Punk Rock Girls, an 11-film survey of cinema’s toughest she-rockers, May 7—Jun 1 Opens with a sneak preview of Lukas Moodysson’s

29) with films by No Wavers Scott B and Beth B and Cinema of Transgression filmmaker Richard Kern as well as music videos by seminal Swiss punkers Kleenex/LiLiPUT.

7:30pm*: We Are the Best!

7, 9:30pm: Breaking Glass

7, 9:30pm: Starstruck

7, 9:30pm: Times Square

7, 9:15pm: Out of the Blue

4:30, 9pm: Josie and the Pussycats

7pm: Popularity is So Boring: Punk Shorts
Fri, May 30

2, 7pm**: Liquid Sky

4:30, 9:30pm: Jubilee
Sat, May 31

4:30, 9:30pm: Ladies and Gentlemen,The Fabulous Stains

7pm: Jubilee
Sun, Jun 1

2, 7pm***: Desperately Seeking Susan

4:30***, 9:30pm: Smithereens
*Q&A with director Lukas Moodysson

**Intro by director Slava Tsukerman

***Director Susan Seidelman in person
Film Descriptions

All films in 35mm unless otherwise noted.
Breaking Glass (1980) 104min

Directed by Brian Gibson. With Hazel O'Connor, Phil Daniels, Jon Finch, Jonathan Pryce.

The seminal British post-punk scene provides the backdrop of this showbiz saga of rocking out vs. selling out. Frizz-haired New Waver Kate (O’Connor)—clad variously in Kabuki makeup and luminescent robot suit—faces that age-old conundrum: go mainstream, or stay true to her anti-establishment roots? This blistering transmission from late-70s England captures the era’s nonconformist spirit, outré fashion, and simmering political tension.

A bump on the head and a case of amnesia leads a vanilla Jersey housewife (Arquette) to take on the persona of a Lower East Side-dwelling hipster (“Like a Virgin”-era Madonna) who’s being pursued by killers. Susan Seidelman’s goofball take on Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating is a spirited slice of retro 80s cool featuring cameos from downtown mainstays John Turturro, Richard Hell, John Lurie, and more.

Josie (Cook) and her Pussycats (Reid & Dawson) go from garage rock wannabes to pre-fab pop-stars, thanks to the engineering of a diabolical record industry exec. Plastered with ironic corporate logos, this candy-colored satire of 90s teenybopper culture “winningly channels the spirit of Frank Tashlin… A sly, sustained spoof of consumerism, infectious pop songs, and cute girls in tight pants” (Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club).

“As long as the music’s loud enough, we won’t hear the world falling apart.” Queen Elizabeth I (Runacre) gets zapped to late-70s England, a post-punk apocalyptic nightmare in which distaff anarcho-freaks run amok in a decaying landscape of urban ultra-violence. Derek Jarman’s nihilist anti-comedy features a Brian Eno score and appearances from punk pioneers Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Slits, and Adam Ant—plus cinema’s most disturbing use of ketchup. DCP.

Seventeen-year-old orphan Corinne (Lane) chucks her job flipping burgers, discovers eyeliner, and becomes a counterculture icon as Third Degree, frontwoman for the eponymous skunk-haired garage girl-band whose motto is “We don't put out.” This brash and bratty music industry satire boasts a super-group of punk rock royalty, with members of The Clash and The Sex Pistols jamming together as “The Looters.”

This startling sci-fi New Wave vision of New York City follows a team of invisible aliens as they descend upon Earth looking for drugs and land in an apartment inhabited by a drug dealer and his androgynous lover. Starring and co-written by the magnetic Anne Carlisle, this cult classic is a riot of color and perversion.

Just out of prison for drunk-driving his truck into a school bus, bad dad Don (Hopper) returns home to the planet’s most messed up family: a smack-addict wife and a self-destructive rebel-punk daughter (Manz), whose mantra is “disco sucks, kill all hippies.” Dennis Hopper’s hurricane-force domestic tragedy is the 80s answer to Easy Rider; it follows troubled youth subculture to its frightening, screaming, self-annihilating extreme.

Riot grrrls, queer punks, and No Wave icons fly their freak flags in this shorts program, featuring films by downtown shock artists Richard Kern and Scott and Beth B, as well as Kleenex/LiLiPUT videos. Among the highlights are Kern’s You Killed Me First, starring downtown muse Lung Leg (cover girl for Sonic Youth’s 1986 album EVOL), and Black Box, a visual and auditory assault about torture and mind control featuring underground musician Lydia Lunch and artist Kiki Smith. Digital.

Talentless but determined Jersey girl Wren (Berman) moves to the East Village with dreams of joining the punk rock scene, opportunistically latching onto anyone who can help her get ahead, including rocker Eric (punk godfather Richard Hell). Seidelman’s first film is a gloriously gritty time capsule of 1980s lower Manhattan, perfectly complimented by a jittery, bristling-with-energy soundtrack by The Feelies.

This awesomely 80s Aussie musical follows Jackie (Kennedy), an eager punk rocker with a song in her heart and dreams of hitting it big. Director Gillian Armstrong’s follow-up to My Brilliant Career offers a bonanza of kooky delights, including a kangaroo-suit-clad Jackie, a Busby Berkeley-meets-New Wave musical number involving inflatable plastic sharks, and a grand finale at the Sydney Opera House.

Problem teens Pamela (Alvarado) and Nicky (Johnson) bust out of a mental institution and go straight through the looking glass into the good-bad old days of Koch-era New York City, a grimy wonderland wherein they hurl TV sets from windows, hijack a radio station, and achieve underground-hero status as the garbage bag-clad, bandit-masked punk rock duo the Sleez Sisters. This cult/queer/riot grrrl classic is “a Wizard of Oz for the '80s” (Time Out London).

Three 13-year-old girls find salvation in punk rock in this infectious ode to youthful rebellion from Together and Lilya 4-Ever director Lukas Moodysson. An affectionate, retro-fantastic time capsule of early-1980s Sweden, the film follows the spiky-haired trio as they fight the system one shambolic, three-chord anthem at a time, all building up to an exuberant, fist-pumping finale. DCP. Sneak preview courtesy Magnolia Pictures.

The four-screen BAM Rose Cinemas (BRC) opened in 1998 to offer Brooklyn audiences alternative and independent films that might not play in the borough otherwise, making BAM the only performing arts center in the country with two mainstage theaters and a multiplex cinema. In July 1999, beginning with a series celebrating the work of Spike Lee, BAMcinématek was born as Brooklyn’s only daily, year-round repertory film program. BAMcinématek presents new and rarely seen contemporary films, classics, work by local artists, and festivals of films from around the world, often with special appearances by directors, actors, and other guests. BAMcinématek has not only presented major retrospectives by major filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Manoel de Oliveira, Shohei Imamura, Vincente Minnelli (winning a National Film Critics’ Circle Award prize for the retrospective), Kaneto Shindo, Luchino Visconti, and William Friedkin, but it has also introduced New York audiences to contemporary artists such as Pedro Costa and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In addition, BAMcinématek programmed the first US retrospectives of directors Arnaud Desplechin, Nicolas Winding Refn, Hong Sang-soo, and, most recently, Andrzej Zulawski. From 2006 to 2008, BAMcinématek partnered with the Sundance Institute and in June 2009 launched BAMcinemaFest, a 16-day festival of new independent films and repertory favorites with 15 NY feature film premieres; the fifth annual BAMcinemaFest runs from June 18—29, 2014.

D, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue

Train:                Long Island Railroad to Atlantic Terminal – Barclays Center

Bus:                 B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM