Black Book

press release: The Netherlands | 2006 | 35mm | 145 min. | Dutch with English subtitles

Director: Paul Verhoeven; Cast: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman

1944. A Dutch-Jewish singer (Game of Thrones’s van Houten) hiding from Nazis in occupied Netherlands joins the Resistance after a close brush with death. Going undercover, she infiltrates SS headquarters in The Hague, trying to stay alive long enough to outlast the war while having her loyalty questioned by all sides. Verhoeven’s first film back in his home country after a 20-year sojourn in Hollywood is elegantly rendered pulp, filled to the brim with double-crosses, oversized set pieces and scenery chewing performances. Black Book is a breathless and bloody race through the nightmarish landscape of the waning days of World War II.

From the Archives at UNCSA

Founded in the 1990s, the Moving Image Archives at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem provided a home for thousands of 35mm film prints once kept at dozens of National Film Service depots across the country. Slated for destruction, the prints were rescued and trucked to a state-of-the-art archival facility, providing a foundation for what is now one of the largest 35mm collections in the world. Consisting primarily of titles released in the 1950s to the early 1990s, the holdings include widely distributed Hollywood classics, subtitled releases of foreign-language titles, grindhouse staples, cult movies, and some truly rare oddities. The series of all 35mm prints will include nine feature-length rarities from three continents and a personal appearance from the UNCSA’s senior curator, David Spencer, who will discuss the history of the collection and its holdings.

All Cinematheque screenings are free and open to the public.