Thursday, December 20th, 2018

La petite marchande d’allumettes - Holiday Screening

Curated by Adam Williams

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

Celebrate the holidays with friends at The Mini. In 1928, Jean Renoir collaborated with Jean Tedesco, managing director of the avant-garde Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, and Charles Raleigh, an American film technician and former Biograph salesman, to produce this adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Little Match Girl. Despite meager means — friends were cast as actors, the costumes were made handmade, even the film was developed in a kitchen sink — Renoir’s film succeeds on purely imaginative zeal. Let this holiday classic be the tree topper with several Christmas-themed short films ornamenting the program. Egg nog and cookies provided. (90 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 

Mon Oncle Antoine (1971) Directed by Claude Jutra

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

Claude Jutra's evocative portrait of a boy's coming of age in wintry 1940s rural Quebec has been consistently cited by critics and scholars as the greatest Canadian film of all time. Delicate, naturalistic, and tinged with a striking mix of nostalgia and menace, Mon oncle Antoine follows Benoit, as he first encounters the twin terrors of sex and death, and his fellow villagers, who are living under the thumb of the local asbestos mine owner. Set during one ominous Christmas, Mon oncle Antoine is a holiday film unlike any other, and an authentically detailed illustration of childhood’s twilight. - Criterion (104 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Sunday, December 16th, 2018

Open Screen

(Like open mic night but with movies…)

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

Join us as we host our fifth “Open Screen” event, highlighting work by local film and video makers. The program will include a mix of short films from varying genres. All filmmakers will be in attendance to present their work. Interested in screening your work? For more information visit our website: mini-cinema.org/open-screen. Program details will be announced one week prior to the screening. Organized by Andy Marko! (80 min) 

Free with $5 suggested donation

Thursday, December 13th, 2018

Wanda (1970) Directed by Barbara Loden

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

A man stands before a judge listing his ex-wife’s many supposed deficiencies: “She was a lousy wife. Always bumming around, drinking. Never took care of the kids…” The wife in question is Wanda, title character of Barbara Loden’s little-seen semi-autobiographical film, and the setting is a divorce court in Pennsylvania coal country. Rather than disputing the accusations, Wanda willingly hands over custody of her children before hitting the road. The journey that follows—rendered in closely observed, albeit emotionally oblique, episodes—finds Wanda adrift on the margins of working class America, a male-dominated space of latent despair and sudden, shattering brutality. The film, Loden’s first and last feature, presaged the politically charged dramas of 70s New Hollywood and has become a touchstone for present-day auteurs like the Dardenne brothers and Kelly Reichardt.(103 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Tuesday, December 11th, 2018

Diary of Country Priest (1951) Directed by Robert Bresson

Presented by Walter E. Langsam

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

A new priest (Claude Laydu) arrives in the French country village of Ambricourt to attend to his first parish. The apathetic and hostile rural congregation rejects him immediately. Through his diary entries, the suffering young man relays a crisis of faith that threatens to drive him away from the village and from God. With his fourth film, Robert Bresson began to implement his stylistic philosophy as a filmmaker, stripping away all inessential elements from his compositions, the dialogue and the music, exacting a purity of image and sound. - Criterion (122 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Sunday, December 9th, 2018

It's Not the Time of My Life (Ernelláék Farkaséknál) (2016) Directed by Szabolcs Hajdu

Presented by the UC Center for Film and Media Studies

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

Renowned Hungarian filmmaker and theatre director Szabolcs Hajdu’s film offers compelling insights into contemporary Hungary and its place in Europe without leaving the confines of Hajdu’s own apartment, where the entire film was shot. Eszter, her husband, and son are paid an unexpected visit in the middle of the night. Eszter’s sister Ernella, her husband Albert and daughter Laura have returned from a failed attempt to emigrate to Scotland, where the parents worked for one year. It soon becomes clear that the two families had never really been in tune with one another. Preceded by selected shorts. Introduction by Michael Gott, University of Cincinnati. (100 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Saturday, December 8th, 2018

Lil’s + Lils - Films for Kids 

Holiday Edition

Doors 10:30 AM / Start 11:00 AM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St. 

Enjoy a selection of short films for children. The thirty-minute program includes animated films from all over the world that are either in English or without dialogue. Also enjoy free bagels from Lil’s Bagels and free coffee from Iris Book Cafe. All ages welcome! Free with $5 suggested donation. (30 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Thursday, December 6th, 2018

Extremely Shorts: A Touring Survey of Aurora Picture Show's Eclectic Annual Festival

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

For over 20 years, Aurora Picture Show’s Extremely Shorts Film Festival has showcased a diverse selection of adventurous, new short films and videos of all genres – each 3 minutes or less. This unique festival has become a lively Houston tradition, providing audiences with opportunities to experience a wide-ranging cross section of new visions from local, national, and international artists. This touring program is a curated survey featuring films from the U.S., Canada, Japan, France, and Italy that have been featured in the festival over the last two decades. Including work by Bill Daniel, Roger Beebe, and Martha Colburn! (65 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Tuesday, December 4th, 2018

Serious Games III: Immersion (2009) Directed by Harun Farocki

Continuity (2016) Directed by Omer Fast

Presented by the UC Center for Film and Media Studies

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

What are the connections between images, war, trauma, and the contemporary? Harun Farocki and Omer Fast explore this question by looking at the clinical phenomenon of PTSD as a cultural symptom ripe with political ramifications. In Serious Games III: Immersion (2009), Farocki explores the ways in which virtual reality is used to recruit and train soldiers as well as is employed to treat US soldiers suffering from PTSD. Omer Fast’s Continuity (2016) expands upon this theme by telling the story of a German soldier returning from Afghanistan. The film works with the deviations inherent to repetitions, thereby not only creating hauntingly (sur)real worlds but also attesting to the power of images and their connection to the political imagination. Introduction by Mareike Lange and Anna Senuysal, University of Cincinnati. (85 min)

Sunday, December 2nd, 2018

Gillian Wearing: Self Made (2010) + We Are Here (2014)

Presented in partnership with the Cincinnati Art Museum

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

“Would you like to be in a film? You can play yourself or a fictional character. Call Gillian.” An experimental documentary project that began with an open call newspaper ad, Self Made focuses on seven members of the public who explore their inner selves through a method-acting workshop.

Inspired by Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology, Wearing’s We Are Here features individuals from the artist’s native Birmingham (U.K) voicing piercing reflections on human frailty and their own lives." Gillian Wearing exposes layers of identity often kept hidden, drawing out the extent to which we perform versions of ourselves for the public sphere. This two-part film series, guest curated by Nathaniel Stein, complements the current Cincinnati Art Museum exhibition Life: Gillian Wearing. (109 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Thursday, November 29th, 2018

Moving Pictures: Paris to New York

Presented in partnership with the Taft Museum of Art

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

The Taft Museum of Art and The Mini Microcinema are teaming up to provide a screening of short films created by artists working in New York and Paris around the turn of the 20th century. Curated by The Mini’s director C. Jacqueline Wood, these films will capture your imagination and provide a broader artistic context for the photographs of Eugène Atget and Berenice Abbott. Presenting work by Georges Méliès, Fernand Léger & Dudley Murphy, Alice Guy-Blaché, Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb & James Agee, Charles Sheeler & Paul Strand. (60 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Tuesday, November 27th, 2018 

Gillian Wearing: Your Views (2013-2017)

Presented in partnership with the Cincinnati Art Museum

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

Using an open submission website, Wearing invited people to upload raw videos depicting what they saw outside their windows. The result is a global, collaborative work encompassing views in 163 countries. Glimpses of life, from rural to urban, flash on the screen, each view revealed as if the curtain has been pulled back on a stage. Wearing has described her work process as “editing life.” The British conceptual artist was awarded the Turner Prize in 1997, and in 2011 was appointed O.B.E. for services to art. This two-part film series, guest curated by Nathaniel Stein, complements the current Cincinnati Art Museum exhibition Life: Gillian Wearing. The second screening in this two-part series occurs on December 2nd. (140 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Sunday, November 25th, 2018

Emotional.Store.

Video/Performance

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

Emotional.Store presents two videos and a short performance of their collaborative video works. These three pieces collectively imagine present and future scenarios in which the attempt to solve banal problems with new technologies exposes our vulnerable disposition toward irrelevance. Emotional.Store is the collaborative duo of artists Scotty Wagner and Bailey Hikawa. They create multimedia projects that explore the newly forming collective consciousness brought about by the union of the physical with the virtual, and the onset of obsolescence. Through comedic storytelling, magical language, and technological seduction, Emotional.store projects weave audience members through a viscerally weird conversation around the interplay between systems that drive technological progress and the phenomenology of engagement in a digitally and physically hybridized world. (60 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Tuesday, November 20th, 2018

The Response Project - Something is Happening Here

Films Only

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

The Response Project and The Mini Microcinema present an eclectic evening of short films by local and national filmmakers as part of its third major commissioning initiative, Something Is Happening Here. Something Is Happening Here asked musicians, filmmakers, poets, and artists of diverse cultural backgrounds to respond to Bob Dylan’s seminal 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited—a timeless and relatable meditation on fear, uncertainty, and social division in America. 

The Mini Microcinema will showcase 9 original short film responses by filmmakers Robert Banks, Katrina Dixon & Brian Frye, Samantha Drake, Scott Fredette, Paul Hill & April Martin, Sky Hopinka, Cameron Quevado, Andrea Torrice, and Allyson West, corresponding to Highway 61 Revisited’s 9 distinct tracks. 

https://www.theresponseproject.org/bds-filmmakers

Free with $5 suggested donation

The Response Project is made possible by the generous support of Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation and Indiegogo donors.

Sunday, November 18th, 2018

The Response Project - Something is Happening Here

Films Only

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

The Response Project and The Mini Microcinema present an eclectic evening of short films by local and national filmmakers as part of its third major commissioning initiative, Something Is Happening Here. Something Is Happening Here asked musicians, filmmakers, poets, and artists of diverse cultural backgrounds to respond to Bob Dylan’s seminal 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited—a timeless and relatable meditation on fear, uncertainty, and social division in America. 

The Mini Microcinema will showcase 9 original short film responses by filmmakers Robert Banks, Katrina Dixon & Brian Frye, Samantha Drake, Scott Fredette, Paul Hill & April Martin, Sky Hopinka, Cameron Quevado, Andrea Torrice, and Allyson West, corresponding to Highway 61 Revisited’s 9 distinct tracks. 

https://www.theresponseproject.org/bds-filmmakers

Free with $5 suggested donation

The Response Project is made possible by the generous support of Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation and Indiegogo donors.

Thursday, November 15th, 2018 AND Friday, November 16th, 2018

The Response Project - Something is Happening Here

Films Start 7:00 PM / Music Starts 8:00 PM

@ The Woodward Theater - 1404 Main St. 

The Response Project presents the culmination of its third major commissioning initiative, Something Is Happening Here, featuring 9 new original short films and 12 music world premieres. Something Is Happening Here asked musicians, filmmakers, poets, and artists of diverse cultural backgrounds to respond to Bob Dylan’s seminal 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited — a timeless and relatable meditation on fear, uncertainty, and social division in America. 

Over the span of two evenings, pianist Brianna Matzke will perform 12 new works for solo piano by 12 composers. Running the gamut of backgrounds, experiences, and stylistic motivations, these composers will offer strikingly unique interpretations of Highway 61 Revisited’s 9 distinct tracks. Each concert will be preceded by short films, curated and co-presented by The Mini Microcinema, by 9 filmmakers also responding to the album’s descriptively evocative content. Something Is Happening Here was conceived by Brianna Matzke, artistic director of the Response Project and accomplished pianist. With this project, Matzke hopes to inspire conversation on themes of Dylan’s work and the work of commissioned artists, bringing people with conflicting viewpoints into contact with one another. 

Films by Scott Fredette, April Martin & Paul Hill, Allyson West, Robert Banks, and Cameron Quevedo will screen on November 15th.

Films by Katrina Dixon & Brian Frye, Samantha Drake, Sky Hopinka, and Andrea Torrice will screen on November 16th.

​Please visit https://www.woodwardtheater.com/shows/response-project to buy tickets! 

The Response Project is made possible by the generous support of Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation and Indiegogo donors.

Thursday, November 15th, 2018 AND Friday, November 16th, 2018

The Response Project - Something is Happening Here

Films Start 7:00 PM / Music Starts 8:00 PM

@ The Woodward Theater - 1404 Main St. 

The Response Project presents the culmination of its third major commissioning initiative, Something Is Happening Here, featuring 9 new original short films and 12 music world premieres. Something Is Happening Here asked musicians, filmmakers, poets, and artists of diverse cultural backgrounds to respond to Bob Dylan’s seminal 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited — a timeless and relatable meditation on fear, uncertainty, and social division in America. 

Over the span of two evenings, pianist Brianna Matzke will perform 12 new works for solo piano by 12 composers. Running the gamut of backgrounds, experiences, and stylistic motivations, these composers will offer strikingly unique interpretations of Highway 61 Revisited’s 9 distinct tracks. Each concert will be preceded by short films, curated and co-presented by The Mini Microcinema, by 9 filmmakers also responding to the album’s descriptively evocative content. Something Is Happening Here was conceived by Brianna Matzke, artistic director of the Response Project and accomplished pianist. With this project, Matzke hopes to inspire conversation on themes of Dylan’s work and the work of commissioned artists, bringing people with conflicting viewpoints into contact with one another. 

Films by Scott Fredette, April Martin & Paul Hill, Allyson West, Robert Banks, and Cameron Quevedo will screen on November 15th.

Films by Katrina Dixon & Brian Frye, Samantha Drake, Sky Hopinka, and Andrea Torrice will screen on November 16th.

​Please visit https://www.woodwardtheater.com/shows/response-project to buy tickets! 

The Response Project is made possible by the generous support of Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation and Indiegogo donors.

Sunday, November 11th, 2018

A Feast of Man (2017) Directed by Caroline Golum

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

When a wealthy New York playboy dies unexpectedly, his five closest friends are summoned to his country home for a viewing of his video will. Each one will become a millionaire overnight, if they can unanimously agree to consume his dead body. Caroline Golum is a filmmaker and writer living in Brooklyn, NY. When she is not working for the Man, she is usually at, writing about, or trying to make a movie. (82 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Saturday, November 10th, 2018

Lil’s + Lils - Films for Kids

Doors 10:30 AM / Start 11:00 AM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St. 

Enjoy a selection of short films for children. The thirty-minute program includes animated films from all over the world that are either in English or without dialogue. Arrive early to enjoy free bagels from Lil’s Bagels and free coffee from Iris BookCafe. Fun for all ages! (30 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation

Sunday, November 4th, 2018 

The Candidate (1972) Directed by Michael Ritchie

Doors 7:00 PM / Start 7:30 PM @ The Mini - 1329 Main St.

Arguably the greatest political picture in American history (though 1957’s A Face in the Crowd and 1976’s All the President’s Men might well jostle for the gold). It tells the story of an idealistic young lawyer and son of a former governor, Bill McKay (Robert Redford), who agrees to run for the U.S. Senate, on the condition that he can maintain his liberal beliefs and will never have to censor what he says. Inevitably, as he becomes more polished, he becomes less true to himself. - The Hollywood Reporter (110 min)

Free with $5 suggested donation