Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Robert Bresson

Presented by Walter E. Langsam

In his ruthlessly clear-eyed final film, French master Robert Bresson pushed his unique blend of spiritual rumination and formal rigor to a new level of astringency. Transposing a Tolstoy novella to contemporary Paris, L’argent follows a counterfeit bill as it originates as a prop in a schoolboy prank, then circulates like a virus among the corrupt and the virtuous alike before landing with a young truck driver and leading him to incarceration and violence. With brutal economy, Bresson constructs his unforgiving vision of original sin out of starkly perceived details, rooting his characters in a dehumanizing material world that withholds any hope of transcendence. - Criterion

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Dee Rees

Presented by tt stern-enzi

At the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, writer/director Rees premiered the feature-length expansion of her award-winning 2007 short film Pariah. Adepero Oduye, portrays Alike (pronounced ah-lee-kay), a 17-year-old African-American woman who lives with her parents Audrey and Arthur (Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell) and younger sister Sharonda (Sahra Mellesse) in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood. She has a flair for poetry, and is a good student at her local high school. Alike is quietly but firmly embracing her identity as a lesbian. With the sometimes boisterous support of her best friend, out lesbian Laura (Pernell Walker), Alike is especially eager to find a girlfriend. At home, her parents’ marriage is strained and there is further tension in the household whenever Alike’s development becomes a topic of discussion. Wondering how much she can confide in her family, Alike strives to get through adolescence with grace, humor, and tenacity – sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, but always moving forward.

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Bert Haanstra

Presented by Adam Williams

Filmmaker Bert Haanstra’s gentle tone and painstaking technique garnered him worldwide acclaim and made him one of the great Dutch cultural figures of the 1950's. In contrast to his delightful and famous short documentaries, such as Spiegel van Holland (Mirror of Holland) and Alleman (The Human Dutch), Haanstra’s stint as chief of the Royal Dutch Shell Film Unit—the commercial and educational branch of the multinational oil company—produced six distinctly cold-sober industrial films. In addition to documenting the laborious process of oil prospecting and drilling in South America and the Middle East, Haanstra was commissioned to promote one other avenue of Shell’s vast enterprise—pesticide. The resulting film, Strijd zonder einde (The Rival World), is slick and entirely effective in its urgent revelation that the plague of locusts is real and we must fight for humanity’s sake. Post-War and pre-Silent Spring, this film of mid-Century scientific progress is as riveting as it is alarming.

Rounding out the evening will be several other educational, entertaining, exotic and esoteric entomological films.

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Zeinabu irene Davis

Presented by Co-Producer Andy Rice, Miami University

Spirits of Rebellion: Black Independent Cinema from Los Angeles documents the lives and work of a small critically acclaimed group of black filmmakers and media artists known as the Los Angeles Rebellion, a group brought together through shared experiences as students in the UCLA film production MFA program between 1967 and 1992. Although relatively unknown, the Los Angeles Rebellion was the first collective of minority filmmakers in the US that aimed to reimagine the production process to represent, reflect on, and enrich the day to day lives of people in their own communities. It is now recognized as an important part of the Black Arts movement on the West Coast. Spirits of Rebellion offers the story of the movement in an accessible style through over 30 interviews with the filmmakers today as well as archival footage, clips from rarely seen films of the group, and reflections from leading scholars on film history and African-American cinema. The LA Rebellion filmmakers were headlined by: Charles Burnett, Carroll Parrott Blue, Ben Caldwell, Larry Clark, Julie Dash,Jamaa Fanaka, Haile Gerima, Alile Sharon Larkin, Barbara McCullough, and Billy Woodberry.

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Oscar Micheaux

Presented by Black Folks Make Movies

The critic J. Hoberman has described Micheaux as the "Black Pioneer of American film—not just because he was a black man, or because in his youth he pioneered the West, or because he was the greatest figure in ‘race' movies and an unjustly ignored force in early American cinema. Micheaux is America's Black Pioneer in the way that André Breton was Surealism's Black Pope. His movies throw our history and movies into an alien and startling disarray." One of Micheaux’s earliest surviving films, The Symbol of the Unconquered [a silent film] is a stirring melodrama about the westward migration of a young African American woman from her native Selma, Alabama, to the Pacific Northwest town of Orison. Micheaux provided a dramatic rebuttal to the racism of D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation: as one advertisement for the film read, “See the Ku Klux Clan in action—and their annihilation.” - TCM

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth

Presented by the University of Cincinnati Center for Film and Media Studies

In this quirky road movie mockumentary a languid monarch must get lost in the Balkans in order to discover himself and the world. King Nicolas III, regent of a nation known for surrealism and for compromise, embarks on a state visit to Istanbul with a British filmmaker who has been commissioned to shoot a documentary intended to polish the King’s dull image. The news breaks there that Wallonia, Belgium’s southern half, has declared its independence. In order to fulfill his purpose as leader of the nation, Nicolas must embark on a dubios undercover odyssey across the Balkans. The voyage sheds satirical light on Europe’s identity crisis and mocks the incongruity of Belgium and its monarchy.

Introduced by Michael Gott (Romance Languages and Film & Media Studies, UC)

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Billy Wilder

After witnessing a Mafia murder, slick saxophone player Joe (Tony Curtis) and his long-suffering buddy, Jerry (Jack Lemmon), improvise a quick plan to escape from Chicago with their lives. Disguising themselves as women, they join an all-female jazz band and hop a train bound for sunny Florida. While Joe pretends to be a millionaire to win the band's sexy singer, Sugar (Marilyn Monroe), Jerry finds himself pursued by a real millionaire (Joe E. Brown) as things heat up and the mobsters close in.

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Sunday, February 11th, 2018

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM
@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Like Open Mic Night But With Movies

Join us as we host our second “Open Screen” event, highlighting work by local film and video makers. The program will include a mix of short films from varying genres, with a total screening duration of 80 minutes. All filmmakers will be in attendance to present their work. Please join us for this new bi-monthly celebration of local media makers! Interested in screening your work? Visit http://www.mini-cinema.org/open-screen/ for more information. 

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Nejc Gazvoda

Presented by the University of Cincinnati Center for Film and Media Studies

A fortuitous technical problem forces a plane en route from Denmark towards a Greek holiday to land at the airport in Ljubljana, Slovenia.  There the paths of two young women - Tina, a Slovene, and Iben, a Dane – cross. Through their story, Dual explores the different possibilities and limits facing young generations of Europeans. This charming film about work, life, and love also leads viewers on a picturesque journey through the quaint streets of a little-known European capital.     

Introduced by Michael Gott (Romance Languages and Film & Media Studies, UC)

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Celebrating the new wave of independent cinema in Chicago, Chicagoland Shorts Vol. 3 champions work by underrepresented filmmakers and combines experimental genres into one seamless anthology.

Produced by Full Spectrum Features NFP, Chicagoland Shorts Vol. 3 brings together the best of the city’s so-called “niche” cinemas – experimental genres and works by queer filmmakers, women, and people of color.

The short films collected in Chicagoland Shorts Vol. 3 have screened in over 30 countries and 65 cities throughout the world. The work spans many disciplines, including experimental animation, observational doc, and music videos. The filmmakers run the gamut from internationally renowned auteurs to young voices, and include an Emmy-winner, a Fulbright Fellow, and a Wexner resident.

Vol. 3 is co-curated by Beckie Stocchetti of the Chicago Film Office, Raul Benitez of Comfort Station and the Nightingale Cinema, and award-winning filmmaker Jim Vendiola.

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 10:30 AM, Screening at 11:00 AM

@ The Mini 1329 Main St.

Films for Kids

Enjoy a selection of short films for children. The thirty minute program includes animations from all over the world that are either in English or without dialogue. Plus enjoy free bagels from Lil’s Bagels and free coffee from Iris Book Cafe. All ages welcome!

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Theo Anthony

Rats, Maps, and Extermination in an American City. Across walls, fences, and alleys, rats not only expose our boundaries of separation but make homes in them. "Rat Film" is a feature-length documentary that uses the rat—as well as the humans that love them, live with them, and kill them-to explore the history of Baltimore. "There's never been a rat problem in Baltimore, it's always been a people problem.”

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Friday, January 26th, 2018

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM
@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Short Films presented by Brent Green

Filmmaker Brent Green, who will be in town for Live Cinema presented by the CAC, presents a selection of short films.

"I grew up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania. I think my films still look like that farm. I’ve always loved films that look and feel like the place they came from and don’t fall to the whims and styles of pop culture. I’ll be showing short films by Penny Lane, Mike Plante, Sam Green and other great filmmakers from rural places, whose films look like those rural places." —Brent Green

Free with $5 suggested donation.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT LIVE CINEMA... featuring Brent Green... happening Saturday, January 27th, 2018 @ Memorial Hall! 

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Olivier Babinet

An innovative documentary spliced with imaginative fictional elements, Swagger delves into the aspirations and dreams of a group of children and teenagers growing up in some of France's most underprivileged housing projects. Through their singular and unexpected gaze on the world, Swagger offers a joyful, optimistic, and thoroughly unexpected picture of life in the sometimes socially and economically isolated but incredibly diverse suburbs of Paris.

Introduced by Michael Gott (Romance Languages and Film & Media Studies, UC)

Presented by the University of Cincinnati Center for Film and Media Studies

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Valeska Grisebach

Presented by the University of Cincinnati Center for Film and Media Studies

A group of German construction workers ventures to the periphery of Europe to build a hydropower station in a remote Bulgarian nature preserve. Amid this breath-taking landscape, they find themselves confronted with the challenges of physical work, the limits of language, and the foreignness of Bulgaria itself. Reimaging the Western genre in a contemporary European borderland, Valeska Grisebach explores romanticized conceptions of masculinity and the quest for freedom on imagined and real “frontier” of civilization.  Introduced by Tanja Nusser (German Studies and Film & Media Studies, UC)

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 4:30 PM, Screening at 5:00 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Oldrich Lipský

Presented by the University of Cincinnati Center for Film and Media Studies

Described as “one of the strangest films ever made” by Time Out, this classic Czech New wave comedy spoofs the Western while critiquing both Communism and Capitalism. These Czech cowboys sing, dance, and mete out justice with a glass of lemonade in “Stetson City.” Introduced by Evan Torner (German Studies and Film & Media Studies, UC)

Free with $5 suggested donation.

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Digital Program ONE

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is a pioneer of the traveling film festival tour which launched in 1964 with film screenings in Paris, Los Angeles and Berkeley. Since that time, the AAFF Tour has presented hundreds of influential works.

This year’s tour includes independent and experimental short films from the 55th Ann Arbor Film Festival across all genres: experimental, documentary, animation, narrative and hybrids.

Six new experimental, animated, documentary, and narrative videos including Jessica Kingdon's Commodity City (Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker), personne by Christoph Girardet & Matthias Müller (Leon Speakers Award for Best Sound Design), Jonathan Rattner's The Interior (Michael Moore Award for Best Documentary), Elegance Bratton's Walk For Me (\aut\Film Award for Best LGBTQ Film), Railment by Shunsaku Hayashi (Chris Frayne Award for Best Animated Film), and Pokey Pokey by Junjie Zhang (Jury Award).

Free with $5 suggested donation