Albert Serra: An American Cinematheque Retrospective

Films featured in the Series include:

The Story of My Death – 19 January at the Aero Theatre  

Albert Serra’s STORY OF MY DEATH is a baroque reflection on pleasure and erotic desire dramatized from an imagined meeting between the ageing Casanova and Count Dracula. The journey begins as Casanova meets a new servant who will witness his last moments in life. From a Swiss castle with its gallant and libertine Eighteenth Century atmosphere, to his final days spent in poor and shadowy Northern lands. There, his rationalist way of thinking and frivolous and mundane world will succumb to a new, violent, occult and romantic force, represented by Dracula and his eternal power. Q&A with filmmaker Albert Serra  

35 mm, color, 148 min. Director: Albert Serra. Screenwriters: Albert Serra. With Vicenç Altaió, Clara Visa. Spain, France, Romania. 2013. 

The Death of Louis XIV – 20 January at Los Feliz Theatre 

Versailles, August 1715. Back from hunting, Louis XIV – magisterially interpreted by New Wave icon and honorary Palme d’Or recipient (Jean-Pierre Léaud) – feels pain in his leg. A serious fever erupts, which marks the beginning of the agony of the greatest King of France. Surrounded by a horde of doctors and his closest counselors who come in turns at his bedside sensing the impending power vacuum, the Sun King struggles to run the country from his bed. Based on extensive medical records and the memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon and other courtiers, THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV is a wry neoclassical chamber drama, a work of pure magic by Albert Serra, one of today’s most singular directors. Q&A with filmmaker Albert Serra

DCP, color, 115 min. Director: Albert Serra. Screenwriters: Thierry Lounas, Albert Serra. With Bernard Belin. France, Portugal, Spain. 2016. 

Liberté – 20 January at Los Feliz Theatre

Just before the French Revolution, in a forest outside Berlin, a band of libertines expelled from the court of Louis XVI rendezvous with the legendary German seducer and freethinker, the Duc de Walchen, to convince him to join in their mission: the rejection of authority and all moral boundaries. What begins as an evening of strategizing on the proliferation of libertinage, descends into a Sadean night of pansexual one-upmanship. LIBERTÉ is a singular cinematic experience only Albert Serra could deliver, a film in which increasingly dramatic acts of pain and pleasure unfold in counterpoint to cinematographer Artur Tort’s luminous images of moonlit sylvan spaces. As Serra and his committed team of regular performers and newcomers “open the gates of Hell” and explore the limits of the erotic imagination, you won’t be able to look away. Introduction by filmmaker Albert Serra

DCP, color, 138 min. Director: Albert Serra. Screenwriters: Albert Serra. With Baptiste Pinteaux, Alexander García Düttmann. France, Portugal, Spain, Germany. 2019.  

Pacifiction – 21 January at the Aero Theatre | Advance Screening!

On the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official De Roller (Benoît Magimel) is a calculating man with flawless manners. His somewhat broad perception of his role brings him to navigate the high end ’establishment’ as well as shady venues where he mingles with the locals. Especially since a persistent rumor has been going around: the sighting of a submarine whose ghostly presence could herald the return of French nuclear testing. Q&A with filmmaker Albert Serra

DCP, color, 165 min. Director: Albert Serra. Screenwriters: Albert Serra. With Alexandre Melo, Michael Vautor. France, Spain, Germany, Portugal. 2022.  

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