Winner of 3 Golden Globes including Best Motion Picture!

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"A beguiling tale about Hollywood's silent movie days that is itself silent, this made-in-L.A. French feature will charm cinephiles with its affection for one of the movies' golden ages." Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

Hollywood 1927. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a silent movie superstar. The advent of the talkies will sound the death knell for his career and see him fall into oblivion. For young extra Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), it seems the sky's the limit - major movie stardom awaits. The Artist tells the story of their interlinked destinies.

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"Precise, lucid and thrillingly disciplined, this story of boundary-testing in the early days of psychoanalysis is brought to vivid life by the outstanding lead performances of Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender." Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) takes the unbalanced yet beautiful Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) as his patient in A Dangerous Method. Jung's weapon is the method of his master, the renowned Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Both men fall under Sabina's spell.

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Nominated for 3 Oscars!

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"Ms. McTeer's sly, exuberant performance is a pure delight, and the counterpoint between her physical expressiveness and Ms. Close's tightly coiled reserve is a marvel to behold." A.O. Scott , New York Times

Award-winning actress Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) plays a woman passing as a man in order to work and survive in 19th century Ireland. Some thirty years after donning men's clothing, she finds herself trapped in a prison of her own making. Mia Wasikowska (Helen), Aaron Johnson (Joe) and Brendan Gleeson (Dr. Holloran) join a prestigious, international cast that includes Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Janet McTeer, Brenda Fricker and Pauline Collins.

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"Ichikawa has always been a difficult director to pin down. His work here seems to inhabit a static, novelistic space, but the final result is personal and elegantly filled out." Pat Graham, Chicago Reader

Heads turn as beautiful women in dazzling kimono glide through a cascade of cherry blossoms against a setting sun. Osaka, 1938, and four daughters of an old merchant family face all unknowing the end of a gentler way of life. Adapted from the classic novel by Junichiro Tanizaki - written as Japan burned around him during the War, even as he determined to preserve forever in his art a world he knew already lost - with director Kon Ichikawa (Burmese Harp, Fires on the Plain, etc., etc.) himself recreating the Golden Age of the Japanese Film, another world gone. A four season chronicle of Jane Austensian, Henry Jamesian, Anton Chekhovian incident, this was the director's dream for a quarter-century, and he brought to it his typically lush pictorialism and insidious black humor. Among the terrific ensemble cast, Keiko Kishi was midway through a six-decade career that included starring for Ozu and Kobayashi (and with Robert Mitchum); while Juzo Itami, multi-awarded as her husband, was about to begin a new one as director of The Funeral, Tampopo, and A Taxing Woman.

“Bodice-ripping melodrama, cloistered nuns, brilliant farce, and three hours of gorgeous music that allows big voices to let emotion rip…I can’t recommend this new Royal Opera production (the first for nearly half a century) too highly.” - Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph

Puccini’s Il Trittico, a gem-box collection of three brief operas, runs the gamut from heart-wrenching drama to madcap farce. The tragic Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica are followed by the charming Gianni Schicchi, best known for its resplendent soprano aria, “O mio babbino caro.” Lucio Gallo, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Anja Harteros, Anna Larsson and Ekaterina Siurina are featured throughout this very special evening from the Royal Opera House.

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PFC Concert Series: Everything Is Terrible! presents DoggieWoggiez! PoochieWoochiez!

Those krazed VHS-hunting pupz from Everything Is Terrible! (everyone’s favorite found footage chop shoppe) are back with their third inner-eye-opening feature — containing a feat never before attempted in either human or canine history. EIT! asks but a few simple questions: 1) “What if we made a movie composed ENTIRELY out of dog-related found footage?”; 2) ‘What if this magickal movie, made up of thousands of other dog movies, was also a remake of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 masterpiece The Holy Mountain?”; and, 3) “What if we went on the road performing an all-new “live in fur” show that picked up where Cirque Du Soleil and The Rock-A-Fire Explosion left off?” Well, let’s stop asking dumb rhetorical questions because this never-ending spiral of World-Pup winning, sunglasses-wearing, murder-solving, skateboarding pooches is real! This is it! Are you dog enough to go fetch it? ARFFFFFF!

Tickets available online with no service fees for members. $0.75 per ticket for Non-members. Tickets are free at the door.

Through an annual film festival BHRFF supports independent filmmakers, fosters dialogue and promotes action. For twelve years, volunteer committee members have selected scores of insightful and moving films they hope will encourage the community to explore and engage with critical issues. Films are followed by facilitated discussion, some led by the filmmakers themselves.

Thursday, February 16:
6:30 pm & 9 pm How to Start a Revolution (2011/UK/88min) Remarkable story of current revolutions, the power of people, and the man behind it all. Film Website
Opening Night Reception between shows

BHRFF Website

"The film's bluntness doesn't diminish the power of the nature-versus-nurture questions Eva's asking herself. Or of Swinton's harrowing portrait of parental guilt." Bob Mondello , NPR

A suspenseful and gripping psychological thriller, Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin explores the factious relationship between a mother and her son. Tilda Swinton, in a bracing, tour-de-force performance, plays the mother, Eva, as she contends for 15 years with the increasing malevolence of her first-born child, Kevin (Ezra Miller). Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, We Need to Talk About Kevin explores nature vs. nurture on a whole new level as Eva's own culpability is measured against Kevin's innate evilness. Ramsay's masterful storytelling simultaneously combines a provocative moral ambiguity with a satisfying and compelling narrative, which builds to a chilling, unforgettable climax.

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Rocket Sci-Fi Matinee: $2 admission

Reporter Audrey Ames is driving along a highway in Illinois when she is stopped by the military. She then finds out that a small town was destroyed and everyone has seemingly disappeared. She then goes to a lab run by the Department of Agriculture. While she is there she meets the lab's director, Dr. Ed Wainwright. Ed then tells her that strange things have been happening ever since he discovered that a bunch of grasshoppers managed to get into a silo containing a batch of radioactive wheat. They soon discover that the grasshoppers have grown to monstrous proportions and not only are devouring the local vegetation, but have developed a taste for human flesh as well. Now the locusts are marching towards Chicago and the military is threatening to destroy the city with the atom bomb. Can another solution to stop the monsters be found before it is too late?

Tickets available online with no service fees for members. $0.75 per ticket for Non-members. Tickets are free at the door.

Through an annual film festival BHRFF supports independent filmmakers, fosters dialogue and promotes action. For twelve years, volunteer committee members have selected scores of insightful and moving films they hope will encourage the community to explore and engage with critical issues. Films are followed by facilitated discussion, some led by the filmmakers themselves.

Double feature!

12 pm Sun Come Up (2010/USA/38 min) Pacific Islanders’ struggle to find a new home as theirs succumbs to rising seas.

12:45 pm Dirty Business (2009/USA/60min) Sobering implications of using coal in the United States. Facilitators: Re Sources and Power Past Coal

BHRFF Website

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An inspiration to George Lucas and Apichatpong Weerasethakul among others, Bruce Baillie creates films that are mesmerizing visions. Join us for what is sure to be a memorable evening. Introduced and curated by Corwin Fergus with Bruce Baillie in person.

In the pristine forests above Leavenworth, Washington, there exists a world of hidden trailheads and clandestine trails. Here a sect of outdoor enthusiasts, extreme mountain bikers called freeriders, have gone underground. They are the skate punks of the forest, unwelcome and under pressure to leave. The locations of their trails are carefully guarded secrets and the riders who ride them keep constant vigil, on the lookout for US Forest Service rangers.

PEDAL-DRIVEN is a non-profit documentary made in association with IMBA and in partnership with the United States Forest service that examines the shared philosophies of stewardship and sustainability from both sides and, ultimately, offers examples of the ways in which opposing factions can find common ground in defense of the lands that belong to us all.

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Our annual SoCial for the AwARdS of Cinema

Bellingham, WA – It’s time to dust off your tux, unwrap that gown from its dry cleaning bag and get ready for your walk down the red carpet! Bellingham’s Premier Movie Awards Party makes its third appearance with the festivities happening again this year at Pickford Film Center (PFC) at 1318 Bay Street in Bellingham.

The formal event begins at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 26. In addition to a strut on the red carpet, guests will enjoy photo opportunities, door prizes, food catered by Ciao Thyme and a live broadcast of the 84th Academy Awards from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.

 Tickets are free, available only at the box office.

Pickford Film Center is proud to partner with ITVS and present screenings of select Independent Lens documentaries on the big screen as part of our dedication to community education and outreach.

Filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman sets off on a cross-country campaign to end Black History Month. His tongue-in-cheek journey explores the complexity and contradictions of relegating an entire group’s history to one month in a so-called “post-racial” America.

Official website 

YERT (Your Environmental Road Trip) is an adventure and a celebration of the American spirit in the face of adversity - a thought-provoking, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious, documentary about the courageous and creative individuals, groups, businesses and leaders of this country who are tackling the greatest environmental threats in history. Called into action by the ever increasing threats of planetary catastrophe (from climate change to toxic pollution, from water scarcity to habitat destruction), the three of us - Mark Dixon, Ben Evans, and Julie Dingman Evans - upended our lives, pooled our collective life-savings, and set off on a first-of-its-kind, 50-state, year-long journey of discovery to personalize sustainability and to answer a critical question: Are we doomed?

Official Website 

In May of 2010, Enbridge Inc. made an official application to build twined crude oil and condensate pipelines that would connect Alberta's Tar Sands to Kitimat, BC, and for the first time bring crude oil super tankers to BC's North Coast. In the fall of 2010, Curtis, Ryan and Faroe kayaked 900 km in opposition to this controversial pipeline.

Their journey leads them face to face with the complexity of the environmental assessment process, the difficulties local communities face in having their voices heard, and the growing resistance against the pipeline. Leaving the city behind for adventure and the exploration of the isolated and dangerous coast of British Columbia, they immerse themselves completely in one of the last truly wild places on Earth. The trio becomes deeply impacted by their experience, irreversibly entangled in the Pacific Northwest, and awakened to a world of power, politics and the question of democracy.

Official Website

"In her fearless, world-here-I-am! debut Pariah, writer-director Dee Rees demonstrates, with simplicity and verve, that there's no substitute for authenticity." Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

Adepero Oduye portrays Alike (pronounced ah-lee-kay), a 17-year-old African-American woman who lives with her parents Audrey and Arthur (Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell) and younger sister Sharonda (Sahra Mellesse) in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood. Alike is quietly but firmly embracing her identity as a lesbian. With the sometimes boisterous support of her best friend, out lesbian Laura (Pernell Walker), Alike is especially eager to find a girlfriend. At home, her parents' marriage is strained and there is further tension in the household whenever Alike's development becomes a topic of discussion. Pressed by her mother into making the acquaintance of a colleague's daughter, Bina (Aasha Davis), Alike finds Bina to be unexpectedly refreshing to socialize with. Wondering how much she can confide in her family, Alike strives to get through adolescence with grace, humor, and tenacity - sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, but always moving forward.

Official Website 

Dates are subject to change 

"What remains, in distilled form, is the poetry of violence and contempt-the source of the play's unfailing reputation for political threat and mischief." Anthony Lane, New Yorker

Caius Martius 'Coriolanus' (Ralph Fiennes), a revered and feared Roman General is at odds with the city of Rome and his fellow citizens. Pushed by his controlling and ambitious mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave) to seek the exalted and powerful position of Consul, he is loath to ingratiate himself with the masses whose votes he needs in order to secure the office. When the public refuses to support him, Coriolanus's anger prompts a riot that culminates in his expulsion from Rome. The banished hero then allies himself with his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler) to take his revenge on the city.

Official Website 

Dates are subject to change 

Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Language Film!

"BEST FILM OF 2011. Will become one of those enduring masterpieces watched decades from now." —  Roger Ebert

"It's a thrilling domestic drama that offers acute insights into human motivations and behavior as well as a compelling look at what goes on behind a particular curtain that almost never gets raised." Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Set in contemporary Iran, A Separation is a compelling drama about the dissolution of a marriage. Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and daughter Termeh. Simin sues for divorce when Nader refuses to leave behind his Alzheimer-suffering father. Her request having failed, Simin returns to her parents' home, but Termeh decides to stay with Nader. When Nader hires a young woman to assist with his father in his wife's absence, he hopes that his life will return to a normal state. However, when he discovers that the new maid has been lying to him, he realizes that there is more on the line than just his marriage.

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"An animation for jazz lovers that's every bit as good looking as it is tuneful." David Edwards, Daily Mirror [UK]

Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment. From Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas, two passionate individuals battle impossible odds to unite in music and love.

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Deep in the heart of Patagonia, Chile flow two of the world’s purest rivers, the Baker and Pascua. Fed by vast glacial systems, these free-flowing watersheds drive biodiversity in temperate rainforests, estuaries and marine ecosystems. They are also the life source for Patagonia’s most tenacious residents. Gauchos, the iconic South American cowboys, endure relentless winds and long winters on remote ranches in these river valleys.

Isolated and largely undeveloped Patagonia and its people are caught in a heated conflict surrounding a proposal to build five large hydroelectric dams on the Baker and Pascua Rivers. Promoted as “clean” energy, the project’s cultural and environmental impacts would forever alter the region. Alternatives exist. Clean energy experts are proving the viability of solar, wind and geothermal resources developed much closer to demand and infrastructure.

Over the past century more than 45,000 large dams have redefined the course and health of the planet’s rivers with disastrous impacts that continue to unfold. Tracing the hydrologic cycle of the Baker from ice to ocean, Patagonia Rising brings voice to the frontier people caught in the crossfire of Chile’s energy demands. Juxtaposing the pro-dam business sector with renewable energy experts, the documentary brings awareness and solutions to this global conflict over water and power.

The Love of Beer is a documentary devoted to the stories and passion of the women of the craft beer revolution. The beer industry is exploding, but out of approximately 50,000 craft beer workers,only a small percentage of women. However, in the Pacific NW, several women have become some of the most influential people in the brewing industry. This documentary intimately looks at their struggle to balance their love for beer with their professional and personal lives. The Love of Beer celebrates these women, dissects why there aren't more women involved, and explores what can be done to change that.

Official Website

BETTER THAN SOMETHING is an exciting and intimate portrait of Memphis-based punk musician Jay Reatard, who toured the world and released dozens of records over the course of a 15 year career that began in his mid-teens. Original and never-before-seen footage documents his self-made journey to iconic garage rock star, with colleagues, friends, and family speaking candidly about Jay's vibrant and complicated life. Jay Reatard himself - filmed just nine months before his untimely death at the age of twenty-nine - shares his experiences both on and off stage, with all the humor, savvy, and pathos one can expect from such a prolific and vital artist.

Official Website

"Seeing these four actors launching Reza's zingers at each other at high speed is pretty much worth the price of admission all by itself, and one thing you always know about Polanski is that he won't waste your time." Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

Carnage is a razor sharp, biting comedy centered on parental differences. After two boys duke it out on a playground, the parents of the "victim" invite the parents of the "bully" over to work out their issues. A polite discussion of childrearing soon escalates into verbal warfare, with all four parents revealing their true colors. None of them will escape the carnage.

Official Website

"Revealing, impressionistic peek at the creation of a new show at Paris's famed erotic dancing club." Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

Inside Paris's Crazy Horse cabaret - the most famous nude dance show in the world. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman explores one of the most mythic and colorful places dedicated to women, the Crazy Horse - a legendary Parisian cabaret club, founded in 1951 by Alain Bernardin. Over the years it has become the Parisian nightlife 'must' for visitors, ranking alongside the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. Wiseman's impeccable eye finds the Crazy Horse a uniquely French showcase, with an emphasis on elegance, perfectionism and a grueling schedule (2 shows a night and 3 on Saturdays, 7 days a week). The film shows us the rehearsals for and the unveiling of the brand new show - Désir - created by the renowned French choreographer Phillippe Decoufle.

Dates are dubject to change 

Toshiro Mifune portrays a Samurai who finds himself in the middle of a feud-torn Japanese village. Neither side is particularly honorable, but Mifune is hungry and impoverished, so he agrees to work as bodyguard (or Yojimbo) for a silk merchant (Kamatari Fujiwara) against a sake merchant (Takashi Shimura). He then pretends to go to work for the other, the better to let the enemies tear each other apart. Imprisoned for his "treachery," he escapes just in time to watch the two warring sides wipe each other out. This was his plan all along, and now that peace has been restored, he leaves the village for further exploits. Yes, Yojimbo was the prototype for the Clint Eastwood "Man with No Name" picture A Fistful of Dollars (1964). The difference is that Fistful relies on Eastwood for its success, whereas Yojimbo scores on every creative level, from director Akira Kurosawa to cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa to Mifune's classic lead performance.

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Trailer Wars is a locally founded, ongoing film competition that challenges creative types of the area to create fake movie trailers based on a set of criteria. On screening night, a bewildered yet entertained audience watches the no-budget efforts and votes on a winner, who then states the theme for the following edition. Genres thus far include Musicals, Children's Fantasy, Westerns, and Unnecessary Sequels. The event is a nominal $2, which covers only basic overhead provided by PFC, usually runs for one hour, and often contains the equivalent of R-rated material. For more information or to see past submissions, visit or write us (trailerwars[at]gmail.com, youtube.com/trailerwars, myspace.com/trailerwars).

Leopold Classic Series

"Here is Sam Fuller in top gear, as writer, director and producer, with a Western that is solidly crafted and brilliantly cast. Barbara Stanwyck is at her peak, although her peak lasted decades" Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile

Cult hero Samuel Fuller wrote and directed this visually inventive western, which didn't fare well with American audiences but earned a potent reputation with European cineastes. Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) is a despotic landowner who, with a posse of hired guns, has made herself the law of Cochise County, Arizona, with the weak-willed sheriff Ned Logan (Dean Jagger) knuckling under to her demands. One day, Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan), a one-time gunfighter turned United States Marshall, arrives with his brothers Wes (Gene Barry) and Chico (Robert Dix) to restore democratic law and order to Cochise County. Griff soon tangles with Drummond's brother Brockie (John Ericson), though Jessica is attracted to the new lawman, and Griff finds love with female gunsmith Louvenia Spangler (Eve Brent). Griff and Louvenia marry, but on their wedding day, Brockie murders Wes, and Griff, who takes pride in the fact that he has never fired his gun since becoming a marshal, must now break his vow of non-violence.

"A subtle, gorgeous and mysterious allegory that may be Ceylan's masterwork to date." Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

In the dead of night, a group of men - including a police commissioner, a prosecutor, a doctor and a murder suspect - drive through the tenebrous Anatolian countryside, the serpentine roads and rolling hills lit only by the headlights of their cars. They are searching for a corpse, the victim of a brutal murder. The suspect, who claims he was drunk, can't remember where he buried the body. As the night draws on, details about the murder emerge and the investigators' own secrets and hypocrisies come to light. In the Anatolian steppes, nothing is what it seems; and when the body is found, the real questions begin.

Official Website

Dates are subject to change 

A documentary on the transformation of Mikhail Khodorkovsky - from a perfect socialist to a perfect capitalist and finally, in a Siberian prison, becoming a perfect martyr. Khodorkovky - the richest Russian, challenges President Putin. A fight of the titans begins. Putin warns him. But Khodorkovsky comes back to Russia - knowing that he will be imprisoned, once he returns. Why didn't Khodorkovsky stay in Exile with a couple of billions? Why did he come back? Why did he do that? A personal journey to Khodorkovsky.

Official Website

Dates are subject to change 

"Pina is, in every way, a moving experience." Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

Pina is a feature-length dance film with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009. Pina is a film for Pina Bausch by Wim Wenders. He takes the audience on a sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension: straight onto the stage with the legendary Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch ensemble, he follows the dancers out of the theatre into the city and the surrounding areas of Wuppertal - the place, which for 35 years was the home and centre for Pina Bausch's creativity.

Official Website

Rocket Sci-Fi Matinee: $2 admission

In the future, an oppressive government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers known as "firemen" to perform the necessary book burnings. This is the premise of Ray Bradbury's acclaimed science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, which became the source material for French director François Truffaut's English-language debut. While some liberties are taken with the description of the world, the narrative remains the same, as fireman Montag (Oskar Werner) begins to question the morality of his vocation. Curious about the world of books, he soon falls in love with a beautiful young member of a pro-literature underground -- and with literature itself. Critics were divided on the effectiveness of the result; some praised the unique design and eerie color cinematography by Nicolas Roeg, while others found the film's stylized approach overly distancing and attacked the central performances as unnatural. In any case, however, the film inarguably succeeds in making Truffaut's reverence for the written word abundantly clear, especially during the film's justifiably famous finale.

In the Bolshoi Ballet’s new staging of Le Corsaire, Petipa’s original choreography is revived and refreshed by Alexei Ratmansky and Yuri Burlaka to breathe new life into this production. The ballet follows Medora, a young Greek girl, and Conrad, a dashing pirate, as they journey through a tapestry of dramatic events, culminating in a shipwreck considered to be one of ballet’s most dazzling spectacles.

Official Website 

"[It] does a lot more than celebrate a great entertainer: it charts Belafonte's ceaseless activism, which has seen him stand alongside both Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela." Nick Roddick, This is London

Sing Your Song, surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte. From his rise to fame as a singer, inspired by Paul Robeson, and his experiences touring a segregated country, to his provocative crossover into Hollywood, Belafonte's groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement and impacted many other social justice movements. Rostock reveals Belafonte as a tenacious hands on activist, who worked intimately with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mobilized celebrities for social justice, participated in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and took action to counter gang violence, prisons, and the incarceration of youth.

Official Website

"Boy is the feel-good film of the year. This boy's life is a hilarious and bewitching reminder of what it's like to be young." David Michael Brown, Empire Magazine Australasia

It's 1984, and Boy (James Rolleston) is an eleven-year-old Maori boy growing up in a community of the coast of New Zealand. While Boy's village feels a bit cut off from the rest of the world, contemporary pop culture makes itself known here, and Boy and his pals are all enthralled with Michael Jackson and have nicknames drawn from popular TV shows. Boy and his younger brother Rocky (Te Aho Eketone-Whitu) -- who likes to believe he has superpowers -- are being raised by their grandmother after their mother died and their father abandoned the family. Boy likes to believe that his father is someone remarkable and has spun impressive fantasies about his adventures, but he has to adjust his expectations when Alamein (Taika Cohen) actually shows up, and Boy learns Dad spent several years in prison on charges of armed robbery. Alamein has come back to his hometown to recover some money he hid after one of his rare successful robberies, but both he and Boy are in for a surprise once they set out to find it.

Official Website 

"With its summery, Mediterranean surface, Jeanne Moreau as the ultimate femme fatale heroine and a knife-twisting tale of murderous revenge and unexpected romance, "The Bride Wore Black" is well worth rediscovering." Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

This Francois Truffaut thriller is based ona novel by William Irish (aka Cornell Woolrich), whose books had been adapted by Alfred Hitchcock on many previous occasions. Jeanne Moreau stars as a woman whose fiancé is nastily murdered by five men. Utilizing a series of disguises, the cool-customer Moreau tracks down all five culprits, sexually enslaves them, and then engineers their deaths. The ominous musical score was written by Bernard Herrmann, another frequent Hitchcock collaborator. The Bride Wore Black was initially released in France as La Mariee etait en Noir.

PFC Live Performance!

Orbothology is a collaboration between the video artists House Plants and the guitarist Ben von Wildenhaus. The audio/visual project looks at the uneasy politics that arise when American youth engage with the world through the skewed lens of youtube videos and hipsterized 'world music.' The orb takes center stage as a fetishized object of Eastern mysticism and American new ageism. The performance is both hilarious and intensely psychedelic.

Ben von Wildenhaus is a multi-instrumentalist who has performed in Bellingham groups such as Federation X, Quaalude County Country Band, and Juanita Family and Friends. He currently resides in Queens, New York. Performing on solo electric guitar, Wildenhaus works with minimal loops, hypnotic rhythms, and strange and beautiful melodies to create an aural landscape that falls somewhere between the darkness of a murderous forest and the playful seduction of Americanized belly dance music. His 2011 album Great Melodies From Around has been been featured in Spin, Magnet, and Foxy Digitalis.

From the mid-19th century onwards — against the background of industrialization, the supremacy of bourgeois values, and an intellectual climate dominated by secular materialistic and scientific positivism — art became realistic, seeking to show things as they really were — almost photographically —, rather than making them more amiable or more beautiful. An opera such as La Bohème, which talks of the fragile nature of happiness in a world of poverty, cold and disease, is an obvious example of this trend.
In La Bohème, however, the aesthetic of Verism — the Italian equivalent of the French Naturalism of Émile Zola — becomes more sentimental and the brutality of social reality is depicted less crudely than elsewhere. Four young artists live out their everyday lives amid dreams and disappointments, waiting for the event that is to win them renown, but poverty and misfortune deprive the leading characters — Mimì and Rodolfo — of the joy of mutual love. The text and music relate all this with a pleasant melodramatic tenderness with which it is easy to identify.

Official Website 

"The suspense here, derived from a true story, is excruciating and inspiring in equal measure." Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

From acclaimed director Agnieszka Holland, In Darkness is based on a true story. Leopold Socha, a sewer worker and petty thief in Lvov, a Nazi occupied city in Poland, one day encounters a group of Jews trying to escape the liquidation of the ghetto. He hides them for money in the labyrinth of the town's sewers beneath the bustling activity of the city above. What starts out as a straightforward and cynical business arrangement turns into something very unexpected, the unlikely alliance between Socha and the Jews as the enterprise seeps deeper into Socha's conscience. The film is also an extraordinary story of survival as these men, women and children all try to outwit certain death during 14 months of ever increasing and intense danger.

Official Website 

Dates are subject to change

Romeo and Juliet was Kenneth MacMillan’s first full-evening ballet, and, from its premiere in 1965, has been one of The Royal Ballet’s signature works, popular all over the world. At the beginning of the ballet MacMillan’s crowd scenes teem with life and colour. It’s a pleasure to be able to follow the characters created by members of the corps de ballet as they portray the townspeople, market traders and servants of the rival Montagues and Capulets. However, once Romeo and Juliet meet, everything else on stage can only be scenery for their story. Three great pas de deux: the meeting in the ballroom, the balcony scene and the morning after the wedding, eloquently convey the narrative: adolescent shyness and fascination; the headlong rush of love declared, and the grief of parting. The final scene in the tomb, a pas de deux with a lifeless partner, is devastating. The Royal Ballet has performed Romeo and Juliet well over 400 times, yet each performance is subtly different. Every pairing in the title roles brings fresh nuances to the young lovers’ characters, while the wealth of supporting roles, from the exuberant trio of harlots in the town square to the murderous rage of Tybalt, offers scope for dancers throughout the Company. Nicholas Georgiadis’s earthy Renaissance designs, with some of the original details recently restored, are the perfect backdrop.

Official Website

Roméo and Juliette are two young actors. They fall in love at first sight, move in together and make a baby. A love story and the founding of a home like millions of others. Except that their little boy, Adam, behaves abnormally. The young parents try hard to persuade themselves that everything is okay but, with the passing of time, they cannot delude themselves anymore : their son has a problem. Their fears are unfortunately confirmed : Adam suffers from a malignant brain tumor. From now on, war is declared. A war against illness. A war against Death. A war against despair.

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"Thrillingly ambitious, ecstatically romantic, utterly unexpected." Trevor Johnston , Time Out

Eva Green plays Susan, an expert in epidemics who, after having her heart broken, sees a patient who has lost the ability to smell anything after an unexpected crying jag. Turns out there is a small percentage of people who are experiencing emotional upheavals and then losing one or more of their senses. As she begins to research this condition, she comes to understand that the malady threatens the entire world.

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Acclaimed director Yasujiro Ozu explores the flipside of the traditional mother-daughter bond in this touching family comedy set in postwar Japan. Reluctant to marry and leave her widowed mother (Setsuko Hara) all alone, a dutiful daughter (Yôko Tsukasa) resists selecting a suitor. But her late father's friends, who are eager to see both women happy, insist on stepping in to play matchmaker.

Rocket Sci-Fi Matinee: $2 admission

Swimming near a Mexican village that has been terrorized by a sea monster, Julie Blaie (Anne Kimball), and American artist, is terrified when an object rises to the surface. It turns out to be a one-man submarine piloted by biologist Steve Dunning ('Stuart Wade' (qb)). Later an abalone diver vanishes and Julie faints after seeing the monster's eye rise from the sea. Pablo (Wyott Ordung) and Tula (Inez Palange) plot to offer Julie as a sacrifice to their gods. Pablo deliberately attracts a shark while Juilie is skin-diving, but she escapes, and her line snags an object that Steve and Dr. Baldwin (Dick Pinner) establish as part of a huge sea monster.

A classic of opera, Verdi‘s famous score is loved for its melody and its drama. David McVicar‘s immensely popular production, in period costume, brings the 15th-century court of Mantua alive: its womanizing Duke, the court jester Rigoletto bent on revenge and his daughter, Gilda, who the Duke loves but still destroys. A celebrated score of familiar music conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, and a drama of the passions of love and hate.

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Tickets are free, available only at the box office.

Pickford Film Center is proud to partner with ITVS and present screenings of select Independent Lens documentaries on the big screen as part of our dedication to community education and outreach.

U.S. Marine Sergeant Nathan Harris, 25, leads his unit to fight a ghostlike enemy in Afghanistan. Wounded in battle, Harris returns to North Carolina and his devoted wife to fight pain, addiction, and the terrifying normalcy of life at home.

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"Highlight of Israeli cinema and winner of major award at Cannes Fest, Footonote is an intelligent and complex film that's effective as a ferocious father-son Freudian drama and poignant staire of scholarship and recognition." Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik are both eccentric professors, who have dedicated their lives to their work in Talmudic Studies. The father, Eliezer, is a stubborn purist who fears the establishment and has never been recognized for his work. While his son, Uriel, is an up-and-coming star in the field, who appears to feed on accolades, endlessly seeking recognition. Then one day, the tables turn. When Eliezer learns that he is to be awarded the Israel Prize, the most valuable honor for scholarship in the country, his vanity and desperate need for validation are exposed. His son Uriel, meanwhile, is thrilled to see his father's achievements finally recognized but, in a darkly funny twist, is forced to choose between the advancement of his own career and his father's. Will he sabotage his father's glory?

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"The Bright Stream is the best new ballet I’ve seen in years. It is a perfect blend of witty, innovative choreography, sprightly music and superb performances. It deserves to stay in American Ballet Theatre’s repertoire for a long time." Colleen Boresta, Ballet-Dance Magazine

The Bright Stream originally opened in Leningrad in 1935 to great acclaim, and then transferred to the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. The ballet was a big hit in both cities, but Stalin and the official Soviet newspaper, Pravda, did not approve of it. Stalin felt that The Bright Stream was not a faithful portrayal of the life of the Soviet peasants. Would Stalin really have preferred a ballet showing the millions of peasants who died due to his policy of collectivization as opposed to a comic work which just happened to be set on a collective? One of the ballet’s librettists, Adrian Piotrovsky was sent to the gulag, never to be heard from again. The career of the choreographer and co-librettist, Fyodor Lopukhov, was ended and all performances by the composer, Dmiti Shostakovich, were terminated. Read more...

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Masahiro Shinoda's brilliant film opens with mobster Murakami just getting released from prison for murdering a member of a rival clan, only to learn that during his internment, the two syndicates arranged a truce. Not unlike the protagonist in Albert Camus' The Stranger, Murakami's motives for killing were vague and that life holds little value for him. At an illegal gambling parlor, he finds himself drawn to a mysterious waif-like young woman named Saeko (Mariko Kaga) who lives life from one thrill to the next. Though she seems remarkably adept at losing large sums of money, she asks Murakami to find games with larger and larger stakes. Soon they become involved in an intense mutually destructive relationship. High stakes gambling and racing her little sports car eventually grow tiresome, and Saeko becomes attracted to drugs. Instead of dope, Murakami offers to let her watch him kill a rival clan leader, describing it as the ultimate thrill.

Rocket Sci-Fi Matinee: $2 admission

A man driving along a lonely back road at night is suddenly startled by what he sees, and is promptly killed by something that crashes through his windshield. The next day, in the nearby town of River Falls, teenagers Carol Flynn (June Kenney) and Mike Simpson (Gene Persson) decide to go looking for her father, who didn't get home last night. They find his wrecked truck and enter a nearby cave to begin searching for him. There they find his blood-covered hat and other signs of human remains and, as they go deeper inside, suddenly get trapped in a huge web -- then they spot its maker, a spider the size of a small house. They manage to escape and alert the county sheriff (Gene Roth), who doesn't take them seriously but does heed the warning of Mr. Kingman (Ed Kemmer), the science teacher at the local high school, to bring a pest-control crew along with his deputies, and a tanker loaded with DDT. They encounter the creature, and, after losing one of their men, dispatch it with the insecticide. Kingman persuades the sheriff to bring the carcass into town so that he can arrange to have it studied, leaving it in storage at the high school recreation room, for lack of anywhere bigger to keep it. As it turns out, the creature isn't dead, just stunned. As the local rock & roll band rehearses, the giant spider comes to bloodthirsty consciousness, breaking out of the building and ravaging the town. Bullets won't hurt it -- as Kingman says, you could punch holes in it all day without hitting a vital spot -- and the town is soon cut off when the telephone lines are knocked down.

“Fille is a treasure,” says Monica Mason, Director of The Royal Ballet. Anyone who has seen this sunniest of ballets will certainly agree. With its origins in a work first seen in Bordeaux in 1789, La Fille mal gardée had been staged by several choreographers in the 19th century. Frederick Ashton brought the work into the 20th century and created an instant classic which has never left The Royal Ballet’s repertory. The simple story of Lise, her suitor Colas and Lise’s larger-than-life mother, the Widow Simone, who tries to marry her off to the simpleton son of a rich neighbor, is full of delicious comedy but also wonderful, characterful choreography. One of the greatest pleasures of Fille is the way in which the steps, though at times devilishly difficult, never get in the way of the natural, easy storytelling. The virtuoso roles of Lise and Colas combine dazzling technique with tiny, intimate details that makes their romance touching and real, while the humor of Widow Simone and the innocent Alain, more interested in his red umbrella than Lise’s charms, is delightful. Funny and touching, La Fille mal gardée is the perfect ballet for first-timers of all ages, but it is also one to which ballet-lovers will return again and again with renewed pleasure at every performance.

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Tickets are free, available only at the box office.

Pickford Film Center is proud to partner with ITVS and present screenings of select Independent Lens documentaries on the big screen as part of our dedication to community education and outreach.

Cheryl Haworth is a young woman with a big dream: to be the strongest woman in the world. As the 300-pound U.S. Olympic weightlifter prepares for Beijing 2008, she struggles with injury, confidence, and her place in a world where larger women are not readily accepted.

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Akira Kurosawa directs the black-and-white 1949 film noir Nora Inu (released in the U.S. in 1963 as Stray Dog). In his third film with Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune plays young police detective Murakami. One summer day on a crowded bus in Tokyo, his gun is stolen by a pickpocket. Rather than face the shame of reporting his gun missing, he chooses to go out and find it himself (there were not many weapons on the streets of Tokyo immediately following WWII). While trying to locate the gun, he discovers an entire criminal underworld. He is eventually helped on his journey by superior officer Sato (Takashi Shimura), who seems to suggest that the young detective is indulging in his own criminal desires. The search becomes even more desperate when Murakami finds out that his gun has been used in several crimes, including murder. He then develops an obsession with finding both the gun and the killer.

Act I: Raymonda, who is betrothed to Jean de Brienne, is celebrating her birthday. Jean, who is expected to arrive the next day, has send some presents in advance. One of these presents is an embroidered portrait of himself. First, however, Abderman arrives and tries to court Raymonda. Raymonda then dreams that Jean comes down from his portrait to dance with her, however, when she wakes up she finds that Abderman is there again to "renew his amorous proposals." Act II: The festivities continue, and Abderman asks Raymonda to dance. Then, he and his accomplices attempt to abduct her. However, at that moment Jean arrives with his brother, the King of Hungary. There is a duel and Abderman is killed. Act III: There is a feast at the castle to celebrate the marriage of the two lovers, and much dancing.

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First staged in St Petersburg in 1890, The Sleeping Beauty is the pinnacle of classical ballet: a perfect marriage of Petipa’s choreography and Tchaikovsky’s music and a glorious challenge for every dancer onstage. It is also The Royal Ballet’s signature work. To mark the Company’s 75th birthday in 2006, Monica Mason and Christopher Newton revitalized its landmark 1946 production, which re-established Petipa’s choreography, as recorded by Imperial Ballet régisseur Nicholas Sergeyev, to a scenario and staging developed by Ninette de Valois herself. With Oliver Messel’s gorgeous original designs wonderfully re-imagined by Peter Farmer, and additional choreography by Anthony Dowell, Christopher Wheeldon and Frederick Ashton, today’s Sleeping Beauty not only captures the mood of the original but shows that this is very much a living work for The Royal Ballet, growing and changing with the Company while celebrating its past.

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