Upcoming Events

• Metropolitan Opera HD Satellite Broadcast Schedule September 18, 2011 - April 28, 2012, Varied Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall The USC School of Cinematic Arts, The Metropolitan Opera and Visions and Voices: The USC Arts & Humanities Initiative, invite you to selected screenings from the 2010/2011 HD Broadcast Series, presented in HD and 5.1 sound from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
  
• Outside the Box [Office]: Spring 2012 January 7, 2012 - May 13, 2012, Varied The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Outside the Box [Office] is SCA's ongoing weekly showcase for upcoming international, documentary and independent cinema. The series draws from around the globe to present movies that may challenge, inspire or simply entertain and often features recent award-winning films from Sundance, Cannes, Berlin, SXSW and Venice Film Festivals. All screenings are free of charge and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. All screenings will be OVERBOOKED to ensure capacity.
  
• SCA Alumni Screening Series: Spring 2012 January 18, 2012 - May 15, 2012, Varied Varied The School of Cinematic Arts invites you to a free screening series featuring a selection of new films by SCA alumni and faculty throughout the Spring 2012 semester.
  
• IN DARKNESS February 9, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Leopold Socha, a sewer worker and petty thief in Lvov, a Nazi occupied city in Poland, one day encounters a group of Jews trying to escape the liquidation of the ghetto. He hides them for money in the labyrinth of the town’s sewers beneath the bustling activity of the city above. What starts out as a straightforward and cynical business arrangement turns into something very unexpected, the unlikely alliance between Socha and the Jews as the enterprise seeps deeper into Socha’s conscience.
  
• FIRST SQUAD February 12, 2012, 1:30 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Set during the opening days of World War II on the Eastern Front. Its main cast is a group of Soviet teenagers with extraordinary abilities; the teenagers have been drafted to form a special unit to fight the invading German army. They are opposed by a Schutzstaffel (SS) officer who is attempting to raise from the dead a supernatural army of crusaders from the 12th-century Order of the Sacred Cross and enlist them in the Nazi cause.
  
• REDLINE February 12, 2012, 3:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 "Redline" is about the biggest and most deadly racing tournament in the universe. Only held once every five years, everyone wants to stake their claim to fame, including JP, a reckless dare-devil driver oblivious to speed limits with his ultra-customized car - all the while, organized crime and militaristic governments want to leverage the race to their own ends. Amongst the other elite rival drivers in the tournament, JP falls for the alluring Sonoshee - but will she prove his undoing, or can a high speed romance survive a mass destruction race?
  
• THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN PILECKI February 12, 2012, 5:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 The story of the trial of Captain of Cavalry Witold Pilecki in 1947/1948. A Polish WWII hero who attempted to organize an underground military campaign at Auschwitz, Captain Pilecki returned to Poland and continued his work in the anti-communist organization "NO" (Nie). Pilecki was arrested by the communists and subjected to a horrendous interrogation. He was sentenced to death.
  
• THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY February 14, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Residing quietly beneath the floorboards are little people who live undetected in a secret world to be discovered, where the smallest may stand tallest of all.  From the legendary Studio Ghibli (“Spirited Away,” “Ponyo”) comes “The Secret World of Arrietty,” an animated adventure based on Mary Norton’s acclaimed children’s book series “The Borrowers.”
  
• THERE WAS ONCE... February 15, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Gabor Kalman’s documentary feature "There Was Once..." tells the inspiring story of Gyöngyi Mago, a Hungarian Catholic high school teacher striving to chart a new course of tolerance in her conflict-ridden hometown, Kalocsa, Hungary. While looking for a subject for her dissertation, she discovers a forgotten part of local history: the Jewish community that once thrived but is now non-existent in her city.
  
• HEAD-ON February 16, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 40-year-old Cahit (Birol Unel) is brought to a German psychiatric clinic after attempting suicide and sets out to start a new life, even as he longs for drugs and alcohol to numb his pain. Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) is young, pretty and, like Cahit, Turkish-German. She lives a lifestyle that is a bit too wild for her devout, conservative Muslim family and fakes a suicide attempt to try and escape them. But the incident brings shame upon her family, who insist that only marriage can save her.
  
• "Creating Stories for Animation" A Master Class with Disney Animation Studios February 17, 2012, 2:00-4:00pm SCA 108 Theater Join the writers and filmmakers behind Walt Disney Animation Studio’s Fall 2012 release, Wreck-It Ralph, for an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at creating compelling stories, appealing characters and believable worlds in animation.
  
• Production Perks: Previsualization for Any Film Budget February 17, 2012, 10:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M. The Animation Amphitheatre, SCB 104, Animation Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Join us for a Presentation and Q&A with Pre-Visualization and Visual Effects Producer Christopher Edwards as he discusses the Previs process and its applications for films of any budget. Along with a distinguished career in Visual Effects, Mr. Edwards has done Previs for many films including: "Star Wars: Episode III", "Resident Evil 5" and "Thor".
  
• LET THE BULLETS FLY February 19, 2012, 1:30 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 When legendary bandit “Pocky” Zhang violently crosses paths with the con man Tang, Tang offers up an intriguing proposition: he can help Zhang become the county governor of Goose Town, and make more money in a month than a year of train robberies. But neither realizes that Goose Town is already under the iron rule of Master Huang (Hong Kong action legend Chow Yun Fat), a ruthless and wealthy crime lord. Zhang and Huang begin a hyper-violent and hilarious series of escalating mind games in this masterfully vicious, pitch-black action-comedy, China’s highest-grossing film of all time.
  
• THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD February 19, 2012, 6:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival, the powerful and richly textured second feature from Joshua Marston ("Maria Full of Grace") focuses on an Albanian family caught up in a blood feud. Nik (Tristan Halilaj) is a carefree teenager in a small town with a crush on the school beauty and ambitions to start his own internet café. His world is suddenly up-ended when his father and uncle become entangled in a land dispute that leaves a fellow villager murdered. According to a centuries-old code of law, this entitles the dead man's family to take the life of a male from Nik's family as retribution.
  
• THE SALT OF LIFE February 19, 2012, 4:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 In his warm and witty follow-up to the 2010 sleeper hit "Mid-August Lunch", writer-director-actor Gianni Di Gregorio has created another sparkling comedy—this time with a dash of the bittersweet. In "The Salt of Life", Gianni plays a middle-aged retiree who has become invisible to all distaff Romans, regardless of age or relation. Watching his “codger” friends snare beautiful younger women on the sun-kissed cobblestones of Trastevere, Gianni tries his polite, utterly gracious best to generate some kind of extracurricular love life—with both hilarious and poignant results.
  
• An Afternoon with Italian Horror Maestro Dario Argento and SUSPIRIA February 21, 2012, 3:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 American ballet student Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) arrives in Germany to attend a prestigious dance academy. On the night of her arrival, she gets caught in a storm and witnesses a young woman fleeing the school in a panic. The student is horribly murdered, and Suzy begins having suspicions that all is not as it seems at the academy. She begins experiencing inexplicable dizzy spells as other bizarre deaths occur.
  
• SUPERMAN II February 21, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Miraculously freed from eternal orbit, the three outlaws from Krypton descend to earth, for the ultimate confrontation. Picking up where "Superman: The Movie" left off, three criminals from the planet Krypton are released from the Phantom Zone by a nuclear explosion in space. They descend upon Earth where they could finally rule. Superman, meanwhile, is in love with Lois Lane, who finds out who he really is. Lex Luthor escapes from prison and is determined to destroy Superman by joining forces with the three criminals.
  
• AN AFRICAN ELECTION February 22, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 A suspenseful political drama that follows the twists and turns of the 2008 presidential elections in Ghana, West Africa. A drama of national proportions, it is told at a human scale through the eyes of its director, Jarreth Merz.
  
• SARAH PALIN: YOU BETCHA! February 23, 2012, 9:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Nick Broomfield's quest for the real Sarah Palin. This involves battling the icy snows of Alaska in mid winter, the school friends, family, and Republican colleagues that in previous days gave their heart, soul and belief, to the charismatic, charming, intoxicating ex hockey mum. But it's not all plain sailing. People are frightened to talk, Wasilla makes Twin Peaks look like a walk in the park.
  
• THE UNDEFEATED February 23, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Alaska in mid-decade was a land of vast natural resources fought over by the largest companies in the world and governed by a corrupt and compromised political class. Rampant crony-capitalism stood in the way of the people of Alaska reaping the benefits of their natural birthright. Enter a galvanizing reformer, a small town mayor who took on her own political party and brought on "sudden and relentless reform." An epic two-hour feature documentary film, "The Undefeated" chronicles the rise from obscurity of one of America’s new generation of leaders: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.
  
• SILENT HOUSE February 24, 2012, 8:30 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 In "Silent House", Sarah, along with her uncle and father, prepare their long-time family summer home, recently violated by squatters, for sale. But broken windows and cracks in the plaster are the least of their problems when they discover they are not alone, and there's more than just mold concealed behind the walls. Over the course of 85 harrowing minutes, their idyllic isolated retreat is transformed into a site of horror as the family’s past returns to taunt then terrorize them, exposing a hidden and distorted history.
  
• THE STRIKING TRUTH February 24, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 "The Striking Truth" is the exclusive documentary for charismatic Ultimate Fighting Champion Georges St-Pierre and dynamic MMA fighter David "The Crow" Loiseau. The movie follows the two fighters over the past four years, starting with UFC 58 USA vs. Canada where Loiseau was fighting for the championship against Rich Franklin and St-Pierre was the co-main event against BJ Penn. The film juxtaposes their two careers with St-Pierre's meteoric rise to UFC champion and Loiseau facing personal challenges, charting their respective ups and downs as they follow their paths.
  
• SNOWTOWN February 28, 2012, 9:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Based on the horrifying crimes discovered in Snowtown, Australia in 1999, where police found dismembered bodies rotting in barrels, "Snowtown", which marks Justin Kurzel's directorial debut is a stark journey into the feral subculture of welfare dependence, addiction, domestic violence, brutality and sexual abuse.
  
• TIM & ERIC'S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE February 29, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 An all new feature film from the twisted minds of cult comedy heroes Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim ("Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!") Tim and Eric are given a billion dollars to make a movie, but squander every dime… and the sinister Schlaaang corporation is pissed. Their lives at stake, the guys skip town in search of a way to pay the money back. When they happen upon a chance to rehabilitate a bankrupt mall full of vagrants, bizarre stores and a man-eating wolf that stalks the food court, they see dollar signs—a billion of them.
  
• CAST ME IF YOU CAN March 1, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Hiroshi is an actor who always plays supporting roles and lives in the shadow of his famous playwright father, Kenta. Hiroshi has the virtue of being helpful to strangers, but as a result, like a chameleon, he is always mistaken for someone else: a sales clerk, a policeman, and even a kidnapper. When the lead role of Hiroshi’s dreams finally seems within reach, his contract is canceled after he is mistaken for another man having an affair with the wife of an MP.
  
• 21 JUMP STREET March 2, 2012, 7:00 P.M. Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall In the action-comedy "21 Jump Street", Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are more than ready to leave their adolescent problems behind. Joining the police force and the secret Jump Street unit, they use their youthful appearances to go undercover in a local high school. As they trade in their guns and badges for backpacks, Schmidt and Jenko risk their lives to investigate a violent and dangerous drug ring. But they find that high school is nothing like they left it just a few years earlier - and neither expects that they will have to confront the terror and anxiety of being a teenager again and all the issues they thought they had left behind.
  
• GOTTERDAMMERUNG March 4, 2012, 12:00 P.M. Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall With its cataclysmic climax, the Met’s new "Ring" cycle, directed by Robert Lepage, comes to its resolution. Deborah Voigt stars as Brünnhilde and Jay Hunter Morris is Siegfried—the star-crossed lovers doomed by fate. Fabio Luisi conducts. Pre-opera discussion hosted by Dr. James Kincaid, Aerol Arnold Chair in English and Professor of English.
  
• LEAVE IT ON THE FLOOR March 4, 2012, 7:30 P.M. Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall "Leave It On The Floor" tells the story of an outsider, Brad, who’s been thrown out of his own dysfunctional family onto the mean streets of LA. By chance, like Alice down the rabbit hole, he stumbles into a ball, a startling underground scene populated by a ragtag assortment of strays. Brad’s journey is the journey of the film to where he ultimately will find home, love and acceptance in this new, most unlikely of places.
  
• TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN March 4, 2012, 4:30 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 "To Whom Much is Given" documents the journey of one man and his students as they struggle to change their futures from being locked up or dead in the street. Located in South Central LA, New West Tech Academy is a non-public, special education school that provides a more restrictive environment for kids who have been removed from public school. Aside from learning disabilities, these kids deal with drugs, gangs, and broken homes.
  
• WHITE WASH March 4, 2012, 2:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 "White Wash" explores the complexity of race in America through the eyes of the ocean via the history of African Americans and water culture from slavery, civil rights wade-ins to surfing in contemporary times. In examining the history of world water culture, and the history of black identity as it triumphs and evolves in the minds of black surfers, we learn about the power of transcending race as a constructive phenomenon.
  
• ASTRAL CITY: A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY March 6, 2012, 3:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Based on the best selling book by medium Chico Xavier, the film tells the story of Andre Luiz, a successful doctor who experiences an enlightening spiritual awakening after his death. When he wakes up in the spiritual world, he embarks on a new journey of self-discovery and transformation, from his first days in a dimension of pain and suffering, until when he is rescued and taken to the spiritual Astral City.
  
• POETRY March 7, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Albert and Dana Broccoli Theatre, SCA 112, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival, "Poetry" is an "achingly exquisite portrait" (Philadelphia Inquirer) of a woman's brave fight against Alzheimer's, and against her guilt over a relative's brutal crime. Mija is an aging part-time maid and full-time guardian of her apathetic grandson. Concerned by her frequent forgetfulness, she takes a poetry class at the local arts center to sharpen her mind. She begins to appreciate the wonders of the natural world, but a schoolgirl's suicide initiates a chain of tragic events that will change her life forever.
  
• IN SEARCH OF HAYDN March 19, 2012, 3:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Award-winning filmmaker Phil Grabsky offers the eagerly awaited final part of his trilogy of films about the great composers, with his latest feature-length documentary, "In Search of Haydn". As with the two previous international hits, Grabsky’s biographical account of the life of Haydn is a visual and aural extravaganza, including breath-taking performances by some of the world’s most celebrated and contemporary musicians.
  
• DUST: THE GREAT ASBESTOS TRIAL April 4, 2012, 7:00 P.M. The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Charges: intentional disaster. Applicable punishment: 12 year sentence. Defendants: n. 142 and n. 243 in the world’s richest men chart. Witnesses for the prosecution: 800 relatives of the victims from Casale Monferrato, representing the tens of thousands of people who worked in Eternit factories around the world for over a century. Most people believe that Asbestos is a problem of the past, but this is far from the truth. Asbestos production has once again begun to rise in the world, due to the great extent of its consumption in countries like India, China and Russia.
  
• MANON April 7, 2012, 10:00 A.M. Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall Anna Netrebko’s dazzling portrayal of the tragic heroine in Laurent Pelly’s new production travels to the Met from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Piotr Beczala and Paulo Szot also star, with the Met’s Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi on the podium.
  
• LA TRAVIATA April 28, 2012, 12:00 P.M. Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall Natalie Dessay will put on the red dress in Willy Decker’s stunning production, in her first Violetta at the Met. Matthew Polenzani sings Alfredo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky is Germont, and Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.