Hail Satan? at Real Art Ways

Chronicling the extraordinary rise of one of the most colorful and controversial religious movements in American history, Hail Satan? is an inspiring and entertaining new feature documentary from acclaimed director Penny Lane (Nuts!, Our Nixon).

When media-savvy members of the Satanic Temple organize a series of public actions designed to advocate for religious freedom and challenge corrupt authority, they prove that with little more than a clever idea, a mischievous sense of humor, and a few rebellious friends, you can speak truth to power in some truly profound ways.

As charming and funny as it is thought-provoking, Hail Satan? offers a timely look at a group of often misunderstood outsiders whose unwavering commitment to social and political justice has empowered thousands of people around the world.

“It will make you feel as if you’ve seen the face of God.”
– Rolling Stone

99% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

The never-before-seen documentary presents the live recording of Aretha Franklin’s album Amazing Grace at The New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles in January 1972.

By 1971, Aretha Franklin was known as the Queen of Soul. In the culmination of five years of chart-topping hits, she and her producer, Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records, decided her next recording would take her back to the music of her youth, to the world of American Gospel music.

Amazing Grace would turn out to be an elegiac moment in American musical history as well as a salute to the gospel heritage that had transformed American music in the 1960s.

Forty-seven years later, this film is a testimony to the greatness of Aretha Franklin and a time machine window into a moment in American musical and social history.

Listen to the story behind the film, and background on Aretha and her life, with veteran producer Joe Boyd, who was at the concert, on the Front Row radio show on the BBC at THIS LINK. The Amazing Grace segment begins at 21:14.

A contemporary retelling of Colin Thiele’s classic Australian tale.

‘Storm Boy’ has grown up to be Michael Kingley, a successful retired businessman and grandfather. When Kingley starts to see images from his past that he can’t explain, he is forced to remember his long-forgotten childhood, growing up on an isolated coastline with his father.

He recounts to his grand-daughter the story of how, as a boy, he rescued and raised an extraordinary orphaned pelican, Mr Percival. Their remarkable adventures and very special bond has a profound effect on all their lives.

Based on the beloved book, Storm Boy is a timeless story of an unusual and unconditional friendship.

From director Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Say You’re Sorry)

When Steve Bannon left his position as White House chief strategist less than a week after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017, he was already a notorious figure in Trump’s inner circle, and for bringing a far-right ideology into the highest echelons of American politics.

Unconstrained by an official post — though some say he still has a direct line to the White House — he became free to peddle influence as a perceived kingmaker, turning his controversial brand of nationalism into a global movement.

THE BRINK follows Bannon through the 2018 mid-term elections in the United States, shedding light on his efforts to mobilize and unify far-right parties in order to win seats in the May 2019 European Parliamentary elections.

To maintain his power and influence, the former Goldman Sachs banker and media investor reinvents himself — as he has many times before — this time as the self-appointed leader of a global populist movement.

Keen manipulator of the press and gifted self-promoter, Bannon continues to draw headlines and protests wherever he goes, feeding the powerful myth on which his survival relies.

One-Time Showing: Monday, April 8 | 7:15 PM
Post-Film Talk with Director Erik Bloomquist

Adam Weppler (The Cobblestone Corridor) stars as Seth, a young man invited to spend a weekend at the Connecticut mansion of his long lost millionaire half-brother Richard (Nicholas Tucci, You’re Next).

With the help of his enigmatic live-in girlfriend Abby (Catherine Corcoran, Terrifier), Richard leads Seth down a psychosexual rabbit hole wherein luxury and temptation are intermingled with treachery and taboo.

Long Lost was filmed in Connecticut.

In this poignant and carefully composed portrait of six service dogs and their owners, renowned documentary filmmaker Heddy Honigmann explores the close bond between animal and human.

From an 86-year-old blind woman who has never seen her canine companion to an autistic young boy who relies on his dog to know when he’s upset, they share stories about the critical role these animals play in their lives. The wife of a war veteran suffering from PTSD explains that the guide dog Mister is probably the reason they’re still together.

Honigmann questions the owners in her characteristic way — respectfully and with genuine concern rooted in a deep trust — about what the animals mean to them.

Buddy is an ode to the fighting spirit of the main characters and a loving portrait of the deep bond between man and dog.

98% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

A tragicomedy initially set in the jianghu-criminal underworld-setting, ASH IS PUREST WHITE is less a gangster movie than a melodrama.

With a three-part structure, it begins by following the quick-witted Qiao (Tao Zhao) and her mobster boyfriend Bin (Fan Liao) as they stake out their turf against rivals and upstarts in 2001 postindustrial Datong before expanding out into an epic narrative of how abstract forces shape individual lives, and continues Jia Zhangke’s body of work as a record of 21st-century China and its warp-speed transformations.

This is Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s fourth completed feature since he was officially banned from filmmaking.

Well-known actress Behnaz Jafari is distraught by a provincial girl’s video plea for help–oppressed by her family to not pursue her studies at the Tehran drama conservatory.

Behnaz abandons her shoot and turns to filmmaker Jafar Panahi to help solve the mystery of the young girl’s troubles.

They travel by car to the rural northwest where they have amusing encounters with the charming folk of the girl’s mountain village.

But the city visitors soon discover that the protection of age-old traditions is as generous as local hospitality…

100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

The newly restored I Am Cuba is ravishing and surreal — the improved visuals and the single-language soundtrack allow viewers to experience the film’s extraordinary cinematography, sound editing, and narrative power.

The film was started only a week after the Cuban missile crisis and turned out to be something quite unique — a wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist iconography, mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality.

The plots feverishly explore the seductive, decadent (and marvelously photogenic) world of Batista’s Cuba — deliriously juxtaposing images of rich Americans and bikini-clad beauties sipping cocktails poolside with scenes of ramshackle slums filled with hungry children and gaunt old people.

Using wide-angle lenses that distort and magnify and filters that transform palm trees into giant white feathers, cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky’s acrobatic camera achieves wild gravity-defying angles as it glides effortlessly through long continuous shots.

But I Am Cuba is not just a catalog of bravura technique — it also succeeds in exploring the innermost feelings of the characters and their often desperate situations.

HELD OVER

Shmuel, a Hasidic cantor in Upstate New York, distraught by the untimely death of his wife, struggles to find religious solace, while secretly obsessing over how her body will decay.

As a clandestine partnership develops with Albert, a local community college biology professor, the two embark on a darkly comic and increasingly literal undertaking into the underworld.

Starring Géza Röhrig and Matthew Broderick.

100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

The winner of the prestigious New Director competition at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Marine Francen’s debut is a sensual, visually stunning historical romance.

In 1851, France’s autocratic President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte has ordered the arrest of all the men of a remote mountain farming village following a Republican uprising. The women spend years in total isolation, forced to tend the crops themselves.

Some women have lost their husbands; others, like the shy but inwardly strong Violette, suddenly have no chance of experiencing physical love or motherhood. The women take an oath: if a man comes, they will share him as a lover.

When a mysterious and handsome stranger arrives, he ignites passions and jealousies that threaten to destroy the tight-knit community. In the vein of THE BEGUILED and THE GUARDIANS, this strikingly beautiful film is a part of a new wave of female-focused historical drama.

Electric Church presents the legendary guitarist in full flight at the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival before the largest U.S. audience of his career.

This critically acclaimed film combines 16mm multi-camera color footage of Hendrix’ unforgettable July 4, 1970 concert in its original performance sequence together with a new documentary that traces his journey to the festival amidst the dark shadow of civil rights unrest, the relenting toll of the Vietnam War and a burgeoning festival culture that drew together young people across the country who were inspired by the Woodstock festival.

From Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson (Of Horses and Men)
94% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

Halla is a fifty-year-old independent woman. But behind the scenes of a quiet routine, she leads a double life as a passionate environmental activist.

Known to others only by her alias “The Woman of the Mountain,” Halla secretly wages a one-woman-war on the local aluminum industry.

As Halla’s actions grow bolder, from petty vandalism to outright industrial sabotage, she succeeds in pausing the negotiations between the Icelandic government and the corporation building a new aluminum smelter.

But right as she begins planning her biggest and boldest operation yet, she receives an unexpected letter that changes everything. Her application to adopt a child has finally been accepted and there is a little girl waiting for her in Ukraine.

As Halla prepares to abandon her role as saboteur and savior of the Highlands to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, she decides to plot one final attack to deal the aluminum industry a crippling blow.

HELD OVER!

Each year, CatVideoFest curates a compilation reel of the latest, best cat videos culled from countless hours of unique submissions and sourced animations, music videos, and, of course, classic internet powerhouses.

Screening events take place all over the world in a host of venues and raise money for cats in need.

CatVideoFest is committed to raising awareness and money for cats in need around the world.

A percentage of the proceeds from our screenings will go to Cat Tales of Middletown, CT.

What better way for us humans to come together than by watching cats?