Welcome to the CSUN Cinematheque

Cinematheque (noun) |sin e mah tek|

a motion picture theater, often part of a university or private archive, showing experimental or historically important films.

The CSUN Cinematheque is an innovative year-round film screening program housed in the Alan and Elaine Armer Theater, a state-of-the-art 130 seat motion picture theater on the CSUN campus. The only venue of its kind in the San Fernando Valley, the Cinematheque presents thematically designed retrospectives of classic films, as well as aesthetically significant contemporary releases--in conjunction with the appearance of featured guest artists for lectures and panel discussions. Conceptual presentations are devoted to: filmographies of important directors, writers, actors, cinematographers; essential genre works; seminal documentaries; major literary, philosophical, narrative themes and traditions; defining technical and artistic models and styles. The Cinematheque is also intended as a regular venue for film organizations, student film competitions, and conferences. Collaboration is encouraged with local studios, guilds, and academies for screenings and related events.

 

The Alan Armer Theater

The theater is equipped with 35mm film projectors and a theatrical digital projection system with BluRay, DVD, DVCPRO, DVCAM, DV, and VHS sources

 

Events Open to the Public

Civil Discourse & Social Change: Where are we now?

Lecture presented by REVEREND JAMES LAWSON
Monday, September 13, 2010, 4:00-6:30 p.m.

In the first of four public lectures scheduled for Fall 2010, Reverend Lawson will reflect upon civil discourse and movements for social and economic justice in the 21st century. Reverend Lawson will expound upon the thesis that government should be concerned about the welfare of the people and that we as a nation have not taken care of ourselves, of one another or our environment. He will argue that regardless of our careers or career choices a most powerful dimension of our life’s journey is the claim to our humanity. Recalling our ancient cultures, we can proceed with the knowledge that all human life is divine and equal.

Ingmar Bergman Retrospective

Hosted by Prof. Tim Halloran

All screening events begin at 7 PM

• 8/26—Summer Interlude (1951 - 1 hr. 36 min.) 
  A sensitive, lyrical offering from Ingmar Bergman, SUMMER INTERLUDE deals with the innocence of first love and the transition from youth to adulthood, two of the director-screenwriter's favorite themes, and ones that he would revisit in later works. When Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson), a prima ballerina, receives an old lover's diary after his death in a tragic accident, she begins to reminisce about the happy summer she spent with Henrik (Birger Malmsten), her first love, on an island near Stockholm. A flashback shows the young couple in a playful, carefree light, full of energy and grace. Since parting from Henrik, Maria has emerged as a sucessful dancer with many admirers and a new suitor, the journalist David Nystrom (Alf Kjellin). But she is dissatisfied with her present life and unable to forget the ardent love she experienced that one fateful summer long ago. Serious and bittersweet, this is a simple story told by a master filmmaker. The ballet company of the Stockholm Royal Opera can be seen performing excerpts from SWAN LAKE. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 9/2—Smiles of a Summer Night (1955 - 1 hr. 48 min.) 
  A trio of couples meet at a country estate for a weekend vacation, but there under the idyllic summer moonlight a series of swapping interludes ensues. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 9/9—The Seventh Seal (1957 - 1 hr. 30 min.) 
  In medieval Sweden a knight returns from war only to find a ravaged homeland. He meets up with a group of travelling players and eventually confronts the embodiment of death with whom he engages in a game of chess. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 9/16—Wild Strawberries (1957 - 1 hr. 35. min.)
  An old professor, being driven by his daughter-in-law to receive an honorary award at his university, takes a detour to his old family home in the countryside where old memories and fantasies rehaunt him. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 9/23—The Virgin Spring (1960 - 1 hr. 27 min.)
  Medieval symbolism abounds when, via a curse by her jealous half-sister, a young woman is raped by a band of swineherds and her father swears vengeance, only to find an underground spring welling up on the spot where his virgin daughter was raped. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 9/30—Through a Glass Darkly (1961 - 1 hr. 31 min.)
  Living on a remote island a father, his son, and his married daughter find their interrelationships self-destructing. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 10/7—Winter Light (1962 - 1 hr. 20 min.)
  A pastor, slowly losing his faith in God, has a difficult time of delivering effective sermons, especially for those close to him. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 10/14—The Silence (1963 - 1 hr. 36 min.)
  A woman feels an attraction to her younger sister, the mother of a ten year-old boy. The older woman begins to self-destruct as she watches the younger one engage in casual affairs with men. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 10/21—Persona (1966 - 1 hr. 25 min.)
  A famous actress, who has become mute and motionless, following a breakdown on stage during "Elektra" is put under the care of a very talkative young nurse. Through time, their closeness begins to create a strange transition of identity exchange. And the nurse's increasing frustration with the actress' continual silence leads the nurse to deeply personal confessions of her own. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 10/28—Hour of the Wolf (1968 - 1 hr. 29 min.)
  An artist, vacationing on his summer island home with his wife, becomes subjected to nightmares and hallucinations which slowly drive him to madness. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 11/4—The Passion of Anna (1969 - 1 hr. 40 min.)
  A man living in seclusion is visited upon by a crippled woman who, in turn, draws him into her life and her friends. Meanwhile, a homicidal killer is on the loose which adds to the tension. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 11/18—Cries and Whispers (1972 - 1 hr. 35 min.)
  As two sisters come together to watch over their other sister who is dying, long-supressed feelings of resentment and bitterness between them surface. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 12/2—Autumn Sonata (1978 - 1 hr. 32 min.)
  Following the death of her lover, a world-reknowned concert pianist returns to Sweden to visit the married daughter she has not seen for many years. (movies.yahoo.com)
• 12/9—Fanny and Alexander (1982 - 3 hr. 9 min.)
  Director Ingmar Bergman had intended FANNY AND ALEXANDER to be his final theatrical film and a summing-up of sorts of his entire cinematic career. (It was followed by 1984's AFTER THE REHEARSAL, which was also made for Swedish television and subsequently released theatrically abroad.) FANNY AND ALEXANDER is the story of two children belonging to a wealthy, extensive theatrical family in provincial Sweden in the early years of the 20th century--10-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve) and his younger sister, Fanny (Pernilla Alwin). When their father dies unexpectedly during a performance and their mother decides to remarry, the children are forced to relocate to the austere (and possibly haunted) home of their stern and rather coldhearted stepfather, Bishop Vergerus. A means of escape is eventually provided by Isak Jacobi (Erland Josephson), a longtime friend of the Ekdahl family's who seems to possess magical powers. In this somewhat autobiographical movie--which was filmed in the director's hometown of Uppsala--the gifted, precocious Alexander is a stand-in for Bergman himself, who had a problematic relationship with his own father, a strict clergyman. At once festive, spooky, and bawdy--and uncharacteristically life-affirming--FANNY AND ALEXANDER is one of Bergman's most universally appealing and accessible works. (movies.yahoo.com)

 

Photos from the March 23 screening of La Mission

Professsor Nate Thomas, Director Donald Petrie, Benjamin Bratt, Producer Apita Patel Q&A following the March 23 screening of La Mission

Photos by Melissa Chapman