Japan/1954—directed by Akira Kurosawa | 207 minutes, with one intermission

In 16th century Japan, a small village is regularly plundered by bandits until a group of unemployed samurai agree to train the defenseless farmers into a dedicated army of resistance. Kurosawa’s masterpiece—newly restored in high-resolution 4K for its 70th anniversary celebration—is one of the most brilliant and immersive battle epics ever filmed, and a timeless fable about responsibility, bravery, and character.

Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura head the mammoth cast, and Kurosawa’s unfailing eye brings out the distinctive traits of each character. It’s an electrifying experience, restored at last to its original visual splendor.

In Japanese with English subtitles.

“Akira Kurosawa’s epic masterpiece has been widely imitated, but no one has come near it.” —Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

2022/France—directed by Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger | 80 min.

Ernest and Celestine return in this delightful and joyous follow-up to their first Academy Award®–nominated adventure, which introduced a bear and mouse as the unlikeliest of friends.

Ernest remains an ursine troubadour dedicated to a life of music and art, and his constant grouchiness is softened by the creative whims of his mouse friend Celestine. When she accidentally breaks his beloved violin, they must take a long voyage to Ernest’s country of Gibberitia, home to the only artist who can repair it.

But when they arrive, they are shocked to discover that all forms of music have been banned in Gibberitia for many years, and a land once known across the world for its incredible musicians has fallen silent. It is up to Ernest and Celestine and their new friends, including a mysterious masked outlaw, to bring music and happiness back to the land of bears.

In French with English subtitles. For families with children 7 and up.

USA/2023—directed by Ryan Martin Brown | 78 min.

Drew (Colin Burgess) is approaching the end of his 20s and, with it, his relative youth. Anxious to make a positive change, he quits his cushy desk job to discover the way to “embrace life.” — but after cycling through friends, hobbies, and goals, Drew finds he’s confused about his newfound freedom.

Shot in just 10 days on the streets of New York and featuring an ensemble of the city's young comedy vanguard, Brown's debut feature is a sparkling and risky little comic surprise, set in the midst of America's "Great Resignation," about the search for purpose and joy in the modern world.

“Eloquent and beautifully articulated. Free Time feels like the promising beginnings of a new era in NYC indie filmmaking.”  —Jordan Raup, The Film Stage

The brand-spanking-new 2024 edition of CatVideoFest is just what the doctor ordered: a hand-selected, carefully curated collection of the most entertaining, inventive, and hilarious cat videos of the year.

An underground sensation that has packed theaters for years, CatVideoFest is a joyous communal experience that surprises and charms—a downright celebratory event on the DFT’s big screen. Tickets go quickly, and advance purchase is recommended.  In English and Feline. For all ages. (73 min.)

“When the history of this era is written, the primacy of a certain type of cat video will be recognized and celebrated ... If you don’t understand the appeal, no explanation will illuminate you.” —Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

(France/1967 — directed by Jean-Pierre Melville)

In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a modern contract killer with samurai instincts. After carrying out a brilliantly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer.

Le Samouraï is both a magnificently stylized masterpiece of elegant cool, and a razor-sharp blend of suspenseful American-style gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture, with a healthy dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology. This stunning new 4K restoration was lovingly created from the original 35mm camera negative. In French with English subtitles. (105 min.)

“A masterpiece. Delon’s role-of-a-lifetime revolutionized the action genre.” –Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine

France/Italy/Belgium/Poland/ 2023 – directed by Giacomo Abbruzzese | 91 min.

Aleksei (Franz Rogowski) is a young Belarusian on the run from a past he desperately wants to bury. He joins the French Foreign Legion, which promises him the possibility of French citizenship. At the same time, far away in the Niger Delta, Jomo (Morr Ndiaye) is a revolutionary activist, engaged in armed struggle to defend his community and his future.

Their destinies intertwine in the most unexpected of ways. Described by Sight & Sound as “bold, visceral and phantasmagorical,” this striking new psychological drama won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, 2023 Berlin Film Festival. In French, Russian, Igbo, Polish, and Nigerian English.

“A visually thrilling, ambitious, and distinctly freaky adventure. A movie that dazzles you and carries you along with its storytelling.” —Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

USA/2016—directed by Barry Jenkins

Jenkins’s narrative spans the childhood, adolescence, and adulthood of a Black man who survives a drug-plagued Miami, finds love in unexpected places, and discovers the possibility of change within himself.

One of the great American films of this millennium, Moonlight offers a powerful sense of place, a wealth of richly conceived characters, and a feeling for the possibilities of cinematic storytelling that remind us how great movies can elevate the soul.

The brilliant ensemble cast includes André Holland, Trevante Rhodes, Naomie Harris, and Mahershala Ali. Winner of Academy Awards® for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali), and Best Picture of the Year. (111 min.)

“It just needs to be watched and embraced, as an entirely fresh example of the power that great movies can exert on our lives.” —Peter Howell, Toronto Star

USA/2021—directed by Questlove

In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson fashioned a joyful and transporting documentary — part music film, part historical record — created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture, and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park) in New York.

Incredibly, most of the footage was largely forgotten–but no more. Summer of Soul shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being, and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of injustice, past and present. Including concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension and many more. Academy Award® Winner, Best Documentary Feature; Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival. (118 min.)

“A music documentary like no other. What it’s really about is a key turning point in Black life in America.” –Owen Gleiberman, Variety

One of two musical entertainments featuring all-Black casts released by major Hollywood studios in 1943, Stormy Weather has a traditional movie romance plot — but what really matters in this incredible film is the cast and musical numbers.

The great Lena Horne, whose performance of the title song is one for the ages, is only one of the brilliant talents on screen; there's also Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Katherine Dunham and her dance company, Dooley Wilson (Casablanca’s piano player), and the astonishing Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold, performing what may still be the greatest dance number in movie history (their tap shoes are on display in Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971, at the DIA through June 23). (78 min.)

“Remarkable… five minutes into Stormy Weather, you’re hooked.” — Donald Bolgle, Blacks in American Films and Television

Come at 7 p.m. to see local Detroiter and piano legend Sugar Chile Robinson perform a solo boogie-woogie overture before the screening.

Inspired by the themes of this year’s Mighty Real Queer Detroit biennial, I’ll Be Your Mirror: Reflections of the Contemporary Queer, is a program of LGBTQ+ documentary shorts curated by filmmaker Adam Baran. Drawn from films produced during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ll Be Your Mirror assembles an intergenerational portrait of queer lives in these increasingly perilous times.

You’ll visit the sites of early rights rebellions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, experience a punk rock fairytale in Florida, observe three elders grappling with their place in the world, and witness firsthand lives filled with beauty, joy, and hard-fought freedoms, balanced against backgrounds of isolation, climate catastrophe, racism, and transphobia.

Out of the Corner of Our Eye

• USA/2023 — directed by John Ira Palmer (11 min.)

Out of the Corner of Our Eye asks what queer space looks like—and might mean—today. This poetic documentary reflects on seven iconic, formerly queer spaces in Los Angeles that are no longer what they were, including a lesbian community haven, a research center funded by a pioneering trans man, and the custom-built home of America's first well-known drag performer.

How to Carry Water

• USA/2023 — directed by Sasha Wortzel (16 min.)

This punk rock fairytale doubles as a portrait of Shoog McDaniel—a fat, queer, and disabled photographer working in and around northern Florida’s freshwater springs. For over a decade, McDaniel's photographs have transformed how a fat-phobic society views fat bodies. The film immerses audiences in a world of fat beauty and liberation, in which marginalized bodies—including bodies of water—are sacred.

Compton’s ‘22

• USA/2022 — directed by Drew de Pinto (16 min.)

In August 1966, three years before the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, sex workers and drag queens in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood rioted against police violence at the all-night diner Compton's Cafeteria. There was no news coverage, and the arrest records no longer exist. Decades later, trans historian Susan Stryker interviewed the surviving Compton’s Queens, including professional drag performers and those who identified with terms like girls, queens and hair fairies.

Queenie

• USA/2020 — directed by cai thomas (20 min.)

Queenie is a 73-years-young Black lesbian who has lived in The Marcy Projects in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood since 1988; now, she’s ready to move to a building that meets her mobility, safety, and social needs as an aging elder. She applies to Stonewall Residences, New York's first affordable housing for LGBT elders, hopeful she’ll be able to live out her final days in a place she can call home.

The Girl That Got Away

• USA/2023 — directed by Lauren Veen & Ephi Stempler (14 min.)

After four decades playing tough guy roles, a Mexican American actor in San Francisco must choose whether to continue presenting as male or come out as female and risk losing job security and family acceptance.

Merman

• USA/2023 — directed by Sterling Hampton IV (10 min.)

A 58-year-old Black queer man speaks about his life as an emergency nurse, leather titleholder, and civil rights advocate.

Bigger on the Inside

• USA/2022 — directed by Angelo Madsen Minax (11 min.)

From an isolated wooded cabin, a trans man stargazes, Scruff-chats with guys, watches YouTube tutorials, takes drugs, and lies about taking drugs—feeling his way through a cosmology of embodiment. Bigger on the Inside probes the boundaries between interior and exterior, to consider bodily insides as passageway and portal to the immensity of longing.

Presented in partnership with Mighty Real/Queer Detroit.