Sunrise movie still

Each month, Melanie Friesen invites a distinguished guest to Vancity Theatre’s Cinema Salon, in order to present his/her favourite film. After the screening, both audience and speaker have the opportunity to engage over drinks and snacks in the Vancity lounge. This month’s film is F.W. Murnau’s 1927 film Sunrise.

Considered one of the best films of the silent era, Sunrise was the first American film by German Expressionist director F.W. Murnau. Spotted by the founder of Twentieth Century Fox as “The German Genius” after directing Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, and Faust, Murnau was invited to Hollywood in 1926 to make an American Expressionist film with a nearly-unlimited budget.

The story centers on three people only identified as Man, Wife, and Woman from the City: the man loses his mind to the vamp, then regains it.

Sunrise combines American melodrama with German Expressionism’s oppressive sense of doom and the obsessive association of sensuality with evil. It also features the most innovative camerawork of that decade.

Jim Sinclair of The CinemathequeJim Sinclair is the Executive and Artistic Director of Vancouver’s The Cinematheque, one of Canada’’s oldest and most active film institutes.

Jim’s curated Canadian and international films for more than 25 years. Born in Edmonton, he earned a B.A. and an LL.B. at the University of Alberta before moving to Vancouver to pursue graduate studies in film at UBC.

He joined The Cinematheque in 1987, became Executive Director in 1991, and is responsible for curating the theatre’s program of year-round film exhibitions, offering over 500 screenings a year. In 2011, the French government bestowed the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters honour on Sinclair for his work promoting French and European cinema in B.C.

Vancity Cinema Salon with Jim Sinclair Presents Sunrise

Date: Tuesday, November 4, 7 pm
Venue: Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $13.00; may be purchased online

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