Metropolis

It’s 2026. In a future city, the have-nots toil underground, running the machines that keep the haves living the life of Riley in the gardens hanging over the city. When Maria urges the workers to revolt, the city’s dictator builds a robot in her image to suppress their rebellion.

After bringing epic historic poems to life in The Nibelungens, Fritz Lang presented his vision of the future in a metropolis governed by social order, a society split in two by class: the proletariat below ground and the upper classes living like gods above ground. Towering skyscrapers, bridges and hanging gardens make a stark and powerful contrast with the subterranean city, gloomy and under constant surveillance, where terrifying machines rumble day and night in the depths.

Screening on Saturday April 20, followed by a Q&A.