October Programming on MUBI
Includes exclusive streaming premiere of Martine Syms’ art-school satire The African Desperate, Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s rousing documentary Free Chol Soo Lee, Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Lynchian horror, Earwig
Plus a month-long Halloween programming with George A. Romero, Michio Yamamato’s Bloodthirsty Trilogy, and more!
EXCLUSIVELY ON MUBI
Tuesday, October 4
Invisible Demons, directed by Rahul Jain
[Viewfinders] A visually immersive exploration of the global threat of climate change, Invisible Demons (Cannes ‘21) is the stunning sophomore film from filmmaker Rahul Jain. Told through striking images and eye-opening accounts from everyday citizens, Jain delivers a visceral journey through the stories of just a few of Delhi’s 30 million inhabitants fighting to survive, as he offers a deeply experiential and new perspective on the clear and present climate reality. A MUBI Release.
Friday, October 7
Free Chol Soo Lee, directed by Julie Ha and Eugene Yi
[Viewfinder] A highlight of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Free Chol Soo Lee finds award-winning journalists Julie Ha and Eugene Yi excavating the largely unknown yet essential history of the case of Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who, in the 1970s, was racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder in San Francisco. A stirring testament to the power of local journalists and the collective political action, this breathtaking true story ignited an unprecedented push for social action that would unite Asian Americans and inspire a new generation of activists, and serves as an urgent reminder that his legacy is more relevant than ever. A MUBI Release.
Wednesday, October 12
Rosa Rosae. A Spanish Civil War Elegy, directed by Carlos Saura
[Brief Encounters] Legendary Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura (Cria Cuervos) recovers and manipulates more than thirty images, drawings and photographs to recreate the Spanish Civil War in his new animated short Rosa Rosae: A Spanish Civil War Elegy (2021). The montage of images set to the music of singer-songwriter José Antonio Labordeta pays tribute to those childhoods stolen by the Spanish Civil War, reflecting the horrors of universal warfare and resonating with the urgent topic of conflict in today’s world. A MUBI Release.
Saturday, October 15
Earwig, directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic
[MUBI Spotlight] Loosely adapted from Brian Catling’s novella of the same name, Lucile Hadžihalilović (Evolution, Innocence) conjures a surrealist Lynchian nightmare in her first English-language feature Earwig – a macabre tale of a young girl with melting teeth and her cadaverous caretaker who molds and refits her dentures each day. Sumptuously-produced and fitted with a hypnotic soundtrack by Augustin Viard (in collaboration with Nicolas Becker & Warren Ellis), Hadžihalilović’s latest beguilingly hermetic world captures the same elusive and hallucinatory fixations on isolation and the horrors of adolescence as her previous work.
Friday, October 21
The African Desperate, directed by Martine Syms
[Debuts] The electrifying feature debut from renowned artist Martine Syms, The African Desperate (2022) brings her razor-sharp satire and vivid aesthetic invention to a riotous coming-of-age comedy. Tracking one very long day for Palace Bryant (an expertly deadpan Diamond Stingily), a newly minted MFA grad whose final 24 hours in art school become a real trip, the result is a shocking original vision that becomes a hazy, hilarious, and hallucinatory night-long odyssey, stumbling from academic critiques to backseat hookups while revealing Martine as a major new voice in American independent filmmaking. A MUBI release.
Wednesday, October 26
Spectre: Sanity, Madness and The Family, directed by Jean-Baptiste de Laubier
[Debuts] The debut feature from music producer and longtime Céline Sciamma collaborator Jean-Baptiste de Laubier (Para One), Spectre: Sanity, Madness and the Family (2021), is an intimate docudrama inspired by De Laubier’s own family history. Following the youngest son of a large family whose childhood was dominated by intense spiritual fervor, who receives a mysterious package from his sister that leads to the awakening of long dormant memories, this kaleidoscopic work mixes real and fictional archival footage with a mesmerizing electro soundtrack to reveal the power of buried personal histories. A MUBI Release.
Thrills, Chills and Exquisite Horrors
This Halloween, MUBI presents Thrills, Chills and Exquisite Horrors, a new series covering the vast range of genre cinema, from classic films to recent arthouse sensations and everything in between. From gothic frights in James Whale’s essential classic The Old Dark House, to the matriarchal anxiety of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s and Austrian sensation Goodnight Mommy, and the haunting technological paranoia of Japanese master Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s cult classic, Pulse, these gems provide an opportunity to come together and celebrate the autumnal ritual of coming together to enjoy the many thrills that the cinema can offer us.
Goodnight Mommy (Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala, 2014) – October 1
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001) – October 5
When a Stranger Calls (Fred Walton, 1979) – October 13
The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932) – October 23
Deep Red (Dario Argento, 1975) – October 31
George A. Romero: Double of the Dead
Legendary horror master George A. Romero returns to MUBI with a gruesome double feature with a generous amount of blood, guts, and sociopolitical allegory to satisfy any zombie movie cravings. From the final two chapters of Romero’s epic five-decade long Dead series: the “found-footage” shot Diary of the Dead (2007) is riddled with media anxieties as a group of film students document their way through a zombie apocalypse, while Survival of the Dead (2009) chronicles two families warring over whether the dead and the living can coexist.
Diary of the Dead (2007) – October 5
Survival of the Dead (2009) – October 30
From the Land of Fire and Ice: An Icelandic Double Bill
This October, as the days grow shorter and the air grows colder, MUBI presents a double feature celebrating some of the very best of contemporary Icelandic cinema, which has recently experienced a resurgence of sorts in the international festival circuit. In Rams (Prix Un Certain Regard, Cannes ‘15), Grímur Hákonarson crafts a hilarious and heartbreaking portrait of two warring brothers whose lifelong animosity explodes when confronted with a new disease on their farm, while in Hlynur Palmason’s critically acclaimed A White, White Day, an off duty sheriff begins to suspect a local neighbor of having an affair with his recently deceased wife which spirals into obsession in this singular story of grief, revenge and unconditional love.
Rams (Grímur Háknarson, 2015) – October 9
A White, White Day (Hlynur Palmason, 2019) – October 10
Fears and Fangs in Japan: Michio Yamamoto’s Bloodthirsty Trilogy
To celebrate the Halloween spirit, this October MUBI presents Michio Yamanto’s aptly titled Bloodthirsty Trilogy. Presented here are three tails sure to delight, with The Vampire Doll, which follows a woman and her boyfriend in search of her missing brother in a creepy mansion with a dark history, Lake of Dracula, which finds a young woman’s adolescent nightmares revealing a hellish prophecy, and Evil of Dracula, which sees Yamamato relocating his vampiric frights into an all girls school. Inspired by the British and American gothic horror films of the 1960s, this series represents Toho’s answer to Hammer Studios, with an emphasis on atmospheric thrills and chills that help bridge the gap between gothic classics and Japanese genre cinema.
The Vampire Doll (1970) – October 11
The Lake of Dracula (1971) – October 20
Evil of Dracula (1974) – October 27
Artist Focus: Morgan Quaintance
British experimental artist, critic, and writer Morgan Quaintance explores cinema as collective memory. Through his texturally rich short films, Quaintance focuses on hidden or forgotten history through the reconstruction of archival materials, moving image, photographs, written text and disconnected sounds. This month MUBI presents a double bill of his most recent work: Surviving You, Always (2020), contrasting the proposed metaphysical highs of psychedelic drugs versus the harsh actualities of concrete metropolitan life in 1990s London, and A Human Certainty (2021), playfully following the neurotic ramblings of a death-obsessed romantic in the throes of post-breakup blues.
A Human Certainty (2021) – October 24
Surviving You, Always (2020) – October 25
Glitch Zone: Films by Martine Syms
To celebrate the release of The African Desperate, Martine Syms’ acclaimed feature debut, this month MUBI spotlights two essential shorts from one of the most exciting new voices in filmmaking. Part of her ongoing series She Mad, Bitch Zone takes us to an empowerment program for teenage girls founded by supermodel and business mogul Tyra Banks, while Soliloquy finds the artist delivering a scathing anti-capitalist manifesto that touches on questions the possibility of change in a society dominated by social media.
She Mad: Bitch Zone (2020) – October 17
Soliloquy (2021) – October 19
The African Desperate (2022) – October 21
I Don’t Like You Either: A Pialat Retrospective
This month, MUBI continues its ongoing retrospective of misunderstood French master Maurice Pialat with Van Gogh, his bruising and deeply felt portrait of the esteemed Dutch painter. Pialat’s work is marked by a sense of realism that locates them somewhere between his compatriot, Jean Renoir, and the working-class naturalism of Ken Loach, which lends a sense of authenticity to this singular portrait of an artist that emphasizes the everyday labor of the craftsman over the final work.
Van Gogh (1991) – October 2
Now streaming
Loulou (1980) – September 10
The Mouth Agape (1974) – September 21
Under the Sun of Satan (1987) – September 27
Complete list of films premiering on MUBI this month:
October 1 – Goodnight Mommy, directed by Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz | Thrills, Chills and Exquisite Horrors
October 2 – Van Gogh, directed by Maurice Pialat | I Don’t Like You Either: A Maurice Pialat Retrospective
October 3 – The Great Buster: A Celebration, directed by Peter Bogdanovich | Portrait of the Artist
October 4 – Invisible Demons, directed by Rahul Jain | Viewfinders
October 5 – Pulse, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Thrills, Chills and Exquisite Horrors
October 6 – Diary of the Dead, directed by George A. Romero | George A. Romero: Double of the Dead
October 7 – Free Chol Soo Lee, directed by Eugene Yi, Julie Ha | Viewfinder
October 8 – Tucker & Dale vs Evil, directed by Eli Craig
October 9 – Rams, directed by Grímur Hákonarson | From the Land of Fire and Ice: An Icelandic Double Bill
October 10 – A White, White Day, directed by Hlynur Palmason | From the Land of Fire and Ice: An Icelandic Double Bill
October 11 – The Vampire Doll, directed by Michio Yamamoto | Fears and Fangs in Japan: Michio Yamamoto’s Bloodthirsty Trilogy
October 12 – Rosa Rosae. A Spanish Civil War Elegy, directed by Carlos Saura | Brief Encounters
October 13 – When a Stranger Calls, directed by Fred Walton | Thrills, Chills and Exquisite Horrors
October 14 – Center Stage, directed by Stanley Kwan
October 15 – Earwig, directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic | MUBI Spotlight
October 17 – She Mad: Bitch Zone, directed by Martine Syms | Martine Syms: Short Films
October 18 – The Gold-Laden Sheep & the Sacred Mountain, directed by Ridham Janve
October 19 – Soliloquy, directed by Martine Syms | Martine Syms: Short Films
October 20 – Lake of Dracula, directed by Michio Yamamoto | Fears and Fangs in Japan: Michio Yamamoto’s Bloodthirsty Trilogy
October 21 – The African Desperate, directed by Martine Syms | Debuts
October 23 – The Old Dark House, directed by James Whale | Thrills, Chills and Exquisite Horrors
October 24 – A Human Certainty, directed by Morgan Quaintance | Artist Focus: Morgan Quaintance
October 25 – Surviving You, Always, directed by Morgan Quaintance | Artist Focus: Morgan Quaintance
October 26 – Spectre: Sanity, Madness and The Family, directed by Jean-Baptiste de Laubier | Debuts
October 27 – Evil of Dracula, directed by Michio Yamamoto | Fears and Fangs in Japan: Michio Yamamoto’s Bloodthirsty Trilogy
October 28 – The Commune, directed by Thomas Vinterberg
October 29 – Dear Diary, directed by Nanni Moretti
October 30 – Survival of the Dead, directed by George A. Romero | George A. Romero: Double of the Dead
October 31 – Deep Red, directed by Dario Argento | Thrills, Chills and Exquisite Horrors
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