The Hope College Knickerbocker Theatre in downtown Holland will feature four foreign and independent films during its Fall Film Series running in September and October.
The series will feature “The Expedition to the End of the World,” “Ida,” “My Old Lady” and “Magic in the Moonlight.”
“The Expedition to the End of the World,” a Danish documentary, will show Monday-Saturday, Sept. 8-13. A modern adventure film, the documentary follows a three-masted schooner packed with artists, scientists and ambitions worthy of Noah or Columbus, as they set off for the end of the world: the rapidly melting massifs of North-East Greenland. It is an epic journey during which the brave sailors on board encounter polar bear nightmares, Stone Age playgrounds and entirely new species. But in their encounter with new, unknown parts of the world, they also confront the existential questions of life. “Salon.com” has called the film “an experience that wrenches you free of the everyday world and urges you to contemplate all sorts of big-picture questions.” In Danish with English subtitles, the film runs for one hour and 30 minutes, and is not rated.
“Ida”, showing Monday-Saturday, Sept. 15-20, comes from acclaimed Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (“Last Resort,” “My Summer of Love”). The film is a moving and intimate drama about 18-year-old Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, makes a shocking discovery about her past. The Mother Superior insists that Anna first visit her sole living relative, and naïve, innocent Anna soon finds herself in the presence of her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a worldly and cynical Communist Party insider, who shocks her with the declaration that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. The revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism. The film has won multiple awards and garnered rave reviews. “The Los Angeles Times” has described “Ida” as “A film of exceptional artistry,” while A.O. Scott of “The New York Times” said, “It haunted me… I can’t wait to see it again.” The film is in Polish with English subtitles. It has a run time of one hour and 20 minutes, and is rated PG-13.
In the comedy, “My Old Lady,” showing Monday-Saturday, Sept. 29-Oct. 4, a down-and-out New Yorker inherits an apartment in Paris from his estranged father and is stunned to find a refined old lady living there with her protective daughter. He learns that the apartment is a “viager”--an ancient French system for buying and selling apartments--and that he will not actually get possession of the apartment until Mathilde dies. The movie features an all-star cast with Kristin Scott Thomas and Academy Award-winners Maggie Smith and Kevin Kline. The film is the directorial debut of renowned playwright/screenwriter Israel Horovitz, father of producer Rachael Horovitz. The film has a run time of one hour and 44 minutes, and is rated PG-13.
The series ends with Woody Allen’s latest film, “Magic in the Moonlight,” showing Monday-Saturday, Oct. 6-11. Set in the 1920s on the opulent Riviera in the south of France, the film is a romantic comedy about a master magician (Colin Firth) trying to expose a psychic medium (Emma Stone) as a fake. Firth’s character makes a living as Wei Ling Soo, a Chinese illusionist, but like another great magician, Houdini, he likes to expose frauds. When a friend calls upon him to expose a young American medium named Sophie, he may have met this match. What follows is a series of events that are magical in every sense of the word and sends the characters reeling. “The New Yorker” has said that the film allows Firth to reprise his role as the legendary Mr. Darcy, noting, “The haughty reserve, the perfectly phrased disdain, the deeply romantic nature hidden beneath the chill: Firth does this sort of thing better than anyone.” The film has a run time of one hour and 33 minutes, and is rated PG-13.
All films begin at 7:30 p.m. More information, including trailers, can be found by visiting the Knickerbocker website at hope.edu/knick
Tickets for the individual films are $7 for regular admission and $6 for senior citizens, Hope College faculty and children. Tickets will be sold at the door but are also available in advance at the Events and Conferences Office located downtown in the Anderson-Werkman Financial Center (100 E. Eighth St.). The office is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and can be reached at (616) 395-7890.
The Knickerbocker Theatre is located at 86 E. Eighth St.