The American Film Institute's Silver Theatre launches a retrospective of gay filmmaker Todd Haynes with a new 35mm print celebrating the 20th anniversary of Poison, inspired by the transgressive tales of Jean Genet. The director's first feature-length film, Poison is provocative (for its time), highly stylized, and is ultimately marked by a grimy despondency. The film deals mainly with sex (it is based on Genet, after all), and contains a fair amount of gay content, which, again, for its time was not the norm. It's a stunning first work from a director who would later refuse to sacrifice his indie spirit and continue to make films that paid homage to mainstream Hollywood with a cool subversiveness. Sunday, April 24, at 8:45 p.m., and Monday, April 25, at 9:45 p.m. AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Tickets are $11 general admission. Call 301-495-6720 or visit afi.com/Silver.
