Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most
interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
KATI KATI plays March 10 and 16 at the AFI Silver (One Fine Day Films)
This 13th annual showcase for African film offers titles that area audiences probably won’t get a chance to see on the big screen again. Highlights include the documentary Mali Blues (March 17 and 18), about musicians trying to get by in a land where Islamic extremists have banned music and elderly women defend female circumcision; the Kenyan ghost story Kati Kati (March 10 and 16), about a woman who finds herself in a strange afterlife; and three films from Nigeria’s prolific Nollywood industry, the political thriller ’76 (March 9 and 12), the rom-com The Wedding Party (March 11), and 93 Days (March 11), about the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
Watch trailers for Kati Kati and The Wedding Party.
March 9-19 at the AFI Silver. See the complete schedule here.
Voyage of Time screens March 15 at the National Air 7 Space Museum, with director Terrence Malick in person. (Broad Green Pictures)
DC ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL
Now in its 25th anniversary year, this sprawling festival opens next week with director Marina Zenovich’s documentary Water & Power: A California Heist (March 14 at the National Geographic Society). This is not a showcase for documentaries alone, as the festival also gives environmentally conscious moviegoers a chance to revisit Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1964 masterpiece Red Desert (March 23 at the AFI Silver). But the real coup may be screenings of the IMAX director’s cut (without narration) of Voyage of Time (March 15 at the National Air & Space Museum), followed by a Q&A with director Terrence Malick. See the complete festival schedule here.
Watch trailers for Water & Power and Voyage of Time.
March 14-26 at venues around town.
(Janus Films)
Marcel Pagnol’s epic love story spanned three films and three different directors (Alexander Korda, Marc Allegret, and Pagnol) in the 1930s, and now benefits from a 4K digital restoration. The movies follow Marseille barman Marius (Pierre Fresnay, from Renoir’s Grand Illusion) and his romance with Fanny (Orane Demazis) across 20 years of love and its complications. Michael Sragow wrote in Film Comment that, “What makes this tragicomic merry-go-round so intoxicating is not its speed or pace (slow and steady), but the beauty of its weather-streaked, hand-carved figures as they chug up and down and come full circle.”
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark E Street Cinema
(The Criterion Collection)Saturday afternoon the National Gallery of art screens a 35mm print of director Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1958 masterpiece, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes that year. This simple tale of love during wartime is beautifully photographed, departing from the prevailing socialist realism to return to the more experimental visuals of early Soviet film. Introduced by Peter Rollberg, specialist in Russian cinema, literature and culture at George Washington University’s Elliot School for International Affairs.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, March 11 at 2:30 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Free.
(Horrorpedia)
Every Monday, the Washington Psychotronic Film Society sets up shop downstairs at Smoke and Barrel for a video presentation that will barbecue your sensibilities. Next week’s offering is a 1985 exploitation film that follows explorers who venture down an abandoned mine shaft, only to awaken a horrible creature.
Watch the trailer.
Monday, March 13 at 8 p.m. at Smoke and Barrel.
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Also opening this week, Tom Hiddleston and Samuel L. Jackson lead a daring expedition in Kong: Skull Island. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
