Name: Cinematheque at the Chazen: THE APPLE
Start: 2025-03-09T14:00:00-05:00
Location: Chazen Museum of Art

At the Chazen: Treasures from the WCFTR
This Sunday afternoon series at the Chazen celebrates the history of adventurous film programming in Madison and beyond with films from the Amos Vogel Collection and the Wisconsin Film Festival Collection, both archived at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. Our series kicks off with Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket, which Amos Vogel introduced and distributed to American audiences through Cinema 16, the influential film society he ran in New York from 1947 to 1963. Two features included in previous editions of the Wisconsin Film Festival, Samira Makhmalbaf’s The Apple and Jill Sprecher’s 13 Conversations About One Thing, will highlight examples of the independent and international films that the Festival has brought to Madison audiences since its founding in 1999. And in the spirit of Amos Vogel’s wide-ranging curation, the final program will bring together 16mm and 35mm prints of seven short films that he screened or distributed through Cinema 16. The Amos Vogel and Wisconsin Film Festival collections are part of WCFTR’s ongoing “Expanding Film Culture’s Field of Vision” project, funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
SUN., 3/9, 2 p.m.
Chazen
THE APPLE
Iran | 1998 | 35mm | 86 min. | Farsi with English subtitles
Director: Samira Makhmalbaf
Cast: Massoumeh Naderi, Zahra Naderi, Ghorban Ali Naderi
Twelve-year-old twins Massoumeh and Zahra have been imprisoned by their parents in their home in Tehran for years, and a social worker pushes for their freedom after neighbors bring attention to the girls’ plight. Based on a true story and with the actual family playing themselves, The Apple is a sensitive yet probing reenactment of the events, boldly mixing documentary and drama. Samira Makhmalbaf, the daughter of renowned Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, directed the film when she was just 17. “Rarely have the lines between documentary and fiction film been blurred with such formal audacity or righteousness” (Manohla Dargis). Preceded by a selection of 35mm Wisconsin Film Festival trailers. Prints courtesy Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research.