FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON
September 5-7

“Because it’s one of the most beautiful films ever. Because it’s a work of art on the order of a poem by Yeats or a painting by Rothko.” John Anderson, Washington Post.
“A gem made by a filmmaker who loves life, and knows how to capture its ebb and flow and sweet complication.” Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune.

A highlight at the 2007 Cannes, Toronto, and New York film festivals and the latest masterpiece from Hou Hsiao Hsien Flight of the Red Balloon was inspired by Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 Academy Award-winning classic. Hou expands on the original film’s key elements-a young boy, a red balloon, and Paris-to weave a touching and beautiful film about the bonds of family.
113 minutes; French with English subtitles

ALEXANDRA
September 12-14

“Alexander Sokurov’s Alexandra-a film of startling originality and beauty-feels like a communiqué from another time, another place, anywhere but here.” Manohla Dargis, The New York Times.

An elderly woman takes a train trip to visit her grandson at his army camp inside Chechnya in the latest film from the great Russian master.
95 minutes; Russian/Chechen with English subtitles

MAN ON WIRE
September 19–21

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Festival, this compelling documentary examines tightrope walker Philippe Petit’s daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City’s World Trade Center’s twin towers in 1974, what some consider, “the artistic crime of the century.”

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
September 26–28

“ It is a poem of oddness and beauty.” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.) Maverick filmmaker Werner Herzog travels to Antarctica to capture its landscape’s rarely seen beauty on film.

I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND
October 3–5

“Forty years after their Closely Watched Trains won the Oscar for best foreign-language film, director Jiri Menzel has adapted another novel by the late Bohumil Hrabal, and history could well repeat itself when Academy members get to see I Served the King of England.” (Ray Bennett, The Hollywood Reporter.) The glamorous life at an old-world Prague hotel is the setting for this film adaptation of Hrabal’s novel about the rapid rise of an opportunistic waiter in 1930s Prague.

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
October 10–12
Friday 6 and 8:30 pm, Saturday 5 pm, Sunday 2 and 4:30 pm

“The film is plush and passionate and graced with elegant performances. Best is that of Emma Thompson as Brideshead’s matriarch, Lady Marchmain, who resembles a cross between Helen Mirren’s Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict.” Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Based on Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 classic British novel, Emma Thompson stars in this poignant story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in England prior to the Second World War.

PG-13 for some sexual content; 133 minutes

ELEGY
October 17–19
Friday 6 pm ONLY, Saturday 5 pm, Sunday 2 and 4 pm

“If Coixet’s film is substantially more restrained than its explicit source, it is no less provocative as a poetic meditation on love, sex and death.” Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Elegy, adapted from the novel by Philip Roth, charts the passionate relationship between a celebrated college professor (Ben Kingsley) and a young woman (Penelope Cruz) whose beauty both ravishes and destabilizes the professor.
R for sexuality, nudity and language; 113 minutes

UP THE YANGTZE
October 24–26

“One of the real pluses of Up the Yangtze, aside from its empathy with its subjects, is its striking visual quality. Beijing-based cinematographer Wang Shi Qing has an impeccable eye, often coming up with haunting images that show both the beauty and uncertainty of this pivotal time.” Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times. Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang returns to the stunning landscape of his grandfather’s Yangtze, known in China as “The River” to chronicle the “farewell cruise” on the magnificent waterway before the transformation resulting from the largest hydroelectric project in history.
93 minutes; English/Mandarin

TRANSIBERIAN
October 31–November 2

“One hell of a thriller. It’s not often that I feel true suspense and dread building within me, but they were building during long stretches of this expertly constructed film.” Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times. A Trans-Siberian train journey from China to Moscow is fraught with suspense and murder when an American couple (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) encounters a mysterious pair of fellow travelers.
R for some violence and language; 111 minutes

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
November 7–9

Academy Award winning director, Jonathan Demme, directs this strikingly perceptive and sometimes hilarious family portrait which stars Ann Hathaway as a sister recently released from re-hab returning home for her sister’s wedding.
R for language and brief sexuality

GIRL CUT IN TWO
November 14–16
Friday 6 pm ONLY, Saturday 5 pm, Sunday 2 and 4 pm

“An erotically charged, beautifully directed story of a woman preyed upon by different men and her own warring desires.” Manohla Dargis, The New York Times. French master Claude Chabrol directs this black comedy about a TV weather girl torn between two romantic suitors.
115 minutes; French with English subtitles

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
Friday November 21–23

Charlie Kaufman wrote and directs this comedy/drama about a theater director (Philip Seymour-Hoffman) struggling with the demands of his work and the many women in his life
R for language and some sexual content/nudity

I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG
November 28–30

Kristen Scott Thomas plays a sister re-united with the family who has rejected her for fifteen years.
PG-13 for thematic material and smoking; 115 minutes

ASHES OF TIME, REDUX
December 5–7

Chinese director/auteur Wong Kar-wai works true magic in his legendary, romantic and one and only martial arts film, previously un-released in this country.
93 minutes; Mandarin with English subtitles