Grrl Haus Cinema, the legendary collective dedicated to short films by women, trans, nonbinary and genderqueer artists, returns to its birthplace at The Brattle Theatre on Thursday with a new program titled “NeuroCinema.” The theme of the dozen shorts on display, as one might expect from the title, is neurodiversity; each film is either an exploration thereof, or itself made by a neurodiverse artist. But that description doesn’t do justice to the wide range of films in the program, which span the globe from Paris and Iran to right here in Cambridge (multidisciplinary artist Janella Mele, who contributed the film “Growing Eyes Out of Your Spine,” is a tattooist at Hidden Vibes). Moreover, the films run the gamut from animation to documentary, intimate character study to a nightmarish fantasia on the life of sculptor Camille Claudel (as in Alice Dontenwille’s “Camille à corps perdu”). It’s a reminder that, when it comes to neurodiversity, as much emphasis should be placed on the latter half of the word as the former.
Local cinephiles of a certain bent will need no introduction to Wicked Queer, one of the longest-running LGBTQIA+ film festivals in the country and a world-renowned bastion of personal, transgressive and cutting-edge queer art. The festival, which opens Friday and runs through April 13, spans nearly every film venue in Greater Boston, including the Coolidge, the ICA, the Paramount Center and the MFA, but the majority of the 40-plus screenings are here at The Brattle. Cambridgeside highlights of the first week include the U.S. premiere of Allan Deberton’s “The Best Friend,” which opens the festival Friday; “The Visitor,” the latest provocation from underground legend Bruce LaBruce, which screens Saturday; Kimberly Reed’s true-crime documentary “I’m Your Venus,” about the still-unsolved murder of “Paris Is Burning” breakout Venus Xtravaganza, on Monday; and a repertory screening of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s classic “Teorema” (1968) on Tuesday. For a complete schedule (including screenings on the other side of the river), you can dig into Wicked Queer’s official website.
Fans of masterful, in-depth documentary filmmaking have no shortage of options this week, as two masters of the form from opposite sides of the world are celebrated with rare screenings. The citywide tribute to Cambridge native Frederick Wiseman continues this week at the Somerville Theatre with 4K restorations of two of the director’s lesser-seen works: “The Store” (1983), about Neiman-Marcus’ flagship store and corporate headquarters in Dallas, on Thursday, and “Racetrack” (1985), an inside look at New York’s Belmont Race Track, on Tuesday. The Harvard Film Archive, meanwhile, celebrates Wang Bing, the Chinese master of slow cinema, with screenings of his recent Youth Trilogy, a sprawling, three-part look at migrant workers outside Shanghai. Shot over the course of five years and cumulatively spanning more than 10 hours, the three films – “Youth (Spring)” (2023) on Friday, “Youth (Hard Times)” (2024) on Saturday and “Youth (Homecoming)” (2024) on Sunday – paint a humane and painstaking portrait of the conditions in the factories that make children’s clothes sold the world over. If you are unable to make this weekend’s screenings (or need to pace yourself between films), encore presentations of each are slated for the end of the month.
In one of the most grotesque displays on the Internet in recent memory (no mean feat in 2025), OpenAI last week released a filter that converts existing photos into the lush anime style of Studio Ghibli. This was, of course, abused immediately by all manner of right-wing troll (up to and including the official White House X account), but the true offensiveness of this filter lies in its very existence, which flies against the painstaking craftsmanship and boundless human imagination that defines the studio’s output; Hayao Miyazaki, the legendary animator and Ghibli co-founder, once famously referred to AI animation as “an insult to life itself.” It feels serendipitous, then, that this weekend brings a new 4K remaster of Miyazaki’s fantasy classic “Princess Mononoke” (1997), which screens Saturday at midnight at the Somerville Theatre. One of Miyazaki’s darkest and most mature works, “Mononoke” feels particularly apropos for the moment, pitting its titular barbarian warrior against the greedy humans ravaging the natural landscape for profit. But it is also filled with the director’s trademark beauty and invention, and is guaranteed to fill even the hardest heart with wonder. No technological achievement will ever match the bounds of human creativity. Thankfully, the real films of Studio Ghibli will never cease inspiring generations of actual artists.
Belmont World Film’s 23rd Annual International Film Series is in full swing at Apple Cinemas in Cambridge before making its way to West Newton Cinema for the remainder of the fest. This year’s theme is “Freedom on Film” – a timely message any year but, sadly, especially right now. On Monday, BWF presents Teddy Lussi-Modeste’s “The Good Teacher” (2024), starring François Civil as a gay educator whose position is thrown into turmoil following an accusation from a student; it is followed on Monday by Jirí Mádl’s “Waves” (2024), a thriller set during the Prague Spring of 1968. As always, the program is a vital reminder of film’s potential as an engine of change and inspiration.
The film world lost a titan this year in Gene Hackman, who passed in his home at the age of 95. While the circumstances of Hackman’s death (which I will not get into here) are dispiriting to say the least, the Somerville Theatre is seizing the opportunity to celebrate his life and work with a series of double features, screening on 35 mm in collaboration with ScreenBoston. The series kicks off Wednesday with a pair of Hackman’s lesser-screened – but no less great – films: Woody Allen’s Bergmanesque drama “Another Woman” (1988), which places Hackman in an all-star ensemble including Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow, Ian Holm and Blythe Danner, and Bud Yorkin’s “Twice in a Lifetime” (1985), for which Hackman won a Golden Globe as a steelworker in the throes of a midlife crisis. Both are prime examples of Hackman’s timeless everyman persona, and a reminder of the sheer breadth and depth of the actor’s filmography.
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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