Filmmaker Gus Van Sant Returns to Wexner Center to Introduce His Rarely Seen First Film Mala Noche

“A rhapsodic slacker noir!”—Nathan Lee, Village Voice on Mala Noche

Gus Van Sant, the award-winning director of such films as Drugstore Cowboy, Good Will Hunting, Elephant, Last Days, and the upcoming Paranoid Park, returns to the Wexner Center Wednesday, August 1 at 7 pm to introduce a brand new 35mm print of Mala Noche, his little-seen debut feature.

Tickets are $7 for the general public and $5 for Wexner Center members and students and go on sale July 10. Tickets can be purchased at the Wexner Center ticket office (614 292-3535) or Ticketmaster (614 431-3600) or Ticketmaster.com.

Mala Noche, now receiving its first proper theatrical release, is a haunting story of unrequited love and culture clash between a convenience store clerk and the young Mexican illegal immigrant with whom he is infatuated. Shot in black-and-white, originally in 16mm, it is one of the key works from the independent filmmaking movement of the 1980s.

The modest yet involving story is based on a novella by poet Walt Curtis. More information, including a trailer, is available at www.wexarts.org; more information on Mala Noche available at www.janusfilms.com/malanoche.

Van Sant, no stranger to the Wexner Center, previously visited during a 2003 retrospective of his films, when he introduced a preview screening of Gerry, then his latest, to a capacity crowd of Wexner Center members. The Center also hosted the local premiere of his last film, the critically acclaimed Last Days in 2005.