The Athena Cinema is celebrating our 100th anniversary in 2015. To celebrate a century of cinema, the Athena is screening 12 unique films that showcase the history and craft of movies over the last 100 years. Starting with the era of silent films, the series takes us through high points of different eras and remarkable films, starring legends such as Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Gene Hackman, Heath Ledger and more. And at the end of 2015, we will honor our roots by closing with the modern silent film, THE ARTIST, which ran at the Athena in 2012. For more information on our 100th anniversary, please visit, https://athenacinema.com/our-100th-anniversary/

Steamboat Bill Jr.

The college-boy son of a hard-bitten riverboat captain proves to be an incompetent milquetoast embarrassment to his riverdog dad — until proving his manhood when a cyclone strikes their small town. Keaton’s last silent under his own creative control is one of his funniest.

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70 MIN

Rating: Unrated

Hollywood 1927. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a silent movie superstar. The advent of the talkies will sound the death knell for his career and see him fall into oblivion. For young extra Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), it seems the sky’s the limit – major movie stardom awaits. The Artist tells the story of their interlinked destinies.

“It is pure magic from the first frame to the last.” – Mark Rabinowitz, CNN.com

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100 MIN

A family deals with the typical anxieties of a wedding day while also confronting the political turmoil of the Middle East in this drama, a collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers. Hammed (Makram J. Khoury) is a leading political figure in Majdal Shams, a Druze community that has been under Israeli occupation since the late ’60s. Years ago, Hammed arranged for his daughter Mona (Clara Khoury) to marry Tallel (Derar Sliman), who has since become a successful actor in Syria. Hammed has gathered the family together to see Mona off, but the occasion is a bittersweet one — given the combative relationship between Israel and Syria, once Mona crosses the border with her husband, it’s unlikely she will ever be able to return. THE SYRIAN BRIDE is a story about physical, mental and emotional borders, and the strength and will to cross them.

“It is written, directed and acted with real compassion and sympathy for the humanity of its characters, no matter who they are or on what side of these multiple issues they turn out to be.” – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“The movie charms while making a bold statement about the borders that governments and individuals construct to keep each other apart.” – John Monaghan, The Detroit Free Press

Film introductions by professors Katarzyna Marciniak and Michael Gillespie.

Sponsored by The College of Arts and Sciences, Making and Breaking the Law Theme, and the Wealth and Poverty Theme.

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97 MIN

FOXCATCHER is a psychological drama directed by Academy Award nominee Bennett Miller (MONEYBALL) and starring Golden Globe winner Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Academy Award nominee Mark Ruffalo, Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave and Sienna Miller. The film was written by E. Max Frye and Academy Award nominee Dan Futterman.

FOXCATCHER tells the story of Olympic Gold Medal-winning wrestler Mark Schultz (Tatum), who sees a way out from the shadow of his more celebrated wrestling brother Dave(Ruffalo) and a life of poverty when he is summoned by eccentric multi-millionaire John du Pont (Carell) to move onto his estate and train for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Desperate to gain the respect of his disapproving mother, du Pont begins “coaching” a world-class athletic team and, in the process, lures Mark into dangerous habits, breaks his confidence and drives him into a self-destructive spiral. Based on actual events, FOXCATCHER is a gripping and profoundly American story of fragile men who pinned their hopes for love and redemption on a desperate obsession for greatness that was to end in tragedy.

“Foxcatcher, one of the year’s very best films, exposes the diseased underbelly of American exceptionalism and knocks the ground out from under you.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“A superbly modulated study of a twisted mind with a career-changing performance by Steve Carell.” – Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

Closed captioning devices are available for this film. If needed, please ask about it at the concessions counter.

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134 MIN

With the dissolution of her marriage and the death of her mother, Cheryl Strayed has lost all hope. After years of reckless, destructive behavior, she makes a rash decision. With absolutely no experience, driven only by sheer determination, Cheryl hikes more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, alone. WILD powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddens, strengthens, and ultimately heals her.

“What makes its heroine worth caring about – what makes her a rare and exciting presence in present-day American film – is not that she’s tidy or sensible or even especially nice. It’s that she’s free.” A.O. Scott

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115 MIN

When three women living on the edge of the American frontier are driven mad by harsh pioneer life, the task of saving them falls to the pious, independent-minded Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank). Transporting the women by covered wagon to Iowa, she soon realizes just how daunting the journey will be, and employs a low-life drifter, George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones), to join her. The unlikely pair and the three women (Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter) head east, where a waiting minister and his wife (Meryl Streep) have offered to take the women in. But the group first must traverse the harsh Nebraska Territories marked by stark beauty, psychological peril and constant threat.

“A Beautifully Crafted, Absorbing Look At Life in the American West.” -Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

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122 MIN

Six years after the violent death of her husband, Amelia (Essie Davis) is at a loss. She struggles to discipline her ‘out of control’ 6 year-old, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), a son she finds impossible to love. Samuel’s dreams are plagued by a monster he believes is coming to kill them both. When a disturbing storybook called ‘The Babadook’ turns up at their house, Samuel is convinced that the Babadook is the creature he’s been dreaming about. His hallucinations spiral out of control, he becomes more unpredictable and violent. Amelia, genuinely frightened by her son’s behaviour, is forced to medicate him. But when Amelia begins to see glimpses of a sinister presence all around her, it slowly dawns on her that the thing Samuel has been warning her about may be real.

“One of the smartest and most effective horror films in years.” – Jordan Hoffman, New York Daily News

“This psychological thriller from gifted first-time filmmaker Jennifer Kent will have you climbing the walls simply by plumbing the violence of the mind. Brace yourself.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

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93 MIN

Rating: Unrated

 Executive Produced by Steven Soderbergh.

“It’s a tense and frightening thriller that blends the brisk globe-trotting of the “Bourne” movies with the spooky, atmospheric effects of a Japanese horror film.”-A.O. Scott, New York Times

“Whether you think Edward Snowden is a hero or a traitor, you should see the riveting documentary “Citizenfour”…”-Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

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114 MIN