Actively supporting the need to save the IDEAL cinema – shortly before its planned closure at the end of the year – and reiterating the demand for the preservation and reopening of all the historic cinemas in the center, the 29th Athens International Film Festival Premiere Nights returns to its much-loved venue for seven farewell screenings.
And we say he’s coming back because last spring he did something similar with movie screenings that were sold out. All of the films you’ll read below are screened in recently digitally restored prints, and four of these screenings (“The Silence of the Lambs,” “Too Hard to Die,” “Pulp Fiction,” and “The Huntsman”) have further symbolic significance: were films that left an era when they premiered at the IDEAL cinema. Also, two of these screenings are in collaboration with MIDNIGHT EXPRESS.
THE PROGRAM OF THE PROJECTIONS
Saturday NOVEMBER 25 – 11:00 p.m
SEVEN – DIGITAL RESTORATION
Directed by: David Fincher
Starring: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey
Duration: 127′
Year of production: 1995
In the rainy atmosphere of a musty, nameless city, two policemen of different ages and mindsets (Brad Pitt, the young, Morgan Freeman, the middle-aged) are looking for the solution to the series of murders, which apparently correspond to the seven deadly sins. Their route is a path to hell, while the “stops” made by director David Fincher, in front of each murder, compose a new proposal in the genre of the police buddy movie.
Saturday, DECEMBER 2 – 23:00
THE GOOD KIDS | GOODFELLAS 4K RESTORATION
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino
Duration: 146′
Year of production: 1990
A brutally violent gangster chronicle directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the novel by Nicolas Pilezzi. In a sense, Scorsese is going back to what he started with Infamous Roads in 1973. Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Joe Pesci as a paranoid gangster.
Saturday, DECEMBER 9 – 23:00
EYES TIGHTLY CLOSED | EYES WIDE SHUT – DIGITAL RESTORATION
Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Marie Richardson, Todd Field
Duration: 159′
Year of production: 1999
The misunderstood masterpiece and swan song of the influential American director Stanley Kubrick, a meticulous, uniquely rendered study of the stages of crisis in the life of a modern couple (Tom Cruise – Nicole Kidman), which erupts after a personal confession of the woman. The film deals with fear. Sex, here, is its source. Kubrick and his co-screenwriter Frederik Raphael stayed true to the essence and not the “outline” of the novel “Traumnovelle” by the Austrian playwright, natural scientist and friend of Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler.
Saturday 16 DECEMBER – DOUBLE PROJECTION
22:00 SILENCE OF THE LAMBS | THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS 30TH ANNIVERSARY 4K RESTORATION
Directed by: Jonathan Demmy
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine
Duration: 118′
Year of production: 1991
Anthony Hopkins as genius … cannibal Hannibal Lecter guides an FBI agent (Jodie Foster) to catch another killer. Such was the sensation made by Jonathan Demmy’s thriller that his fanatical supporters broke shop windows to get his poster! It won the five main Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Adapted) and Best Actor (Hopkins-Foster) and was followed by several “sequels” (as well as a TV series).
00:30 TOO HARD TO DIE | DIE HARD 4K RESTORATION
Directed by: John McTiernan
Starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Alexander Godunov
Duration: 132′
Year of production: 1988
A quirky but capable New York City cop will have the worst Christmas of his life when he realizes that his wife and children are in the hands of a terrorist who has taken over a huge Los Angeles building. The first (and best) of several films in which Bruce Willis played cop John McClane carrying out missions that even Superman couldn’t…
The screening is done in collaboration with MIDNIGHT EXPRESS
Friday, DECEMBER 22 – DOUBLE VIEW
22:00 PULP FICTION 4K RESTORATION
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: John Travolta, Samuel Jackson, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth
Duration: 154′
Year of production: 1994
Delirious stitching together of strange, morbid and entertaining stories of love, passion and crime, set against the backdrop of the underworld of Los Angeles in 1994. Through these interconnected stories, Tarantino “adopts” many cinematic styles, with fun and violence as their common denominator ( or if you want the violent joke). Travolta, Jackson and Thurman were nominated for Oscars for supporting roles and the film at the same awards was awarded for its screenplay (Tarantino – Roger Avery) having also won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes festival.
00:30 THE HUNTER | PREDATOR 4K RESTORATION
Directed by: John McTiernan
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura
Duration: 107′
Year of production: 1987
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most philosophical adventure of the 1980s sees him as the leader of a group of American commandos facing an extraterrestrial entity in the Amazon jungle. Action, suspense but also extremely unpredictable development one of the best films of John McTiernan, creator of “Too Tough to Die”. Its success resulted in ridiculous “sequels” but also a very inferior remake with Adrien Brody. Carl Withers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura are some of the commandos of “Swartsy’s” team.
The screening is done in collaboration with MIDNIGHT EXPRESS
All screenings of Premiere Nights: 7 Euro
The screenings of Midnight Express TOO HARD TO DIE and THE HUNTER: 6 Euro
Tickets here.
