2020 FILMS

1. Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Director
USA, 2019 (PG-13)
English (120 min.)
Sunday February 9, 10:00AM
(SUNDAY MORNING SCREENING TIME)
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

An artful and intimate meditation on the life and works of the legendary storyteller and Nobel prize-winner. From her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio, to ʼ70s-era book tours with Muhammad Ali, from the front lines with Angela Davis to her own riverfront writing room — Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics and colleagues on an exploration of race, America, history and the human condition as seen through the prism of her own literature. Inspired to write because no one took a “little black girl” seriously, Morrison reflects on her lifelong deconstruction of the master narrative. Woven together with a rich collection of art, history, literature and personality, the film includes discussions about her many critically acclaimed works, including novels “The Bluest Eye,” “Sula” and “Song of Solomon,” her role as an editor of iconic African-American literature and her time teaching at Princeton University. Featuring interviews with Hilton Als, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Walter Mosley, Sonia Sanchez and Oprah Winfrey, who turned Morrison’s novel “Beloved” into a feature film.

2. The Babushkas Of Chernobyl
Anne Bogart, Holly Morris, Directors
USA, 2015 (Not Rated)
English, Russian, & Ukranian with subtitles (70 min.)
Thursday February 13, 7:00PM
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

In the radioactive Dead Zone surrounding Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4, a defiant community of women scratches out an existence on some of the most toxic land on Earth. They share this hauntingly beautiful but lethal landscape with an assortment of interlopers—scientists, soldiers, and even ‘stalkers’—young thrill-seekers who sneak in to pursue post-apocalyptic video game-inspired fantasies. Why the film’s central characters, Hanna Zavorotyna, Maria Shovkuta, and Valentyna Ivanivna, chose to return after the disaster, defying the authorities and endangering their health, is a remarkable tale about the pull of home, the healing power of shaping one’s destiny and the subjective nature of risk.

3. The Eagle Huntress
Otto Bell, Director
UK, 2016 (G)
English & Kazakh with subtitles (70 min.)
Saturday February 15, 10:00AM
(SATURDAY MORNING SCREENING TIME)
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

THE EAGLE HUNTRESS follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old girl, as she trains to become the first female in twelve generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter, and rises to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been handed down from father to son for centuries.
Set against the breathtaking expanse of the Mongolian steppe, THE EAGLE HUNTRESS features some of the most awe-inspiring cinematography ever captured in a documentary, giving this intimate tale of a young girl's quest the dramatic force of an epic narrative film.

4. Shoplifters
Hirokazu Kore-eda, Director
Japan, 2018 (R)
Japanese with subtitles (121 min.)
Thursday February 20, 7:00PM
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

Shoplifters – which won the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival – starts off a heart-warming though realistically pragmatic tale about a poor family crammed into a tiny bungalow in Tokyo, living off their wits, or more accurately, supermarkets.
After one of their shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu's wife agrees to take care of her after learning of the hardships she faces. Although the family is poor, barely making enough money to survive through petty crime, they seem to live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets, testing the bonds that unite them

5. From Nowhere
Matthew Newton, Director
USA, 2017 (Not Rated)
English (89 min.)
Saturday February 22, 10:00AM
(SATURDAY MORNING SCREENING TIME)
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

Three undocumented teenagers -- a Dominican girl, an African boy and a Peruvian girl -- are about to graduate high school in the Bronx, while working with a teacher and a lawyer to try to get proper documents to stay in the U.S. Forced to grow up quickly and navigate problems most adults don't even have to face, the students are really just American teenagers who want to be with their friends, fall in love, and push back against authority.

6. Soul Power
Jeff Levy-Hinte, Director
USA, 2008 (PG-13)
English (93 min.)
Thursday February 27, 7:00PM
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

In 1974, music producers, Hugh Masekela and Stewart Levine worked with the boxing promoter, Don King, to create a music festival in Africa to run concurrently with his championship boxing match he arranged with Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, aka "The Rumble in the Jungle," in Kinshasa, Zaire. However, due to an unforeseen delay due to Foreman injuring himself in training, it was decided that the music festival must still go on as scheduled. This film covers the preparation of that festival with both stage construction and the arrival of the participating musicians. When all is ready, the people of Zaire got to experience a musical event that Africa had never seen before with great African-American and local artists performing with verve and purpose, with the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, just the biggest star of this musical extravaganza.

7. Impulso
Emilio Belmonte, Director
France, 2018 (Not Rated)
Spanish with subtitles (85 min.)
Saturday February 29, 10:00AM
(SATURDAY MORNING SCREENING TIME)
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

The spectacular avant-garde choreographies of flamenco dancer Rocío Molina have electrified audiences around the world. Her extravagant, mesmerizing and mostly improvised pieces combine traditional Flamenco with modern-dance, avant-garde theatrics, objects, paint, and eclectic music compositions. Impulso is an intimate portrait of Molina, one the dance world's most passionate artists, as she travels the world to perform her improvised "impulsos" at unusual venues ranging from prisons to modern art museums. Now Molina must prepare for one of her most challenging works ever for a new show at Chaillot National Theater in Paris. Despite Molina's unconventional stagings and artful theatrical setups, she remarkably manages to maintain her connection to Flamenco's rich history and traditions.

8. Shelter
Eran Riklis, Director
Israel, 2018 (Not Rated)
English, Hebrew, German & Arabic with subtitles (93 min.)
Thursday March 5, 7:00PM
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

A subtle thriller set in Germany involving Mona, a Lebanese woman (played by Iranian-born, Paris-based star Golshifteh Farahani), and Naomi, an Israeli Mossad agent (Neta Riskin) sent to protect their informant who is recovering from plastic surgery to conceal her identity. Together for two weeks in a quiet apartment in Hamburg, the two women take us into a complex, multi-dimensional labyrinth of trust and mistrust, of honesty and deception, of loyalty and betrayal. The intimacy of the relationship that develops between Mona and Naomi is exposed to the threat of terror that is engulfing the world today. In this game of deception, beliefs are questioned and choices are made that are not their own. And yet their fate takes a surprising turn in this suspense-laden, elegant neo-noir.

9. Rachel Carson
Michelle Ferrari, Director
USA, 2017 (Not Rated)
English (113 min.)
Saturday March 7, 10:00AM
(SATURDAY MORNING SCREENING TIME)
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

When Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published in 1962, the book became a phenomenon. A passionate and eloquent warning about the long-term dangers of pesticides, the book unleashed an extraordinary national debate and was greeted by vigorous attacks from the chemical industry. But it would also inspire President John F. Kennedy to launch the first-ever investigation into the public health effects of pesticides — an investigation that would eventually result in new laws governing the regulation of these deadly agents.
Featuring the voice of Mary-Louise Parker as the influential writer and scientist, Rachel Carson is an intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking books revolutionized our relationship to the natural world. Drawn from Carson’s own writings, letters and recent scholarship, this film illuminates both the public and private life of the woman who launched the modern environmental movement and revolutionized how we understand our relationship with the natural world.

10. The Public
Emilio Estevez, Director
USA, 2019 (PG-13)
English (122 min.)
Thursday March 12, 7:00PM
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

In "The Public" an unusually bitter Arctic blast has made its way to downtown Cincinnati and the front doors of the public library where the action of the film takes place. At odds with library officials over how to handle the extreme weather event, some homeless patrons turn the building into a shelter for the night by staging an "Occupy" sit in. What begins as an act of civil disobedience becomes a stand-off with police and a rush-to-judgment media constantly speculating about what's really happening. This David versus Goliath story tackles some of our nation's most challenging issues, homelessness and mental illness and sets the drama inside one of the last bastions of democracy-in-action: your public library.

11. Poms
Zara Hayes, Director
USA, 2019 (PG-13)
English (90 min.)
Saturday March 14, 10:00AM
(SATURDAY MORNING SCREENING TIME)
Kentucky Theatre
For film description, click HERE

Poms is an uplifting comedy about Martha (played by Diane Keaton), a woman who moves into a retirement community and starts a cheerleading squad with her fellow residents, Sheryl (Jacki Weaver), Olive (Pam Grier) and Alice (Rhea Perlman), proving that it's never too late to follow your dreams.