Cavia’s MOONS carries, as always, many stories, waves and spells of cinema in the summer nights. Fast or slow, straight or crooked, headlong or cradled, chuckling or charming, we move and encounter in a journey full of surprises, with perfect films for a soft summer night at Cavia's courtyard.

Each night is hosted by a long lasting companion of Cavia:

VERA Zienema, an alternative community-run cinema located in Groningen, opens the first day with a silent film and live music composed by Julia Bekker & Hugo Heinen.

On Friday, Jeffrey's Underground Cinemas will curate the night! As you probably know, Jeffrey has been programming movies at different alternative venues in Amsterdam for 18 years, offering a wide range of forgotten cinematic gems. For this night he has chosen one of the most innovative films of the 1960s.

Again BUT Film Festival will visit Cavia to share their archive. BUT is based in Breda for B-movie, Underground and Trash films. They bring a 16mm film to be shown to the public once again on the big screen. Come by and enjoy a forgotten analogue cult film on Saturday!

On the last MOONS night, Kaboom Animation Festival, a progressive and inclusive festival in the Netherlands that celebrates animation in all its glorious shapes and sizes, shows 8 short animated films from various countries.

The entrance for all of the screenings is free but donations are very much appreciated.

→ Van Hallstraat 52, Amsterdam (+ follow the signs!)

Doors and bar open at 20:00
Films start at 22:00

Jeffrey's Underground Cinema: Happy End
Oldrich Lipský | 1967 | Czechoslovakia | 71' |  EN subs

This is one hell of a crazy film, totally unique in the history of cinema.... showing how creative and inventive Czech filmmakers were already back in the 60s. This is the first film I know of that is totally in reverse – in fact it's actually the only one I know... though Memento and Irreversible come close. But this film is radically different because it really does run 100% in reverse – not just the storyline but all the activities are in reverse... dialogue is mouthed backwards, everything moves backwards, people walk backwards, eat backwards. And what makes it such a stroke of genius is how the narrative is constructed – if you played it forward, it would be a typically serious dramatic tragedy, but since it's in reverse it magically becomes its opposite – an innovative black comedy!

This film is also a great exercise in understanding how we view cinema. It shows how thinking forward is actually just a bad habit, and the director of the film really does play with your normalized automatic assumptions of watching movies. This film was never shown to so-called "arthouse" crowds, but to the normal mainstream audience in Czechoslovakia. It just goes to show how open and intelligent the mainstream was back then. Absolutely insane and wonderful. This will be an outrageously rare screening.