Patricia Rozema Retrospective

Roxy Cinema is excited to present a retrospective and a celebration of Patricia Rozema’s work on the big screen. Patricia Rozema’s films, though varied in style and content, have always been marked by a humane and tender sensibility. This is the first large-scale tribute in the U.S. to this award-winning Canadian director. Newly 4K restored films directed by Patricia Rozema will be showing at Roxy Cinema from April 5th thru April 11th. Patricia will also be on hand at Roxy Cinema for live Q&A’s.

4K restored – I’VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING (1987)

Winner of the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival – became a Queer and indie cinema classic. The film opened the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to win numerous awards and was ranked in TIFF’s list of Top 10 Canadian Films of all time. A charming and whimsical story about a daydreamer with artistic aspirations, Patricia Rozema’s fanciful character study follows an amateur photographer Polly (Sheila McCarthy) as she lands a temp job at a Toronto art gallery run by elegant and sophisticated Gabrielle (Paule Baillargeon), who is also a painter. Polly is impressed with Gabrielle’s paintings, but as Polly gets to know Gabrielle’s lover, Mary (Ann-Marie MacDonald), and becomes entangled in their lives, she realizes that Gabrielle isn’t exactly who she appears to be. The absent-minded temp with spiky orange hair and the polished curator with a gift for gab are like night and day, yet a strong connection builds between these two women through their shared love of art, and their genuine curiosity and need for love.

4K restored – WHITE ROOM (1990)

Never before released in the United States, Patricia Rozema’s second feature WHITE ROOM, is a harrowing fairy tale, as much about the consequences of naive romanticism as it in about our uniquely modern obsession with celebrity. In this “journey through genres”, WHITE ROOM centers on would-be writer Norman (Maurice Godin), a directionless soul who, afflicted with writer’s block, takes to wandering the suburban boulevards at night and peeping on his neighbors – especially one “Madeline X” (Margot Kidder) – a famous singer who is murdered one night as the horrified Norman watches, too stunned to intervene. Overcome with guilt, Norman attends her public memorial, where he meets an enigmatic woman (Kate Nelligan) with unexplained connections to Madelaine X. He follows her home to see her slip into a secret room every night. Set in the cultural landscape of bohemian Toronto at the dawn of the ’90s, WHITE ROOM explores the incompatibility of the fragile openness needed to create art and the impossibly thick skin required to sell it.

4K restored – WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING (1995)

This film had its world premiere in the Official Competition at the 1995 Berlin Festival, and went on to become an instant lesbian classic. Camille (Pascale Bussières) is a mythology lecturer at a conservative Christian college. She’s engaged to be married and is on the path to a stable career. But, when her dog dies, Camille finds her life unraveling. At a low ebb, she crosses paths with fiery circus performer Petra (Rachael Crawford), and sparks fly. With Petra pursuing her ardently, Camille experiences a sexual awakening and must confront the daunting prospect of changing her entire existence.

35MM – MANSFIELD PARK (1999)

Patricia Rozema’s daring adaptation of Mansfield Park is a witty look at romance and reality, Jane Austen style. Rozema has taken Jane Austen’s third and most controversial novel and infused its lead character with the irreverent and mischievous nature at the heart of Austen’s own letters and early writings. The result is an original social satire with a strong-willed heroine at its center who, á la Austen, attempts to outsmart the dizzying labyrinth of marriage and social status — without compromising her ideals or her heart. This is the story of Fanny Price (Frances O’Connor), who emerges from this comedic maze having discovered the rightness of one true love.

4K restored – MOUTHPIECE (2018)

Won the Directors Guild of Canada Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film Award and was voted a Canada Top Ten of in 2018. The film is a tender, innovative examination of the shattering experience of grief shot through with a darkly surreal streak of humor. Adapted from the multi-award winning play of the same name, MOUTHPIECE unfolds through raucous jokes, musical numbers and heartbreaking memories that add up to a deeply moving and political portrait of a mother and a daughter as seen through the eyes of one conflicted young woman.