The American Cinematheque is proud to present the second annual ‘This Is Not a Fiction’ festival celebrating documentary and non-fiction art forms from April 9-17.

Schedule of Events:

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

7:30 PM: CONAN O’BRIEN MUST GO

The festival will open at the Aero Theatre on April 9 with the World Premiere of Season 2 of the hit Max Original series Conan O’Brien Must Go followed by a Q&A with host Conan O’Brien.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: MAX Original

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: Free (members-only)

Thursday, April 10, 2025

7:00 PM: PAVEMENTS

An examination of the iconic 90s indie band, PAVEMENTS appears to be just another music documentary, until it doesn’t. A prismatic, narrative, scripted, documentary, musical, metatextual hybrid, the film intimately shows the band preparing for their sold-out 2022 reunion tour while simultaneously tracking the preparations for a musical based on their songs, a museum devoted to their history and a big-budget Hollywood biopic inspired by their saga as the most important band of a generation.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Utopia

COUNTRY: Germany/USA/UK

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

7:30 PM: GHOST BOY

A South African boy emerges from a vegetative state with no memories, unable to move or speak, but all too aware of his surroundings. Like a disembodied spirit, he silently observes family and friends, caretakers and fellow patients, none of whom suspect he has fully regained consciousness. Learning about life, the world around him, and even himself through snatches of overheard conversations, shadows moving across the walls and whatever TV show he happened to be left in front of, his journey back through multiple stages of consciousness would take over a decade.

FORMAT: DCP

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: $12.00 (member) ; $17.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

10:00 PM: Two By Radu Jude: EIGHT POSTCARDS FROM UTOPIA / SLEEP #2

EIGHT POSTCARDS FROM UTOPIA, 2024, Dirs. Christian Ferencz-Flatz and Radu Jude, 72 Mins, Romania

EIGHT POSTCARDS FROM UTOPIA is a found-footage documentary assembled exclusively out of post-socialist Romanian advertisements. In bringing together these documents of Romania’s long transition period, they are made to speak about life, love and death, about the body and human frailty, about nature and the supernatural, about gender, about recent history, and, of course, about socialism and capitalism. A film between found poetry and an outdated encyclopaedia, between trash art, The Human Comedy and Summa theologiae. Made by Radu Jude and Christian Ferencz-Flatz.

FORMAT: DCP

SLEEP #2, 2024, Dir. Radu Jude, 62 Mins, Romania

“For one year I recorded on my laptop the images taken by the webcam placed in front of Andy Warhol’s grave in the Pittsburgh cemetery. Then I edited this in a film I see as a dialogue-hommage with Warhol’s movie SLEEP (1964) (last year marked the 60th anniversary of this legendary film). I titled it SLEEP #2.” – Radu Jude

FORMAT: DCP

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

Friday, April 11, 2025

7:00 PM: MIDDLETOWN

1991. Upstate New York. A group of teenage misfits, inspired by a renegade English teacher, embark on a student film project and uncover a vast conspiracy that is poisoning the ground beneath their feet. MIDDLETOWN is a coming-of-age story based on exclusive access to hundreds of hours of candid, humorous and nostalgic video outtakes, and the cooperation of Fred Isseks and his intrepid students as they reckon – thirty years later – with a defining event in their lives and a remarkable story of civic courage.

FORMAT: DCP

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

7:30 PM: GATES OF HEAVEN / VERNON, FLORIDA

GATES OF HEAVEN, 1978, Dir. Errol Morris, 83 Mins, USA

Errol Morris burst out of the gate with this brilliant debut feature, about two pet cemeteries in Northern California and the people involved with them. Such a description, however, can hardly do justice to the captivating, funny, and enigmatic GATES OF HEAVEN, a film that is about our relationships to our pets, each other, and ourselves. Both sincere and satirical, this is an endlessly surprising study of human nature.

FORMAT: 35mm

VERNON, FLORIDA, 1981, Dir. Errol Morris, 56 Mins, USA

Vernon is a town in the Florida panhandle surrounded by swamps. Here, Errol Morris found the quietly fascinating subjects for the follow-up to his galvanizing debut, GATES OF HEAVEN. As ever humane yet sharply focused, Morris lets his camera subjects pontificate and perambulate the environs of this seemingly unremarkable little community. The result is a strangely philosophical work that cemented its director’s standing as an important figure in American film.

FORMAT: DCP

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: $17.00 (member) ; $22.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

10:00 PM: FIRE OF WIND

In Portuguese with English subtitles.

The vine has borne fruit, and it’s harvest time. Soraia, a young girl, cuts herself. Blood mixes with wine. A black bull is on the loose. Up in the oak trees, time swells, and a community takes shelter. They share bread and wine, memories and dreams, the history of a landscape and of a struggle. We enter a long night, where nature also speaks. The fiery wind that brings the heatwave, it’s burning.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: The Cinema Guild

COUNTRY: Portugal/Switzerland/France

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

Saturday, April 12, 2025

11:00 AM: THE BEAR

Acclaimed director Jean-Jacques Annaud (IN THE NAME OF THE ROSE, SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET) brings his talents to family adventure films in his 1988 classic THE BEAR. Set in British Columbia in the 1880s, the film tells the story of a bear cub and an adult grizzly as they navigate the treacheries of the wild and the encroaching dangers of hunters on the horizon. With its stunning natural cinematography and incredible animal performances, THE BEAR is a breathtaking experience in nature on film.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: AGFA

COUNTRY: France

Location: Egyptian Theatre

Cost: $12.00 (member) ; $17.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

12:00 PM: FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL

FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL interweaves the stories of four obsessive men, each driven to create eccentric worlds of their dreams, all involving animals: Dave Hoover, a lion tamer; George Mendonça, a topiary gardener who has devoted a lifetime to painstakingly shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; Ray Mendez, who is fascinated with hairless mole-rats; and Rodney Brooks, an M.I.T. scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs without specific instructions from a human controller. Starting as a darkly funny contemplation of the Sisyphus-like nature of human striving, the film ultimately becomes a profoundly moving meditation on the very nature of existence.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Classics

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $17.00 (members-only)
Los Feliz 3 | Q&A with filmmaker Errol Morris

12:30 PM: SLY LIVES! (AKA THE BURDEN OF BLACK GENIUS)

SLY LIVES! (AKA THE BURDEN OF BLACK GENIUS) examines the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone, the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic and enigmatic Sly Stone. The film captures the band’s rise, reign and subsequent fadeout while shedding light on the unseen burden that comes with success for Black artists in America.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Hulu

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: Free

3:00 PM: THE EMPEROR'S NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON

In Japanese with English subtitles.

Kazuo Hara’s most renowned film is a harrowing confrontation with one of Japanese history’s darkest chapters: the atrocities committed by the country’s military during World War II. Hara’s unforgettable subject and collaborator in THE EMPEROR’S NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON is Kenzo Okuzaki—a former soldier, convicted murderer, and defiantly anti-establishment agitator—who has made it his life’s mission to expose the crimes committed by Japanese officers against their own men while stationed in New Guinea.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: Japan

Location: Egyptian Theatre

Cost: $17.00 (member) ; $22.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

3:00 PM: This Is Not a Fiction 2025 Shorts Program

“Movie and Sound,” Dir. Daniel Contaldo, 11 Mins, Italy

World Premiere

In an industrial area by a Tuscan river, a solitary figure approaches a mysterious building. The footage halts and rewinds, revealing a film lab where a technician watches the same scene on an analogue projector. The hidden operations of a Tuscan film laboratory are unveiled, capturing the intricate process of celluloid film development. From the darkroom shown with an infrared camera, to the baths that develop the film and reveal a latent image, to the scanner that converts the image on the film to a digital image; the machines come alive. In the yard, Czechoslovak wolves are raised by the lab’s owners.

FORMAT: 35mm

“Light, Protect Me from Oblivion,” Dir. Camilo Barria, 7 Mins, USA

West Coast Premiere

Through the use of a fictional device—a portal, a sorceress—life is imagined as a moment encapsulated inside the flash of an instantaneous photograph to present fragmented biographic elements—a disintegrated family, rootlessness, the scar of a suicidal attempt, two loyal companions, the promises of a new land—subverting the idea of a home movie and transform it into a pilgrimage tool of self-discovery, mimicking the fragile nature of memories. Originally conceived as a contemplative project to explore displacement and belonging, it evolved into a six-month expedition compiling images that evoke the antagonistic feelings of being deprived of a place in the world while realizing life’s transient beauty.

FORMAT: DCP

“Questions for Memories,” Dir. Anderson Matthew, 13 Mins, USA

Four friends reflect on a road trip through Mexico, sifting through fragments of super 8mm, evoking questions of home, family and the textures of memory itself.

FORMAT: DCP

“Lizzy,” Dir. Susanna Wallin, 15 Mins, USA

L.A. Premiere

“Lizzy” is the result of the days spent in the aftermath of the death of a neighbour, who passed in the house where she had lived out her whole life on the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida and who left behind an electric organ addressed to the filmmaker, without a note. To receive it was like a wild riddle. How might one story continue in the hands of another? What powers organize the telling? Through weaving indoors with outdoors, dust with swamp, celebration with critique, the film traverses binary notions such as self-world, truth-fiction, witnessing-imagining and nature-experience among others.

FORMAT: DCP

“Marine Layer,” Dir. Mia Hagerty and Aric Lopez, 8 Mins, USA

World Premiere

Marine Layer takes audiences through a cinematic experience to reveal the ways in which our current world has become radically transformed by pollution. With a focus on Ormond Beach in Oxnard California, the film blends bold camera perspectives with expressive sound design and textural music to show a world that may already be in the depths of a pollution crisis.

FORMAT: DCP

“ZØØ,” Dir. Andrew Schrader, 9 Mins, USA

In the spirit of Luis Buñuel’s LAND WITHOUT BREAD, ZØØ is a surrealist documentary following a group of zoo animals plotting their escape—and the deranged zookeeper determined to stop them.

FORMAT: DCP

“What I Had to Leave Behind,” Dir. Sean David Christensen, 9 Mins, USA

A visual memoir taking place one afternoon moving out of his old apartment, writer/director Sean David Christensen blends together hand-painted animation, miniatures and an original jazz score to craft a story about letting go of the past.

FORMAT: DCP

“A Hand to Hold,” Dir. Reed Martin, 23 Mins, USA

In the heart of Los Angeles, two members of an innovative Street Medicine team devote their livelihood to helping their unhoused patients receive care, hope, and connection.

FORMAT: DCP

“Considering Cats,” Dir. Matthew Newby, 12 Mins, USA

A short, experimental, documentary shot at the Long Island Pet Expo in 2023. Take a moment to consider the cat.

FORMAT: DCP

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)

4:00 PM: ROAD DIARY: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band offer the most in-depth look ever at the creation of their legendary live performances – sharing fly-on-the-wall footage of band rehearsals and special moments backstage – as well as hearing directly from Springsteen on the topic. Fans get the chance to experience professionally shot footage from the 2023-2024 tour for the first time ever – while following the band through their one-of-a-kind preparation process, and onto performances for tens-of-thousands across continents.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Hulu

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: Free

6:00 PM: HENRY FONDA FOR PRESIDENT

In English and German with English subtitles.

A personal essay about the United States, viewed through the life and work of a movie actor. Henry Fonda and the roles he played merge into a dazzling and conflicted figure. A very private man who thought he had “no good answers to anything” becomes the unlikely motor of a parallel history.

His voice, recorded during his last interview in 1981, and his onscreen avatars guide us through America’s past and present -on a road trip from the village of Fonda, NY, across the Midwest to the Pacific; from 1651 to the 1980s and the presidency of another movie actor. It takes many places and times and characters to imagine an invisible republic -the United States of Fonda.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: The Film Desk

COUNTRY: Austria/Germany

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $12.00 (member) ; $17.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

7:00 PM: THE THIN BLUE LINE / A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME https://www.americancinematheque.com/now-showing/the-thin-blue-line-a-brief-history-of-time-4-12-25/

THE THIN BLUE LINE, 1988, Dir. Errol Morris, 102 Mins, USA

Among the most important documentaries ever made, THE THIN BLUE LINE, by Errol Morris, erases the border between art and activism. A work of meticulous journalism and gripping drama, it recounts the disturbing tale of Randall Dale Adams, a drifter who was charged with the murder of a Dallas police officer and sent to death row, despite evidence that he did not commit the crime. Incorporating stylized reenactments, penetrating interviews, and haunting original music by Philip Glass, Morris uses cinema to build a case forensically while effortlessly entertaining his viewers. THE THIN BLUE LINE effected real-world change, proving film’s power beyond the shadow of a doubt.

FORMAT: 35mm

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, 1991, Dir. Errol Morris, 84 Mins, Janus Films, USA

Errol Morris turns his camera on one of the most fascinating men in the world: the pioneering astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, afflicted by a debilitating motor neuron disease that has left him without a voice or the use of his limbs. An adroitly crafted tale of personal adversity, professional triumph, and cosmological inquiry, Morris’s documentary examines the way the collapse of Hawking’s body has been accompanied by the untrammeled broadening of his imagination. Telling the man’s incredible story through the voices of his colleagues and loved ones, while making dynamically accessible some of the theories in Hawking’s best-selling book of the same name, A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME is at once as small as a single life and as big as the ever-expanding universe.

FORMAT: 35mm

Location: Egyptian Theatre

Cost: $12.00 (member) ; $17.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

10:00 PM: Cinematic Void Presents “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” / HATED: GG ALLIN AND THE MURDER JUNKIES

“Heavy Metal Parking Lot,” 1986, Dirs. John Heyn and Jeff Krulik, 17 Min, USA

A look at the wild scene outside a Judas Priest concert.

FORMAT: DCP

HATED: GG ALLIN AND THE MURDER JUNKIES, 1993, Dir. Todd Phillips, 52 Min, Soundview Media Partners, USA

Punk rocker GG Allin indulged in shocking behavior before his death by a drug overdose in 1993.

FORMAT: DCP

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)

Sunday, April 13, 2025

11:00 AM: WINTER SOLDIER

In February 1971, one month after the revelations of the My Lai massacre, a public inquiry into war crimes committed by American forces in Vietnam was held at a Howard Johnson motel in Detroit. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War organization launched the “Winter Soldier Investigation,” wherein over 125 veterans spoke of atrocities they had witnessed and committed. Though the event was attended by press, almost nothing was reported to the American public…until the release of this brutal, pivotal documentary that marked a turning point in America’s anti-war movement. Pieced together by the Winterfilm Collective, WINTER SOLDIER is a one-of-a-kind glimpse into the grief and humanity of U.S. soldiers that makes for an unforgettable experience.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Kino Lorber

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

1:00 PM: NFL Films: A Documentary Dynasty

The American Cinematheque and NFL Films are thrilled to honor over 60 years of the organization’s extensive and influential sports film and television coverage at the Egyptian Theatre on Sunday April 13, 2025. Featuring a panel of surprise guests, we will walk through the organization’s evolution from early highlight reels, Fantastic Finishes, iconic moments and developments, all-access coverage, Hard Knocks and the exciting new future of one of the longest, most awarded and prolific sports film and television production companies at the intersection of sports documentation, film, art and entertainment.

Location: Egyptian Theatre

Cost: Free

1:00 PM: Errol Morris Presents PSYCHO

A secretary on the run for embezzlement takes refuge at a secluded California motel owned by a repressed man and his overbearing mother.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Universal

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

3:00 PM: KOYAANISQATSI

A collection of expertly photographed phenomena with no conventional plot. The footage focuses on the relationship between nature, humanity, and technology.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Park Circus

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: $12.00 (member) ; $17.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

4:00 PM: CHAOS: THE MANSON MURDERS

Directed by Errol Morris, CHAOS: THE MANSON MURDERS untangles a web of conspiracy involving the CIA, LSD, Jack Ruby, the Manson Family, and Vincent Bugliosi, casting doubt on the official story of the 1960s’ most infamous killing spree.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Egyptian Theatre

Cost: $12.00 (member) ; $17.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

4:00 PM: MINAMATA MANDALA

In Japanese with English subtitles.

Filmed over 15 years, this epic three-part documentary by Kazuo Hara chronicles the history of struggle for a community in southern Japan suffering from “Minamata disease” — a debilitating neurological disease caused by methylmercury poisoning from the consumption of fish contaminated by industrial wastewater — as they continue the decades-long battle for legal recognition and reparations from the government. Both a deeply humanizing portrait of resilience and a comprehensive history of one of the worst pollution-related tragedies in human history, Minamata Mandala gives voice to the many survivors, care providers, researchers, and supporters tirelessly fighting for visibility.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Grasshopper Film

COUNTRY: Japan

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

7:00 PM: Tribute to SURVIVOR: An Evening with Jeff Probst 

Join Host and Executive Producer Jeff Probst for a deep dive into the unparalleled legacy and influence of the show that changed the landscape of reality television forever.  Nearly 25 years since SURVIVOR first premiered, the groundbreaking reality series continues to evolve.  Through clips and conversation, we will celebrate the show’s evolution, explore its cultural impact, and reflect on how it has shaped not only the genre but also the very fabric of television storytelling.  The trailblazing reality series, airs Wednesdays at 8:00 PM, on CBS, and also available to stream on Paramount+.

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: Free (members-only)

7:30 PM: DOCUMENTARY NOW!

“Sandy Passage,” 2015, Dir. Alexander Buono and Rhys Thomas, 22 Mins, Broadway Video, USA

An in depth look at the daily lives of two aging socialites and their crumbling estate.

FORMAT: DCP

“Gentle and Soft: The Story of the Blue Jean Committee,” 2015, Dir. Alexander Buono and Rhys Thomas, 44 Mins, Broadway Video, USA

A documentary charting the rise and fall of soft rock’s seminal band, the Blue Jean Committee.

FORMAT: DCP

Location: Egyptian Theatre

Cost: $22.00 (members-only)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

Monday, April 14, 2025

7:00 PM: GOODBYE CP

In Japanese with English subtitles.

Produced in collaboration with the Green Lawn—a group of activists with cerebral palsy who work to raise awareness of the condition—GOODBYE CP blends jagged, shot-on-the-fly footage of the members’ seemingly Sisyphean struggle to take their message to the streets with raw, sometimes confrontational interviews in which they reveal the torment of living in a society cruelly indifferent to their existence. In making his subjects active participants in the film’s creation—a practice he would continue throughout his career—Hara powerfully asserts the humanity and agency of those who have long been denied both.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: Japan

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

7:30 PM: NUMBER ONE ON THE CALL SHEET: PART ONE

With unprecedented access and candid interviews, part one of NUMBER ONE ON THE CALL SHEET takes us on an intimate journey with some of Hollywood’s most extraordinary leading Black men as they shine a light on the joys and challenges of being a Black actor, share breakthrough moments, discuss blueprints for success and honor legends, while recognizing the next generation’s enormous potential.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Apple TV+

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: Free

10:00 PM: A.K.

In French and Japanese with English subtitles.

A.K. is both a making-of documentary showing the filmmaking process of one of cinema’s finest practitioners, Akira Kurosawa, as he completes his most epic film and a meditation on the nature of film itself.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Rialto Pictures

COUNTRY: France/Japan

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

7:00 PM: EXTREME PRIVATE EROS: LOVE SONG 1974

In Japanese with English subtitles.

When his wife, the outspoken feminist Miyuki Takeda, announced that she was leaving him in order to find herself, Kazuo Hara began this raw, intensely personal documentary as a way to both maintain a connection to the woman he still cared for and to make sense of their complex relationship. Granted at times shockingly intimate access to Miyuki’s personal life, Hara follows her wayward journey toward liberation as she explores her sexuality with both men and women, becomes pregnant and raises a family as a single mother, and grows increasingly disenchanted with the constraints of traditional social structures.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: Japan

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

7:30 PM: NUMBER ONE ON THE CALL SHEET: PART TWO

With unprecedented access and candid interviews, part two of NUMBER ONE ON THE CALL SHEET takes us on an intimate journey with some of Hollywood’s most extraordinary leading Black women as they shine a light on the joys and challenges of being a Black actor, share breakthrough moments, discuss blueprints for success and honor legends, while recognizing the next generation’s enormous potential.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Apple TV+

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: Free

10:00 PM: MEN OF WAR

In May 2020, a ragtag group of roughly 60 insurrectionists led by American mercenaries attempted to infiltrate Venezuela by boat to overthrow the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Dubbed Operation Gideon, it was a tragicomedy that failed. The film pitch would be “Rambo meets Fyre Fest” only that doesn’t begin to cover the multiple layers of this documentary. The narrative echoes decades of covert US interventions in Latin America, only this time fashioned in the Trump era.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: NEON

COUNTRY: USA/Canada

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost;  $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

7:00 PM: PREDATORS

TO CATCH A PREDATOR was a popular television show designed to hunt down child predators and lure them to a film set, where they would be interviewed and eventually arrested. PREDATORS is a surprising exploration of the scintillating rise and staggering fall of the show, and the world it helped create.

FORMAT: DCP

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

7:30 PM: KILLER OF SHEEP

KILLER OF SHEEP has been digitally restored to 4K and remastered by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Milestone Films, and the Criterion Collection. Picture Restoration: Illuminate Hollywood. Photochemical Film Preservation: Film Technology Company. Sound Mix and Restoration: John Polito of Audio Mechanics and Larry Blake. Audio Transfers: DJ Audio, Endpoint Audio Labs. Music Rights: Chris Robertson, Global ImageWorks and Milestone Films. Restoration supervised by Ross Lipman and Jillian Borders in consultation with Charles Burnett.

ABOUT THE FILM:
Burnett’s films focus on everyday life in black communities in a manner rarely in American cinema — combining lyrical elements with a starkly neorealist, documentary-style approach that chronicles the unfolding story with depth and riveting simplicity. In KILLER OF SHEEP, Stan, employed at a slaughterhouse, is suffering from the emotional side effects of his bloody occupation to such a degree that his entire life unhinges. Burnett once said of the film, “[Stan’s] real problems lie within the family, trying to make that work and be a human being. You don’t necessarily win battles; you survive.”

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Kino Lorber

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: $12.00 (member) ; $17.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

10:00 PM: LITTLE, BIG, AND FAR

German and English with English subtitles.

Austrian astronomer Karl is at a crossroads in his life and work. He finds his physicist wife growing distant and his job being reshaped by environmental crises as thoughts about science, fascism, and his grandson’s future spin above his head. After attending a conference in Greece, Karl decides not to return home and heads for a small island in hopes of finding a dark enough sky to reconnect with the stars. Abandoned at a remote mountain trail, he ascends and waits for darkness to fall.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Grasshopper Film

COUNTRY: Austria/USA

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

7:00 PM: I KNOW CATHERINE, THE LOG LADY

Catherine Coulson is an international cult sensation in the groundbreaking television series Twin Peaks. 25 years later her lifelong friend David Lynch announces its return for a new season. Within weeks Catherine is diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Can she live long enough to play the iconic Log Lady one last time?

FORMAT: DCP

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Egyptian Theatre

Cost: $17.00 (member) ; $22.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

7:00 PM: 100 FOOT WAVE

Closing night of the festival features the Season 3 return of the critically acclaimed HBO Original documentary series 100 FOOT WAVE with an L.A. Premiere and Q&A to follow on April 17.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: MAX Original

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Aero Theatre

Cost: Free

7:00 PM: JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE

An essay film about the mysteries of consciousness and communication channeled through neurophysiologist and “psychonaut” John C. Lilly, a daring experimenter with dolphins and psychedelics. Lilly’s motto — “My body is my laboratory” - carried him into realms of radical self-investigation, while his research also helped bring dolphins and whales into the collective dreamlife of the 20th century.

FORMAT: DCP

COUNTRY: USA

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

10:00 PM: AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE

In Spanish with English subtitles

Portrait of an active bullfighting star, Andrés Roca Rey, which allows us to reflect on the intimate experience of the bullfighter who assumes the risk of facing the bull as a personal duty out of respect for tradition and as an aesthetic challenge. This challenge creates a form of ephemeral beauty through the material and violent confrontation between human rationality and the brutality of the wild animal.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Grasshopper Films

COUNTRY: Spain

Location: Los Feliz Theatre

Cost: $10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.

Date: April 9-17, 2025

Location:
- Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90403
- Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028
- Los Feliz Theatre, 1822 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027

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