Movie/Film

DataX, the UCLA Center on Resilience & Digital Justice (CRDJ), and the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (c2i2), in partnership with Residential Life, invite you to a film screening of the critically acclaimed film BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions. In this film, Los Angeles-based director Kahlil Joseph weaves fiction and history together, engaging the legacies of W.E.B Du Bois and Marcus Garvey alongside contemporary artists and Twitter discourses to explore collective visions of Black consciousness.

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Join the UCLA LGBTQ CRC every Friday at noon to watch queer films and TV! Snacks and art supplies will be provided. No RSVP required!

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The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance at UCLA(opens in a new tab) Class of 2027 will showcase their string quartet compositions created under the guidance of legendary pianist and composer Herbie Hancock, Institute of Jazz Performance Artistic Director Ambrose Akinmusire and Composition Artist-in-Residence Billy Childs. The string quartet performing the compositions will feature UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music students Makiba Kurita (violin), Jamily Lee (violin), Jerry Wang (viola) and Leon Cho (cello). Please join UCLA Library and the quartet for an hour of creative music.

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2026 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema Please note: Registration does not guarantee entry if the event reaches capacity. Admission is granted on a first come, first served basis. Patrons who have registered will need to obtain their free tickets at the box office, where seating will be assigned. Any seats remaining 15 minutes before showtime will be released to standby patrons. Guest Speaker: Director Abdolreza Kahani (via video). Screening 1 of 2 Abraham Year: 2024 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 14 min. Digital. Color. Farhang Short Film Festival 2nd prize winner A visually striking story of a small town tragedy, Abraham follows a local policeman who stumbles into a family secret while investigating the murder of a young man whose body is found in a cave outside the city. DCP. Directors/Screenwriters: Elnaz Ghaderpour, Reza Gamini. With: Hamid Pour Azari, Sajad Afsharian, Safoora Khoshtinat. Screening 2 of 2 Mortician Year: 2025 Country: Canada Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 95 min. Digital. Color. Winner of the audience-voted Sean Connery Prize at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Mortician is set in Canada where a schlubby émigré, Mojtaba (Nima Sadr), performs Islamic ritual washing of the dead as a cultural service of the Iranian government. When he loses his job he wonders how he’ll continue to send money to his family back home until an enigmatic, exiled pop star (Gola), an outspoken opponent of the regime, hires him to help her with one last public protest. The oddest of couples, they find common ground amidst the cold Canadian winter until their secret is exposed in writer-director Abdolreza Kahani’s slow-burn thriller. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Abdolreza Kahani. With: Nima Sadr, Gola, Pouya Razavi.

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2026 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema Please note: Registration does not guarantee entry if the event reaches capacity. Admission is granted on a first come, first served basis. Patrons who have registered will need to obtain their free tickets at the box office, where seating will be assigned. Any seats remaining 15 minutes before showtime will be released to standby patrons. Screening 1 of 2 Inside Amir Year: 2025 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 103 min. Digital. Color. After his girlfriend emigrates to Italy with the expectation that he will soon follow, bike messenger Amir (Amirhossein Hosseini) is still neither fully committed to leaving nor fully clear on what the future holds if he stays in Iran. Instead, he spends his in-between days hanging with friends who have themselves settled into a life of drift, playing poker, cooking meals together and biking around the city and country. Nothing ever really happens, which is precisely the point of writer-director Amir Azizi’s warm and loving portrait of a generation that has learned to embrace simple freedoms and pleasures where they can find them in a world where even that can feel like an act of resistance. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Amir Azizi. With: Amirhossein Hosseini, Hadis Nazari, Nader Pourmahin. Screening 2 of 2 Divine Comedy Year: 2025 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 98 min. Digital. Color. Iranian writer-director Bahram Ark (Skin, Animal) plays Bahram, an Iranian writer-director who has achieved fame on the international festival circuit but has yet to have one of his films screened in Iran. After his latest is again denied a permit, he and his producer Sadaf (Sadaf Asgari) set out on her moped determined to find a way to get it on screen with the help of a hodgepodge of decidedly eccentric characters. Bahram’s situation is all too familiar to co-writer-director Ali Asgari (Terrestrial Verses) and his regular collaborators here, who use romantic comedy tropes to illuminate the absurdities — and dangers — faced by filmmakers in Iran. DCP. Director: Ali Asgari. Screenwriter: Alireza Khatami, Bahram Ark, Bahman Ark, Ali Asgari. With: Bahram Ark, Sadaf Asgari, Hossein Soleimani.

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2026 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema Please note: Registration does not guarantee does not guarantee entry if the event reaches capacity. Admission is granted on a first come, first served basis. Patrons who have registered will need to obtain their free tickets at the box office, where seating will be assigned. Any seats remaining 15 minutes before showtime will be released to standby patrons. Screening 1 of 3 Son Year: 2024 Country: Iran Language: Kurdish with English Subtitles Runtime: 15 min. Digital. Color. Farhang Short Film Festival Audience Choice Award winner In a village in remote Iranian Kurdistan, an old mother waits for her son to return from military service. When he doesn’t arrive as expected, she sets out to find him only to discover a truth about his identity that will change their lives forever. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Saman Hosseinpuor. With: Maryam Boubani, Kurosh Ahmadi, Kianoosh Farzin. Screening 2 of 3 Between Dreams and Hope Year: 2025 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English Subtitles Runtime: 106 min. Digital. Color. A frequent collaborator with filmmaker Ali Asgari, writer-director Farnoosh Samadi centers the inequity and injustices faced by Iranian women in much of her work. In her second feature behind the camera, Samadi expands her frame to include Azad (Fereshteh Hosseini), a trans man, longing to start his life with his lover Nora (Sadaf Asgari), but who must confront his estranged father before he can. Hosseini and Asgar (another Asgari film regular) deliver deeply affecting performances in a story that is by turns tender and harrowing about the power of love over hate. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Farnoosh Samadi. With: Fereshteh Hosseini, Sadaf Asgari, Hooman Rahnemoon. Screening 3 of 3 The Great Yawn of History Year: 2024 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English Subtitles Runtime: 93 min Digital. Color. Part adventure story, part mystical allegory, director Aliyar Rasti’s The Great Yawn of History begins with an eccentric job interview. Beitollah (Mohammad Aghebati) drops dollar bills with his contact information around the city, then interviews anyone who calls about their belief system. Answering that he believes in nothing, Shoja (Amirhossein Hosseini) gets the gig: following Beitollah deep into the Iranian desert to find a box of gold coins he saw in a vision. Rasti’s debut feature won the Special Jury Award in the Encounters section of the Berlin International Film Festival for its exploration of faith and greed set against the hardscrabble landscapes of a depopulated rural Iran. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Aliyar Rasti. With: Mohammad Aghebati, Amirhossein Hosseini, Saber Abar.

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2026 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema Please note: Registration does not guarantee entry if the event reaches capacity. Admission is granted on a first come, first served basis. Patrons who have registered will need to obtain their free tickets at the box office, where seating will be assigned. Any seats remaining 15 minutes before showtime will be released to standby patrons. Screening 1 of 2 Where the Winds Die Year: 2021 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 13 min. Digital. Color. Farhang Short Film Festival 3rd prize winner A Kurdish city in western Iran, Sardasht was the target of a chemical weapons attack in 1987. Director Pejman Alipour captures the moment the city’s peaceful calm was shattered in this powerful, watercolor-style animated short. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Pejman Alipour. Screening 2 of 2 Black Rabbit, White Rabbit Year: 2025 Country: Tajikistan/United Arab Emirates Language: Tajik, Persian and Russian with English subtitles Runtime: 139 min. Digital. Color. Tajikistan's submission to the Oscars for Best International Feature Film, Black Rabbit, White Rabbit finds writer-director Shahram Mokri working at the top of his cinematic game. On a film set for the remake of a classic Iranian film, the crew’s armorer worries that a prop gun may not be what it seems and a mysterious young woman arrives to demand an audition. Meanwhile, at a well-appointed villa, a woman recovering from a car accident discovers she may be the target of a murder plot. In Mokri’s inimitable style, long camera takes and elliptical editing blur time and space, visions and reality, history and fiction. DCP. Director: Shahram Mokri. Screenwriters: Shahram Mokri, Nasim Ahmadpour. With: Babak Karimi, Hasti Mohammaï, Kibriyo Dilyobova.

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2026 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema Please note: Registration does not guarantee entry if the event reaches capacity. Admission is granted on a first come, first served basis. Patrons who have registered will need to obtain their free tickets at the box office, where seating will be assigned. Any seats remaining 15 minutes before showtime will be released to standby patrons. In person: curators Arta Barzanji, Hadi Alipanah (via video) Cinema-ye Azad, or Free Cinema, was an underground movement of filmmakers in Iran that began in 1969, with the explicit aim of creating a fully independent cinema opposed to the mainstream “Filmfarsi” in both form and content, methods and ideals. Where the better-known, contemporaneous Iranian New Wave predominantly consisted of foreign-educated, Tehran-based middle-class filmmakers, Cinema-ye Azad consisted of self-taught filmmakers, sharing resources and knowledge with one another to bring the possibility of cultural production to disadvantaged provinces. At its height, Cinema-ye Azad boasted hundreds of active members, a critical magazine and festivals around the country, but the dream was short-lived as the movement ceased activities after the revolution. Its works, however, are being rediscovered thanks to the dedication of curators and archivists in London and Iran. As part of this year's UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema, the Archive is pleased to present two screenings highlighting the films of two key Cinema-ye Azad figures, Nasib Nasibi and Behnam Jafari. Program curated by Arta Barzanji and Shaghayegh Raoufi with research and archival support from Hadi Alipanah. Film notes written by Arta Barzanji. Screening 1 of 2 From Isfahan to Abarkooh Year: 1970 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 23 min. Digital. B&W. A report on historical buildings, legends and traditions along the route from Isfahan to Shiraz, passing through regions including Mahyar, Shahreza, Ziaratgah, Aminabad, and Izadkhast. The film mixes documentary observation with the poetic vision seen in Nasib Nasibi’s later works. DCP. Director: Nasib Nasibi. Screenwriters: Nasib Nasibi, Abbas Nalbandian. With: Bahram Ardabili. Screening 2 of 2 How Frightening Is the Darkness of the Soul! Year: 1972 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 60 min. Digital. B&W. How Frightening Is the Darkness of the Soul! is an avant-garde film poem about drowning in a world of madness in search of true liberation. It highlights the close connections between literary and theatrical circles and the filmmaker's approach to avant-garde cinema. Initially, the main character attempts to escape the monotony of daily life by immersing herself in a world of madness. The film is a journey through the path she takes. Director: Nasib Nasibi. Screenwriters: Nasib Nasibi, Abbas Nalbandian. With: Mahvash Bargi, Farhad Majd Abadi, Shokooh Najm Abadi.

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2026 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema Please note: Registration does not guarantee entry if the event reaches capacity. Admission is granted on a first come, first served basis. Patrons who have registered will need to obtain their free tickets at the box office, where seating will be assigned. Any seats remaining 15 minutes before showtime will be released to standby patrons. In person: curators Arta Barzanji, Hadi Alipanah (via video). Cinema-ye Azad, or Free Cinema, was an underground movement of filmmakers in Iran that began in 1969, with the explicit aim of creating a fully independent cinema opposed to the mainstream “Filmfarsi” in both form and content, methods and ideals. Where the better-known, contemporaneous Iranian New Wave predominantly consisted of foreign-educated, Tehran-based middle-class filmmakers, Cinema-ye Azad consisted of self-taught filmmakers, sharing resources and knowledge with one another to bring the possibility of cultural production to disadvantaged provinces. At its height, Cinema-ye Azad boasted hundreds of active members, a critical magazine and festivals around the country, but the dream was short-lived as the movement ceased activities after the revolution. Its works, however, are being rediscovered thanks to the dedication of curators and archivists in London and Iran. As part of this year's UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema, the Archive is pleased to present two screenings highlighting the films of two key Cinema-ye Azad figures, Nasib Nasibi and Behnam Jafari. Program curated by Arta Barzanji and Shaghayegh Raoufi with research and archival support from Hadi Alipanah. Film notes written by Arta Barzanji. Screening 1 of 5 Abandoned Heights Year: 1972 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 18 min. Digital. B&W. Every day, a young man plays his trumpet from the top of a half-finished building while facing the city. Ambiguous happenings around him suggest the outlines of what may lurk below the peaceful surface of society. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Behnam Jafari. With: Nematollah Gorji, Ahmad Amini, Hassan Seifi. Screening 2 of 5 Scream (Vol. 2) Year: 1972 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 13 min. Digital. Color. This satirical collage of Iranian cinema stages a confrontation between the ethos of the commercial “Filmfarsi” and the artistic ambitions of the New Wave cinema. In a direct reference to Cinema-ye Azad, the film ends with the arrest and exile of young amateur filmmakers from professional cinema. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Behnam Jafari. With: Khosrow Haritash, Said Oveissi, Zari Khoshkam. Screening 3 of 5 Let Us Live Year: 1972 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 13 min. Digital. Color. This film follows the restless lives of two young pickpockets through the labyrinth of seedy streets and shadowy alleyways, in a world where every day ends in triumph or ruin. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Behnam Jafari. With: Davood Teymouri, Naser Tarighat, Ghazal Irandoust. Screening 4 of 5 Tell the Watchmen Not to Let Sleep Deceive Year: 1970 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 20 min. Digital. Color. A social portrait of two young lovers that reflects the larger prejudices of society. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Behnam Jafari. With: Farhad pour Azam, Shirin Jannesari, Behrouz Razavi. Screening 5 of 5 MirNasir and the Ill-Fated Genie Year: 1974 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 67 min. Digital. B&W. In his cinematic debut, Saeed Poursamimi plays a former inmate who frees a genie from a bottle. After thousands of years of captivity in the bottle, the genie finds himself in a world that has been completely transformed by its people’s beliefs. The two embark on a bitter journey to find the remnants of the forgotten magical realm. Director Behnam Jafari uses stark visuals and provocative metaphors to explore the impossibility of relying on traditional myths in the face of a new world. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Behnam Jafari. With: Saeed Poursamimi, Hamid Taati, Mohammad Poursattar.

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2026 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema Please note: Registration does not guarantee entry if the event reaches capacity. Admission is granted on a first come, first served basis. Patrons who have registered will need to obtain their free tickets at the box office, where seating will be assigned. Any seats remaining 15 minutes before showtime will be released to standby patrons. Year: 2025 Country: Iran/U.S./France/Canada Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 107 min. Digital. Color. Family secrets and betrayals explode in the most riveting video call you’ve ever seen. Writer-director Homayoun Ghanizadeh transforms the familiar stacked boxes of talking heads we all live with these days into a dazzling, high-wire act of storytelling and performance when three generations of an Iranian family are confronted by the son of a former family servant over the fate of the stately family home back in Iran. Ghanizadeh’s riveting, all-star ensemble — Golshifteh Farahani, Payman Maadi, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Ali Nasirian, Shirin Neshat — delivers an acting tour de force that deliberately transcends the bounds of the film’s form. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Homayoun Ghanizadeh. With: Golshifteh Farahani, Shirin Neshat, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Ali Nasirian, Payman Maadi.

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2026 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema lease note: Registration does not guarantee entry if the event reaches capacity. Admission is granted on a first come, first served basis. Patrons who have registered will need to obtain their free tickets at the box office, where seating will be assigned. Any seats remaining 15 minutes before showtime will be released to standby patrons. Screening 1 of 2 The Granny and Fishes Year: 2025 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 27 min. Digital. Color. Farhang Short Film Festival 1st prize winner After ill-conceived irrigation projects and drought rendered Lake Hamun on the Iran-Afghanistan border a dust bowl, hundreds of villagers migrated away, except for an old woman whose solitary routine of gathering up dead fish is the subject of this quietly compelling documentary. DCP. PDirectors/Screenwriters: Maria Mavati, Ehsan Farokhi Fard. Screening 2 of 2 Woman and Child Year: 2025 Country: Iran Language: Persian with English subtitles Runtime: 131 min. Digital. Color. After the powerhouse family drama Leila’s Brothers (2023 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema) led to a jail sentence in Iran, writer-director Saeed Roustaee returned to Cannes last year with this more diffuse but still devastating story about a woman seemingly under siege from all sides. Parinaz Izadyar stars as Mahnaz, a nurse and widow with two children, including a rebellious teenage son, looking forward to starting over with new partner Hamid (Payman Maadi) until a sudden tragedy and a shocking betrayal sets Mahnaz on a desperate course of revenge against the school system, the courts and her own family. DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Saeed Roustaee. With: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi, Soha Niasti.

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In person: chef and restaurateur Alice Waters. Director Alfonso Arua’s Like Water for Chocolate was an arthouse sensation when first released and still defines the evocative power of food in film. Based on Laura Esquivel’s novel, its sensuous tale of forbidden love unfolds in early 20th-century Mexico when Tita is bound by family tradition to remain unmarried to care for her mother. Prevented from acting on her love for the handsome Pedro, she pours her passion and heartbreak into her cooking which has a magical, intoxicating effect on those who consume it. The intimacy of the heart and the intimacy of the kitchen transform culinary preparation into a powerful expression of desire, rebellion and yearning.—Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm Director: Alfonso Arau. Screenwriter: Laura Esquivel. With: Lumi Cavazos, Marco Leonardi, Regina Torné. 35mm print courtesy of the Sundance Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

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In person: Q&A with actor David Selby and historian Jim Pierson, editor of Dark Shadows Noir: Classic Black and White Photography From the Dan Curtis Productions Archive. Book signing with Pierson before the screening. Guest speaker Made possible by the John H. Mitchell Television Programming Endowment. Premiering on June 27, 1966, on ABC-TV, Dark Shadows (1966–71) represented an outré experiment in daytime television that became an unexpected breakout hit and evergreen cult classic. Created by horror-maestro Dan Curtis (The Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror), the innovative soap opera, which initially struggled in the ratings, expanded greatly in popularity in its second year with the addition of a 175-year-old charismatic vampire character named Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid). As the eerily atmospheric series evolved to fuse gothic supernatural elements and romance into complex storylines, it developed a passionate youth following and became a pop culture phenomenon. In the process, the videotaped series earned the distinction of being the first soap to spawn a theatrical motion picture spin-off, House of Dark Shadows (1970), and several additional feature films and reboots. The beloved original series ran for over 1,200 episodes before its abrupt cancellation in 1971. In the ensuing decades, the aura surrounding Dark Shadows has only intensified, with the influential program enjoying nearly constant reruns in syndication, luring an influx of new viewers into the mysterious, shadow-drenched world of the wealthy Collins family of fictional Collinsport, Maine. Join us for a celebration of Dark Shadows, exactly 60 years to the day of its premiere, including the debut episode and rare archival footage. Before the screening, historian Jim Pierson will sign copies of Dark Shadows Noir: Classic Black and White Photography from the Dan Curtis Productions Archive. Following the screening, there will be a Q&A with Dark Shadows star, actor David Selby, and Jim Pierson. Programmed and note written by John H. Mitchell Television Curator Mark Quigley.

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Presented by UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Hammer Museum. The Billy Wilder Theater opens 15 minutes before each Family Flicks program.

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In person: director Karen Arthur; editor Carol Littleton; Paula Chambers, daughter of screenwriter and actor Joan Hotchkis; Eric Morris, acting teacher and director of the theatrical production of Legacy. Guest speaker Legacy is the story of Bissie Hapgood, a woman unraveling under the pressures of a vapid and materialistic society consumed with dinner-plate settings, soap operas and sexual frustration. The material originated as a one-woman show in 1973, written and performed by Joan Hotchkis, a versatile talent celebrated for her roles on television series including The Odd Couple and The Life and Times of Eddie Roberts. Karen Arthur, a first-time filmmaker, saw Hotchkis on stage and convinced the actor to adapt the screenplay and star in the film. Independently produced and financed, Legacy, like its peers Wanda (1970) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974), confounds 1970s Hollywood’s expectations with the introduction of a new kind of cinematic woman. Bissie stuns audiences with her honesty that is confrontational, yet heartfelt and a vulnerability that is never sentimental and always surprising. Legacy features an exceptional crew at the start of what would become a set of accomplished careers. Arthur, who would go on to direct The Mafu Cage (1978) and become a prolific television director, winning an Emmy Award for Cagney & Lacey, collaborated with cinematographer John Bailey (Ordinary People, 1980, In the Line of Fire, 1993) and editor Carol Littleton (E.T., 1982, The Manchurian Candidate, 2004). Note written by Archive Research and Study Center Officer Maya Montañez Smukler.

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Presented by UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Hammer Museum. The Billy Wilder Theater opens 15 minutes before each Family Flicks program.

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