Drive My Car has just received 4 Academy Award Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best International Features.
We have hosted several screenings of it in late January and early February. But we’ve also had several screenings fall victim to winter storms. And so we are revising our schedule and adding shows of Drive My Car on Feb 11, 12, 13, 18, 19 and 20.
We’ve also adjusted our schedule; please take a close look at the start times of the other movies we are showing.
Feb 11 and 12 at 6:30 at the IU Radio & Television Theater
In a small village in Kosovo, years after her husband went missing during wartime, Fahrije awaits evidence of his death. Without it, not only is she unable to mourn, but the hovering patriarchy deems it disrespectful, morally loose even, to move forward: to get a job, a driver’s license — to provide for her family. Stoically determined, with inspiring pluck and humor, Fahrije openly drives around town and begins a business selling ajvar (roasted red pepper paste). If that weren’t enough, she pulls together other widows to help. The men in the village condemn Fahrije’s efforts to empower herself and threaten her newfound sovereignty. Based on one woman’s true story, Hive is a universal tale of quiet, potent resistance.
Hive won the Audience Award, Directing Award, and World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. 2021 • Kosovo • 84 min
Tickets: only $8
Pandemic Protocols: Filmgoers must be vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination. Filmgoers must wear masks in the theater. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
February 11, 12, 18 & 19 at 7pm at the IU Fine Arts Theater
Sunday Matinees: Feb 13 & Feb 20 at 3pm at IU Fine Arts • Purchase Tickets
A film about language, sexuality, trust, and infidelity adapted by auteur Ryûsuke Hamaguchi from a short story by Haruki Murakami. DRIVE MY CAR is a head-on collision between an emerging filmmaker fascinated by the interior lives of women, and a famous author who…is not. Hamaguchi specializes in revelations of the heart, and Drive My Car—a beautiful melding of two distinct authorial sensibilities—consistently steers clear of the familiar in its characters’ journeys towards self-understanding. But these two wildly disparate storytellers aren’t the only people vying for control of the wheel in this beguiling gem, as a third major player is introduced — legendary playwright Anton Chekhov.
Drive My Carhas been named Film of the Year by, well, basically everybody: the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Circle. It won Best Screenplay at Cannes, Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes and is on the shortlist for Oscar nominations in multiple categories.
2021 • Japan • in Japanese with subtitles • 180 min
Critic’s Pick. A QUIET MASTERPIECE… a story about grief, love and work as well as the soul-sustaining, life-shaping power of art. – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
A passionate deployment of art as resistance to mortality. – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
5 out of 5 stars. An engrossing and exalting experience. – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Tickets: only $8
Pandemic Protocols: Filmgoers must be vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination. Filmgoers must wear masks in the theater. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
Toni Morrison wrote her books from a vital, underrepresented point of view. Inspired to write because no one took a “little black girl” seriously, Morrison was one of the few who wrote for an African American audience, and she understood the way language could operate as an oppressive or uplifting force—she refused to let her words be marginalized. After years of fighting to be heard, Morrison was awarded a Nobel Prize for her writing, and her novels are now taught in schools around the world.
Through a trove of archival material, evocative works of contemporary art, and interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis, and Morrison herself, we revisit her famed books and learn about the inspiration for her writing. Throughout, Morrison is effortlessly graceful, insightful, and candid, making this intimate, comprehensive portrait of her life and works an exploration of what it means to be a writer whose stories are so deeply intertwined with often-unrealized national truths.
This special screening is co-presented by Friends of the Library is part of the 2022 Power of Words initiative bringing author Jacqueline Woodson to Bloomington for a talk at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater on February 5 and the Marian Armstrong Exhibit, Our Voice: Celebrating the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards on display at the Downtown Library February 1–March 20
When a school teacher’s private sex tape gets leaked to the internet, it engenders hysterical outrage from a mob of angry parents. A bold, transgressive social satire that unfolds like a mashup of Luis Buñuel, Jean-Luc Godard, and John Waters.
Filmmaker Radu Jude, shooting on the streets of Bucharest during the pandemic, eviscerates common assumptions regarding obscenity. Playfully divided into three sections—a walking-portrait of pandemic-era Bucharest, a whimsical film essay on the nature and history of obscenity, and a heated, absurdist public trial—Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is a darkly comic, grandiose cinematic vision of modern life as unforgettable as its title. 2021 • Romania • 106 min
Heads Up: Contains several scenes with explicit sexual content. But it’s a comedy. Still, if full frontal nudity and graphic sexual activity give you the heebie jeebies, you should probably see another film.
CRITIC’S PICK! There is no American filmmaker I can think of who tackles our modern-day culture wars and their historical roots with anything approaching Jude’s honesty, wit or intellectual rigor. – The New York Times
BRILLIANT! A Bold, Hilarious take on society’s awful state. The filmmaker’s bold approach suggests what might happen if someone spliced a late-period Jean-Luc Godard essay film into the middle of Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie, with such mesmerizing results that you just have to roll with it. It’s A DARING AND HILARIOUS CINEMATIC GAMBLE that gives a justifiable middle finger to the sheer inanity of the Western world – and it’s also an unpredictable blast, an angry editorial cartoon that invites us into its outrage. – IndieWire
An Irreverent Contemporary Satire…Unapologetically Profane…A PROVOCATIVE BUNUELIAN PRANK. An absurdist time capsule. Jude presents three possible outcomes to this grotesque mock trial, each one more preposterous than the last, before freeze-framing on the film’s most blasphemous image yet (a high bar, considering all that’s come before). – Variety
A scathing social satire about sex, lies and videotape. A scattershot attack on sexual hysteria and political hypocrisy in an era of online slut-shaming. Formally daring as cinema… (the film) will divide viewers and critics with its tonally jarring mix of fact and fiction, explicit imagery, salty language, bawdy comedy and social commentary. Jude remains A BOLDLY ORIGINAL VOICE IN MODERN EUROPEAN CINEMA, with serious things to say and increasingly adventurous ways of saying them. The film’s second act is a quick-fire montage of horror and hypocrisy. Jude mischievously offers three alternative endings, including an orgiastic revenge fantasy worthy of John Waters. It’s not subtle, but it is deliciously demented. A bumpy ride, audacious and witty. – The Hollywood Reporter
Tickets: only $8
Pandemic Protocols: Filmgoers must be vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination. Filmgoers must wear masks in the theater. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
A touching, long-in-the-works film directed by Robert B. Weide (Curb Your Enthusiasm) tracing the life of Kurt Vonnegut. This is a deep, immersive dive into the author’s upbringing and his creative output. Beginning with his childhood in Indianapolis, the film delves into his experience as a prisoner of war, his marriage and family, his early careers as a publicist for General Electric and a car salesman, and his years as a struggling writer, leading to eventual superstardom in 1969 following the publication of Slaughterhouse-Five. The film is abundant with whimsical anecdotes about Vonnegut. We also hear from his children, his contemporaries, and Weide himself, as the documentary turns inward as a thoughtful examination of its own creation. The light-touch technique is one that echoes the work of Vonnegut, who often placed himself as a supporting character in his own novels, with unexpectedly profound results. 2021 • 121 min
Pandemic Protocols: Filmgoers must be vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination. Filmgoers must wear masks in the theater. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
Jan 14, 15, 21, 22 at 7pm at the IU Fine Arts Theater • Sunday Matinees Jan 16 and 23 at 3pm at the IU Fine Arts Theater • Purchase Tickets
Benedetta is inspired by the true story of Benedetta Carlini, a 17th century nun who as a child in the convent was told, “You are an intelligent girl…but intelligence can be dangerous.” She believed she saw visions of Christ and in fact, came to believe she was Jesus’ bride. Her erotic desires resulted in a forbidden love affair with another woman. Wildly entertaining, Benedetta is directed by Dutch auteur/provocateur Paul Verhoeven (best known in the States for RoboCop and Basic Instinct) in his signature salacious style, featuring standout performances from Virginie Efira as the title character and Charlotte Rampling as the stoic, conflicted Mother Abbess. 2021 • France/Belgium/Netherlands • 141 min
Verhoeven brings more vitality to his work than many filmmakers half his age. AN UNHOLY GOOD TIME! – The New York Times
At Cannes, in my press screening, the movie was received with shocked laughter and applause, and at the larger Lumiere screening, a five-minute standing ovation. – Vulture
A GRAND SUMMATION of all the director’s ideas about eroticism, rationality, moral ambiguity, and faith. – RogerEbert.com
Back By Popular Demand! Jan 7 & 8 at 6:45 at the IU Fine Arts Theater Sunday Matinee! Jan 9 at 4pm at IU Fine Arts
Are trees able to talk? Do they have a memory and a social life? The forester and bestselling author Peter Wohlleben gets to the bottom of these questions and opens our eyes to the hidden world of the woods.
The whole world is talking about the environment, but frequently fails to listen to nature itself. Peter Wohlleben has changed all that: in The Hidden Life of Trees he opens our eyes to the hidden world of the woods. When Peter Wohlleben published his book in 2015, he stormed all the bestseller charts; no-one had ever written about the German woods and recognized trees as living in solidarity as part of a community.
We humans can only survive if the woods are healthy. The eleventh hour may already be upon us.
Germany / 2021 / 96 min)
Tickets: only $8
Covid Protocols: Filmgoers must be vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination. This includes IU students, faculty and staff. (You can photograph your vaccination card and show it to us on your phone.) Filmgoers must wear masks in the theater. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
January 7 and 8 at 7:30 at the IU Radio & Television Theater Sunday Matinee! Jan 9 at 3pm IU Radio & Television
In this evocative triptych — three taut stories set in Tokyo about the mysteries and depths of women’s desires — coincidence seems as natural as the passing of time, and both are depicted in equal measure as whimsical and sharp: A fashion model discovers her friend is dating the ex who may have been her true love; a college student attempts to avenge humiliation by enlisting his lover to lure his sadistic professor into a “Me Too” situation; two middle-aged women make a poignant, enigmatic connection. Filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi homes in on deceptively simple moments, finely sketched to reveal the strangeness of true intimacy.
2021 / 120 min / in Japanese with subtitles / Coming in January:Ryûsuke Hamaguchi ‘s Drive My Car
“Critic’s Pick. The geometry of desire is elegantly plotted… a wistful, moving, outwardly unassuming movie… (by) one of the more intriguing filmmakers to emerge in the last decade…” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“Ingenious, playful, sparklingly acted and thoroughly entertaining portmanteau collection. Elegant and amusing, with a delicacy of touch and real imaginative warmth. An invigorating experience.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (UK)
Tickets: only $8
Covid Protocols: Filmgoers must be vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination. Filmgoers must wear masks in the theater. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
Dec 17 and 18 at 6:30 at the IU Fine Arts Theater Scandi noir! Sidse Babett Knudsen stars as kindly Aunt Bodil (a 180-degree reversal from her role as the morally impeccable Danish Prime Minister in the TV series Borgen), who provides a home for her orphaned teen-aged niece. As it turns out, her smiling aunt is the grande dame of a ruthless crime family. Sandra Guldberg Kampp is riveting as an emotionally fragile, grieving young woman who is grateful to her new relations but conflicted about their enterprise. 2021 • Denmark • in Danish with subtitles • 88 min
