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OVID’s March Lineup: Unholy Wars on Democracy, Czech/Hungarian Soviet-era upheaval, Justine Triet psychodrama starring Adèle Exarchopoulos & Sandra Hüller, Alexander Sokurov’s historic musing on the Louvre, Ennio Morricone & more!
This March OVID presents 19 new films and seven exclusives.
We’ll present Monia Chokri’s existential romcom The Nature of Love, Winner of Best Foreign Film, César Awards, and IndieWire Critic’s pick. Plus, Sibyl by Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall) starring Virginie Efira, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Sandra Hüller and Gaspard Ulliel, a psychodrama “filled with quick-witted observations about vanity and delusion (self- and otherwise).” (4Columns)
We’ll also present Academy Award nominee for Best Feature Doc Writing With Fire, which chronicles the determination of reporters at India’s only women-led news outlet as they empower each other and hold those responsible for injustice to account.
We bring you a taste of Hungary’s avant-garde scene of the 1980s with the “frenetic, delirious” (Screen Slate) animation Bubble Bath, plus two more fantasy films by Soviet director (and foil to Walt Disney) Aleksandr Ptushko: Ruslan and Ludmila and Sampo, joining his epic Ilya Muromets. Staying on the theme of myths and villains and monsters, check out The Frankenstein Complex, with commentary from Joe Dante (Gremlins) and Guillermo del Toro, among many others.
And staying on the topic of monsters still, another doublebill coming your way: Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy, one of the most disturbing docs you could watch during a second and far more emboldened Trump presidency, alongside an exclusive premiere, The Gospel of Revolution, about Liberation Theology in conflict against an increasingly conservative Vatican. Informed by a branch of radical Catholicism standing with the poor and oppressed, this movement was considered more dangerous than communism to the US.
Full details on March’s complete lineup are below.
Image above from Jan Šikl's RECONSTRUCTION OF OCCUPATION, premiering on OVID on March 20th.
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Tuesday, March 4
Building on Tainted Soil
Directed by Anneleen Ophoff
EPF Media | Documentary | USA | 2022
Augustine, Charmaine and Jim are some of the hundreds of thousands of Native American children placed in residential schools since the 1870s. The United States government funded over 360 boarding schools which systematically destroyed native cultures and communities. The philosophy of the US Indian Boarding School policy was brutal: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Discover how three generations of boarding school survivors and their families are dealing with the fall-out of cultural erasure and reclaiming their culture.
“An excellent breakdown of America’s native genocide from its first implementations after the Civil War through the reforms of the 1970s.” —Video Librarian
OVID EXCLUSIVE
Stolen Spirits
Directed by Anne Worthington
EPF Media | Documentary | Australia | 2022
In 2021, in the small rural town of Genoa Nebraska, a harrowing search commenced to locate the graves of Native American children who were taken from their tribes and sent to the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School, one of America’s largest and longest-running boarding schools for indigenous children. Stolen Spirits is a powerful and haunting story of one community’s attempts to uncover the truth about a painful past.
“Powerful… compels audiences to reflect on historical injustices and the resilience of communities striving to reclaim their cultural identity.” —Video Librarian
OVID EXCLUSIVE
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Thursday, March 6
Writing With Fire
Directed by Rintu Thomas & Sushmit Ghosh
Music Box Films | Documentary | India | 2021
Reporting from a social environment built to divide based on caste and gender, a fearless group of journalists maintain India’s only women-led news outlet. The women of Khabar Lahariya (‘Waves of News’), all from the Dalit (“untouchables”) caste, prepare to transition the newspaper from print to digital, even though many of their reporters don’t have access to electricity at home. Armed with smartphones, Chief Reporter Meera and her team of investigative journalists confront some of India’s biggest issues – amplifying the voices of those who suffer from the oppressive caste system.
NYTimes Critic’s Pick! “Rousing…nothing short of galvanizing.” —Devika Girish, The New York Times
“Invigorating and inspiring.” —Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
“The most inspiring journalism movie — maybe ever.” —Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post
Friday, March 7
Time of Roses
Directed by Risto Jarva
With Arto Tuominen, Jaakko Pakkasvirta, Peter von Bagh
Deaf Crocodile | Feature | Finland | 1969
Set in a dystopian world of gleaming white towers, Sony video monitors and inflatable furniture, where the beautiful inhabitants all dress as Edie Sedgwick-like pixie sprites or medieval page boys out of Logan’s Run, the film follows a historian of late 20th-century culture researching the mysterious death many years earlier of a free-spirited erotic model. In a Vertigo-like twist, he hires the model’s exact double, an earthy, uninhibited engineer, to recreate the model’s death for a TV program. Director Jarva was one of Finland’s most acclaimed fiction filmmakers and documentarians before his untimely death in 1977.
“One of the most aesthetically interesting retro-future worlds I have ever seen… A journey through time and space worth taking.” —Film Inquiry
“Both a fascinating film unto itself and a time capsule of sci-fi narratives of the era… Time of Roses needs to be rediscovered.” —Screen Anarchy
Wednesday, March 12
Forgotten Stooges
With Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Shemp Howard, Joe Besser, and Curly-Joe DeRita
MVD | Outtakes | USA | 2025
A fascinating collection of forgotten Stooge rarities including outtakes, home movies, newsreel footage, as well as promotional and short subject films featuring The Three Stooges.
Thursday, March 13
Francofonia
Directed by Alexander Sokurov
With Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Benjamin Utzerath, Vincent Nemeth, Johanna Korthals
Music Box Films | Feature | France | 2016
Set against the backdrop of the Louvre Museum’s history and artworks, master director Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) applies his uniquely personal vision onto staged re-enactments and archives for this fascinating portrait of real-life characters Jacques Jaujard and Count Franziskus Wolff-Metternich and their compulsory collaboration at the Louvre Museum under the Nazi Occupation. In its exploration of the Louvre Museum as a living example of civilization, Francofonia demonstrates that a museum is much more than a place to preserve art.
“A work of art that troubles the conscience, in part because it suggests, both by default and by design, that no art is innocent, and that its preservation, like its destruction, depends on the operation of power.” —A.O. Scott, The New York Times
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Friday, March 14
The Nature of Love
Directed by Monia Chokri
With Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Monia Chokri
Music Box Films | Feature | Canada, France | 2024
Sophia, a 40-year-old philosophy professor, has been in a stable and conventional marriage to Xavier for a decade. When Sophia meets Sylvain, a craftsman renovating the couple’s new country house, Sophia’s world is turned upside down. The two begin a passionate affair fueled by their irresistible physical connection. As they get to know each other on a deeper level, Sophia begins to question her own values after abandoning herself to her great romantic impulses.
** Winner, Best Foreign Film, César Awards 2024
** Official Selection, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival 2023
IndieWire Critic’s Pick! “One of the sharpest cinematic examinations of the paradoxical expectations we place on our relationships in the 21st century.” —Christian Zilko, IndieWire
“A sharp and perceptive romantic comedy.” —Wendy Ide, Screen Daily
“Delivers as much hilarity as it does sexy steam and existential inquiry.” —Peyton Robinson, RogerEbert.com
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Tuesday, March 18
Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet
Directed by Oldrich Lipský
With Michal Docolomanský, Rudolf Hrusínský, Milos Kopecký
Deaf Crocodile | Feature | Czechoslovakia | 1978
“Within that bizarre flower lies a huge enigma,” muses Nick Carter, America’s Greatest Detective, called to Prague to investigate the case of a missing dog and instead winding up in the jaws of a giant carnivorous plant controlled by his old nemesis, The Gardener, in Czech director Oldřich Lipský’s beloved cult hit. Inspired by the Nick Carter dime novel detective stories created by John R. Coryell, Adela is an irresistible slapstick combination of 19th century James Bond gadgetry, Little Shop of Horrors, Blake Edwards circa The Pink Panther Strikes Again and Louis Feuillade silent serials like Fantomas and Judex. In other words, a sheer delight.
“Lipský and screenwriter Jiří Brdečka – being known for their sly wit and dry humour – put their minds together to create something so joyously idiosyncratic; a jocular gem amidst the dire political rubble.” —Rough Cut
Bubble Bath
Directed by György Kovásznai
With Albert Antalffy, Kati Bontovits, Katalin Dobos
Deaf Crocodile | Feature | Hungary | 1980
“A gallopingly neurotic modernist-psychedelic musical from 1979 that bubbles and pulsates with anxieties about modernity … With characters and settings constantly warping, tilting and transmogrifying, Bubble Bath is visually something special; like Van Gogh, Fleischer Studios, Robert Crumb, Yellow Submarine and the abstract-thought section of Pixar’s Inside Out smooshed into a great lysergic battenberg cake.” —Phil Hoad, The Guardian
“Beneath this film’s jovial insouciance is something closer to punctured hope… Bubble Bath broods with the faint discontent of a generation spurned.” —Annie Geng, Screen Slate
“Incredibly restless and creative, the bohemian love-child of Bill Plympton’s off-kilter individualism and Ralph Bakshi’s wonderfully warped, rubbery visual style. In other words: it’s not quite like any animated film you’ve ever seen before.” —Dillon Gonzales, Geek Vibes Nation
OVID EXCLUSIVE
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Thursday, March 20
Reconstruction of Occupation
Directed by Jan Šikl
EPF Media | Documentary | Czech Republic, Slovakia | 2021
Documentary filmmaker Jan Sikl discovered hours of previously unseen footage showing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. 53 years later, historical memory awakens from a long slumber with this reconstruction of the occupation, a cinematic adventure of a truly archeological nature. Memories of specific events are vividly brought back to life, portraying history and its relevance to the present.
“By putting the lens on so many individual stories, we come to realize the shared turmoil behind the protagonists’ desperate initiatives… masterful.” —Eastern European Film Bulletin
“Performs a profound archaeology of human experience and meaning, establishing a novel narrative frame for these seminal events.” —Montages Magazine
1989: A Statesman Opens Up
Directed by Anders Østergaard
First Hand Films | Documentary | Denmark | 2014
A gripping documentary that takes us behind the scenes of Prime Minister of Hungary Miklos Nemeth’s administration, during the most critical year in recent European history. As Nemeth travels to Berlin, Bonn, Bucharest, and Moscow, meeting with his increasingly worried fellow Warsaw Pact leaders and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the film reveals the unsung role Hungary played in the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent collapse of Communism throughout Eastern Europe. Built around extensive contemporary interviews with Nemeth, 1989 creatively uses archival footage and transcripts, providing a unique sense of immediacy and urgency to this remarkable story.
“Intelligently moulded, filmically provocative, entertaining and informative.” —Filmkommentaren
OVID EXCLUSIVE
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Friday, March 21
Sibyl
Directed by Justine Triet
With Virginie Efira, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Sandra Hüller, Gaspard Ulliel
Music Box Films | Feature | France | 2019
A sly, sultry character study from filmmaker Justine Triet, Sibyl follows a psychotherapist who decides to quit her practice and return to writing instead. As Sibyl starts dropping patients, she begins to struggle with excess time and a lack of inspiration–until she gets a call from Margot, a young actress wrapped up in a dramatic affair with her costar, Igor, who happens to be married to the film’s director. Becoming further enmeshed in Margot’s life, Sibyl starts to blur past and present, fiction with reality, and the personal with the professional as she begins to use Margot’s life as source material for her novel.
** Official Selection – Cannes Film Festival 2019
** Special Presentation – Toronto International Film Festival 2019
** Official Selection – NYFF 2019
“An elegant and clever portrait of a creative crisis” —Eric Kohn, IndieWire
“A chic, blackly comic psychodrama” —Guy Lodge, Variety
“Smart and absorbing” —Justin Chang, LA Times
Tuesday, March 25
Uncertain Terms
Directed by Nathan Silver
With David Dahlbom, Adinah Dancyger, Casey Drogin, Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Hannah Gross, Tallie Medel
MVD | Feature | USA | 2014
Robbie leaves Brooklyn for the Hudson Valley to stay with his aunt who runs a home for pregnant teens. As the only man in the house, Robbie captures the attention of many of the girls. When he strikes up a friendship with Nina, who is dealing with her own relationship troubles, tensions run high.
“Silver’s incisive direction blends patient discernment and expressive angularity; he develops his characters in deft and rapid strokes and builds tension with a subtle heightening of tone and darkening of mood… One of the best films I’ve seen this year.” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Exquisite tension and emotional candor.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Assured and compelling.” —Geoff Berkshire, Variety
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Wednesday, March 26
Ennio
Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
With Bernardo Bertolucci, Marco Bellocchio, Giuliano Montaldo, Dario Argento, Clint Eastwood, Joan Baez, Quentin Tarantino & others
Music Box Films | Feature | Italy | 2021
From the director of the beloved Cinema Paradiso, Giuseppe Tornatore turns his camera on his longtime collaborator Ennio Morricone (1928 – 2020) in a moving and comprehensive profile of the indefatigable composer. Tornatore’s documentary portrait explores the breadth of the maestro’s career, from his early Italian pop songs to the fistful of unforgettable film scores that he wrote. Ennio affords the master one last chance to recount his career and deconstruct the artistic process that led him to win two Academy Awards and author over 500 unforgettable soundtracks.
“Simply by inviting the audience to bask in Morricone’s staid, meticulous, at times mischievously self-serious personality, the movie allows us to revel in the grand paradox of who he was.” —Owen Gleiberman, Variety
The Frankenstein Complex
Directed by Gilles Penso and Alexandre Poncet
With Rick Baker, Joe Dante, Guillermo del Toro, Phil Tippett, Kevin Smith, Greg Nicotero, John Landis
Music Box Films | Feature | France | 2015
The Frankenstein Complex explores a century of cinematic thrills and wonders, focusing on the relationship between movie monsters and their makers. This documentary interviews the greatest living artists in the genre and features exclusive footage from classics like Robocop and Jurassic Park.
“Clearly a labor of love, this is a fitting tribute to an industry that has brought dreams to life for generations.” —Jennie Kermode, Eye For Film
“A rare movie industry documentary that can celebrate the wonderment of practical movie magic while exponentially increasing anyone’s appreciation of the craft.” —CultureCrypt.com
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Thursday, March 27
Newly Restored!
Ruslan and Ludmila
Directed by Aleksandr Ptushko
With Valeri Kozinets, Natalya Petrova, Vladimir Fyodorov
Deaf Crocodile | Feature | Finland, USSR | 1972
The final film from Russian fantasy master Aleksandr Ptushko (Ilya Muromets, Sampo), Ruslan and Ludmila is a glorious and magical summation of his career, filled with sweeping lyricism, bejeweled visual effects, and mythic storytelling. Based on an epic fairy tale written in 1820 by Alexander Pushkin, the film opens with the seemingly joyous marriage of bogatyr (warrior) Ruslan to Ludmila. On their wedding night, Ludmila is spirited away by a riotously long-bearded wizard and taken to his sinister palace where she’s held prisoner. The action of the film is set during the legendary era of the Kyivan Rus’ culture that pre-dated both modern Ukraine and Russia.
OVID EXCLUSIVE
Newly Restored!
Sampo (The Day the Earth Froze)
Directed by Aleksandr Ptushko
With Urho Somersalmi, Anna Orochko, Ivan Voronov, Andris Osins, Ada Voytsik
Deaf Crocodile | Feature | Finland, USSR | 1959
Based on the Finnish national epic “Kalevala,” Ptushko’s ravishing, mystical fantasy tells the story of a sinister witch who covets the Sampo, a magical, rainbow-colored mill that can produce endless salt, grain and gold. When the hero attempts to stop her, Louhi literally steals the sun, plunging the world into eternal darkness. Shot like its predecessor Ilya Muromets in CinemaScope, Sampo features some of Ptushko’s most surreal and fantastical imagery.
“Ptushko’s fantasy films are beautiful things to behold… There are compositions in these films that outstrip many contemporary films in terms of sheer beauty, and when combined with the filmmaker’s flair for special effects, the results are quite dazzling.” —Tilt Magazine
OVID EXCLUSIVE
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Friday, March 28
Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy
Directed by Christopher J. Jones & Stephen Ujlaki
Film Sales Company | Documentary | USA | 2024
The current day assault on democracy did not begin with Trumpism. It did not begin with the Tea Party. It did not begin with the Moral Majority. It did not even begin in this century. The current-day assault on democracy began with the white supremacy movement in the 1960s as part of a shrewd, calculated, and well-executed plan that became cloaked as a religious movement. Today those white supremacists and their heirs are known as Christian Nationalists.
“The scariest and most penetrating political documentary of the year, though the media mostly ignored it. It captures how Donald Trump, in the time he has spent setting himself up to be an authoritarian leader, fashioned himself into a president who could mesh perfectly with the goals of Christian nationalism, a movement built around the dream of transforming America into a theocracy.” —Owen Glieberman, Variety
The Gospel of Revolution
Directed by François-Xavier Drouet
Icarus Films | Documentary | France | 2024
For decades, Liberation Theology, a grassroots branch of Catholicism that stood with the poor and oppressed, played a powerful and influential role in Latin American revolutionary movements. Its fundamental tenet is that God is not neutral, and is on the side of the poor. And because of that, its practitioners were targets. To the US, Liberation Theology was more dangerous than communism. To an increasingly conservative Vatican, it was a movement to be suppressed. Through powerful archival footage and contemporary interviews, the film shows how these radical Catholics fought injustice and refused to accept poverty and oppression. At a time when evangelical Christianity is on the rise and associated with conservative politics, this doc serves as a powerful reminder that it doesn’t have to be this way.
OVID EXCLUSIVE
Complete list of films premiering on OVID this month (in alphabetical order):
1989, Anders Østergaard (2014)
Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet, Oldrich Lipský (1978)
Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy, Christopher J. Jones & Stephen Ujlaki (2024)
Bubble Bath, György Kovásznai (1980)
Building on Tainted Soil, Anneleen Ophoff (2022)
Ennio, Giuseppe Tornatore (2021)
Forgotten Stooges (2025)
Francofonia, Alexander Sokurov (2016)
Reconstruction of Occupation, Jan Šikl (2021)
Ruslan and Ludmila, Aleksandr Ptushko (1972)
Sampo (The Day the Earth Froze), Aleksandr Ptushko (1959)
Sibyl, Justine Triet (2019)
Stolen Spirits, Anne Worthington (2022)
The Frankenstein Complex, Gilles Penso and Alexandre Poncet (2015)
The Gospel of Revolution, François-Xavier Drouet (2024)
The Nature of Love, Monia Chokri (2024)
Time of Roses, Risto Jarva (1969)
Uncertain Terms, Nathan Silver (2014)
Writing With Fire, Rintu Thomas & Sushmit Ghosh (2021)
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