The sun is set, the curtains are drawn, and the lights are dimmed. 

Step into ‘Stair in the Dark’. The Grand Stair transforms into a unique screening and social experience on a Friday of each month. Immerse yourself in a spectrum of cinematic moods and narratives within and beyond the screen.

Cinephilia comes in many shades, shapes, and forms. Some are hidden in the shadows of the so-called cinema canon, while others take on a life of their own, sometimes reignited years after the film’s initial release. The afterlives of films—from unexpected hits to well-loved duds—could hinge on greater social, cultural, technical, and generational factors at play, whether via well-resourced distribution, marketing, (mis)interpretations, or even other forms of visual culture.

The evolutionary potential around a film’s status is as vibrant and varied as the audiences who have come and will come to discover them. Such differences are reflected in how audiences form or appropriate their enthusiastic constituencies, as well as how they imagine their fandom as forms of taste-making exclusion. This year, ‘Dissonant Pleasures’ meanders through pivotal moments in 20th and 21st century cinephilia with films whose followings are charged as much with devotion as with derision, and everything in between.