Umberto D.

Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.

To the Unknown

U.S., 2017

While reading Kenneth Koch’s metaphysical poem “To the Unknown,” Michael Almereyda weaves together everyday images of movement — people waiting for food, playing in a park, a sky — while focusing on a cat walking around, as best it can. 

Digital file, color, 6 min. Director: Michael Almereyda.

Umberto D.

Italy, 1952

On the surface, Umberto D. is a simple story of an older gentleman trying to pay his rent, accompanied by his dog, Flike, in postwar Italy. As Umberto tries to cobble together just enough money until his next pension check, he is met with no real solution, stuck in a limbo that magnifies his old age and pending poverty. Hailed as a masterpiece of neorealist cinema, Vittorio De Sica’s film becomes an emotionally devastating story of losing one's dignity, while trying to simply get by. Here, the relationship with Flike becomes all the more emotional as it provides the only caring, sentimental and hopeful relationship that Umberto has left. 

35mm, b&w, 89 min. Director: Vittorio De Sica. Writer: Cesare Zavattini. With: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio.