When punk erupted in the nation’s capital in the mid to late 1970’s, it was a mighty convergence of powerful music, friendships and clear minds. The sounds and ideas that emerged from those early years of punk/hardcore-punk continue to influence and inspire around the world. Punk the Capital captures that explosive time and situates D.C. punk history within the larger narratives of punk and rock and roll.
The film takes us through the untold story of how the DC punk scene was built from the ground up despite the “hostile environment” of Washington D.C. A legendary artist’s co-op named Madams Organ looms large in the film, as a “free space” where many great punk bands got their foothold (1979-1980). Punk the Capital includes a large amount of never before seen Super 8 footage from the co-op. From the perspective of that family-sized row house, this film dives back into an array of D.C. area bands of the late 1970’s (Slickee Boys, White Boy) and looks forward into the growth of DC’s hardcore punk scene of the early 1980’s (Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Faith).
Starring: Yûsaku Yara, Toshiko Fujita, Ichirô Nagai
Two agents – a lady-killer human and a voluptuous demon – attempt to protect a signatory to a peace ceremony between the human world and the “Black World” from radicalized demons.
Starring: Arata Furuta, Nobuyuki Hiyama, Tetsu Inada
The first feature film from the acclaimed Studio TRIGGER and director Hiroyuki Imaishi, Promare is an explosive showdown between Burning Rescue and the destructive Mad Burnish in an electrifying, explosively colorful action-adventure. Thirty years has passed since the appearance of Burnish, a race of flame-wielding mutant beings, who destroyed half of the world with fire. When a new group of aggressive mutants calling themselves “Mad Burnish” appears, the epic battle between Galo Thymos, a new member of the anti-Burnish rescue team “Burning Rescue,” and Lio Fotia, the leader of “Mad Burnish” begins.
Starring: Jim Gaffigan, Logan Miller, Samantha Mathis, Alex Karpovsky, Danielle Campbell, Anna Gunn
Seventeen-year old Philip (Logan Miller) longs to leave his small town for music school in The Big Apple. His dreams are dashed when his overbearing father, Frank (Jim Gaffigan), forbids it. In retaliation to his father’s dictatorial parenting, he sneaks away in search of a wild spring break. However, when he crosses state lines, he instead finds a charming lake community where he spots his father with another woman. Turns out, Frank lives in this town and has an entire other family. With this bizarre revelation Philip realizes he can either blow the whistle on his father’s deceit or take advantage of the surreal situation. With a well-balanced mix of comedy and drama, Being Frank offers an ensemble cast, led by the terrific Jim Gaffigan and Logan Miller, a chance to turn the heartbreaking into the hysterical.
November 9, 2005: The Queen of Pop releases Confessions on a Dance Floor, arguably her 21st Century masterpiece, which ultimately peaks at number one in 40 countries, selling over 10 millions copies… Yet another renaissance for the virtuoso of re-invention, another imperial phase in her unprecedented career…
May 21, 2006: Madonna embarks on her seventh world tour to promote the record – nine months after a highly publicized horseback riding accident. Eight broken bones be damned: the Goddess descends upon us in a million dollar disco ball – and emerges an electro-punk dominatrix, with a body as stunning, svelte, and strapping as a stallion.
Collaborating with the likes of Steven Klein, Jonas Akerlund, Stuart Price, and director Jamie King, Madonna crafted a concert of poetic perfection: adorned with a crown of thorns and hung from a diamond crucifix, she returns to her familiar motifs of redemption and salvation… versions of Get Together and Erotica embody a sophisticated elegance hitherto unseen in her finest work… astounding, sumptuous iconography envelopes history’s greatest mistress of ceremonies, as she whips her audience into a frothy, disco-frenzy… and grinds a studded pommel-horse and glittering boom box into submission…
Get on your knees, for the Queen has one but question to ask: Have you confessed?
On the occasion of Madonna’s birthday, Nitehawk Williamsburg welcomes you to an intimate, midnite screening of the Grammy Award winning The Confessions Tour: Live From London, with pre-party at Lo-Res featuring DJ Chauncey Dandridge.
Hosted by Renaissance Boy, Michele Ruiz, Carlo of Icon Project and House of Dandridge!
Starring: Sally Forrest, Keefe Brasselle, Hugh O’Brian, Herb Butterfield
Carol Williams (Sally Forrest) is a beautiful young dancer whose body, and promising career, is suddenly crippled by polio. Carol’s dance partner and fiancé, Guy Richards (Keefe Brasselle), wants to see her through her illness, but the angry, self-pitying Carol prefers to go it alone. Her father (Herb Butterfield) takes her to the Kabat-Kaiser Institute for rehabilitation, where she meets fellow patients like Len Randall (Hugh O’Brian) on her tough road to recovery.
The second feature directed by Ida Lupino, who herself had been stricken with polio as an adolescent, Never Fear is a psychologically probing look at coping with chronic illness. Co-written and co-produced by Lupino and her partner Collier Young and wonderfully shot in black-and-white by Archie Stout.
Starring: David Hockney, Peter Schlesinger, Henry Geldzahler, Ossie Clark, Celia Birtwell
An intimate and innovative film about English-born, often California-based artist David Hockney and his work, honoring its subject through creative risk-taking. Hazan creates an improvisatory narrative-nonfiction hybrid featuring Hockney, a wary participant, as well as his circle of friends, capturing the agonized end of the lingering affair between Hockney and his muse, an American named Peter Schlesinger. The result is at once a time capsule of hedonistic gay life in the 1970s, an honest-yet-tender depiction of gay male romance that dispenses with the then-current narratives of self-hatred and self-pity, an invaluable view of art history in action, and a record of artistic creation that is itself a work of art.
Starring: Marco Albrecht, Trine Dyrholm, Gro Swantje Kohlhof
Post apocalypse Europe, two years after zombies have overrun Earth, only two citadels of civilization remain in the East German towns of Weimar and Jena. In Weimar, newly infected zombies are shot on site without mercy. The Jena authorities take a more humane approach by trying to find a cure for plague victims. Vivi and Eva, in search of a more humane world are stranded in the no-mans land of the Black Forest where they have to rely on each other and nature in order to survive. But their survival has also unleashed demons from their past that they must confront.
Starring: Frank Ripploh, Bernd Broaderup, Orpha Termin
35mm print from the Yale Film Study Center
It was the film that shocked and delighted audiences the world over. It was seized by US Customs, restricted to screenings in private clubs in London and Paris and terrified the Mary Whitehouse establishment. Welcome to the aftermath of Frank Ripploh – school teacher, film director and insatiable sex addict!
Taxi zum Klo lifts the lid on the life of a constant cruiser – Frank even corrects homework in public toilets as he waits to score. One evening, he meets sweet natured Bernd, but while they are similar, the need to sleep around applies only to Frank. For how long will Bernd and Frank tolerate each other’s habits, and for how long can Frank keep his sexual orientation out of the classroom?
Starring: Günter Meisner, David Sust, Marisa Paredes
Years after committing atrocities as a torturer of interned children during the Holocaust, Nazi doctor and certified pedophile Klaus (Günter Meisner) continues to murder little boys. After a gruesomely botched suicide attempt leaves Klaus imprisoned in an iron lung, he gives up his sickening pastime. But when a mysterious teenager named Angelo (David Sust) arrives at his home claiming to be a nurse, Klaus happily hires the boy as his new attendant — a decision he soon regrets.
