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The Purple Rose of Cairo  /  Escape from Liberty Cinema

The Purple Rose of Cairo
June 4, 2016 - 7:30 pm
In-person: 
Ross Melnick.

The Purple Rose of Cairo  (1985)


Woody Allen flips the script on the silver screen, transforming it into a portal to our world with romance and comic chaos the result.  Mia Farrow plays a mousey housewife and waitress whose Depression-era gloom parts when the dashing but naive hero (Jeff Daniels) of her favorite madcap Manhattan adventure steps off the screen and into her life. 

35mm, color, 82 min.  Production: Orion Pictures.  Distribution: Orion Pictures.  Producer: Robert Greenhut.  Director: Woody Allen.  Screenwriter: Woody Allen.  Cinematographer: Gordon Willis.  Production Designer: Stuart Wurtzel.  Editor: Susan E. Morse.  Music: Dick Hyman.  Cast: Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello, Irving Metzman, Stephanie Farrow.

New Digital Restoration!

Escape from Liberty Cinema  (Poland, 1990)

Ucieczka z kina 'Wolnosc'

After a decade-long hiatus, Polish writer-director Wojciech Marczewski returned to filmmaking with this sharp jab at official art that neatly carries the premise of The Purple Rose of Cairo into the realm of absurdist political satire.  From poet, to critic, to censor, Rabkiewicz’s career trajectory has left him bitter and resigned to self-loathing until a character in a film he approved starts speaking his own mind from the screen. 

DCP, color, 92 min.  Production: Crone Film Produktion A/S, TV Polski, Zespol Filmowy “Tor.”  Director: Wojciech Marczewski.  Screenwriter: Wojciech Marczewski.  Cinematographer: Jerzy Zielinkski.  Production Designer: Andrzej Kowalczyk.  Editor: Elzbieta Kurkowska.  Music: Zygmunt Konieczny, Jerzy Satanowski.  Cast: Janusz Gajos, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Teresa Marczewski, Piotr Fronczewski, Wladyslaw Kowalski.

Preceded by:

Buddy's Theater  (1935)


This installment of the “Buddy” animated shorts series finds Buddy the jack of all trades at his own movie house—selling tickets, running the projector—in between spoofs of coming attractions, culminating in Buddy’s own confusion about what’s real and only a movie.

Print courtesy of the Joe Dante and Jon Davison Collection at the Academy Film Archive.

35mm, b/w, 7 min.  Production: Leon Schlesinger Studios.  Distribution: Warner Bros.  Producer: Leon Schlesinger.  Director: Ben Hardaway.  Music: Norman Spencer.  Cast: Jack Carr (voice), Bernice Hansen (voice).