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Dean Otto currently serves as the Curator of Film. To learn more about Dean and the Speed Cinema, read the full press release here. Photo by Rafael Gamo.
Speed Cinema entrance update: Our South Cinema entrance has reopened for all Cinema guests! Follow the Speed Cinema signs while exiting the Museum garage to the entrance while enjoying a small part of the Art Park that is now open.
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Secret Mall Apartment
June 20, 21, & 22
In 2003, eight young Rhode Island artists who had been displaced by retail developments created a secret apartment in a hidden space inside the Providence Place Mall and lived in it for four years, filming everything along the way. They snuck in furniture, tapped into the mall’s electricity, and even secretly constructed a brick wall with a locking door, smuggling in over two tons of cinderblock.
Six Restored Films of Heather McAdams
June 22
Heather McAdams never set out to pursue a tidy career. When touring with her films in the 1980s and ’90s, McAdams often described herself as “a part-time cartoonist, performance artist, film instructor, junk salesperson, sculptor, painter, movie star, and ardent supporter of the Woolworth’s lunch counter.” This nomadic scavenger sensibility guides her filmmaking. Working primarily with found footage from her own extensive collection of 16mm prints, McAdams has produced a funny and ferocious body of work, much of it assembled from the detritus of American popular culture and refracted through an antic feminist lens.
CINEMA+ with a post-screening discussion with Heather McAdams and Bradley Picklesimer.
8½ (Otto e mezzo)
June 27 & 28
Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s 8½ (Otto e mezzo) turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema.
Juliet of the Spirits (Giulietta degli spiriti)
June 28 & 29
Federico Fellini partnered with his wife and muse, actor Giulietta Masina, for this phantasmagoric character study, the director’s first color feature. Drawing on details from her personal life, Masina plays a woman dabbling in spiritualism whose hold on reality begins to slip when she learns that her husband is having an affair, sending her on a hallucinatory journey of self-discovery in which memories, dreams, and supernatural forces merge in a kaleidoscopic gestalt.
House (Hausu)
July 3
House (1977), directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, is a wild, surreal horror-comedy unlike anything else. Blending psychedelic visuals with absurdist humor, the film follows a schoolgirl and her six friends as they visit her aunt’s haunted house, only to encounter evil spirits, a demonic cat, and a killer piano.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
July 5
After his great success with House at Toho, legendary filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi was given the notoriety to start dabbling in the mainstream. His adaptation of the electrifyingly popular 1967 Japanese novel The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was the first adaptation of Yasutaka Tsutsi’s book and was the second highest grossing Japanese film in its release year of 1983.
School in the Crosshairs
July 5
This early "idol" movie by genre master Nobuhiko Obayashi (House) stars Hiroko Yakushimaru, then the heartthrob of millions of Japanese fans. Yuko (Yakushimaru) is a high school girl with telekinetic powers who must defend her school from an extraterrestrial attack.
His Motorbike, Her Island
July 6
A tender and stylish blend of road movie and romance, His Motorbike, Her Island is a moving story of love and motorcycles from Japanese cinema magician Nobuhiko Obayashi (House). Aimless biker Ko finally finds purpose when he falls in love with Miyo, a young woman with an obsession for motorcycles.
Caught by the Tides
July 11 & 12
The preeminent dramatist of China’s rapid 21st-century growth and social transformation, Jia Zhangke has taken his boldest approach to narrative yet with his marvelous Caught by the Tides. Assembled from footage shot over a span of 23 years—a beguiling mix of fiction and documentary, featuring a cascade of images taken from previous movies, unused scenes, and newly shot dramatic sequences—Caught by the Tides is a free-flowing work of unspoken longing, carried along more by music than dialogue as it looms around the edges of a poignant love story.
An Unfinished Film (Yi Bu Wei Wan Cheng De Dian Ying)
July 13
In January 2020, director Xiaorui reunites his cast and crew to complete a film that was abandoned during production ten years earlier. However, the team is suddenly placed into lockdown together during the onset of COVID-19. Confronted with the challenges of the pandemic, Xiaorui and his crew are forced to determine how to move forward in a rapidly changing world.
Co-presented with Asia Institute-Crane House, World Affairs Council, UofL, and Metro Immigrant Office. CINEMA+ with a post-screening panel discussion.
Cat Video Fest 2025
August 1, 2, 3, 6 & 7
Oscilloscope Laboratories presents CatVideoFest 2025, a compilation of the latest and best cat videos culled from countless hours of unique submissions and sourced animations, music videos, and classic internet powerhouses.
Each year, across the country, local theaters partner with nearby cat-focused charities, animal welfare associations and shelters alike — a portion of ticket proceeds from every Speed Cinema CatVideoFest screening goes directly Alley Cat Advocates to support to local cats in need.