Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Avin Manshadi While her husband (Bobby Naderi) is away fighting in the Iran-Iraq war, Shideh (a defiant Narges Rashid) and her young daughter come under fire from missiles, and worse: an evil spirit known as the djinn. Set in Tehran in 1988, director Babak Anvari’s war-torn thriller has been compared to The Babadook, setting supernatural horror in the midst of political destruction. The atmospheric film screens as part of the AFI Silver’s first annual Fantastic Film Showcase, which presents new and classic genre cinema. For one of the rarest titles in the festival, see below.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, June 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the AFI Silver.
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(Courtesy Fantastic Fest)The love story of Jean and Jeanne is brutally interrupted when the village lord and his thugs rape the bride on her wedding night. Jeanne takes revenge with the help of a phallic demon that grants her magical powers, but at what cost? Anime director Eiichi Yamamoto is best known for Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, but his violently erotic animated feature is a far cry from Saturday morning cartoons or even midnight classics like Fritz the Cat. Composer Masahiko Satoh provides a score that’s a wild mix of prog rock, folk pop, and avant-garde jazz, but while the illustrations is relentlessly psychedelic, the animation itself is less consistent. Long passages of the film are simply shots of scrolled (albeit inventive) artwork that the camera pans across, which makes the film seem unfinished. And for a film whose protagonist is supposedly a feminist hero, the producers sure like to objectify her. Belladonna of Sadness isn’t a great work of art, but it is absolutely one of a kind.
Watch the trailer.
Friday, June 3 at 11:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 4 at 11:30 p.m. at the AFI Silver.
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Mbissine Thérèse DiopThe National Gallery of Art showcases the work of Senegalese writer/director Ousmane Sembène this weekend with a new DCP restoration of his 1966 debut. The director adapted one of his own short stories for La Noire de … (Black Girl), about a young Senegalese woman who goes to France only to be enslaved by the white couple who hire her as their maid. Shown with the 1963 short film “Borom Sarret,” about a horse-drawn cart driver who doesn’t charge his passengers.
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, June 5 at 4:00 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Free.
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Courtesy of the FreerThe annual Korean Film Festival continues this weekend with a special event at the George Washington University Museum and Textile Museum. A Thousand Splendid Garments: Reception and Talk with Filmmaker Lee Won-suk includes a reception with Korean delicacies and a display of Korean costumes, followed by a screening of The Royal Tailor. The Freer calls the film “a wickedly entertaining tale of competition and skullduggery” and “a crash course in the eye-popping splendor of Korean textiles,” featuring over a thousand examples of traditional hanbok garments.
Watch the trailer.
The film screens on Friday, June 3 at 7:00 p.m. at GWU Elliott School of International Affairs, Harry Harding Auditorium, 1957 E Street NW. The reception begins before the film at 5:30 p.m. at the George Washington University Museum and Textile Museum, 701 21st Street NW. The reception and film are free.
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Prisoners of the Lost Universe
I’ll let the Washington Psychotronic Film Society describe the motley inhabitants of this sci-fi action film from 1983: “A mad scientist’s plan to debut his matter transfer device on live TV gets upended by one of those wacky California earthquakes, sending handyman/kendo champion Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica) and reporter/damsel Kay Lenz (Death Wish 4) into a parallel universe ruled by medieval warlord John Saxon (A Nightmare on Elm Street). After that it’s all cavemen, fishmen, dirtmen, blue-skined natives, midgets with glowing eyes and kleptomania, and a talking vulture.”
Watch the trailer.
Monday, June 6 at 8:00 p.m. at Smoke and Barrel.
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Also opening this week, Presenting Princess Shaw, a documentary about a nursing home worker who becomes a YouTube sensation. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
