2023 | Dir: Aki Kaurismäki

Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and the first film in six years from Finland’s renowned Aki Kaurismäki (The Man Without a Past, Leningrad Cowboys Go America), Fallen Leaves follows Ansa and Holappa, two lonely people in dead-end jobs who meet at a karaoke club, followed by a first date in a movie theater, and onward toward romance — or not?

Kaurismäki’s films are sometimes described as deadpan, but that does them a disservice; he portrays his off-kilter characters with a deep empathy and affection.

In Finnish with English subtitles. (81 min.)  

“Kaurismäki’s beguiling and delightful cinephile comedy is romantic and sweet-natured, with springtime in its heart.” –Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Okaidja Afroso was born into a family of musicians and storytellers in the town of Kokrobite on the west coast of Ghana. He began his career as a dancer with the celebrated Ghana Dance Ensemble. As he toured internationally Afroso expanded his artistic reach, becoming a master multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and arranger.

His genre-defying songs, often performed in his native language, convey a range of experiences—joy, tragedy, and hope—and embrace what he calls “the rich complexity of the integrated world we inhabit.”

Through his distinctive style, which combines percussion instruments, vocals, guitar, and dance, Afroso explores ancestral traditions and creates a new, contemporary African oral tradition. This performance is in conjunction with the exhibition James Barnor: Accra/London—A Retrospective. 

Dinner to follow the AAW lecture with Bobbye Tigerman on Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890–1980

• 5:30 p.m. Reception, Great Hall
• 6:30 p.m. Public lecture, Lecture Hall
• 7:30 p.m. Members-only Dinner, Rivera Court

Bobbye Tigerman, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will look at the design exchanges between the US and the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) during the 20th century, featuring accounts of Scandinavian designers who immigrated to the United States; Americans who studied or worked in Nordic countries; the ambitious campaigns to market and export Scandinavian design to American consumers, and the American and Nordic figures who championed sustainable and accessible design practice.

• 5:30 p.m. Reception, Great Hall
• 6:30 p.m. Public lecture, Lecture Hall
• 7:30 p.m. Members-only Dinner, Rivera Court

Sponsored by the Ida and Conrad H. Smith Fund.

Dir. Rodrigo Moreno, 2023

Timid bank clerk Morán (Daniel Elías), fed up with his middle-management  job, walk into the vault, pack a bag with enough cash to get him to retirement, and walks out.

He knows there are security cameras, and the police are coming, so he stows the cash with his coworker Román (Esteban Bigliardi), who grudgingly agrees to hold onto the money until Morán gets out of prison in three and a half years, or so he hopes.

Moreno takes this familiar heist plot structure and builds out a very different kind of film, with pastoral interludes, characters whose lives mirror and double back, and more.  

“This is a deadpan comedy which strides off down its own confident, eccentric path…”  —The Guardian
 

France/Italy/1963 | Dir: Jean-Luc Godard

Godard’s foray into lush color and CinemaScope moviemaking stars the great Michel Piccoli as a screenwriter caught in a tangle of deceit and ambition between a difficult, demanding director (Fritz Lang), a crude, snarling American producer (Jack Palance), and his disillusioned wife (Brigitte Bardot), as he attempts to doctor the script for an adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey.

A pillar of the French New Wave, Godard’s cinematography with its sun-soaked settings, dazzling seascapes, and complex color scenes, are spectacularly refreshed in a dazzling new restoration. In French, German and Italian with English subtitles. (104 min.) 

“A masterwork…a many-layered odyssey of intelligence and sensuality.” –Phillip Lopate, The New York Times
 

The Recognizing Women Project is a monthly community workshop that uses dance, theater & music to illustrate our stories & experiences of the women in our lives. Join us every first Friday in November, December and January to discover our common understandings, while co-creating them into a live culminating performance that illustrate the wisdom, power and passion of the women that have touched our lives.

Who can participate? Daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, great-grandmothers, great-grandfathers… anyone who knows a woman is invited to participate.

How do you participate? Share your stories, experiences and perspectives through our monthly workshops on November 3, December 1 and January 5.

Want to be a part of the culminating March 22, 2024 performances? Join the monthly workshops and our rehearsals.

November Workshop

The next community workshop & creation process is Friday, November 3 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Kresge Reception.

Space is limited and registration is required.

Choreographer, anti-racist organizer, and inter-spiritual practitioner Nathan Trice is the founder and artistic director of nathantrice / RITUALS Dance. Theater. Music. performance group. He has been in residence at Brooklyn’s historic Billie Holiday Theater for nearly 20 years, with a mission to develop residencies and performances that reflect the importance of empathy, compassion, and social understanding.

In 2001 Trice created the Recognizing Women Project in response to being raised by women and a deep fascination of the power, stamina, and wisdom that live in their stories. The Recognizing Women Project has been committed to developing residencies and performances about women by gathering local community, young adult and adult female dancers, with students and practitioners of the social sciences, to work as a research analysis team. The project’s goal is to explore the commonalities in women’s experiences across generations, and present these findings through discussions and performances. 

The Recognizing Women Project will be presented in four monthly workshops (November, December, and January) beginning with this event in October and culminating in a full-stage performance on Friday, March 22, 2024, during Women’s History Month.

Who can participate? Daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, great-grandmothers, great-grandfathers… anyone who knows a woman is invited to participate.

How do you participate? Share your stories and perspectives through the monthly workshop experience.

1st Inquiry:  As a son or daughter, what is the most memorable obstacle we witnessed our mothers navigating? Without our mothers saying it, could you see, in their eyes, the complexity and weight of that obstacle?

Space is limited and registration is required.

Mexico/1951 |Dir. Emilio Fernández

Rarely screened in the United States, Victims of Sin (Victimas del pecado) displays Fernández’s unique blend of film noir, intense melodrama, and explosive musical numbers. Cuban-born acting-dancing sensation Ninón Sevilla brings mind-blowing energy to the role of Violeta, a cabaret performer who adopts the abandoned child of Rita (Rita Montaner) and Rodolfo (Rodolfo Acosta), her murderous, swaggering pimp.

Motherhood forces Violeta to give up her career, but kindhearted club owner Santiago (Tito Junco) pulls her back from poverty and prostitution—until Rodolfo, freed from prison, swears to reclaim his son.

Fernández charges Victims of Sin with the impassioned power of Sevilla, fusing her energy with the gleaming nighttime images of legendary cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. In Spanish with English subtitles. (84 min.)

“Brilliant! Ninón Sevilla, whose emotional dial is permanently cranked to 11, blows everyone else off the screen.” —Farran Smith Nehme, The Village Voice
 

Japan/1954 | Dir. Akira Kurosawa

Consistently called one of the best movies ever made, with an influence on movie-making that resonates to the present day. In 16th century Japan, a small village is regularly plundered by bandits until a band of unemployed samurai agree to train the defenseless farmers to fight.

Kurosawa’s masterpiece is one of the most influential battle epics ever filmed, and above all a timeless fable about bravery, friendship, and character. This special screening will be introduced by Linda Hoaglund, translator for the film’s 2006 revised English subtitles. (207 min. with one intermission)

“One of the greatest of all films.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times