This Week at SF Film Society | NEW PEOPLE Cinema is the continuation of SACRIFICE, and THE DEVIL, PROBABLY!

Through August 2
(Directed by Chen Kaige)
1:00, 3:30, 6:00, 8:30pm

Mixing the intimate and the epic to great effect, Chen Kaige’s latest is a character-driven story of retribution and regret. General Tu’an feels that his fortunes have been thwarted by the popularity of the Zhao clan and devises an intricately planned coup d’état. During the confusion of the ensuing massacre, Cheng Ying, a court doctor who is a new father himself, helps deliver the last of the Zhao clan in secret and is entrusted with the baby’s safety, setting in motion an intricate story of mistaken identities, paternal love, betrayal and revenge. As he did with Farewell My Concubine (1993), Chen turns to the stage for his filmic inspiration, this time giving his own spin to this sweeping adaptation of Yuan dynasty-era Orphan of Zhao. More info >>

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August 3 – 9
(Directed by Robert Bresson)
3:00, 5:00, 7:00, 9:00pm

New 35mm print! Constructed as a flashback from news reports of a young man’s suspicious suicide, Robert Bresson’s splenetic 1977 drama puts the post-1968 world on trial and judges it unlivable. Charles (Antoine Monnier), a quietly imperious sensualist of blazing intelligence, lives idly in a bare garret and does little but brazenly chase women. Essaying the gamut of modern pursuits—politics, religion, education, drugs, psychoanalysis—he finds them all pointless. Bresson’s chilling visions of daily life—including a brilliant sequence aboard a bus that depicts the mechanical world as a horror—suggest its hostility to the passions of youth. Both the world and Bresson’s cinema are in disarray, and the signs of his inner conflict are deeply troubling and tremendously moving. (Richard Brody, The New Yorker) More info >>

Watch Clip!