Calgary Cinematheque’s 12th season to feature Ken Russell, world musicals, actress Isabelle Huppert, and the best in contemporary art-house cinema.

For immediate release

Calgary, Alberta: Calgary Cinematheque, a non-profit film presentation society, has announced its latest selection of relevant, important, and artistically significant cinema for its 2018/19 season. Season 12 will run from October 18, 2018 until April 4, 2019, and feature films organized around four thematic series: MASTERS: Ken Russell; FOCUS: World Musicals; SPOTLIGHT: Isabelle Huppert; and CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA.

MASTERS: Ken Russell

A true iconoclast among British filmmakers, and never beholden to decorum or conventional standards of good taste, Ken Russell’s films continue to maintain their ability to shock, awe, and delight. His stylistically decadent, often controversial films defiantly question notions of tradition, whether artistic, cultural, or religious, and suggest that civilization is perhaps not so civilized after all.

For our first series, we have chosen five films that reflect several essential touchpoints of Ken Russell’s career. With WOMEN IN LOVE and the famously censored THE DEVILS, we present the films that cemented his artistry and his infamy, respectively. With TOMMY and ALTERED STATES, we present the furthest extents of Russell’s phantasmagoric visions, in the modes of rock opera and sci-fi, respectively. Finally, with MAHLER, we present an under-seen, emblematic example of Russell’s bold, unconventional composer biopics.

WOMEN IN LOVE (Dir. Ken Russell, 1969, 131 min)
October 18, 2018, 6:45 PM @ Plaza Theatre

THE DEVILS (Dir. Ken Russell, 1971, 107 min)
October 25, 2018, 7:00 PM @ Globe Cinema

ALTERED STATES (Dir. Ken Russell, 1980, 102 min)
November 8, 2018, 7:00 PM @ Plaza Theatre

FOCUS: World Musicals

While the idea of the “musical” evokes lavish spectacles of the type produced by Hollywood or Bollywood, rich variations on the form are also visible around the globe, especially in the last 20 years. As a communal and celebratory genre, these diverse musicals allow viewers to expand their experience of (a locally-global) community.

Calgary Cinematheque is pleased to present five millennial musicals from across the globe. Johnnie To’s OFFICE and THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS feature two prolific Asian genre masters offering their own unique takes on the musical. DESTINY and NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS celebrate music as opposition to fundamentalism and censorship in the Egyptian/Arab and Iranian contexts, respectively. Finally, our season finale OPERA JAWA exemplifies cross-cultural fusion, telling a story from the Ramayana through traditional Indonesian gamelan music, while being commissioned for a Viennese arts festival celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth.

OFFICE (Johnnie To, 2017)
November 22, 2018, 6:45 PM @ Plaza Theatre

DESTINY (Youssef Chahine, 1997)
December 13, 2018, 7:00 PM @ Globe Cinema

THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (Takashi Miike, 2002)
January 17, 2019, 7:00 PM @ Plaza Theatre 

SPOTLIGHT: Isabelle Huppert

First appearing on screen in 1971, Isabelle Huppert has amassed more than 130 credits over the course of a remarkable and varied career. Famed for her icy intelligence, intensity of affect, and subtlety of craft, she is considered by many to be the finest screen actress of her generation.

In 2019, Calgary Cinematheque will present six films featuring Isabelle Huppert, showcasing both her captivating screen presence and her range. While she can indeed be famously ruthless and inscrutable is in films such as THE PIANO TEACHER, ABUSE OF WEAKNESS, and LA CEREMONIE, she is equally at home rendering the subtle complexities of love and desire as in her early turns in LOULOU and THE LACEMAKER, or participating in merry madcap antics as in TIP TOP.

LOULOU (Claude Goretta, 1977)
January 24, 2019, 7:00 PM @ Globe Cinema

THE PIANO TEACHER (Michael Haneke, 2001)
February 14, 2019, 7:00 PM @ Globe Cinema

ABUSE OF WEAKNESS (Catherine Breillat, 2013)
February 21, 2019, 7:00 PM @ Plaza Theatre

Contemporary World Cinema

In our regular Contemporary World Cinema series, Calgary Cinematheque presents a selection of the most vital, challenging, and artistically cutting-edge films from around the world. These acclaimed works of critical cinema will be presented in the cinema, as intended, and likely will not return to theatres in Calgary.

Because this series is programmed on an ongoing basis, only the first film in the Contemporary World Cinema series has been announced. On November 1, we present A MAN OF INTEGRITY, winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, which tells a story of a farmer beset by corruption and injustice in rural Iran. Shot covertly in defiance of state authorities, director Mohammad Rasoulof establishes himself as a vital voice of contemporary world cinema.

A MAN OF INTEGRITY (Mohammad Rasoulof, 2017)
November 1, 2018, 7:00 PM @ Globe Cinema

The remaining screenings are scheduled for the following dates, all at the Globe Cinema:

January 10, 2019
January 31, 2019
February 28, 2019
March 28, 2019

Press inquiries: please contact Kevin Dong at programming@calgarycinema.org.