Downtown Huntsville Library
Winter Dreams: An International Film Series
Monday, December 30, 2024 5:30 p.m. – 7:45 p.m.
An aging, out-of-work stage magician in 1950s Paris takes a job from a drunken Scotsman to perform in his tiny village back in Scotland, where he encounters a young woman who naively takes his illusions for actual magic.
Based on an unproduced screenplay by the late, great French comedian and filmmaker Jacques Tati (who also serves as the model for the main character), The Illusionist was a nominee for Best Animated Film at the 83rd Academy Awards and winner of the both the Cesar (the French “Oscar”) and European Film Award for Best Animated Film of 2010.
Winter Dreams (Through Eyes of Wonder)
A series of films about dreams, both literal and figurative – hopes, reveries, desires, ambitions – and about seeing the world through eyes of wonder; in some, the dreamer is youthful and naïve, while in others worn down by experience and struggling valiantly to see the world through a different lens. Though the dreams (and the worlds from which their dreamers come) vary wildly, from the fantastical to the earthbound, those dreams lie at the heart of each film: a dream of finding real magic in a mundane world, a dream of finding friendship and a place to belong, a dream of finding a family and happiness in the midst of hardship, a dream of finding love and escaping the past, and a dream…of being able to dream at all.
November 25: The City of Lost Children (France, 1995)
December 2: 2046 (Hong Kong, 2004)
December 9: Shoplifters (Japan, 2018)
December 16: We Are the Best! (Sweden, 2013)
December 30: The Illusionist (France, 2010)