SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our FEMALE FILMMAKERS ACROSS THE DECADES Series, Thursday, June 29, 2023
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the building. Make a right on Wilson Street, then a right behind the building. We’re the first set of black steps after the big gate.
7:30pm DAISIES (1966, dir. Věra Chytilová, Czechoslovakia, 75mns, 35mm)
9:15pm CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (1962, dir. Agnès Varda, France, 90mns, DCP)
We close out our Female Filmmakers Across the Decades series with two blasts of cinematic prowess that heralded the New Waves in both filmmakers’ countries from the early to mid-1960s.
First up is the almost unclassifiable, uncontainable anarchic Czech comedy-satire-mind blower Daisies from Věra Chytilová. A kind of post-mortem on materialism, the movie follows Marie I and Marie II across a kind of psychedelic Alice in Wonderland celebration (satire? Takedown?), all the while giving the leads a kind of agency usually only reserved for men.
The movie was so mind blowing, scandalous, and controversial that it was banned by the Communist Czech government but it has gone on to become a kind of rallying cry for a certain kind of liberated, unbridled cinema at 11. And we’re showing it on 35mm!
You must experience it to understand it.
We follow this with Agnes Varda’s second film and one of the classics of French New Wave cinema, Cleo From 5 to 7. Cleo follows its nightclub singer lead character from 5pm to 630pm as she awaits the result of a medical test that will tell her if she has cancer.
Along the way, she wanders Paris and meets strangers, people from her past, lovers, and considers her life, where she is, and where she might be going. We also get cameos from Jean Luc Goddard, Anna Karina, and many French New Wave heroes.
From the beginning, Varda re-positions the camera and cinema eye to consider the world from a woman’s (and thus her) viewpoint. Not in any kind of pedagogic or didactic way but rather in that deeply humanist, common sense, artistic, deeply felt, profound way that Varda brought to all her cinema until the very end.
Both movies are the seeds of a thousand others that came after them and we end our series really at its beginning.
Come join us for these two female written and directed New Wave classics of the 1960’s!
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
*Please note that though we strive to always show titles on 35mm film if advertised, we may have to screen digitally if the print we receive is in such bad shape or if we don't receive the print in time because of a shipping delay. We will do our best to alert the audience. When this does occur, we will offer each ticket holder who chooses not to attend a complimentary ticket to a future event in exchange. (Disclaimer: Good for 90 days – Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
HOW CAN WE STAY ON TOP OF NEWLY ANNOUNCED 35MM SCREENINGS, EVENTS, ETC?
You can follow us on Instagram/Twitter: @secretmovieclub or Facebook: @secretmovieclub35mm
You can also subscribe to our weekly email newsletter at secretmovieclub.com or by writing to us at community@secretmovieclub.com and using the header “SUBSCRIBE ME TO NEWSLETTER”.
HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.