November at Museum Films means a fresh slate of festival standouts. Headlining this month’s selections are the Berlin Film Festival’s top two prizewinners, both set in France: leading Israeli director Nadav Lapid’s wild, and wildly funny fish-out-of-water comedy, Synonyms, starring the striking Tom Mercier in his already iconic big yellow overcoat; and French provocateur François Ozon’s surprisingly somber and measured look at clergy abuse, By the Grace of God. Both set the festival circuit ablaze, as did Midnight Traveler, Hassan Fazili’s nonfiction travelogue that follows the Afghani filmmaker and his family after the Taliban puts a bounty on his head.
We are also very proud to present the Oklahoma City premiere of Light From Light, another Sundance favorite starring superstar comedian Jim Gaffigan as a recent widower haunted by his loss. Writer-director Paul Harrill brings great empathy to this quiet tale of spirituality and the possibility of the paranormal. Speaking of the supernatural, Museum Films closes out October with a special Halloween-night-only screening of the new 4K restoration of John Carpenter’s horror classic, The Fog (1980). Real-life mother and daughter Jaime Lee Curtis (Halloween) and Janet Leigh (Psycho) team up as two residents of a coastal California town terrorized by ghostly shipwreck victims.
The uncanny carries through to another festival breakout, German director Ulrich Köhler’s Cannes highlight In My Room, a subtle and ironic last-man-on-earth story complicated by the arrival of another survivor. OKCMOA also welcome two exceptional features from Tibet, Pema Tseden’s outstanding 2018 Venice prize-winner, Jinpa, with a mysterious hitchhiker setting off an unforeseen series of events in the life of a Tibetan truck-driver; and Tibet’s first-ever homegrown feature, Tseden’s 2009 debut The Search, an engaging road movie that traverses the world’s highest landscapes.
Moving from Tibet to Hong Kong, we are thrilled to present new restorations of two of Jackie Chan’s most beloved efforts, Police Story (1985) and Police Story 2 (1988), which both co-star iconic actress Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love). And on the other side of the law and across the East China Sea, we are excited to bring another Asian action legend back to Oklahoma screens with the local premiere of Takashi Miike’s First Love, a noir-tinged yakuza film that unfolds over one crazy Tokyo night.
Last but not least, Museum Films is proud to be the exclusive Oklahoma City venue for GIFT, a joyous new piece of essay filmmaking inspired by Lewis Hyde’s classic bestseller, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. As the holiday season approaches, we’re also inspired to give back: all Film Society members will receive complimentary tickets to this month’s two Tibetan films, The Search and Jinpa. We hope you take us up on these gifts and the many others screening exclusively this month at OKCMOA.
Click to view and print the November 2019 Film Schedule + Calendar. Printed film schedules will also be available in the theater lobby.
