Februry 7-13, 2025

Hello, friends! 

This week, the epic Best Picture nominee The Brutalist continues its run with rave reviews from our audiences, and joining it is another Best Picture nominee, the superb I’m Still Here.   

One of the most pleasant surprises of this Oscar season has been the love for  I’m Still Here. It's still too rare for an international film, especially one that is not in English, to get a Best Picture nomination, but we've seen more of those since Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite paved the way, winning the top honor, and it's heartening to see. 

Directed by Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) and also nominated for Best International Feature and Best Actress, I'm Still Here is based on the true story of the Paiva family, living in Brazil in 1971 under the military rule, which lasted from 1964-1985 and which perpetrated a regime of censorship and human rights abuses. 

As the story begins, the family is very well-off and deeply happy, living near the beach, hosting frequent gatherings with their friends, making plans for the future, and generally living a life of little fear or oppression, an indication that oppressive regimes can often go hand in hand with apparent normalcy. The family is aware of the regime–and even have friends who are so under threat, they decide to move abroad–but mostly, the family seems little concerned with any personal danger. Salles spends the first section of the film embedding us with the family, giving us a strong sense of their warm love for one another and making us fall in love with them, too. 

Their world is abruptly overturned when the father and husband of the family is suddenly taken by military police with no explanation. The film then follows the aftermath of the arrest as the family, led by the wife and mother, Eunice Paiva (played by the brilliant Fernanda Torres), must come to terms with what the arrest means -- and to find a way to go on living. 

It's beautifully acted and beautifully structured, a moving and potent film that is only all too relevant to the times we are living in, serving both as a warning for how quickly the things we cherish can crumble and as a testament to the power of hope and resistance.

We also have several wonderful single-film events this week: 

First, Third Eye’s fall/winter 6-film season closes out with FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which gained passionate fans in the children who grew up watching it at home and has become something of a cult classic since its 1992 release.  Reviews at the time were rather tepid, the kindest calling it a film with a good message and the least kind calling it preachy, but while the ecological message is certainly one any environmentally-aware viewer can embrace, the film is too beautifully animated and too wonderfully weird – perhaps even too camp – to be dismissed as merely earnestly didactic or as ho-hum run-of-the-mill family fare. As one Reddit user notes, the voice work alone of the actors involved in the film makes the film more than just a tame day at the movies: “Robin Williams as Batty had an amazing rap, Tim Curry as Hexxus rocked my gay core with [the song] ‘Toxic Love.’” And indeed, even the presence of an icon of camp like Curry is an indication of why this film has become so beloved since its initial release. It’s a genuinely immersive and surprising film, and as one reviewer puts it, “funny, pretty, touching, scary, magical stuff.” 

Chosen by Joey, intrepid Pickford projectionist, FernGully screens on Saturday evening at 10 pm, and Joey will be on hand to offer a few remarks of introduction to the film. Join us! 

Our PBS-sponsored Indie Lens Pop-up series continues (a series that we can, perhaps, be all the more grateful for as PBS faces threats of a loss of funding at the current moment) with a screening of the documentary Bike Vessel. The film traces the beautiful story of a father and son, who embark on an adventure in the face of health challenges: “Knowing his dad miraculously recovered from three open-heart surgeries after discovering a passion for cycling, filmmaker Eric D. Seals proposes an ambitious idea: Bike together from St. Louis to Chicago. 350 miles. 4 days. On their journey, the two push each other as they find a deeper connection and a renewed appreciation of their quests for their own health and to reimagine Black health.”

Join on Sunday at 10 am for this FREE screening with an informal discussion to follow.