Independent cinemas screen rare films in late June
The ByTowne and Mayfair showcase Japanese cinema, dark classics, and Canadian stories through June.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
Ottawa's independent cinemas are curating a thrilling assortment of films for the second half of June, ranging from rarely seen Studio Ghibli works to Hitchcock rarely screened in Canada.
The American Cinematique's "Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair" festival continues at the ByTowne, showcasing some of cinema's greatest works that examine the dark side of humanity and the bleakest points in human history. One of the festival's highlights is "Grave of the Fireflies," a rarely seen Studio Ghibli film about an orphaned teenage boy and his little sister struggling to survive after their city is firebombed by the Americans in World War II. Unlike most Studio Ghibli films, its subject matter makes it suitable for teenagers but not for young children.
Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" is another Bleak Week feature — a winner of the European Film Award for Best Film and the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress (Kirsten Dunst). According to Slate, it's "a beautiful film about the end of the world" and "a hard movie to forget."
Also screening at the ByTowne is "Tuner," a newly released film noir about a gifted piano tuner named Niki (Leo Woodall) with an extreme sensitivity to loud noises. Mentored by an older tuner named Harry (Dustin Hoffman) until Harry ends up hospitalized with astronomical medical bills, Niki discovers that his meticulous skills and acute hearing can equally be applied to cracking safes.
"Shoplifters," a 2018 award-winning film by master director Hirokazu Koreeda (Palme d'Or at Cannes, César for Best Foreign Film), tells the story of a "family" of shoplifters who live hand-to-mouth in poverty yet are happy with their lot and each other. Their lives change when they almost accidentally "adopt" a little girl they find alone on the street one cold night. It screens at the ByTowne.
The Japanese Embassy is hosting a week of free classic and contemporary Japanese films at the ByTowne, while the Mayfair continues its "We See Thee Rise — Cinematic Visions of Canada" series. That series includes the 1953 Hitchcock film "I Confess," set in Quebec City and starring Montgomery Clift, Karl Malden, and Anne Baxter. Clift plays Father Logan, a devoted Catholic priest suspected of murder who can't divulge the murderer's identity because he's bound by his vows not to repeat anything heard in confession.
Another film in the Mayfair's series is "The Iron Curtain," which tells the true story of the Igor Gouzenko affair — a Soviet cipher clerk at the USSR's embassy who defected to Canada in 1945.
On June 21, the ByTowne's biweekly "Twin Peaks" series continues with Season 2's Episodes 19 to 22, the season finale, bringing more mysteries and conspiracies tied to Laura Palmer's murder.