Screenings at AMIA 2018
In collaboration with the NW Film Center, we’ve been able to schedule a slate of screenings open to the public in Portland, highlighting the work of our members …
November 28 . NW Film Center
8:00pm – Open to all attendees
Surprise Screening! A new restoration of a 1960s classic film. Courtesy of Park Circus.
November 29 . NW Film Center
7:30pm – Open to all attendees
Awards + Archival Screening Night
join us to celebrate our 2018 AMIA Awards honorees. Following the Awards is AMIA’s annual Archival Screening Night. Archival Screening Night is a showcase for AMIA members’ recent acquisitions, discoveries and preservation efforts. The program represents the magnificent spectrum of media formats, works, and collections protected and preserved by the AMIA community.
November 30 . NW Film Center
5:30pm – Open to all attendees and the public
Santo Contra El Cerebro del Mal (1959/1961)
SANTO CONTRA EL CEREBRO DEL MAL (SANTO VS. THE EVIL BRAIN) is the second of two Mexico-Cuba co-productions released – but the first to be completed – after Castro came to power in Cuba, and the filmmakers were forced to flee the country prematurely (with the unprocessed 35mm negative being smuggled out inside a coffin). The aborted shooting schedule meant that sequences had to be “lifted” from each film to fill holes in the other, by necessity. Both of these two films, which represent the very first time that the famous El Santo character appeared on the big screen, have not been available in any acceptable quality prints since initial release. In 2017, the Permanencia Voluntaria archive’s Viviana Garcia Besné in Tepoztlán, Mexico, working in collaboration with Nicolas Winding Refn and the Academy Film Archive, set out to completely restore the films from their rapidly-deteriorating original camera negatives. Viviana A Garcia Besne, Permanencia Voluntaria Archivo Cinematografico, and Peter Conheim will introduce the film.
December 1 . NW Film Center
2:00pm – Open to attendees and the public
Detour (1945)
From the gutters of Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck nightclub pianist (Tom Neal) finds himself with a dead body on his hands and nowhere to run—a waking nightmare that goes from bad to worse when he picks up the most vicious femme fatale in cinema history, Ann Savage’s snarling, monstrously conniving drifter Vera. Working with no-name stars on a bargain-basement budget, B auteur Edgar G. Ulmer turned threadbare production values and seedy, low-rent atmosphere into indelible pulp poetry. Long available only in substandard public domain prints, Detour haunts anew in its first major restoration. Restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation in collaboration with Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Cinémathèque Française. Restoration funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation. Film provided by Janus Films.
December 1 . NW Film Center
4:30pm – Open to attendees and the public
The Juniper Tree (1990)
Set in medieval Iceland, The Juniper Tree follows Margit (Björk in a riveting performance) and her older sister Katla (Bryndis Petra Bragadottir) as they flee for safety after their mother is burned to death for witchcraft. Finding shelter and protection with Johan (Valdimar Orn Fygenring), and his resentful young son, Jonas (Geirlaug Sunna Pormar), the sisters help form an impromptu family unit that’s soon strained by Katla’s burgeoning sorcery. Photographed entirely on location in the stunning landscapes of Iceland in spectacular black-and-white by Randy Sellars, The Juniper Tree is a deeply atmospheric film, evocative of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Day of Wrath and Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, and filled with indelible waking dream sequences (courtesy of legendary experimental filmmaker Pat O’Neill). A potent allegory for misogyny and its attendant tragedies, The Juniper Tree is a major rediscovery for art house audiences. The Juniper Tree was restored in 2018 by the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation. Introduced by Amy Sloper, Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research. An Arbelos release.
December 1 . Hilton Hotel . Broadway Room I/II
7:30pm – 9:00m – Open to attendees and the public
Three Short Films from the Dennis Nyback Film Archive in 16mm
Three films from Seattle (Hobo at the End of the Line, educational, 1977), Portland (The Case of the Kitchen Killer, underground, 1976) and San Francisco (The Innocent Fair, documentary, 1961 about the San Francisco Worlds Fair of 1915) from the Dennis Nyback Film Archive. All in 16mm.