Ménilmontant/The Scar of Shame (Thu., Sept. 29, 8 p.m., $5-$7, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-895-6545) Taking its title from a run-down Paris district, Dimitri Kirsanoff's 1926 avant-garde milestone casts its lot with the city symphony, the then-fashionable mini-genre in which disparate elements were combined into an aggregate portrait of life in the big city. But where most city symphonies open with a sunrise, Ménilmontant opens with a murder, a bloody affair in which a man and a woman are hacked to death in their home by a crazed, smiling young man. Are they husband and wife, and is he their son? Those questions are eventually answered (yes and no), but many more remain open at the movie's end.

Kirsanoff, a Russian emigré, combined Soviet montage with the techniques of the French avant-garde (which at that time included Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Rene Clair); the result is uncharacteristically narrative for the avant-garde, and uncharacteristically avant-garde for narrative. In other words, unique. Plot developments are gleaned or intuited rather than stated — we might guess the two girls we see frolicking in the woods as the couple are murdered are their daughters, and that time has jumped forward when we see two similar but older figures visiting their graves. But Kirsanoff told his story without intertitles, the better to sweep up the audience in the flood of images.

Ménilmontant is sometimes referred to as a story about an unwed mother, in part because its most touching scene involves the pregnant younger sister: Heavy with child, she sits on a park bench, and the man next to her leaves her the scraps from his sausage (without, however, looking at her or overtly acknowledging her presence). But Kirsanoff packs enough plot into 37 minutes for a midlength novel, much of it concerning the sexual rivalry between sisters. In one delirious sequence, the younger sister stays at home while the older sister goes out with a man, who invites her up to his room. As the younger sister lies in bed, her hand brushing the empty pillow next to her, Kirsanoff overlaps shots of speeding car wheels, clocks whirring in dizzying fast motion, and images of the naked female body: a combination of guilt, jealousy and fear (with a pinch of industrial progress) that is both absurd and absurdly right.

As part of this weekend's conference of the National Media Arts Conference (NAMAC) titled "Taking Liberties: Creativity, Freedom and Risk in the Media Arts," Ménilmontant will show along with The Scar of Shame, a 1927 "race movie" about a middle-class black pianist whose marriage to a poor woman leads to tragedy. Produced by the Colored Film Players Corporation of Philadelphia, Scar was shot entirely in Ardmore. Dan Paul will provide live musical accompaniment for both films. Other public events can be found at http://www.takingliberties2005.org/conference.php.

Misc. Picks: Halloween is crunch time for Exhumed Films. The first of three October triple bills at International House unites Lucio Fulci's The Beyond, Peter Medak's The Changeling and Eugenio Martin's Horror Express (Sat., 8 p.m.). School's in with the latest of Penn's Cinema Studies screenings: Bonnie and Clyde, which should teach those kids something about how to wear a beret (Mon., 6 p.m., International House). The latest Lost Film Fest kicks off Wednesday night; coverage appears next week.