Andrew's Video Vault at The Rotunda
FREE Screenings Continuous From 8 PM
on the Second THURSDAY of Every Month!
Since 2004, Andrew’s Video Vault is a free, once-a-month screening series at the Rotunda in West Philadelphia. Andrew’s Video Vault programs original, obscure, neglected, marginalized and commercially unavailable video media. It connects the West Philly neighborhood to the University of Pennsylvania community and fosters a multicultural examination of motion pictures in a relaxed, educational setting.
This program is made possible through the generous support of the Cinema Studies Program and The Rotunda at the University of Pennsylvania.
This project is supported in part by the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Support also provided by PECO. This program is administered regionally by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.
APRIL 14
BLACK VENUS [Venus Noire] (2010 / 159 minutes)
From the director of Blue is the Warmest Color, Abdellatif Kechiche’s drama Black Venus is about Sarah Baartman, a.k.a. The Hottentot Venus. Baartman was exhibited as a freak show attraction in 19th century Europe and lived a life that was unbefitting for even the vilest of human creatures.
Guest Host and Curator: Mike Dennis of Reelblack Cinema
MAY 12
Hal Ashby double feature!
LOOKIN’ TO GET OUT (1982 / 120 minutes)
Ashby’s recently unearthed director’s cut strongly bolsters his comic drama about two down-on-their-luck New Yorkers who retreat to Vegas in a scheme pay to off their debts. Starring Jon Voight and Burt Young, with Ann-Margret as the old girlfriend and Bert Remsen as a card-counting ace.
SECOND HAND HEARTS (1981 / 102 minutes)
Ashby’s barely-released comedy features Robert Blake (In Cold Blood, Lost Highway) and Barbara Harris (Freaky Friday) as newly-weds on a road trip to collect her children from disapproving in-laws. With Shirley Stoler and music from Texas cult star, Willis Alan Ramsey.
Guest Host and Curator: Dan Buskirk of Phawker.com & the Fun 2 Know podcast
JUNE 9
SLADE IN FLAME (1975 / 91 minutes)
British glam giants Slade star in this rise and fall story of a late 1960s rock band crushed by the wheels of commerce. In 2007, BBC film critic Mark Kermode called this movie, the “Citizen Kane of rock musicals.”
OIL CITY CONFIDENTIAL (2009 / 104 minutes)
Director Julian Temple (of the Sex Pistols documentary, The Filth & the Fury) creates a flashy and enormously entertaining documentary about the brief reign of the British bar band, Dr. Feelgood. Born in the dead-end seaside resort island/oil port of Canvay, this gang of eccentrics rise from their seedy roots to conquer London in a true tale peppered with haunted landscapes and clips of rare black and white British gangster films.
Guest Host and Curator: Dan Buskirk of Phawker.com & the Fun 2 Know podcast
JULY 14
WHITE COMANCHE (1968 / 93 minutes)
Director Jose Briz Mendez’s Spanish production features William Shatner in a dual role: the cowboy Johnny Moon and his unhinged twin brother, Notah. Notah’s peyote-fueled vision that he is the Comanche Messiah puts him on a collision course with his estranged brother.
CLEARCUT (1991 / 100 minutes)
Polish director Ryszard Bugajski directs this unusual Canadian-shot environmentalist revenge fantasy. Dances with Wolves’ Graham Greene plays a Native American spirit who drags a kidnapped logging mill manager into the forest to help him physically understand how a forest feels when it is clearcut.
Guest Host and Curator: Dan Buskirk of Phawker.com & the Fun 2 Know podcast
AUGUST 11
SWEET REVENGE (1976 / 90 minutes)
An early vehicle for the great Stockard Channing, casting her as a car thief and master of disguise whose dream is to buy a Dino Ferrari. With Sam Waterston as the smitten public defender and comic scene stealer Franklyn Ajaye as Channing’s accomplice. Directed by Jerry Schatzberg (Panic in Needle Park) and shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (McCabe & Mrs. Miller).
A GORGEOUS GIRL LIKE ME [Une Belle Fille Comme Moi] (1972 / 98 minutes)
François Truffaut’s little-seen comedic homage to Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock. Bernadette Lafont plays a young jailed woman accused of killing her father and lover. She recounts her life in flashback to sociologist (André Dussollier) who weakens to her charms.
Guest Host and Curator: Dan Buskirk of Phawker.com &the Fun 2 Know podcast
SEPTEMBER 8
Experience two of the most extreme cult films about WWII with this double feature.
COME AND SEE (1985/140 minutes) A young Russian boy is caught up in the fighting when his village is massacred by Germans. Directed by Elem Klimov.
IN A GLASS CAGE (1987/110 minutes). Agusti Villaronga’s revenge drama follows a boy’s revenge on the pedophiliac Nazi scientist who preyed upon him during the war.
Guest Host and Curator: Samm Deighan of film blog Satanic Pandemonium
OCTOBER 13
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer True Crime Double Feature
DAHMER (2002/101 minutes)
Jeremy Renner gives an unforgettable performance (the highlight of his career, thus far) in David Jacobson’s engrossing, stylish, and solidly executed story of one of America’s most infamous serial killers.
JEFF – THE JEFFREY DAHMER FILES (2012/76 minutes)
Chris James Thompson’s fascinating experimental documentary combines extensive interviews with one of Dahmer’s neighbors, the chief medical examiner on the case, and the case’s lead detective with re-enactments of some of the more mundane aspects of Dahmer’s life and crimes.
Guest Host and Curator: Mike Zaleski
NOVEMBER 10
Don Siegel Double Feature
CHARLEY VARRICK (1973/111 minutes)
Gripping crime film starring Walter Matthau, in one of his best performances, as a bank robber whose life goes through a series of twists and turns when it turns out his last payload was mafia money. Also stars Felicia Farr, Joe Don Baker and John Vernon.
THE BEGUILED (1971 /105 minutes)
Bizarre Southern Gothic drama stars Clint Eastwood as an injured Yankee soldier taken in by an all-girls boarding school in Louisiana where things quickly get hot, heavy, humid, and twisted. Also stars Geraldine Page.
Guest Host and Curator: Mike Zaleski
DECEMBER 8
TOO MUCH JOHNSON (1938/67 minutes)
Newly discovered Orson Welles footage—silent, unedited camera rolls from 1938. Originally filmed to accompany the Mercury Theatre’s production of William Gillette’s 1894 comedy Too Much Johnson, but never used. Footage features frequent Welles collaborator, Joseph Cotten.
FÅRÖ DOCUMENT 1979 (1979/100 minutes)
Documentary by Ingmar Bergman about his adopted home, the island of Fårö, where he filmed many of his best works and lived until the end of his life.
GLITTERBUG (1994/60 minutes)
Montage of Super 8 footage shot by filmmaker Derek Jarman from 1970 to 1986 — part home-movie, part formal experimentation and part social documentary. Music by Brian Eno.
Admission to all Andrew's Video Vault screenings is FREE