olivier assayas films at the walker

All month the Walker is screening films by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas.  You might have heard his name recently in connection with his 2008 film Summer Hours, or maybe you're familiar with his 1996 film-within-a-film Irma Vep, which screened in Cannes' "Un Certain Regard."  His most recent film is Carlos, the story of Venezuelan-born terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez or "Carlos the Jackal," bomber of OPEC's headquarters in 1975.  This is the picture that I'm most excited about, but the others should be a treat as well.  Wish I could speak more to his talents but I have yet to watch any of his films.  Assayas himself will be at the Walker on Wed Oct 20th.  He'll be speaking at 8:00 for $14 ($10 for Walker members) which is a bargain to hear one of the World's more well-respected directors.  This Friday you can check out Summer Hours for $8 at 7:30.

After their mother’s death, three siblings converge at their family’s country estate to decide the fate of her prized possessions. “[W]hat is lost here are not the objects but presences, ways of life, perhaps the very things that are inspirations for art,” says Assayas in Filmmaker. This elegiac and exquisite film, starring Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, and Jérémie Renier, won the Best Foreign Film award from each of the Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and National societies of film critics. 2008, 35mm, in English and French with English subtitles, 103 minutes.