With a new 63-seat cinema equipped to project film and various video formats, Hallwalls is once again ready to present a diverse range of new and otherwise locally unavailable programs in an intimate and comfortable setting.

The cinema debuts this Saturday night with a program of short works (mostly on 16mm film) by Brooklyn’s Diane Bonder. A former artist-in-residence at Squeaky Wheel, Bonder’s lo-fi experimental works have been screened at the Whitney Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Anthology Film Archive, San Francisco Cinematheque, and at festivals internationally.

Transamerica

The following weekend (January 27 and 28) brings the second edition of Resolutions, a festival of new experimental films, videos, installations, Web-based work, and performances by local, regional, national and international artists all selected from an open call by selection committee members.

Transamerica, starring “Desperate Housewives”’ Felicity Huffman as a man on the verge of undergoing transsexual surgery, will receive its local premiere on February 3 to open “Ways in Between Gender,” a monthly film series spun off from the “Ways in Being Gay” festival.

February 16 and 17 brings screenings of Zizek!, Astra Taylor’s documentary about Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who combines Marxism and the thinking of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan with a pop culture awareness that has made him both an international academic superstar and a highly popular speaker. Reviewing this film, the New York Times’ A. O. Scott calls him “a curious mixture of guru and buffoon… [with] the kind of mind that never stops churning, and his compulsive thinking is both thrilling and exhausting.”

Zizek!

Sponsored in conjunction with an exhibition at the Carnegie Arts Center in North Tonawanda, “Now Again The Past” is a series of films that reenact historic and artistic events. Les Ordres (The Orders) (March 25) is Quebec filmmaker Michel Brault’s seldom-screened 1974 examination of the affect on individual civil rights when the Canadian government sent the army into Montreal after a terrorist attack in 1970. (The Cannes Film Festival named Brault Best Director when the film was shown there). From Peter Watkins (The War Game, Punishment Park) comes Culloden (1965), one of the most searing anti-war films ever made. His grimly realistic reenactment of the 18th Century battle that unseated Bonnie Prince Charlie is most memorable for its depiction of the aftermath of battle. Look for it on April 1.

On Thursday March 30, videomaker Paul Chan will present his “Tin Drum Trilogy,” three works that explore the consequences of the United States’ invasion of Iraq. On Saturday April 8, Mark Hosler of the audio collage group Negativland will appear to show his work and argue for fair use and significant reform of U.S. copyright law.

In addition to these and other screenings throughout the spring, Hallwalls media arts director Joanna Raczynska plans to bring in events year round: the new space, for the first time in Hallwalls’ long history, will be air conditioned, making summer programming a viable option.