Before the modern Danish cinema of Lars Von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg & Susanne Bier there was only one internationally recognised and widely celebrated Danish director: Carl Theodore Dreyer. Even now, Dreyer is unique. He had no forerunners, no equals and no successors. Often championed as one of the pillars of film history, and profoundly austere and precise in his visual style, Dreyer was an uncompromising visionary and perfectionist whose works are the equal of those of such truly singular artists as Robert Bresson and Yasujiro Ozu.

An unwillingness to compromise his remarkable artistic vision led to his producing a mere 14 features in 46 years, beginning with The President in 1919 and concluding with Gertrud in 1964. Most of his oeuvre was completed in his first creative decade, capped by one of the most celebrated and singular works of the silent era, The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Dreyer's major films can be experienced as works of art that directly communicate the human experience, exploring the soul as it is reflected in the face. It is unsurprising that Godard paid a succinct homage to the director in Vivre sa vie, perfectly illustrating Dreyer's aim of touching the heart of a single spectator. This retrospective of imported 35mm archival prints showcases the irrefutably great films of Dreyer, such as The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, Day of Wrath, Ordet and Gertrud, plus several shorts and a couple of early rarities: The President and Once Upon a Time. Watch and be seduced by their power.

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June 25 - 7:00pm

Day of Wrath

Carl Dreyer (1943) 100 mins M

Anna, the young 2nd wife of a much older pastor, falls in love with her stepson. Filmed during the Nazi occupation, Dreyer’s harrowing account of individual helplessness in the light of increasing social repression & paranoia is also one of the great films about witchcraft & female sexuality. Exquisitely photographed & passionately acted, it provides an intense, austere & indelible viewing experience.

35mm print courtesy of Danish Film Institute.

Preceded by

Good Mothers Carl Dreyer (1942) 11 mins A documentary of an unmarried mother who is nurtured & supported by the Danish social service. Provides a clear & socially conscious line counter to the Nazi propaganda espoused in occupation-era newsreels.

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June 25 - 9:00pm

Ordet

Carl Dreyer (1955) 126 mins M

Coupling stunning cinematography with delicately realised characterisation, Dreyer’s masterpiece is an exploration into the agonies of true faith as well the fragilities (& ecstasies) of familial bonds. Set in a small rural household, the film tells the tale of a theology student (Preben Lerdorff Rye) whose mind has fractured under the weight of his spiritual deliberations & follows his & his family’s response to his mother’s brittle & mysterious mortality. An awe-inspiring cinematic marvel.

35mm print courtesy of Danish Film Institute.

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July 2 - 7:00pm

Gertrud

Carl Dreyer (1964) 115 mins

One of the greatest final films by any director, Dreyer’s serene but devastating film centres on an unapologetic, unconventional & independent woman (Nina Pens Rode) who demands total commitment to love, breaking off a series of relationships that don’t fulfil her uncompromising needs. Physical & spiritual, severe & luminously poetic, Jonathan Rosenbaum rightly called it “one of the great haunted-memory films”, & it takes its place alongside the magnificent melancholy late works of Ford, Welles & Ophuls.

35mm print courtesy of Danish Film Institute.

Preceded by

They Caught the Ferry Carl Dreyer (1948) 12 mins.

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July 2 - 9:15pm

The President

Carl Dreyer (1919) 105 mins

A judge sees his illegitimate daughter face trial for the murder of her newborn child. Dreyer’s 1st film contains autobiographical elements & displays all the characteristics that became identified with his cinema: from the spare mise-en-scène to the expressionistic distortion of eerily projected figures, & the casting of actors (& non-actors) based on facial type. In illustrating the dichotomy between law & justice, Dreyer introduces a fundamental aspect of his cinema by exploring the intrinsic inhumanity of all rigid institutions & system.

35mm print courtesy of Danish Film Institute.

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July 9 - 7:00pm

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Carl Dreyer (1927) 82 mins

Dreyer's intense, profound & stylistically innovative film seems like an historical document from a time before cinema existed. This landmark work, conceived from the actual trial manuscripts, is driven by Rudolph Maté’s starkly illuminated images & Dreyer's meticulous attention to the brutal & experiential dimension’s of Joan’s plight, evoking from the singular Maria Falconetti the cinema's most serene & agonised performance. With Antonin Artaud & Michel Simon.

35mm print courtesy of Danish Film Institute.

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July 9 - 8:30pm

Vampyr

Carl Dreyer (1932) 70 mins

Dreyer’s memorable, unofficial retelling of the Bram Stoker classic is marked by a concern for the oneiric & the interplay of light & shadow. With Rudolph Maté’s cinematography imbuing the film with a dreamlike reality suggestive of the liminal realm of the vampire, Dreyer went far beyond the purely Gothic, creating a horror film that not only contains a number of the most unsettling images in cinema history (including the point-of-view of a body being led to burial) but that makes most other examples pale into insignificance.

35mm print courtesy of Danish Film Institute.

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July 9 - 9:50pm

Once Upon a Time

Carl Dreyer (1922) 75 mins

While approximately half of its original footage has been lost, Dreyer’s adaptation of Holger Drachmann’s popular play remains an engaging early work. Thought lost until 1964, when fragments of celluloid were discovered in a long-forgotten vault, the surviving footage is supported by stills & intertitles, which help to make up the complete narrative. With its echoes of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew & its fairytale atmosphere, Dreyer’s film is a light-hearted affair of considerable historical interest.

35mm print courtesy of Danish Film Institute.

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