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Explore Madison’s art-house screenings and the adventurous corners of local cinema.

An angled photo at an art gallery shows a large crowd of seated people, who are all looking forward and listening to a male speaker with a microphone at the front corner of the room (who is centered in this photo). To the speaker's right is a projection screen that displays a promotional collage of stills from short films in the forthcoming program.

Local open-mic cinema

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Microtones
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October 31, 2025

Project Projection at Arts + Literature Laboratory is assembling all facets of Madison's DIY and more professional film culture alike.

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Latest in Film
A simple photo collage contains two images. On the wider left, a daytime photo of modest wooden cottage that was constructed around the middle of the 20th century. It's situated in a wooded area, painted brown with white trim around the window frames and front door. To the right, a slender vertical close-up photo of a nearby historical marker contains a simple biography of poet Lorine Niedecker. A few lines of her poetry are also printed on the sign: "Fish fowl flood Water lily mud My life in the leaves and on water My mother and I born In swale and swamp and sworn to water."
“Welcome Poets” provides a portal into the Wisconsin places that shaped Lorine Niedecker’s identity
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Film
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October 16, 2025

A meditation on the 20th-century Wisconsin poet's artistic impact, in relation to Poet Laureate Nicholas Gulig's own six-part series that screens at Art Lit Lab on October 18.

A still from the film "Welcome To The Dollhouse" shows a bespectacled pre-teen girl sitting on her pink bedspread in a shared bedroom. She wears a kitschy pastel-purple animal T-shirt with turquoise-colored pants, and holds a handsaw up to the neck of her sister's Barbie doll on her lap. She stares forward with a blank, yet distressed look.
“Welcome To The Dollhouse” cuttingly conveys the social hell of pre-teen years
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October 15, 2025

Todd Solondz's enduring cringe comedy from 1995 screens on 35mm at UW Cinematheque on October 18.

A cropped still from the film "One Battle After Another" shows a disheveled middle-aged man standing on an open desert road. He wears a plaid-patterned bathrobe over a plain grey shirt and black pants. He holds a rifle up with his right arm and holds out a small black device in his left. The man peers into the distance with a concerned expression. A sports car that he's driven is parked in the middle of the road with the driver's side door open.
“One Battle After Another” reclaims hope in its cluttered, unpretentious, momentous rhythms
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Film
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October 9, 2025

Paul Thomas Anderson's latest epic satire is currently screening at all theaters in the Madison area.

A black-and-white still from the film "Eraserhead" shows an apprehensive man with staticky hair. He's dressed in a dark suit and stands in an opened elevator. The floor in front of him has a pair of hallway lights on the wall and a chevron floor pattern that the director David Lynch came to be known for.
“Eraserhead” exemplifies David Lynch’s signature blend of the surreal and the mundane
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Film
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October 8, 2025

The director's psychological, seminal debut feature from 1977 screens on 35mm at UW Cinematheque on October 10.

An abstract, prismatic still from Blake Barit's short film "Journey To Sunrise." It features a blurry blend of blues, golds, greens, and black to form a vague, interpretative image of insect wings in motion or sunstreaking in a dark environment.
Blake Barit values raw technique as much as conceptual ambition in his experimental films
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Film
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September 23, 2025

The locally based educator and filmmaker presents a program of his recent short-film works at Arts + Literature Laboratory as part of Mills Folly Microcinema on September 24.

A screenshot of "No Fear, No Die" shows the Black character, Jocelyn, standing before a diverse audience of cockfighting spectators surrounding him. Jocelyn holds a white rooster, Toni, over his shoulder in a dominant, flaunting pose.
It’s a thin line between men and their cocks in “No Fear, No Die”
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September 17, 2025

Claire Denis' knife-sharp portrait of masculinity from 1990 screens in a new restoration at the Chazen on September 21.

At a medium shot, two people sit in a simple conference room at two elongated desks arranged in a triangular-like formation. The two people are turned towards one another, smiling jovially. Paper notes, steel water bottles, and a phone are placed on the tables in front of or to the side of the people.
Video: Did we discover an oasis during the summer movie drought?
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September 16, 2025

A second collaborative sit-down with Josiah Wampfler at OCA Media to recap a strained but not irredeemable viewing season.

A modified still from the film "Weapons" shows several third-grade children running away from their suburban homes in the dead of night. The color-grading renders everything in a blue-ish grey, with the children running in a strange formation down a street into the distance. The children's arms are all held out to their sides to form an arrow-like shape.
Balancing acts in the multifaceted mystery of “Weapons”
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Film
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August 30, 2025

Edwanike Harbour and Jason Fuhrman swap responses to Zach Cregger's late-summer hit, an adaptable network narrative of psychological horror and black comedy.

A still image from the 1980 film "Night Of The Juggler" shows a man and a woman standing at a medium close-up in an area of the South Bronx, New York City. They stare off into the distance and look worn out in the waning daylight. The woman on the left wears a thin, pale blue tank top. The bearded man on the right wears a heavier red and gold plaid shirt that is partly unbuttoned.
The unrelenting chase of “Night Of The Juggler” captures the turbulence of late ’70s New York
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Film
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August 27, 2025

Robert Butler's gritty action-thriller screens in a new restoration at UW Cinematheque on August 29, and kicks off their fall calendar.