Screening times:
Thursday, July 23, 6:30 PM

Guy Maddin | Canada | 1992 | 100m
Guy Maddin attending live via video-link for a post-screening Q&A!

Guy Maddin’s (Tales From the Gimli Hospital, Archangel, The Saddest Music in the World) early masterpiece takes place in a 19th-century Alpine village where the wary residents — adult, child and animal! — must speak softly and tread lightly lest they cause an avalanche. Constant vigilance is required. "Keep a lid on it!", "Don't stand so close to the walnut tree!". But sexual frenzies teem in this world of repression, setting off incestuous love triangles and quadrangles with deadly consequences.

Bathed in lurid, luminescent tints that look absolutely stunning in this 2026 restoration of the film, Careful resembles a vintage melodrama from another planet — something that could only emerge from the singular mind of Maddin.

We’re thrilled to be able to present this Canadian treasure along with a live Q&A from Guy Maddin!

"The film is one long and amusing pun on German Expressionistic film imagery, Freudian psychology and quasi-Wagnerian storytelling, all carried to absurdist lengths." - Stephen Holden, The New York Times

"The restoration of Careful is wonderfully done, bringing out the at-once hyper-artificial and softly organic textures of his mise-en-scène, from plastic roses to moose antlers to mysterious aqua potions in glistening beakers..." - Payton McCarty-Simas, The Brooklyn Rail

""Careful," is like some lost masterpiece from a time-warped alternative dimension - a strange artifact that time forgot.” - Hal Hinson The Washington Post

Tickets $12 ($11.40 at the door if available)