James Card's First Programs At the same time that films were developing narrative, they were sharpening their comedic chops as well.

George Award Winners: Gloria Swanson In a career laden with personality and business clashes, Erich von Stroheim never faced any like those surrounding Queen Kelly, his final silent film, starring Gloria Swanson and financed—with an ever-ballooning budget—by Swanson’s then-lover Joseph P. Kennedy.

Sundance Sunset: Remembering Robert Redford Robert Redford did not anticipate making his directing debut with this film, but so identified with the character of Conrad and his difficulty communicating “through the fog of the social structure in which he was raised” that he added the responsibility to his producing work.

Rochester Premiere This documentary traces the story of Italy’s first female director and the long journey that brought her back into view after decades of neglect. A leading figure in the golden age of Neapolitan silent cinema, Elvira Notari created some sixty feature films that, weaving the passions of popular drama with unflinching depictions of urban life, captivated audiences from Naples to the Little Italies of America.

Silent Spring Lost in the better-remembered post-revolutionary cinema of the USSR, director Boris Barnet is perhaps the ideal representation of the populist cinema of the country at that time.

Special FREE Screenings: The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is an annual video contest in which young filmmakers create weird short movies that tell the entire stories of Newbery-winning books in just a few minutes. (Ever since 1922, the Newbery Medal has been recognized as the most prestigious award in children’s literature.)

George Award Winners These two exploitation drive-in staples from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures feature some outrageously cheap costumes and sets mixed with imaginative storylines and plenty of violence and nudity.

Giant Love: Edna FerberRock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean, in his final performance, drive this powerful saga that remains marvelously entertaining 70 years after its original release.

Dryden Roundtables 75 years. More than 15,000 screenings. Hundreds of guests. Hundreds of thousands of audience members. The Dryden Theatre has been a Rochester institution since the end of the nitrate era, an exhibition space for the best of cinema across its history.

Giant Love: Edna Ferber Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s groundbreaking theatrical production is adapted in Technicolor. Based on an Edna Ferber novel, the story follows the turbulent life of Magnolia Hawks through her ascension as a traveling stage star, her deteriorating marriage to her gambling costar husband, and her eventual reconnection with her family.

Rochester Premiere German director Christian Petzold returns with another film starring his current muse, Paula Beer, following Transit, Undine, and Afire. Beer plays Laura, a woman lost and unhappy with her current relationship.

Sundance Sunset: Remembering Robert Redford Returning to his spy roots from Three Days of the Condor and his con-man roots of The Sting, Robert Redford plays Martin Bishop, a 1960’s hacktivist who now runs a consulting firm that exposes the weaknesses in corporate security.

Sundance Sunset: Remembering Robert Redford Around 1850, ex-soldier Johnson decides that he would rather live alone as a mountain man in Colorado than deal with society’s constraints. Johnson strives to live peaceably in the rugged environment, trading with a Crow tribe, adopting an orphaned boy, and marrying the daughter of a Flathead chief.

Sundance Sunset: Remembering Robert Redford Broken-down rodeo champion Sonny Steele (Redford) is reduced to shilling cereal for his corporate bosses in a jeweled cowboy outfit braided with flashing lights. When Sonny is confronted with a mistreated horse at a Las Vegas event, however, he has reached his limit and publicly rides the horse out of the casino and down the strip.

George Award Winners: Gloria Swanson Gloria Swanson shines as Norma Desmond in this true-to-life story of a fading silent film star and the struggling Hollywood studio system. Norma lives in seclusion in her Sunset Boulevard mansion, surrounded by portraits of her younger self.

Sundance Sunset: Remembering Robert Redford Robert Redford’s third directorial effort was also the breakout film for a young Brad Pitt. Based on Norman Maclean’s semi-autobiographical novella, the film relates the early-twentieth century story of the Montana-based Maclean family: Reverend and Mrs. Maclean, Norman, and younger brother Paul.