Home The Washington Diplomat September 2016 Films – September 2016

Films – September 2016

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Dutch

Hebrew

Spanish

English

Italian

Vanuatu

French

Norwegian

German

Polish

FILM HIGHLIGHT

Latin American Film Festival

Now in its 27th year, the AFI Latin American Film Festival (Sept. 15 to Oct. 5) showcases the best filmmaking from Latin America and, with the inclusion of films from Spain and Portugal, celebrates Ibero-American cultural connections. This year’s selection of films will once again include numerous international film festival favorites, award winners, local box office hits and debut works by promising new talents.

Highlights include “The Apostate” about a young man who takes on the byzantine Catholic Church to get his name removed from the baptismal record; “The Companion” about an unlikely friendship in a Cuban AIDS sanatorium in the 1980s; “Sr. Pig” about an elderly farmer who sets off on a road trip through Mexico to find a home for his prized pig; “Oscuro Animal” about three brave women who escape from the paramilitary-controlled jungles of Colombia; and “Una Noche de Amor,” a Woody Allen-esque comedy of familial neurosis.

For more information, visit www.afi.com/silver/laff/#.

Dutch

Ants on a Shrimp

Directed by Maurice Dekkers

(Netherlands, 2016, 88 min.)

What happens when the world’s most acclaimed restaurant picks up and moves halfway across the world? Find out when chef René Redzepi of the esteemed Copenhagen foodie destination Noma and his team relocate to Japan to set up a five-week pop-up in Tokyo (Dutch, English and Japanese).

The Avalon Theatre

Wed., Sept. 7, 8 p.m.

 

English

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

Directed by Mandie Fletcher

(U.K./U.S., 2016)

Edina and Patsy are still oozing glitz and glamour, shopping, drinking and clubbing their way around London’s trendiest hotspots. Blamed for a major incident at a fashionable launch party, they become entangled in a media storm. Fleeing penniless to the glamorous playground of the super-rich, the French Riviera, they hatch a plan to make their escape permanent.

West End Cinema

Anthropoid

Directed by Sean Ellis

(Czech Republic/U.K./France, 2016, 120 min.)

This World War II thriller is based on the extraordinary true story of “Operation Anthropoid,” the code name for the Czechoslovakian operatives’ mission to assassinate SS officer Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect behind the Final Solution.

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years

Directed by Ron Howard

(U.K./U.S., 2016, 99 min.)

Featuring rare and exclusive footage, this documentary tells the story of the Beatles’ exceptional touring years from 1962 to 1966, examining the impact of touring on each of the Beatles’ relationships, musical evolution and lifestyle.

The Avalon Theatre

Buena Vista Social Club

Directed by Wim Wenders

(Germany/U.S./U.K./France/Cuba, 1999, 105 min.)

Over the course of several months, Wim Wenders observed and accompanied the Cuba-based band Buena Vista Social Club — first at home in Havana; then, weeks later, in April 1998 on their trip to Amsterdam for the first public performance of the band (which had never played together outside a studio); then, in July 1998, to their triumphal concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall (English and Spanish).

AFI Silver Theatre

Wed., Sept. 14, 7:15 p.m.

Complete Unknown

Directed by Joshua Marston

(U.S., 2016, 90 min.)

Rachel Weisz gives a tour-de-force performance as a mysterious woman compulsively reinventing herself over and over again in this unsettling psychological exploration of identity.

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

Opens Fri., Sept. 2

The Dressmaker

Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse

(Australia, 2016, 118 min.)

A glamorous woman returns to her small town in rural Australia. With her sewing machine and haute couture style, she transforms the women and exacts sweet revenge on those who did her wrong.

Landmark’s Cinema

Opens Fri., Sept. 23

Equity

Directed by Meera Menon

(U.S., 2016, 100 min.)

Senior investment banker Naomi Bishop is threatened by a financial scandal and must untangle a web of deception and office politics. Forced to reexamine the rules of the cutthroat world she has always loved, she finds herself in a fight for her very survival.

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Florence Foster Jenkins

Directed by Stephen Frears

(U.K., 2016, 110 min.)

Meryl Streep stars as Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who dreams of becoming an opera singer, despite having a terrible singing voice.

Angelika Mosaic

Atlantic Plumbing Cinema

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

Indignation

Directed by James Schamus

(U.S., 2016, 110 min.)

In 1951, Marcus, a working-class Jewish student from New Jersey, attends a small Ohio college, where he struggles with sexual repression and cultural disaffection, amid the ongoing Korean War (English and Hebrew).

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

West End Cinema

Jason Bourne

Directed by Paul Greengrass

(U.S., 2016, 123 min.)

Matt Damon returns to his most iconic role in Jason Bourne in the next chapter of the Bourne franchise, which finds the CIA’s most lethal former operative drawn out of the shadows.

Angelika Mosaic

Atlantic Plumbing Cinema

The Light Between Oceans

Directed by Derek Cianfrance

(U.S./New Zealand/U.K.

A lighthouse keeper and his wife living off the coast of Western Australia raise a baby they rescue from an adrift rowboat, making a choice with devastating consequences in this heartbreaking drama about fate, love, moral dilemmas and the lengths to which one couple will go to see their dreams realized.

Angelika Mosaic

The Avalon Theatre

Opens Fri., Sept. 2

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World

Directed by Werner Herzog

(U.S., 2016, 98 min.)

Oscar-nominated Werner Herzog chronicles the virtual world from its origins to its outermost reaches, exploring the digital landscape with the same curiosity and imagination he previously trained on earthly destinations as disparate as the Amazon and the Sahara. Herzog leads viewers on a journey through a series of provocative conversations that reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works, from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and the very heart of our personal relationships.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

London Road

Directed by Rufus Norris

(U.K., 2015, 91 min.)

London Road documents the events of 2006, when the quiet rural town of Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the bodies of five women. When a local resident was charged and then convicted of the murders, the community grappled with what it meant to be at the epicenter of this tragedy.

Angelika Pop-Up

Opens Fri., Sept. 16

Love & Friendship

Directed by Whit Stillman

(Ireland/Netherlands/France/U.S., 2016, 94 min.)

Beautiful young widow Lady Susan Vernon takes up temporary residence at her in-laws’ estate to wait out colorful rumors about her dalliances and to be a matchmaker for her daughter Frederica — and herself too, naturally.

West End Cinema

Queen of Katwe

Directed by Mira Nair

(South Africa/U.S., 2016, 124 min.)

“Queen of Katwe” is the colorful true story of a young girl selling corn on the streets of rural Uganda whose world rapidly changes when she is introduced to the game of chess. She quickly advances through the ranks in tournaments, but breaks away from her family to focus on her own life.

Landmark’s Cinema

Opens Fri., Sept. 30

Snowden

Directed by Oliver Stone

(U.S./Germany/France, 2016, 134 min.)

NSA employee Edward Snowden leaks thousands of classified documents to the press.

Angelika Mosaic

Opens Fri., Sept. 16

Starving the Beast

Directed by Steve Mims

(U.S., 2016, 95 min.)

As college tuition skyrockets and student debt explodes, this powerful new documentary reveals a nationwide fight for control of the heart, soul and finances of America’s public universities. The film reveals a historic philosophical shift that reframes public higher education as a “value proposition” to be borne by the student as a consumer, rather than an investment in citizens as a “public good.”

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Opens Fri., Sept. 2

French

Les Cowboys

Directed by Thomas Bidegain

(France, 2015, 115 min.)

In this inventive update on “The Searchers,” an old West enthusiast in modern-day France embarks on a 16-year odyssey to track down his daughter who has eloped and converted to Islam (French, English and Urdu).

The Avalon Theatre

Opens Wed., Sept. 21

Disorder

Directed by Alice Winocour

(France/Belgium, 2016, 98 min.)

Vincent, a French Special Forces soldier just back from Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, is hired to ensure the safety of the wife of a wealthy Lebanese businessman in the South of France. While he feels a strange fascination for the woman he must protect, Vincent is prone to anxiety and hallucinations.

Angelika Pop-Up

Opens Fri., Sept. 2

 

German

Until the End of the World

(Bi sans ende der welt)

Directed by Wim Wenders

(Germany/France/Australia/U.S., 1991, 295 min.)

This is “the ultimate road movie,” a journey around the globe, a modern-day Odyssey — and it certainly bears similarities to Homer’s saga. However, the aim of this journey is the spiritual reconciliation between an obsessed father and his lost son, and in this futuristic Odyssey, Penelope decides to set out in pursuit of Odysseus (German, English and French).

AFI Silver Theatre

Mon., Sept. 5, 1 p.m.

Wings of Desire

Directed by Wim Wenders

(W. Germany/France, 1987, 128 min.)

After an eternity of looking after mortal beings, observing their lives, their loves, their passions and pains, intrigued angel Bruno Ganz decides to join them, crossing over to live life as they do. He discovers love with circus acrobat Solveig Dommartin and something like an old friend (German, English, French, Turkish, Hebrew, Japanese and Spanish).

AFI Silver Theatre

Fri., Sept. 2, 9:45 p.m.,

Mon., Sept. 5, 9:05 p.m.,

Wed., Sept. 7, 9:05 p.m.

 

Hebrew

Encirclements

Directed by Lee Gilat

(Israel, 2015, 98 min.)

Thirteen-year-old Aharon, the only child of parents who are unable to conceive again, is determined to win the honor of carrying the Torah scrolls on Simhat Torah to elevate his status in the neighborhood and win his distant father’s approval and love. But after Aharon wins the honor, his achievement brings ancient tensions to the surface.

The Avalon Theatre

Opens Wed., Sept. 28

A Tale of Love and Darkness

Directed by Natalie Portman

(Israel, 2016, 95 min.)

Natalie Portman stars in and directs this drama based on the memoir of Amos Oz, a writer, journalist and advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unhappy in her marriage and intellectually stifled, she would make up stories of adventures (like treks across the desert) to cheer herself up and entertain her 10-year-old son. He became so enraptured when she read him poetry and explained about words and language, that it would become an influence on his writing for the rest of his life.

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

 

Italian

Mia Madre

Directed by Nanni Moretti

(Italy/France/Germany, 2016, 106 min.)

A harried film director tries to juggle the demands of her latest movie and a personal crisis as her beloved mother’s illness progresses, while her teenage daughter grows ever more distant (Italian, English and French).

The Avalon Theatre

 

 

Norwegian

In Order of Disappearance

(Kraftidoten)

Directed by Hans Petter Moland

(Norway/Sweden, 2016, 116 min.)

Mild-mannered Nils ploughs snow in the wild winter mountains of Norway, but when his son is mistakenly murdered, Nils takes action, igniting a war between the vegan gangster “the Count” and the Serbian mafia boss Papa (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, English, Serbian and German).

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Opens Fri., Sept. 2

 

Polish

Demon

Directed by Pawel Maslona and Marcin Wrona

(Poland/Israel, 2016, 94 min.)

Newly arrived from England to marry his fiancée, Peter has been given a gift of her family’s ramshackle country house in rural Poland. During the wild wedding reception, Peter begins to come undone, and a dybbuk, the iconic ancient figure from Jewish folklore, takes a toehold in this present-day celebration (Polish, English and Yiddish).

Landmark’s Cinema

Opens Fri., Sept. 16

Gods

(Bogowie)

Directed by Lukasz Palkowski

(Poland, 2014, 120 min.)

Despite the harsh realities of Communist Poland, cardiac surgeon Zbigniew Religa successfully leads a team of doctors to the country’s first human heart transplant in the 1980s.

The Avalon Theatre

 

Spanish

África 185

Directed by Pilar Monsell

(Spain, 2014, 66 min.)

Going in depth into her father’s photo archive and diaries about his military service in the Sahara Spanish colony in 1964, Pilar spots the lost paradise where he always would try to come back.

Former Residence of Spanish Ambassador

Tue., Sept. 20, 6:45 p.m.

Family Tour

Directed by Liliana Torres

(Spain, 2013, 82 min.)

After years out of the country, Lilly comes back home, where her mother, a person of exceptional eccentric simplicity, forces her to visit her relatives on a family tour of the abandoned landscape of her childhood — an experience that forces her to confront her own boundaries and frustrations.

Spectrum Theatre

Thu., Sept. 22, 7:30 p.m.

Ixcanul

Directed by Jayro Bustamante

(Guatemala/France, 2015, 93 min.)

The brilliant debut by Guatemalan writer/director Jayro Bustamante is a hypnotically beautiful fusion of fact and fable, depicting a tradition-bound indigenous Mayan family living on the slopes of an active volcano, where they earn a meager living as coffee-pickers. Maria is a beautiful 17-year-old girl with dreams of seeing the larger world. Her parents arrange an advantageous marriage for her with the coffee plantation foreman, but Maria prefers her own choice: Pepe, a handsome young coffee cutter who plans to migrate to the United States. Maria seduces Pepe to run away with him, but after promises and clandestine meetings, Pepe takes off, leaving her pregnant, alone and in disgrace (Spanish and Maya).

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Marsella

Directed by Belén Macías

(Spain, 2014, 98 min.)

Sara — a biological mother — and Virginia — a foster mother — share a 9-year old daughter, Claire. During the summer holidays, Sara and Claire travel to Marseille in search of the biological father, whom Sara has not seen since she became pregnant.

Former Residence of the Spanish Ambassador

Tue., Sept. 27, 6:45 p.m.

Traces of Sandalwood

(Rastros de Sándalo)

Directed by Maria Ripoll

(Spain, 2014, 95 min.)

Mina, a successful Hindi actress, can’t forget her baby sister Sita, from whom she was separated after her mother’s death. Thirty years later, she finds out that Sita is alive and well, living in Barcelona as a biologist with no memory of her past.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

Sun., Sept. 25, 3 p.m.

 

Vanuatu

Tanna

Directed by Martin Butler and Bentley Dean

(Australia/Vanuatu, 2016, 100 min.)

In the South Pacific, Wawa, a young girl from one of the last traditional tribes, falls in love with her chief’s grandson. When an intertribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly betrothed as part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, but are pursued by enemy warriors intent on killing them.

Landmark’s Cinema

Opens Fri., Sept. 30