On January 19, 2007, David Lynch visited the Rafael to present a preview screening of INLAND EMPIRE. Besides participating in an onstage discussion following the film, Lynch introduced his surprise guest, Chris Isaak, who performed a set with accompanist Kenney Dale Johnson while Lynch marked time from the sidelines. Later Lynch would write: “The Rafael has been beautifully restored and has now become a magic house for cinema.” It’s certain that David Lynch brought some magic with him that evening.

At the time INLAND EMPIRE was Lynch’s first feature film in five years, and it remains his most recent feature. Named for the residential area bordering the desert near Los Angeles, it is also a title redolent of dreams, the mind and the imagination. “A woman in trouble” is Lynch’s plot summary for the film starring Laura Dern, with participation by Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton, Grace Zabriskie, Diane Ladd and others. Call it creepy, playful, or mind-bending, it is, as The New York Times declared, “a work to admire, to puzzle through, to wrestle with.”