Now Playing

Watch these films in the renowned Cinestudio Theatre.

STAY AWAKE
(94min. NR) 2023 Jaime Sisley, director
Ends Jun 15
Promising new writer/director Jaime Sisley’s first film opened at the Berlin International Film Festival, sparking an instant buzz and winning the German Art House Cinema award. Not all festival winners get a U.S. distributor, but luckily it can now be screened right here at Hartford’s Premiere Art Cinema! Stay Awake is based on Sisley’s own childhood, looking back with both sadness and humor on an all-too-typical story that is rampant in small-town America. Teenage brothers Ethan (Wyatt Oleff) and Derek (Fin Argus) deal with their mother Michelle’s relapsing addiction to opioids in different ways. Derek feels bound to his Mom (played by This Is Us star Chrissy Metz) and helping her survive, while Ethan makes plans to leave the situation and his town behind. There are no monsters in Stay Awake – except maybe the drug companies – just a family trying to hold on to their hope and humanity. “This is what art does, it opens people’s minds and hearts… and hopefully the fear goes away and then there’s healing.” – actor Chrissy Metz.

Saturday, Jun 10 7:00 PM Sunday, Jun 11 2:00 PM Monday, Jun 12 7:00 PM Tuesday, Jun 13 1:00 PM Tuesday, Jun 13 7:00 PM Wednesday, Jun 14 7:00 PM Thursday, Jun 15 4:00 PM
 

COMING UP

BLUE JEAN
(97min.) 2022 Georgia Oakley, director
One Night Only Jun 16
Tickets
It’s 1988 in Margaret Thatcher’s United Kingdom. Jean, a closeted physical education teacher, is leading a double life. When a new student arrives, she threatens to expose Jean’s secret, pushing Jean to extreme lengths to hold onto her job and her integrity.

Friday, Jun 16 7:00 PM
KOKOMO CITY
(73min.) 2023 D. Smith, director
One Night Only Jun 17
Tickets
Four Black trans sex workers from New York and Georgia talk frankly about their experiences, raising questions about belonging and identity within the Black community. Their unapologetic and cutting analysis of Black culture and society vibrates with energy, sex, challenge, and hard-earned wisdom.

Saturday, Jun 17 3:00 PM
BIG BOYS
(90min.) 2023 Corey Sherman, director
One Night Only Jun 17
Tickets
In this delightful and fresh coming-of-age story, Jamie is a chubby, clever gay fourteen year-old who is confused about his sexuality and uncomfortable in his own body. Then along comes Dan, the charming, beefy, bear boyfriend of Jamie’s cousin, who joins the family on a family camping trip. Dan rocks Jamie’s world and helps him understand that big guys can be sexy, too.

Saturday, Jun 17 7:00 PM
THE RUNNER
(91min. NR) 1984 Amir Naderi, director
Restored from the original negative in 2K Jun 19 - 22
Don’t miss the chance to see the revival of a masterpiece exactly where it belongs – in a cinema with a single, enormous screen! Crisply restored in 2K from the original negative, this gem of post-revolutionary Iran is both delightful and a powerful indictment of how childhood was – and continues to be – hijacked. Amiro (Madjid Niroumand) is an illiterate 11-year-old orphan living in the Iranian port city of Abadan. His daily survival depends on shining shoes, selling water, and diving for deposit bottles, while being bullied by older kids. But Amiro finds a place of comfort by dreaming about the cargo ships and airplanes that so easily slip away, leaving his city behind. In a celebration of optimism, he tries to escape an impossible situation by the liberating feeling of running – even if his destination remains unclear. “Tactile, gritty and vivid, but it is also so much fun. The joy and vibrancy of filmmaking just leaps off the screen.” - Christy Lemire, NPR Los Angeles.

Monday, Jun 19 1:00 PM Monday, Jun 19 7:00 PM Tuesday, Jun 20 5:00 PM Wednesday, Jun 21 1:00 PM Wednesday, Jun 21 5:00 PM Thursday, Jun 22 7:00 PM
WHITE BALLS ON WALLS
(90min. NR) 2022 Sarah Vos, director
Opens Jun 19
Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art wants to become more diverse and inclusive. But how to go about that? An honest look behind the scenes into the sometimes-fraught process taking place in many public institutions.

Monday, Jun 19 5:00 PM Tuesday, Jun 20 1:00 PM Tuesday, Jun 20 7:00 PM Wednesday, Jun 21 7:00 PM Thursday, Jun 22 5:00 PM
ASTEROID CITY
(104min. PG-13) 2023 Wes Anderson, director
Opens Jun 23
Aficionados of Wes Anderson, who gave us Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Fantastic Mr. Fox!, are to be rewarded with a new movie just in time for summer! Described at Cannes as a “comedy-science fiction-love story-drama,” Asteroid City is also a meditation on the meaning of life. It all begins in a Western desert town circa 1955, as the Junior Stargazer Convention invites five brainy student inventors and their parents for a scholastic competition. But with a in real life Alien sighting, the eclectic group is quarantined until the government sees fit. Anderson’s dazzling ensemble cast only begins with Jason Schwartzmann, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Bryan Cranston and Margot Robbie. “On our confusing planet with random causes to despair, a shy child finding their first peer or an artist searching the cosmos for a connection, simply making contact is so much more than enough.” - Charles Bramesco, The Decider.com.

Friday, Jun 23 7:00 PM Saturday, Jun 24 1:00 PM Saturday, Jun 24 4:00 PM Saturday, Jun 24 7:00 PM Sunday, Jun 25 2:00 PM Monday, Jun 26 7:00 PM Tuesday, Jun 27 1:00 PM Tuesday, Jun 27 7:00 PM Wednesday, Jun 28 7:00 PM Thursday, Jun 29 1:00 PM Thursday, Jun 29 7:00 PM Friday, Jun 30 7:00 PM Saturday, Jul 1 1:00 PM Saturday, Jul 1 4:00 PM Saturday, Jul 1 7:00 PM Sunday, Jul 2 2:00 PM Monday, Jul 3 7:00 PM Wednesday, Jul 5 1:00 PM Wednesday, Jul 5 7:00 PM Thursday, Jul 6 1:00 PM Thursday, Jul 6 7:00 PM

Welcome to Cinestudio

Cinestudio is a not-for-profit independent film theater located at Summit Street and College Terrace on the campus of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. The theater is a magnificent single-screen venue with over 450 seats, reconstructed as classic 1930’s-style movie house, including a much loved balcony and golden curtain. The building is a signature design by McKim, Mead and White, built in 1935.

Founded in 1970 by a group of students at Trinity, Cinestudio has become one of the most highly respected arthouse cinemas in the United States, with a long standing reputation for its wide diversity of programing, and for legendary projection and sound quality. Equipped with the highest quality 4K Digital Cinema systems, Cinestudio has also retained it’s top-of-the-line physical film 35mm and 70mm projectors for use in studio archive presentations. Cinestudio is a daily celebration of the Art of Cinema!
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