As part of Midtown Detroit's annual Noel Night celebration, the Detroit Film Theatre will present Manual Cinema's take on Dickens’s holiday classic with an inventive shadow play adaptation, first performed in December 2020.

Aunt Trudy has been recruited to channel her late husband's famous holiday cheer by performing his annual puppet show over a Zoom call. As she becomes absorbed in her version of the story, it transforms into a stunning cinematic rendering of Dickens’s classic ghost story.

Italy/2021-directed by Guiseppe Piccioni | 125 min.

Picture this: it's 1938, Ascoli Piceno. It’s an ordinary day in a provincial town like so many others in Italy. The tables are set and Luciano has just opened his restaurant. Behind the large windows overlooking the old town square, the small town life in those years happen. These are the years of consent, public works and new cities. Luciano is a fascist, like the majority of Italians at that time, but in his own way.  What he cares about are his restaurant and the daily tasks to which he diligently dedicates himself. Until one day outside the restaurant window, a young woman appears and timidly asks him if he is looking for staff.  But that young woman has a secret. 

The Italian Film Festival USA is the largest festival dedicated exclusively to Italian film in the USA, present in 14 cities from coast to coast. The 2022 edition brings you the best line-up of recent Italian cinema with films from award-winning directors, as well as debut films from exciting new talent. This is your chance to see the latest and best in Italian film. 

Presented in partnership with the Consulate of Italy in Detroit.

The DFT’s popular annual screenings of the British Arrows—those uniquely creative “adverts” of British television assembled into a feature-length program screened in select cinemas worldwide—were forced to pause during COVID. Now the Arrows are back on the big screen, in a program that combines the best of 2022’s winners with the highlights we missed in 2021.

The compact storytelling that’s possible in films of only a minute or two provides endless surprises—some of the winners are sharp and effective public service messages, others extol the virtues of beloved brands of tea, ale and chocolate (not to mention certain inexplicably popular British breakfast foods).

Regardless of the product being sold, it’s hard to not be bowled over by the inventiveness and playfulness on display in these British advertisements, all designed to deliver a message while also providing an engaging cinematic kick. (80 min.)

France/1972—directed by Luis Buñuel | 102 min. 

Six well-to-do, sophisticated friends gather regularly to enjoy their privileged trappings of conspicuous consumption—barely giving a thought to the varying degrees of amoral behavior they casually live by daily. Without warning, their untroubled sense of security is intruded upon by a series of frustrating coincidences, plausible at first but then increasingly hilarious; no matter how well-planned their dinner parties, these folks just can’t seem to complete a meal.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, one of the indisputable masterpieces of the cinema’s wittiest surrealist, we’re delighted to present this new 4K restoration that confirms it's as astute and laugh-out-loud funny as it was half a century ago—perhaps even more so. With Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Stéphane Audran, and the great Fernando Rey. In French with English subtitles.  

“Boasts one of the best titles in movie history and a cast to match... It’s mildly amazing that this movie won an Oscar. Typically, the filmmaker told a credulous journalist that his producers had bribed the Academy.” –J. Hoberman, The Village Voice 

France/1979—directed by François Truffaut

Bed and Board was conceived as the last part of the Doinel saga, but Truffaut decided nearly a decade later to make one more visit to Antoine, this time in his thirties, to see if adulthood resulted in a less chaotic life.

Antoine’s memories of childhood and adolescence materialize through sequences from the previous films―a dazzling cinematic scrapbook of Jean-Pierre Léaud from ages 14 to 35. Ultimately, Antoine is who he’s always been, measuring the loves of his life against the romantic dreams that have never ceased to grip him. (95 min.) 

“Truffaut is a master of his art… Love on the Run is a rousing success.” -David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor

Tickets to each of Truffaut's Antoine Doinel films showing at the DIA are available separately, but for those who want the full experience, a pass to all five films to this once-only “Antoine-a-Thon” is available here for just $20.

France/1970—directed by François Truffaut | 97 min.

The fourth chapter in the chronicle of Antoine Doinel finds him on the horns of a new dilemma. Struggling to find steady work while his wife is pregnant with their first child, Antoine makes a decisive move ―he jumps into an affair with another woman, convincing himself that he’s found perfection, or at least, perhaps, an escape route.

Bittersweet, comic, wise and sobering, Bed and Board steadily takes Antoine up to the fine line that separates adolescence from actual adulthood. 

“Bed and Board is one of the most decent and loving films I can remember. If it doesn't provide the outcome we would have expected for Antoine, it will do.” -Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times 
 

Tickets to each of Truffaut's Antoine Doinel films showing at the DIA are available separately, but for those who want the full experience, a pass to all five films to this once-only “Antoine-a-Thon” is available here for just $20.

Antoine and Colette

France/1962—directed by François Truffaut | 30 min

Truffaut’s charming and inspired 30-minute update on Antoine’s first steps toward adulthood after The 400 Blows shows our young hero three years later ―living on his own in Paris and hopelessly in love for the first of many times. 

Stolen Kisses (pictured)

France/1968—directed by François Truffaut | 91 min 

This third, breezy chapter in Truffaut’s chronicle of the never-easy adventures of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud, as always) in the eventful year of 1968. Dishonorably discharged from the army and back on the streets of Paris, his new, unwisely chosen profession of private detective leads him to a myriad of comic encounters, impetuous choices, and the unending search for love.

Tickets to each of Truffaut's Antoine Doinel films showing at the DIA are available separately, but for those who want the full experience, a pass to all five films to this once-only “Antoine-a-Thon” is available here for just $20.

France/1959—directed by François Truffaut | 99 min. 

François Truffaut’s magnificent first feature was also his most personal. Told through the eyes of his cinematic counterpart Antoine Doinel (unforgettably played by 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud), The 400 Blows re-creates the pivotal experiences of Truffaut’s own difficult childhood, including oppressive teachers, the lure of petty crime and the redemption to be found at the movies.

Antoine never quite grew up (as witnessed in four sequels made over 20 years) and consequently remained the character closest to Truffaut’s heart. In French with English subtitles.  

“I have never been so deeply moved by a picture.” -Jean Cocteau 

Tickets to each of Truffaut's Antoine Doinel films showing at the DIA are available separately, but for those who want the full experience, a pass to all five films to this once-only “Antoine-a-Thon” is available here for just $20.

Bolivia/2022—directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi | 87 min. 

In the arid Bolivian highlands, an elderly Quechua couple has been living a tranquil life for years. Virginio (José Calcina) takes their herd of llamas out to graze, while his wife Sisa (Luisa Quispe) walks for miles with other local women to fetch precious water, which becomes scarcer every day due to an uncommonly long drought that threatens their existence.

Family tensions are ratcheted up by the arrival of their adult grandson Clever (Santos Choque), who brings news as well as advice: perhaps it’s time for the couple to give up the increasingly harsh burdens of their way of life and move in with family members in the nearby city of La Paz.

Now the three of them must face, each in their own way, the effects of a changing landscape and the meaning of life itself. A visually astonishing debut feature by photographer-turned-filmmaker Alejandro Loayza Grisi, this resonant drama was photographed in ravishing widescreen by Barbara Alvarez (The Second Mother). Winner, Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic World Cinema, 2022 Sundance Film Festival. In Quechua and Spanish with English subtitles. 
 

Morocco/2021—directed by Nabil Ayouch | 101 min. 

Director Nabil Ayouch drew on his own experience opening a cultural center in Casablanca for this story of a former rapper named Anas (Anas Basbousi) who takes a job teaching hip-hop in an underprivileged neighborhood. Despite differences in identity, religion, and politics, Anas encourages his young students to bond and break free from restrictive traditions in order to follow their passions.

Featuring a dynamic ensemble of first-time actors, Casablanca Beats is a vibrant coming-of-age musical with a feminist edge that transports viewers far from familiar clichés—cinematic and otherwise—about the Arab world. Official Selection, Cannes Film Festival. In Arabic with English subtitles.  

“Casablanca Beats infects the audience with the unshakable belief that a person who has self-confidence and self-expression can really change society.” -Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter