Our Deep Winter movie series is back! We asked some friends and fellow movie-lovers to pick a “dance film” - a prompt we encourage be interpreted widely and wildly.
Movies screen every Sunday in January and February at 6pm at the studio!
FREE/Donations for popcorn
January 4 - Flirt, Hal Hartley (1995)
Picked by Aaron Richmond-Havel
A simple story of love and loss told three times in three different cities: New York, Berlin, and Tokyo. Repeating the same situations and dialogue but with subtle shifts of emphasis, the film evolves from the turbulence of America to the benign calm of Japan. The crisis in each story is set off by the indecisiveness of the main character, the flirt, and his or her need for reassurance: should they surrender to a love that will demand patience or check out other possibilities first?
January 11 - Paris is Burning, Jennie Livingston (1990)
Picked by Olana Flynn
This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City’s African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, Paris Is Burning offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion “houses,” from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women—including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza—Paris Is Burning brings it, celebrating the joy of movement, the force of eloquence, and the draw of community.
January 18 - Suspiria, Dario Argento (1977)
Picked by Joshua Boydstun
American ballet dancer Suzy Bannion arrives in Freiberg, Germany, to attend the prestigious Tanz Academy. From the moment she arrives, she senses that something evil lurks within the walls of the age-old institution. As she probes the depths of the dance school, terrible accidents start to happen…
January 25 - The Gold Rush, Charlie Chaplin (1925)
Picked by Wednesday Knudsen
The Gold Rush stars Charlie Chaplin’s famous Tramp character as a lone prospector during the 19th-century Klondike Gold Rush. Before he eventually strikes it rich, he faces the brutal cold, starvation, and some rough characters in the Alaskan wilderness. Many of Chaplin’s most iconic gags, endlessly copied by generations of comedians, are packed into this one film. From the dinner roll dance to boiling and eating a shoe to the unforgettable cabin teetering on the edge of a cliff, The Gold Rush is a comedy landmark and Chaplin’s most celebrated work.
February 1 - Beau Travail, Claire Denis (1999)
Picked by Madison Palffy
With her ravishingly sensual take on Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, Claire Denis firmly established herself as one of the great visual tone poets of our time. Amid the azure waters and sunbaked desert landscapes of Djibouti, a French Foreign Legion sergeant (Denis Lavant) sows the seeds of his own ruin as his obsession with a striking young recruit (Grégoire Colin) plays out to the thunderous, operatic strains of Benjamin Britten. Denis and cinematographer Agnès Godard fold military and masculine codes of honor, colonialism’s legacy, destructive jealousy, and repressed desire into shimmering, hypnotic images that ultimately explode in one of the most startling and unforgettable endings in all of modern cinema.
February 8 - The Warriors, Walter Hill (1979)
Picked by Kathy Couch
“Warriors, come out to play.” As color-coded gangs gather by the thousands in the Bronx, charismatic leader Cyrus is assassinated and the finger points, mistakenly, at the Warriors — now it’s one long trek back to Coney. Ultra-stylized, violence-packed update of Xenophon’s Anabasis.
February 15 - Climax, Gaspar Noe (2018)
Picked by Sonya Marx
From director Gaspar Noé comes a hypnotic, hallucinatory, and ultimately hair-raising depiction of a party that descends into delirium over the course of one wintry night when a troupe of young dancers gathers in a remote and empty school building to rehearse. The troupe begins an all-night celebration that turns nightmarish as the dancers discover they've been pounding cups of sangria laced with potent LSD. Tracking their journey from jubilation to chaos and full-fledged anarchy, Noé observes crushes, rivalries, and violence amid a collective psychedelic meltdown. Starring Sofia Boutella (Atomic Blonde) and a cast of professional dancers, Climax is Noé's most brazen and visionary statement yet.
February 22 - Moving to L.A.: Short Films by Alee Peoples
Projected on 16mm!
Picked by Josh Guilford
Alee Peoples maintains a varied artistic practice that involves screen-printing, sewing, sculpture and film. Currently living in Los Angeles, she has taught youth classes at Echo Park Film Center and shown her sculpture and film work at GAIT, 4th Wall and elephant. Peoples has shown her films at numerous festivals. She is inspired by pedestrian histories, pop song lyrics and invested in the hand-made. This screening is supported by the English Department and Film and Media Studies Program at Amherst College.