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Moon Medley

Live Musical Accompaniment
$5 Weekend Matinee Admission or Free with Cambridge Public Library Card

Preceded by Houghton Tour at 2pm.

PROGRAM

  • A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune)

    Directed by Georges Méliès.
    With Georges Méliès, François Lallement, Jules-Eugène Legris.
    France, 1902, 35mm, color, silent, 15 min.
    Live musical accompaniment by Robert Humphreville.
    Print source: Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation, Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage, Blackhawk Films and Flicker Alley

Inspired by two Jules Verne novels—From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Around the Moon (1870)—Georges Méliès made what is considered one of the first science fiction films 117 years ago, and it continues to delight and fascinate. Detailing the fantastic adventures of a group of astronomers on their cannon-propelled rocket trip to the moon, the film was originally released in both black-and-white and hand-painted color versions. The latter was considered lost until a single print was discovered in 1993. Its painstaking and careful restoration recently completed, modern audiences can now experience the wonders of Méliès’ classic vision anew.

  • A Grand Day Out

    Directed by Nick Park.
    With Peter Sallis, Peter Hawkins.
    UK, 1989, DCP, color.

What to do when you run out of cheese and your corner store is closed due to a National Holiday? Very simple: build a rocket, fly to the moon and have a cheese picnic there. After all, “everybody knows the moon is made of cheese…” Nick Park’s graduation film at the National Film and Television School marks the first Wallace and Gromit adventure. The six years it took to make this stop-motion claymation short paid off with an Oscar nomination in 1990. Though it lost, the winner was the director’s other nominated short, Creature Comforts.

  • Once Upon a Blue Moon

    Directed by Steve Boot.
    UK, 2015, digital video, color.

An alien is excited about the possibility of friendship when a robot lands on his lonely sphere in this charming stop-motion moon adventure.

  • America's First Spaceport

    US, 1967, 16mm, black & white, 15 min.

This Screen News Digest focuses on the construction of America’s First Spaceport—now the Kennedy Space Center in Florida—and gives an exclusive tour of the new launch complex that will later send Apollo 11 to the moon.

  • Maximum Boost (Schub auf Maximum)

    Directed by Rolf Hellat.
    With Sonja Wäckerle, Remo Ernst.
    UK, 2015, digital video, color.

Remo and his hearing-impaired grandmother try to blast off to the moon from a rainy Swiss playground. The director’s inventive use of sound—incorporating the original audio from the Apollo 11 space mission—enables the unassuming astronauts to reach their exotic destination. Or do they?

  • One Small Step

    Directed by Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas.
    US/China, 2018, DCP, color, 8 min.
    DCP source: Taiko Studios.

Though a woman has yet to visit the moon, Luna, a young Chinese American girl, wants to become an astronaut no matter what. Facing all kinds of ups and downs in the relentless pursuit of her dream, she always has her father’s love and support—even after he is gone.

Part of film series

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Moon Movies:
Apollo 11 at 50

Current and upcoming film series

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Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 2024 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

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The Practice (and Other Works) By Martín Rejtman

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Chronicles of Changing Times. The Cinema of Edward Yang

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Gene Hackman crouched beside a toilet with audio equipment

From the HFA Collection...

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Being In a Place. Rediscovering Margaret Tait