RFF: Casablanca

Part of The Resistance Film Festival

“Watching ‘Casablanca’ prior to November 5 was a different experience from watching it post November 5.” – Elliot Lavine to Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Introduction by festival curator & former Roxie programmer, Elliot Lavine!

This legendary wartime drama has now become the “poster film” for the New American Resistance, an inspiring demonstration of Hollywood’s uncanny ability to stir our emotions while taking on the horrors of encroaching fascism which, at the time the film was made, could very well have become a reality. Of course, our focus has always been on the doomed romance between Rick and Ilsa, but it’s the uncertain future of democracy that hovers over the entire film that gives it its lasting power. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt. Screenplay by Julus Epstein and Howard Koch. Photographed by Arthur Edeson. Directed by Michael Curtiz. 102 mins. 1942.