Films -February 2012

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Languages

Bosnian

Farsi

German

Polish

Russian Spanish

English

French

Japanese

Portuguese

Silent

Bosnian

In the Land of Blood and Honey
Directed by Angelina Jolie
(U.S., 2011, 127 min.)
During the Bosnian War, Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, re-encounters Ajla, a Bosnian who’s now a captive in his camp he oversees, but their once-promising connection has now become ambiguous as their motives change.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

English

Addiction Incorporated
Directed by Charles Evans Jr.
(U.S., 2011, 100 min.)
This documentary largely tracks the campaign of scientist Victor DeNoble, who in 1994 became the first whistleblower to reveal the tobacco industry’s efforts to manufacture “a maximally addictive” product.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema
Opens Fri., Feb. 3

The African Queen
Directed by John Huston
(U.K., 1951, 105 min.)
Fate, in the form of World War I and an invading German army, throws Katharine Hepburn’s stiff British missionary aboard seedy Canadian Humphrey Bogart’s decrepit, titular riverboat in the African jungle.
AFI Silver Theatre
Feb. 10 to 13

Albert Nobbs
Directed by Rodrigo García
(U.K./Ireland, 2011, 113 min.)
Glenn Close plays a woman passing as a man to work in 19th-century Ireland who, after 30 years of donning men’s clothing, finds herself trapped in a prison of her own making.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Brazil
Directed by Terry Gilliam
(U.K., 1985, 132 min.)
Terry Gilliam’s magnificently imaginative vision of a totalitarian future is both funny and shocking in its absurdist view of life under a shadowy but painfully inept Big Brother.
AFI Silver Theatre
Sat., Feb. 25, 9:45 p.m.,
Tue., Feb. 28, 9 p.m.

Carnage
Directed by Roman Polanski
(France/Germany/Poland, 2011, 79 min.)
Two pairs of parents hold a cordial meeting after their sons are involved in a fight, though as their time together progresses, increasingly childish behavior throws the evening into chaos.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Coriolanus
Directed by Ralph Fiennes
(U.K., 2011, 122 min.)
A banished hero of Rome allies with a sworn enemy to take his revenge on the city.
Theater TBA
Opens Fri., Feb. 17

Great Expectations
Directed by David Lean
(U.K., 1945, 118 min.)
David Lean delivers arguably the finest of all Charles Dickens’ screen adaptations as orphan Pip struggles to get by until an unknown benefactor provides him a generous allowance.
AFI Silver Theatre
Tue., Feb. 7, 7 p.m.,
Sat., Feb. 11, 12:15 p.m.

Haywire
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
(U.S./Ireland, 2011, 105 min.)
After a mission to rescue a hostage in Barcelona, a freelance covert operative is quickly dispatched on another mission to Dublin, where after being double crossed, she’ll have to use all of her skills to escape an international manhunt.
Area theaters

The Iron Lady
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
(U.K./France, 2011, 105 min.)
Meryl Streep stars in this surprising and intimate portrait of Margaret Thatcher, the first and only female British prime minister.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Last Tango in Paris
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
(France/Italy, 1972, 129 min.)
Marlon Brando gives the last great performance of his star-crossed career as a lost soul in Paris, despairing over the recent suicide of his wife, who begins a new and unusual affair with the much younger Maria Schneider.
AFI Silver Theatre
Feb. 17 to 23

Oka!
Directed by Lavinia Currier
(U.S., 2011, 106 min.)
Ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno travels from New Jersey to the forests of Central Africa to record the music of the Bayaka Pygmies, but decides to stay after falling in love with a Bayaka girl and her forest lifestyle.
The West End Cinema

Oliver Twist
Directed by David Lean
(U.K., 1948, 116 min.)
Orphan Oliver Twist runs away from workhouse drudgery for life on the London streets, exhilarating but dangerous, and falls in with a gang of young pickpockets.
AFI Silver Theatre
Thu., Feb. 9, 7 p.m.,
Sun., Feb. 12, 12:15 p.m.

A Tale of Two Cities
Directed by Jack Conway
(U.S., 1935, 128 min.)
Directed by Ralph Thomas
(U.K., 1958, 117 min.)
In these two different Charles Dickens film adaptations, devil-may-care Sydney Carton goes from rake to saint, making the most noble of self-sacrifices to help his friends caught on the wrong side of revolutionary fervor in France during the Reign of Terror.
AFI Silver Theatre
Feb. 6 to 8 (1935 version)
Feb. 15 to 23 (1958 version)

Things to Come
Directed by William Cameron Menzies
(U.K., 1936, 100 min.)
William Cameron Menzies’s background as an art director shines through in this stylized tale of Everytown, as the city evolves over 100 years.
AFI Silver Theatre
Mon., Feb. 20, 4 p.m.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
(France/U.K./Germany, 2011, 128 min.)
Gary Oldman stars as British spy George Smiley, the brainy anti-James Bond hero of John le Carré classic novel who must outmaneuver his Soviet nemesis in a game of Cold War espionage. (English, Russian, Hungarian and French)
AFI Silver Theatre

Transatlantic Tunnel
Directed by Maurice Elvev
(U.K., 1935, 94 min.)
The premise that a transatlantic tunnel between England and the U.S. could facilitate world peace may seem unusual today, but the videophones, big-screen TVs and streamlined cars in this film adaptation of the 1913 German novel “Der Tunnel” certainly are not.
AFI Silver Theatre
Sun., Feb. 19, 4 p.m.

Two for the Road
Directed by Stanley Donen
(U.K., 1967, 111 min.)
This road movie crisscrosses the 10-year marriage of Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney — via flashback and flash-forward — during the couple’s five road trips to the South of France.
AFI Silver Theatre
Feb. 17 to 23

The Woman in Black
Directed by James Watkins
(U.K./Canada/Sweden, 2012, 95 min.)
A young lawyer travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.
Area theaters
Opens Fri., Feb. 3

Farsi

Good Bye
Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
(Iran, 2011, 104 min.)
A young disbarred lawyer whose husband has been exiled, conveys a quiet desperation as she navigates the restrictive, male-dominated Tehran.
Freer Gallery of Art
Fri., Feb. 3, 7 p.m.,
Sun., Feb. 5, 2 p.m.

Here Without Me
Directed by Bahram Tavakoli
(Iran, 2011, 97 min.)
Bahram Tavakoli’s adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play “The Glass Menagerie” is a brilliantly acted restaging of the original’s themes within the cultural confines of contemporary Iran.
Freer Gallery of Art
Fri., Feb. 17, 7 p.m.
Sun., Feb. 19, 2 p.m.

Mourning
Directed by Morteza Farshbaf
(Iran, 2011, 84 min.)
As the two main characters — who are deaf and communicate almost entirely in sign language — bicker during a road trip, the audience learns tantalizing pieces of information about their passenger, a young relative whose parents disappeared in the middle of the night.
Freer Gallery of Art
Fri., Feb. 10, 7 p.m.,
Sun., Feb. 12, 2 p.m.

A Separation
(Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)
Directed by Asghar Farhadi
(Iran, 2011, 123 min.)
Set in contemporary Iran, “A Separation” is a compelling drama about the dissolution of a marriage between a wife who wants to leave Iran to give their daughter a better life and a husband who refuses to leave behind his Alzheimer-suffering father.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

French

Declaration of War
(La guerre est déclarée)
Directed by Valérie Donzelli
(France, 2011, 100 min.)
A young couple declares war on their child’s cancer diagnosis while wrestling with the strain it puts on their marriage.
Theater TBA
Opens Fri., Feb. 3

German

Young Goethe in Love
Directed by Philipp Stölzl
(Germany, 2010, 102 min.)
In 1772 Germany, the young and tumultuous Johann Goethe aspires to be a poet, but after failing his law exams he is sent by his father to a sleepy provincial court, where the lovely Lotte enters his life and sparks fly.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Japanese

The Secret World of Arrietty
(Kari-gurashi no Arietti)
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Gary Rydstrom
(Japan, 2010, 95 min.)
The Clock family are four-inch-tall people who live anonymously in another family’s residence, but life changes for the Clocks when their daughter, Arrietty, is discovered. (Japanese and English)
Theater TBA
Opens Fri., Feb. 17

Polish

1920. The World’s Most Important Battle
(1920 Bitwa Warszawska)
Directed by Jerzy Hoffman
(Poland, 2011, 110 min.)
This Polish mega production depicts one of the world’s most important battles, which saved Europe from a global communist revolution: the 1920 clash between powerful Red Army and soldiers of newly reborn Poland that resulted in the repulsion of Bolsheviks from the gates of Warsaw. (Polish and Russian)
AMC Hoffman 22 Theatre
Sun., Feb. 12, 3 p.m.,
Thu., Feb. 16, 7:30 p.m.

In Darkness
(W Ciemnosci)
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
(Poland/Germany/France/Canada, 2011, 145 min.)
A sewer worker and petty thief in the Nazi-occuped Polish city of Lvov hides a group of Jews for money in the labyrinth of the town’s sewer system, but what starts out as a cynical business arrangement turns into something unexpected. (Polish, Ukrainian, Yiddish and German)
Theater TBA
Opens Fri., Feb. 17

Portuguese

House of Sand
(Casa de Areia)
Directed by Andrucha Waddington
(Brazil, 2005, 115 min.)
A pregnant woman is taken along with her elderly mother in 1910 to a faraway Brazilian desert by her husband, and after his passing, must confront life in the sand dunes.
Embassy of Portugal
Thu., Feb. 2, 6:30 p.m.

The Sound of Rio: Brasileirinho
Directed by Mika Kaurismäki
(Brazil/Finland/Switzerland, 2005, 90 min.)
This musical documentary chronicles choro, the first genuinely Brazilian urban music that has evolved over the last century by blending European melodies, Afro-Brazilian rhythms, and the melancholic music of Brazilian Indians.
Embassy of Uruguay
Thu., Feb. 16, 6:30 p.m.

The Strange Case of Angelica
(Estranho Caso de Angélica)
Directed by Manoel de Oliveira
(Portugal/Spain/France/Brazil, 2010, 94 min.)
A young photographer is called by a wealthy family to take the last photograph of their daughter, Angelica, who died just a few days after her wedding, but every time he looks at her through the camera, the young woman appears to come back to life just for him.
Embassy of Portugal
Fri., Feb. 3, 6:30 p.m.

Russian

Hamlet
(Гамлет)
Directed by Grigori Kozintsev
(USSR, 1964, 140 min.)
Grigori Kozintsev’s renowned adaptation of “Hamlet” features evocative location shooting in the medieval Estonian village of Keila-Joa, a distinctive score, and Innokenti Smoktunovsky as the melancholy Dane, praised by no less than Laurence Olivier as the definitive screen performance of the Prince of Denmark.
AFI Silver Theatre
Feb. 19 to 26

King Lear
(Король Лир)
Directed by Grigori Kozintsev
(USSR, 1971, 139 min.)
According to the BBC, this spirited adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic story is elevated by “a commanding title performance by Estonian actor Jüri Järvet, some striking landscape imagery and Dmitri Shostakovich’s anguished score.”
AFI Silver Theatre
Feb. 19 to 26

Silent

The Artist
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius
(France, 2011, 100 min.)
Set in 1927, silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, as sparks fly with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break. (Silent with limited English and French)
AFI Silver Theatre

Metropolis
Directed by Fritz Lang
(Germany, 1927, 148 min.)
Incorporating more than 25 minutes of recently discovered footage, the 2010 restoration of “Metropolis” is the definitive edition of Fritz Lang’s science fiction masterpiece.
AFI Silver Theatre
Fri., Feb. 24, 7:15 p.m.

Spanish

Artigas la Redota
Directed by César Charlone
(Uruguay, 2011, 118 min.)
In 1884, the famous painter Juan Manuel Blanes is tasked with recovering an image of Guzmán Larra, the Spanish spy who, 70 years earlier, had tried to assassinate the leader José Artigas.
Embassy of Uruguay
Fri., Feb. 17, 6:30 p.m.

Cell 211
(Celda 211)
Directed by Daniel Monzón
(Spain/France, 2009, 113 min.)
Two men find themselves on different sides of a prison riot — the inmate leading the rebellion and the brand new guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in an attempt to survive the ordeal.
Embassy of Spain
Sat., Feb. 18, 6:30 p.m.

Closed Eyes
(A Ojos Cerrados)
Directed by Hernán Jiménez
(Costa Rica, 2010, 65 min.)
When life brings a Costa Rican granddaughter and her grandfather to a crossroads, they travel to the eastern Caribbean coast seeking healing and renewal.
Embassy of Chile
Thu., Feb. 16 7:15 p.m.

The Condemned
(Los Condenados)
Directed by Isaki Lacuesta
(Spain, 2009)
An exiled Argentinean returns home after living in Spain for more than 30 years to help find the remains of a political activist who disappeared during the Junta dictatorship.
Embassy of Spain
Thu., Feb. 16, 6:30 p.m.

The Cow
(La Vaca)
Directed by Mendel Samayoa
(Guatemala, 2011, 97 min.)
An inheritance hangs in the balance as two ladies must grant their shared lover’s last wish: Get his cow pregnant.
Embassy of Guatemala
Fri., Feb. 10, 6:30 p.m.

Lion’s Den
(Leonera)
Directed by Pablo Trapero
(Argentina/South Korea/Brazil, 2008)
A 25 year-old university student with no criminal record is sent to prison for murdering the father of her newborn child, whom she must now learn to raise in jail. (Spanish and French)
Embassy of Argentina
Fri., Feb. 17, 6:30 p.m.

A Little Fire
(Un Fueguito: La Historia de César Milstein)
Directed by Ana Fraile
(Argentina, 2010, 70 min.)
This documentary explores the work of Nobel Prize winner César Milstein, who produced countless benefits and practical applications in medicine, biology, immunology, and scientific knowledge in general. (Spanish, English, French and Italian)
Embassy of Argentina
Thu., Feb. 9, 6:30 p.m.

Love Child
(La Hija Natural)
Directed by Leticia Tonos
(Dominican Republic, 2011, 96 min.)
After her mother dies in an accident, 18-year-old Maria decides to look for the father she’s never met.
Embassy of Spain
Sat., Feb. 18, 1 p.m.

The Mexican Suitcase
(La Maleta Mexicana)
Directed by Trisha Ziff
(Mexico, 2011, 86 min.)
Three lost boxes, misplaced in the chaos at the start of World War II, are recovered in 2007 containing thousands of negatives from the Spanish Civil War by the legendary photographer Robert Capa and his fellow Eastern European exiles.
Mexican Cultural Institute
Sat., Feb. 4, 4 p.m.

Midnight Souls
(Almas de Media Noche)
Directed by Juan Carlos Fanconi
(Honduras, 2001, 120 min.)
A journalist who was investigating the mysterious deaths of townspeople is murdered himself, and a group of journalism students, thinking it was all just a game, organize a trip to the town, where they unlock secrets hidden for 200 years by the Lencas Indians.
Embassy of Guatemala
Fri., Feb. 17, 6:30 p.m.

October
(Octubre)
Directed by Daniel and Diego Vega
(Peru, 2010, 83 min.)
Clemente, a moneylender of few words, and his devout single neighbor are brought together over a newborn baby, fruit of Clemente’s relationship with a prostitute who’s nowhere to be found.
Embassy of Argentina
Thu., Feb. 23, 6:30 p.m.

The Pope’s Toilet
(El Baño del Papa)
Directed by Enrique Fernandez and César Charlone
(Uruguay/Brazil/France, 2007, 97 min.)
The upcoming visit of the pope to a poor Uruguayan country town inspires Beto, who transports contraband on his bike, to think about building a proper lavatory and charging for its use.
Embassy of Uruguay
Fri., Feb. 10, 6:30 p.m.

Red Sky
(El Cielo Rojo)
Directed by Miguel Alejandro Gómez
(Costa Rica, 2008, 85 min.)
Bernie, Manuel, and Nestor just graduated from high school but, unsatisfied with the opportunities in Costa Rica, they have no plans for the future — until key events in the boys’ personal lives conspire to make a disinterested lifestyle difficult.
Embassy of Uruguay
Fri., Feb. 3, 6:30 p.m.

The Rope
(La Soga)
Directed by Joshua Crook
(Dominican Republic, 2009, 103 min.)
In this hard-hitting crime story, a government enforcer/hit man’s personal code of honor causes him to question the morality of the people he works for.
Embassy of Spain
Sat., Feb. 18, 8 p.m.

Shame
(La Vergüenza)
Directed by David Planell
(Spain, 2009)
A young couple, not knowing how to cope with their adopted son’s behavior, decide to give him back, but soon realize the price they’ll have to pay if they go ahead with their plan.
Embassy of Spain
Sat., Feb. 18, 4 p.m.

Silvestre Pantaleón
Directed by Roberto Olivares Ruiz
(Mexico, 2011, 65 min.)
An elderly man from a Mexican village struggles to pay for a curing ceremony and provide for his family.
Mexican Cultural Institute
Sat., Feb. 4, 1 p.m.

Taita Boves
Directed by Luis Alberto Lamata
(Venezuela, 2010, 100 min.)
Jose Tomás Boves goes from seafarer to pirate, horse smuggler to prosperous merchant, and prisoner to brutal military chief during the Venezuelan War of Independence.
Embassy of Venezuela
Fri., Feb. 10, 6:30 p.m.

Van Van Fever
(Eso Que Anda)
Directed by Ian Padrón
(Cuba, 2010, 75 min.)
This documentary looks at Cuba’s most popular orquestra over the last 40 years, Juan Formell and The Van Van.
Embassy of Venezuela
Thu., Feb. 2, 6:30 p.m.

Water Drums, An Ancestral Encounter
(Tambores de Agua, Un Encuentro Ancestral)
Directed by Clarissa Duque
(Venezuela, 2009, 75 min.)
Framed in a contemporary cultural discourse of resistance, this documentary — shot in both Venezuela and Cameroon — researches the traditions of Venezuelan black communities that are descendants of the Maroons.
Embassy of Venezuela
Thu., Feb. 16, 6:30 p.m.

Woman Without Piano
(La Mujer Sin Piano)
Directed by Javier Rebollo
(Spain, 2009, 94 min.)
A Madrid housewife attempts to escape her mundane and tedious existence one night, when an absurd new world emerges for her.
Embassy of Spain
Fri., Feb. 17, 6:30 p.m.

Yasuní: Two Seconds of Life
(Yasuní: Dos Segundos de Vida)
Directed by Leonardo Wild
(Ecuador/Austria/U.S., 2010, 90 min.)
This documentary examines the Ecuadorean government’s unique proposal to leave the oil found in the Yasuní national park untouched. (Spanish and English)
Embassy of Argentina
Thu., Feb. 16, 6:30 p.m.

Zamora, Free Land and Men
(Zamora, Tierra y Hombres Libres)
Directed by Román Chalbaud
(Venezuela, 2009, 128 min.)
In 19th-century Venezuela, Ezequiel Zamora fights for the equal rights of peasants and farmers afflicted by the class struggle under the oligarchy’s yoke.
Embassy of Venezuela
Fri., Feb. 3, 6:30 p.m.