Carte Blanche to Yannis Bakogiannopoulos

Opening Nights revive Yannis Bakogiannopoulos' legendary television show, "Film Club", that nurtured generations upon generations of movie lovers on public television. The renowned critic chooses five plus one little-known masterpieces and then writes and talks about them, as the program is accompanied by live presentations.

The films run the entire gamut of world cinema and are timeless and cross cultural: from 1955 India and the birth of one its most significant directors, Satyajit Ray ("Pather Panchali"), all the way to 1956 North America, the beloved Western genre and the high point of John Ford's sprawling career ("The Searchers").

From the intricate Borgesian labyrinth of trailblazing Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci ("The Spider's Stratagem", 1969) all the way to the tortured metaphysical existentialism of great Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi ("The Illumination", 1972) and Alain Resnais' extraordinary essay-documentary about concentration camps ("Night and Fog", 1955).

The cherry on top is an essential and totally unknown gem of contemporary European cinema, a beautifully choreographed ballet of bodies and light that introduces us to French filmmaker Clair Denis' vision of Africa in "Beau Travail" (1999).

The Searchers

Ethan (John Wayne) returns to his brother's secluded family farm after the Civil War. But the homecoming of this bitter hero, is like Ulysses returning to an Ithaca he just can't adapt ...

Pather Panchali

In his directorial debut, Satyajit Ray revives a 20th Century Bengali village focusing on a poor family that's fighting for survival. He documents their traditions, the ancestral habits and ...

Night and Fog

Four years before "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and 10 years after the end of WWII and the revelation of the monstrous factories of mass extinction, Alain Resnais makes a poetic essay-documentary ...

Beau Travail

Claire Denis freely adapts Herman Melville's novel "Billy Budd, Sailor" and two of his poems to conjure up a microcosm in heat, a fascinating ballet of bodies and images, a battle ...

Illumination

A highly complex film, “The Illumination” is as intricate in storytelling as it is in style. Deeply existential, it poses some serious questions throughout the young hero's ...

The Spider's Stratagem

Bernardo Bertolucci is clearly inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' short story "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero", transporting the action to a small town in the Italian North at two ...