Our Programs
All screenings are free for UI students and $6.50 for the general public.
Bijou's films are screened at FilmScene, 118 E. College Street, Iowa City, IA.
Bijou Mondays at FilmScene
Free films for University of Iowa students for screenings at 8PM or later at FilmScene.
Bijou After Hours
Bijou After Hours is a late-night film series of recent releases and genre favorites that runs every Saturday night through the academic semester.
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The Transfiguration (2016)
September 16, 11:00 PM
runtime: 97 min. | rating: NR | director: Michael O'SheaThe Transfiguration follows troubled teen Milo who hides behind his fascination with vampire lore. When he meets the equally alienated Sophie, the two form a bond that begins to challenge Milo's dark obsession, blurring his fantasy into reality.
"Bold and brutal in shocking spurts, the indie horror drama from writer-director O'Shea is a startling debut that leaves a fresh mark on the genre while celebrating its forbears." -Jen Yamato, LA Times
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Alien (1979)
September 23, 11:00 PM
runtime: 117 min. | rating: R | director: Ridley ScottIn deep space, the crew of the commercial starship Nostromo is awakened from their cryo-sleep capsules halfway through their journey home to investigate a distress call from an alien vessel. The terror begins when the crew encounters a nest of eggs inside the alien ship. An organism from inside an egg leaps out and attaches itself to one of the crew, causing him to fall into a coma.
"Seen again a quarter-century later, we marvel at how the filmmaker generates so much tension and sweat with a bare minimum of moving parts."- Stephen Cole, Global and Mail.
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Matinee (1993)
September 30, 11:00 PM
runtime: 99 min. | rating: PG | director: Joe Dante“Lawrence Woolsey presents the end of civilization as we know it. Make that… Proudly presents!”
A B movie huckster (John Goodman), based on novelty film king William Castle, introduces a small coastal town in Florida to Mant, a kitschy horror extravaganza with promotional gimmicks and stage effects, capitalizing on the hysteria of the country during the Cuban Missile crisis in this sweet, smart, and hilarious salute to the B-movie and satire of showbiz hucksters.
“Dante’s masterpice…highly enjoyable and provocative…at the same time that Dante has a field day brutally satirizing our desire to scare ourselves and others, he also re-creates early-60s clichés with a relish and a feeling for detail that come very close to love.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum -
Eraserhead (1977)
October 7, 11:00 PM
runtime: 109 min. | rating: R | director: David LynchIn Heaven Everything Is Fine.
David Lynch’s nightmarish midnight movie masterpiece. Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) tries to survive his industrial environment and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.
“Informed by a mesmerizing formal beauty and a highly distinctive form of black humor, with meditative rhythms that turn its slender plot into a perpetual series of discoveries and revelations, Eraserhead is a sui generis masterpiece that most spectators and critics never quite know how to take.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum -
The Nutty Professor (1963)
October 14, 11:00 PM
runtime: 107 min. | director: Jerry LewisTo improve his social life, a nerdish professor drinks a potion that temporarily turns him into the handsome, but obnoxious, Buddy Love and hilarious absurdities and hijinks ensure.
“Jerry Lewis’s fourth and in some ways best constructed feature as writer-director-performer is one of the finest versions of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story that we have, and not only because it happens to be the funniest.” —Jonathan RosenbaumRIP Jerry Lewis
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Imperium (2016)
October 21, 11:00 PM
runtime: 109 min. | rating: R | director: Daniel RagussisImperium (2016)
Director: Daniel Ragussis
Runtime: 109 min
Rating: R
Idealistic FBI agent Nate Foster goes undercover to take down a radical white supremacy terrorist group. The up-and-coming analyst must confront the challenge of sticking to a new identity while maintaining his real principles as he navigates the dangerous underworld of white supremacy.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3lFBq7_CPk
"Imperium was written by Ragussis from a story by former FBI agent Michael German, who spent 15 years undercover with white supremacist groups before quitting the bureau in the early ’00s. That experience gives the film a certain authority that is its biggest asset…leaving viewers with the disquieting feeling that we, as a nation, are afraid of the wrong things. " —The A.V. Club
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Holy Motors (2012 )
November 4, 11:00 PM
runtime: 115 min. | rating: NR | director: Leos CaraxWe follow 24 hours in the life of a being moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, some-times a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man.
“Splashing around in the same mad puddle as Lynch but a good deal funnier, this tale of a man with many faces is an exhilarating, audacious, lunatic rocket-ride. Hop on board.» —Empire
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Stay (2005 )
November 11, 11:00 PM
runtime: 99 min. | rating: R | director: Marc FoesterPsychiatrist Sam Foster has a new patient, Henry Letham, who claims to be suicidal. In trying to diagnose him, Sam visits Henry’s prior therapist and also finds Henry’s mother – even though Henry has said that he murdered both of his parents. As reality starts to contradict fact, Sam spirals into an unstable mental state. Then he finds a clue as to how and when Henry may try to kill him-self, and races to try to stop him.
"A trippy, sad, disorienting story about life, death and the sometimes complex series of thoughts and actions that lies in between. " —Plugged In -
The Fly (1986)
December 2, 11:00 PM
runtime: 96 min. | rating: R | director: David CronenbergWhen scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) completes his teleportation device, he decides to test its abilities on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a housefly slips in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. Initially, Brundle appears to have undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly's cells begin to take over his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, Brundle's girlfriend (Geena Davis) is horrified as the person she once loved deteriorates into a monster.
"The Fly still stands out for the intensity of its shock sequences, which must rank with the most fiendishly imaginative and ruthlessly gut-wrenching ever recorded on film. Yet the film also is a droll black comedy and an unexpectedly moving love story." —Dave Kehr
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Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982/2007 )
February 3, 11:00 PM
runtime: 117 min. | rating: NR | director: Ridley ScottDeckard (Harrison Ford) is forced by the police Boss (M. Emmet Walsh) to continue his old job as Replicant Hunter. His assignment: eliminate four escaped Repli-cants from the colonies who have returned to Earth. Before starting the job, Deckard goes to the Tyrell Corporation and he meets Rachel (Sean Young), a Replicant girl he falls in love with.
"Far and away the best SF movie of the 80s, Ridley Scott’s visionary look at Los Angeles in the year 2019 is a singular blend of grime and glitter that captures both the horror and the allure of Reagan-era capitalism…the optimal form of Ridley Scott’s 1982 masterpiece." —Jonathan Rosenbaum
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Cat People (1942 )
February 10, 11:00 PM
runtime: 73 min. | rating: NR | director: Jacques TournerIrena Dubrovna, a New York City--based fashion designer who hails from Serbia, begins a romance with marine engineer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). After the couple gets married, Oliver becomes concerned about Irena's notion that she is cursed and may transform into a large cat in the heat of passion. ➢▪
"It's psychological horror at its finest: timelessly terrifying and abso-lutely purr-fect." -Jamie Russel, Total Film
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![THX 1138 [theatrical cut]](/assets/Uploads/_resampled/FillWyIyMDAiLCIyMDAiXQ/THX1138.jpg)
THX 1138 [theatrical cut] (1971 )
February 17, 11:00 PM
runtime: 86 min. | rating: R | director: George LucasTHX 1138' is a chilling look at a 25th-century totalitarian state where mankind is stripped of any individuality. People are numbered drones, and a go-vernment-enforced program of sedating drugs controls the populace. The story's title character, THX, is a factory worker whose life is irrevocably changed when he stops taking his mind-numbing drugs.
"Remarkable visual mastery and weirdly effective sound style…it's special, and as haunting as parts of "2001: A Space Odyssey," —Roger Ebert
Bijou Film Forum
Bijou Film Forum presents screenings and discussions of acclaimed and provocative films that seek to engage community members and UI students across all disciplines and fields of study through the art of film.
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Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll (1987)
September 19, 6:00 PM
runtime: 121 min. | rating: PG | director: Taylor HackfordThis documentary movie covers two concerts at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri, to celebrate Chuck Berry's 60th birthday, and also discusses his life and career.
"Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll is as long and unwieldy as its title, but it's probably the most revealing look we'll ever get of its subject, and the most loving evocation of his music."- Richard Harrington, Washington Post
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Starless Dreams (2016)
October 3, 6:00 PM
runtime: 76 min. | rating: NR | director: Mehrdad OskoueiStarless Dreams plunges us into the lives of seven young teenage girls sharing temporary quarters at a rehabilitation and correction center on the outskirts of Tehran.
"If Starless Dreams inspires conflicted feelings in viewers, it may be by design. It's hard not to want to flee, and it's hard to look away." -Ben Kinigsberg, New York Times
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German Concentration Camp Factual Survey (2014)
October 17, 6:00 PM
runtime: 88 min. | director: Sidney Bernstein, Alfred Hitchcock, et alThis hugely important film documents the liberation of Belsen and other concentration camps by Allied forces in Spring 1945. The production was originally shelved by the Ministry of Information in 1945, before being restored and completed by the Imperial War Museum in 2014.
“This restoration of German Concentration Camps Factual Survey is an
extraordinary act of cinematic reclamation and historiography.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times -
Offside (2006)
November 14, 6:00 PM
runtime: 93 min. | rating: PG | director: Jafar PanahiSince women are banned from soccer matches, Iranian females masquerade as males so they can slip into Tehran's stadium to see the game between Iran and Bahrain. The ones who are caught and arrested are taken to a holding area and guarded by soldiers. One sympathetic soldier agrees to watch the game through a peephole and recount the action to the impatient fans.
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Professor Marsten and the Wonder Women (2017)
February 13, 6:00 PM
runtime: 108 min. | rating: R | director: Angela RobinsonIf behind every great man is a great woman, then Harvard psycholo-gist and inventor Dr. William Moulton Marston has the good fortune of having two -- his wife Elizabeth and their mutual lover Olive Byrne. In addition to help-ing him perfect the lie detector test, the two women also inspire him to create one of the greatest female superheroes of all time -- the beloved comic book character Wonder Woman.
Trailer:
"A sly and thoroughly charming Trojan horse of a movie…has all the smooth surfaces and persuasive detail of a typical period picture — the fedo-ras, the rides, the Katherine Hepburn trousers. All that luster, which too often in movies suggests polite manngers and drowsily safe entertainment, proves to be a seductive, glossy way into something more satisfyingly complicated." —Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
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Good Luck (2017 )
February 27, 6:00 PM
runtime: 143 min. | rating: NR | director: Ben RussellFilmed between a state-owned large-scale underground mine in the war-torn state of Serbia and an illegal mining collective in the tropical heat of Suriname, Good Luck is a visceral documentary portrait of hope and sacrifice in a time of global econo-mic turmoil.
"A striking documentary mood-piece by the American experimental di-rector Ben Russell." —Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club
Bijou Horizons
Bijou Horizons is a world cinema series that brings awareness to diverse cultures through film. UI students who see all five shows in a semester will be eligible to win a $1,500 study abroad scholarship. Opportunity courtesy of UI International Programs.
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The Nile Hilton Incident (Sweden) (2017)
September 12, 6:00 PM
runtime: 110 min. | rating: NR | director: Tarik SalehWeeks before the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Noredin (Fares Fares), a police officer in Cairo's corrupt system, investigates the murder of a famous club singer at the Nile Hilton Hotel. What initially seems to be a crime of passion turns into something that concerns the very power elite of Egypt. Upon realizing this, Noredin decides to break the rules in order to obtain justice, colliding not only with the system but also with himself.
"A paranoid portrait of individual and systemic corruption that leaves none of its characters unscarred." - Variety, Nick Schager
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The Ornithologist (Portugal) (2016)
September 26, 6:00 PM
runtime: 117 min. | rating: NR | director: João Pedro RodriguezFernando, a solitary ornithologist, is looking for endangered black storks along a remote river in northern Portugal when he is swept away by the rapids. Rescued by a couple of Chinese pilgrim girls on their way to Santiago de Compostela, he plunges into a dark, eerie forest, trying to get back on track.
"If nothing else, the film reminds one of how strange and beautiful existence can be." - Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader -
Nise: The Heart of Madness (Brazil) (2017)
October 10, 6:00 PM
runtime: 106 min. | rating: NR | director: Roberto BerlinerDr. Nise da Silver works in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and refuses to employ the new and violent electroshock for the treatment of schizophrenics. Ridiculed by doctors, she is forced to take the abandoned Sector for Occupational Therapy, where she starts a revolution through paints, dogs and love.
"Unlike in so many films, here the actors' portrayals of psychiatric patients' conditions -- and their humanity -- ring true." -Daphne Howland, Village Voice -
The Innocents (France) (2016)
October 24, 6:00 PM
runtime: 115 min. | rating: PG-13 | director: Anne FontaineWarsaw, December 1945: the second World War is finally over and Mathilde is treating the last of the French survivors of the German camps. When a panicked Benedictine nun appears at the clinic one night begging Mathilde to follow her back to the convent, what she finds there is shocking: a holy sister about to give birth and several more in advanced stages of pregnancy.
"The Innocents is a powerful, brave film that will stay with you for days." -Ellen Brait, Globe and Mail -
Popaye (2017 )
November 7, 6:00 PM
runtime: 104 min. | rating: NR | director: Kirsten TanThana, a disenchanted architect, bumps into Popaye, his long-lost childhood elephant, on the streets of Bangkok. Dissatisfied with his current life in the city, Thana takes his elephant on a road trip across Thailand, in search of the rural farm where they grew up together. Along the way, they meet a host of characters, from a fortune-telling vagabond to a pokerfaced policeman, a crema-torium monk to a lonely karaoke singer, who color their journey, as various mis-haps—sometimes absurd, sometimes poignant, sometimes both absurd and poignant at once—befall them on the road.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkL1XymV-1Y
"Unforgettable. Laced with piercing humor." —The Holywood Re-porter
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Girlhood (2014)
February 20, 6:00 PM
runtime: 113 min. | rating: NR | director: Céline SciammaOppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of 3 free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.
“Girlhood” is a mesmerizing exercise in the enlightenment that can happen when a filmmaker shifts the male cinematic gaze ever so slightly and un-covers what looks like a whole new world." —Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
Bijou Open Screen
Open Screen is a forum for students and local filmmakers to showcase their work. Short clips of found footage or obscure footage area also accepted. All Films much be no longer than 10 minutes. We will accept films via a Vimeo link, a YouTube link, or a QuickTime file. Additionally, students will submit films to: bijouui.executive@gmail.com.
Fall 2017 Open Screen: December 2nd at 5pm at FilmScene
Submission rules:
-all films must be no longer than 10 minutes; anything over 10 minutes will automatically not be considered
-filmmakers can select a ten-minute clip from a feature film to submit if they so chose
-filmmakers can submit the films to the Open Screen committee via a Vimeo link, a YouTube link, or a QuickTime file.
music videos, documentaries, and experimental or avant garde work are acceptable
-no work may be submitted that has a distributor or a professional production company
-submissions must be from filmmakers 18 years or older
-DEADLINE for submissions: Sunday, November 19th
-Prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place
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Submitters are asked to email the following information to bijouui.executive@gmail.com:
-A short summary of their submission
-A still image from the submission
-A link to a downloadable version of the submission via Dropbox, Google Drive, or any other file sharing service.
-The selection committee reserves final right to decide which submissions are chosen for inclusion. Audiences will vote at the end of the night for the best submission.
POLICY REGARDING OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL
The University of Iowa’s Bijou Film Board acknowledges that creative expression through film imagery and/or language may include controversial or sensitive subject matter. All submissions to the Bijou Film Board for the Open Screen series that includes material the committee deems offensive, will be reviewed solely on the basis of the piece’s artistic and educational merit. Open Screen recognizes that the use of such purported offensive materials might be necessary to understanding the film’s subject matter. Thus, if members of Open Screen committee determine that the exclusion of offensive material would otherwise diminish or mislead the overall meaning and quality of the submission, then Bijou members may accept the submission and provide appropriate notice or warning to the general audience.
Providing adequate and reasonable advance notice to viewers of the nature of the submission (presentation), or portions thereof, which are deemed to be offensive to a substantial number of people, using contemporary community norms, or is legally obscene for minors, but not for adults, under the standards set forth in Iowa Code Chapter 728 will be determined at the sole discretion of the Bijou.
The selection committee reserves final rights to decide which submissions are chosen for inclusion. Absolutely no material that is blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, trans phobic, misogynistic, etc., without any kind of redeeming educational or social value, will be considered by the Open Screen committee. The purpose of this screening is to cultivate community, foster burgeoning filmmakers careers, and promote inclusion. Audiences will vote at the end of the night for the best submission.
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Bijou Open Screen
Open Screen is a forum for students and local filmmakers to showcase their work. Short clips of found footage or obscure footage area also accepted. There is no time limit, but we prefer short works of 10 minutes or less. Submitters are asked to email the following information to bijouopenscreen@gmail.com
- A short summary of their submission
- A still image from the submission
- A link to a downloadable version of the submission via Dropbox, Google Drive, or any other file sharing service.
The selection committee reserves final right to decide which submissions are chosen for inclusion. Audiences will vote at the end of the night for the best submission.
Spring Submission Deadline: TBD
Spring Event Date: TBD
FilmScene Screenings
FilmScene shows more than 300 feature films at their two-screen venue every year, but their love of movies goes beyond the screen to filmmaker dialogues, panel discussions, and community events. It’s all part of FilmScene's member-supported, mission-driven approach to cinema and their deep connection to the Eastern Iowa film community.
Checkout the FilmScene Movie Schedule:
http://www.icfilmscene.org/calendar/
