The Cinematheque

“The greatest cinematic show on Earth … alternating between extreme rarities seen nowhere else and beloved prints of movie classics … A splendid festival.”

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

The UCLA Film & Television Archive in Southern California is a world leader in the preservation of motion picture heritage. The Archive’s important work is showcased in its biennial UCLA Festival of Preservation, featuring glorious new 35mm restorations of important classics, nearly-lost masterworks, neglected treasures, and rediscovered rarities spanning more than a century of film history in the United States and beyond.

Highlights from the most recent edition of the festival are now on tour and make their sole Canadian stop at The Cinematheque. Included are comic landmarks from the sound and silent eras; rare films noir from Hollywood’s Poverty Row and from Argentina; and several significant independent works with contemporary social-cultural resonance: two revelatory films by little-known groundbreaker Juleen Compton, one of the few women directing features in the 1960s; The Murder of Fred Hampton, a trenchant 1971 documentary still timely in our age of Black Lives Matter activism; and a 107-year-old silent-comedy short by Alice Guy-Blaché, the first-ever female filmmaker.

In a digital age when DCP (Digital Cinema Package) has supplanted celluloid film as the standard medium for the projection of motion pictures in movie houses, the UCLA Film and Television Archive has remained committed to preserving film on film, allowing likeminded institutions such as ours to continue offering opportunities to see films on film—itself a rare, endangered, but essential cinematic experience well worth preserving!

“A grab bag of sure bets, historically significant titles, and sheer oddities. The last category includes two virtually unknown features by Juleen Compton, an independent director who worked on her own eccentric terms.” Ben Kenigsberg, New York Times

Opening Night! • Thursday June 7 Reception, Refreshments, and Introduction
6:00 pm — Doors
6:30 pm — Trouble in Paradise + Dinah with Intro
8:30 pm — The Lost Moment + Moods of the Sea