AN ODE TO THE AGGRESSIVE DRIFTER In the seedy domain of Miami’s criminal underbelly, a seasoned tormented assassin embarks on the relentless pursuit of his next target — navigating a twisted world where violence and madness reign supreme. Tensions unravel, leading to a psychedelic journey that blurs the lines between predator and prey. Get ready for an adrenaline-fueled trip through Miami's underbelly in this sensual experimental elegy by Harmony Korine, shot entirely through a thermal lens. AGGRO DR1FT is playing in New Mexico EXCLUSIVELY at CCA for TWO NIGHTS ONLY, May 17th and 18th at 8pm. "Aggro Dr1ft has a visceral effect that’s hard to shake, and its images are unexpectedly memorable, ready to loiter in your synapses until a series of Nicolas Roeg-style flashbacks brings them racing back into your mind’s eye."-Deadline Hollywood "There will likely never be another film like it. Even so, it’s clear that Harmony Korine’s immersive iridescent plunge into the world and psyche of a serial killer points the way down fresh avenues for the medium to explore." -Variety

Please join CCA for our ongoing Community Reading Series in the Muñoz Waxman Gallery. This event features NM state poet laureate Lauren Camp, prose writers Jamie Figueroa and Renata Golden and poet Natachee Momaday Gray. Readings are curated by former Santa Fe poet laureate Elizabeth Jacobson.

CCA's monthly Closer Looks series, May 2024. Selected by Paul Barnes. "Bruce Springsteen wrote a song called “Cautious Man”. It contains a line inspired by The Night of the Hunter, “"On his right hand Billy'd tattooed the word "love” and on his left hand was the word "fear” And in which hand he held his fate was never clear” In the film there’s a famous scene in which Robert Mitchum as an enigmatic Reverend says to a little boy, "Ah, little lad, you're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand?” The Night of the Hunter—incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed—is truly a stand-alone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, it stars a sublimely sinister Robert Mitchum as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell (he of the tattooed knuckles), whose nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow, played by Shelley Winters, are uncovered by her terrified young children. Graced by images of eerie beauty and a sneaky sense of humor, telling its chilling story through visual fantasy, this ethereal, expressionistic American classic— featuring the contributions of the great silent actress Lillian Gish and renowned writer James Agee—is cinema’s most eccentric rendering of the battle between good and evil. Charles Laughton showed here that he had an original eye, and a taste for material that stretched the conventions of the movies. It is risky to combine horror and humor, and foolhardy to approach them through expressionism. For his first film, Laughton made a film like no other before or since, and with such confidence it seemed to draw on a lifetime of experience." -Paul Barnes A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.

Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff creates a complex but affectionate portrait of his longtime friend, underground cartoonist Robert Crumb. A notorious curmudgeon who would prefer to be alone with his fellow cartoonist wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb and his beloved vintage jazz records, Crumb reveals himself to be a complicated personality who suffered a troubled upbringing and harbors a philosophical opposition to the 1960s hippie underground that first celebrated his work. Jeffery M. Anderson (later critic for the San Francisco Examiner) placed the film on his list of the ten greatest films of all time, labeling it "the greatest documentary ever made."

In the rural alpine hamlet of Mizubiki, not far from Tokyo, Takumi and his daughter, Hana, lead a modest life gathering water, wood, and wild wasabi for the local udon restaurant. Increasingly, the townsfolk become aware of a talent agency’s plan to build an opulent glamping site nearby, offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to the snowy wilderness. When two company representatives arrive and ask for local guidance, Takumi becomes conflicted in his involvement, as it becomes clear that the project will have a pernicious impact on the community. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow up to his Academy Award®-winning DRIVE MY CAR is a foreboding fable on humanity's mysterious, mystical relationship with nature. As sinister gunshots echo from the forest, both the locals and representatives confront their life choices and the haunting consequences they have.

Set in Pakistan, the story of a young woman and her family, hemmed in by men, shifts from realism to genre, with heart-pumping consequences. After the death of the family patriarch, a mother and daughter's precarious existence is ripped apart. They must find strength in each other if they are to survive the malevolent forces that threaten to engulf them. New York Times - Critic Pick

Thursdays: May 16, May 23, May 30, June 6 4:30-6:30p, In-person at CCA Poet Elizabeth Jacobson returns to CCA with her popular workshop series Intimate Immersion. During this four-week virtual intensive participants will focus on generating new poems, critiquing each other’s work, revising their poems, and looking at elements of craft. Each meeting, participants are invited to bring a new poem (with copies for everyone) for workshop discussion. Since this is the first look, the process creates a deep, concentrated attention distinctive from preparing critique notes ahead of time. Additionally, contemporary poems are provided as a catalyst for the following week's writing prompt. This is an intimate, focused immersion to reinforce the writing practice and foster the evolution of new poems. Tuition (for all four in-person sessions): $250 Please register early as class size is limited to 8 participants. We will meet in CCA’s conference room, which is in the same building as the cinema. About Elizabeth Jacobson: Elizabeth was the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico and an Academy of American Poets 2020 Laureate Fellow. Her third collection of poems, There are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of Coral, is forthcoming from Free Verse Editions, 2025. Her previous book, Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air won the New Measure Poetry Prize (FVE/Parlor Press, 2019) and the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for both New Mexico Poetry and Best New Mexico Book. Her other books include Her Knees Pulled In (Tres Chicas Books), two chapbooks from Dancing Girl Press, Are the Children Make Believe? and A Brown Stone, and Everything Feels Recent When You’re Far Away, Poetry and Art from Santa Fe Youth During the Pandemic (Axle Books, 2021), which she co-edited. Elizabeth is a Reviews Editor for the on-line literary journal Terrain.org, and she is co-founding director of Poetry Pollinators, an eco-poetry public art initiative supporting native solitary bees. Her community projects have received eight consecutive grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry.

MILFORD GRAVES FULL MANTIS is a portrait of renowned percussionist Milford Graves, exploring his kaleidoscopic creativity and relentless curiosity. "Milford Graves engages with our universe through contemplation and meditation where we coexist in a garden of timeless nature. Since the early 1960s he has struck a mythic figure in the lineage of New Thing/Free Jazz music and art. A theorist on rhythm defined by inherent emotional impulse (as opposed to a mechanism of strict repetition) he has consistently championed the idea that music is more than an art form to be mastered. In his world, sound is a life force to be in tune with, through regard and respect. With patience and a clear devotion to the beauty of the practice and performance of music, both spirit and earth-conscious, MILFORD GRAVES FULL MANTIS as directed by Jake Meginsky, and co-directed by Neil Young, both experimental musicians from Western Massachusetts, is a portrait of one of the most fascinating lights in the lineage ...

John, a 35-year-old window cleaner, devotes his life to raising his 4-year-old son Michael, as the child’s mother left them immediately after his birth. Their life is a simple one, made up of universal daily rituals, a life of complete dedication, and innocent love that reveals the strength of their relationship. But John only has a few months to live. Since he has no family to turn to, he will spend the days left to him looking for a new and perfect one to adopt Michael, trying to protect his child from the terrible reality.

Poolman tells the story of Darren Barrenman (Chris Pine), a native Los Angeleno who spends his days looking after the pool of the Tahitian Tiki apartment block and fighting to make his hometown a better place to live. When he is tasked by a femme fatale to uncover the truth behind a shady business deal, Darren enlists the help of his friends to take on a corrupt politician and a greedy land developer. His investigation reveals a hidden truth about his beloved city and himself.

Presented in partnership with the Santa Fe Opera. An intimate look at the extraordinary rise, fall and redemption of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. In the 1970s and 80s, Tammy Faye and her husband, Jim Bakker, rose from humble beginnings to create the world's largest religious broadcasting network and theme park, and were revered for their message of love, acceptance and prosperity. Tammy Faye was legendary for her indelible eyelashes, her idiosyncratic singing, and her eagerness to embrace people from all walks of life. However, it wasn't long before financial improprieties, scheming rivals, and scandal toppled their carefully constructed empire.

Presented in partnership with the Santa Fe Opera. In 1945, the silver screen brought Oscar Wilde's timeless tale of vanity, corruption, and the pursuit of eternal youth to life in "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Directed by Albert Lewin, this cinematic adaptation stunned audiences with its haunting portrayal of a young man named Dorian Gray, played by Hurd Hatfield, whose soul becomes ensnared in a Faustian bargain. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" stands as a timeless cinematic masterpiece, captivating audiences with its gripping narrative and stunning visual imagery. With its rich atmosphere and engrossing performances, this adaptation remains a haunting exploration of the human psyche and the perils of unchecked ambition.

Presented in partnership with the Santa Fe Opera André is having an affair with Christine, whose husband Robert is himself hiding a mistress. Christine's married maid is romantically entangled with the local poacher. At a hunting party, the passions of servants and aristocrats dangerously collide. This magical and elusive work, which always seems to place second behind "Citizen Kane" in polls of great films, is so simple and so labyrinthine, so guileless and so angry, so innocent and so dangerous, that you can't simply watch it, you have to absorb it. - Roger Ebert Perhaps the most influential of all French films, and one of the most richly entertaining. - The New Yorker An undisputed masterpiece and a one-of-a-kind experience: a wise, poignant, wryly funny, tenderly open-hearted comedy-drama that shrewdly portrays a microcosm of French society on the brink of WWII. - William Arnold

Directed and co-written by four-time Academy Award® nominee Ethan Hawke, WILDCAT invites the audience to weave in and out of celebrated Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor's mind as she ponders the great questions of her writing: Can scandalous art still serve God? Does suffering precede all greatness? Can illness be a blessing? In 1950, Flannery (Maya Hawke) visits her mother Regina (Laura Linney) in Georgia when she is diagnosed with lupus at twenty-four years old. Struggling with the same disease that took her father’s life when she was a child and desperate to make her mark as a great writer, this crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief. As she dives deeper into her craft, the lines between reality, imagination, and faith begin to blur, allowing Flannery to ultimately come to peace with her situation and heal a strained relationship with her mother.

In this acclaimed adaptation of the first novel by legendary Southern writer Flannery O’Connor, John Huston vividly brings to life her poetic world of American eccentricity. Brad Dourif, in an impassioned performance, is Hazel Motes, who, fresh out of the army, attempts to open the first Church Without Christ in the small town of Taulkinham. Populated with inspired performances that seem to spring right from O’Connor’s pages, Huston’s Wise Blood is an incisive portrait of spirituality and Evangelicalism, and a faithful, loving evocation of a writer’s vision.