Lightbox Film Center
@lightboxfilmcenter.bsky.social
Philadelphia's premier exhibitor of film & moving image art, showing repertory, nonfiction, experimental, international cinema. lightboxfilmcenter.org
We're one week away from kicking off another fall season at Bok. Lots of great films are on the horizon, beginning with Elaine May's MIKEY & NICKY. See you there!
Mikey and Nicky - NEW RESTORATION
Small-time mobster Nicky (John Cassavetes) is holed up in a fleabag motel after finding out the boss he stole money from has put a hit out on him. Terrified and with nowhere to run, he calls on Mikey ...
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Tonight at Lightbox: If one film could perfectly encapsulate the phrase "utterly bonkers," TIKI TIKI is that film.
Tiki Tiki - NEW RESTORATION
A group of monkeys, including a director loosely inspired by Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider persona, struggle through various trials and tribulations while making an epic adventure film in this psychedeli...
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THIS WEEK AT LIGHTBOX! Tuesday (7/7) - WITH HASAN IN GAZA, Thursday (7/9) - TIKI TIKI. Both screenings take place at Village of Industry & Art (320 South Broad St. Philadelphia)
TOMORROW! Werner Herzog's bleak examination of life the the American midwest. Catch STROSZEK at our temporary screening room located at the Village of Industry & Art (320 S. Broad St).
Stroszek
Can anything be more existentially bleak than the shabby slums of Berlin? “Yes!,” exclaims director Werner Herzog via Stroszek, “try Wisconsin!.” Bruno S. stars as an ex-mental patient who dreams of t...
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Catch the ultimate 1980s document of downtown NYC this Wednesday (5/27)! Philip Hartman's noir-ish indie NO PICNIC is a wild ride through pre-gentrification East Village shot in b&w by avant-garde filmmaker Peter Hutton. Hartman joins us for a post-screening conversation so don't sleep on this one!
No Picnic - NEW RESTORATION
Philip Hartman’s No Picnic is a priceless artifact of New York’s pre-gentrification East Village, with appearances by Steve Buscemi, Richard Hell, Luis Guzmán, and other fixtures of the Downtown music...
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Ready for a groovy animated cult classic that needs to be seen to be believed? Catch György Kovásznai's BUBBLE BATH this Wednesday (5/6)! Co-presented with Space Melt Cinema
Bubble Bath
Hungarian director György Kovásznai’s wildly idiosyncratic animated musical is one of the most indescribably strange, personal and totally irresistible cartoon features ever made. A walking ball of an...
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Robinson Devor's latest documentary SUBURBAN FURY is a riveting tale of political radicalization that feels eerily relevant in today's climate of division and misinformation. Screening this Sunday (4/12) at Lightbox, followed by a conversation with Producer/Co-writer Robert Fink.
Suburban Fury
Suburban Fury is a gripping portrait of Sara Jane Moore, a single mother from suburban San Francisco who, in 1975, attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. More than a historical retelling, the...
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NEXT UP! This Sunday (4/5), a memorial screening for Béla Tarr, who passed away earlier this year. Revisit Tarr's striking 1988 masterpiece DAMNATION. Showtime at 5pm.
Damnation
A mid-career masterwork by legendary Hungarian art house auteur Béla Tarr and the first of his internationally acclaimed trilogy of films written in collaboration with author László Krasznahorkai (inc...
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Our monthly Sunday Scaries program returns this Sunday (3/29) with Pupi Avati's sinister giallo THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS (1976).
The House with Laughing Windows
Rightfully taking its place amongst the greatest giallos ever made, Pupi Avati’s The House with Laughing Windows offers a uniquely eerie twist on the genre, culminating in an unforgettable ending that...
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Sabine Gruffat is a French-American artist whose films and videos have screened worldwide. Beyond Resolution: Films By Sabine Gruffat a program of short works highlighting a decade's worth of experimental animation techniques and alternative modes of storytelling screens this Sunday at Lightbox.
Beyond Resolution: Films By Sabine Gruffat
This series of films favors ambiguity and resists resolution. The nearer the gaze, the more obscure the view. Illegibility here is not an escape from politics, but a way of inhabiting it differently: ...
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Michael Almereyda's darkly comic vampire tale NADJA is a glimpse of 90s indie filmmaking at its finest. This David Lynch produced gem is long overdue for rediscovery. Catch it this Wednesday at Lightbox, co-presented with Girls Like Horror.
Nadja - NEW RESTORATION
Merging elements from Dracula’s Daughter (1936) with André Breton’s surrealist novel Nadja (1928), and fusing shimmering black-and-white 35mm with hallucinatory Pixelvision video, Michael Almereyda’s ...
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Eric von Stroheim's unfinished film QUEEN KELLY is the stuff of Hollywood legend (referenced in Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD). At long last there is a new reconstruction of the film based on von Stroheim's original scripts. Catch this epic of the silent era this Sunday (3/1) at Lightbox.
Queen Kelly - NEW RESTORATION
Queen Kelly opens in the imaginary European country of Cobourg-Nassau, sometime before the first World War, where the vain and cruel Queen Regina V (Seena Owen) obsesses over her feckless fiancé (Walt...
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A head spinning blend of archival material and modern day reenactment, Igor Bezinović's delightful FIUME O MORTE! is a tale of bumbling military aggression led by a seemingly mad despot who paves the way for Italy's fascist ascendancy. See it this Sunday (2/15)
Fiume o Morte!
Winner of both the Tiger Award and the Fipresci prize at last year’s Rotterdam Film Festival, and also winner for best film, director, and screenplay at the Adriatic Film & TV Awards, Croatian directo...
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Using central Pennsylvania's coal mining region as a backdrop for one woman's desperate escape from domestic tedium, Barbara Loden's WANDA is the high water mark of the actor/director's brief career. See it this Wednesday (2/11). Followed by a conversation with Elena Gorfinkel and Patricia White
Wanda
With her first and only feature film—a hard-luck drama she wrote, directed, and starred in—Barbara Loden turned in a groundbreaking work of American independent cinema, bringing to life a kind of char...
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Our next SUNDAY SCARIES program is happening this Sunday (2/1). Catch Dennis Christopher as a movie obsessed outcast who follows his darkest impulses in FADE TO BLACK.
Fade to Black
One of the ultimate movies about movies, and another career-defining performance for the unique actor Dennis Christopher (Breaking Away). With ample footage cut in from film classics, the ghosts of ol...
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At the age of 89, Doris Wishman — who had been working at a Miami sex shop — returned to filmmaking with the SOV oddity DILDO HEAVEN. The "Queen of Sexploitation" died shortly after its premiere but not before getting a well-deserved victory lap in the media for a wild ride of a filmmaking career.
Dildo Heaven - NEW RESTORATION
Roommates Lisa, Beth, and Tess are three young women who each share the same goal of hooking up with their respective male bosses. While their attempts at seduction get off to a rough start, their pee...
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Christian-Jaque's WHO KILLED SANTA CLAUS?, the first release by Continental Films, the sole film production company allowed to operate in German-occupied France, tells a tale of a small town beset upon by fear and paranoia in the wake of a possible murder. Screening at Lightbox this Sunday (12/21)
Who Killed Santa Claus? - NEW RESTORATION
Carolers and tinsel; the perfect setting for Christmas Eve in a snowy mountain village. But when a body is discovered, dressed as Santa, the hysteria soon spreads and accusations fly. The first film p...
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A dreamy adaptation of a 15th century fable that brought international praise to the film's director, don't miss the new restoration of João César Monteiro's SILVESTRE this Sunday (12/14)
Silvestre - NEW RESTORATION
A bewitching combinatory adaptation of the Bluebeard tale and a 15th century Portuguese fable of a damsel who disguises herself as a knight errant, Silvestre is both radically feminist and fascinated ...
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Tomorrow night (12/10), we're back with part two of our spotlight on German director Monika Treut. 1991's MY FATHER IS COMING is a delightful cross-cultural, sex positive romp through NYC featuring "post porn modernist" Annie Sprinkle.
My Father is Coming - NEW RESTORATION
Vicky (Shelley Kästner) is a German expat working as a waitress in the East Village while also dreaming of making it as an actor. She’ll have to give the performance of a lifetime when her stodgy fath...
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Jocelyne Saab was an intrepid journalist and filmmaker whose work is ripe for rediscovery. Saab's fiction feature THE RAZOR'S EDGE, set during the Lebanese Civil War, has been restored and is playing this Wednesday at Lightbox. Don't miss it.
The Razor's Edge - NEW RESTORATION
“I’ve invented places, as if by making a work of fiction about them, I could preserve them,” the Lebanese war correspondent–turned–filmmaker Jocelyne Saab said of her interest in fiction. Her 1985 dra...
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Göran Hugo Olsson's ISRAEL PALESTINE ON SWEDISH TV 1958-1989 is an incredible work of essay filmmaking built from archival materials in much the same vein as his previous THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975. See it this Wednesday (11/5) at Lightbox
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Television broadcasting debuted in Sweden in 1957. And Swedish public broadcaster SVT began covering Israel and Palestine almost from day one. In Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989, filmmaker Gö...
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Long before "locavore" and "farm to table" entered our dining vocabulary, Luc Moullet set out to uncover the fraught networks through which our food arrives on our plate. ORIGINS OF A MEAL is screening this Wednesday (10/22) at Lightbox
Origins of a Meal - NEW RESTORATION
Luc Moullet got a jump on cinematic critiques of neoliberalism with this seminal exposé of globalized, industrial farming at the moment it was taking shape. Moullet begins with a simple (if unorthodox...
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Catch the next film in our month long spotlight on French director Luc Moullet this Sunday (10/19) at 5pm. Moullet bares it all 😳 in ANATOMY OF A RELATIONSHIP, a film about a sexually dysfunctional married couple which he co-directed with his real life wife Antonietta Pizzorno.
Anatomy of a Relationship - NEW RESTORATION
Co-directed with Antonietta Pizzorno, this "sex film" is a clinical exploration of a couple working through a series of problems (intimate and otherwise) which have arisen in their relationship. By tu...
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Our month of Moullet continues this Wednesday with THE SMUGGLERS, the director's absurdist commentary on border politics, youth activism, and young love. Don't miss this overlooked classic of French New Wave cinema!
The Smugglers - NEW RESTORATION
The Smugglers is a defiantly amateurish non-adventure adventure film concerning three people off in the wilds with no skills whatsoever, made in advance of May ’68. In its terminally digressive, aggre...
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Cut from the same cloth as THE WARRIORS and THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123, NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER is a frantic chase that unfolds over the course of one evening in the decaying urban hellscape that was 1970s New York City. Take the manic ride this Sunday at 5pm at Lightbox.
Night of the Juggler - NEW RESTORATION
The grit and intensity of late-1970s New York City is depicted in stark detail in this relentlessly action-packed cult classic. Twenty-four hours of nerve-jangling tension and suspense begin when a tw...
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David Secter's nearly forgotten first feature film WINTER KEPT US WARM incorporates LGBTQ+ themes into a college campus coming of age tale — one of the first Canadian films to do so. It has also been noted as the film that inspired David Cronenberg to become a filmmaker. Screening Wednesday (9/24)
Winter Kept us Warm - NEW RESTORATION
Leaving his small town to attend the University of Toronto, introspective freshman Peter (Henry Tarvainen) finds a campus steeped in tradition waking up to the radical politics of the 1960s. Following...
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THIS SUNDAY! Delve into the fraught intersection of American history and Hollywood mythology in Alexander Horwath's epic new essay film HENRY FONDA FOR PRESIDENT. Stick around for a conversation with the filmmakers after the film.
Henry Fonda for President
The story of Henry Fonda, both on screen and off, is the story of the United States. It’s a story of democratic yearnings and violent shortcomings, traceable not only in the actor’s legendary portraya...
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The Quay Brothers' STREET OF CROCODILES is based on the work of Polish author Bruno Schulz. For their latest feature film SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS they revisit Schulz's text with a dreamy combination of live action and stop-motion animation. Don't miss it this Wednesday at Lightbox
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
A ghostly train journey on a forgotten branch line transports a son, Jozef, visiting his dying Father in a remote Galician Sanatorium. Upon arrival, Jozef finds the Sanatorium entirely moribund and ru...
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Paleobotanist Mark Brown leads you on a fascinating, heartfelt journey through an eternal garden in Pierre Creton & Vincent Barré's 7 WALKS WITH MARK BROWN. Screening this Wednesday (9/10) only at Lightbox.
7 Walks with Mark Brown
“Shows us an exquisite microcosm of existence, containing rich history, meaning, and mystery.” – RogerEbert.com Accompanied by a small crew, Pierre Creton and Vincent Barré follow paleobotanist Mark B...
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We're 2 weeks away from Lightbox's return to the Bok and the Philadelphia premiere of the latest film by Jem Cohen (INSTRUMENT, MUSEUM HOURS). LITTLE, BIG, AND FAR is a mesmerizing portrait of human emotions set against the vastness of the cosmos.
Little, Big, and Far
Austrian astronomer Karl is at a crossroads in his life and work. He finds his physicist wife growing distant and his job being reshaped by environmental crises as thoughts about science, fascism, and...
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