Films

How can one rock band be successful, underrated, hugely influential and criminally overlooked all at the same time? Take a musical odyssey with brothers Ron and Russell Mael, celebrating the inspiring legacy of Sparks: your favorite band’s favorite band. Directed by Edgar Wright.

This beautiful, meditative documentary from Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw follows three elderly specialists — and their dogs — as they seek the prized delicacy and contend with poachers in the woods of Northern Italy.

An exploration of the shared histories of cameras, weapons, policing and justice. As surveillance technologies become a fixture in everyday life, the film interrogates the complexity of an objective point of view, probing the biases inherent in both human perception and the lens. DIrected by Theo Anthony (RAT FILM).

A look at the life and more than 70-year career of Rita Moreno — from her humble beginnings in Puerto Rico to her success on Broadway and in Hollywood where she broke down barriers, fought for representation, and forged a path for new generations of artists.

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have become somehow infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea. Part of the Belcourt’s annual Science on Screen® series, a national initiative made possible through a grant by the Coolidge Corner Theatre, with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Director Prano Bailey-Bond’s astoundingly assured feature directorial debut — a spiritual successor to her award-winning short film Nasty— oozes with VHS nostalgia and turns the slasher film on its head while using the British moral panic around hyper-violent and hyper-sexual horror movies as a backdrop.

Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) is sold by her mother to circus strongman Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), who’s been brought to the breaking point by an encounter with an old rival. LA STRADA was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, launching both Fellini and Masina to international stardom.

22-year-old slacker musician Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) has just met the girl of his dreams...literally. But when Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) rollerblades into his life, he must face down a formidable army of exes who will stop at nothing to eliminate him as a viable suitor. Screening in tandem with Edgar Wright’s electrifying portrait of THE SPARKS BROTHERS and SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

Fellini’s second outing as a solo director yielded his first commercial success, a clear-eyed portrait of five young men lingering in a postadolescent limbo, dreaming of adventure and escape from their small coastal town.

Few filmmakers have consolidated the notion that cinema is a personal vision as much as Federico Fellini, whose career spanned the twilight of vaudeville, the development of Italian neorealism, and the emergence of postmodern cinema. Presented by Iggy Cortez, assistant professor of Cinema and Media Arts at Vanderbilt University, this seminar will explore the director’s enduring legacy.

Edgar Wright’s SHAUN OF THE DEAD follows the bloody funny adventures of underachiever Shaun (Simon Pegg) and best mate Ed (Nick Frost) as they navigate a zombie invasion of North London and attempt to rescue Shaun’s girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) and his Mum, Barbara (Penelope Wilton). Screening in tandem with director Edgar Wright’s electrifying portrait of THE SPARKS BROTHERS and SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD.

Newlywed Wanda (Brunella Bovo), on her honeymoon in Rome with her detail-oriented husband Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste), slips away to meet her fumetti idol (Alberto Sordi). Propelled by a jaunty Nino Rota score, Fellini’s solo directorial debut marks the beginning with both Rota and Giulietta Masina, who appears as the friendly streetwalker Cabiria.

Masterfully entwining the story of an aging con man with elements of humor and pathos, Fellini crafts a searing portrait of a man reckoning with the consequences of his life’s choices that hits with the force of a profound moral tragedy.

What at first seems like a glamorous trip devolves into a 48-hour journey involving a pimp, an idiot boyfriend and Tampa gangsters in this wild, see-it-to-believe-it tale. A cautionary tale about the perils of fast friendship and premature trust, filmmaker Janicza Bravo and dramatist Jeremy O. Harris adapted ZOLA from a barrage of viral tweets.

Exquisitely expressive Giulietta Masina (Best Actress winner at Cannes) portrays, with dignity, one of the most indelible characters in all of cinema: Cabiria, a fiercely independent sex worker who must learn to rely on herself to survive. (1958 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film)

In his debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents this transporting documentary about the legendary 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival which celebrated African American music and culture, and promoted Black pride and unity. Featuring never-seen performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & The Family Stone and much more.

A panoramic portrait of contemporary Roman decadence, LA DOLCE VITA was denounced by the Vatican and subsequently became the succès de scandale that inaugurated a cycle of ambitious, extravagant, often autobiographical works which cemented Fellini’s international stardom and gave rise to the term “Felliniesque.”

Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s 8½ turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of cinema.

Cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo’s masterful use of Technicolor transforms JULIET OF THE SPIRITS, Fellini’s first color feature, into a kaleidoscope of dreams, spirits and memories. Giulietta Masina plays a betrayed wife whose inability to come to terms with reality leads her along a hallucinatory journey of self-discovery.

The most personal film from Fellini, this carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during the Fascist period of the 1930s, satirizes the director’s youth — turning daily life into a circus of social rituals, adolescent desires, male fantasies and political subterfuge, all set to Nina Rota’s classic, nostalgia-tinged score.

A motley crew of European aristocrats (and a lovesick rhinoceros) board a luxurious ocean liner on the eve of the first World War to scatter the ashes of a beloved diva. Fabricated entirely in Rome’s famed Cinecittà studios, Fellini’s quirky, imaginative fable reaches spectacular new visual heights with its stylized re-creation of a decadent bygone era.

Fellini’s allegorical pseudo-documentary depicts an Italian TV crew’s visit to a dilapidated church to meet an orchestra rehearsing under a tyrannical conductor. As petty squabbles break out amid the different factions of the ensemble, the meeting descends into madness. The final collaboration between Fellini and legendary composer Nino Rota.