Welcome to an exciting new year of great film... ...including epics, classics, modern classics, maverick directors, and edgy challenges. We’re introducing you to works that will widen your idea of what film can be and excite you about its possibilities. Our major venue is the Randall Museum (199 Museum Way, near the Castro). We show a film about once a month at the Dolby Screening Room (100 Potrero Avenue), the original sponsors of Cine/Club beginning in 1998! The year begins with Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table, a look at the life of acclaimed New Zealand novelist Janet Frame by one of the island’s most important filmmakers. Each year we offer a few big, ambitious films; films that we hope will turn you on to the virtues of great filmmaking. This year we feature four major films, each of very different in subject matter: Fellini’s La Dolce Vita takes you on a fantastic ride into the Rome of the 1960’s, when the film industry there was in its most dynamic years. Klimov’s Come and See, on the other had, is one of the greatest war films, following a teenager’s journey as a foot soldier on the Russian front in World War II. It’s emotional breath and depth has seldom been equaled. The third, Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev, is one of the greatest films ever made about the Middle Ages, with breathtaking filmmaking and spectacle. It follows a gifted artist through the major events of his life. Lastly, our Christmas film is Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, a mixture of reality and fairy tale that is a favorite of past students. This year we’ve chosen several films that give intimate, personal looks into people and their relationships, focusing on the emotional depth film can bring you. We consider these films contemporary classics and we think you’ll love discovering them: Christoffer Boe’s Reconstruction, Jan Troell’s Everlasting Moments, Wong Kar Wai’s 2046, Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother, Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mama Tambien, Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies, and Peter Weir’s Dead Poet’s Society. In November, we’ve strung together four political films: Peter Watkin’s Punishment Park, (1960’s anti-war movement), Come and See (WW II), Mathieu Kassovitz‘s L’Haine (racial politics in Paris) and Robert Altman's Nashville (1960’s counter-culture). To top it off, we’re starting the year with Terry Gillian’s Brazil, a wildly popular film about a dystopian future run fascist state. In March we’re offering a month of films from Asia: Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (India), Yimou Zhang’s Ju Dou (China), and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (Japan). Each film is a popular classic that offers a glimpse into another culture. Then we’ve got our two silent-era comedies, each epic in their own way. Buster Keaton’s The General covers the Civil War with hilarious daredevil antics, while Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush is set against the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. Both show their directors at the height of their artistic careers. We’ve also given you a few films by genuine mavericks, filmmakers whose unique style separates them from others: Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven), David Lynch (Elephant Man), Roy Anderson (Songs from the Second Floor), and Alfred Hitchcock (The 39 Steps). We want to remind you that you are always welcome to bring friends, your siblings, and even your parents! (You can always pretend you don’t know them…) We also want to explain the PARENTAL WARNING blurbs on some of the films. We don’t believe in talking down to our students. We think most of you are perfectly capable of understanding adult themes, and are not freaked out about nudity in films. This is one of the main reasons we discuss the films as a group afterwards. That said, some of the films we show do involve a frankness about sex or nudity that less sophisticated students might find disturbing, so if you’d be offended, don’t show up. That’s why we have a PARENTAL WARNING sign on them. These films are probably too much to handle for someone under 12 unless they are truly sophisticated and have seen similar films at home with their parents.

sf Art & Film     rchase@chaseartfilm.com     415 864 2026     540 Alabama Street    SF, CA 94110