UnReleased Film Series
Two from Pedro Costa
Colossal Youth + Casa De Lava

Friday, January 2
Saturday, January 3
Monday, January 5
Tuesday, January 6
Admission: Free, $10 minimum
Showtimes: Colossal Youth — January 2 (7:30 and 10:30pm); Casa De Lava — January 3 (7:30pm); January 5 & 6 (8pm)
reservations are recommended

Q: What does it mean when the arthouse cinemas of New York are programming movies with Angelina Jolie or Meryl Streep?

A: It means that quality foreign cinema is getting squeezed out and we are dumbing down our populace, my friends.

Dumb down no more (this week at least).

This week, this New Year, we offer the gifts of the masterful Portuguese director Pedro Costa. He's been lauded at Cannes and praised by critics around the world and his last film, Colossal Youth (2006) even wound up on the Village Voice's Top 10 picks of 2007. The last time his films played in New York it was August at Anthology Film Archives. Perhaps you were out of town. These films are not availabe on DVD and that is a shame, but these screening are not. Happy New Year.

Casa De Lava (Down to Earth)(1994) was Costa's second film and stars Issach De Bonkolé. My favorite review I've read goes like this:

"Pedro Costa wasn’t always a super-minimalist. His debut The Blood was a cinephilic explosion, with a milky black-and-white look borrowed from Jacques Tourneur and a noir plot diced up into intentional incoherence. Down to Earth is his real debut. Here’s where you find the social consciousness, the mix of documentary and fiction, the narrative and visual starkness that would pop up in the even more demanding likes of Colossal Youth. Down to Earth feels like a unique vision, with a Portuguese nurse traveling to the volcanic island of Cape Verde and becoming bewitched by the primal landscapes and the destitute but tight-knit community. But Costa, like his heroine, gets lost in the island, shucking plot at every turn so as to immerse us in the unforgiving area."

— Matt Pigge, Philadelphia Weekly