"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 European auteur cinema, including François Truffaut, Luis Buñuel, Agnes Varda and Roman Polanski. 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 the finale of this one-of-a-kind series at AFI Silver this autumn.

AFI member passes will be accepted at all screenings in the 50 Years of Janus Films Series

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 ORGANIZER
[I Compagni]

"Arguably one of the great Italian films of the 1960s, it cries out for rediscovery."

— film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, this film gives Marcello Mastroianni one of his best roles, as a late 19th century labor leader orchestrating a strike at a Turin textile plant. With an exquisite handling of period, the film had a sizable impact when it came out in 1963, though it's been curiously neglected ever since.

DIR Mario Monicelli; SCR Agenore Incrocci, Mario Monicelli, Furio Scarpelli; PROD Franco Cristaldi. Italy/France/Yugoslavia, 1963, b&w, 126 min. In Italian with English subtitles. RATED NC-17

Sunday, July 22, 1:15; Tuesday, July 24, 7:00; Thursday, July 26, 7:00

JULES AND JIM
[Jules et Jim]

This worldwide smash success catapulted 29-year-old Francois Truffaut from New Wave phenomenon to the front line of international directors. In the classic ménage à trois, best friends Henri Serre (the French "Jeem") and Oskar Werner (the Austrian "Jules") alternate in the affections of Jeanne Moreau before, during and after World War I. Moreau's own analysis of her greatest role: "she's not immoral; she's absolute."

DIR/SCR François Truffaut; SCR Jean Grualt, based on the novel by Henri-Pierre Roché. France, 1962, b&w, 105 min. In French and German with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Friday, July 27, 7:00; Saturday, July 28, 7:15; Sunday, July 29, 3:00; Tuesday, July 31, 7:00

KNIFE IN THE WATER
[Nóz w Wodzie]

Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1964, the remarkable feature debut by the 29-year-old Roman Polanski, co-written with fellow Lodz Film School graduate Jerzy Skolimowski (DEEP END), represented a new kind of thriller for its time--taut, tense and cerebral--and one with enormous influence on future filmmakers. When a young hitchhiker joins a couple on a weekend yacht trip, psychological warfare breaks out as the two men compete for the woman's attention, culminating in an act of violence.

DIR Roman Polanski; SCR Jerzy Skolimowski; PROD Stanislaw Zylewicz. Poland, 1962, b&w, 94 min. In Polish with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, July 28, 5:15; Sunday, July 29, 1:00; Monday, July 30, 5:00

FIRES ON THE PLAIN
[Nobi]

A landmark film from postwar Japan and one of Kon Ichikawa's greatest achievements, this ferociously bleak film offers a barbarous vision of war as hell that still marks it as one of cinema's most gut-wrenching pacifist works. The adaptation of Shohei Ooka's autobiographical novel follows a ragtag group of Japanese soldiers during the final days of WWII, out of supplies, mad from starvation and on the run from advancing American forces. Eiji Funakoshi plays Japanese deserter Pvt. Tamura, a living ghost wary of both forces.

DIR Kon Ichikawa; SCR Shohei Ooka, based on his novel, and Natto Wada; PROD Masaichi Nagata. Japan, 1959, b&w, 108 min. In Japanese with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Friday, August 3, 6:15; Sunday, August 5, 1:00; Tuesday, August 7, 9:15

VIRIDIANA

Luis Buñuel's triumphant return to Spain after nearly three decades in exile won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1961 but earned scandalous disapproval in Spain from both the exiled left and Franco's right for its blackly comic nihilism. Silvia Pinal returns from convent studies to the estate of her overly fond uncle Fernando Rey. Hoping to convert the house and grounds to a home for the poor, she soon learns that no good deed goes unpunished.

DIR/SCR Luis Buñuel; SCR Julio Alejandro; PROD Gustavo Alatriste. Mexico/Spain, 1961, b&w, 90 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, August 4, 6:30; Sunday, August 5, 5:20; Monday, August 6, 9:30

BALLAD OF A SOLDIER
[Ballada o Soldate]

Grigori Chukhrai's poignant parable received a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination, and the 1961 British Academy award for Best Film. Following the last days of a Russian soldier on a furlough home during WWII, it also stands as a remarkable recollection of life in the Soviet Union during the extreme deprivation of the 1940s.

DIR/SCR Grigori Chukhrai; SCR Valentin Ezhov; PROD M. Chernova. Soviet Union, 1959, b&w, 89 min. In Russian with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, August 11, 5:45; Monday, August 13, 7:00

THE CRANES ARE FLYING
[Letyat zhuravli]

The only Soviet film to win the Palme d'Or, this story of two lovers who never give up hope of reunion despite separation by WWII was influential on the New Wave Soviet filmmakers working during the post-Stalin thaw of the 1960s. The first of several dynamic collaborations between Georgian director Mikheil Kalatozishvil and the great Russian cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky is their most lyrical; their subsequent films, most memorably I AM CUBA, would reinvent what the camera could do.

DIR/PROD Mikheil Kalatozishvili; SCR Victor Rozov, based on his play. Soviet Union, 1957, b&w, 94 min. In Russian with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Sunday, August 12, 5:10; Tuesday, August 14, 7:00

CLEO FROM 5 TO 7
[Cléo de 5 à 7]

Pop chanteuse Cléo, awaiting the results of a medical examination and convinced she is going to die, spends two hours wandering the streets of Paris, her mood swinging from melancholic to merry as she is strangely enlivened by her existential quandary. Agnès Varda's groundbreaking 1962 film is very much in the vanguard of the French Nouvelle Vague: shrewd, sparkling and playfully subversive of cinematic conventions. Look for cameos by New Wave mainstays Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina and Michel Legrand.

DIR/SCR Agnès Varda; PROD Georges de Beauregard and Carlo Ponti. France/Italy, 1961, color, 131 min. In French with English Subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, August 18, 3:45; Sunday, August 19, 5:20; Tuesday, August 21, 9:30

WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM
[W.R.- Misterije Organizma]

"As a 'mainstream avant-garde' movie, it merits [a] place in the pantheon"

— film scholar Raymond Durgnat

Confrontational, subversive, countercultural — Yugoslav Dusan Makavejev's infamous film was banned by most Communist bloc countries and shown in adults-only screenings in the West. Makavejev juxtaposes lewd comic burlesque and allusive political essay with a documentary on iconoclastic psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. The result is an arty critique of Communist social structure and sexual politics, drawing loose but striking parallels between sexual repression and political oppression.

DIR/SCR/PROD Dusan Makavejev. Yugoslavia/West Germany, 1971, color, 85 min. In Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, August 25, 9:30; Sunday, August 26, 12:30; Monday, August 27, 9:20

KWAIDAN
[Kaidan]

Four ghostly tales brought to the screen by the great Masaki Kobayashi [REBELLION, HARAKIRI], in ravishing color and breathtaking cinemascope. Featuring deliriously stylized visuals and art direction, complex sound design and a truly haunting score by legendary composer Toru Takemitsu. Special Jury Prize, 1965 Cannes Film Festival; Best Screenplay, 1965 Kinema Junpo Awards; and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, 1966 Academy Awards.

DIR Masaki Kobayashi; SCR Yoko Mizuki, based on the book by Lafcadio Kobayashi; PROD Shigeru Wakatsuki. Japan, 1964, color, 125 min. In Japanese with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, August 25, 2:45; Sunday, August 26, 2:15; Thursday, August 30, 6:45

DEATH OF A CYCLIST
[Muerte de un cidista]

When this film received the International Critics Award at Cannes, director Bardem was unable to accept the award as he was serving one of several prison sentences meted out by Francisco Franco's regime. His scathing social criticism contrasts an affluent adulterous couple with the poor bicyclist they strike with their car. Realizing that the cyclist is badly injured, they leave him to die rather than risk revealing their affair. Upon their return to Madrid, guilt grabs them with more tragic consequences.

DIR/SCR Juan Antonio Bardem, based on the story by Luis Fernando de Igoa; PROD Georges de Beauregard and Manuel J. Goyanes. Spain/Italy, 1955, b&w, 88 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Saturday, September 1, 1:30; Monday, September 3, 1:00; Wednesday, September 5, 9:15

CRIA CUERVOS

Winner of the Grand Jury Award at Cannes, this acclaimed international hit by renowned father of Spanish modern cinema Carlos Saura continues his fascination with childhood. Ana Torrent's follow-up to her breakthrough performance in Victor Erice's SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE casts her as a 9-year old coping with the death of her beloved mother, hauntingly played by Geraldine Chaplin (who also plays Ana as an adult), and the belief that she caused her father's death.

DIR/SCR/PROD Carlos Saura; PROD Elías Querejeta. Spain, 1976, color, 107 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Friday, August 31, 3:15; Sunday, September 2, 1:15; Monday, September 3, 3:00; Wednesday, September 5, 7:00