Melnitz Movies
Melnitz Movies is brought to you by the UCLA Graduate Student Association and the ASUCLA Student Interaction Fund.
- Melnitz Movies screenings are FREE to the UCLA community, including students, staff, faculty, and guests unless otherwise noted.
- Movies are shown at James Bridges Theater (Melnitz 1409) at UCLA.
- Tickets are available at the Melnitz box office the day of the screening one hour before show time and are given out on a first come, first serve basis--one ticket per person!
- No late seating!
- All screenings and appearances are subject to change on short notice so please check back here on the day of the show!
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Upcoming Screenings
February 9, 2010 - 7:30pm
Based on a true story, North Face is a gripping adventure drama about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps. In July of 1936 - less than a year after the most recent and fatal attempt, two top German mountaineers take up the challenge to become the first to scale the infamous rock face, the so-called Murder Wall.
Official Selection - 2008 Berlin International Film Festival
"Director Philipp Stölzl and his crew don't just capture the period clothes and equipment, they place the viewer right on the Eiger itself, struggling for handholds on precipitous cliffs as winds howl and the depths below yawn with terrifying clarity. Mountain climbing has rarely looked this exciting or dangerous onscreen." -Daniel Eagan, FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL
"it is impossible not to put yourself in the boots of the mountaineers clinging to a sheer, icy rock face during a blizzard that threatens to send them into oblivion." -Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES
"more than delivers on the excitement and terror of this existential flirtation with one's own mortality." -Kirk Honeycutt, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
DIRECTOR: Philipp Stolzl
WRITERS: Christoph Silber, Philipp Stolzl, Rupert Henning,...
February 11, 2010 - 7:30pm
Capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kinshasa is Africa's third largest city and the second sub-Saharan megalopolis. Mweze Ngangura's latest documentary observes the vulnerable communities of people struggling to survive on the fringes of the social system in the Congolese capital. These underground communities, functioning like small independent governments, embody the people's aspirations to social equality, democracy and good governance.
Best Documentary, 2009 Ion Film Festival, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Co-presented by UCLA's African Studies Center and the Los Angeles Pan African Film Festival
Director Mweze Ngangura in person for a Q&A!
About the filmmaker:
Mweze Ngangura studied filmmaking at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion in Brussels. From 1976 to 1985, he taught at the Institut Nationale des Arts and the Studio Ecole de la Voix du Zaire in Kinshasa. His 1983 short film Kin-Kiesse was selected as the best documentary at the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), Africa's largest film festival. La Vie est Belle (1987), his popularly acclaimed debut feature, was also the democratic Republic of Congo’s premier feature and his Pieces...
February 16, 2010 - 7:30pm
Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar Nominated Live Action and Animated short films. Included in tonight's program are all the animated Academy Award Nominated Short Films from 2010. These films come from all over the globe and represent the finest in animated short filmmaking.
French Roast - Fabrice O. Joubert (French, 8 min.)
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty - Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell (English, 6 min.)
The Lady and the Reaper - Javier Recio Gracia (no dialogue, 8 min.)
Logorama - Nicolas Schmerkin (English, 17 min.)
A Matter of Loaf and Death - Nick Park (English, 29 min.)
plus, surprise bonus shorts!
A Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures release
total running time 80 min
view a clip from Logorama below...
February 18, 2010 - 7:30pm
Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar Nominated Live Action and Animated short films. Included in tonight's program are all the live action Academy Award Nominated Short Films from 2010. These films come from all over the globe and represent the finest in live action short filmmaking.
The Door - Juanita Wilson and James Flynn (Russian, 17 min.)
Instead of Abracadabra - Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström (Swedish, 18 min.)
Kavi - Gregg Helvey (Hindi, 19 min.)
Miracle Fish - Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey (English, 18 min.)
The New Tenants - Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson (English, 20 min.)
A Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures release
total running time 92 min.
view the trailer for Instead of Abracadabra below...
February 23, 2010 - 7:30pm
Condemned to six years in prison, Malik el Djebena, cannot read or write. Arriving at the jail entirely alone, he appears younger and more fragile than the other convicts. He is 19 years old. Cornered by the leader of the Corsican gang currently ruling the prison, he is given a number of missions to carry out, toughening him up and gaining the gang leaders' confidence in the process. Malik is a fast learner and rises up the prison ranks, all the while secretly devising his own plans.
Academy Award Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film
Winner, National Board of Review, Best Foreign Language Film
Winner, 2009 Cannes Film Festival, Grand Prix
"a sensational prison film and moral history...Sweeping and precisely observed." -Manohla Dargis, NEW YORK TIMES
"tough, absorbingly intricate" -Justin Chang, VARIETY
"elegantly structured, arresting in its detailing of a little-known subculture, filled with fascinating characters, and gripping beginning to end." -Amy Taubin, FILM COMMENT
DIRECTOR: Jacques Audiard
WRITERS: Thomas Bidegain, Jacques Audiard
CAST: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup
A Sony Pictures Classics Release
In French, Arabic, and Corsican with English subtitles
155 min
March 2, 2010 - 7:30pm
Anna Wintour, the legendary Editor-in-Chief of Vogue magazine for twenty years, is the most powerful and polarizing figure in fashion. With unprecedented access, filmmaker R.J. Cutler's new documentary does for fashion what The War Room (which Cutler produced) did for politics, taking viewers inside a world they only think they know.
Director R.J. Cutler in person for a Q&A
Official Selection, 2009 Sundance Film Festival
"A dishy and engrossing peek inside the fashion world’s corridors of power - every bit as slickly packaged as the publication it seeks to uncover." -Justin Chang, VARIETY
"subversively entertaining" -Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
"This is the real Devil Wears Prada" -Krista Smith, VANITY FAIR
DIRECTOR: R.J. Cutler
FEATURING: Anna Wintour, Oscar De la Renta, Jean-Paul Gaultier
90 min
March 4, 2010 - 7:30pm
Hye-ja is a devoted single parent to her simple-minded son, Do-joon. Walking home alone one night, he encounters a young girl who he follows for a while before she disappears into a dark alley. The next morning, she is found dead and Do-joon is soon convicted for her murder. Trusting no one, Hye-ja’s maternal instincts kick into overdrive, and she sets out to find the girl’s killer and prove her son’s innocence.
Official Selection, 2009 New York Film Festival
"As he previously did for the police procedural (Memories of Murder) and the monster movie (The Host), South Korea’s sublimely talented Bong Joon-ho here takes another venerable pulp genre — the wronged-man thriller — and enthusiastically stands it on its head." -Scott Foundas, LA WEEKLY
"Bong has become one of the premiere narrative film artists now working—and while that label does hang a trifle portentously over Bong’s commendably unpretentious head, this only shows how difficult it is to place him...The economy, expressiveness and intricacy of narrative control Bong demonstrates in Mother, both within sequences and over the film’s entire arc, is simply extraordinary" -Andrew Tracy, CINEMASCOPE
DIRECTOR: Bong Joon-ho...