Magnus and Julia Lofting suffer a tremendous shock one morning when their daughter Kate begins choking at breakfast. Unsure of what to do, Julia attempts a tracheotomy, inadvertently causing Kate's death. Reeling from the death of her daughter, Julia leaves her husband and moves into a large old house in London. But as Julia becomes convinced that her new home is haunted by the spirit of a young girl, Magnus begins to question her fragile sanity. Mia Farrow (Rosemary’s Baby) and Keir Dullea Black Christmas) star in this chilly supernatural fable based on the novel 'Julia' by Peter Straub. Bikini Drive-In is a semi-monthly screening series examining horror films through a feminist lens curated and introduced by Cinematheque Film Programmer Olivia Norquay. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

Notorious Baltimore criminal and underground figure Divine goes up against Connie & Raymond Marble, a sleazy married couple who make a passionate attempt to humiliate her and seize her tabloid-given title as “The Filthiest Person Alive”. Welcome to Cult-O-Rama, our brand-new monthly screening series exploring beloved sleaze, trash, and cult cinema! A celebration of bad taste curated and introduced by Cinematheque Film Programmer Olivia Norquay. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

Middle-class Karli (Tracy Mann, Hard Knocks), alcoholic Jane (Vera Plevnik, Monkey Grip), unemployed Jackie (Julie Barry, Hell Hole), and square Ellen (Moira MacLaine-Cross, Tender Hooks) are four friends living together and barely scraping by in suburban Sydney. But when Karli’s father offers her a little money and a one-way ticket to New York, she finally sees a way out of her dead-end life—that is, until the money goes missing, kickstarting a final night out on the town that none of them will ever forget. With a screenplay written by and based on the lives of two of its stars, performances from local Sydney bands Pel Mel and the Dynamic Hepnotics, and supporting appearances by a handful of beloved Ozploitation regulars—including David Argue (BMX Bandits) and Hugh Keays-Byrne (Mad Max)—Haydn Keenan’s debut feature Going Down is an underseen landmark of Australian cinema and a vivid portrait of Sydney in the early 80s. Existing somewhere between Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens and Juliet Berto and Jean-Henri Roger’s Neige in its depictions of the thrills and dangers of urban life, Going Down is a visceral testament to friendship and making it at any cost.

A couple heads to a remote cabin during a pandemic but a new variant throws the world into chaos, leaving them to reconcile their marriage and themselves, all while trying to outrun a survivalist intent on being the last man standing.

First-ever North American release of Robina Rose's masterwork of surreal, somnambulant cinema! Over the course of a single nightshift, a West London hotel clerk (U.K. counterculture icon Jordan) plays mute witness to a nocturnal constellation of guests ranging from punk rockers and scenester magicians to seemingly staid businessmen and old-world gentry. As the hours drift deeper into night and the varied clientele depart the waking world, the hotel transforms into an otherworldly, liminal space swaying between the everyday and the enchanting. Gorgeously photographed by Jon Jost (All the Vermeers in New York) with a soundtrack by Simon Jeffes of the legendary Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Nightshift is both a potent snapshot of London’s early-‘80s art scene (actor/poet Heathcote Williams and filmmaker Anne Rees-Mogg also star) and a bold, instantly engrossing artistic statement from director Robina Rose. A masterwork of surreal, somnambulant cinema, the film casts a resonant spell audiences won’t soon forget. Essentially unseeable for decades, Arbelos is proud to bring Nightshift to North American audiences in this rich new 4K restoration courtesy of Lightbox Film Center.

For half a decade, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, films his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel's occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with an Israeli journalist who wants to join his fight. No Other Land is an unflinching account of a community's mass expulsion and acts as a creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.

Inspired by Kensuke Ide’s 2021 concept album Strolling Planet ’74 – for which Kensuke Ide’s band transformed into the fictitious 70s glam rock group Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists – Plastic tells the story of teenagers Jun and Ibuki’s search for the legendary rock band 40 years after their farewell concert. As teenage Jun arrives in Nagoya as a transfer student after failing to sign a record deal, his busking of his favorite Exne Kedy song catches the eye of fellow fan Ibuki. The pair soon fall in love over their shared taste, but as adult responsibilities mount, they drift apart… until Exne Kedy announces a reunion tour.

In Secret Cinema, our all-celluloid film series, films from our own archive of 16mm film prints are selected by guest curators. The film titles are kept secret until the night of the screening. This month’s selection was made by multidisciplinary artist Meganelizabeth Diamond. Meganelizabeth Diamond is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and programmer that lives and works in Winnipeg, on Treaty 1. Her practice spans photography, collage, moving image, and new media, with a focus on emotional resonance, perception, and the layered relationship between nature and constructed environments. Diamond is the Executive & Artistic Director at PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts and previously of the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival. She is always cloud watching and misses her dog Skye. Admission is by donation and the event will take place at the Winnipeg Film Group’s Black Lodge Studio (3rd floor of 100 Arthur St). Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

In 2003, eight Rhode Island artists created a secret apartment inside the busy Providence Place Mall and lived there for four years, filming everything along the way. They snuck in furniture, tapped into the mall’s electricity, and even constructed a wall, smuggling in more than two tons of cinderblock. Far more than just a wild prank, the secret apartment became a deeply meaningful place for its inhabitants. It was a personal expression of defiance against local gentrification, a boundary-pushing work of public/private art, a clubhouse in which large-scale charitable art projects were planned, and, finally, a 750 square-foot "F you" to The Man. Featuring never-before-seen footage of the space and revealing the identities of all the participants for the first time, Secret Mall Apartment is more than just a bonkers true story. Director Jeremy Workman, whose Lily Topples The World won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW 2021, delivers a poignant exploration of a group of artists who discovered their purpose within the most commercial and improbable places.

Aloof teenage Japanese tourists, a frazzled Italian widow, and a disgruntled British immigrant all converge in the city of dreams—which, in Mystery Train, from Jim Jarmusch, is Memphis. Made with its director’s customary precision and wit, this triptych of stories pays playful tribute to the home of Stax Records, Sun Studio, Graceland, Carl Perkins, and, of course, the King, who presides over the film like a spirit. Mystery Train is one of Jarmusch’s very best movies, a boozy and beautiful pilgrimage to an iconic American ghost town and a paean to the music it gave the world. Join us for our Staff Picks series, where our Winnipeg Film Group staff select and introduce new and old favourites. This month’s selection was chosen by Cinematheque Head Projectionist Eric Peterson. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

Nestled deep in the suburban San Fernando Valley, legendary musician Jerry Williams, aka Swamp Dogg, has turned his home into a creative playground, where he and his equally iconic housemates, Moogstar and Guitar Shorty, blaze a wildly unconventional path through the music industry’s ups and downs. Together, they’re navigating life, art, and the absurdities of fame with humour, grit, and relentless originality. Filmed over six years, directors Isaac Gale, Ryan Olson, and David McMurry dive into the madcap world of these prolific musicians whose unique talents and boundary-breaking spirit have influenced fans and artists for decades. This film is a hilarious, heartfelt journey through the lives of music’s true originals.

In an eerie, deceptively placid near-future, a techno-entrepreneur named Karsh (Vincent Cassel) has developed a new software that will allow the bereaved to bear witness to the gradual decay of loved ones dead and buried in the earth. While Karsh is still reeling from the loss of his wife (Diane Kruger) from cancer—and falling into a peculiar sexual relationship with his wife’s sister (also Kruger)—a spate of vandalized graves utilizing his “shroud” technology begins to put his enterprise at risk, leading him to uncover a potentially vast conspiracy. Written following the death of the director’s wife, the new film from David Cronenberg is both a profoundly personal reckoning with grief and a descent into noir-tinged dystopia, set in an ominous world of self-driving cars, data theft, and A.I. personal assistants. Offering Cronenberg’s customary balance of malevolence and wit, The Shrouds is a sly and thought-provoking consideration of the corporeal and the digital, the mortal and the infinite. A Sideshow/Janus Films release.

A young woman discovers that a sex tape made without her knowledge is circulating online. Paranoia takes over, along with a sense of injustice. Her sudden terror of video triggers a downward spiral where she loses all social bearings.

Sakura is a moody teenage girl who lives close to the US military base in the city of Yamato, Japan. She is struggling everyday to become a rapper like the American rappers she admires, but always gets stage fright when she sings in front of an audience. One day, her mother’s American soldier boyfriend’s daughter REI comes from California to visit her family.