For one weekend only, Nitehawk presents UNDER THE SUN, the film that shows a rare glimpse into North Korea.

“My father says that Korea is the most beautiful country… Korea is the land of the rising sun,” says eight-year-old schoolgirl Zin-mi. Despite continuous interference by government handlers, director Vitaly Mansky still managed to document life in Pyongyang, North Korea in this fascinating portrait of one girl and her parents in the year as she prepares to join the Korean Children’s Union on the ‘Day Of The Shining Star’ (Kim Jong-Il’s birthday). As the family receives instruction on how to be the ideal patriots, Mansky’s watchful camera capture details from comrades struggling to stay awake during an official event to Zin-mi’s tears at a particularly grueling dance lesson.

Nitehawk’s LOCAL COLOR presents a screening of DESERT CATHEDRAL, an innovative hybrid narrative about a real estate developer who mysteriously disappears into the desert.

Q&A with writer/director Travis Gutiérrez Senger and actor Lee Tergesen, moderated by Tilson Allen-Merry.

Utilizing actual found footage, Desert Cathedral tells the story of a broken real estate developer, Peter Collins, played by Lee Tergesen (Oz, Generation Kill, Monster), who mysteriously disappears into the Southwest in 1992, leaving behind a series of VHS tapes to his employer and family. Without the aid of the police, his desperate wife (Petra Wright) hires private investigator, Duran Palouse, played by Chaske Spencer (The Twilight Saga) to locate his whereabouts and bring him home. After the two befriend each other, Peter discovers Duran’s true identity and flees deeper into the depths of the desert where, through a cat-and-mouse chase climax, tragedy strikes.

ART SEEN presents two weekend screenings of DON’T BLINK – ROBERT FRANK, Laura Israel’s portrait of the legendary photographer and filmmaker.

Robert Frank, now 91 years old, is among the most influential artists of the last half-century. His seminal volume, The Americans, published in 1958, records the Swiss-born photographer’s candid reactions to peculiarly American versions of poverty and racism. Today it is a classic work that helped define the off-the-cuff, idiosyncratic elegance that are hallmarks of Frank’s artistry. Director Laura Israel (Frank’s longtime film editor) and producer Melinda Shopsin were given unprecedented access to the notably irascible artist. The assembled portrait is not unlike Frank’s own movies – rough around the edges and brimming with surprises and insights – calling to mind Frank’s quintessential underground movie, the 1959 Beat short, PULL MY DAISY (co-directed by Alfred Leslie). DON’T BLINK includes clips from Frank’s rarely seen movies, among them ME AND MY BROTHER and COCKSUCKER BLUES. The soundtrack includes Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, White Stripes, Yo La Tengo, Tom Waits, and more.

Come make music with the children of the night as Nitehawk’s BOOZE & BOOKS screens Tod Browning iconic DRACULA.

Books: Dracula  t-shirt giveaways courtesy of Out of Print and frighteningly fun giveaways courtesy of Universal Monsters Universe and Royal Collectibles!
Booze: An bloody inspired cocktail is in the works

Bram Stoker’s seminal horror novel Dracula has seen countless adaptations on the big screen yet none are quite as memorable as Tod Browning’s eternal classic, Dracula. Although a loose adaptation of the book, the film has shaped our idea of who or what a vampire and this is no doubt due to Bela Lugosi’s brilliant turn as Count Dracula. In it he hypnotizes a British soldier named Renfield into being his mindless slave as he travels to London and takes up in an old castle. As vampires do, he starts sucking the blood of young women until one catches his fancy. Unfortunately for her, she’s the daughter of the prominent doctor and vampire hunter Van Helsing!

Nitehawk’s BOOZE & BOOKS celebrates the 50th anniversary of Truman Capote’s novel with a screening of IN COLD BLOOD.

Books: In Cold Blood  t-shirt giveaways courtesy of Out of Print
Booze: An inspired cocktail is in the works

When the Herbert Clutter family was murdered in their small farming community of Kansas, American author Truman Capote and fellow writer Harper Lee, went to investigate. The result of Capote’s interviews with the residents, investigators, and those charged with the crime was the publication of the non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, in 1966. The film adaptation the following here shows the two ex-convicts Perry Smith and Richard “Dick” Hickock as they hatch a plan to rob the Clutters. When they discover there is no money in the house they kill the entire family in a fight of rage and flee. While on the run, they face not only the realities of their terrible crime but also their own earthly impermanence.

Part of Nitehawk’s fall CRIME series.

The Iron Mule Short Comedy Film Festival comes to Williamsburg with a lineup of six new short comedy films from such exotic places as Mexico, Canada, and… Brooklyn!

Filmmakers will be in attendance and the screening will be followed by an after-party in Lo-Res where the audience and filmmakers can mingle.

The Iron Mule is New York’s only monthly short comedy film series, screening narrative, documentary, animated and experimental comedies from around the world. In their 14+ years they have presented more than 1,100 films, including early work from many celebrated filmmakers and comedians such as Stephen Colbert, Seth Macfarlane, Lena Dunham and Aziz Ansari.

Each screening features a guest judge from the world of film, comedy, television, or the New York art scene. Hosts Jay Stern and Victor Varnado interview attending filmmakers during the show, and each screening is followed by an after-party. In addition, Iron Mule produces the “Wanna Be a Star” contest, in which an audience member is chosen to star in a new film directed by an Iron Mule filmmaker to be shown at the following month’s screening.

EMMA INSPIRED
Emma, a recent college grad, is a little behind, but she’s gonna figure it out eventually. written by Jamie Rice and Nicole Machon, directed by Nicole Machon 

It’s only a movie…it’s only a movie. Wes Craven’s THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.

Released in 1972, Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left was one of the first exploitation movies to scratch its way into public consciousness. For all its notoriety and acclaim (or disdain, depending on what circle you listen to), Last House on the Left is a strange concoction even to this day—a brutal rape-revenge movie with art house roots. Though not nearly as wretched as its reputation implies, this film still has some deeply unpleasant moments, and, despite its sloppiness and deaf tone, it’s told with a good deal of confidence by Craven.

Part of Nitehawk’s fall CRIME series.

A sociopathic preacher stalks innocent farm children in Charles Laughton’s THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.
A 35mm presentation.

Bringing Davis Grubb’s novel to the big screen, actor Charles Laughton made his only directorial feature with The Night of the Hunter. All shadows and light, the film is a beautiful juxtaposition of love and hate, quiet moment with bursts of violence, and at its most fundamental, a representation of the struggle between good and evil. And evil enters into the world of a desperate family in the form of the religious fanatic with sociopathic tendencies Harry Powell (played to eerie perfection by Robert Mitchum). A serial murderer who marries for money and then kills his brides, he marries a gullible widow (Shelley Winters) for the $10,000 her deceased husband stole. His plan gets complicated when neither of her two children will disclose the whereabouts of the fortune, they head up river to escape the preacher…but he’s always close behind.

Part of Nitehawk’s fall CRIME series.

The perfect murder goes a little insane in Clouzet’s LES DIABOLIQUES.

In this classic of French suspense, the cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, becomes the target of a murder plot hatched by an unlikely duo — his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women, brought together by their mutual hatred for the man, pull off the crime but become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle’s corpse mysteriously disappears.

Part of Nitehawk’s fall CRIME series.

A family is stalked by a sadistic criminal in the original CAPE FEAR.

TCM writes that “In the annals of screen psychopaths, there are few who can top Robert Mitchum’s Max Cady in the 1962 version of Cape Fear” and they’re right. After an eight-year prison sentence for rape, Cady one of the lawyers who sent him away. When Max finds Sam and his family, he begins a terrifying stalking spree, intending to ruin Sam’s life. Desperate to protect his wife and daughter, Sam makes every effort to send Max back to jail. But when his attempts fail, Sam realizes that he must take matters into his own hands if he wants to rid his life of Max for good.

Part of Nitehawk’s fall CRIME series.