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Taste of Cherry follows Mr. Badii, a middle‑aged man in Tehran who has decided to end his life and is searching for someone willing to bury him afterward. As he drives through the city, he meets people from different walks of life, each encounter revealing something new about life. Abbas Kiarostami’s film is patient and deeply human.
For our last day of Bleak Week, our programming team have put together a collection of bleak shorts. Ranging from animation, art house and even educational films that express in small doses the breadth of despair, intense experiences, and raw emotions.
A woman travels around town trying to raise money for medicine as her sickly daughter, while a deserting soldier accompanies a musician to play the forced marriage of a sullen bride. A spellbinding duology, THE STONE WEDDING is a bleak, but beautiful masterpiece of Romanian cinema! Projected on 16MM FILM!
“Jack Magnus, once a successful businessman, is now so badly addicted to drugs, he can barely function. Drugs have forced him into a paranoid psychosis so deep he believes his dead buddy Mike is his only friend. Jack also believes that the D.E.A. and other supernatural authorities are out to kill him. The only way to save himself is to get them before they get him... in an all-out, blood-splattering killing spree.”
From daytime talk show audiences and local news to self-produced public access spots, lesbians were represented on-screen throughout the late 80s and early 90s. The Finding Aid’s “Lesbians on TV, TV on Lesbians” presents a variety of representation both by and of lesbians of that era. June 17th, 2026, 7pm at Stray Cat Film Center. Free!
Few Hollywood films seethe with such queer intensity as “Gilda.” Beneath its surface glamour lies a noir of displaced desire, obsession, and rivalry, where eroticism flows less through romance than through looks, power struggles, and unspoken bonds between men. Rita Hayworth’s Gilda is not simply an object of desire, but a figure of camp excess whose iconic musical numbers turn heterosexual spectacle into provocation and masquerade. Set in a shadowy Buenos Aires of secrets and surveillance, Gilda encodes longing in what cannot be said, making it not just a noir classic, but a foundational text of queer cinema.
KC Zine Collective and Andrew's Video Void are teaming up for ZINESOMMAR! Join us at Stray Cat Film Center on Saturday, June 20th for a double-feature presentation of A VERY PAGAN SOLSTICE (a new age mixtape loaded with robes, candles, ceremonial daggers, satanic Santas, martial arts experts, and peak pagan cringe) and 1973's folk horror classic THE WICKER MAN.
To relocate her family - including an ailing son - and save them from a farmer's plow, a widowed field mouse seeks the aid of a crow, and a myserious colony of rats, with whom she has a deeper link than she ever expected. Don Bluth's miraculous debut film is both a visually stunning gem of tradional American animation, and a delightfully grim blend of fantasy and science fiction.
It's Kaijune, and to celebrate, the Horror Pod Class is continuing our Year of Monsters by exploring the biggest monsters around: kaiju! What movie are we showing? That's a surprise, but we'll give you a few hints: It has an environmental message; it's almost literally the director's only film (though not for lack of trying); and both skeletons and go-go dancing are involved.
What is it? The only way to know for sure is to come join us for a FREE screening at the Stray Cat Film Center on February 26, then stick around after the show as Orrin and Tyler host a live podcast discussing all things lycanthropic, complete with hair-raising giveaways!
Join us for a FREE screening of this seldom-seen film, and then stick around afterward as Orrin and Tyler discuss the history of J-horror, what makes a found footage movie work, and ectoplasmic worms!
THE HORROR POD CLASS is a monthly free screening hosted by Orrin Grey and Tyler Unsell where they seek out horror films that could be useful in a school setting. Screenings start at 7pm with a live podcast recording taking place after.
Set in 1980s post-punk London, REBEL DYKES reveals the explosion that happened when punk met feminism. A heady mash-up of animation, archive footage and interviews tells the story of a radical scene: squatters, BDSM nightclubs, anti-Thatcher rallies, protests demanding action around AIDS and the fierce ties of chosen families.
One of the most luminously beautiful and richly detailed stop-motion features in recent memory. Adapted from the writings of famed Gothic fantasy author E.T.A. Hoffman, the film weaves together the plots of three of his stories with the real-life drudgery of the writer's own life as a government clerk. Filled with operatic dreams, clockwork automatons, fire salamanders, witchcraft, love, magic, and the legendary city of Atlantis; Hoffmaniada is the first feature film in decades from legendary Russian animation studio Soyuzmultfilm.
Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Amélie Nothomb and brought to life in the completely original animated style of directors Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, LITTLE AMÉLIE OR THE CHARACTER OF RAIN tells a tender, poignant and visually stunning story about the healing power of human connection.
Dylan, a 21-year-old construction worker in rural New Mexico, has his life changed when he is hired for temporary work at the “House of Splendor” ranch, a community of queer rodeo performers who take Dylan under their wing and show them a new version of the American dream. A dreamy coming-of-age movie about self-acceptance, chosen families, and queer love!
A painter chasing his big break. His younger sister, still on fire with ideals. One New York summer to expose the gap between them.
After counseling a pregnant parishioner and her depressed, environmental activist husband, a pastor of a small congregation in upstate New York starts to spiral out of his control as he undergoes a spiritual and psychological crisis.
When Ludvík, a Communist party official, and his wife Anna return home from a party one evening, they discover that their house has been broken into and bugged—and that the state may be listening in on their every word. A number of Ludvík’s colleagues have already been terminated in an ongoing purge: could he be next? Unfolding like THE CONVERSATION by way of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, THE EAR evokes the ever-present sense of dread that defines life under authoritarianism.
Two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, struggle to survive in the countryside after escaping from an animal research laboratory. They are pursued by search parties and then the military after rumors spread that they could be carrying the bubonic plague.
Newlyweds Dr. Shane and June Brown (Vincent Gallo and Tricia Vessey) travel to Paris for their honeymoon. Once there, Shane begins a search for his former medical colleague, who may have a cure for the virus that has transformed Leo’s wife (Béatrice Dalle) into a murderous sexual carnivore, and may soon do the same to Shane.
A lonely bureaucrat discovers he has terminal cancer, and finds himself desperately searching for meaning before his time is up. One of Kurosawa’s finest masterpieces, IKIRU is towering achievement in the world of spiritual cinema. Stray Cat is proud to project this film from a rare 16MM FILM PRINT!
Criminally underseen Punishment Park follows a documentary film crew embedded with soldiers pursuing dissidents across the California desert.
A documentary delving into the history of mischief, scandal, and theft at Walt Disney World, ultimately leading to the theft of an animatronic valued at nearly half a million dollars. What begins as a tale of friendship and passion ends with one lingering question: Who stole Buzzy? Combining elements of subculture, exploration, and true crime, STOLEN KINGDOM unfolds a one of kind story about abandoned spaces.
A documentary delving into the history of mischief, scandal, and theft at Walt Disney World, ultimately leading to the theft of an animatronic valued at nearly half a million dollars. What begins as a tale of friendship and passion ends with one lingering question: Who stole Buzzy? Combining elements of subculture, exploration, and true crime, STOLEN KINGDOM unfolds a one of kind story about abandoned spaces.
After a loooong hiatus, ANDREW’S VIDEO VOID returns with a real treat, THE GREEN FOG. Notorious Winnipeg Weirdo Guy Maddin (MY WINNIPEG) along with found footage artists Glen & Evan Johnson construct a found footage remake of VERTIGO: using footage of every San Francisco movie EXCEPT Alfred’s Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece. No snippet of footage is left unturned: TV shows, erotic thrillers, Chuck Norris, double Michael Douglas, and of course N*SYNC to create a funny, critical, truly one of kind cinema experience.
Plus much, much more from the Void and a preshow featuring a hot-off the press digitization!
Is the Horror Pod Class all wet? We are this month, as we continue our Year of Monsters by setting sail in search of the beasts of the sea. What movie are we showing? That's a surprise, but we'll give you a few hints: The director has also dabbled in Universal monsters; it's got a surprisingly stacked cast; and the special effects are by none other than Rob Bottin.
What is it? The only way to know for sure is to come join us for a FREE screening at the Stray Cat Film Center on February 26, then stick around after the show as Orrin and Tyler host a live podcast discussing all things lycanthropic, complete with hair-raising giveaways!
Join us for a FREE screening of this seldom-seen film, and then stick around afterward as Orrin and Tyler discuss the history of J-horror, what makes a found footage movie work, and ectoplasmic worms!
THE HORROR POD CLASS is a monthly free screening hosted by Orrin Grey and Tyler Unsell where they seek out horror films that could be useful in a school setting. Screenings start at 7pm with a live podcast recording taking place after.
Vojtěch Jasný's sumptuous, surreal satire is one of the most lavish and uninhibited films of the entire Czechoslovak New Wave.
A travelling circus and its magical feline mascot arrive in a provincial Czech town, and expose the virtues, vices and desires of its unruly inhabitants.
Part modern fairy tale, part colourful political metaphor, The Cassandra Cat (also known as When the Cat Comes) is a unique, glorious comic drama. Banned after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the film was regarded as an unacceptable and subversive critique of Communist society.
Cuba After Castro delivers the definitive portrait of Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba’s first leader born after the Revolution. Through this unprecedented in-depth interview we see a vision of revolutionary Cuba suppressed in the west: a nation of collective values and defiance in the face of constant threats from the United States. The film chronicles Diaz-Canel’s formation as an unexpected successor to the Castros — an unassuming organizer molded by the revolutionary process. Confronting a perfect storm of intensified U.S. sanctions, a media war, a devastating pandemic, and historic domestic protests. Díaz-Canel reflects on navigating these existential crises for the nation he has come to lead.
Presented by the KCMO Branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Free!
Tagged Digital Projection, 2026, 2020s, Doc, Documentary
Samuel Fuller’s “The Crimson Kimono” is a bold entry into the film noir genre that collides the police procedural with social taboos. Set in postwar Los Angeles, the film follows two detectives - one white, one Japanese-American - whose partnership is tested by a murder investigation and a shared romantic interest. Progressive, provocative, and emotionally raw, Fuller’s film confronts race, masculinity, and desire with an honesty that was startling for its time, and still relevant today.
Irrepressible teenage witch Saxana (Petra Černocká)—facing three hundred years of detention at her sorcery academy—casts a spell that transports her to the human world where she joins up with a band of delinquents and uses her magic to spread mischief at their school—including turning the teachers to rabbits! One of a string of beloved fairy-tale comedies directed by Václav Vorlíček (WHO WANTS TO KILL JESSIE?), THE GIRL ON THE BROOMSTICK bursts with whimsical special effects and a sense of pure play.
King Henry and King Good decided long ago that their only children should marry and so prevent war between their kingdoms. However, the royal children want to decide their fate themselves. Channeling the pop art fantasy musical of DONKEY SKIN two years before Jacques Demy and starring two of the biggest Czech pop stars of the time, Bořivoj Zeman (and famed composer Jan Hammer) subvert classic fairytale and created an unexpected touchstone of Czech LGBTQ+ culture.
In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.
Karel Zeman conjures the adventures of the legendary, boastful baron, whose whirlwind exploits take him from the moon to eighteenth-century Turkey to the belly of a whale and beyond. A kaleidoscopic marvel that blends live action with techniques including stop-motion, cutout collage, puppetry, painted backdrops, and antique tinting, Zeman’s film is an exhilarating visual delight and a warmhearted whirl through a bygone age too entrancing to have existed.
Calling all Analog Addicts! This month, we ask you to join us in gathering 'round the VCR for a very special night of trashtastic fun as we celebrate 10 Years of Analog Sunday! And to commemorate the decade of magnetic debauchery, we're diggin' back into the early years and presenting a true Analog Sunday staple. And that's all you get to know until we hit play! But, trust us, it's gonna be a... blast.
A filmmaker revisits his abandoned Zodiac doc, turning true crime inside out in this daring, award-winning meta documentary.
After an incident huffing her drug of choice—a mysterious aerosol can from the ubiquitous Glamhag brand—she finds herself with a newfound gift for speaking to the dead. Confused and more than a little curious about this strange turn of events, Trinity seeks the counsel of a colorful cast of characters, from priests and drag queens to a witch and more, all of whom teach her their unique spiritual practices.
All wrapped up? Come unwind with the hosts of the Horror Pod Class as we continue our Year of Monsters by unwrapping the mysteries of the mummy. What movie are we showing? That's a surprise, but we'll give you a few hints: It's adapted from a story by Joe Lansdale; it takes place in a retirement home; and it features some familiar faces.
What is it? The only way to know for sure is to come join us for a FREE screening at the Stray Cat Film Center on February 26, then stick around after the show as Orrin and Tyler host a live podcast discussing all things lycanthropic, complete with hair-raising giveaways!
Join us for a FREE screening of this seldom-seen film, and then stick around afterward as Orrin and Tyler discuss the history of J-horror, what makes a found footage movie work, and ectoplasmic worms!
THE HORROR POD CLASS is a monthly free screening hosted by Orrin Grey and Tyler Unsell where they seek out horror films that could be useful in a school setting. Screenings start at 7pm with a live podcast recording taking place after.
An enterprising producer believes he has hit upon a winning concept: a program of original animated shorts set to classical music. Undeterred by warnings that this has already been done by an American named ‘Prisney,’ he rallies an orchestra of geriatric women, a bullish conductor, and an animator that he keeps locked in the dungeon. What could go wrong? A gleeful sendup of Disney’s Fantasia, Allegro Non Tropo blends live-action slapstick with cheeky animation for a film as joyful and raunchy as it is thoughtful and cutting.
Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Amélie Nothomb and brought to life in the completely original animated style of directors Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, LITTLE AMÉLIE OR THE CHARACTER OF RAIN tells a tender, poignant and visually stunning story about the healing power of human connection.
Set along the waterways of Khuzestan, the southwestern Iranian province bordering Iraq, Meezan is an immersive journey from sea to land, tracing labor at the margins of petro-capitalism across three quietly devastating chapters.
A bodybuilder in search of his missing best friend ends up on a paranoid journey of supplements, conspiracies, and naked greed.
A glittering cross-section of Depression-era high society, “Dinner at Eight” is a grand ensemble comedy with a razor blade under its smile. With lavishly dressed and wickedly observant characters, the film tracks a single society dinner as ambition, desperation, romance, and class anxiety quietly combust. Director George Cukor balances elegance and cruelty with expert control, delivering a sophisticated comedy that feels as sharp and as relevant as ever.
When his young daughter's beloved companion — an android named Yang — malfunctions, Jake (Colin Farrell) searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife (Jodie Turner-Smith) and daughter across a distance he didn't know was there. With a talk by author Silvia Park on raising children in a world of AI, and AI as our descendants.
Silvia Park is the author of the novel Luminous (Simon & Schuster, 2025). Before Kansas, she taught creative writing at Oberlin, the University of Utah’s Asia Campus, and NYU, courses ranging from Speculative Fiction to Digital Storytelling.
Her specialty slants speculative, applying it as a lens to render the strange ordinary and the ordinary strange. Her fiction won the 2018 Fiction Prize from the Sonora Review and was chosen as a finalist for the 2019 Black Warrior Review Contest. Her stories have been published in Black Warrior Review, Tor.com, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, and elsewhere.
The Science on Screen® grant initiative brings science to cinemas nationwide.
The Coolidge Corner Theatre's series has enhanced film and scientific literacy with this popular program, which launched at the Coolidge in 2005 in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and its pioneering nationwide film program.
Since 2011, Sloan has awarded the Coolidge over $4 million to develop and administer Science on Screen programs around the US through partnerships with other nonprofits. The Coolidge has in turn awarded over $2.75 million in grants to 131 film and science-focused organizations in 45 states (plus Washington, DC) across the country.
A lonely Gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments, resulting in grave consequences and unlikely love.
Earth’s Greatest Enemy reveals a hidden truth rarely questioned in mainstream reporting: the role of the U.S. military as the world’s largest institutional polluter, tracing the link between war, empire, and ecological destruction. Drawing on powerful testimonies from veterans, scientists, and frontline communities, it uncovers how military operations poison ecosystems, accelerate global warming, and sacrifice the future for endless expansion. From Alaska’s melting glaciers to contaminated bases across the U.S. and toxic battlefields abroad, Earth’s Greatest Enemy delivers a provocative and unflinching examination of the untouchable institution playing an outsized role in the climate crisis.
A lonely Gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments, resulting in grave consequences and unlikely love.
Escape to other worlds with April’s Soviet Animation program presented by Animation Club! Join us for three dreamy shorts by Czech (Miloš Macourek, Adolf Born, Jaroslav Doubrava), Lithuanian (Zenonas Shteynis), and Russian (Yuri Norstein) animators on April 7th, 2026 at 7pm. Hosted by Drea (@dicarlotomboy).
