AGITPROP! 2 “It's Not Just America At Risk: Classic Cautionary Tales Still In Play Today”

ACLU benefit, donating 100% of all ticket sales

Saturday, December 9, 2017, Roxie Theater, San Francisco

Midcentury Productions AGITPROP! events present work that explore the social and political filmmaking of the past. These three films deal with the tendency of the modern state to undermine the freedoms of its citizens. While this is currently front and center in the USA, it’s been an ongoing problem around the world, and the films in AGITPROP! 2 reflect that fact. Cinema history is part of history: we need to not only revere great works of art, but also those creative efforts that point us to historical lessons that we need to remember and apply to the present. These are exceptional films made in exceptional times—just like ours.

FORCE OF EVIL (1948 has particular resonance to our current American malaise. John Garfield stars in this blistering “autopsy of capitalism.” written and directed by Abraham Polonsky. It lays out the lingering danger that a system of so-called “free enterprise” can become predatory and corrupt, in a film that pits brother against brother. It’s a film that’s needed to be screened in front of American audiences ever since the tragic election results of November 8, 2016.

Banned in Czechoslovakia for more than twenty years, UCHO, or THE EAR, was made in 1970 but not released until the advent of perestroika in 1990. It is a tale of paranoia and relentless surveillance in a totalitarian state, and the shattering effect it has on the lives of a couple in the middle ranges of the government bureaucracy. UCHO has been described as a cross between Francis Ford Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION and Mike Nichols’ WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? It is a cautionary tale about what can happen to humanity if it fails to safeguard democratic principles.

PUNISHMENT PARK is a remarkably prescient at how the state can manipulate perception and undermine dissent. In 1971 British filmmaker Peter Watkins created a cinema verité style “mockumentary” during the final phase of the protest over the Vietnam War, and produced a chilling template for how the state could subvert and suppress protest. Forty-five years later, it is a fascinating historical artifact that needs to be seen by those who wish to be effective in resisting the escalating untruths that are being issued from the current occupant of the White House.

NOIR NOEL, French Xmas Noir, “Maybe it’s good that Christmas comes but once a year…”

Wednesday, December 13, 2017, Roxie Theater, San Francisco

Midcentury Productions presents one-night stand of Yuletide mystery and menace, done as only the French can do it.

In L’ASSASSINAT DU PÈRE NOEL (1941), Harry Baur stars in the first film produced by Nazi-run Continental Films during the German occupation of France--a film that is actually a subterranean plea for resistance tucked inside a gothic tale of small-town, from director Christian-Jaque and screenwriter Charles Spaak. (The story line was tragically prophetic: Baur would be arrested and tortured by the Nazis, becoming the first actor to lose his life as a result of the war.)

Robert Hossein stars in LE MONTE-CHARGE (1962) as a just-released criminal whose talent is finding trouble—even on Christmas Eve! He finds himself involved with a beautiful woman (Lea Massari) who invites him into her home for a little “Christmas cheer,” only to discover that there’s a just a bit more going on than he’d bargained for. When you see how things work out in this clever, surreal thriller, you’ll never take Christmas Eve for granted ever again!

SO join Midcentury Productions’ Don Malcolm for NOIR NOEL, a very special evening of murder, mystery and mischance, coming just in time to put you in the proper mood for the holiday season. While you’re there, pick up some copies of the FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT 2018 wall calendar, the perfect Xmas gift for the cinephiles on your shopping list.