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The Film Noir Foundation Presents

NOIR CITY: INTERNATIONAL II

The 18th Annual San Francisco Film Noir Festival

America doesn't have a monopoly on swaggering gangsters, larcenous lovers, surly ex-cons, corrupt cops, and scheming femmes fatales. Six years after the first NOIR CITY: INTERNATIONAL—the Film Noir Foundation is at it again: presenting an array of classic films from around the globe, a wide-ranging, thematically cohesive immersion in a sordid world of sinister and sexy affairs—including the world premieres of two new restorations by the Film Noir Foundation! Yes, "It's a Bitter Little World"— but for ten days and nights at the majestic Castro Theatre, NOIR CITY is cinema paradiso! As always, the festival is programmed and hosted by Eddie Muller, internationally renowned "Czar of Noir" and host of the popular Turner Classic Movies series Noir Alley.

For veteran cinephiles, it's a chance to again experience cherished cinematic masterpieces in a bona fide movie palace. For those just starting their cinematic journey, NOIR CITY is the perfect introduction to a wide world of international filmmakers and stars, on the big screen, larger than life. The 10-day excursion travels through hot-blooded nightclubs of the Mexican cabareteras, neon-streaked alleys of Japanese yakuza thrillers, the stylish Parisian underworld, Italian palazzos hiding crimes of every social strata, a Kafkaesque Prague as envisioned by the Czech New Wave — even a rare serial killer film set in Nazi Germany made by Hollywood's finest director of film noir, Robert Siodmak. Tour guides include some of the world's most revered filmmakers: Michelangelo Antonioni, Andzrej Wajda, Julien Duvivier, Jean-Pierre Melville, Roberto Gavaldón, Jirí Weiss, and Masahiro Shinoda.

"Now, more than ever, it's essential to resist the dread and paranoia of contemporary times by looking beyond our differences," says Muller. "Let's appreciate the noir ethos for the creativity it inspires and the warning flares it long ago flashed on screens worldwide. Noir has no national boundaries. It's the same story, everywhere."

All you need to know about the NOIR CITY Film Festival —enjoy!

Surround yourself in a miasma of social media darkness: join us on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter for a complete immersion in the world of film noir through film stills, posters, film clips, brilliant insights, and more. Maybe you'll meet a dangerous stranger along the way.

UPCOMING NOIR CITY DATES

NOIR CITY: Austin: TBD
NOIR CITY: Boston: TBD
NOIR CITY: Chicago: TBD
NOIR CITY: Detroit: TBD
NOIR CITY: D.C.: TBD

→ MORE INFO

FNF DEBUTS TWO ARGENTINE RESTORATIONS

The Film Noir Foundation will premiere two new restorations at NOIR CITY 18, both little-known 1950s noir gems from Argentine director Román Viñoly Barreto: La bestia debe morir (1952) and El vampiro negro (1953). Both restorations were completed in 2019 by the FNF's preservation partner, UCLA Film & Television Archive, with support provided from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Charitable Trust (The HFPA Trust).

La bestia debe morir is an adaptation of Nicholas Blake's celebrated 1938 novel The Beast Must Die. Blake was actually a pseudonym of Irish poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis. The book was noted for an unusual structure combining a first-person narrative of murderous revenge with a whodunit plot more familiar to fans of Blake's Sherlockian British detective, Nigel Strangeways. The Argentine film, adapted for the screen by Viñoly Barreto and actor Narciso Ibáñez Menta, relegates Strangeways to a bit part, moving the noir-revenge narrative front and center. Spanish-born Ibáñez Menta was renowned in the '40s and '50s for horror and fantasy films, but in this full-fledged noir he portrays a writer hell-bent on uncovering the identity of the hit-and-run driver who killed his son … and murdering him.

"Until this discovery, most cinephiles believed that Claude Chabrol had made the first adaptation of Blake's novel in 1969," said FNF president Eddie Muller. "But largely thanks to my colleague Fernando Martín Peña, who introduced me to the film, this version of The Beast Must Die will now be recognized as the first—and with all due respect to Chabrol—the best screen version of the novel. It certainly has all the elements of a classic noir, and Viñoly Barreto directs it with great storytelling skill and visual style."
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NOIR CITY Annual #12

2020's NOIR CITY Annual 12, the best of the best from the Film Noir Foundation's 2019 quarterly NOIR CITY e-magazines, is another home run—essays, interviews, profiles, tributes, and reviews of classic and modern noir films from today's top writers—among them Jake Hinkson, Ray Banks, Vince Keenan, Alan K. Rode, Steve Kronenberg, John Wranovics, Sharon Knolle, D.A. Kolodenko, Lisa Lieberman, Ben Terrall, and Eddie Muller. Book layout and design by Michael Kronenberg. And, as with any purchase from the FNF, when you buy NOIR CITY Annual 12, you'll be helping fund the non-profit foundation's film restoration efforts. e-magazines.

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EXTRA! EXTRA! Get Your Noir News Here!

For the latest in noir news from small screen to big screen and beyond, visit our news area. We'll keep you updated on Film Noir Foundation projects and events, film festivals and noir-related happenings in other mediums on our news page, as well as noir and neo-noir titles released on DVD and Blu-ray. Our NOW PLAYING section will keep you up-to-date on noir-tinged entertainment. Check our monthly tv listings for noir and neo-noir films coming up on Turner Classic Movies.

FNF VIDEO ARCHIVES

Our Video Archives feature an expanding catalog of noir-related video, ranging from exclusive interviews, to festival guest appearances, to short films inspired by film noir.

LATEST ADDITIONS The twentieth anniversary edition of the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival on May 9, 2019, began with a screening of The Night of the Hunter (1955). Following the film, the Palm Springs festival host and producer Alan K. Rode conducted an on-stage discussion with actress Kathy Garver who appeared in the film. Garver also shared her recollections about her work on Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956) and the long-running Family Affair television series which ran 1966 - 1971. WATCH

The Film Noir Foundation lauched a monthly live stream on our Facebook page in which Eddie answers questions submitted by our e‑mail subscribers. Our first stream aired Thursday, June 18, at 8:00 p.m. PST. WATCH the archived recording on our YouTube channel.