SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our WHEN DIRECTORS DO INTERESTING THINGS Series, Saturday, September 9, 2023
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the 1917 Bay St building. Our entrance is NOT on Bay Street. You access our entrance from Wilson Street by turning into the street art alleyway/corridor in the back of the building. Look for our signs which are always posted on Wilson and in the corridor to guide the audience.
7:30pm THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE (2001, dir. Guillermo Del Toro, Sony Pictures Classics, Spain/Mexico, 108mns, 35mm)
9:50pm GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO (2022, dir. Guillermo Del Toro, Netflix, USA, 117mns, DCP)
Guillermo Del Toro has been a crafty renaissance filmmaker his entire career. But maybe most impressive has been his return, at key moments in his own filmmography, to a kind of subversive horror moviemaking that tackles issues of politics and human brutality in the guise of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi.
Tonight we screen two key Del Toro works. First is a rare 35mm screening of Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone made in 2001.
Set during the waning days of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930’s, The Devil’s Backbone follows the tortured and possibly haunted goings on at an orphanage whose administrators are funding the Republican loyalists in their battle agains the Franco fascists.
The human tension, compromises, anxieties are echoed in the supernatural ghost visitations that reoccur to key characters as they struggle with a country at the precipice of a descent into fascism.
Del Toro’s fierce intelligence and understanding of cinema is on full display here as he uses a period piece and the ghost gothic genre to make a universal comment on society’s constant struggle between authoritarianism and democracy. This movie is one of Del Toro’s best (and most rarely screened).
We follow it with a theatrical screening of Del Toro’s most recent stunner, his Academy Award winning stop-motion adaptation of Pinocchio.
Previous filmmakers like Tim Burton and Wes Anderson have embraced stop-motion animation as a way to express their visions, sensibilities in a unique, magical way. Del Toro does the same here but dares to include a biting political subtext that clearly expresses an anxiety about the move towards repression, fascism, and authoritarianism gripping many countries across the world.
Del Toro had been working on an adaptation of Pinnochio for two decades when Netflix finally stepped up to facilitate his vision. Setting the story in World War II Italy, Del Toro managed a kind of magic trick by both remaining loyal to the source material and making key changes/adaptations that take the narrative into a darker, deeper, more soulful place.
Like many moviemakers, Del Toro was deeply affected by Walt Disney’s 1940 animated Pinocchio which filmmakers like Joe Dante have pointed out was a kind of gateway to horror for many children. The scenes of Pinocchio turning into a donkey boy and being swallowed by a whale stick with most of us who see the movie at a young age.
Del Toro took that love of both the movie and the original story to craft a more complicated emotional tale of familial love, regret, grief, anguish set against the even larger roiling tumult of a country anguishing in war.
Join us for two key Del Toro works to see how a good director can smuggle in a lot when they know how to use genre and story as spies in the night. And we show Devil’s Backbone on 35mm!
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
*Please note that though we strive to always show titles on 35mm film if advertised, we may have to screen digitally if the print we receive is in such bad shape or if we don't receive the print in time because of a shipping delay. We will do our best to alert the audience. When this does occur, we will offer each ticket holder who chooses not to attend a complimentary ticket to a future event in exchange. (Disclaimer: Good for 90 days – Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
HOW CAN WE STAY ON TOP OF NEWLY ANNOUNCED 35MM SCREENINGS, EVENTS, ETC?
You can follow us on Instagram/Twitter: @secretmovieclub or Facebook: @secretmovieclub35mm
You can also subscribe to our weekly email newsletter at secretmovieclub.com or by writing to us at community@secretmovieclub.com and using the header “SUBSCRIBE ME TO NEWSLETTER”.
HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.