The Hillsborough Classic Film Society is a group that is showing classic, foreign and independent films once a month in Orange County Public Library, 137 W. Margaret Lane, Hillsborough.
At each film there is an expert speaker who sets the background for the film.
There’s also free popcorn. You can bring a folding chair, which you might find to be more comfortable than the library chairs.
The films are from the Criterion Collection, which means that they are cleaned up and remastered, and the image on the screen is even better than image the original audiences saw.
It’s free to join the Hillsborough Classic Film Society, and members take part in deciding what films will be shown.
Upcoming Screenings With Hillsborough Classic Film Society

From 1 to 3:30 pm on December 8 the Film Society will present a Charlie Chaplin double feature, The Kid (1921) and A Dog’s Life (1918), both starring Chaplin as The Tramp, with Jackie Coogan as The Kid and Mutt as The Dog. Francesca Talenti, a filmmaker from Hillsborough, will introduce the films and will lead the discussion afterwards. Bring the kids and the grandkids. The total time for the two films is 90 minutes, and there will be a thirty minute break in between. Lots of holiday cookies during the break, free popcorn as usual; there will be bottles of water, but you can bring in your own drinks if you like. Free, in the meeting room of the Orange County Public Library on Margaret Lane.
Black Orpheus (1959) Speaker: Gustavo Furtado, Duke. A modern version of the Orpheus/Euridice tale set in Brazil at Carnival, it introduced bossa nova to American audiences with music by Luiz Bonfá (“Manhã de Carnaval”) and Antonio Carlos Jobim (“Girl from Ipanema”).
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Speaker: Max Owre, UNC Public Humanities. A classic silent film by the great Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968). Roger Ebert said, “You cannot know the history of silent film unless you know the face of Renee Maria Falconetti [who played Joan]. In a medium without words, where the filmmakers believed that the camera captured the essence of characters through their faces, to see Falconetti . . . is to look into eyes that will never leave you.”
High Noon (1952), Ken Wetherington, Duke. One of the greatest and most elegant of the mythic westerns. “High Noon centered on a protagonist—Marshall Will Kane—who behaved more like a human everyman than a traditional, all-powerful Western icon. … Here was Gary Cooper playing a decidedly anti-Gary Cooper character, [a] frightened town marshal, ostracized authority figure, humiliated husband. Something was happening here. Something about the Western was about to change forever.” Directed by Fred Zinneman (“A Man for All Seasons,” “From Here to Eternity”).
Pather Panchali (1955) Speaker: Tom Wallis, UNC Systems Office. The film “is like a prayer, affirming that this is what the cinema can be, no matter how far in our cynicism we may stray.”—Ebert. “Beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love, it brought a new vision of India to the screen.”–Kael.
Nights of Cabiria (1957) Speaker: Paolo Tosini, Duke. “… a film that owes as much to City Lights as it does to The Bicycle Thief. … Nights of Cabiria shifts so effortlessly between heartbreaking and comic it’s easy to forget how badly the movie could have gone. It’s about that most sentimental of stock characters: the hooker with the heart of gold. It’s easy to imagine a lighthearted version in which Cabiria is lifted from her sordid surroundings (and that version is called Pretty Woman). Or the movie could have gone the other way and been a turgid “gritty” drama about life on the Roman streets. … But Cabiria is so fully realized and human that she defies stereotypes. Credit for this goes entirely to Gulietta Masina, who captures Cabiria’s loneliness and pride in every frame.”—Matt Dessem.
More upcoming free events in the Triangle
Saturday, December 7, 2019
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Monday, December 9, 2019
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Orange County Public Library Main Library, Hillsborough
137 W. Margaret Lane
Hillsborough, NC
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