THE EARLY OBSESSIONS OF BIGAS LUNA

“The thing that interests me most in films is to create credible subworlds. I prefer not to call them fantasies. I want to explain the stories in logical and realistic forms.” – Bigas Luna

Bigas Luna, born José Juan Bigas Luna in 1946, trained in interior and industrial design before beginning his filmmaking career in his native Barcelona in the mid-seventies. He exploded onto the silver screen with the gritty low-budget thriller BILBAO in 1978. Though many might recognize the name from REBORN (1981), his only American film, starring Dennis Hopper and Michael Moriarty, or ANGUISH (1987), his inventive and intense film within a film horror film, starring Zelda Rubinstein, he is perhaps best known for introducing audiences to Penelope Cruz, and for introducing her to Javier Bardem, in the torrid love triangle JAMÓN, JAMÓN, in 1992. The film would join GOLDEN BALLS (1992) and THE TIT AND THE MOON (1994) to form his Iberian Trilogy, also called his Iberian Passion Trilogy, a trio of seductive, surreal, erotic and painterly melodramas that would bring him critical and commercial success.

His early works BILBAO (1978) and CANICHE (1979), though less polished, maintain an intensity, a provocative power and a rebellious spirit that render them continuously fascinating and disturbing, as shocking and fresh as anything else produced in his career, distinguished as vital films in his filmography and in the whole of Spanish cinema. They belong to a time of renewed freedom in Spanish culture and filmmaking, a period of transition after the death of Franco, in which orthodox ideas could be challenged, icons shattered, and taboos destroyed. This April, in collaboration with The Bigas Luna Tribute and Tierra Extraña NY, Spectacle is proud to present two of his early works, BILBAO & CANICHE.

BILBAO
dir. Bigas Luna, 1978
Spain. 98 min.
In Spanish and Catalan with English subtitles

FRIDAY, APRIL 26TH – 7:30 PM (W/Q&A)
FRIDAY, APRIL 5TH – 5 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 11TH – 10 PM
MONDAY, APRIL 15TH – 10 PM

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A disturbed middle-aged man (Ángel Jové) becomes obsessed with a stripper and prostitute named Bilbao on his nighttime prowls through Barcelona’s Chinatown. He follows and studies her, setting a plan in motion for her abduction. Shot in 16mm, the second feature shot by Bigas Luna following TATUAJE (1979) was actually his first to premiere on Spanish screens, shattering the taboos of Spanish society of the era and inaugurating a cinema of iconoclasm and eroticism.

In BILBAO, we share a dangerous intimacy with our obsessive protagonist. His thoughts and words, images and objects, sounds and pieces of music repeat incessantly over the course of the film, haunting him and us, as they reappear in sinister unexpected ways, stained by the rising tides of his lust and shaped by the shifting contours of his perversions. His everyday objects turned fetish objects become our fetish objects, as we join him in the crafting of his idealized sex object and the construction of his ultimate crime.

“Luna’s debut is a wonderful ample catalog of perversions, a voyeuristic exercise full of suggestive imagery… that brings the most fetishistic and twisted Alfred Hitchock to the damned and dirty Barcelona of the late seventies.” -Xavi Sánchez Pons

Each screening of BILBAO will be preceded by a video introduction from Carolina Sanabria, author of Bigas Luna, El ojo voraz.

The April 26th screening of BILBAO will be followed by a special discussion about the film in Spanish with Santiago Fouz-Hernández and Carolina Sanabria of The Bigas Luna Tribute and Casilda García López of Tierra Extraña NY.

CANICHE
(Poodle)
dir. Bigas Luna, 1979
Spain. 90 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles

FRIDAY, APRIL 12TH – 7:30 PM (W/Q&A)
FRIDAY, APRIL 19TH – 5 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 25TH – 10 PM
MONDAY, APRIL 29TH – 10 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS! Q&A

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Brother and sister Bernardo (Ángel Jové) and Eloisa (Consol Tura) lead a cloistered existence in a crumbling Catalan mansion where they subsist on the charity of their wealthy aunt as they await the inheritance they’ll receive from her death. They lavish their attention and affection on their pet poodle Dany, sublimating erotic desires onto their canine companion. Dany is the witness to and the victim of their downward spiral of debasement, which only accelerates as their financial fortunes grow.

Bigas Luna’s odyssey of the perverse continues in CANICHE, a provocative and perturbing dissection of the incestuous, cannibalistic and bestial bourgeoisie.

“… (CANICHE is) the spiritual sister of the John Waters films FEMALE TROUBLE (1974) and DESPERATE LIVING (1977). The first three Bigas Luna films are just as corrosive, free-spirited and punk as Waters’ films from the seventies; they seduce us with a dirty realism -very pop- which turns beautiful and causes Stendhal syndrome.” -Xavi Sánchez Pons

Each screening of CANICHE will be preceded by a video introduction from Santiago Fouz-Hernández, co-organizer of Bigas Luna Tribute, editor of the book and podcast El legado cinematográfico de Bigas Luna and author of the forthcoming book The Films of Bigas Luna.

The April 12th screening of CANICHE will be followed by a virtual Q&A with Santiago Fouz-Hernández.

THE EARLY OBSESSIONS OF BIGAS LUNA is presented in collaboration with The Bigas Luna Tribute and Tierra Extraña NY.

The Bigas Luna Tribute provides audiences with the unique opportunity of seeing some of Bigas Luna’s most critically acclaimed works and participating in in-depth discussions with special guests (academics and members of the Spanish film industry who worked with Bigas Luna).

Tierra Extraña NY is a living social network for New York’s Spanish diaspora, encouraging each other’s feats and initiatives and bringing Spain to life in NYC in events, productions & culture.

Special thanks to Santiago Fouz-Hernández, Carolina Sanabria and Casilda García López.

WILLIAM BANKS VS. PEOPLE’S POPS

WILLIAM BANKS VS. PEOPLE’S POPS
dir. Sam Blumenfeld, 2024
United States. 20 min.
In English
World Premiere

THURSDAY, MARCH 7 – 10 PM (W/Q&A)
THURSDAY, MARCH 21 – 7:30 PM (W/Q&A)

ADVANCE TICKETS Q&A

On October 14th, 2018, William Banks was locked inside a walk-in freezer for 45 minutes. “William Banks vs. People’s Pops” examines William’s trauma from the incident and his quest for revenge on People’s Pops, in a delirious yet heartfelt comedy, performed and composed with madcap energy, that defies simple documentary, mockumentary, or fiction categorizations.

Written by William Banks, Sam Blumenfeld and Russell Katz and starring William Banks, Anthony Oberbeck, Jamie Linn Watson, Maya Sharma, and William’s Former Boss, Spectacle is proud to present the world premiere of “William Banks vs. People’s Pops.”

Screenings will be preceded by a foreword by William Banks and followed by Q&As with the cast and crew.

MOSS BEACH

MOSS BEACH
dir. Armon Mahdavi, 2023
United States. 73 min.
In English and French w/ English subtitles

MONDAY, MARCH 4 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 10 – 7:30 PM (W/Q&A)
FRIDAY, MARCH 22 – 7:30 PM (W/Q&A)
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27 – 10 PM

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ADVANCE TICKETS Q&A

A literary translator in San Francisco is unexpectedly visited by her niece, who she has not seen since a tragic family event. The two spend the weekend together in a small coastal town, where on hilly drives and misty beachside walks, in front of the fire, and over glasses of wine and plates of rigatoni, they discuss the power of literature and the perils of translation, share grief and regret, and find compassion and companionship.

Winner of the Audience Award at the 2023 Lower East Side Film Festival, Armon Mahdavi’s debut feature is an assured minimalist work wrapped in fog and patience, presented in mournful landscapes and intimate interiors, marked by sensitive performances, gentle rhythms and quiet intensity.

  

SINGULA

SINGULA
dir. Yukihiko Tsutsumi, 2024
Japan, 76 min.
In English
North American Premiere

THURSDAY, MARCH 7TH – 7:30PM (W/Q&A)
SUNDAY, MARCH 17TH – 5 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 22ND – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, MARCH 28TH – 10 PM

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ADVANCE TICKETS Q&A

Veteran cult filmmaker Yukihiko Tsutsumi, director of the Best of Spectacle 2023 smash hit EGG, returns to the goth bodega to premiere his newest film SINGULA, a debate club battle royale death game pitting fifteen human-like AI androids against each other in the ultimate debate to decide whether humanity should be destroyed.

Starring Japanese actor and singer spi/William.Spearman in the role of all fifteen AI bots and based on a play by Kyosuke Ichinose, Tsutsumi’s new film is a singularly strange reflection on human dignity and the role of AI in the modern era.

The March 7th screening of SINGULA will be followed by a virtual Q&A with director Yukihiko Tsutsumi and producer Kyosuke Ichinose.

THE FREE CINEMA OF LORENZA MAZZETTI

“These films were not made together; nor with the idea of showing them together. But when they came together, we felt they had an attitude in common. Implicit in this attitude is a belief in freedom, in the importance of people and the significance of the everyday.

As filmmakers we believe that:
– No film can be too personal.
– The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments.
– Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim.
– An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude.”

This was the manifesto of Free Cinema as written in 1956 by four friends and filmmakers: Lindsey Anderson, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, and Lorenza Mazzetti. Three of them – Anderson, Reisz, and Richardson – would all go on to become massively successful film artists in their own right, but Mazzetti’s career was less public and less mainstream. When she passed away in 2020 at 92 years of age, she left behind the legacy of a remarkable life and a small but powerful body of work that, when contrasted with her peers and collaborators, is largely underappreciated. She was a novelist, a filmmaker, a painter – and an intensely political ideologue who understood the importance of eschewing the power structures that contributed to the exploitation and suffering of people everywhere. Mazzetti herself narrowly escaped execution at the hands of Nazis in 1944. At the time, she was living with her cousin Robert Einstein (brother of Albert) and his family when retreating German officers slaughtered everyone in the house – Mazzetti was spared because she did not have a Jewish last name. This hellish experience colored Mazzetti’s life and would bring a theme of alienation into much of her work.

The two films presented in this program, K and Together, are some of Mazzetti’s earliest. Upon arriving in England, she practically forced her way into admission at the Slade School of Art, telling then principal William Coldstream that she should be let in because, in her words, “I am a genius!” He did as he was told. Later, without permission, Mazzetti “borrowed” film equipment to make K and flippantly told the development lab to bill the school directly. Coldstream allowed Mazzetti’s film to screen under the condition that the audience reaction would determine her future at the program. Not only did her peers applaud the work, but Denis Forman of the BFI was in attendance and offered her the option to make a film that she wasn’t risking jail time for. The result was Together – the first publicly funded film made in the UK by a woman director.

*Special thanks to Another Gaze Journal for their recent and much-needed reissue of Lorenza Mazzetti’s 1961 novel The Sky is Falling (Il cielo cade) and for their assistance in coordinating this program.*

SUNDAY, MARCH 3 – 7:30PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 16 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 31 – 7:30PM

ADVANCED TICKETS

 

K
Dir. Lorenza Mazzetti,1953
United Kingdom, 29 min.
In English

K is perhaps the first film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s 1915 novel The Metamorphosis. Mazzetti’s work here presaged the Free Cinema movement with her on-location shooting and inclusion of non-actors. She also crafted a rather humorous portrayal of Gregor Samsa owing much to the performance of the character by the late British painter Michael Andrews.

TOGETHER
Dir. Lorenza Mazzetti (with Denis Horne), 1956
United Kingdom, 51 min.
In English

Shot on 35mm and with a budget of only £2000, Together brought the aesthetics of Italian neo-realism to the British working class and was the only fiction film presented in the first Free Cinema program in 1956. The story follows two deaf friends living in a shoebox apartment in London’s East End as they walk each day to their factory jobs, on the way experiencing life in suspended silence. Throughout the film, the two men are hounded across barren bombed-out lots by rowdy children, dirty and smiling, whose real playground songs are a time capsule used as backdrop here in Mazzetti’s work. Sprawling across outdoor markets filled with buskers, beggars, produce stands, and street food and on into cramped bars, circus shows, and alleyways, Together is as much a documentation of a long gone part of London’s past as it is a heartbreaking tale of the alienation of outsiders.

EVERY BOOK IS ABOUT THE SAME THING: THE MOVIE

EVERY BOOK IS ABOUT THE SAME THING: THE MOVIE
Dir. Courtney Bush, 2023.
United States. 82 min.
In English.

THURSDAY, MARCH 14TH – 7:30 PM (W/Q&A)

ADVANCE TICKETS Q&A

A lo-fi film adaptation of the director’s first poetry collection, EVERY BOOK IS ABOUT THE SAME THING: THE MOVIE (Courtney Bush, 2023) uses a steady voiceover reading to anchor associative, intimately gathered images which tell the story of a year of the filmmaker/poet’s life, divided into three “seasons”: divorce and grief, nervous breakdown at a Los Angeles Del Taco, and falling in love again while making art.

Editor Tynan Delong built the visual sequence by following and interpreting the poems in lieu of a formal script, modulating the distance between what is seen and what is said. The film was shot in New York, Los Angeles, and Biloxi, Mississippi. Shot on Sony Handi-cam.

Courtney Bush is a poet and filmmaker from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She is the author of Every Book Is About The Same Thing (Newest York Arts Press, 2022) and I Love Information (Milkweed Editions, 2023). Her narrative short films, made with collaborators Jake Goicoechea and Will Carington, are all available on NoBudge.com and have been screened at festivals both locally and internationally.

TESOROS

TESOROS
(AKA TREASURE)
Dir. Flavia Furtado, 2023
Chile. 90 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles

SATURDAY, MARCH 2ND – 5 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 16TH – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20TH – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27TH – 7:30 PM + Q&A

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ADVANCE TICKETS Q&A

This March, we’re delighted to present the New York Premiere of Flavia Furtado’s TESOROS, a documentary about flea markets in South America. In her dreamy tour through Chile, Brazil, and Argentina’s flea markets, Furtado pieces together a tender portrait of Latin American street vendors that doubles as a biting critique of capitalist culture. The filmmaker’s striking bricolage—a blend of street interviews, personal anecdotes, and urban legends—provides an illuminating glimpse at an undervalued corner of the Latin American economy.

Flavia Furtado is a Brazilian-Chilean filmmaker and DJ. Her films have shown at Anthology Film Archives and New York’s Experimental Film Society. More recently, she was selected to participate in Berlinale Talents.

Special thanks to Flavia Furtado, Kevin Gonzalez, Steve Macfarlane and Sylvie Shamlian.

ECSTASY OF ORDER: THE TETRIS MASTERS

Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters
Dir. Adam Cornelius, 2011.
United States. 93 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, MARCH 2 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 29 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 9 – 5 PM with Q&A (This event is $10.)

REGULAR TICKETS HERE

Q&A TICKETS HERE

It is estimated that ⅔ of Americans have played Tetris. A select few have made it their life’s mission to master the deceptively simple game. This film is about those people.

Released in 2011, Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters follows the best Tetris players in the country as they prepare to compete in the Classic Tetris World Championship. This film earnestly dissects competitive gaming while balancing the comedy and drama of its subjects’ lives. In 2024, we may be feeling a collective hangover from the aughts-2010s rise of nerd culture. However, this portrait of true outsider gaming enthusiasts is a refreshing reminder of the roots of what has now become Funko-Popped.

THE MASTERS OF ITALIAN EXPLOITATION: LUIGI BAZZONI

The Masters of Italian Exploitation series returns to Spectacle this March to showcase Luigi Bazzoni, one of Italy’s unsung masters of genre cinema. Bazzoni began his career as the assistant director to Mauro Bolognini before stepping into the director’s chair in 1963 with the short films DI DOMENICA and UN DELITTO. Two years later, Bazzoni would direct his first feature film, THE POSSESSED, and follow it up with four more. Even though he only directed five feature films in his career, they are regarded as some of the best Spaghetti Western and Giallo movies ever made.

LE ORME, Bazzoni’s final feature, played throughout 2023 at Spectacle, returning for the best of Spectacle in January 2024. This series will focus on his earlier Giallo films, THE POSSESSED and THE FIFTH CORD.


THE POSSESSED
(AKA LA DONNA DEL LAGO)
(AKA THE LADY OF THE LAKE)
dir. Luigi Bazzoni, Franco Rossellini. 1965.
Italy. 94 mins.
In Italian with English Subs.

FRIDAY, MARCH 8TH – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13TH – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 23RD – 5 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 28TH – 7:30 PM

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Upon returning to a sleepy lakeside town, a writer learns that the woman he had been infatuated with has died by suicide. Devastated by the news, he investigates her death and soon discovers a dark secret.

Bazzoni’s first feature-length film, THE POSSESSED, is a mastery of slow-burn mystery and suspense. The film delivers classic Noir tropes – a sad investigator, a mysterious woman, and a dead body – with flashes of excessive violence and a hint of the supernatural, foreshadowing the future of Giallo.

Thematically and tonally similar to Bazoni’s later film LE ORME, THE POSSESSED plunges the audience into a familiar tale of deception and self-doubt. Whereas LE ORME relied on color to create the film’s dream-like aesthetic, Bazzoni shot THE POSSESSED in black and white. The cinematography gives THE POSSESSED a haunted quality that accentuates the ominous atmosphere, resulting in a tone closer to a nightmare than a dream.


THE FIFTH CORD
(AKA  GIORNATA NERA PER I’ARIETE)
(AKA BLACK DAY OF THE RAM)
dir. Luigi Bazzoni, 1971.
Italy. 93 mins.
In Italian with English Subs.

FRIDAY, MARCH 8TH – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 12TH – 10 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 18TH – 10 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 24TH – 5 PM

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Andrea, an alcoholic journalist, is thrust into chaos after a killer targets his acquaintances. As the prime suspect, he must race against the clock to discover the killer’s identity and clear his name. 

Where Bazzoni’s other thrillers inspired or drew inspiration from Giallo films, THE FIFTH CORD falls squarely within the genre. Even though the Giallo genre is often synonymous with eccentricity and violence, which this film has incredible flourishes of, Bazzoni doesn’t stray too far from his signature slow burn, reserved style. This combination makes THE FIFTH CORD an anxiety-inducing fever dream that will keep you guessing until the last moment.

With cinematography by Vittorio Storara (APOCALYPSE NOW, LE ORME), a score by Ennio Morricone, and a killer performance by Franco Nero, THE FIFTH CORD is widely considered one of the most visually and audibly stunning Giallos ever made.

GOIN’ ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS: THE FOLK MUSIC OF APPALACHIA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8 – 7:30 PM with Director Q+A (This event is $10.)

REGULAR TICKETS HERE

Q&A TICKETS HERE

The Appalachian region of America stretches from northern Alabama to central New York and is home to countless artistic traditions, from quilting to clog dancing, dulcimer crafting to wood flute carving. Centuries of crisis, beginning with the displacement of native communities by white settlers, then the Civil War, industrialization and the labor struggles that followed, to the present-day opioid epidemic and rustbelt economic policies, have formed stories and traditions that are at once isolated from, yet central to, the broader history of the United States. In the two documentaries BLUEGRASS ROOTS and APPALACHIAN JOURNEY , Spectacle presents a sampling of these stories, traditions and ways of life found in the hills to the West.

BLUEGRASS ROOTS
Dir. David Hoffman, 1965
United States. 44 min.
In English

In his first film, David Hoffman traversed the Blue Ridge Mountains, searching for and documenting the unique musical tradition of American Appalachia. Guided by the folklorist Bascom Lunsford and his wife Nellie, we are introduced to banjo pickers, dulcimer slappers, clog-shoed steppers and moonshining yodelers. In contrast to the Alan Lomax documentary, Hoffman is a one-man crew, shooting on 16mm film and opting to let his guides conduct the interviews.

APPALACHIAN JOURNEY
Dir. Mike Dibb, Mark Kidel, Alan Lomax, 1990
United States. 56 min.
In English

In this short documentary originally produced for television, Alan Lomax delves into the culture of Appalachia, demonstrating his deep knowledge of instrumentation, folk art and American anthropology. While mostly focusing on the musical traditions of the region, Lomax also turns his attention towards broader socio-economic issues such as prohibition, strip-mining and land theft, first from indigenous peoples and now those living in the mountains in the twentieth century. A quarter decade separates Hoffman and Lomax’s films. As a result, APPALACHIAN JOURNEY is able to document the effects of economic decline in the last few years before the opioid crisis began its decades long devastation of the region.