Cobra Woman

(Robert Siodmak, US 1944, 70 min., 35mm)

Museum Treasures. Though she really attained A-level status only in her own mind, Dominican beauty Maria Montez was once known as the Queen of Technicolor. Her high-camp persona was so “exotic” in the parlance of Hollywood ballyhoo it could only be captured by that most glorious of color systems. We present her most beloved film—a South Seas adventure in which Montez plays a kidnapped bride and her evil sister, the high priestess of a deadly snake cult!—as it must be seen: in a rare 35mm Technicolor dye-transfer print.

Preceded by Athyrium filix-femina (Kelly Egan, Canada 2016, 5 min., 35mm), a brand new eye-popping and quite literally hand-quilted experimental work by Selznick School alum Kelly Egan, here to remind us why Cobra Woman was the avant-garde maestro Kenneth Anger’s favorite. Filmmaker in person to introduce her short.