Bleak Week, C'est Chic

Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair began in 2022 as counter-programming with a lineup focused on filmmakers who embrace despair to pursue unpleasant truths and raw empathy. The inaugural slate included repertory classics such as Salò, 120 Days of Sodom, Come and See, Winter Light, Funny Games, Breaking the Waves, and Sátántangó, unified mainly by dreariness and arthouse status. The fifth iteration is more curatorially focused and has grown into a worldwide event, expanding to 73 cities and nearly 100 theaters starting in June. Programmers worldwide are invited to interpret “bleakness” for their audiences. Programming leadership emphasizes films often labeled heavy or depressing, highlighting patience and humanism as the core of the series.

"Its diverse lineup was aimed, as per the Cinematheque's website, at spotlighting "filmmakers who wholly embrace a cinema of despair in pursuit of unpleasant truths and raw empathy." Indeed, in the festival's first 33 film-strong slate of repertory classics like Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), Come and See (1985), Winter Light (1963), Funny Games (1997), Breaking the Waves (1996),and Sátántangó (1994), this visceral quality was front and center as an organizing principle, even if the films weren't united by much besides their baseline dreariness and arthouse bonafides."

"Now entering its fifth and most curatorially focused iteration, Bleak Week has grown from a local phenomenon into a worldwide event: a 73-city, nearly 100-theater expansion begins in June, an invitation for programmers from around the world to interpret the series' broad definition of "bleakness" for their own audiences."

"Chris LeMaire, Director of Programming at the American Cinematheque, has always embraced films that might otherwise be labeled heavy or depressing. Before the pandemic, he led programming efforts to spotlight rare Andrei Tarkovsky prints, and also enticed Lav Diaz to come to the US for the very first time. Tarkovsky and Diaz's austere, often durational films about national history and political atrocity operate in very different aesthetic modes, but are both invested in existential concerns."

"In this spirit, Bleak Week'sapparently surface-level branding actually encourages audiences to attend to our most foundational human qualities, even though it might be easy to say, "I'm not in the mood today..." This dedication to patience and humanism-to sticking with what may seem intimidatingly heavy-is the heart and soul of Bleak Week."

Read at Filmmaker Magazine