Other Mid-March screenings

As exciting as the Marker and Varda events are, they're not the only thing coming up.

Wednesday, March 13
7pm
The Last Days of Pompeii 
(dir. Mario Caserini, Italy, 1913)
35mm screening with live musical accompaniment
International House

Friday, March 15
8pm

Exhumed Horror:

Terror Train

dir. Roger Spottiswoode, 1980, 35mm

Horror Express

dir. Eugenio Martín, 1972, 35mm

International House

Saturday, March 16

11am

Howl’s Moving Castle 

part of a Hayao Miyazaki retrospective

Bryn Mawr Film Institute

Tuesday, March 19

7pm

Secret Cinema presents

B movie double feature: The Crime of Helen Stanley/Madame Spy

16mm

at The Chestnut Hill Film Group

at Woodmere Art Museum

9201 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia

Admission: FREE

Music-Themed Secret Cinema

There are two Secret Cinema events this week. First, tonight (Wednesday, Aug 3) is a Velvet Undergound themed screening, Sister Ray Slam, at the Institute of Contemporary Art (118 S. 36th St.). It features rare Andy Warhol short films, including his Screen Tests, accompanied by live bands performing "Sister Ray." 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm. Admission free.

Friday is a fund-raising screening of Paul Anka films at The William Way Center to benefit the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania. Food and drink start at 6:00 pm. At 7:30 pm: Screening of Look in Any Window (1961), plus bonus short Lonely Boy, introduced by Richard Barrios. Admission: minimum tax-deductible donation of $20 advance at the AIDS Law Project site, $25 at the door. All funds raised will go to the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, a non-profit, public interest law firm that provides free legal services to people with HIV/AIDS and others affected by the epidemic.

Fuller descriptions of the films and bands available at the Secret Cinema website.

Secret Cinema: Top Secret Films

The Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art & Design presents

TOP SECRET: FILMS YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO SEE

Friday, April 29, 2011
8:00 pm
Admission: $8.00

Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099

On Friday, April 29, 2011, the Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art & Design will present a program of short films never intended for viewing by the general public.

TOP SECRET: FILMS YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO SEE includes films produced to convey private information from the government, the military and big business, instructional or motivational in nature, to carefully targeted audiences of battle forces in the field, farmers, middle management and wholesale buyers of products. Spanning from World War II through the 1960s, these forgotten reels reveal long hidden and often surprising views of mid-century America. At least one of these films was originally marked as containing "Restricted" information (and for all we know it is still officially restricted!).

There will be one complete program, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $8.00.

As always with Secret Cinema events, the films will be shown using real film (not video) projected on a giant screen.

Just a few highlights of TOP SECRET: FILMS YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO SEE are:

ARMY-AIR FORCE COMBAT DIGEST #53 (1944) - A weekly newsreel made just for soldiers, bringing news, developments in the war, and aerial footage of bombing missions right to the barracks via portable 16mm projectors. This episode is from October 4, 1944.

CULL FOR PROFIT (1951) - Made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this color educational film argues in favor of eugenics in egg farming, advising farmers to carefully remove from their coops hens that are lower egg producers. It might have just as easily been called KILL FOR PROFIT.

INSIDE TEST CITY U.S.A. (1953) - A promotional film from Readers Digest magazine that declares "Industry has discovered that what happens in Columbus (Ohio) today will be happening all over America tomorrow." The filmmakers interview local businessmen and consumers, all of whom are loyal Reader's Digest readers. Two comment that "most people read the Bible and the Digest." The narrator points out with pride that the Reader's Digest has greater market penetration in affluent areas than in poorer ones.

RECOGNITION OF AFV'S (1943) - Adapted by the U.S. Signal Corps from a British training film, this short aims to teach soldiers a valuable lesson: how to distinguish Allied tanks (or Armored Fighting Vehicles) from those of the enemy.

1104 SUTTON ROAD (1958) - Motivational dramatization shows the story of a dissatisfied factory worker who imagines what it would be like to become foreman or the company president. He learns that every employee must be productive to succeed. Sponsored by the Champion Paper and Fibre Company, with blazing Technicolor views of home and workplace life.

Plus an in-house training film from Bell Telephone, NAVAL AIRCRAFT WORKERS' DIGEST, THE DELCO 12-VOLT SYSTEM, and much more!

1960s Omnibus Art Film

One of the semi-forgotten genres of the 1960s wave of international/European art cinema is the omnibus film. Producers would package feature length compilations of short films by New Wave and art cinema directors, often around an organizing theme. The practice would help market the work of lesser known directors and could take advantage of coproduction-oriented film policy.

This Thursday (Feb. 3), Secret Cinema is screening The Oldest Profession, an omnibus film about prostitution, featuring leading female stars of the decade (Raquel Welch, Jeanne Moreau, and Elsa Martinelli) and auteur directors, including Jean-Luc Godard and Philippe de Broca. The print is a dye-transfer 35mm print, including the Technicolor sequences of the American print. That means, too, it is dubbed in English, but it's worth noting that all versions of films like this were post-dubbed, since they had international casts.

Screening takes place at 7:00pm at the International House's cinema. Admission: $8.00 ($5.00-$6.00 for members, students & seniors)

The Valley of Gangwi

For its next screening, on Wednesday, May 26, Jay Schwartz's Secret Cinema returns to the American Philosophical Museum (104 S. Fifth Street) for a 16mm screening of a science-fiction "dinosaur western" The Valley of Gangwi (1969, Jim O'Connolly). A Technicolor film, it features the work of noted stop-action animator Ray Harryhausen. Admission is free, and the film screens at 7pm. (The Museum's Dialogues with Darwin exhibit will be open beforehand.)