"American film culture without Janus Films is unthinkable."
- Kent Jones, Film Society of Lincoln Center

The classic distribution company Janus Films brought to America many of the greatest movies ever made by the now legendary directors who defined the art of cinema, including Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut and Akira Kurosawa. One half-century later, the name Janus Films is synonymous with the groundbreaking foreign language films it championed. This retrospective celebrating the 50th anniversary of Janus Films premiered as a sidebar presentation at last year's New York Film Festival and will tour North America throughout 2007. All films shown are stunning new 35mm prints. Look for Part II of this one-of-a-kind series at AFI Silver this summer.

Films include THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE...; THE LADY VANISHES; BEAUTY AND THE BEAST [La Belle et la Bête];SUMMER WITH MONIKA [Sommaren med Monika]; SEVEN SAMURAI [Shichinin No Samurai];THE SEVENTH SEAL [Det Sjunde Inseglet]; DAY OF WRATH [Vredens Dag]; WILD STRAWBERRIES [Smultronstâllet]; THE MAKIOKA SISTERS [Sasame-yuki]; LA STRADA; WALKABOUT; and HIGH AND LOW [Tengoku to jigoku].

EXCLUSIVE GIVEAWAYS

The Criterion Collection/Janus Films and AFI Silver present a special opportunity to win Janus's Essential Art House book and Criterion's "Early Bergman" 5-disc DVD box set.

Janus's Essential Art House book will go to one lucky ticket-holder at the Janus Film Series opening night screening of THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE... , Saturday, May 12, at 7:00.

Criterion's "Early Bergman" DVD box set will go to one lucky ticket-holder at each of the following Bergman screenings:

SUMMER WITH MONIKA, Friday, May 25, 6:30
WILD STRAWBERRIES, Saturday, June 9 at 1:00
WILD STRAWBERRIES, Sunday, June 10 at 5:45

To learn more about The Criterion Collection/Janus Films, please visit: www.criterion.com and www.janusfilms.com

SPECIAL PROMOTION!

"Essential Art House: 50 Years Of Janus Films" DVD Box Set

"Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films" offers an extraordinary collection of undisputed masterpieces that have changed the way people make and watch movies. The package features 50 classic films on DVD along with a gorgeous 240-page illustrated hardcover book featuring text by Peter Cowie and an introduction by Martin Scorsese. Also includes extensive film notes, cast/credit listings and much more. Hitchcock, Bergman, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Renoir... so many of cinema's greatest are here. Take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own the essentials of world cinema in one specially-priced set.

Special offer for AFI Silver supporters! Janus Films will donate $50 to the American Film Institute Silver Theatre for each "Essential Art House" box set you order online. Just enter promotion code AFI when you purchase the box set at janusfilms.com

By purchasing online with the AFI promotional code, you will save $200 off the suggested retail price, and you will help support AFI Silver Theatre. Order now at janusfilms.com.

THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE...

In turn-of-the-century Paris, Madame de... (we never learn her name) sells her earrings--a wedding present from her husband the General--to erase a gambling debt. The jeweler betrays her and sells them back to the General, who gives them to his mistress, but she gambles them away too. When Madame de's true love the Baron (the great Vittorio de Sica) presents the earrings to her, the jewels take on deeper meaning as the web of deception unravels.

DIR/SCR Max Ophuls; SCR Marcel Achard, based on the novel by Louise de Vilmorin. France/Italy, 1953, b&w, 105 min. In French with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, May 12, 7:00; Sunday, May 13, 1:00 & 5:00; Monday, May 14, 9:30; Tuesday, May 15, 7:00 & 9:10; Thursday, May 17, 9:30

"[A] romantic masterpiece!" - Dave Kehr, The New York Times

THE LADY VANISHES

The greatest of Alfred Hitchcock's British films: not just the template for his later Hollywood films in its deft blend of suspenseful mystery and wry comedy, but a hugely influential film for all moviemaking. Brits Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood become embroiled in a mystery aboard a transcontinental train after Lockwood witnesses the strange disappearance of fellow traveler Dame May Whitty. Their search for clues among a parade of bizarre and sinister passengers uncovers an international espionage ring and imminent danger.

DIR Alfred Hitchcock; SCR Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the book by Ethel Lina White. UK, 1938, b&w, 97 min. NOT RATED

Friday, May 18, 7:00; Saturday, May 19, 9:30; Sunday, May 20, 5:30; Monday, May 21, 7:00; Wednesday, May 23, 7:00

#34 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST [La Belle et la Bête]

Rife with symbolism, allegory, and surrealism, this is not Disney's version of the fairy tale, but instead Jean Cocteau's masterpiece, conceived as a respite for weary postwar France. When the father of delicate beauty Josette Day is sentenced to death for picking a rose from beastly Jean Marais's garden, she offers to go in his stead. Inevitably the beast falls in love and proposes marriage, but she refuses out of love for a handsome but loathsome prince, also played by Marais.

DIR/SCR Jean Cocteau; SCR Jean-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. France/Luxembourg, 1946, b&w, 93 min. In French with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, May 19, 2:30; Sunday, May 20, 9:30; Tuesday, May 22, 9:50

SUMMER WITH MONIKA [Sommaren med Monika]

Ingmar Bergman's moving story of two young lovers (Lars Ekborg and 18-year-old Harriet Andersson) who spend a summer idyll together, only to see it wither in the light of real-world responsibilities. Handled with sensitivity, the film's frank depiction of sexuality made it an international sensation. Years--even decades--ahead of its time, MONIKA has been cited as an influence by filmmakers from Jean-Luc Godard to Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen.

DIR Ingmar Bergman. Sweden, 1953, b&w, 92 min. In Swedish with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Friday, May 25, 6:30; Saturday, May 26, 1:00; Tuesday, May 29, 6:00; Thursday, May 31, 9:30

SEVEN SAMURAI [Shichinin No Samurai]

Hailed as one of the greatest Japanese films of all time, SEVEN SAMURAI has spawned imitations, including THE WILD BUNCH and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, but remains unsurpassed in its virtuosity--due in large part to Kurosawa's collaborator, actor Toshiro Mifune, who cites this role as his all-time favorite. Farmers in a small hamlet hire seven samurai to protect them from pillagers. Though the village can only offer food in payment, each samurai takes on the near-suicidal mission for his own personal reasons.

DIR/SCR Akira Kurosawa; SCR Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni; PROD Sojiro Motoki. Japan, 1954, b&w, 206 min. In Japanese with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Friday, May 25, 8:30; Saturday, May 26, 8:30; Sunday, May 27, 5:30; Monday, May 28, 8:00; Tuesday, May 29, 8:00

THE SEVENTH SEAL [Det Sjunde Inseglet]

Ingmar Bergman's best-known and most iconic film is a touchstone of international cinema's golden age of the 1950s and '60s, and essential, rite-of-passage viewing for every film buff. Knight Max von Sydow, returning from crusading, discovers his country ravaged by plague and comes face to face with Death himself. Unwilling to go quietly, von Sydow challenges Death to a game of chess. An allegorical parade of human foibles and suffering passes by as the two match wits.

DIR Ingmar Bergman; PROD Allan Ekelund. Sweden, 1957, b&w, 92 min. In Swedish with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, June 2, 12:30, 10:30; Wednesday, June 6, 9:20; Thursday, June 7, 9:20

DAY OF WRATH [Vredens Dag]

Filmed under Nazi occupation in Denmark, this fascinating film, often read as political and feminist allegory, is set in a small Danish village during the 1620s. An elderly woman, sentenced to death for witchcraft, curses her persecutors before dying. Soon, the elderly pastor who condemned her finds himself in the middle of a family drama as his young and beautiful second wife falls in love with his adult son--and her moral transgressions result in devastation.

DIR Carl Dreyer. Denmark, 1943, b&w, 97 min. In Danish with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Sunday, June 3, 9:20; Monday, June 4, 9:20; Tuesday, June 5, 9:20

WILD STRAWBERRIES [Smultronstâllet]

Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece is to cinema what Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past is to the novel: the definitive "memory piece" of the art form. Silent-era director Victor Sjõestrom--an idol of Bergman's--gives a remarkable performance as an elderly professor traveling by car to receive an honorary degree, an old man for whom the past seems as present as the countryside outside his car window. The cinematic conjuring of memory, using dream sequences and flashbacks, evokes a bittersweet nostalgia.

DIR/SCR Ingmar Bergman; PROD Allan Ekelund. Sweden, 1957, b&w, 91 min. In Swedish with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, June 9, 1:00; Sunday, June 10, 5:45

THE MAKIOKA SISTERS [Sasame-yuki]

One of the cinema's finest elegies for a passing era, Kon Ichikawa's colorful, clever adaptation of Junichiro Tanizaki's novel is a rich drama of incident and a touching comedy of manners that will appeal to Jane Austen fans and Ozu devotees. Four daughters in a wealthy merchant family debate marriage and money during cherry blossom time in 1938 Osaka. Prospective suitors come for traditional-minded sister Sayuri Yoshinaga, while headstrong youngest sister Yuko Kotegawa prefers to use her dowry money to start her own business.

DIR/SCR Kon Ichikawa; SCR Shinya Hidaka, based on the novel by Junichiro Tanizaki. Japan, 1983, color, 104 min. In Japanese with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Tuesday, June 19, 6:45; Wednesday, June 20, 6:45; Saturday, June 23, 1:45

LA STRADA

The film that brought director Fellini international acclaim and his first Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Simple, kind-hearted Gelsomina (Fellini's wife Giulietta Masina) is sold by her poverty-stricken family to the brutish Zampano (Anthony Quinn), the strongman in a shabby traveling circus. When Zampano's temper erupts tragedy unfolds. Martin Scorsese, who based the Jake LaMotta character in RAGING BULL on Zampano, says "I was enthralled by the film's resolution, where the power of the spirit overwhelms brute force."

DIR/SCR Federico Fellini; SCR Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flajan; PROD Dino De Laurentis and Carlo Ponti. Italy, 1954, b&w, 110 min. In Italian with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Thursday, June 21, 7:00; Saturday, June 23, 7:00; Tuesday, June 26, 7:00

WALKABOUT

Nicolas Roeg's strange, beautiful and nightmarish vision of two siblings who become stranded in the Australian outback after their father inexplicably goes mad. As the adolescent sister and six-year-old brother wander, they join a teenaged Aborigine boy on walkabout, a tribal initiation into manhood. Initially, the three inhabit a dream-like Eden, but tension mounts with tragic consequences as modern city attitudes are juxtaposed with nature in all of its terror and beauty.

DIR Nicolas Roeg; SCR Edward Bond, based on the novel by James Vance Marshall; PROD Si Litvinoff. UK, 1971, color, 100 min. RATED R

Friday, June 29, 9:45; Monday, July 2, 1:45, 9:45; Tuesday, July 3, 7:00; Thursday, July 5, 4:45, 9:45;

HIGH AND LOW [Tengoku to jigoku]

Akira Kurosawa's powerful adaptation of American crime master Evan Hunter's novel King's Ransom makes for a thriller of the highest order, and provides intellectually rich, pulse-pounding entertainment. Powerful businessman Toshiro Mifune receives a ransom letter for his son, only to discover the kidnappers mistakenly grabbed the son of his chauffeur. Along with chief detective Tatsuya Nakadai, Mifune becomes personally involved in the case, journeying from his castle-in-the-sky penthouse to the lower depths of Tokyo's squalid slums.

DIR/SCR Akira Kurosawa; SCR Eijiro Hisaita, Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni and Hayakawa Shobo, based on the novel by Evan Hunter; PROD Ryuzo Kikushima and Tomoyuki Tanaka. Japan, 1963, color, 143 min. In Japanese with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, June 30, 3:45; Sunday, July 1, 1:00; Monday, July 2, 7:00; Tuesday, July 3, 4:00; Thursday, July 5, 7:00