We stand with Ukraine.
Wild Inside
Documentary by Penny Lane
Discussion to Follow
Playing Sunday, Sept. 27 at 4 pm
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
In February 2023, Flaco, a Eurasian eagle-owl, escaped from the Central Park Zoo and embarked on an extraordinary year-long adventure through Manhattan. Having spent his entire life in captivity, he had to learn to fly, hunt and survive on his own—and, remarkably, he did.
Soon Flaco became a beloved New York icon, captivating birders, tourists, photographers and ordinary New Yorkers who followed his adventures from Central Park to rooftops and fire escapes across the city.
Directed by Penny Lane, WILD INSIDE tells Flaco's remarkable story through breathtaking footage, interviews with the people who followed him, and a fascinating exploration of what his journey means for our ideas about freedom, captivity and our relationship with the wild.
Funny, moving and ultimately bittersweet, WILD INSIDE is both the story of one extraordinary owl and a portrait of a city that fell in love with him.
Knife: The Attempted Murder of
Salman Rushdie
Documentary by Alex Gibneyy
Discussion to Follow
Playing Friday, Oct. 2nd at 7:30 pm
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
More than 30 years after Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious decree calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie over the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, Rushdie traveled to Chautauqua to speak about the United States as a sanctuary for exiled writers and artists. The event marked the 20th anniversary of a writer-refuge program - a setting meant to celebrate safety and creative freedom. It was there that a young man rushed the stage, intent on killing him with a knife. Using excerpts from Rushdie’s works, including his powerful memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Alex Gibney’s documentary is both a striking testament to freedom of expression and a defiant response to the attempt on Rushdie’s life.
The film incorporates never-before-seen footage shot by Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, in the days and weeks following the attack. This material offers a graphic, unflinching, and deeply intimate account of what happened, including archival footage of Rushdie’s early career and rise to literary fame, the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses, and events leading up to the attempted murder. It also traces Rushdie’s physical and spiritual recovery, including the challenges he continues to face, from losing an eye to the reduced use of one hand.
Knife blends reportage with fictionalized dialogues to explore the mindset of the attacker, probing the “why” behind the violence. At its core, the film is a portrait of resilience - of Rushdie’s own extraordinary strength and the love that carried him through this ordeal - and a call to action against censorship and hatred. It argues that art itself can be a form of resistance.
In Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, Gibney crafts a poetic dreamscape that reflects how Rushdie views his writing as his own “knife,” a tool to fight back, reclaim his story, and respond to violence with imagination and art.
Late Fame
Drama by Kent Jones
Discussion to Follow
Playing Sunday, Oct. 18th at 4 pm
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
LATE FAME follows Ed Saxberger (Willem Dafoe), a once-published poet who has spent decades living a quiet, anonymous life working at a New York post office. His ordinary routine is unexpectedly disrupted when a young admirer discovers his long-forgotten poetry and introduces him to a group of ambitious young writers and artists who regard him as a lost literary genius.
Flattered by their enthusiasm and intoxicated by the possibility of recognition late in life, Ed is drawn into their insular creative world. At its center is Gloria (Greta Lee), a charismatic and enigmatic actress whose artistic ambitions and fascination with Ed awaken desires he has long kept buried.
As Ed becomes increasingly captivated by his newfound fame, he begins to question whether these young artists genuinely value his work—or whether they have created an idealized version of the artist they want him to be.
World premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival
The Marching Band
Drama byEmanuel Courcol
Discussion to Follow
Playing Sunday, Oct. 18th at 4 pm
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
A world-famous orchestra conductor and a blue-collar cafeteria worker discover they are brothers who were separated at birth. Despite their differences, they develop a bond through their mutual love of music. In French with English subtitles.
A Cannes premiere and Audience Award Winner at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In French w/ English subtitles. Official Selection: Cannes Film Festival
How To Divorce During A War
Drama byEmanuel Courcol
Discussion to Follow
Playing Sunday, Oct. 18th at 4 pm
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
Vilnius, 2022. High-flying executive Marija chooses the worst possible moment to inform her husband Vytas she wants a divorce: just one day before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Suddenly the couple must navigate the process of separation as it collides with a refugee and mid-life crisis. A struggling film director, Vytas is put into a tight spot by having to move in with his Russophile parents, while Marija struggles to find her footing as the war affects both her business and home life. As the reason for the divorce gradually becomes clear, the dissolution of Marija and Vytas’ marriage creates conflicts and opportunities for both of them, while also affecting their ever-observant young daughter Dovile. Packed with surprises along with much heartache and soul searching, Andrius Blaževičius’ nuanced and timely family drama skillfully depicts the fallout of a marriage against the backdrop of extraordinary events with humor and compassion. In Lithuanian, English, Ukrainian & Russian with English subtitles.
Past Screenings at the Film Society of Summit
BONNARD, PIERRE AND MARTHA
DRAMA by Martin provost
Discussion to Follow
COMING SOON
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
The beautiful and transporting new historical drama from multi award-winning director Martin Provost ('Séraphine', 'The Midwife') about the turbulent love story between the famous post-Impressionist painter and his lesser-known - but highly influential - wife. 1893. When aspiring French painter Pierre Bonnard (Macaigne) - a protégé of Claude Monet - meets Marthe de Méligny (de France), he has no idea that this self-proclaimed aristocrat will become the cornerstone of his life and work. From this moment, though she appears in over a third of his work, she's more than just a muse; together over five decades, the couple will explore creative fulfillment, love and jealousies that challenge the standards of the time, as the film interrogates the great mystery around their relationship. A brilliant story of creation and love, of fame and secrets, and the life of the remarkable artist nicknamed “the painter of happiness”. Provost’s vision for this material is clear and concise; what may appear as a traditional account of its subjects soon moves beyond conventions and evolves into something much more resonant and profound.
SING SING DRAMA
directed by Greg Kwedar
Discussion to Follow
Playing in January
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
Divine G (Colman Domingo), imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group with other incarcerated men. When a wary outsider joins the group, the men decide to stage their first original comedy, in this stirring true story of resilience, humanity, and the transformative power of art, starring an unforgettable ensemble cast of formerly incarcerated actors. 13 actors — a majority of the cast — are former convicts who had themselves participated in the rehabilitative theater program. Most of the actors thought they would never again return to a correctional facility, let alone wear the green prison-issue uniforms. The film was shot in the summer of 2022 at the now-decommissioned Downstate Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley. And in a dismaying twist, most of the actors had themselves been detained or processed through Downstate, the very facility that had become their movie set, a haunting reminder of their past selves and an opportunity — a calling, some said — to send a message.
SING SING DRAMA
directed by Greg Kwedar
Discussion to Follow
Playing in January
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
Divine G (Colman Domingo), imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group with other incarcerated men. When a wary outsider joins the group, the men decide to stage their first original comedy, in this stirring true story of resilience, humanity, and the transformative power of art, starring an unforgettable ensemble cast of formerly incarcerated actors. 13 actors — a majority of the cast — are former convicts who had themselves participated in the rehabilitative theater program. Most of the actors thought they would never again return to a correctional facility, let alone wear the green prison-issue uniforms. The film was shot in the summer of 2022 at the now-decommissioned Downstate Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley. And in a dismaying twist, most of the actors had themselves been detained or processed through Downstate, the very facility that had become their movie set, a haunting reminder of their past selves and an opportunity — a calling, some said — to send a message.