Directed by Tom Noonan • 1994 • United States
Starring Karen Sillas, Tom Noonan
A lost masterpiece of 1990s independent cinema reemerges in a new restoration. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the screenwriting award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, WHAT HAPPENED WAS . . . is Tom Noonan’s singular directorial debut: a darkly humorous take on dating dread that borders on the surreal. Featuring extraordinary performances by Noonan and Karen Sillas as two lonely hearts spending one claustrophobic Friday night together in an imposing apartment, this expressionistically rendered pas de deux—a noted favorite of Charlie Kaufman, who has called it “wildly heartbreaking and terribly funny”—exposes with startling clarity the myriad ways in which people struggle to connect.
Directed by Robert Altman • 1984 • United States
Starring Philip Baker Hall
Sequestered in his home, a disgraced President Richard Milhous Nixon arms himself with a bottle of scotch and a gun to record memoirs that no one will hear. He is surrounded by the silent portraits of Lincoln, Eisenhower...
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1971 • United States
Starring Melvin Van Peebles, Simon Chuckster, Hubert Scales
A landmark of Black and American independent cinema that would send shock waves through the culture, SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG was Melvin Van Peebles’s second feature film, a...
Directed by Gus Van Sant • 1985 • United States
Starring Tim Streeter, Doug Cooeyate, Ray Monge
With its low budget and lush black-and-white imagery, Gus Van Sant’s debut feature MALA NOCHE heralded an idiosyncratic, provocative new voice in American independent film. Set in Van Sant’s hometown ...
