(Pratibha Parmar, UK 2006, 94 min., 35mm)

Nina returns home to her truly wacky family in Glasgow after her father’s death to save the family restaurant. To honor her father’s memory, Nina competes in “The Best of the West” curry competition. Winning the cook-off won’t be easy, but with the help of her sexy former schoolmate Lisa, her father’s ghost, and a little song and dance, Nina just might pull it off. A 2007 Palm Springs Int’l Film Festival favorite, this comedy combines food, fun, and family to remind us all how rare it is to find true love.

For complete selections and ticket information for ImageOut, upstate New York’s largest LGBT cultural event, call (585) 271-2640 or visit www.imageout.org. No Take-10 tickets or passes will be accepted for ImageOut screenings.

The 15th edition of ImageOut, the Rochester Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival will include, as usual, several notable screenings in the Dryden Theatre on October 6, 7, 9, and 13. Among the offerings will be new 35mm prints of two vintage classics: Gus Van Sant’s first feature, Mala Noche, and Stanley Donen’s Staircase starring Rex Harrison and Richard Burton. For complete selections and ticket information for ImageOut, upstate New York’s largest LGBT cultural event, call (585) 271-2640 or visit www.imageout.org. No Take-10 tickets or passes will be accepted for ImageOut screenings.

One of the world’s most acclaimed filmmakers, Ken Loach has, over five decades, made films that have moved and inspired audiences. A tireless activist through his art, Loach has continually championed the underprivileged and working-class citizens of the world while challenging the establishment and any oppressor of human rights. Loach’s remarkable body of work includes Poor Cow, Kes, Hidden Agenda, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Æ Fond Kiss, and his 2006 film, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Our special evening on October 10 will begin with a clip reel, followed by the first area screening of his latest film, It’s A Free World (Ken Loach, UK 2007, 96 min., 35mm). When the sexy and brash Angie (Kierston Wareing in an engaging performance) is laid off from her job in London, she partners with her best pal Rose (Juliet Ellis) to start their own recruiting agency. Angie and Rose are at first able to succeed because of the large number of Eastern European immigrants who provide a cheap, and legal, labor pool for England, but soon it becomes necessary for the two partners to begin recruiting illegal immigrants. Loach’s first feature since The Wind That Shake’s the Barley is a funny, dramatic, and incisive look at personal ambition and social ethics. Mr. Loach will also receive the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar and the evening will conclude with a discussion of his work in film.

Tickets $10; $8 members and students. Advance tickets are available online by clicking the link below, by phone at (585) 271-3361 ext. 295, and also in person at the admissions desk, or Dryden Theatre box office. No Take-10 tickets or passes.

Cathy Come Home, originally scheduled as part of this evening, will now screen on October 10 at 6 p.m. and again on October 11 at 6 p.m. Admission is included with purchase of ticket to An Evening with Ken Loach.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 6 p.m. and WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11 AT 6 p.m.: CATHY COME HOME (Ken Loach, UK 1966, 75 min., 16mm). The story of a young woman (Carol White) who is left homeless by the bureaucratic British welfare system, Loach’s powerful drama launched his career in features and forced changes in UK public policy.

Since he rose to critical prominence in the 1970s with fellow New German Cinema stalwarts Wim Wenders and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, director Werner Herzog has frequently discussed his efforts to reveal “ecstatic truths” while making his films. These deeper, poetic truths, writes Herzog, are “mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.”

While he’s always alternated between “fiction” and “documentary” films, Herzog refuses to see much distinction between the two from a filmmaker’s perspective. His methods for making so-called non-fiction movies fly in the face of the rules of cinéma vérité and often employ narrative techniques, such as providing scripts based on previous discussions for talking-head interview subjects.

This series will offer several of the prolific Herzog’s recently completed works, most making their first local theatrical appearances: The White Diamond (screening September 4); the much-acclaimed Grizzly Man (September 5); Wheel of Time (September 19); The Wild Blue Yonder (October 3); and Lessons of Darkness (October 17, screening with Burden of Dreams, Les Blank’s account of the making of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo).

Additionally, you’ll have a chance to see brand-new 35mm prints of Herzog’s most famous features, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (September 12); Aguirre, The Wrath of God (September 26); Fitzcarraldo (October 14); Cobra Verde (October 24); and a special Halloween screening of Nosferatu the Vampyre on October 31.

The abounding stories and rumors about Herzog have deservedly earned him the adjective legendary, but many of these myths are untrue. Like the man himself, these films deserve a closer, thoughtful inspection to uncover the “ecstatic truths” that lie within them.

Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department

In addition to several films making their local debuts in our Labor Film Series and our Werner Herzog retrospective, the Dryden will present the Rochester Premieres of three more terrific new features for mature audiences in September and October.

A sequel that comes almost 40 years after the film that inspired it, Belle Toujours (screening September 8 & 9) follows up Luis Buñuel’s surreal and erotic classic Belle de Jour. You’ll also be able to see the original Belle de Jour prior to each screening of the sequel.

Playful, but in a much darker vein, is Christiane Cegavske’s magical Blood Tea and Red String (September 22 & 23), a hauntingly beautiful stop-motion animation fantasy. Thirteen years in the making, Cegavske worked without the assistance of computers and her story is told exclusively without dialogue.

Bruno Dumont’s Flanders (October 20 & 21) is the latest provocation from the director of La Vie de Jesus and L’Humanité. Dumont’s patented style alternates serenely beautiful images of nature with shockingly graphic depictions of sex and violence. Urgently provocative and stylistically bold, it’s an anti-war film like no other ever made. No one under 18 will be admitted to the screenings of Flanders.

Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department