| Date | Film | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday, May 5 | El Santo Double Feature | Planet Ant |
| Thursday, May 9 | The People’s Joker | Planet Ant |
| Weds, May 15 | Love Lies Bleeding | MOCAD |
| Weds, May 22 | West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty | MOCAD |
Sunday, May 5
EL SANTO Double Feature
SANTO VS. EVIL BRAIN
and SANTO VS. INFERNAL MEN
at Planet Ant • 2320 Caniff St, Hamtramck, MI 48212
Doors 5:00 p.m. | Film at 5:30 p.m.
Presented with Cinema Lamont
Immediately recognizable by his distinctive silver mask, the heroic wrestler Santo (‘The Saint’) was Mexico’s most popular luchador, becoming a folk hero and the star of a hugely popular series of action films. Our show is the Detroit première of beautiful new 4K restorations of the first two films in the Santo series.
In 1961’s SANTO VS. EVIL BRAIN (Santo contra cerebro del mal), the dastardly Doctor Campos kidnaps and brainwashes scientists. When undercover detective Santo falls prey to Campos’ scheme, Lieutenant Zambrano (Enrique Zambrano) and El Incognito (Fernando Osés, who wrote the script) must come to his assistance to foil Campos’ plans.
Meanwhile, in the same year’s SANTO VS. INFERNAL MEN (Santo contra hombres infernales), the trio of Santo, El Incognito, and Zambrano team up once again to fight a band of drug smugglers.
EVIL BRAIN and INFERNAL MEN were filmed in Cuba as Castro’s revolutionaries entered Havana. The filmmakers — Mexican genre masters Joselito Rodriguez, Jorge Garcia-Besné, and Enrique J. Zambrano — were forced to flee with the unprocessed 35mm negative smuggled inside a coffin. The celluloid birth of a true screen legend may have been difficult, but it led to 50 additional Santo films.
Don’t miss this Very Special Cinco de Mayo Double Feature!
Mexico/Cuba. 1961. Restoration by Permanencia Voluntaria with support from Nicholas Winding Refn and the Academy Film Archive.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Written and directed by Joselito Rodríguez.
Total running time: 150 min. plus 10 minute intermission.
SANTO VS. EVIL BRAIN 73 min. | SANTO VS. INFERNAL MEN 77 min.
Wednesday, May 15
LOVE LIES BLEEDING
at MOCAD • 4454 Woodward Avenue Detroit, MI 48201
Doors 5:30 p.m. | Film at 6:30 p.m.
From director Rose Glass (Saint Maud) comes an electric new love story, LOVE LIES BLEEDING. Reclusive gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls hard for Jackie (Katy O’Brian), an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Vegas to pursue her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.
“Glass’ details — the grime of both the setting and the storytelling — add to the hopeless, dizzying sense of romance that quickly blossoms between Lou and Jackie.” — Detroit News
“A heart-pounding, iron-pumping descent into the heady heart of obsession and desire.” — Little White Lies
“Love Lies Bleeding is an exciting, instant classic that will hopefully usher in a new era of unapologetically weird lesbian cinema.” — Autostraddle
Check out the TRAILER here
US/UK. 2024.
Co-written and directed by Rose Glass.
Running time: 104 min.
Wednesday, May 22
WEST INDIES: THE FUGITIVE SLAVES OF LIBERTY
at MOCAD • 4454 Woodward Avenue Detroit, MI 48201
Doors 5:30 p.m. | Film at 6:30 p.m.
Mauritanian French director Med Hondo’s WEST INDIES: THE FUGITIVE SLAVES OF LIBERTY proved a watershed event for African cinema—the continent’s first musical as well as a sui generis amalgam of historical epic, Broadway revue, Brechtian theater, and joyous agitprop. Using an enormous mock slave ship as the film’s only soundstage, Hondo mounts intricately choreographed reenactments and dance numbers across his multipurpose set to investigate more than three centuries of imperialist oppression.
The story traverses the West Indies, Europe, and the Middle Passage; jumps across time to depict the effects of official French policy upon the colonized, the enslaved, and their descendants; and surveys the actions and motivations of the resigned, the revolutionary, and the powers that be (along with their lackeys). No mere extravaganza, West Indies is a call to arms for a spectacular yet critical cinematic reimagining of an entire people’s history of resistance and struggle.
France/Algeria/Mauritania. 1979.
Restoration by the Harvard Film Archive and Ciné-Archives using the original 35mm picture negative and magnetic track. Financial support provided by the McMillan Stewart Foundation. Film services by Blackhawk Films and Lumières Numériques.
In French with English subtitles.
Co-written and directed by Med Hondo.
Running time 116 min.