Currently On Sale On Sale: 2011 Archive Rendez-Vous Gr. Scr.: Water... Film Comment Selects Program Notes Bas-fonds Burke and Hare Cave of Forgotten... Charly City of Life & Death Cold Fish Demi-Tarif Domaine El Sicario, Room 164 Hobo with a Shotgun I Only Want... I Saw the Devil I Wish I Knew Insidious The Karski Report Klaus Kinski Legend of the Fist Our Nazi Robbery The Silence Sobibor Sodankylä Forever Straight to Hell... Submarino Velvet Underground... Wundkanal IN: Norman Mailer NYJFF Encore! Soviet Action Films Gr. Scr.: Carbon Nation Mooz-lum František Vlácil Dance on Camera William Richert MfK: Kirikou/Azur FCS: River's Edge NY Jewish Film Festival SE: Jeff Lipsky Peter Weir Darren Aronofsky SE: Still on the Road On Sale: 2010 Archive On Sale: 2009 Archive On Sale: 2008 Archive On Sale: 2007 Archive On Sale: 2006 Archive On Sale: 2005 Archive Archive 2005 - To April Archive 2004 - WRT Archive 2003 - WRT Archive 2002 - WRT Archive 2001 - WRT Archive 2000 - WRT Archive 1999 - WRT Archive 1998 - WRT Archive 1997 - WRT Archive 1996 - WRT Film Comment Selects February 18 – March 3 Program highlights include three works by Islid Le Besco including her latest Bas-Fonds; Viva Radio events with Warhol’s Velvet Underground films and Alex Cox’s Straight to Hell remix; three works by Shoah director Claude Lanzmann, and the extraordinary Wundkanal/Our Nazi diptych from the late Thomas Harlan and Robert Kramer. Catch sneak previews of John Landis’s Burke and Hare; Lu Chuan’s City of Life and Death; Kim Ji-woon’s I Saw the Devil; Jia Zhangke’s I Wish I Knew; and Sion Sono’s Cold Fish. Plus: Klaus Kinski as Jesus; Domain, John Waters’s favorite movie of 2010; a rare Fassbinder; and a real-life Mexican hit man. See five films in Film Comment Selects for only $50! ($35 Students & Seniors / $30 Members) Buy online now >> This year's Film Comment Selects is packed with movies you can't see anywhere else! Scroll down for an alphabetical listing of the selection or explore by category here >> Calendar >> Admission $12 General Public $9 Students $8 Seniors $7 Members Weekday Matinee Admission* $9 General Public $7 Students $6 Seniors $5 Members *All screenings that begin prior to 6pm, Mon-Fri only. Tickets & passes are also on sale at the Walter Reade Theater's box office. VISITOR INFO >>   Bas-fonds Isild Le Besco, 2010, France; 68m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) Three women live on the outskirts of civilization—aka the French provinces—in the director’s latest, already notorious film. Le Besco’s startling portrait of a household unhinged carefully observes the moment-by-moment realities of a group of people who seem to be devising their own reality as they go along. Read more... Please note: Unfortunately, Islid Le Besco will not be in attendance. There will be no reception on the Opening Night of Film Comment Selects.   Buy Tickets Fri Feb 18: 9 Sat Feb 19: 4 Burke and Hare John Landis, 2010, UK; 91m In person: John Landis! Sneak Preview! Thirty years after An American Werewolf in London, John Landis returns to the UK with a black comedy set in 19th-century Edinburgh. Two bumbling Irish hucksters (Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis) turn to lucrative grave-robbing and, before long, murder. With Tim Curry and Christopher Lee. Read more... Buy Tickets Thu Mar 3: 6:15* *Closing Night: Intro/Q&A Cave of Forgotten Dreams Werner Herzog, 2010, USA/France; 90m Herzog goes 3-D! Sneak Preview! The intrepid filmmaker visits the 32,000-year-old cave paintings in Chauvet, France, and explores the origins of figuration and abstract thought. Granted unprecedented access, Herzog and his crew record the ineffably soulful presence of the ancient art, giving rise to images of remarkable freshness. Read more... Buy Tickets Sun Feb 20: 5:30 Charly Isild Le Besco, 2007, France; 95m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) Topsy-turvy dynamics are at work in Le Besco’s second film, an oddball coming-of-age story about a sullen, semi-literate 14-year-old (played by Le Besco’s brother) who runs away from the farm and pantomimes a kind of marriage with the charismatic, slightly OCD title character (the excellent Julie-Marie Parmentier). Read more... Buy Tickets Sat Feb 19: 1:45 City of Life and Death Lu Chuan, 2009, China; 132m Sneak Preview! Lu’s wrenching look at the Japanese occupation of Nanking in 1937 establishes him as a world-class filmmaker—bridging the gap between China’s Fifth and Sixth generations by fusing the rigor and commitment to harsh reality of the latter with the commercial tendencies of the former, but without selling out. Read more... Buy Tickets Fri Feb 25: 8:10 Cold Fish Sion Sono, 2010, Japan; 144m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) Two-and-a-half hours of full-throttle hysteria, splattered in eye-gougingly garish hues. Shamoto, the mild-mannered proprietor of a tropical fish store, finds himself and his family drawn into the orbit of a jovial fellow dealer named Murata, a serial killer who gleefully slaughters their competitors and disposes of their remains. Co-presented by Subway Cinema. Read more... Buy Tickets Thu Feb 24: 8 Tue Mar 1: 8:45 Demi-Tarif Isild Le Besco, 2003, France; 63m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION) Released when Le Besco was 21, her incredibly assured debut follows the lives of three Parisian children, ages 7 to 9, left to their own devices by an absentee mother. The City of Lights becomes their private playground, but the despair of their situation remains. Read more... Buy Tickets Sat Feb 19: 12 Domaine Patric Chiha, 2009, France/Austria; 110m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) John Waters’s favorite movie of 2010! The flamboyance and anarchy that reigns in an alcoholic mathematician's (Béatrice Dalle) life fascinates her gay teenage nephew (Isaïe Sultan). An unusually close relationship develops between them-more than friendly, ambiguously bordering on the amorous. Their strolling friendship is a homage to that between Albert Einstein and Kurt Gödel, but with more white wine and visits to discotheques. Read more... Buy Tickets Fri Feb 18: 3:45 Mon Feb 21: 2:15 Wed Feb 23: 6 Fri Feb 25: 1:15 El Sicario, Room 164 Gianfranco Rosi, 2010, USA/France; 80m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) In person: Gianfranco Rosi! A Mexican hit man tells all in Rosi’s theatrical documentary, and the masked killer—veteran of the Ciudad Juárez ganglands—proves a master raconteur. The film’s description of Mexico’s body politic as a cadaver seething with maggots has the ring of truth — confirmed every day by the news. Read more... Buy Tickets Sun Feb 20: 7:20* *Intro only. Mon Feb 21: 4:30 Tue Feb 22: 6:15* *Intro/Q&A Hobo with a Shotgun Jason Eisener, 2011, Canada/U.S.; 86m Sneak Preview! Straight from Sundance! Director in person! The winner of the Rodriguez/Tarantino Grindhouse fake-trailer contest, Hobo with a Shotgun has now been expanded to a hilariously warped feature-length smut homage, presented in glorious Technicolor. In addition to this super-awesome tagline, the film itself also delivers shocks and gore galore, ridiculously quotable dialogue, and all-around demented fun. Read more... Buy Tickets Fri Feb 18: 11:00 I Only Want You to Love Me Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1976, West Germany; 104m (NOT ON DVD) Born during Germany’s economic miracle and seeking his parents’ affection, awkward Peter eventually finds himself sucked into an endless cycle of purchases on credit and overtime. A rarely seen TV production, Fassbinder’s Sirk-inspired indictment of capitalism was based on an actual case study. Read more... Buy Tickets Fri Feb 18: 1:30 Sat Feb 19: 10:30 Tue Feb 22: 3:45 Thu Mar 3: 3:15 I Saw the Devil Kim Jee-woon, 2010, South Korea; 141m Sneak preview! Giving new meaning to catch-and-release, a secret agent searches for the serial wacko who murdered his fiancée and takes a very special form of vengeance. The twisty, gruesome new thriller by the director of The Good, The Bad, The Weird was initially banned in South Korea for its meticulous attention to bloody detail. Co-presented by Subway Cinema. Read more... Buy Tickets Sun Feb 20: 1 I Wish I Knew Jia Zhangke, 2010, China; 136m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) Jia Zhangke’s undervalued reflection on Shanghai as an epicenter of historical change charts stunning physical and cultural displacements. Originally a World Expo commission, Jia’s film is a delicate web of associations between interviews and clips, featuring witnesses to China’s churning such as a gangster’s daughter, and filmmakers including Hou Hsiao-hsien.Read more... Buy Tickets Fri Feb 18: 6:15 Sun Feb 20: 9:15 Insidious James Wan, 2010, USA; 97m Sneak Preview! Director in person! In this super-scary reinvention of the haunted-house genre, Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne play the new homeowners. Soon enough, things go bump in the night, and their son falls into a mysterious coma. But when the family finally decamps to a new home, things get really frightening. Read more... Buy Tickets Thu Mar 3: 8:45* *Closing Night screening The Karski Report Claude Lanzmann, 2010, France; 49m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) screening with A Visitor from the Living Claude Lanzmann, 1997, France/Germany; 65m In person: Claude Lanzmann on Saturday, February 26! The Shoah director’s powerful new film about Jan Karski — the Polish resistance figure who attempted to expose the Warsaw Ghetto and the Belzec extermination camp, and met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. A brief, brutally to-the-point essay on the boundaries of belief. SCREENING WITH: A Visitor from the Living: An interview with Maurice Rossel, the Red Cross doctor who favorably reviewed Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. Read more... Buy Tickets Tue Feb 22: 1:30 Tue Feb 22: 8:30 Wed Feb 23: 3:30 Thu Feb 24: 3:45 Sat Feb 26: 9* *Intro/Q&A Mon Feb 28: 4 Tue Mar 1: 1:30 Thu Mar 3: 1 Klaus Kinski: Jesus Christ the Savior Peter Geyer, 2008, Germany; 84m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) Klaus Kinski is Jesus, working off a soul-baring 30-plus-page monologue based on the life of Christ that the actor wrote himself. And then come the hecklers, who push Kinski to a psychotic breaking point that must be seen to be believed. Read more... Buy Tickets Sun Feb 20: 3:40 Mon Feb 21: 6:30 Thu Feb 24: 6:15 Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen Andrew Lau, 2010, China; 104m Sneak Preview! From the director of Infernal Affairs, this razzle-dazzle action flick set on the eve of World War II marks a new chapter in the mythology of Chen Zhen, the masked martial arts character originated by Bruce Lee in Fists of Fury. Superheroic fighting and crazed camerawork ensue. Co-Presented by Subway Cinema. Read more... Buy Tickets Fri Feb 25: 10:45 Our Nazi Robert Kramer, 1985, France/West Germany; 114m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION) Discussion after screening, moderated by Kent Jones. A raw, behind-the-scenes documentary about the twisted psychodrama surrounding the making of Wundkanal. Read more... Buy Tickets Mon Feb 28: 8:30* *Discussion after screening Robbery Peter Yates, 1967, UK; 110m (NOT ON DVD) Made a year before the late Peter Yates directed Bullitt, this rarely seen caper about the Great Train Robbery opens with an extended diamond heist and police pursuit—as thrillingly executed as its more famous follow-up. With a cast of British regulars giving low-key, lived-in performances. Please note: The only print available is faded. Read more... Buy Tickets Wed Feb 23: 8:15 Wed Mar 2: 1 The Silence / Das Letzte Schweigen Baran Bo Odar, 2010, Germany; 120m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) Acclaimed up-and-comer Odar’s coolly shot and paced feature is at once a grisly mystery and a metaphysical investigation of grief and guilt, suspicion and friendship. A 14-year-old girl from a small town goes missing, setting the stage for a haunted man to return to the scene of an unspeakable crime. Read more... Buy Tickets Sat Feb 19: 5:50 Thu Feb 24: 1:30 Fri Feb 25: 3:30 Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m Claude Lanzmann, 2001, France; 95m In person: Claude Lanzmann on Saturday, February 26! In this gripping counterpoint to wartime narratives, Holocaust survivor Yehuda Lerner recounts the uprising at the Polish extermination camp of Sobibor — the only successful such rebellion during the war. Drawn from interviews conducted in 1979 during the making of Shoah. New York Film Festival 2001. Read more... Buy Tickets Wed Feb 23: 1:30 Sat Feb 26: 6:30* *Intro/Q&A Tue Mar 1: 3:45 Sodankylä Forever Peter von Bagh, 2010, Finland; 89m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) In person: Peter von Bagh! An auteur-studded, time-spanning tribute to the legendary Midnight Sun Film Festival in Finland, drawing on a quarter-century of public dialogues with top filmmakers: Michael Powell, Abbas Kiarostami, Monte Hellman, Jean Rouch, and many more. “Woodstock is f***ing nothing if you have been at the Midnight Sun Film Festival.”—D.A. Pennebaker Read more... Buy Tickets Sat Feb 19: 8:15* *Intro/Q&A Straight to Hell Returns Alex Cox, USA, 1987-2011; 91m In person: Alex Cox! Afterparty! Alex Cox’s extreme spaghetti western parody is back, with “digitally improved violence and cruelty.” Manic bank robbers on the run take refuge in a so-called deserted town that turns out to be even crazier than they are. With a cast including Joe Strummer, Shane MacGowan, Dennis Hopper, and Courtney Love. Read more... Buy Tickets Wed Mar 2: 8:30* *Intro/Q&A + Afterparty Submarino Thomas Vinterberg, 2010, Denmark/Sweden; 110m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION CURRENTLY) Vinterberg’s return to the highs (or lows) of The Celebration is the devastating, completely mesmerizing portrait of two brothers, victims of a neglectful, abusive alcoholic mother and of childhood trauma so horrible that they are still battling to overcome it many years later—with little success. Starring the terrific Jakob Cedergren. Read more... Buy Tickets Fri Feb 25: 6 Wed Mar 2: 3:15 The Velvet Underground and Nico Andy Warhol, 1966, USA; 70m screening with The Velvet Underground in Boston Andy Warhol, 1967, USA; 33m Afterparty DJed by Viva Radio! Essential viewing for fans who think they’ve heard it all. In the 1969 film, the Velvets jam in Warhol’s Factory—sunglasses, feedback, leather jackets, go-go boots—till the cops come. Then Warhol’s eye-boggling 1967 chronicle catches the band in concert at the Boston Tea Party. Read more... Buy Tickets Mon Feb 21: 8:15* *Afterparty! Wundkanal Thomas Harlan, 1984, France/West Germany; 112m (NO U.S. DISTRIBUTION) Depicting the kidnapping and interrogation of a war criminal—played by the man himself!—Wundkanal was directed by Thomas Harlan, son of filmmaker Veit Harlan, the director of the notorious anti-Semitic film Jud Süss. Read more... Buy Tickets Mon Feb 28: 6:15 Back to Top