Virgilio Villoresi’s ORFEO (2025) — Los Angeles Premiere!

The LA premiere of the new kaleidoscopic retelling of the Orpheus myth, blending 16mm photography, stop-motion, and handmade illusions!

7th House — The Philosophical Research Society's temple for cinema seekers — proudly presents the Los Angeles premiere of Virgilio Villoresi’s kaleidoscopic debut feature, ORFEO (2025), a dazzlingly imaginative reworking of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, for an exclusive two-day engagement!

Inspired by Poema a fumetti, the groundbreaking 1969 graphic novel by Italian writer and artist Dino Buzzati, ORFEO follows a young man whose beloved Eura disappears into a mysterious underworld, sending him on a dreamlike journey beyond the boundaries of life and death, through a strange and shifting landscape of love, longing, memory, and desire.

Shot entirely on 16mm film, with meticulously handcrafted sets, stop-motion animation, elaborate optical illusions, and ingenious in-camera effects, ORFEO is a phantasmagorical feat of cinematic invention. Eschewing conventional narrative logic in favor of the unpredictable rhythms of dreams, Villoresi conjures a shape-shifting universe in which the boundaries between live action, animation, and illusion seem to dissolve before our eyes.

A self-described disciple of Georges Méliès, whose artistic influences encompass the visionary experimental cinema of Harry Smith, Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, Jonas Mekas, and Guy Maddin, Villoresi has spent two decades developing a singular visual language through award-winning short films, animation, and music videos. Collaborating with acclaimed Italian novelist Marco Missiroli, he brings his remarkably whimsical imagination to feature filmmaking for the first time, delivering a cinematic reverie that bears the fingerprints of human artistry in every frame, at once haunting, playful, melancholic, and magically transporting.

Dir. Virgilio Villoresi, 2025, 74 mins, Italy, Italian w/ English subtitles, Color, Not Rated, Digital.

Tickets: $12 (All Screenings Are In Person Only)

Please email events@prs.org or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.