Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Monsieur Lazhar tells the poignant story of a Montreal middle school class shaken by the death of their well-liked teacher. Bachir Lazhar (Fellag), a 55-year-old Algerian immigrant, offers the school his services as a substitute teacher and is quickly hired. As he helps the children heal, he also learns to accept his own painful past.

This moving film features exquisite performances by Fellag and a stunning ensemble of child actors.

A provocative exploration of female sexuality, Juliette Binoche stars as Anne, a well-off Parisian journalist investigating the lives of two student prostitutes (Joanna Kulig and Anaïs Demoustier) for a magazine article. What begins as a routine assignment, though, quickly turns personal, as Anne is drawn into the lives of these fiercely independent young women and forced to confront her own sexual fears and desires.

Twelve-year-old Koichi lives with his mother and retired grandparents in Kagoshima, in the southern region of Kyushu, Japan.

His younger brother Ryunosuke lives with their father in Hakata, northern Kyushu. The brothers have been separated by their parents’ divorce and Koichi’s only wish is for his family to be reunited. When he learns that a new bullet train line will soon open, linking the two towns, he starts to believe that a miracle will take place the moment these new trains first pass each other at top speed.

With help from the adults around him, Koichi sets out on a journey with a group of friends, each hoping to witness a miracle that will improve their difficult lives.

Contemporary high schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) doesn’t have the most pleasant of lives. Browbeaten by his principal at school, Marty must also endure the acrimonious relationship between his nerdy father (Crispin Glover) and his lovely mother (Lea Thompson), who in turn suffer the bullying of middle-aged jerk Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), Marty’s dad’s supervisor. The one balm in Marty’s life is his friendship with eccentric scientist Doc (Christopher Lloyd), who at present is working on a time machine. Accidentally zapped back into the 1950s, Marty inadvertently interferes with the budding romance of his now-teenaged parents. Our hero must now reunite his parents-to-be, lest he cease to exist in the 1980s. It won’t be easy, especially with the loutish Biff, now also a teenager, complicating matters. Beyond its dazzling special effects, the best element of Back to the Future is the performance of Michael J. Fox, who finds himself in the quagmire of surviving the white-bread 1950s with a hip 1980s mindset. Back to the Future cemented the box-office bankability of both Fox and the film’s director, Robert Zemeckis, who went on to helm two equally exhilarating sequels.

Named by Chicago Magazine as the Best New Film Series of 2011, Second Saturday Silent Cinema is now presented on the second Saturday of every month at noon!

All films are shown authentically in 35mm at proper silent film speed and aspect ratio with live accompaniment by Dennis Scott at the Music Box theatre organ.

Bespectacled everyman Harold Lloyd is an introverted, speech-impaired, awkward tailor’s assistant who secretly writes a book, “The Secrets of Making Love”, and decides to leave his small-town home to get it published in the big city.

In the story’s riotous, thrill-packed climax, the determined lover uses every means of transportation available in his frantic rush to get to the altar in time to stop the love of his life from marrying another.