This October at Walker Cinema: Bold International Voices and Cinematic Innovation
This October, the Walker Cinema presents a series of international films that spotlight bold voices and cinematic innovation. Films screened in October feature an artist residency; a continuation of the Cinema’s newest repertory series, Cinema Revived presented in collaboration with Mizna’s 2025 Film Series: Iranian Classics; and a modern-day AI-infused twist on Dracula screening on Halloween weekend.
The Apple by Samira Makhmalbaf
Saturday, October 11, 2pm
$8 ($6 Walker members, seniors, and students)
Walker Cinema
In Tehran, an elderly father lives with his 12-year-old twin daughters, Massoumeh and Zahra, and his blind wife—who all play themselves in this re-creation of a news story. The strict father has imprisoned his daughters in the family’s home for years. When a social worker locks the father inside, the daughters become free to explore the world outside as their father reflects on his actions. With her hybrid documentary blending reality and fiction with drama, the then-17-year-old Samira Makhmalbaf became the world’s youngest director to participate in the official section of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. 1998, Iran, 35mm, in Persian and Azerbaijani with English subtitles, 85 min.
Part of Cinema Revived: Timeless Selections from the Vault, an ongoing presentation of notable feature-length films from the Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection. Presented in collaboration with Mizna’s 2025 Film Series: Iranian Classics.
Maria Schneider, 1983 and Manal Issa, 2024 by Elisabeth Subrin
Friday, October 24, 7pm
$15 ($12 Walker members, seniors, and students)
Walker Cinema
In a 1983 French TV interview, the legendary actress Maria Schneider responds to a question about the traumatic experiences she endured while filming Last Tango in Paris. In a meticulously crafted shot-for-shot reenactment of this interview, Elisabeth Subrin casts three contemporary actresses—Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga, and Isabel Sandoval—to perform the role of Schneider in the interview. As they embody Schneider’s words, the performers consider her context alongside their own identities.
In a follow up two years later, Subrin films the French-Lebanese actress Manal Issa, this time with Issa answering the questions as herself. Filmed in Beirut on September 22, 2024, just hours before the country was bombed by Israel, Issa’s answers consider the role of the actress during the unfolding global conflict.
Maria Schneider, 1983, 2022, France, DCP, 24 min.
Manal Issa, 2024, 2025, Lebanon and US, DCP, 10 min.
A conversation with Elisabeth Subrin and Manal Issa follows the screening.
Au Pays Des Juliets (In the Country of Juliets) by Mehdi Charef
Saturday, October 25, 7pm
$15 ($12 Walker members, seniors, and students)
Walker Cinema
After several years in prison, three women (one of whom is played by Maria Schneider) are granted a 24-hour furlough. Although each one intends to visit family, their plans are upended by a general strike that has halted all public transportation. Strangers to one another before this day, the three women’s shared circumstances of being stranded facilitate a bond between them. Unfolding over a single day, Charef’s narrative follows the women as they wander through the city, presenting a nuanced and layered reflection on the marginal position of women in society. 1992, France, 35mm, French with English subtitles, 92 min.
Thursday, October 30, 7 pm
Friday, October 31, 7 pm
$15 ($12 Walker members, seniors, and students; Free for students on Friday)
Walker Cinema
How do you make a Dracula film in Transylvania today? Ask AI to do it. This is the setup for the provocative and prolific Romanian director’s foray into his country’s most famed antagonist. The story is told through an uninspired filmmaker’s attempts at making a vampire film, and what unfolds is a cacophonous, vulgar, and totally nuts mash-up of everything Dracula. Indebted more to Paul Morrisey’s 1974 Blood for Dracula than the brooding supernatural eroticism that drives much of cinema’s interpretation of this myth, Jude’s film is a raucous critique of AI, capitalism, and the factory of culture. 2025, Romania, DCP, in Romanian/German/English with English subtitles, 170 min.