DENVER – March 27, 2025 – Denver Film today announced the kick off of its latest repertory film series – April Showers – exploring a selection of “the Ultimate TearJerkers” from across the decades. From classic melodramas like Douglas Sirk’s Imitation Of Life, Barry Jenkins’ Best Picture Oscar Winner Moonlight, and Sean Baker’s The Florida Project to James Cameron’s Titanic and dozens of sob fests in between. The series kicks off April 1 with a screening of the classic Southern-fried yarn Steel Magnolias starring Sally Field, Dolly Parton, and Shirley MacLaine. That weekend continues with screenings of Lars Von Trier’s devastating Dancer in The Dark and the nostalgic ‘90’s weeper My Girl. The films will screen exclusively at Denver Film’s year-round home the Sie FilmCenter, 2510 E. Colfax, throughout April.
“There is nothing in this world more cathartic than a good, old fashioned cry,” said Sie FilmCenter Artistic Director, Keith Garcia. “So, to shake off winter’s cold and ring in the flowers of spring, we present to you a collection of 15 films guaranteed to fill your eyes with tears and refresh your senses. From Douglas Sirk to Lars Von Trier, melodramas to neorealism, animation to devastation – and even an emotional zombie movie too – there won’t be a dry eye in the house. You bring the tears, and we’ll provide the tissues.”
The full schedule and tickets are on sale now at denverfilm.org. Ticket prices range from $12 – $15 for General Admission with deeper discounts available to Denver Film Members.
ANNOUNCED FILMS IN PROGRAMS: STEEL MAGNOLIAS Director: Herbert Ross Tuesday, April 1, 7 p.m. Six divas of the silver screen – Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis and Julia Roberts – come together as bosom buddies in this hilarious and heartwarming story of life, love and loss in a small Louisiana parish. At the center of the group is Shelby Eatenton (Julia Roberts), newly married and joyfully pregnant, despite the fact that her diabetes could make childbirth life-threatening. Terrified and angry at the possibility of losing her only daughter, M’Lynn Eatenton (Sally Field) looks to her four closest friends for strength and laughter as she battles her deepest fear of death in order to join Shelby in celebrating the miracle of new life.
DANCER IN THE DARK (on 35mm film) Director: Lars Von Trier Friday & Saturday, April 4 & 5, 9:30 p.m. PLUS Saturday, April 5 at 11:30 a.m. Selma (Björk) is a Czech immigrant, a single mother working in a factory in rural America. Her salvation is passion for music, specifically, the all-singing, all-dancing numbers found in classic Hollywood musicals. Selma harbors a sad secret: she is losing her eyesight and her son Gene stands to suffer the same fate if she can’t put away enough money to secure him an operation. When a desperate neighbor falsely accuses Selma of stealing his savings, the drama of her life escalates to a tragic finale.
MY GIRL Director: Howard Zieff Saturday, April 5, 12 p.m. Tomboy Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky) has good reason to be morbid: her mother died giving birth to her, and her father (Dan Aykroyd) operates a funeral service out of their home. The other kids think she’s a freak, and it certainly doesn’t help that her best friend, Thomas J. Sennett (Macaulay Culkin), is a boy. To make matters worse, Vada is desperately in love with her English teacher, Mr. Bixler (Griffin Dunne). What’s an 11-year-old girl to do?
MOONLIGHT Director: Barry Jenkins Sunday, April 6, 12 p.m. A timeless story of human connection and self-discovery, MOONLIGHT chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami. At once a vital portrait of contemporary African-American life and an intensely personal and poetic meditation on identity, family, friendship, and love, Moonlight is a groundbreaking piece of cinema that reverberates with deep compassion and universal truths. Anchored by extraordinary performances from a tremendous ensemble cast, Barry Jenkins’s staggering, singular vision is profoundly moving in its portrayal of the moments, people, and unknowable forces that shape our lives and make us who we are.
IMITATION OF LIFE Director: Douglas Sirk Tuesday, April 8, 7 p.m. Lora Meredith (Lana Turner), a white single mother who dreams of being on Broadway, has a chance encounter with Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), a black widow. Annie becomes the caretaker of Lora’s daughter, Suzie (Sandra Dee), while Lora pursues her stage career. Both women deal with the difficulties of motherhood: Lora’s thirst for fame threatens her relationship with Suzie, while Annie’s light-skinned daughter, Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner), struggles with her African-American identity.
GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES Director: Isao Takahata Friday & Saturday, April 11 & 12, 9:30 p.m. PLUS Saturday, April 12 at 12:15 p.m. As the Empire of the Sun crumbles upon itself and a rain of firebombs falls upon Japan, the final death march of a nation is echoed in millions of smaller tragedies. This is the story of Seita and his younger sister Setsuko, two children born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and now cast adrift in a world that lacks not the care to shelter them, but simply the resources. Forced to fend for themselves in the aftermath of fires that swept entire cities from the face of the earth, their doomed struggle is both a tribute to the human spirit and the stuff of nightmares. Beautiful, yet at times brutal and horrifying. Based on the retellings of survivor Nosaka Akiyuki and directed by Isao Takahata (co-founder, with Hayao Miyazaki, of Japan’s legendary Studio Ghibli,) GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES has been universally hailed as an artistic and emotional tour de force.
HACHI: A DOG’S TALE Director: Lasse Hallström Saturday, April 12, 12 p.m. From Academy Award®-nominated director Lasse Hallström comes HACHI: A DOG’S TALE, a film based on one of the most treasured and heartwarming true stories ever told. Richard Gere stars as Professor Parker Wilson, a distinguished scholar who discovers a lost Akita puppy on his way home from work. Despite initial objections from Wilson’s wife, Cate (Joan Allen), Hachi endears himself into the Wilson family and grows to be Parker’s loyal companion. As their bond grows deeper, a beautiful relationship unfolds embodying the true spirit of family and loyalty, while inspiring the hearts of an entire town.
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION Director: Frank Darabount Sunday, April 13, 12 p.m. From a novella by best-selling author Stephen King comes a poignant tale of the human spirit. Red (Morgan Freeman), serving a life sentence, and Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a mild-mannered banker wrongly convicted of murder, forge an unlikely bond that will span more than twenty years. Together they discover hope as the ultimate means of survival. Under horrifying conditions and the ever-present threat of violence, two lifers reclaim their souls and find freedom within their hearts.
THE IRON GIANT Director: Brad Bird Tuesday, April 15, 7 p.m. In this animated adaptation of Ted Hughes’ Cold War fable, a giant alien robot (Vin Diesel) crash-lands near the small town of Rockwell, Maine, in 1957. Exploring the area, a local 9-year-old boy, Hogarth, discovers the robot, and soon forms an unlikely friendship with him. When a paranoid government agent, Kent Mansley, becomes determined to destroy the robot, Hogarth and beatnik Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick Jr.) must do what they can to save the misunderstood machine.
TRAIN TO BUSAN Director: Yeon Sang-ho Friday & Saturday, April 18 & 19, 9:30 p.m. When a mysterious virus breaks out across South Korea, the infected transform into the murderous undead in the wildly successful 2016 thriller TRAIN TO BUSAN. As terrified travelers fight for their lives on a bullet train from hell, the result is a gory high-speed collision between the rich and the poor, the living and the undead, and the best and worst of human nature. However, when some of them prove willing to sell their soul for survival, the trust may prove to be a luxury even the most affluent passengers cannot afford.
THE ROSE Director: Mark Rydell Saturday, April 19, 12 p.m. Rose (Bette Midler) is a passionate 1960s rock star who pours herself into every performance despite her demanding manager, Rudge (Alan Bates), who encourages her to tour excessively. While singing is her greatest love, the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle takes its toll as Rose succumbs to drug and alcohol abuse. Only Rose’s kind-hearted boyfriend, Dyer (Frederic Forrest), tries to save her from falling victim to her own success in this drama loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin.
AFTERSUN Director: Charlotte Wells Sunday, April 20, 12 p.m. At a fading vacation resort, 11-year-old Sophie treasures rare time together with her loving and idealistic father, Calum (Paul Mescal). As a world of adolescence creeps into view, beyond her eye Calum struggles under the weight of life outside of fatherhood. Twenty years later, Sophie’s tender recollections of their last holiday become a powerful and heartrending portrait of their relationship, as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn’t, in Charlotte Wells’ superb and searingly emotional debut film.
THE FLORIDA PROJECT Director: Sean Baker Tuesday, April 22, 7 p.m. Set on a stretch of highway just outside the imagined utopia of Disney World, THE FLORIDA PROJECT follows six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince in a stunning breakout turn) and her rebellious mother Halley (Bria Vinaite, another major discovery) over the course of a single summer. The two live week to week at “The Magic Castle,” a budget motel managed by Bobby (a career-best Willem Dafoe), whose stern exterior hides a deep reservoir of kindness and compassion.
DEAR ZACHARY: A LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER Director: Kurt Kuenne Saturday, April 26, 12 p.m. Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne’s tribute to his murdered childhood friend, Andrew Bagby, tells the story of a child custody battle between Bagby’s grieving parents and Shirley Turner, Bagby’s pregnant ex-girlfriend and suspected killer. Initially, Kuenne made this documentary as a memorial for Andrew, but it morphs into a legal odyssey when Turner goes free on bail and is allowed to raise her new son.
TITANIC Director: James Cameron Sunday, April 27, 11 a.m. Leonardo DiCaprio and Oscar-nominee Kate Winslet light up the screen as Jack and Rose, the young lovers who find one another on the maiden voyage of the “unsinkable” R.M.S. Titanic. But when the doomed luxury liner collides with an iceberg in the frigid North Atlantic, their passionate love affair becomes a thrilling race for survival. From acclaimed filmmaker James Cameron comes a tale of forbidden love and courage in the face of disaster that triumphs as a true cinematic masterpiece.
About Denver Film
Denver Film has been transforming and entertaining the Colorado community through the power of diverse voices in film since 1978. Operating as the region’s only membership-based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit film institution, Denver Film has grown into a signature cultural organization in the West, screening international and independent movies found nowhere else in the region.
Serving more than 100,000 patrons annually through 600-plus screenings that include year-round programming at Denver Film’s flagship home the Sie (pronounced SEE) FilmCenter, the annual Denver Film Festival celebration, the iconic Film on the Rocks program at Red Rocks Amphitheater, and Spotlight Festivals including CinemaQ, Women+Film, and the Colorado Dragon Boat Film Festival. Spotlights highlight underrepresented communities and foster inclusivity. Denver Film works to build resilience across all of its programming and events by amplifying diverse voices, promoting equity, and fostering community connections.
For more information or to explore the full suite of Denver Film programming, events, and ticketing visit: denverfilm.org.
