The Connection
Country: USA
Director: Shirley Clarke
Presented in a restored print for its 50th anniversary, this controversial classic by groundbreaking filmmaker Shirley Clarke, is the first of her films to be restored and re-released. Mistaken for a documentary and considered “obscene” in its day, the film was shut down by the New York City police. The projectionist was arrested, the print impounded, and the producers went to court. The movie adapts an off-Broadway blockbuster play of the same name. Provocative, unapologetic it's about a filmmaker’s doomed attempt to document a group of heroin addicts while they wait together in a seedy apartment for their fix. Clarke, a pioneering woman director, inspired a whole movement of dramatic independent American filmmaking. (1962; 110 min)