Starring: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter van Eyck, William Tubbs, Véra Clouzot, Folco Lulli
4K restoration
In a squalid South American oil town, four desperate men (Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, and Peter van Eyck) sign on for a suicide mission to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over a treacherous mountain route. As they ferry their explosive cargo to a faraway oil fire, each bump and jolt tests their courage, their friendship, and their nerves. The result is one of the greatest thrillers ever committed to celluloid, a white-knuckle ride from France’s legendary master of suspense, Henri-Georges Clouzot.
Starring: Libe Barer, Ariela Barer, Chelsea Alden, Dylan Arnold, Travis Tope, Kimiko Singer, Molly Hagan, Ricky Wayne, Diana DeLaCruz, Wayne David Parker
Followed by a Q&A with writer/director Anna Baumgarten and actors Libe Barer, Ariela Barer, Dylan Arnold, and Chelsea Alden. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.
To everyone’s surprise, “Jane the Brain” flunks her final college class and retreats to her Michigan hometown by the lake. Her parents, sister, townie friends, and an old high school crush soften the burden of failure, and it’s long before this misstep feels more like an opportunity at one last care-free summer vacation. She rekindles a friendship with her neighbor Amber, a single mother with a difficult toddler, and utilizes her skills as a linguistics student–including American Sign Language–to help Amber connect with her son. Despite her best efforts, however, Jane can’t keep the real reason that caused her academic disruption bottled up. She struggles with imposter syndrome, and her PTSD boils over. With the support of those around her, Jane unravels herself and starts the never-ending process of healing.
Starring: Elizabeth Yu, Emma Raimi, Maya Schnake, Taylor Kinkead, Billy Chengary, Ryder McDaniel
The Future of Film is Female presents the New York premiere of Lauren Loesberg’s YEAR ONE. To make a $10 donation to the Red Cross, in support of those affected by the LA fires, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.
Make an additional donation to the Red Cross
Ruby’s freshman year of college doesn’t go as planned. Despite her best efforts, she struggles to make friends other than her complicated roommate, Selene, and experiences both academic and social rejection. But Selene bears problems of her own when her severe anxiety and inability to care for herself seep into Ruby’s everyday life. Soon, Ruby finds herself in a downward spiral, marked by dreams and the appearance of her glamorous alter ego, Ruby II, who begins to live the life that Ruby thinks she is expected to have.
Starring: Toni Collette, Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie
From the Academy Award-winning writer/director of Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, Mickey 17. The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living.
Starring: Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Sebastian Hansen, Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Coolidge, Kate McKinnon, Jemaine Clement
Welcome to the world of Minecraft, where creativity doesn’t just help you craft, it’s essential to one’s survival! Four misfits—Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Momoa), Henry (Hansen), Natalie (Myers) and Dawn (Brooks)—find themselves struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they’ll have to master this world (and protect it from evil things like Piglins and Zombies, too) while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter, Steve (Black). Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative… the very skills they need to thrive back in the real world.
Starring: Robert De Niro, Cosmo Jarvis, Debra Messing, Kathrine Narducci, Matt Servitto
Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, a pair of Italian Americans who run two separate crime families in the mid-20th century. Genovese attempted to assassinate Costello in 1957, although Costello retired from the mob.
Starring: Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Ann Dowd, Constance Wu
Based on the bestselling novel, writer and teacher Iris (Watts) finds her comfortable, solitary New York life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor (Murray) leaves her his beloved 150 lb. Great Dane. The regal yet intractable beast, named Apollo, immediately creates practical problems for Iris, from furniture destruction to eviction notices, as well as more existential ones. Yet as Iris finds herself unexpectedly bonding with Apollo, she begins to come to terms with her past, and her own creative inner life in this story of healing, love, and friendship.
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Tom Burke, Pierce Brosnan, Naomie Harris
When his beloved wife Kathryn is suspected of betraying the nation, intelligence agent George Woodhouse faces the ultimate test – loyalty to his marriage or his country.
For the first screening of 2025, The Future of Film is Female presents an essential documentary about motherhood, witches, and mental health by Elizabeth Sankey. To make a $10 donation to Baby2Baby, supporting children and families affected by the LA fires, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.
Make an additional donation to Baby2Baby
Witches are figures of solace in this intimate documentary, which unravels the social stigmas that women have endured across centuries. Between affecting interviews and vividly illustrative film clips, Elizabeth Sankey concocts a potion that brims with courage, compassion, and healing insight.
“Ushering her own long-standing obsession with movies to the fore, Sankey draws on a wealth of footage spanning the entirety of film history- with clips as far ranging as THE WIZARD OF OZ , GIRL, INTERRUPTED, and ROSEMARY’S BABY – to make that point that our shared cultural representation of witches says a lot more about how we view women, motherhood, and mental health. Sankey places her own personal experiences alongside interviews with academics and other women with shared experiences within a larger historical context that relates back to the witch hunts of past centuries and up to the way contemporary cultural norms continue to fail women. Witches functions simultaneously as stirring personal testimony, critical ode to cinephilia, and a vital feminist history lesson” .––Cara Cusumano, Tribeca Festival
Before Witches, we’ll screen a short written and directed by FOFIF filmmaker Richa Rudola:
COW HEAVY AND FLORAL (2024)
A postpartum writer struggles to make a deadline as she experiences an identity crisis between her various personas. (15 min)
We’re calling on a pair of franchise players to lead Anime After Dark into 2025 with a secret double feature of small screen icons making a splashy leap to the big screen. We can’t tell you the titles we’re playing, but you know the names of these two after-school superheroes – beyond the hundreds of episodes of television and thousands of comic book pages, they’ve starred in a total of 18 feature films.
Franchise anime films are a mixed bag at best – especially ones from this era (we’re in the 90s this month), but these two outings represent the form at its best: punchy standalones with blockbuster spectacle, dazzling animation and loads of non-canonical whozwhatery.
Clues
❓Feature One is Movie 1.
❓Feature Two is Movie 12.
❓This is the second Anime After Dark feature for the director of Feature One, who went on from this project to create a magical girl franchise of his own.
❓Feature Two comes from a journeyman who first brought Saint Seiya to film and later Street Fighter Alpha and Digimon. He directed 93 episodes of this franchise’s TV series (bulk of the series, dude).
❓Keywords: Flowers, bubbles, magic, muscles, fusion, lost loves, Hitler
