.

Saturday, August 31, 2024

7 p.m.