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CTCS-466: Theatrical Film Symposium
This Fall 2026 semester, the School of Cinematic Arts will offer a very special course called CTCS-466: Theatrical Film Symposium, a four-unit elective class open for enrollment to ALL USC STUDENTS OF ANY MAJOR that brings you face-to-face with leading film directors, writers, producers, and actors working today. Throughout the semester, students will watch a wide selection of new film releases, followed by exclusive Q&As with the creative teams behind them.
The Iron Mountain Media & Archival Services Spotlight Screening Series Presents: SOUL PATROL
Soul Patrol uncovers a hidden chapter of American military history by focusing on the Vietnam War's first Black special ops team, an elite unit operating deep behind enemy lines. With unprecedented access to this once-secretive group of African-American veterans, director J.M. Harper reconstructs their journey with an immediacy rarely seen in Vietnam War storytelling, using raw Super 8 footage, photographs, and audio recordings from their personal archives. Opening on the war’s 50th anniversary, the surviving members reunite in a hotel that becomes a surreal liminal space, where memory, brotherhood, and unresolved trauma collide. As the men reflect on their experiences, the film interrogates the contradictions of fighting for freedom abroad while facing inequality at home.
Movies We Love Presents: AIR FORCE ONE (1997)
The President is held hostage on Air Force One by a crew of Russian terrorists. Using his strength and guile, the Commander-in-Chief must spring into action and fight off his attackers.
AGFA Movie Hooky Club IMAX Matinee Screening: VEERANA (1988)
If you only see one Bollywood horror film in your life, it should be VEERANA. The story follows Jasmin, a bloodsucking seductress who leads men to their doom after being possessed by the spirit of a witch. Unless Jasmin's family can find a way to break the curse, she'll be used in a Satanic ritual to raise the real witch from her tomb. A kaleidoscopic dream zone full of Bava-esque lightning, gloopy monsters, and a killer synth score, this is the most extravagant production from the Ramsay family—India's most popular and successful horror filmmakers. Never before available to screen in North America, VEERANA is newly restored and primed to delight your audience with Satanic fury.
HEATHENS
Five Americans arrive as strangers at a secluded retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains — many without their families' knowledge — seeking respite from the guilt, shame, fear, and loneliness of hiding who they are. Each has quietly rejected the religion that raised them, now fearing the cost of honesty: family, security, livelihood. They are not alone. Over 80 million American adults hide their religious disbelief or exaggerate their faith. By the end of the weekend, the five non-believers resolve to reclaim their lives, forging a friendship that carries them through the storms awaiting them back home. In this warm, funny, and unexpectedly joyful story, they rebuild community, inspired by the gospel music of home, reclaiming the slur “heathen” as a proud new identity. For the first time in their lives, five Heathens discover who they truly are.
BREAKING THE CODE
Before the internet changed the world, a radical outsider changed the internet. Told through the lens of filmmaker Ben Rekhi, Breaking the Code is the gripping, deeply personal story of his father, Kanwal Rekhi—one of Silicon Valley’s most defiant and successful pioneers. As the first Indian to shatter the predominantly white glass ceiling of big tech, Kanwal rubbed shoulders with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs before sparking an entrepreneurial revolution that helped propel India into the global economic superpower it is today. Now, as his wife Ann faces a crisis, father and son must confront the true cost of success on a family, and what it truly means to belong.
IN WAVES
AJ (voiced by Will Sharpe), a reserved high school student in Los Angeles, spends his days drawing and skateboarding with his friends. Kristen (voiced by Stephanie Hsu), an energetic surfer, finds joy and freedom in the ocean. When they meet, curiosity evolves into deep love: Kristen teaches AJ to surf and shares its historical connection to Hawaiian culture. As their relationship grows closer, AJ is inspired to preserve their connection by drawing their story.
AGFA Movie Hooky Club IMAX Matinee Screening: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE UNDERNEATH (1972)
Feminist and radical theatre icon Jane Arden adapts her own multimedia production “A New Communion for Freaks, Prophets and Witches” in this harrowing, nightmarish exploration of reason, chaos and her own battles with mental illness that’s unlike anything audiences have seen before or since. Sheila Allen (CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED), Ann Lynn (THE BLACK TORMENT), renowned visual artist Penny Slinger, and Arden herself star in the only British feature film of the 1970s directed solely by a woman—newly restored in 2K by the British Film Institute.
INFIRMARY
Recovered bodycam footage reveals a security guard’s first night inside an abandoned hospital, where an intruder and a series of inexplicable disturbances turn a routine shift into a desperate fight for survival.
AMERICAN HISTORY X
Edward Norton delivers a searing performance as a former neo-Nazi skinhead whose life was almost destroyed by his own hatred--and who now struggles to prevent his younger brother from following in his footsteps. Seeking retribution for his father's murder and burning with rage, Derek Vinyard (Norton) becomes the charismatic leader of a local White Power movement. Despite his intelligence, Derek's incendiary actions culminate in a brutal murder and three years in prison. Now on parole, Derek returns home to find his brother, Danny (Edward Furlong), being seduced by the same anger, bigotry and violence that almost destroyed his life.
AGFA Movie Hooky Club IMAX Matinee Screening: DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES (1988)
Winner of the International Critics' Prize at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, Terence Davies' feature debut heralded one of Britain's finest filmmaking talents. Loosely based on the director's own family and upbringing, Distant Voices, Still Lives presents an evocative account of working-class life in Liverpool, England during the 1940s and 50s. Births, marriages and deaths - and an expressive use of music - provide the underpinning for a film that is beautiful, heartbreaking, resonant but never sentimental. Now regarded as a masterpiece of British cinema, and boasting a startling performance from Pete Postlethwaite (Romeo + Juliet, Inception) as the head of the family, Distant Voices, Still Lives has been treated to a glorious 4K restoration by the British Film Institute.
Awards-Qualified Short Film Showcase
Eight short films in consideration for Awards.
A GIRL UNKNOWN
Passed among three families from ages six to eighteen—and given a new name and identity by each—a young Chinese girl searches for belonging, love, and a life of her own in A Girl Unknown. Director Zou Jing’s deeply moving debut premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week, where it received the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution.
HUMPTY DUMPTY X
The story of Tony Kaye and American History X is Hollywood folklore: a fiercely original debut filmmaker, a studio battle over final cut and a director who famously asked for the credit "Humpty Dumpty" rather than compromise his vision. What few people knew was that Kaye kept a camera running throughout. Thirty years later, he has finally assembled that footage into Humpty Dumpty X, a documentary built from phone calls with executives, candid conversations with friends, and the rantings, paintings, photographs, and notebooks that filled his life during that singular period.
A Conversation with Bing Gordon: Video Game Visionary and Strategist
A conversation with Bing Gordon: Video Game Visionary and Strategist followed by Book Signing of Everybody Wins
AGFA Movie Hooky Club IMAX Matinee Screening: THE BOYS NEXT DOOR (1985)
This is the moment when 1980s teen movies went rogue. Maxwell Caulfield (GREASE 2) and Charlie Sheen (WALL STREET) star as high-school outcasts who head to Los Angeles for an unhinged spree of crime, violence, and savage murder. Directed by the mighty Penelope Spheeris (WAYNE’S WORLD, THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION) and written by Glen Morgan and James Wong (the creators of THE X-FILES and the FINAL DESTINATION franchise), THE BOYS NEXT DOOR is the very definition of “hidden gem.” Featuring music by Iggy Pop and The Cramps, this nihilistic, serial killer rampager has been newly restored in 4K from the original negative.
AGFA Movie Hooky Club IMAX Matinee Screening: XX: BEAUTIFUL HUNTER (1994)
Assassin and femme fatale Shion rebels against the fanatical religious order who prepared her from birth to be the perfect killer in XX: Beautiful Hunter, a whirlwind of romance and violence from legendary Roman Porno director Masaru Konuma.
AGFA Movie Hooky Club IMAX Matinee Screening: DOUBLE AGENT 73 (1974)
No one will ever make movies like Doris Wishman made movies. One of the most prolific women filmmakers in the history of American cinema, writer-director-editor Wishman created DIY collisions between surrealism and exploitation that feel like they materialized from an alternate universe. DOUBLE AGENT 73—Wishman's most infamous, crowd-pleasing movie and her final collaboration with the iconic Chesty Morgan—finds secret agent Jane (Morgan) taking down a heroin ring with the help of her otherworldly bust . . . which is implanted with a secret camera and bombs. Filled with outrageous violence, high camp, and breathtaking fashions courtesy of Morgan, DOUBLE AGENT 73 has been newly restored in 2K from its original 35mm camera negative.
The Actor's Director Workshop
There is that rare breed of Director that just “knows” how to get the best out of the actor -- giving them a sense of freedom, inspiring courage, and bringing clarity. The opportunity in collaborative storytelling is finding ways to bring out the best in each other. Discover the most important aspect of filmmaking and performance -- the communication between directors and actors.