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In 1975 Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose cult films El Topo and The Holy Mountain launched and ultimately defined the midnight movie phenomenon, began work on his most ambitious project yet. Obtaining rights to Frank Herbert’s global science fiction phenomenon Dune, he set about assembling his dream cast and crew. Starring his own 12-year-old son Brontis alongside a cast that would include Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, David Carradine and Salvador Dali, featuring music by Pink Floyd and art by some of the most visionary talents of the era, including H.R. Giger (who went on to create the monster in Alien) and Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud, Jodorowsky’s Dune was poised to change cinema forever. For two years, Jodo and his team of “spiritual warriors” worked night and day on the massive task of creating the fabulous world of Dune: over 3,000 storyboards, numerous paintings, incredible costumes, and an outrageous, moving and powerful script. In the words of Jodorowsky’s producer, Michel Seydoux, “It should have been enough. But it wasn’t.” Jodorowsky is both passionate and very funny as he tells the epic story of the hallucinatory masterpiece that was not to be. Directed by Frank Pavich. (Partially subtitled)

Pierre Dulaine, four-time ballroom dancing world champion and dedicated teacher, returns to the city of his birth, Jaffa, after decades abroad. He wants to give something back to his homeland and has an impossible dream: to teach Jewish and Palestinian Israeli children to dance together. Enlisting the support of teachers and parents, Pierre persuades 150 reluctant eleven-year-olds from several schools to give his program a try. At first the dance “partners” don’t want to touch-or even look at-each other, but Pierre persists, determined to impart the hidden ballroom skills of decorum, etiquette and, ultimately, respect and trust. Soon the children are two-stepping and tangoing, looking forward to the climactic team dance contest. What occurs is magical and transformative, making Pierre’s dream seem almost possible. With Yvonne Marceau; directed by Hilla Medalia. (Partially subtitled)

This movie is screening at Avalon Theatre as part of Filmfest DC. Please purchase your ticket in advance at http://www.missiontix.com/events/product/26208

A French heist film of uncommon intelligence and distinction, 11.6 is a measured retelling of what’s known of a true story in which an armored car driver, Toni Musulin (The Intouchables’ Francois Cluzet, here resembling a Gallic Dustin Hoffman), made off with $17 million dollars (11.6 million euros) in late 2009 without firing a shot. Many of the intriguing details of this odd caper are public knowledge, so producer-turned-director Philippe Godeau has chosen to make a low-key character thriller more about the journey than the destination. Cluzet’s Musulin is a man of many contradictions and mysterious motives: Did he really decide to stage the robbery not for the money but out of revenge for the company’s treatment of him? Why the red Ferrari and the bank loans? Almost existential in its elusiveness, 11.6 pioneers a new kind of film noir: the Whydunnit.

In French with English subtitles

After the cataclysmic events in New York with his fellow Avengers, Steve Rogers, aka Capt. America (Chris Evans), lives in the nation’s capital as he tries to adjust to modern times. An attack on a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague throws Rogers into a web of intrigue that places the whole world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a new ally, the Falcon, Rogers struggles to expose an ever-widening conspiracy, but he and his team soon come up against an unexpected enemy.

Academy Award winner Jim Broadbent (Iris) and Lindsay Duncan (Mansfield Park) give exquisite performances as Nick and Meg, a long-married British couple revisiting Paris for the first time since their honeymoon in an attempt to rekindle their relationship. During a two-day escapade, diffident, wistful Nick and demanding, take-charge Meg careen from harmony to disharmony to resignation and back again as they take stock of half a lifetime of deep tendernessand even deeper regret. A surprise invitation from Nick’s old friend Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), an amusingly boorish American academic with a fancy Parisian address, soon leads them to an unexpectedly hopeful vision of what their love and marriage might still become. This magically buoyant, bittersweet comedy-drama is a new peak in the ongoing collaboration between Notting Hill director Roger Michell and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi (Venus, The Mother).

In the romantic drama The Lunchbox, middle-class housewife Ila (Nimrat Kaur) is trying once again to add some spice to her marriage, this time through her cooking. She desperately hopes that a new recipe will finally arouse some kind of reaction from her neglectful husband. She prepares a special lunchbox to be delivered to him at work, but, unbeknownst to her, it is mistakenly delivered to another office worker, Saajan (Irrfan Khan, Life of Pi), a lonely man on the verge of retirement. Curious about the lack of reaction from her husband, Ila puts a little note in the following day’s lunchbox, in the hopes of getting to the bottom of the mystery. This begins a series of lunchbox notes between Saajan and Ila, and the mere comfort of communicating with a stranger anonymously soon evolves into an unexpected friendship. Gradually, their notes become little confessions about their loneliness, memories, regrets, fears, and even small joys. In the big city of Mumbai that so often crushes hopes and dreams, Ila and Saajan become lost in a virtual relationship that could jeopardize both their realities. Co-written and directed by Ritesh Batra.

Writer/director Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Royal Tenenbaums) returns with The Grand Budapest Hotel, which recounts the adventures of Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The dramatic comedy involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune – all against the backdrop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent. All-star ensemble cast also includes F. Murray Abraham, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, Tilda Swinton, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan and Edward Norton.

Writer/director Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Royal Tenenbaums) returns with The Grand Budapest Hotel, which recounts the adventures of Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The dramatic comedy involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortuneall against the backdrop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent. All-star ensemble cast also includes F. Murray Abraham, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, Tilda Swinton, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan and Edward Norton.

“The LEGO (R) Movie” is the first-ever, full-length theatrical LEGO (R) adventure. The original 3D computer animated story follows Emmet (Chris Pratt) an ordinary, rules-following, perfectly average LEGO minifigure who is mistakenly identified as the most extraordinary person and the key to saving the world. He is drafted into a fellowship of strangers on an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant, a journey for which Emmet is hopelessly and hilariously underprepared.