Starring: Irene Bedard, Mel Gibson, Linda Hunt, Christian Bale, Joe Baker, Billy Connolly

This is the Disney animated tale of the romance between a young American Indian woman named Pocahontas and Capt. John Smith, who journeyed to the New World with other settlers to begin fresh lives. Her powerful father, Chief Powhatan, disapproves of their relationship and wants her to marry a native warrior. Meanwhile, Smith’s fellow Englishmen hope to rob the Native Americans of their gold. Can Pocahontas’ love for Smith save the day?

Starring: Noriko Hayami, Minori Terada, Kiriko Shimizu, Nobutaka Masutomi, Rie Nakagawa

A tale of two broken souls. A call-girl named Yumi, “night-blooming flower,” and Tetsuro, a married man with a debt to the yakuza, have a violent rendezvous in a cheap love hotel. Years later, haunted by the memory of that night, they reconnect and begin a strange love affair. Determined to finish what they started, they return to the scene of their first macabre passion.

With a taste for wicked absurdity and coursing with undercurrents of operatic emotion, at times verging on a musical, Love Hotel is moved by the irrational forces that attract two bodies together. It’s a film with a uniquely materialist sense of eros manifested in Shinji Somai’s long takes, each shot a tightrope-like predicament flushed with earthly tension and live-wire physicality. Made in the same year as Typhoon Club, this elegiac erotica is one of Somai’s most bewitching and unnervingly romantic works, the high-water mark of Nikkatsu Studio’s legendary Roman Porno cycle of films.

Starring: Anne-Louise Lambert, Vivean Gray, Helen Morse, Jacki Weaver, Margaret Nelson, Rachel Roberts, Jane Vallis, Jenny Lovell

4K restoration

This sensual and striking chronicle of a disappearance and its aftermath put director Peter Weir on the map and helped usher in a new era of Australian cinema. Based on an acclaimed 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock is set at the turn of the twentieth century and concerns a small group of students from an all- female college who vanish, along with a chaperone, while on a St. Valentine’s Day outing. Less a mystery than a journey into the mystic, as well as an inquiry into issues of class and sexual repression in Australian society, Weir’s gorgeous, disquieting film is a work of poetic horror whose secrets haunt viewers to this day.

Starring: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, James Gandolfini, Gina McKee

Introduction and post-screening book sales and signing by Jason Bailey, author of the new biography Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend

James Gandolfini displays his impressive but unappreciated flair for comedy in this 2009 political satire from director Armando Iannucci. Spinning off of his British television smash The Thick of It, and including several of that show’s funniest characters (particularly the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications Malcolm Tucker, played with foul-mouthed zeal by Peter Capaldi), Iannucci skewers relations between the U.S. and the U.K. in the run-up to the Iraq War. The film would serve as the bridge between The Thick of It and Iannucci’s U.S. hit Veep, featuring several of the latter show’s stars as well (including Anna Chlumsky, Mimi Kennedy, David Rasche and Zach Woods). The Academy Award-nominated screenplay was penned by Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong (who would go on to create Succession), Simon Blackwell (Peep Show) and Tony Roche.

When a group of students at Columbia University in New York launch a movement protesting the war in Gaza, they spark a nationwide uprising in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Encampments spring up at hundreds of campuses as students object to their own university’s investment in the US and Israeli arms industry. Featuring detained student activist Mahmoud Khalil, The Encampments takes viewers inside America’s student uprising with incredible intimacy and urgency. Professors, whistleblowers, and student activists shed light on a moment that captivated the nation’s attention and continues to make headlines today.

Plus Guy Maddin Rare Shorts, selected by Guy Maddin for live accompaniment by The Flushing Remonstrance

This special program of films was personally selected by Guy Maddin for all-new scores composed and performed by The Flushing Remonstrance, NYC’s premier group devoted to live film accompaniment.

Maddin’s 2003 gothic silent film/ballet Dracula: Pages From A Virgin’s Diary is “arguably the finest adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel ever filmed … A gorgeously expressionistic fantasia that will appeal even to viewers with zero interest in ballet.” (Mike D’Angelo, AV Club).

Dracula is presented here along with three rare Maddin shorts – Odin’s Shield Maiden, Only Dream Things and Saint, Devil, Woman [Séance] – all with live accompaniment.

“What an unearthly experience, these new scores! The flow! The darkness! The beauty!
 A dreamy-dream-dream! SUBLIME!” – Guy Maddin

Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, Daria Nicolodi

An American (Jennifer Connelly) at a Swiss finishing school calls on insects to help a paralyzed scientist (Donald Pleasence) fight a monster.

Starring: Shô Kosugi, Lucinda Dickey, Jordan Bennett, David Chung, Dale Ishimoto, James Hong

“I know the lady’s beautiful, but don’t forget the funeral!”

Where do you take the third installment of a successful martial arts series? If you are notorious Cannon Films producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the answer is to throw in a dash of aerobics and the supernatural!

Ninja III: The Domination starts out with a bang (or about several rounds of gunfire’s worth) when a ninja rampages a golf course and is taken down by cops. Christie Ryder (Lucinda Dickey of Breakin’) tries to help the dying ninja, but instead becomes possessed by his vengeful spirit. No amount of cardio or V8 can protect her from the compulsive urge to hunt down and kill those cops! Maximum absurdity is enhanced by a goofy soundtrack – it’s the most fun you can have watching a movie.

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Don Baker, John Mahoney, Steve Zahn, Swoosie Kurtz, Winona Ryder

The Future of Film is Female celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Gen-X malaise classic REALITY BITES, and honors the work of its writer, Helen Childress, and editor, Lisa Zeno Churgin. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.

“There are many ways to peg the twentysomething generation, but none funnier, more accurate or less pretentious than by using the details that stick to characters like a second skin in REALITY BITES. On their college graduation day, the film’s heroes — Lelaina, Vickie, Troy and Sammy — gather on a rooftop in Houston to smoke cigarettes, drink beer and sing ‘Conjunction Junction,’ a Saturday-morning cartoon snippet that helped educate them. Higher education is fine, but as a life-shaping experience it’s just no match for television.

Lelaina (Winona Ryder) is the center of the film and of its romantic triangle. An aspiring filmmaker and her class valedictorian, she is taping a documentary about her friends. The audience sees snippets of this throughout “Reality Bites,” a technique that offers a visual tie to the MTV generation without becoming intrusive. ‘I kind of made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t think about where it was going to end up,’ Lelaina says of her film. ‘I didn’t want to unintentionally commercialize it.’ That’s not a problem REALITY BITES has, and that mainstream sleekness accounts for a great deal of its charm. This film is SLACKER without the slackness, intentionally commercial and breezily entertaining.

REALITY BITES is directed by the comedian Ben Stiller with a sure comic touch and a feel for the texture of lives that are pretty much all texture and no forward drive. This generation has the overwhelming sense that ambition is wasted on the old. Helen Childress, the 23-year-old screenwriter, perfectly captures the slightly defensive wit of people like Lelaina, who can hold up a giant soft-drink cup and announce, ‘The most profound, important invention of my life: the Big Gulp.'” –Caryn James, The New York Times, Feb. 18, 1994

Doc N Roll Film Festival Presents

Having Fun with A**h*les: The Greatest Band No One Knows tells the story of The Giraffes, a native New York City band. The documentary delves into their nearly 30-year career, highlighting their raw beginnings, tumultuous experiences, and unwavering passion for creating and performing rock and roll music. Despite their dedication and drive, the band has not achieved the same level of success as similar artists they shared the stage with, such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Strokes, Interpol, and many others from the early 2000s New York City music scene. Yet, The Giraffes continue to record and perform all over the country, with a small but loyal fan base showing up.

The documentary captures the essence of what it means to be a passionate musician in an ever-changing industry. It celebrates the spirit of perseverance and the joy of making music for the love of it. Having Fun with A**h*les is a testament to the band’s enduring legacy and their relentless pursuit of their rock and roll dreams.