RTF Events
RTF Events
2025-26 RTF Screenings
1/29/26
NIGHT MOVES
USA | 1975 | 99 min.
Director: Arthur Penn
Cast: Gene Hackman, Susan Clark, Jennifer Warren, Harris Yulin, Melanie Griffith
A neo-noir classic that reimagines the hardboiled private eye of the 1940s for the sunny, cynical 1970s. Gene Hackman delivers a subtle but commanding performance as Harold Moseby, a former football player who’s taken the straightforward case of tracking down a faded Hollywood starlet’s missing daughter. Unsurprisingly, things are not so simple, and he becomes embroiled in the sordid family dramas of Hollywood’s elite and pulled into a sinister conspiracy that evokes the Watergate-era’s paranoia. Though not a hit on its initial release, Roger Ebert ranked this genre-bending, character-driven noir his No. 2 film of 1975 (behind only Nashville), and its reputation has only grown over the 50 years since.
Introduced by Dr. Paul Monticone (RTF)
Series: 1975 at 50
2/5/26
THE WAVE
Germany | 2008 | 107 min.
Director: Dennis Gansel
Cast: Jurgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Max Riemelt, Jennifer Ulrich, Christiane Paul
Based on a real-life experiment that took place in a Californian high school, The Wave tells the story of a high school teacher's unusual class experiment. In an attempt to demonstrate what life is like under a dictatorship, the teacher comes up with an experiment to explain to his students how totalitarian governments work. A role-playing game with tragic results. Within a few days, what began with harmless notions like discipline and community builds into a real movement: The Wave. As the students' boundaries are pushed, things begin to spiral out of control and this newly found cult starts to take on a life of its own.
Introduced by Dr. Edward Smith (World Languages)
series: World Classrooms
2/12/26
RAN
Japan | 1985 | 162 min.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Teraro, Masato Ide, Daisuke Ryû
The final epic film of legendary director Akira Kurosawa, Ran, based on William Shakespeare’s apocalyptic tragedy King Lear and Japanese history, tells the story of an aging warlord in 16th-century Japan who divides his kingdom among his three sons, with disastrous consequences. Drawing on Shakespeare’s themes of family betrayal, generational trauma, and the wasteful horrors of war, this sprawling epic is widely viewed as one of Kurosawa’s masterpieces, and one of the greatest films of the 20th century.
Introduced by Dr. Claire Falck (English)
series: Shakespeare on Screen
2/19/26
DAGUERRÉOTYPES
France | 1975 | 80 min.
Director: Agnès Varda
“Where did you come from?” “When did you get here?” “Why did you come?”
These questions are asked to all of the subjects in Agnes Varda’s documentary about the shopkeepers who work on the very street that Varda lives: Rue Daguerre. A series of vignettes of the people that made Paris in 1975 what it was, Agnes Varda balances showing their day to day lives while also giving the audience a feeling that the lack of work/life balance takes a toll on their psyche. Richard Brody of The New Yorker called the film “affectionate anthropology” which is a great way to describe the entirety of Varda’s filmography.
Introduced by Max Kimble (RTF)
series: 1975 at 50
2/26/26
NOSFERATU
Germany | 1922 | 94 min.
Director: F.W. Murnau
This film marked the first appearance on screen of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and remains arguably the eeriest and most magical of the many versions of this famous tale. Where Eggers’s 2024 version literalizes the psychosexual dimensions of the source, Murnau keeps these submerged, where they mix with images evocative of WWI’s and the influenza epidemic’s mass death. Murnau’s use of real locations instead of stylized studio sets to create atmosphere, his deployment of special effects such as negative exposure and fast-speed motion to suggest a ghostly ride, and his casting the gaunt, spectral figure of Max Schreck as the Count make this a notable development of the Expressionist style.
Introduced by Dr. Paul Monticone (RTF)
series: Big Screen Film History
3/05/26
ENTRE LES MURS
France | 2008 | 128 min.
Director: Laurent Cantent
Entre les murs (the Class) offers an unflinching, intimate look inside a contemporary French classroom, where teaching is a daily negotiation between authority, identity, and belonging. Based on the non-fiction novel by the same name, the film draws on real experiences and is performed largely by nonprofessional actors, including the book’s author himself. Entre les murs paints a deeply human portrait of education as a social battleground, and of young people struggling to define themselves within it. Winner of the Palme D’Or (Cannes Film Festival), and France’s official entry to the Academy Awards.
Conversation led by Prof. Jon Mason (RTF)
series: World Classrooms
3/12/26
LA PASSION DE JEANNE D’ARC
France | 2008 | 128 min.
Director: Carl Th. Dreyer
In 1431, the charismatic, mystic warrior Joan is led before her English and French inquisitors for the last day of her trial for heresy. Danish director Dreyer condensed months of interrogation into a single day, with all dialogue taken from the original transcripts, built a gigantic re-creation of the city of Rouen, then showed it only obliquely as he concentrated on close-ups of fevered intensity—most notably of Falconetti’s Joan. A star of light stage comedies in Paris, Falconetti had never acted in films before and would never appear on screen again, but her performance here is ranked among the greatest in cinema history. This new restoration features composer Richard Einhorn’s acclaimed Voices of Light, a choral and orchestral work inspired by the film. .
Introduced by Dr. Paul Monticone (RTF)
series: Big Screen Film History
3/26/26
TEFF AWARD WINNERS PROGRAM
Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) celebrates the 1st Annual TEFF Student Filmmaker Awards with a screening program of the top TEFF award-winning shorts created by undergraduate students from across the country. As an Academy Award® Qualifying Festival for animation and experimental shorts, TEFF is more than just a traditional destination event. It is a traveling showcase that connects diverse audiences to the compelling works of independent filmmakers worldwide. By focusing on underrepresented voices, TEFF provides a platform for artists who may lack access to live public exhibitions and celebrates a wide spectrum of genres, including narrative, experimental, animation, documentary, screen dance, and hybrids. This program is presented by the New Jersey Education Association & RTF, in partnership with the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. To learn more about the Thomas A. Edison Media Arts Consortium, visit TEFilmFest.org.
4/02/26
FORBIDDEN PLANET
USA | 1956 | 98 min.
Director: Fred M. Wilcox
Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen
Forbidden Planet, a wildly creative adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, reimagines Shakespeare’s tragicomedy in outer space, replacing Renaissance magic with 1950s alien technology. Exploring, like The Tempest, issues of conquest, control, the dangerous pursuit of knowledge, and what it means to be human, Forbidden Planet is one of the most innovative early examples of the science fiction action film, and became a major influence on the classic science fiction franchises of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Introduced by Dr. Claire Falck (English)
series: Shakespeare on Screen
4/09/26
DEAF PRESIDENT NOW!
USA | 2025 | 101 min.
Director: Nyle DiMarco, Davis Guggenheim
A 2025 American documentary film following the 1988 Deaf student protest at Gallaudet University, when a hearing candidate was elected over other deaf candidates. Students protested until the school appointed its first Deaf president, Dr. I. King Jordan, marking a pivotal moment for Deaf rights and representation in the United States and worldwide.
Introduced by Melissa Screven (World Languages)
series: World Classrooms
4/16/26
GREY GARDENS
USA | 1975 | 95 min.
Director: David & Albert Maysles
"Big Edie" and "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale, a reclusive mother and daughter, having long ago retreated from high society, share their daily lives in the crumbling Hamptons mansion known as "Grey Gardens." Living under the threat of eviction for building and sanitation code violations, the two women reveal their hopes, dreams, and eccentricities in this intimate, observational portrait. Deeply empathetic, highly exploitative, or perhaps both, Grey Gardens has d elighted audiences for fifty years with such wonders as Little Edie's iconic fashion sense, Big Edie's quivering soprano, and a whole lot of raccoons living in the attic.
Introduced by Nina Isaacson (RTF)
series: 1975 at 50
4/23/26
PARIS IS BURNING
USA | 1990 | 78 min.
Director: Jennie Livingston
Cast: Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Venus Extravaganza, Octavia St. Laurent, Willi Ninja, Angie Extravaganza, Freddie Pendavis, Junior Labeija
Paris Is Burning is a 1990 American documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay and transgender communities involved in it.
Introduced by Ted Partin (RTF)