‘Roma’ to screen in Memphis after all
“Roma” — a certain nominee for this year’s Best Picture Oscar and other major Academy Awards — will receive a Memphis theatrical screening, after all.
The acclaimed film from director Alfonso Cuarón (”Gravity,” “Children of Men”) will screen at 7 p.m. Jan. 29 at the Paradiso in an event organized by Indie Memphis.
Praised for its panoramic, teeming recreations of life in Mexico in the 1970s, “Roma” is best appreciated on as large a screen as possible, according to many film critics. Despite this recommendation and the movie’s almost universal acclaim, “Roma” received only limited theatrical distribution before it was made available for streaming Dec. 14 on Netflix, which had bought the rights to the film.
Malco Theatres Inc. was among the cinema chains that decided not to book “Roma” on the theory that the Netflix watch-movies-at-home business model is a discouragement to the traditional movie-going experience. Nevertheless, so many Memphians expressed interest in seeing “Roma” on the big screen that Malco agreed to book the film through Netflix on a one-night basis, with ticket proceeds to benefit Indie Memphis.
Inspired by Cuarón’s childhood memories, “Roma” stars Yalitza Aparicio as a live-in maid employed by a boisterous family in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City; the family’s experiences occur against a backdrop of cultural upheaval and political violence, all beautifully staged and captured by Cuarón’s black-and-white photography. The film was named the best of the year by the Los Angeles and New York critics groups, and this week it won Golden Globe awards for Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film.
Tickets are now on sale. (Although the film will be shown in one of the Paradiso’s 300-plus seat auditoriums, the event is expected to sell out fast.) Prices are $12 (adult), $9 (child) and $9.50 (senior), and the tickets are available via indiememphis.com.