This month, Museum Films brings the best of independent and international cinema to Oklahoma City with acclaimed highlights from film festivals around the world. As the 24th annual Manhattan Short Film Festival draws to a close, we deepen our focus on innovative short-form filmmaking with official Cannes selection, The Year of the Everlasting Storm, an omnibus of brief but powerful new films from seven of the world’s most artistically vibrant filmmakers. Featuring Palme d’or-winning Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose work was featured in OKCMOA’s 2018 exhibition Serenity of Madness, and David Lowery, acclaimed director of The Green Knight, The Year of the Everlasting Storm offers a multi-faceted reflection on life in the pandemic age.
We’re also proud to feature a pair of stylistically and thematically diverse works from celebrated Japanese horror pioneer Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who earned the Best Director prize at the Venice film festival for his elegant WWII thriller, Wife of a Spy — making its Oklahoma City debut this month the Noble Theater. Returning in a crystalline 4K restoration just in time for Halloween, Kurosawa’s virtuosic 1997 breakthrough Cure is a chilling reinvention of the serial killer genre. Another elegant entry in the thriller genre, sumptuous Berlin Film Festival standout Azor conjures up a hidden world of Graham Green-style financial intrigue in late-1970s Argentina.
Museum Films’ October lineup also features a trio of acclaimed new releases fresh from this month’s New York Film Festival. The first documentary feature from American indie film legend Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, I’m Not There), The Velvet Underground is a visually inventive portrait of one of the most influential rock bands of all time. A bittersweet mediation on love and cinema, Bergman Island follows a filmmaking couple played by Vicky Krieps (The Phantom Thread) and Tim Roth on a pilgrimage to the secluded Swedish island of Fårö, where Ingmar Bergman lived and worked. The latest from celebrated Japanese writer-director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy weaves an enchanting trio of stories about romance, regret and life-changing chance encounters.
For art lovers missing OKCMOA’s popular Painters of Pompeii exhibition, OKCMOA’s Noble Theater offers the next best thing. Opening Halloween weekend, Exhibition on Screen: Munch is an unprecedented behind-the-scenes tour of a landmark exhibition of eerily iconic works by Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch, creator of The Scream.
Last but not least, we’re excited to launch 35mm Thursdays, a free, bimonthly series of international film classics exclusively for OKCMOA Film Society members. The series begins on October 14 with a 35mm screening of acclaimed Spanish drama The Spirit of the Beehive.
We hope to see you soon!
Click here to download the printable October schedule.
MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2021 | Various | 2021 | subtitled and in English | 146 minutes | NR — Fri., Oct. 1 @ 5 pm | Sat., Oct. 2 @ 2 & 8 pm | Sun., Oct. 3 @ 12:30 & 3:30 pm
AZOR | Andreas Fontana | 2021 | subtitled | 100 minutes | NR — Fri., Oct. 1 @ 8 pm | Sat., Oct. 2 @ 5:30 pm
THE YEAR OF THE EVERLASTING STORM | Jafar Panâhi, Anthony Chen, Malik Vitthal, Laura Poitras, Dominga Sotomayor, David Lowery, Apichatpong Weerasethakul | 2021 | subtitled and in English | 115 minutes | NR — Fri., Oct. 8 @ 5:30 pm | Sat., Oct. 9 @ 2 & 8 pm | Sun., Oct. 10 @ 3 pm
WIFE OF A SPY | Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 2020 | subtitled | 115 minutes | NR — Fri., Oct. 8 @ 8 pm | Sat., Oct. 9 @ 5:30 pm | Sun., Oct. 10 @ 12:30 pm | Two by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
OKCMOA FILM SOCIETY PRESENTS: THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE ON 35MM | Víctor Erice | 1973 | subtitled | 99 minutes | NR | 35mm — Thurs., Oct. 14 @ 7 pm | Free and exclusive to Film Society members
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND | Todd Haynes | 2021 | In English | 110 min | R — Fri., Oct. 15 @ 5:30 pm | Sat., Oct. 16 @ 2 & 8 pm | Sun., Oct. 17 @ 12:30 & 3 pm
CURE | Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 1997 | subtitled | 111 minutes | NR — Fri., Oct. 15 @ 8 pm | Sat., Oct. 16 @ 5:30 pm | Two by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
BERGMAN ISLAND | Mia Hansen-Løve | 2021 | In English | 112 minutes | R — Fri., Oct. 22 @ 5:30 & 8 pm | Sat., Oct. 23 @ 2 pm | Sun., Oct. 24 @ 12:30 & 3 pm
EXHIBITION ON SCREEN: MUNCH | Ben Harding | 2013 | In English | 90 minutes | NR — Fri., Oct. 29 @ 5:30 pm | Sat., Oct. 30 @ 2 & 5:30 pm | Sun., Oct. 31 @ 12:30 pm
WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY | Ryūsuke Hamaguchi | 2021 | subtitled | 121 minutes | NR — Fri., Oct. 29 @ 8 pm | Sat., Oct. 30 @ 8 pm | Sun., Oct. 31 @ 3 pm
