This New Year 2024 Lamakaan dives deep into the retrospective films of master directors.

While we celebrate the New Year with fervor and gaiety, let's celebrate the cinema of Hollywood's most elegant film director, Ernst Lubtisch's films.

Ernst Lubitsch (/ˈluːbɪtʃ/; January 29, 1892 – November 30, 1947) was a German-born film director, producer, writer, and actor. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch". Among his best known works are Trouble in Paradise (1932), Design for Living (1933), Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942) and Heaven Can Wait (1943).

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director three times for The Patriot (1928), The Love Parade (1929), and Heaven Can Wait (1943). In 1946, he received an Honorary Academy Award for his distinguished contributions to the art of the motion picture.

Film Title: TO BE OR NOT TO BE | 1942 | 99 Mins | US | English Language with English Subtitles

About the film: To Be or Not to Be is a 1942 American comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny, and featuring Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges, and Sig Ruman. The plot concerns a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their abilities to disguise and act to fool the occupying troops. It was adapted by Lubitsch (uncredited) and Edwin Justus Mayer from the story by Melchior Lengyel. The film was released one month after actress Carole Lombard was killed in an airplane crash. In 1996, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

SCREENING FOLLOWED BY DISCUSSION! ALL ARE WELCOME!!! ENTRY IS FREE & OPEN TO ALL!!!