The Cinematheque

This August, wrap yourself in the nocturnal embrace of The Cinematheque’s annual film noir season, our routine deep-dive into that deliriously dark and fertile period of hardboiled, high-body-count American cinema.

William Carroll has selected six representative films across Suzuki’s career. We’ve added six more. Only three overlap with our previous retrospective, all the better to appreciate how Suzuki could reconfigure his modernism across genres and eras.

To answer the question, “What is the image or what are the images before us?,” we need the opportunity to actually see them, to show films—our films, our films from our community—that are hard to see, except at an institution like The Cinematheque.

“I See a Darkness” presents György Fehér’s tremendous first film, never before released in North America, alongside Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies, one of the milestones of modern cinema. Both arrive in stunning new restorations.

Following Les Films du losange’s historic acquisition and remastering of the director’s entire library, The Cinematheque is honoured to present the complete works of Jean Eustache, a miracle by any measure.

The Cinematheque is delighted to present Rosetta and The Son, newly restored, in a series-addendum program that also includes the brothers’ much-lauded latest, Tori and Lokita.

Walker’s films are acts of transformative re-creation informed by the time spent behind cameras and within games, knowing that from both these positions a small and nimble cinema can chart its own course.

Lee is a director of generous yet uncompromising films and a politically and intellectually fearless figure in Korean culture. The Cinematheque is proud to present a complete retrospective of Lee’s feature films.

Comprising eight features and two shorts, “Moving Mountains” is the first Canadian retrospective of Armenian cinema’s volatile trajectory from the ideologically oriented silent period to the post-Soviet era of creative diversity and experimentation.

Highlights of this year include a 35mm presentation of Elia Kazan’s epic America America; a new restoration of Theo Angelopoulos's Reconstruction; several award-winners from last year's Hellenic Film Awards; and a tribute to Olympia Dukakis.

The Cinematheque is delighted to bring this retrospective, which showcases all of Ermacora and Johnson’s solo and collaborative documentary shorts, as well as their 2022 feature Anyox, home.

Through a series of public screenings, panel talks, and discussions, “Cinema Thinks the World” aims to explore the ways in which global cinema represents and helps us to think about the world. Presented with the Public Humanities Hub at UBC.

Cinephilic Vancouverites, heed our call! Guy Maddin, legendary Winnipeg auteur and the world’s foremost reanimator of cinema’s dead and buried past, is coming to The Cinematheque in the twilight days of January.

The Cinematheque is proud to present a rare three-film primer on Suwa's incisive (and woefully underseen) cinema, featuring a sampling of his seminal early works made in Japan.

Finally available in new restorations, Roemer’s films are the kind of cinema rare in any age: alive to the historical moments in which they were made, but built out of the elemental material that lasts.

“The Hong Kong crime drama was jolted to new life with the release of the Infernal Affairs trilogy, a bracing, explosively stylish critical and commercial triumph that introduced a dazzling level of narrative and thematic complexity to the genre.”

“Resnais 100” showcases films from the first and most influential chapter of the iconic director’s career, including brand-new restorations of his formative documentaries and his scarcely screened, politically piercing La guerre est finie.

By turns sad, funny, tender, and agonizingly true to life—yet always sympathetic to the Sisyphean struggles of its ordinary heroes—the bittersweet cinema of writer-director Mike Leigh is showcased in this retrospective.

Acclaimed and accomplished new films from Iran are in the spotlight in this showcase presented by The Cinematheque in partnership with the Phoenix Cultural Centre of Toronto and Pacific United Productions.

While the bulk of our birthday cake was served in August (our month of incorporation), some of the best pieces were saved for this “Fifty / Fifty” series.

Europe without the jet lag! After a two-year hiatus as an in-theatre festival, the European Union Film Festival returns for a special hybrid edition that brings the latest in European cinema to your screen and, at last, ours too!

This Halloween season, hold onto your guts as The Cinematheque serves up four body-horror classics by the godfather of the subgenre, plus a pay-nothing screening of his newest “new flesh” think piece, Crimes of the Future (2022).

Wayne Wang is having a moment. Again.

VIFF 2022's spectacular roster includes some of the best cinema from around the globe.

“Pioneers of Queer Cinema” is an attempt to recover some American queer films that are now little-known, and many rarely ever seen at all, and put them in conversation with works now deemed classics.

As we look back on a half-century of “essential cinema”—a fluid, shapeshifting term if ever there was—we wish to celebrate those Cinematheque programmers of yore who nourished generations of cinephiles still tumbling through our doors.

After a two-year COVID-era hiatus, we are pleased to reboot our series “The Image Before Us: A History of Film in British Columbia” with a sixth season.

This year marks The Cinematheque’s 50th lap around the sun. What better way to celebrate our joyous jubilee than by plummeting mug-first into the nihilistic, nocturnal underworld of film noir!

Although it’s come and gone, September 2021 marked the beginning of the 20th year of Frames of Mind as a monthly event at The Cinematheque.

The empathetic, fiercely independent film practice of partners Janis Cole and Holly Dale, iconic figures in the pantheon of Canadian documentary, is celebrated in this program of newly restored feminist landmarks by the Genie Award-winning duo.

Polish master Krzysztof Kieślowski's celebrated “Three Colours Trilogy,” based on the three colours of the French flag and their symbolic representation of the French Revolution’s ideals, screens here in brilliant new digital restorations.

This summer, bow down to “King” Kon Satoshi at our mind-bending retrospective devoted to his awesome anime films.

In conjunction with National Indigenous Peoples Day 2022, The Cinematheque is proud to present an exhibition of Inuktitut-language film works by Isuma, the trailblazing studio and media arts collective that introduced Inuit cinema to the world.

The formidable acting career of Tanaka Kinuyo (1909–1973) has long overshadowed her pioneering status as a film director—Japan’s first (and for a long time, only) female filmmaker of the postwar period.

The Hellenic Canadian Congress of B.C. and The Cinematheque present the first Vancouver Greek Film Festival, an in-person event hosted at The Cinematheque.

This spring, The Cinematheque remembers Monica Vitti with a tribute program of canonical Antonioni masterworks, each featuring an indelible lead performance by the late, beloved arthouse icon.

One of Hungary’s preeminent filmmakers, Márta Mészáros has created a distinctive body of deeply personal, deeply political works in a trailblazing career spanning more than six decades.

In December, The Cinematheque marked the centennial of Satyajit Ray with a presentation of his acclaimed Apu Trilogy. We continue our tribute to master Ray with two more celebrated works, both among his very finest achievements.

A meticulous, perfectionist film artist whose funny-sad visionary work has been described as “slapstick Ingmar Bergman” (J. Hoberman, Village Voice), Swedish director Roy Andersson is one of the 21st century’s most revered filmmakers.

This series collects Scottish auteur Lynne Ramsay's four extraordinary feature-length films to date, as well as a number of essential award-winning Ramsay shorts we would be remiss (if not irresponsible) to exclude.

2021 marked the centennial of the birth of Satyajit Ray, the great Bengali writer-director who introduced Indian cinema to the world. To celebrate, the three films in Ray's Apu Trilogy screen here in their 2015 restorations.

A major retrospective featuring many of the German titan’s most iconic, enigmatic, and ecstatic feats of narrative and documentary filmmaking. Welcome, one and all, to Herzog season.

In celebration of the 100th birthday of beloved Japanese actress Hara Setsuko, The Cinematheque and the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre present Ozu Yasujiro's cycle of immortal masterworks informally named after Hara's onscreen counterparts.

“Family Matters,” The Cinematheque’s first-ever retrospective honouring Japanese eminence Kore-eda Hirokazu, showcases the finest of the filmmaker’s signature family portraits.

New restorations of the first three features from trailblazing African-American filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles are showcased in our tribute to this important pioneer.

Europe without the jet lag! Experience films from across the European Union in this second online edition of the EUFF.

A curated confection of high-art horror films for Halloween to satiate your cinephilic sweet teeth and, oh heck, scare the living bejesus out of you too! ’Tis the season of terror, no?

With over 110 feature films, 75+ shorts, talks and conferences there is a lot to discover at VIFF 2021.

Vancouver’s most popular (and pessimistic) summer film series is back! Join us for 17 nights of downbeat, doom-laden, deliriously stylish cinema, as The Cinematheque once again celebrates the sleazy, sordid glories of classic American film noir.

The Cinematheque celebrates the centennial of one of cinema’s boldest and most beloved maestros with an extensive retrospective, featuring many new restorations.

Occasioned by a digital restoration of Sweetgrass, the film that first signaled the Ivy League collective’s arthouse ambitions, The Cinematheque presents a trio of the Sensory Ethnography Lab’s most indispensable and acclaimed documentaries.

The Cinematheque marks the 20th anniversary of In the Mood for Love with a career-spanning retrospective devoted to Hong Kong’s best-loved auteur, featuring many brand-new 4K restorations.

Free virtual program! To mark the 2021 edition of NIPD, The Cinematheque has partnered with the National Film Board of Canada to present a free virtual program dedicated to the trailblazing work of the NFB’s first all-Indigenous film unit.

The Cinematheque and the Polish Cultural Institute New York mark the centennial of Polish literary icon and science-fiction master Stanisław Lem (1921–2006).

The Cinematheque reopens for in-person screenings with a trio of cinema’s greatest masterworks!

Free virtual series! Conceived in 2020 as a means of engaging with the wider film community during the COVID-19 pandemic, “Monographs” is a series of video essays on Asian cinema, commissioned by the Asian Film Archive (AFA) in Singapore.

Prolific French writer-director Eric Rohmer, at perhaps his most engaging and exploratory, spins delicately crafted tales of chance encounters and romantic roundelays in this quartet of seasonally-set comedies.

The Cinematheque is pleased to mark National Canadian Film Day 2021 with two free virtual programs of exceptional Canadian cinema.

Toronto-based production and distribution company Medium Density Fibreboard Films — better known by its acronym MDFF — is at the crest of a new wave in English-Canadian cinema.

From November 13 to 29, join us (virtually) for the first-ever Canada-wide European Union Film Festival, featuring 27 recent films from 27 EU member states.

There’ll be nightmare fuel aplenty, dear scream seekers, as The Cinematheque serves up a J-horror primer this Halloween featuring five benchmark blood-curdlers from the land of high-art horror, Japan.

Fillip and The Cinematheque are pleased to present “Penny Slinger: Exorcisms,” a weeklong virtual series focusing on the film work of visionary British artist Penny Slinger.

Occasioned by the North American release of Greek Weird Wave flag-bearer Yorgos Lanthimos’s first solo feature, the scarcely seen Kinetta, The Cinematheque presents a trio of the Oscar-nominated director’s earliest homegrown efforts.

A formal innovator, feminist, film surrealist, and political gadfly, Věra Chytilová (1929–2014) was a central and singular figure in Czech cinema.

To accompany the Vancouver release of Young Ahmed, The Cinematheque proudly presents a retrospective dedicated to the films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, cinema’s high priests of social realism.

From September 24 – October 7, film lovers province-wide will enjoy over 100 feature films and events showcasing exciting, groundbreaking and provocative cinema and creators from around the globe.

“Burning Bright: New French Filmmakers 2020” is a celebration of emerging French and Francophone voices in cinema, organized by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in New York.

This cruel COVID summer got you down in the dumps? Well, doll, we’ve got the antidote! Join us as the sordid, sleazy, cynical world of Film Noir comes crawling out from under a dirty rock for its annual place in The Cinematheque sun!

Man, myth, legend, dragon — Bruce Lee is the greatest action star that ever was. This summer, feast your eyes on a fistful of the kung-fu king's most iconic films at The Cinematheque!

The singular career of the prolific director and occasional actor Juraj Herz, a master of the offbeat and the macabre, is without parallel in the context of the cinema emerging from Czechoslovakia starting in the mid-1960s.

Renowned preservation work is spotlighted in this biennial festival, featuring superb new restorations of time-honoured classics, nearly lost masterworks, neglected treasures, and rediscovered rarities spanning more than a century of film history.

As part of the (at-home) 2020 edition of NIPD, The Cinematheque has partnered with the National Film Board of Canada to present a trio of vital works by Cree filmmaker and educator Tasha Hubbard.

The Cinematheque is pleased to mark National Canadian Film Day, a one-day, coast-to-coast-to-coast celebration designed to bring Canadians together to watch Canadian films.

Perhaps the most acclaimed Hungarian director of his generation, István Szabó became a major international filmmaker in the 1980s with a series of elaborate, ambitious, and accessible historical works.

The Cinematheque is pleased to present a major retrospective — career-spanning and near-complete — devoted to the films of Agnès Varda, one of cinema's paramount female artists.

The top films of the 2010s, as selected by The Cinematheque’s film curators.

The Cinematheque joins with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and Griffin Art Projects in presenting this film and lecture series organized in conjunction with two current art exhibitions.

The Cinematheque wishes you the very best of the festive season with a special selection of must-see, much-loved film classics, all best enjoyed on the big screen.

The Cinematheque is delighted to welcome acclaimed American independent filmmaker Sean Baker in person for a program celebrating his three most recent features.

The singular cinema of the Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016), one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the past three decades, is celebrated with this near-comprehensive retrospective.

Europe without the jet lag! The Cinematheque’s annual European Union Film Festival spotlights acclaimed new and recent films from across greater Europe.

Outstanding titles from Hot Docs screen in the Crave Hot Docs Showcase.

This Samhain season, till the fields of British folk horror with a program exploring the lineage and enduring legacy of this most unholy horror subgenre.

Elaine May, a gifted comic performer, successful screenwriter, and perfectionist filmmaker, was one of the only women directing features in Hollywood in the 1970s and ’80s.

This year’s celebration of classic American cinema’s most depraved and downbeat film movement showcases ten hard-boiled treasures, each an important noir essential or a ripe-for-rediscovery rarity.

Running in parallel with Film Noir 2019, The Cinematheque presents its first ever retrospective on Jean-Pierre Melville, master of French noir.

From Lem (Stanisław) to LEM (Lunar Excursion Module, Apollo’s moon lander), things get a little spacey at The Cinematheque this July!

Superior cinematic poetry is conjured out of lowly pulp dreams in this eclectic program of masterful films.

These fifty years on, let us be moonstruck anew at an accomplishment as daringly difficult and dangerous as it was dauntingly expensive.

The ten films in this series—ranging from magic-realist fables to bloody Viking epics, sardonic deadpan comedies to hard-boiled Nordic noirs—offer a snapshot survey of the Icelandic film industry's remarkable evolution from the ’80s to today.

Featuring five imported 35mm prints on loan from the Institut Français in Paris, this select Claire Denis retrospective is the largest presented by The Cinematheque to date.

To mark the 2019 edition of NIPD, The Cinematheque is delighted to showcase two exceptional documentaries by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, an award-winning, Vancouver-based filmmaker/actor of Blackfoot and Sámi heritage.

The EUSFF features three lively programs of short films from European Union member states, each showcasing works in a variety of genres and styles, including drama, documentary, and animation.

Lurid, low-budget treasures from the fringes of the Dream Factory are on display in this program of newly restored features, most dating from Hollywood’s more permissive pre-Code era, and all produced on Hollywood’s so-called Poverty Row.

At year five, we recognize that a history of the “images before us” is in a constant state of revision. While we continue to honour important local legacies, our cinema culture continues to evolve.

A nomadic film artist whose work evades easy classification, Italian-Canadian director (and SFU instructor) Simone Rapisarda Casanova has received international plaudits for his poetic and principled brand of “meta-documentary.”

Join us for a special selection of much-loved classics, all films of sensational beauty, all best appreciated on the big screen. Happy holidays and happy viewing!

These works are lasting testaments to Vigo’s status as a film artist of rare genius, and have inspired generations of filmmakers in France and elsewhere—including, significantly, the major talents of French poetic realism and the French New Wave.

The Cinematheque’s annual celebration of new cinema from the European Union is proudly presented; this year’s festival showcases entries from 26 EU members.

With Korine’s long-awaited The Beach Bum finally set for release in 2019, The Cinematheque is proud to present a complete retrospective of Harmony Korine’s corrosive, cult-adored cinema, the first of its kind in Canada.