It found a "way" back!

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"Estevez takes full advantage of the beautiful mountain scenery, dramatic skies and ancient architecture to give us moments of quiet wonder." Bruce Demara, Toronto Star

The Way is a powerful and inspirational story about family, friends, and the challenges we face while navigating this ever changing and complicated world. Martin Sheen plays Tom, an irascible American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son (played by Emilio Estevez), killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. Rather than return home, Tom decides embark on the historical pilgrimage to honor his son's desire to finish the journey. What Tom doesn't plan on, is the profound impact the journey will have on him and his "California Bubble Life". Inexperienced as a trekker, Tom soon discovers that he will not be alone on this journey.

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This presentation will be 21 and over only. Beer and wine will be allowed in the theater!

Nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Motion Picture!

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"A beguiling tale about Hollywood's silent movie days that is itself silent, this made-in-L.A. French feature will charm cinephiles with its affection for one of the movies' golden ages." Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

Hollywood 1927. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a silent movie superstar. The advent of the talkies will sound the death knell for his career and see him fall into oblivion. For young extra Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), it seems the sky's the limit - major movie stardom awaits. The Artist tells the story of their interlinked destinies.

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Starting Friday the 24th, this presentation will be 21 and over only. Beer and wine will be allowed in the theater!

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"The film has intrigues, shootings, infidelities and clues -- lots of clues -- which we ponder, along with the poker-faced Smiley, played with Oscar-nominated perfection by Gary Oldman." Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

Based on the classic novel of the same name, the international thriller is set at the height of the Cold War years of the mid-20th Century. George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a disgraced British spy, is rehired in secret by his government - which fears that the British Secret Intelligence Service, a.k.a. MI-6, has been compromised by a double agent working for the Soviets.

Official Website 

This presentation will be 21 and over only. Beer and wine will be allowed in the theater!

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"[It] does a lot more than celebrate a great entertainer: it charts Belafonte's ceaseless activism, which has seen him stand alongside both Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela." Nick Roddick, This is London

Sing Your Song, surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte. From his rise to fame as a singer, inspired by Paul Robeson, and his experiences touring a segregated country, to his provocative crossover into Hollywood, Belafonte's groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement and impacted many other social justice movements. Rostock reveals Belafonte as a tenacious hands on activist, who worked intimately with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mobilized celebrities for social justice, participated in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and took action to counter gang violence, prisons, and the incarceration of youth.

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"The moon is made of tinkling gold stars - and you can reach it by climbing a ladder.
Old books soar aloft like flocks of birds - and they settle on people's shoulders, perching with spindly little legs.
A chicken is right at home walking down a city sidewalk - and seems able to survive a zombie apocalypse, too.
An Englishman heads to the wide plains of early 20th century Alberta, to start a ranch - but starts daydreaming instead.
And the Sunday routines of a small-town family include church and a big meal - and bracing for the train that shakes the house when it trundles by.

Magic, whimsy, a fair amount of darkness (loneliness, aging, death, zombie apocalypses) and a wonderful mix of old-school cartooning and digital animation are on tap as the five 2012 Academy Award nominees for animated shorts are available for viewing on the big screen."
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Dimanche/Sunday - A small boy's Sunday is filled with both ordinary and extraordinary events.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore - A storm transports a young man to a place where books are living entities.

La Luna - A young boy accompanies his father and grandfather to their unusual nighttime job.

A Morning Stroll - A New Yorker passes a chicken out for its morning stroll.

Wild Life - A young Englishman with more enthusiasm than practical experience emigrates to Canada to become a rancher.

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In the pristine forests above Leavenworth, Washington, there exists a world of hidden trailheads and clandestine trails. Here a sect of outdoor enthusiasts, extreme mountain bikers called freeriders, have gone underground. They are the skate punks of the forest, unwelcome and under pressure to leave. The locations of their trails are carefully guarded secrets and the riders who ride them keep constant vigil, on the lookout for US Forest Service rangers.

PEDAL-DRIVEN is a non-profit documentary made in association with IMBA and in partnership with the United States Forest service that examines the shared philosophies of stewardship and sustainability from both sides and, ultimately, offers examples of the ways in which opposing factions can find common ground in defense of the lands that belong to us all.

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"Streep's performance is so true and so uncannily accurate, so full and so complete in its understanding, that she is fascinating every second she is onscreen." Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

The Iron Lady is a surprising and intimate portrait of Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep), the first and only female Prime Minister of The United Kingdom. One of the 20th century's most famous and influential women, Thatcher came from nowhere to smash through barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male dominated world.

Official website 

This presentation will be 21 and over only. Beer and wine will be allowed in the theater!

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"In her fearless, world-here-I-am! debut Pariah, writer-director Dee Rees demonstrates, with simplicity and verve, that there's no substitute for authenticity." Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

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. 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. Pressed by her mother into making the acquaintance of a colleague's daughter, Bina (Aasha Davis), Alike finds Bina to be unexpectedly refreshing to socialize with. 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.

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Dates are subject to change 

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2012 Live-action Shorts include:

Pentecost (Ireland / 11 mins)- When Damian is forced to serve as an altar boy at an important mass in his local parish he faces a difficult choice: conform to the status quo or serve an extended ban from his passion in life, football.

Raju (Germany / India / 24 mins)- A German couple adopts in Kolkata an Indian orphan. Their child suddenly disappears and they realize that they are part of the problem.

The Shore (Northern Ireland / 30 mins)- THE SHORE is the uplifting story of two boyhood best friends - Joe (Ciara´n Hinds) and Paddy (Conleth Hill) divided for 25 years by the tumult of "The Troubles". When Joe returns home to Northern Ireland, his daughter Patricia brings the two men together for a reunion, with unexpected results. What happened all those years ago? Can old wounds be healed? The answer is both hilarious and moving. THE SHORE is about one of the small personal reconciliations that coincide with a national reconciliation.

Time Freak (USA / 11 mins)- A neurotic inventor creates a time machine, only to get caught up traveling around yesterday.

Tuba Atlantic (Norway / 25 mins)- When seventy-year-old Oskar is told that he has only six days left to live, he wants to put things right with his brother who lives in New Jersey. Inger, a public "death angel" is sent out to help Oscar through his remaining days. A huge horn stands at the edge of the sea, built by the brothers when they were kids. Will its sound cross the Atlantic?

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"Revealing, impressionistic peek at the creation of a new show at Paris's famed erotic dancing club." Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

Inside Paris's Crazy Horse cabaret - the most famous nude dance show in the world. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman explores one of the most mythic and colorful places dedicated to women, the Crazy Horse - a legendary Parisian cabaret club, founded in 1951 by Alain Bernardin. Over the years it has become the Parisian nightlife 'must' for visitors, ranking alongside the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. Wiseman's impeccable eye finds the Crazy Horse a uniquely French showcase, with an emphasis on elegance, perfectionism and a grueling schedule (2 shows a night and 3 on Saturdays, 7 days a week). The film shows us the rehearsals for and the unveiling of the brand new show - Désir - created by the renowned French choreographer Phillippe Decoufle.

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Our annual SoCial for the AwARdS of Cinema

Bellingham, WA – It’s time to dust off your tux, unwrap that gown from its dry cleaning bag and get ready for your walk down the red carpet! Bellingham’s Premier Movie Awards Party makes its third appearance with the festivities happening again this year at Pickford Film Center (PFC) at 1318 Bay Street in Bellingham.

The formal event begins at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 26. In addition to a strut on the red carpet, guests will enjoy photo opportunities, door prizes, food catered by Ciao Thyme and a live broadcast of the 84th Academy Awards from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.

Tickets are free, available only at the box office.

Pickford Film Center is proud to partner with ITVS and present screenings of select Independent Lens documentaries on the big screen as part of our dedication to community education and outreach.

Filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman sets off on a cross-country campaign to end Black History Month. His tongue-in-cheek journey explores the complexity and contradictions of relegating an entire group’s history to one month in a so-called “post-racial” America.

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YERT (Your Environmental Road Trip) is an adventure and a celebration of the American spirit in the face of adversity - a thought-provoking, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious, documentary about the courageous and creative individuals, groups, businesses and leaders of this country who are tackling the greatest environmental threats in history. Called into action by the ever increasing threats of planetary catastrophe (from climate change to toxic pollution, from water scarcity to habitat destruction), the three of us - Mark Dixon, Ben Evans, and Julie Dingman Evans - upended our lives, pooled our collective life-savings, and set off on a first-of-its-kind, 50-state, year-long journey of discovery to personalize sustainability and to answer a critical question: Are we doomed?

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The Pipedreams Project: In May of 2010, Enbridge Inc. made an official application to build twined crude oil and condensate pipelines that would connect Alberta's Tar Sands to Kitimat, BC, and for the first time bring crude oil super tankers to BC's North Coast. In the fall of 2010, Curtis, Ryan and Faroe kayaked 900 km in opposition to this controversial pipeline.

“White Water, Black Gold” is an investigative point-of view documentary that follows David Lavallee on his three-year journey across western Canada in search of answers about the activities of the world’s thirstiest oil industry: the Tarsands.

As a mountaineer and hiking guide, David is on the front lines of climate change. Over the past 15 years he has worked in the Columbia Icefields of the Canadian Rockies, and has noticed profound changes in the mountains: climate change is rendering these landscapes unrecognizable.

“White Water, Black Gold” is a sober look at the untold costs (to water and people) associated with developing the second largest deposit of “oil” in the world.

Official Website

Admission $18 / $15 Member

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The New York Philharmonic and EMK Productions are proud to present "Stephen Sondheim's Company with the New York Philharmonic" in movie theatres across North America. The production was shot in early April as part of the Philharmonic's spring gala. Neil Patrick Harris leads an all-star cast which included Patti LuPone, Stephen Colbert, Jon Cryer, Christina Hendricks, Craig Bierko and Martha Plimpton. Company's plot revolves around Bobby (a single man unable to commit fully to a steady relationship, let alone marriage), the five married couples who are his best friends, and his three girlfriends. It's a concept musical composed of short vignettes linked by a celebration for Bobby's 35th birthday.

"What remains, in distilled form, is the poetry of violence and contempt-the source of the play's unfailing reputation for political threat and mischief." Anthony Lane, New Yorker

Caius Martius 'Coriolanus' (Ralph Fiennes), a revered and feared Roman General is at odds with the city of Rome and his fellow citizens. Pushed by his controlling and ambitious mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave) to seek the exalted and powerful position of Consul, he is loath to ingratiate himself with the masses whose votes he needs in order to secure the office. When the public refuses to support him, Coriolanus's anger prompts a riot that culminates in his expulsion from Rome. The banished hero then allies himself with his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler) to take his revenge on the city.

Official Website 

Dates are subject to change 

"This violently absorbing, and at times highly funny, thriller is held together by Schoenaerts's searing performance, which is never oversized even though his character is." Brandon Judell, CultureCatch

Domineering cattle farmer Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts), constantly pumped on steroids and hormones, initiates a shady deal with a notorious mafioso meat trader. When an investigating federal agent is assassinated and a woman from his traumatic past resurfaces, Jacky must confront his demons and face the far-reaching consequences of his decisions.

Official Website 

Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Language Film!

"BEST FILM OF 2011. Will become one of those enduring masterpieces watched decades from now." —  Roger Ebert

"It's a thrilling domestic drama that offers acute insights into human motivations and behavior as well as a compelling look at what goes on behind a particular curtain that almost never gets raised." Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Set in contemporary Iran, A Separation is a compelling drama about the dissolution of a marriage. Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and daughter Termeh. Simin sues for divorce when Nader refuses to leave behind his Alzheimer-suffering father. Her request having failed, Simin returns to her parents' home, but Termeh decides to stay with Nader. When Nader hires a young woman to assist with his father in his wife's absence, he hopes that his life will return to a normal state. However, when he discovers that the new maid has been lying to him, he realizes that there is more on the line than just his marriage.

Official Website

"An animation for jazz lovers that's every bit as good looking as it is tuneful." David Edwards, Daily Mirror [UK]

Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment. From Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas, two passionate individuals battle impossible odds to unite in music and love.

Official Website 

Deep in the heart of Patagonia, Chile flow two of the world’s purest rivers, the Baker and Pascua. Fed by vast glacial systems, these free-flowing watersheds drive biodiversity in temperate rainforests, estuaries and marine ecosystems. They are also the life source for Patagonia’s most tenacious residents. Gauchos, the iconic South American cowboys, endure relentless winds and long winters on remote ranches in these river valleys.

Isolated and largely undeveloped Patagonia and its people are caught in a heated conflict surrounding a proposal to build five large hydroelectric dams on the Baker and Pascua Rivers. Promoted as “clean” energy, the project’s cultural and environmental impacts would forever alter the region. Alternatives exist. Clean energy experts are proving the viability of solar, wind and geothermal resources developed much closer to demand and infrastructure.

Over the past century more than 45,000 large dams have redefined the course and health of the planet’s rivers with disastrous impacts that continue to unfold. Tracing the hydrologic cycle of the Baker from ice to ocean, Patagonia Rising brings voice to the frontier people caught in the crossfire of Chile’s energy demands. Juxtaposing the pro-dam business sector with renewable energy experts, the documentary brings awareness and solutions to this global conflict over water and power.

Tickets available online with no service fees for members. $0.75 per ticket for Non-members. Tickets are free at the door.

Through an annual film festival BHRFF supports independent filmmakers, fosters dialogue and promotes action. For twelve years, volunteer committee members have selected scores of insightful and moving films they hope will encourage the community to explore and engage with critical issues. Films are followed by facilitated discussion, some led by the filmmakers themselves.

Thursday, February 16:
6:30 pm & 9 pm How to Start a Revolution (2011/UK/88min) Remarkable story of current revolutions, the power of people, and the man behind it all. Film Website
Opening Night Reception between shows

BHRFF Website

Tickets: $2.50 Students with valid ID (only at PFC or Limelight Box Office) or $5 General Admission (tickets available online now or at the box office)

Psychology Professor Sheldon Solomon will be sharing his thoughts on the underlying basis of human culture during his talk titled, “Afraid of the Dark: Humanity at the Crossroads.” Professor Solomon has spent the last few decades studying how human anxiety about our temporality and ultimate death powerfully influences our decisions and judgments.

Sheldon Solomon earned his doctoral degree from the University of Kansas, where his training focused on experimental social psychology. He is now best known for developing theories concerned with how humans deal with their own sense of mortality through culture building and how the dread of death underlies most human activity and could underlie our current hyper-growth, overconsumption and global environmental degradation.

Professor Solomon is the author or co-author of over a hundred articles, several books, and has been featured in several films (most notably Flight from Death) and documentaries where he has shared the results of his numerous psychological and sociological studies. He is currently the Ross Professor for Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College in New York.  This lecture is sponsored by the College of Humanities & Social Sciences at Western Washington University and the Ernest Becker Foundation.

The Love of Beer is a documentary devoted to the stories and passion of the women of the craft beer revolution. The beer industry is exploding, but out of approximately 50,000 craft beer workers,only a small percentage of women. However, in the Pacific NW, several women have become some of the most influential people in the brewing industry. This documentary intimately looks at their struggle to balance their love for beer with their professional and personal lives. The Love of Beer celebrates these women, dissects why there aren't more women involved, and explores what can be done to change that.

Official Website

BETTER THAN SOMETHING is an exciting and intimate portrait of Memphis-based punk musician Jay Reatard, who toured the world and released dozens of records over the course of a 15 year career that began in his mid-teens. Original and never-before-seen footage documents his self-made journey to iconic garage rock star, with colleagues, friends, and family speaking candidly about Jay's vibrant and complicated life. Jay Reatard himself - filmed just nine months before his untimely death at the age of twenty-nine - shares his experiences both on and off stage, with all the humor, savvy, and pathos one can expect from such a prolific and vital artist.

Official Website

PFC and Village Books Present... Writers in the Limelight:
On-screen Author Talks & Interviews

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"[Orlean] combines all her skills and passions in this astonishing story ... A terrific dog's tale that will make (you) sit up and beg for more."- Kirkus Reviews

In conversation with Alexandra Horowitz, bestselling author of "Inside of a Dog", discusses her book "Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend."

A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, Susan Orlean won widespread fame for her 1998 New York Times bestseller, "The Orchid Thief", about a real-life renegade plant dealer in the swamps of South Florida. The book was the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning movie Adaptation, directed by Spike Jonze. Orlean is the author of seven other books, including "Animalish" and "Saturday Night". In "Rin Tin Tin", Orlean reconstructs Corporal Lee Duncan’s serendipitous 1918 rescue of the German shepherd who would become his beloved companion and an enduring American icon. Bestselling author Rebecca Skloot calls the book, "an incredible story about America, the human-animal bond, and the countless ways we would be lost without dogs by our side, on our screens, and in our books."

Program includes the 65 minute feature "The Return of Rin Tin Tin" (1947) starring Robert Blake.

Official Website 

Toshiro Mifune portrays a Samurai who finds himself in the middle of a feud-torn Japanese village. Neither side is particularly honorable, but Mifune is hungry and impoverished, so he agrees to work as bodyguard (or Yojimbo) for a silk merchant (Kamatari Fujiwara) against a sake merchant (Takashi Shimura). He then pretends to go to work for the other, the better to let the enemies tear each other apart. Imprisoned for his "treachery," he escapes just in time to watch the two warring sides wipe each other out. This was his plan all along, and now that peace has been restored, he leaves the village for further exploits. Yes, Yojimbo was the prototype for the Clint Eastwood "Man with No Name" picture A Fistful of Dollars (1964). The difference is that Fistful relies on Eastwood for its success, whereas Yojimbo scores on every creative level, from director Akira Kurosawa to cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa to Mifune's classic lead performance.

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Trailer Wars is a locally founded, ongoing film competition that challenges creative types of the area to create fake movie trailers based on a set of criteria. On screening night, a bewildered yet entertained audience watches the no-budget efforts and votes on a winner, who then states the theme for the following edition. Genres thus far include Musicals, Children's Fantasy, Westerns, and Unnecessary Sequels. The event is a nominal $2, which covers only basic overhead provided by PFC, usually runs for one hour, and often contains the equivalent of R-rated material. For more information or to see past submissions, visit or write us (trailerwars[at]gmail.com, youtube.com/trailerwars, myspace.com/trailerwars).

Leopold Classic Series

"Here is Sam Fuller in top gear, as writer, director and producer, with a Western that is solidly crafted and brilliantly cast. Barbara Stanwyck is at her peak, although her peak lasted decades" Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile

Cult hero Samuel Fuller wrote and directed this visually inventive western, which didn't fare well with American audiences but earned a potent reputation with European cineastes. Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) is a despotic landowner who, with a posse of hired guns, has made herself the law of Cochise County, Arizona, with the weak-willed sheriff Ned Logan (Dean Jagger) knuckling under to her demands. One day, Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan), a one-time gunfighter turned United States Marshall, arrives with his brothers Wes (Gene Barry) and Chico (Robert Dix) to restore democratic law and order to Cochise County. Griff soon tangles with Drummond's brother Brockie (John Ericson), though Jessica is attracted to the new lawman, and Griff finds love with female gunsmith Louvenia Spangler (Eve Brent). Griff and Louvenia marry, but on their wedding day, Brockie murders Wes, and Griff, who takes pride in the fact that he has never fired his gun since becoming a marshal, must now break his vow of non-violence.

"A subtle, gorgeous and mysterious allegory that may be Ceylan's masterwork to date." Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

In the dead of night, a group of men - including a police commissioner, a prosecutor, a doctor and a murder suspect - drive through the tenebrous Anatolian countryside, the serpentine roads and rolling hills lit only by the headlights of their cars. They are searching for a corpse, the victim of a brutal murder. The suspect, who claims he was drunk, can't remember where he buried the body. As the night draws on, details about the murder emerge and the investigators' own secrets and hypocrisies come to light. In the Anatolian steppes, nothing is what it seems; and when the body is found, the real questions begin.

Official Website

Dates are subject to change 

A documentary on the transformation of Mikhail Khodorkovsky - from a perfect socialist to a perfect capitalist and finally, in a Siberian prison, becoming a perfect martyr. Khodorkovky - the richest Russian, challenges President Putin. A fight of the titans begins. Putin warns him. But Khodorkovsky comes back to Russia - knowing that he will be imprisoned, once he returns. Why didn't Khodorkovsky stay in Exile with a couple of billions? Why did he come back? Why did he do that? A personal journey to Khodorkovsky.

Official Website

Dates are subject to change 

"Friends with Kids takes an unusual romantic premise and explores it in satisfying and perceptive depth." Ellen E Jones, Guardian [UK]

FRIENDS WITH KIDS is a daring and poignant ensemble comedy about a close-knit circle of friends at that moment in life when children arrive and everything changes. The last two singles in the group observe the effect that kids have had on their friends' relationships and wonder if there's a better way. They decide to have a kid together - and date other people. There are big laughs and unexpected emotional truths as this unconventional 'experiment' leads everyone in the group to question the nature of friendship, family and, finally, true love.

Official Website 

"Pina is, in every way, a moving experience." Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

Pina is a feature-length dance film with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009. Pina is a film for Pina Bausch by Wim Wenders. He takes the audience on a sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension: straight onto the stage with the legendary Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch ensemble, he follows the dancers out of the theatre into the city and the surrounding areas of Wuppertal - the place, which for 35 years was the home and centre for Pina Bausch's creativity.

Official Website

Rocket Sci-Fi Matinee: $2 admission

In the future, an oppressive government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers known as "firemen" to perform the necessary book burnings. This is the premise of Ray Bradbury's acclaimed science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, which became the source material for French director François Truffaut's English-language debut. While some liberties are taken with the description of the world, the narrative remains the same, as fireman Montag (Oskar Werner) begins to question the morality of his vocation. Curious about the world of books, he soon falls in love with a beautiful young member of a pro-literature underground -- and with literature itself. Critics were divided on the effectiveness of the result; some praised the unique design and eerie color cinematography by Nicolas Roeg, while others found the film's stylized approach overly distancing and attacked the central performances as unnatural. In any case, however, the film inarguably succeeds in making Truffaut's reverence for the written word abundantly clear, especially during the film's justifiably famous finale.

In the Bolshoi Ballet’s new staging of Le Corsaire, Petipa’s original choreography is revived and refreshed by Alexei Ratmansky and Yuri Burlaka to breathe new life into this production. The ballet follows Medora, a young Greek girl, and Conrad, a dashing pirate, as they journey through a tapestry of dramatic events, culminating in a shipwreck considered to be one of ballet’s most dazzling spectacles.

Official Website 

"The film's bluntness doesn't diminish the power of the nature-versus-nurture questions Eva's asking herself. Or of Swinton's harrowing portrait of parental guilt." Bob Mondello , NPR

A suspenseful and gripping psychological thriller, Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin explores the factious relationship between a mother and her son. Tilda Swinton, in a bracing, tour-de-force performance, plays the mother, Eva, as she contends for 15 years with the increasing malevolence of her first-born child, Kevin (Ezra Miller). Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, We Need to Talk About Kevin explores nature vs. nurture on a whole new level as Eva's own culpability is measured against Kevin's innate evilness. Ramsay's masterful storytelling simultaneously combines a provocative moral ambiguity with a satisfying and compelling narrative, which builds to a chilling, unforgettable climax.

Official Website

"Boy is the feel-good film of the year. This boy's life is a hilarious and bewitching reminder of what it's like to be young." David Michael Brown, Empire Magazine Australasia

It's 1984, and Boy (James Rolleston) is an eleven-year-old Maori boy growing up in a community of the coast of New Zealand. While Boy's village feels a bit cut off from the rest of the world, contemporary pop culture makes itself known here, and Boy and his pals are all enthralled with Michael Jackson and have nicknames drawn from popular TV shows. Boy and his younger brother Rocky (Te Aho Eketone-Whitu) -- who likes to believe he has superpowers -- are being raised by their grandmother after their mother died and their father abandoned the family. Boy likes to believe that his father is someone remarkable and has spun impressive fantasies about his adventures, but he has to adjust his expectations when Alamein (Taika Cohen) actually shows up, and Boy learns Dad spent several years in prison on charges of armed robbery. Alamein has come back to his hometown to recover some money he hid after one of his rare successful robberies, but both he and Boy are in for a surprise once they set out to find it.

Official Website 

"With its summery, Mediterranean surface, Jeanne Moreau as the ultimate femme fatale heroine and a knife-twisting tale of murderous revenge and unexpected romance, "The Bride Wore Black" is well worth rediscovering." Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

This Francois Truffaut thriller is based ona novel by William Irish (aka Cornell Woolrich), whose books had been adapted by Alfred Hitchcock on many previous occasions. Jeanne Moreau stars as a woman whose fiancé is nastily murdered by five men. Utilizing a series of disguises, the cool-customer Moreau tracks down all five culprits, sexually enslaves them, and then engineers their deaths. The ominous musical score was written by Bernard Herrmann, another frequent Hitchcock collaborator. The Bride Wore Black was initially released in France as La Mariee etait en Noir.

PFC and Village Books Present... Writers in the Limelight:
On-screen Author Talks & Interviews

Chris Matthews | "Jack Kenedy: Elusive Hero" 

According to Publisher’s Weekly: "Out of his gut interest in politics and love of reading biographies of American heroes, Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, probes the details of the 35th president’s life and career to find out what Jack was like ..." Drawing on interviews with friends and former staffers, as well as on such familiar biographical incidents as Kennedy’s rescue of the PT-109 crew and his resulting back injury, Matthews reveals a man who through inner direction and tenacious will created himself out of the loneliness and illness of his youth and who taught himself the hard discipline of politics through his own triumphs and failures ... Matthews’s stirring biography reveals Kennedy as a "fighting prince never free from pain, never far from trouble, and never accepting the world he found."

Official Website 

PFC Live Performance! Members of Bar Tabac, featuring Ben von Wildenhaus and Jonathan Sampson

This evening of music and more features Orbothology, a collaboration between the video artists House Plants and the guitarist Ben von Wildenhaus. The audio/visual project looks at the uneasy politics that arise when American youth engage with the world through the skewed lens of youtube videos and hipsterized 'world music.' The orb takes center stage as a fetishized object of Eastern mysticism and American new ageism. The performance is both hilarious and intensely psychedelic.

Ben von Wildenhaus is a multi-instrumentalist who has performed in Bellingham groups such as Federation X, Quaalude County Country Band, and Juanita Family and Friends. He currently resides in Queens, New York. Performing on solo electric guitar, Wildenhaus works with minimal loops, hypnotic rhythms, and strange and beautiful melodies to create an aural landscape that falls somewhere between the darkness of a murderous forest and the playful seduction of Americanized belly dance music. His 2011 album Great Melodies From Around has been been featured in Spin, Magnet, and Foxy Digitalis.

From the mid-19th century onwards — against the background of industrialization, the supremacy of bourgeois values, and an intellectual climate dominated by secular materialistic and scientific positivism — art became realistic, seeking to show things as they really were — almost photographically —, rather than making them more amiable or more beautiful. An opera such as La Bohème, which talks of the fragile nature of happiness in a world of poverty, cold and disease, is an obvious example of this trend.
In La Bohème, however, the aesthetic of Verism — the Italian equivalent of the French Naturalism of Émile Zola — becomes more sentimental and the brutality of social reality is depicted less crudely than elsewhere. Four young artists live out their everyday lives amid dreams and disappointments, waiting for the event that is to win them renown, but poverty and misfortune deprive the leading characters — Mimì and Rodolfo — of the joy of mutual love. The text and music relate all this with a pleasant melodramatic tenderness with which it is easy to identify.

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"The suspense here, derived from a true story, is excruciating and inspiring in equal measure." Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

From acclaimed director Agnieszka Holland, In Darkness is based on a true story. Leopold Socha, a sewer worker and petty thief in Lvov, a Nazi occupied city in Poland, one day encounters a group of Jews trying to escape the liquidation of the ghetto. He hides them for money in the labyrinth of the town's sewers beneath the bustling activity of the city above. What starts out as a straightforward and cynical business arrangement turns into something very unexpected, the unlikely alliance between Socha and the Jews as the enterprise seeps deeper into Socha's conscience. The film is also an extraordinary story of survival as these men, women and children all try to outwit certain death during 14 months of ever increasing and intense danger.

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Dates are subject to change

"The Red Machine is deeper than it first seems. The plot has hidden levels, and so do the characters, particularly the unlikely team of Doyle and Coburn." Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

A spy movie with directors in attendance!

Washington, DC, 1935: With storm clouds of war forming, an ace safecracker (Donal Thoms-Cappello) is forced to collaborate with a cool-as-ice Navy spy (Lee Perkins) to steal Japan's new cryptographic machine in this charming throwback to the great espionage capers of the 1930s.

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Romeo and Juliet was Kenneth MacMillan’s first full-evening ballet, and, from its premiere in 1965, has been one of The Royal Ballet’s signature works, popular all over the world. At the beginning of the ballet MacMillan’s crowd scenes teem with life and colour. It’s a pleasure to be able to follow the characters created by members of the corps de ballet as they portray the townspeople, market traders and servants of the rival Montagues and Capulets. However, once Romeo and Juliet meet, everything else on stage can only be scenery for their story. Three great pas de deux: the meeting in the ballroom, the balcony scene and the morning after the wedding, eloquently convey the narrative: adolescent shyness and fascination; the headlong rush of love declared, and the grief of parting. The final scene in the tomb, a pas de deux with a lifeless partner, is devastating. The Royal Ballet has performed Romeo and Juliet well over 400 times, yet each performance is subtly different. Every pairing in the title roles brings fresh nuances to the young lovers’ characters, while the wealth of supporting roles, from the exuberant trio of harlots in the town square to the murderous rage of Tybalt, offers scope for dancers throughout the Company. Nicholas Georgiadis’s earthy Renaissance designs, with some of the original details recently restored, are the perfect backdrop.

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Roméo and Juliette are two young actors. They fall in love at first sight, move in together and make a baby. A love story and the founding of a home like millions of others. Except that their little boy, Adam, behaves abnormally. The young parents try hard to persuade themselves that everything is okay but, with the passing of time, they cannot delude themselves anymore : their son has a problem. Their fears are unfortunately confirmed : Adam suffers from a malignant brain tumor. From now on, war is declared. A war against illness. A war against Death. A war against despair.

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"Thrillingly ambitious, ecstatically romantic, utterly unexpected." Trevor Johnston , Time Out

Eva Green plays Susan, an expert in epidemics who, after having her heart broken, sees a patient who has lost the ability to smell anything after an unexpected crying jag. Turns out there is a small percentage of people who are experiencing emotional upheavals and then losing one or more of their senses. As she begins to research this condition, she comes to understand that the malady threatens the entire world.

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Dates are subject to change 

Acclaimed director Yasujiro Ozu explores the flipside of the traditional mother-daughter bond in this touching family comedy set in postwar Japan. Reluctant to marry and leave her widowed mother (Setsuko Hara) all alone, a dutiful daughter (Yôko Tsukasa) resists selecting a suitor. But her late father's friends, who are eager to see both women happy, insist on stepping in to play matchmaker.

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David Brooks | The Social Animal: A Story of Love, Character, and Achievement

In The Social Animal, Brooks looks at what leads to human achievement and personal fulfillment at different stages of life, and he illustrates how our decisions are affected by our unconscious minds and the environments we inhabit.

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Rocket Sci-Fi Matinee: $2 admission

Swimming near a Mexican village that has been terrorized by a sea monster, Julie Blaie (Anne Kimball), and American artist, is terrified when an object rises to the surface. It turns out to be a one-man submarine piloted by biologist Steve Dunning ('Stuart Wade' (qb)). Later an abalone diver vanishes and Julie faints after seeing the monster's eye rise from the sea. Pablo (Wyott Ordung) and Tula (Inez Palange) plot to offer Julie as a sacrifice to their gods. Pablo deliberately attracts a shark while Juilie is skin-diving, but she escapes, and her line snags an object that Steve and Dr. Baldwin (Dick Pinner) establish as part of a huge sea monster.

Oscar Nominee for Best Documentary!

BHRFF Preview: Get the full skinny on this year's Bellingham Human Rights Film Festival!

An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom. Vik collaborates with the brilliant catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, true Shakespearean characters who live and work in the garbage quoting Machiavelli and showing us how to recycle ourselves.

A classic of opera, Verdi‘s famous score is loved for its melody and its drama. David McVicar‘s immensely popular production, in period costume, brings the 15th-century court of Mantua alive: its womanizing Duke, the court jester Rigoletto bent on revenge and his daughter, Gilda, who the Duke loves but still destroys. A celebrated score of familiar music conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, and a drama of the passions of love and hate.

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Tickets are free, available only at the box office.

Pickford Film Center is proud to partner with ITVS and present screenings of select Independent Lens documentaries on the big screen as part of our dedication to community education and outreach.

U.S. Marine Sergeant Nathan Harris, 25, leads his unit to fight a ghostlike enemy in Afghanistan. Wounded in battle, Harris returns to North Carolina and his devoted wife to fight pain, addiction, and the terrifying normalcy of life at home.

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"Highlight of Israeli cinema and winner of major award at Cannes Fest, Footonote is an intelligent and complex film that's effective as a ferocious father-son Freudian drama and poignant staire of scholarship and recognition." Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik are both eccentric professors, who have dedicated their lives to their work in Talmudic Studies. The father, Eliezer, is a stubborn purist who fears the establishment and has never been recognized for his work. While his son, Uriel, is an up-and-coming star in the field, who appears to feed on accolades, endlessly seeking recognition. Then one day, the tables turn. When Eliezer learns that he is to be awarded the Israel Prize, the most valuable honor for scholarship in the country, his vanity and desperate need for validation are exposed. His son Uriel, meanwhile, is thrilled to see his father's achievements finally recognized but, in a darkly funny twist, is forced to choose between the advancement of his own career and his father's. Will he sabotage his father's glory?

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"A film that raises laughs even with its end credits, Whit Stillman's whimsical campus comedy Damsels in Distress is an utter delight." Leslie Felperin, Variety

Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress is a comedy about a trio of beautiful girls as they set out to revolutionize life at a grungy American university - the dynamic leader Violet Wister (Greta Gerwig), principled Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and sexy Heather (Carrie MacLemore). They welcome transfer student Lily (Analeigh Tipton) into their group which seeks to help severely depressed students with a program of good hygiene and musical dance numbers. The girls become romantically entangled with a series of men-including smooth Charlie (Adam Brody), dreamboat Xavier (Hugo Becker) and the mad frat pack of Frank (Ryan Metcalf) and Thor (Billy Magnussen)-who threaten the girls' friendship and sanity...

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On a Wing and a Prayer: An American Muslim Learns to Fly, is the highly acclaimed documentary from director Max Kaiser—an emotionally moving and culturally fascinating portrait of a Monem Salam, the titular Muslim, as he sets out to achieve his dream: a pilot’s license.

Monem’s father was a pilot for Saudi Airlines for 25 years, instilling in Monem the love of flight. Many years into a successful career as a financial analyst, Monem decides it is time to test his own wings, yet in the aftermath of 9/11 and in the face of America’s security culture, will he land an opportunity that allows him to soar like an eagle, or will circumstances ground him like an ostrich? The film follows Monem and his family in which altogether human Muslim Americans become modern–day heroes as they pursue their dreams against tides of negative public perception.

Shot on location in Bellingham and featuring world–class aerial views of the area, On a Wing and a Prayer tells an emotionally uplifting, inspiring story of vital importance for our contemporary world about the fears, hopes, and aspirations of a man and his family attempting to live out a truly American dream.

"The Bright Stream is the best new ballet I’ve seen in years. It is a perfect blend of witty, innovative choreography, sprightly music and superb performances. It deserves to stay in American Ballet Theatre’s repertoire for a long time." Colleen Boresta, Ballet-Dance Magazine

The Bright Stream originally opened in Leningrad in 1935 to great acclaim, and then transferred to the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. The ballet was a big hit in both cities, but Stalin and the official Soviet newspaper, Pravda, did not approve of it. Stalin felt that The Bright Stream was not a faithful portrayal of the life of the Soviet peasants. Would Stalin really have preferred a ballet showing the millions of peasants who died due to his policy of collectivization as opposed to a comic work which just happened to be set on a collective? One of the ballet’s librettists, Adrian Piotrovsky was sent to the gulag, never to be heard from again. The career of the choreographer and co-librettist, Fyodor Lopukhov, was ended and all performances by the composer, Dmiti Shostakovich, were terminated. Read more...

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Masahiro Shinoda's brilliant film opens with mobster Murakami just getting released from prison for murdering a member of a rival clan, only to learn that during his internment, the two syndicates arranged a truce. Not unlike the protagonist in Albert Camus' The Stranger, Murakami's motives for killing were vague and that life holds little value for him. At an illegal gambling parlor, he finds himself drawn to a mysterious waif-like young woman named Saeko (Mariko Kaga) who lives life from one thrill to the next. Though she seems remarkably adept at losing large sums of money, she asks Murakami to find games with larger and larger stakes. Soon they become involved in an intense mutually destructive relationship. High stakes gambling and racing her little sports car eventually grow tiresome, and Saeko becomes attracted to drugs. Instead of dope, Murakami offers to let her watch him kill a rival clan leader, describing it as the ultimate thrill.

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Kathryn Stockett | The Help
Mississippi-born Kathryn Stockett's debut novel, The Help, examines the complex relationship between white Southern families and their black domestic servants in the 1960s. A movie based on The Help, directed by Stockett's childhood friend and fellow Mississippian Tate Taylor, will be released in August 2011 by DreamWorks
Studios.

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Rocket Sci-Fi Matinee: $2 admission

A man driving along a lonely back road at night is suddenly startled by what he sees, and is promptly killed by something that crashes through his windshield. The next day, in the nearby town of River Falls, teenagers Carol Flynn (June Kenney) and Mike Simpson (Gene Persson) decide to go looking for her father, who didn't get home last night. They find his wrecked truck and enter a nearby cave to begin searching for him. There they find his blood-covered hat and other signs of human remains and, as they go deeper inside, suddenly get trapped in a huge web -- then they spot its maker, a spider the size of a small house. They manage to escape and alert the county sheriff (Gene Roth), who doesn't take them seriously but does heed the warning of Mr. Kingman (Ed Kemmer), the science teacher at the local high school, to bring a pest-control crew along with his deputies, and a tanker loaded with DDT. They encounter the creature, and, after losing one of their men, dispatch it with the insecticide. Kingman persuades the sheriff to bring the carcass into town so that he can arrange to have it studied, leaving it in storage at the high school recreation room, for lack of anywhere bigger to keep it. As it turns out, the creature isn't dead, just stunned. As the local rock & roll band rehearses, the giant spider comes to bloodthirsty consciousness, breaking out of the building and ravaging the town. Bullets won't hurt it -- as Kingman says, you could punch holes in it all day without hitting a vital spot -- and the town is soon cut off when the telephone lines are knocked down.

“Fille is a treasure,” says Monica Mason, Director of The Royal Ballet. Anyone who has seen this sunniest of ballets will certainly agree. With its origins in a work first seen in Bordeaux in 1789, La Fille mal gardée had been staged by several choreographers in the 19th century. Frederick Ashton brought the work into the 20th century and created an instant classic which has never left The Royal Ballet’s repertory. The simple story of Lise, her suitor Colas and Lise’s larger-than-life mother, the Widow Simone, who tries to marry her off to the simpleton son of a rich neighbor, is full of delicious comedy but also wonderful, characterful choreography. One of the greatest pleasures of Fille is the way in which the steps, though at times devilishly difficult, never get in the way of the natural, easy storytelling. The virtuoso roles of Lise and Colas combine dazzling technique with tiny, intimate details that makes their romance touching and real, while the humor of Widow Simone and the innocent Alain, more interested in his red umbrella than Lise’s charms, is delightful. Funny and touching, La Fille mal gardée is the perfect ballet for first-timers of all ages, but it is also one to which ballet-lovers will return again and again with renewed pleasure at every performance.

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Tickets are free, available only at the box office.

Pickford Film Center is proud to partner with ITVS and present screenings of select Independent Lens documentaries on the big screen as part of our dedication to community education and outreach.

Cheryl Haworth is a young woman with a big dream: to be the strongest woman in the world. As the 300-pound U.S. Olympic weightlifter prepares for Beijing 2008, she struggles with injury, confidence, and her place in a world where larger women are not readily accepted.

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PFC and Village Books Present... Writers in the Limelight:
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Stacy Schiff | Cleopatra: A Life
Biographer Stacy Schiff—the author of the Pulitzer Prize winner Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)— untangles fact from fiction to weave the story of Cleopatra, Egypt’s last queen and the most powerful woman of her time.

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Akira Kurosawa directs the black-and-white 1949 film noir Nora Inu (released in the U.S. in 1963 as Stray Dog). In his third film with Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune plays young police detective Murakami. One summer day on a crowded bus in Tokyo, his gun is stolen by a pickpocket. Rather than face the shame of reporting his gun missing, he chooses to go out and find it himself (there were not many weapons on the streets of Tokyo immediately following WWII). While trying to locate the gun, he discovers an entire criminal underworld. He is eventually helped on his journey by superior officer Sato (Takashi Shimura), who seems to suggest that the young detective is indulging in his own criminal desires. The search becomes even more desperate when Murakami finds out that his gun has been used in several crimes, including murder. He then develops an obsession with finding both the gun and the killer.

"Hysteria never drags or gets hung up on its easily exploited premise, opting to go for warm, gutteral guffaws rather than straight to the gutter." Stephen Saito,  Premiere Magazine

HYSTERIA, a mischievously inspired romantic comedy set in the late 19th century, is based on the surprising truth of how Mortimer Granville came up with the world's first electromechanical vibrator in the name of medical science. The film stars Academy Award nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy, alongside Jonathan Pryce, Rupert Everett and Felicity Jones.

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Set in a remote village where the church and the mosque stand side by side, Where Do We Go Now? follows the antics of the town's women to keep their blowhard men from starting a religious war. Women heartsick over sons, husbands and fathers lost to previous flare-ups unite to distract their men with clever ruses, from faking a miracle to hiring a troop of Ukrainian strippers.

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Act I: Raymonda, who is betrothed to Jean de Brienne, is celebrating her birthday. Jean, who is expected to arrive the next day, has send some presents in advance. One of these presents is an embroidered portrait of himself. First, however, Abderman arrives and tries to court Raymonda. Raymonda then dreams that Jean comes down from his portrait to dance with her, however, when she wakes up she finds that Abderman is there again to "renew his amorous proposals." Act II: The festivities continue, and Abderman asks Raymonda to dance. Then, he and his accomplices attempt to abduct her. However, at that moment Jean arrives with his brother, the King of Hungary. There is a duel and Abderman is killed. Act III: There is a feast at the castle to celebrate the marriage of the two lovers, and much dancing.

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First staged in St Petersburg in 1890, The Sleeping Beauty is the pinnacle of classical ballet: a perfect marriage of Petipa’s choreography and Tchaikovsky’s music and a glorious challenge for every dancer onstage. It is also The Royal Ballet’s signature work. To mark the Company’s 75th birthday in 2006, Monica Mason and Christopher Newton revitalized its landmark 1946 production, which re-established Petipa’s choreography, as recorded by Imperial Ballet régisseur Nicholas Sergeyev, to a scenario and staging developed by Ninette de Valois herself. With Oliver Messel’s gorgeous original designs wonderfully re-imagined by Peter Farmer, and additional choreography by Anthony Dowell, Christopher Wheeldon and Frederick Ashton, today’s Sleeping Beauty not only captures the mood of the original but shows that this is very much a living work for The Royal Ballet, growing and changing with the Company while celebrating its past.

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Mark Bittman | The Food Matters Cookbook: Lose Weight and Heal the Planet with Founding Brothers. More Than 500 Recipes
Renowned food journalist (“The Minimalist”) and author of the James Beard Award and IACP/Julia Child Award-winning cookbook, How to Cook Everything, offers
recipes that are healthy for you and the environment.

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