20th anniversary screening with rare archival 35mm print!

After bassist Jason Newsted quits the band in 2001, superstars Metallica realize that they need an intervention. In this revealing documentary, the filmmakers follow the three rock stars as they hire a group therapist and grapple with 20 years of repressed anger and aggression while searching for a replacement bass player and creating a new album confronting their personal demons.

Named one of the ten best music documentaries of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, this groundbreaking and critically acclaimed 2004 documentary, directed and produced by the award-winning team of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, takes you inside the studio and into the psyches of Metallica as they record their Grammy-winning album St. Anger.

Join us at Nitehawk Prospect Park for a rare, archival 35mm screening to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the film Roger Ebert called, “Brilliant Oscar-level documentary filmmaking. Never a dull moment… fascinating…” and NPR’s David Edelstein cited as “One of the most marvelous rock documentaries of all time…”

Starring: Amanda Flowers, Summer Greenberg, Michael Madsen, Cherie Currie, Kansas Bowling, Parker Love Bowling

Preceded by the short film The Triangular Door

Two sisters are thrown out of their isolation and onto opposite coasts of America by a terrifying cosmic entity. While one sister suffers from memory loss and the other is too young to understand her own past, the girls discover they possess supernatural powers as they are pursued by the mysterious and unearthly being hell–bent on their destruction. Spirit Riser is a genre-bending fantasy with elements of horror, comedy, action, surrealism, and martial arts from rising New York City filmmaker Dylan Mars Greenberg. 

Starring: Sakura Tange, Aya Hisakawa, Junko Iwao, Motoko Kumai, Tomokazu Seki, Megumi Ogata

Ten-year old Sakura Avalon, Cardcaptor of the elusive, magical Clow Cards, unexpectedly wins a trip to Hong Kong where strange dreams lead her to an imprisoned sorceress with close connections to the creator of the cards.

Starring: Meiko Kaji, Kayoko Shiraishi, Kuniko Ishii, Yuki Aresa, Fumio Watanabe

After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners.

Starring: Grace Glowicki, Garrick Bernard, Heather Matarazzo

Join the Future of Film is Female for a special preview screening of Mary Dauterman’s BOOGER. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.

After the death of her best friend Izzy, Anna focuses all her attention on Booger, the stray cat which she and Izzy took in. When Booger bites her, she begins to undergo a strange transformation.

Starring: Samantha Morton, Michael Shannon, Natasha Calis, Charlie Tahan, Peter Fonda

In his first film in nearly 15 years, John McNaughton harks back to the depravity that made his 1986 debut a horror milestone. But less based in reality, The Harvest is closer to a fairy tale from Grimm’s darkest corners. Maryann (an impressive Natasha Calis) moves in with her grandparents after she’s orphaned. Desperately lonely, the preteen sets out to befriend a neighboring deathly ill, bed-ridden boy (Charlie Tahan), despite the outright disapproval of his mother (Samantha Morton). Maryann’s persistence pays off, however, and during a series of secret visits she gradually uncovers some seriously sinister goings-on in the house… Morton as the boy’s overprotective surgeon mom is the stuff of great screen villainy—at once utterly monstrous and tragically desperate.

An outlier in John McNaughton’s filmography, Condo Painting is his sole documentary, focusing on the work of painter George Condo. Focusing on the creation of one particular work, the film provides Condo with a platform to express his obsessions, and includes interviews with his friends William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg.

This screening is a true rarity, with an archival 35mm print.

To celebrate the release of Vinnie Stigma’s new book The Most Interesting Man in the World, we’re screening the Agnostic Front doc The Godfathers of Hardcore, followed by a Q&A with Vinnie Stigma and a special acoustic performance.

Roger Miret and Vinnie Stigma are lynchpins of New York Hardcore (NYHC), and their band Agnostic Front played a key role in defining, shaping and establishing the sound and cultural code of conduct for the still-thriving movement. Unlike the dozens of bands that have come and gone, leaving their indelible footprint along the way, Agnostic Front are still going strong, 11 studio albums into their 30-plus year career.

In a landscape of increasing apathy and complacency, the messages Agnostic Front presents are as relevant today as they were in the ‘80s when the band members were impoverished, scrappy and ambitious, often fighting for their very survival as well as the perseverance of their volatile but highly inspirational band.

Roger and Vinnie remain the very embodiment of hardcore, representing endurance, perseverance, brotherhood, strength against oppression and the will to keep going, obstacles be damned. Agnostic Front exist on a level all their own. . . a level of their own creation.

Starring: Ben Loftus, Noah Brockman, Isabel Zaia

A trio of soon-to-be college graduates are snapped out of their ennui when a professor’s mayoral run (with promises to purge the town of “low art”) imperils their beloved karaoke bar. Shot entirely on 16mm film, this freewheeling low-fi comedy is packed with absurdity, sophistication, and razor-sharp wit.

Preceded by two short films:
Ain’t No Cure for Love: America (7 min) d. Matthew Danger Lippman
Chicago, IL. Happy hour. Andrew’s friendship with his colleague Rich nearly unravels when he clues him in to his secret obsession.

Land of Lincoln (17 min) d. Jack Dunphy
A newly sober actress endures a Thanksgiving from Hell with her aunt’s self destructive partner, and his son, a wannabe playwright.

Starring: James Duval, Susan Behshid, Jenee Gill, Gilbert Luna, Roko Belic

In his fourth and best feature, Totally F***ed Up, provocative and talented independent filmmaker Gregg Araki delves into the troubled world of gay teenagers. Araki here addresses the disproportionately high suicide rate among gay teens.

Principal among six friends, two of them a solid good-humored lesbian couple (Susan Behshid, Jenee Gill), is the lonely Andy (James Duval), an appealing youth with a James Dean look and vulnerability, who doesn’t believe love exists – until he’s swept off his feet by the handsome, slightly older but vastly more experienced lan (Alan Boyce).

Meanwhile, Andy’s pals Steven (Gilbert Luna), an aspiring filmmaker, and his lover Deric (Lance May) soon experience a crisis in their relationship when Steven strays, trying to blame it on the fact that the new guy in his life just happened to have a bootleg Nine Inch Nails tape to tempt him with. Rounding out the group is easygoing skater dude Tommy (Roko Belic).

Araki effectively punctuates his story with quotes in the manner of one of his acknowledged idols, Jean-Luc Godard, and probing interviews with Steven, who’s always poking a camcorder in his friends’ faces.