:: FRIDAY, MAY 22 - THURSDAY, MAY 28 ::

📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING

Alain Resnais' JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME (France)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) — Friday, 7pm

René Ferracci's artwork for JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME perfectly approximates the hazy torment of memories best forgotten. At the center in black-and-white is lead actor Claude Rich, looking one-dimensional and sullen. Next to him there's a lucid color portrait of his former lover as she actually was, and swirling around them in an infinite loop, her face as he remembers it—bleary and fragmented. Ferracci's poster throws into relief not just JE T'AIME's recursive brilliance, but director Alain Resnais' singular approach to filmmaking. Throughout his career Resnais flouted narrative conventions, playing fast and loose with viewers' perceptions of time, memory, and reality. While there will always be those that cry pretense ("Oh, come off it..." raves Pauline Kael), lovers of Resnais know that even his most highfalutin' projects were grounded in a very real sense of human vulnerability, longing, and, as in JE T'AIME, infinite loss. Claude Rich stars simply as Claude, a burnt-out bureaucrat recovering from a botched suicide attempt. His blanket indifference toward the universe in the wake of a failed relationship (ex-lover Catrine is played by Olga Georges-Picot) makes him the perfect mark for a team of researchers looking to up their game from mice to men. Even talk of time-travel and the group's egregious liberties with the scientific method leave Claude nonplussed; he quickly acquiesces and the experiment begins. Ultimately, the science fiction of JE T'AIME is as soft as the groovy, time-traveling beanbag Claude melts into during his journey, which is best. The sci-fi premise provides a basis for Resnais to explore Claude's immediate past and the events that led up to him attempting to take his own life, but never imposes itself to an extent we hold it accountable. JE T'AIME's real triumph is the editing of Claude's recurrent flashbacks, which begin maddeningly slow at first—scenes from a mundane vacation; waiting for a bus; water cooler gossip—but which eventually form an overwhelming patchwork of loss and regret. It's these moments of melancholy that most anticipate Michel Gondry's 2004 ode to JE T'AIME, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. Resnais' film, ETERNAL SUNSHINE, and perhaps even Albert Brooks' DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (1991) all accomplish something similarly laudable: using the medium to provide a vantage point on one's life where the minute (and sometimes major) weaknesses of a character or a loved one slowly coalesce into a narrative that waits until the last possible moment to reveal itself, deeply moving us in the process. Screening as part of the Psychodynamic Cinema series. (1968, 91 min, DCP Digital) [James Stroble]

Peter Watkins' PRIVILEGE (UK)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) — Friday, 9:30pm

The term Orwellian is too often misused as a synonym for dystopian, which fails to invoke the great writer's meticulous critique of institutions and the quotidian means with which they legitimate undue authority. So, to call Peter Watkins the most Orwellian of filmmakers is not a matter of identifying his dystopian premises—it’s to praise his use of documentary methods to critique how information is commonly manipulated and taken for granted. Most remarkable about his approach is that Watkins lays out the parameters of his fiction at the beginning of each film before proceeding with faux-documentary tactics (improvised scenes shot verité-style, the reading of statistics by an off-screen narrator, etc.): Every work becomes a spotlight on the viewer's own complicity in turning images into facts. In PRIVILEGE, there is more than one level of fiction at play, as the film's protagonist, Steven Shorter, is himself a creation: a hugely successful pop singer in the Elvis/Beatles tradition who becomes a rallying point for the British government, Anglican church, and major media outlets of England. The film is set in a “near future” where a centrist coalition has banned all other parties for the sake of national unity, and Watkins does his best to imagine what living in this world might feel like, or at least what it’s like to watch TV there. PRIVILEGE remains a contentious film in its likening of pop culture phenomena to totalitarian propaganda (that Watkins shot it in Britain just after the height of Beatlemania is just one instance of his daring), but it remains profound in its cartography of power, which connects advertisers to the representatives of Church and State. An unsettling, surprising, and darkly humorous work, and the songs—often reminiscent of mid-period Walker Brothers—are quite good, too. Screening as part of the Board Picks series. (1967, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Pioneer Women: The Educational Films of Barbara Loden & Joan Micklin Silver

Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) — Friday, 7pm

The four educational shorts in this program succeed on their own but also could easily translate to larger projects, each one showcasing the distinct style of the filmmakers. Each has a focus, but also a sense that there are stories coming in from the edges of the frame. This is especially true of Barbara Loden’s THE BOY WHO LIKED DEER (1974, 19 min, 16mm), in which a young boy (Chuck Willen), struggling with school and friends, finds solace in his love for the local deer population. It’s the most modern-feeling of the films, a character study of a lonely outcast in search of connection and discovering the hard way the importance of compassion. Like her pioneering independent film WANDA from a few years earlier, Loden’s presents a neorealistic frankness of everyday life’s common—but not insignificant—troubles. Also from 1974 is Joan Micklin Silver’s THE CASE OF THE ELEVATOR DUCK (17 min, 16mm), which likewise follows a boy’s relationship with animals, though with a much lighter tone. Gilbert (Robert Lee Grant), an aspiring detective, finds a duck in the elevator of his public housing apartment building. His attempts to figure out whom the duck belongs to, as well as hide it from his mother and neighbors, makes for a sincere and charming short. Silver’s THE FUR COAT CLUB (1973, 18 min, 16mm) a mostly dialog-free comedy, follows two girls (Emily Chase and Claudia Silver) living in New York City who are obsessed with touching fur coats. Set in winter, they make a game of trying to touch as many as they can, mostly catching passersby on the street; their fixation eventually leads them into hot water. It’s a wholly delightful short, highlighting a complexity of girlhood play, contrasting the two previous shorts; it’s also engaging with the prominence of fashion in women’s lives, a theme Micklin would examine again a few years later with her PBS adaptation of BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR. Directed by and starring Loden and written by Micklin, THE FRONTIER EXPERIENCE (1975, 25 min, 16mm) follows a woman, Delilah Fowler, as she and her family settle in Kansas in the mid-19th century. Showcasing history through a grounded reality, the film— which teeters at times into the horror genre—highlights a need for a community among women. Themes overlap and weave through all these shorts, but all use close character study to examine how the everyday reveals networks of connections and community. Before the screening, film scholar Elena Gorfinkel will offer an introduction that explores Loden’s post-WANDA career, situating Loden and Silver’s short films within the contexts of non-theatrical and feminist filmmaking in the era. [Megan Fariello]

Béla Tarr's SÁTÁNTANGÓ (Hungary)

FACETS — Sunday, 1pm

Béla Tarr's transfixing saga of the idling state of humanity is nothing less than a masterwork from a master filmmaker. Running more than seven hours, SÁTÁNTANGÓ is a filmic event that still shatters us decades after its release. Adapted from Hungarian novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai's 1985 novel, the film blends allegory with tightly constructed, oppressive reality in his depiction of an isolated farming collective as its miserable inhabitants cope with despair. Tarr uses extremely long takes, meticulously staged and choreographed, to tell and retell the events of two plodding and rainy autumn days from varying characters' perspectives. SÁTÁNTANGÓ's unforgiving, almost apocalyptically bleak setting is populated by adulterers, drunkards, cowards, and backstabbers; people at a standstill, whirling mirthlessly in an alcohol-fueled dance in a pub or slogging aimlessly across the muddy compound. Tarr's mobile camera allows for languid, shifting compositions that create rich and haunting tableaux vivants. His precise post-sync soundtrack of resonant voices, creaking floors, and one tortured cat's mew has the inescapable effect of drawing the viewer deep into a heightened reality. The film evokes a sense of dread that reminds us of our mortality, though there is also a strain of gallows humor that is both subtle and mordant. While the people of the collective wait for Irimias, their charlatan savior, they move six steps forward and six steps back in a standstill tango with time and progress. This back and forth is mimicked in the film's structure of twelve intertwined chapters, some of which are paired through their titles. This sense of stasis, or impossibility of progress, is also seen in the charismatic Irimias' role in a vague bureaucracy that clearly is reminiscent of communism, but actually feels universal. Tarr sarcastically depicts society as a weak, ineffectual construct meant to provide structure and purpose in a purposeless world. SÁTÁNTANGÓ is a brilliant, haunting opus that knows more about us than we know ourselves. Screening as part of the Essentials series. (1994, 439 min, DCP Digital) [Brian Welesko]

Chantal Akerman's JE TU IL ELLE (France/Belgium)

Music Box Theatre — Saturday, 11:30am

There’s an impression of aimlessness to many of Chantal Akerman’s films, the often desultory tempo of the images lending a visual rhythm to a feeling of languor. This is expressed most absurdly in JE TU IL ELLE, her picaresque first narrative feature; there’s a sense of impishness here that’s either refined or eschewed in later work, reflecting the youthfulness of its creator. The film was made after Akerman returned to Belgium from her brief sojourn to New York City and just one year before she premiered JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES, which found Akerman evincing a wisdom far beyond her years (compared with the specifically childlike feel of this film). Yet one still finds in both a simultaneously meditative and inscrutable durational impact and rather opaque philosophical inquiries that are neither explicitly stated nor patly elucidated. Akerman (credited at the end simply as “Julie,” though it’s never made clear if that’s the character’s name) plays the nominal protagonist; in the first third she appears by herself, staying in one room for many weeks, moving furniture, dressing and undressing, eating from a bag of sugar (!!!), and writing and rewriting a letter to an unknown recipient. The only dialogue is delivered by Akerman in disembodied voiceover, narrating the film’s limited action, though often in a way that doesn’t match what’s happening on screen. What she does in this section is almost comical, but even where one might be tempted to call something Akerman has done funny, it’s still imbued with an assuredness that borders on self-seriousness, yet still manages never to encroach upon affectation. Such emphatic impassivity could be called precision, as any vagueness born of it is certainly intentional. Why Julie doesn’t leave her room and subsists on a bag of sugar for several weeks is not explained, nor is why she eventually does leave. In the second part, the stasis of the first is juxtaposed by movement when Julie hitches a ride with a long-haul truck driver (Niels Arestrup). They occasionally stop to eat and drink, and it’s only toward the end of the sequence, after a stilted sexual encounter in the truck’s cab, that the man speaks at length about anything of substance, delivering a monologue about his wife, their lacking sex life, and other personal subjects. In the third and final section, it would seem that Julie has been dropped off at the home of a former lover (Claire Wauthion). This section culminates in an approximately ten-minute sex scene between the two women; it may be supposed that a schism between the two is why Julie had been hiding out and that the lover is the person to whom she was writing the letter, but this part nevertheless feels wholly detached from the first part. The film’s title translates to I YOU HE SHE—it’s presumed that the ‘I’ is Akerman/Julie, and that the ‘he’ and ‘she’ are the truck driver and ex-lover, respectively; it’s thus speculated that the ‘you’ may be us, the viewers, who become participants in these dynamics. Loosely based on Akerman’s own experience hitchhiking across Belgium to visit an ex-girlfriend, the film is an undeniably autobiographical text and a more impenetrable contemplation of things knowable perhaps only to the filmmaker (though, ironically, in denying that it’s either a distinctly queer or feminist film, Akerman has said it’s a “normal love story,” reducing its complexity in such a way only brilliant artists are able to do of their own work). I’ve found it more meaningful to watch without attempting to inflict a narrative, even if one exists. The aimlessness becomes more meaningful as a result, though not in a quantifiable way that imposes anything on the impassable precision. Preceded by Akerman’s 1968 short film SAUTE MA VILLE (13 min, DCP Digital). Screening as part of Saphapalooza. (1974, 86 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]

Caroline Golum’s REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) — Sunday, 2pm

“It’s an unfashionably sincere movie,” director Caroline Golum has said of her latest spiritual cinematic endeavor, and it’s hard to argue with her there. In adapting the words of Julian of Norwich, a 14th-century anchoress whose “Revelations of a Divine Love” still stands as the earliest surviving female-penned piece of English-language writing, Golum addresses her task of cinematic transliteration with nothing less than unabashed sincerity, her approach as faithful and sacrosanct as that of Julian recording the sixteen visions of Holiness she received in 1373. There’s something heartwarming in seeing a filmmaker eschew the typical contemporary artistic impulses towards postmodernism, poisoned irony, and snark, and instead build something earnest and tactile in both body and spirit. For the uninitiated: at the age of thirty, Julian of Norwich became gravely ill and, upon what was seemingly her deathbed, received sixteen “shewings” of Christ Almighty. Now fully healed, Julian exiled herself from secular society and lived out her days of isolation writing these visions down, the world of Norwich moving swiftly around her through plague and class revolution. There is little overt humor in REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE, but there is an abundance of warmth and a generosity of spirit emanating from the production, the handcrafted models and gorgeously-lit sets providing a comforting atmosphere to glide along Golum’s textured frames. As the anchoress centering the story, Tessa Strain makes a remarkable screen debut, her face filling the screen with a radiant empathetic glow, her awe and wondrous spirit immediately palpable for the viewer. Golum’s work has shades of Pier Paolo Pasolini, dashes of Sergei Parajanov, but is entirely its own object, a paean to the human spirit’s capability to give oneself to something greater than, simply because we must. A hazelnut becomes a key totem for Julian, a tiny object in the grand scheme of things, but Christ tells Julian that this nut “is all that is made.” The smallest thing containing the vastness of the universe inside it. So too, in Golum’s world before us. Screening as part of the New Releases and Restorations series. (2025, 73 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

4x4: Contemporary Art in Chicago (US/Documentary)

Museum of Contemporary Art — Tuesday, 6pm

Produced by local documentary house Pentimenti Productions, these short profiles of local artists are infused with pride in the Chicago scene. Each work brims with detail about the artist and their practice, and each considers how the figure in question fits into the city’s larger artistic community. The first piece in the program is we are two., directed by cai thomas, which looks at Jenn Freeman, who also performs under the name Po’Chop. This work considers how burlesque and striptease function as forms of creative expression, as these are essential parts of Freeman’s practice; it also meditates on the history of Black queer expression through looking at her work with the House of the Lorde, a studio-cum-meeting space dedicated to writer and activist Audre Lorde. In ERROL ORTIZ: HEADSPACE, the next piece in the program, directors Erin Babbin and Michael Sullivan visit the veteran Chicago Imagist in his home studio as he completes a new painting. This work may be the most poignant of the four, as Ortiz reflects on aging and his experiences with the other Imagists in between advancing on his latest work. Past and present intermingle, yielding a rich portrait of an artistic legacy. Alex Morelli’s BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THE EVERYDAY offers a profile of visual artist and author Deb Sokolow, whose work touches on (among other subjects) McDonald’s, conspiracies, and the movie ROCKY (1976). Per the title, this short is concerned with quotidian phenomena as well as theories about what may lurk behind them, with Sokolow serving as an engaging guide to her distinctive world. The piece also boasts attractive 16mm photography and pleasant street-level views of Wicker Park. Closing the program is I DREAMT OF COWBOYS, COTTON FIELDS, AND CLOUDS — BERNARD WILLIAMS, which profiles the painter and sculptor as he ruminates on his work in particular and Black history in general. Director Kevin Shaw depicts Williams as curious and thoughtful, addressing his investment in resurrecting aspects of the past through his practice. The piece culminates with Williams visiting the public installation of one of his sculptures, which reinforces the program’s theme of how artists engage with the community at large. (2026, Total approx. 67 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

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Ages of Agnès

Siskel Film Center — See below for showtimes

Agnès Varda's VARDA BY AGNÈS (France/Documentary)

See Venue website for showtimes

I was 25 when I met Agnès Varda in 2015. In town for a brief residency at the University of Chicago, she came to the Music Box for a screening of CLEO FROM 5 TO 7. I was told we’d need to create a privatized area for her to relax before the screening. The moment she arrived with two nervous students in tow as handlers, I quickly learned to expect the unexpected.  After introducing herself, she stated there was no need for a green room because she wanted to be among the people and meet the young folks of Chicago. The final film by the legendary French New Wave director, VARDA BY AGNÈS, is a glorious celebration of the rebellious spirit and exuberant personality I met then. The documentary, focused on her contributions to cinema and the art world as a whole, is part a personal highlight reel of her illustrious body of work and part a self-reflection on life. VARDA finds Varda alternating between musings on her career and speaking with intimacy directly into the camera, as if the viewer were sitting face-to-face with her in reverent conversation, like an old friend. The film overflows with Varda’s sense of whimsy and zest for life and showcases her incredible aptitude as a filmmaker. With an oeuvre that stretches nearly seven decades, there is perhaps no one better to encapsulate her vast achievements than the women herself. (2019, 115 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]
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Agnès Varda's THE GLEANERS AND I (France/Documentary)
See Venue website for showtimes
Agnès Varda, arguably the first filmmaker of the French New Wave, builds an easy, rambling, and revelatory road movie in THE GLEANERS AND I, an essay film about the historical French custom of gleaning, the act of collecting crops left to waste after the harvest. Varda takes to the motorways with her digital camera and captures gleaning as it is in contemporary French life. She interviews potato farmers, crust punks, gypsies, grocers, justices, vintners, and artists, illuminating lots of sympathetic thematic tensions along the way. Varda doesn't linger in interviews; she brings us only snippets of the people she speaks with, capturing their charm in a few juicy clips. Varda uses GLEANERS to consider her own aging, revolving technology, the ethics of waste, and the sliding economic realities that brought gleaning back as a common practice. (2000, 79 min, DCP Digital) [Christy LeMaster]

Toshio Matsumoto’s FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (Japan)

Alamo Drafthouse — Wednesday, 6:30pm

“She loved roses, and they had to be artificial ones.” Our lives are surrounded by replicas and fakes, CGI and special effects masking our day-to-day reality. FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES questions the artifice that pervades our tumultuous society. In the opening third of the film, Eddie, a young transgender woman, walks through an art museum with a voiceover explaining the sociological concept of masks. The idea is that a person utilizes a mask or costume to hide their “true” personality. The film itself has a commendable amount of nuance, and it raises questions of what our “true” personalities might even be. The line about artificial roses ends up being the most important, as it alters our judgment on whether the masks we wear are inherently good or bad and on which of our personae is the real one. Matsumoto might not know the answers himself, which is a perfectly fine position to take, but he makes it clear that an artificial rose is just as beautiful as a real one. The film is quite explosive, and its radical form matches its radical subject matter. Equal parts funny, cool, gross, and erotic, FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES jumps around chronologically and intercuts between fictional and documentary sequences. The nonfiction scenes feature interviews with the cast of the film; they give us insights into their lifestyles as well as their thoughts on the picture they're currently shooting. The film, frequently cited as an inspiration for Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, deserves the same recognition and notoriety that its offspring got. Luckily, unlike the story’s Oedipal trajectory, this parent film can’t be killed by its successor's fame; in fact, it's only cemented itself as a cult classic as time has passed. Screening as part of the Queer Film Theory 101 series. (1969, 105 min, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]

Brian De Palma's CARRIE (US)

Alamo Drafthouse — Sunday, 4:15pm

The strange CARRIE finds De Palma in a mode of perpetual discovery, movement, and defilement. In the film's now-legendary second scene, Carrie White, High School senior, cleans her thighs in the shower after P.E. class. She drops her bar of soap, and we, but not she, see it bounce off the tiles at her feet only to be replaced by a stream of blood filling her hand. After a moment, she gazes into her palm, and we see her fingers in close-up, cupped and dripping with menses. For Carrie, it is a moment of unspeakable horror—she wails like a beast for someone to help her—a horror of sudden knowledge: her body isn't what she thought it was, is in fact terrifyingly unruly where it ought most be domestic. Her blood has revealed her body to be a thing she cannot recognize, a thing we and Carrie are soon to see has a power that, like her first period, is uncontrollable, bloody in effect, and invisible in source. This moment becomes the structuring conceit for both the film's thematics and its style: nearly every shot finds space operating as on the principle of the jack-in-the-box, showing us what we expect to see but in a different place or way than it ought to be. While punishing her daughter for daring to enter sexual maturity, Carrie's religious fruitcake mother works with an antique sewing machine in a forced deep-focus composition made possible by the split-field diopter. It is a deeply uncomfortable shot, with the mother framed far to the right and a vast and preternaturally focused empty kitchen behind her. Suddenly, Carrie emerges through an unseen door into that kitchen. Two shots later, Carrie is weeping in a medium shot, but in a mirror: De Palma has faded from the woman, still at work making clothes, to her daughter's face in reflection such that Carrie's image has exactly replaced that of her mother's head. These slightly off revelations repeatedly reveal hidden filths, corruptions, or hatefulnesses we hadn't access to before: a hurtful graffito, a murderous parent, a bucket of blood. CARRIE begins and ends not in blood but in bleedings, horrifying transfers of what we keep desperately contained within our bodies at all cost, and as such it is a film that itself metaphorically bleeds, spreading though every crevice of its diegesis, mapping out the creepily familiar and labyrinthine space of monstrosity. (1976, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Kian Bergstrom]

Ildikó Enyedi’s SILENT FRIEND (Germany/Hungary/France)

Siskel Film Center — See Venue website for showtimes

The title character of this puzzling art movie is not a person, but rather a tree, specifically a gingko biloba located on a German university campus. SILENT FRIEND alternates between three separate time periods and considers how people relate to this tree at different points in history. The principal story line concerns a neuroscientist from Hong Kong (Tony Leung) who comes to the university as a visiting scholar in 2020; during the COVID lockdown, he becomes fascinated with the tree and ends up conducting an unusual experiment having to do with its reproduction. The other two narratives take place in 1908 and 1972 and deal with, respectively, the exploits of the university’s first female student and the relationship between a socially awkward graduate student and the co-ed who tries to get him to open up. It’s never clear what writer-director Ildikó Enyedi is trying to say with all this, but that’s typical of this Hungarian writer-director, who’s marched to the beat of her own drummer since her debut feature, MY TWENTIETH CENTURY (1989). SILENT FRIEND circles around themes of alienation, connection, and the mystery of the natural world without coming to a point about any of them—the film is essentially a dance of ideas, kind of like Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s MEMORIA (2021) but without the transcendental elements. And like MEMORIA, this functions partly as a love letter to higher learning, as Enyedi successfully conveys the excitement of performing research and making academic discoveries. It’s a film that advances a scientific worldview, regarding people as case studies and their feelings as so much data to sort through. Some may find this perspective comforting; for one thing, it reflects a certain faith in progress and the triumph of intellectual endeavor. If nothing else, it’s undeniably unique, highlighting an alternative approach to both humanist and antihumanist thinking. (2025, 147 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Jûzô Itami’s TAMPOPO (Japan)

The Davis Theater — Tuesday, 7pm

Frequently billed as a ‘ramen western,’ the satirical TAMPOPO follows the SHANE-esque Goro who decides to help the bubbly Tampopo turn around her struggling noodle shop. Tampopo wants to learn the secret to making the perfect ramen. Although Jûzô Itami’s film was only marginally successful in Japan upon first release, it has since been received with almost universal praise thanks to its delightfully whimsical interweaving of food, sex, and death. TAMPOPO is episodic in nature: Itami’s free flowing narrative draws influence from the work of Luis Buñuel. Each humorous sequence flows freely into the other, often aided by sheer preposterousness that works charmingly well. The real star here is the food. Dish after dish, meal after meal, it’s impossible not to feel hungry when watching this film. A foodie’s ultimate dream, the impressive showcase of culinary offerings is staggering, and their preparations are shown in great detail. There’s a prevailing sense of joy permeating the entire film that delights in simple pleasures like cooking, lovemaking, and sometimes the two combined. Like some of the tantalizing ramen presented onscreen, TAMPOPO is a hearty visual feast best enjoyed in the company of others and with a ferocious appetite. Screening as part of the Big Screen Classics series. (1985, 114 min, new 4K DCP Digital Restorations) [Kyle Cubr]

Mona Fastvold's THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE (UK/US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) — Saturday, 7pm

THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE can be approached less as a historical biopic than as an inquiry into how belief is embodied, transmitted, and policed. Directed by Mona Fastvold, the film resists the reassuring grammar of prestige historical drama and instead situates Ann Lee’s life within a tactile, experiential framework that privileges ritual, movement, and collective sensation over narrative efficiency. History is not highlighted so much as recast as mythos, delivered through Thomasin McKenzie’s narration. What follows is a story reenacted as a series of pressures placed on women’s bodies. Childbirth and loss share the same breath. Bodily autonomy and antiquated notions of “wifely duty” collide again and again. Fastvold’s use of natural light, hand-painted backgrounds, and rigorously composed frames does more than evoke the 18th century. It places the image in a liminal space between realism and iconography, recalling Baroque painting as much as ethnographic observation. Many scenes conclude with tableaux that suggest Caravaggio-like figures emerging from shadow, poised to behead Holofernes. This painterly strategy mirrors the film’s broader refusal to isolate Ann Lee as a singular genius. Her authority is inseparable from the collective that gathers around her. The Shakers’ theology holds that the second coming of Christ will be female, because God encompasses both masculine and feminine principles. This belief positions Ann Lee as an existential challenge to patriarchal Christianity, and to patriarchal society more broadly. The film makes clear that persecution arises less from the Shakers’ ecstatic dances or celibacy than from their devotion to a woman permitted spiritual authority. Paganism becomes a convenient accusation; gender is the real heresy. Amanda Seyfried’s performance is remarkable for its range, capable of erupting into exuberance or retreating into stillness without signaling either as spectacle. She avoids charisma, presenting Lee as a figure shaped by grief, labor, and belief rather than destiny. This approach aligns with the film’s skepticism toward heroic individualism, even when engaging a figure historically framed as messianic. That THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE arrives at a moment when the world is grieving the unprovoked loss of an American citizen at the hands of their own government gives the film an unintended but piercing contemporary resonance. Upon arriving in America, Lee’s response to a slave auction, her cry of “Shame,” echoes beyond the frame and into daily life. Later, the detention and beating of Shaker congregants by British soldiers evokes modern immigration enforcement, reinforcing the film’s argument that institutional brutality tends to repeat itself with only minor cosmetic updates. What distinguishes THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE from more conventional faith-based narratives is its insistence on pacifism as praxis rather than abstraction. Though not depicted onscreen, later generations of Shakers would be exempt from the Civil War draft, an early instance of conscientious objection. They sheltered both Confederate and Union soldiers. Their commitment to nonviolence is not symbolic but disciplinary, an ethical system requiring continuous labor, restraint, and dancing. Stripped of theology, the film ultimately reveals a social model grounded in collective work, gender equality, and the rejection of violence. It suggests that radical change does not require divine intervention so much as the redistribution of authority. Fastvold’s film emerges as a punk-rock feminist manifesto, sketching the blueprint for utopia: believe women, follow women, dismantle the patriarchy, and live out our days under a matriarchy. History’s male-ruled societies seem to agree on one thing. The most threatening idea in any era is not heresy, but women governing themselves. Screening as part of the New Releases and Restorations series. (2025, 137 min, DCP Digital) [Shaun Huhn]

Curry Barker’s OBSESSION (US)

Alamo Drafthouse, the Davis Theater, Landmark's Century Centre Cinema, the Music Box Theatre and others — See Venue websites for showtimes

With a “One Wish Willow” sold at your local magic shop, all your dreams can come true. But what would you wish for? Since “The Monkey’s Paw,” horror cinema has warned that every wish carries a shadow. In OBSESSION, however, the wish itself is almost secondary. Curry Barker understands that supernatural objects do not create darkness so much as expose what already exists beneath the surface. Alongside roommate and creative partner Cooper Tomlinson, Barker dropped out of film school in 2017 to pursue independent filmmaking full-time, building an audience through their sketch-comedy channel “That’s a Bad Idea.” Their comedy often sprung from minor social discomforts spiraling into absurdist chaos, an instinct essential to OBSESSION. After the viral success of “The Chair” (2023) and the release of the $800 found-footage film MILK & SERIAL (2024) on YouTube, Barker found himself with a budget near $1 million for OBSESSION. The story centers on Bear (Michael Johnston) who has been in love with Nikki (Inde Navarrette) since childhood. Even his best friend Ian (Tomlinson) grows tired of hearing about it. Ian urges him to simply ask her out, but Bear is too emotionally paralyzed to risk rejection. Instead, he buys a One Wish Willow—“A love only the branch of a Willow tree could conjure.” A familiar idiom (be careful what you wish for, you might just get it) gradually mutates into a body-horror film about consent, disguised as romantic fantasy. After Bear makes his wish, Nikki immediately becomes devoted to him. At first, it resembles a dream come true, but Barker poisons every interaction with stomach-churning wrongness. Bear notices it. Their friends notice it. Nikki herself occasionally appears trapped beneath the performance, as if her real consciousness is screaming somewhere inside her own body. Yet Bear continually chooses fantasy over reality. Barker’s sharpest insight is recognizing how entitlement disguises itself as vulnerability. Bear never sees himself as monstrous, which makes him even more disturbing. Johnston balances Bear’s sympathy and selfishness effectively, though the film ultimately belongs to Navarrette. Already carrying the energy of a future scream queen, she channels shades of Mia Goth in PEARL while creating something uniquely feral and tragic. Barker has joked that Johnston and Navarrette’s lack of chemistry helped secure their casting, and that tension becomes crucial to the film’s unease. Navarrette pivots from flirtation to psychosis in seconds, occasionally snapping back into terrified lucidity before the wish reasserts control. Visually, Barker and cinematographer Taylor Clemons create a world defined by loneliness. Center-composed frames and oppressive headroom make every room feel emotionally vacant, even when crowded. Barker’s intentionally off-rhythm editing prevents scenes from settling naturally, keeping comedy and horror on the same unstable wavelength. Laughter curdles into revulsion almost instantly. What makes OBSESSION linger is how human the horror feels beneath its supernatural mechanics. Barker transforms romantic desperation into body horror without losing sight of the sadness underneath it all. Somewhere between internet sketch comedy, splatter horror, and poisoned melodrama, Barker has created something distinctly contemporary: a horror film where the monster never stops believing they’re the good guy. (2025, 108 min, DCP) [Shaun Huhn]

📽️ ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Alamo Drafthouse
Spike Jonze's 2002 film ADAPTATION. (115 min, Digital Projection) screens Friday at 1:15pm; Saturday at 3pm; and Wednesday at 2:45pm.

Elliot Tuttle's 2026 film BLUE FILM (82 min, Digital Projection) screens Friday at 9:45pm; Sunday at 9:30pm; Monday at 10pm; and Wednesday at 4:30pm.

Chloé Cinq-Mars's 2025 film NESTING (91 min, Digital Projection) screens Tuesday 9:30pm, as a special one-night theatrical event ahead of its VOD debut on Friday, May 29.

Doris Wishman's 1983 film A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER (69 min, Digital Projection) screens Tuesday, 9:30pm, as part of the Terror Tuesday series.

Jon Watts's 2026 film BACKROOMS (90 min, Digital Projection) opens Thursday. See Venue website for showtimes. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's 2008 documentary TROUBLE THE WATER (96 min, 35mm) screens Thursday, 7pm, as part of the Science on Screen Watching the Weather series with an introduction by Dr. Kate Burrows, Assistant Professor of Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago, who will discuss the short- and long-term health impacts of hurricanes and reflect on Katrina's lasting influence on the study of community wellbeing. Free admission. More info here.

⚫ Chicago Film Archives
A Celebration, a large-scale video installation by experimental filmmaker and Chicago Film Archives curatorial assistant Colin Mason, is on view through Saturday, July 4, in the lobby of 150 N. Riverside Plaza (enter via Randolph Street); free and open to the public Monday–Friday 4–7pm and Saturdays 11am–5pm. The installation is part of the 150 Media Stream arts program, curated by Chicago video artist Yuge Zhou, and was produced in partnership with Chicago Film Archives. More info here.

⚫ Chicago Public Library
The Chicago Public Library's Community Cinema program presents free film and TV screenings at dozens of neighborhood branches throughout the week. See the full schedule here.

⚫ The Davis Theater
Boots Riley's 2026 film I LOVE BOOSTERS (115 min, DCP Digital) begins screening. See Venue website for showtimes.

Trust Fall, a mystery screening presented by Oscarbate in which the film is kept secret until the night of the event, takes place Saturday at 7:15pm. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Two documentaries by Judit Elek screen Saturday, 1pm, as a rescheduled entry in the Judit Elek: Reality by Itself series: INHABITANTS OF CASTLES IN HUNGARY IN 1966 (1967, 27 min, DCP Digital) and HOW LONG DOES MAN LIVE? (1967, 60 min, DCP Digital).

Sumiko Haneda's 1982 documentary THE POEM OF HAYACHINE VALLEY (186 min, 16mm) screens Saturday, 3pm, as a special screening.

Judit Elek's 1984 film MARIA'S DAY (113 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday, 4pm, also as part of the Judit Elek: Reality by Itself series.

The Robert Beavers: My Hand Outstretched to the Winged Distance and Sightless Measure series concludes Sunday, 7pm, with a program of six early films by Gregory J. Markopoulos—LYSIS (25 min), CHARMIDES (11 min), CHRISTMAS USA (13 min), SWAIN (20 min), FLOWERS OF ASPHALT (7 min), and ELDORA (11 min)—all on 16mm. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ FACETS
Andrés Perugini's 2023 documentary EL PORTAL (65 min, Digital Projection) screens Tuesday, 7pm, as part of the Chicago Reel Film Club presented by the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago, followed by a post-screening conversation. Appetizers and a cash bar will be offered starting at 6pm.

Sweet Void Cinema presents a screenwriting workshop on Wednesday from 6 to 9pm in the FACETS Studio. Free admission. More info on all screenings and events here.

⚫ Film Studies Center (at the University of Chicago)
The Mitchell Cobey Lecture on Cinema, an annual lecture presented by the University of Chicago Film Studies Center, takes place Friday, 6:30pm, at the Logan Center for the Arts Screening Room, with a free public reception beforehand from 5pm to 6:30pm in the second-floor Great Hall. This year's lecture features Dr. Carla Hayden, the first woman and first African American to serve as Librarian of Congress, now a senior fellow at the Mellon Foundation, in conversation with Dr. Jacqueline Stewart, Professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago, on the importance of film history and preservation. Presented in partnership with the Department of Cinema and Media Studies and the Division of the Arts and Humanities. Free admission. Registration does not guarantee a seat; overflow space with a live broadcast will be available on the eighth floor. More info here.

⚫ First Nations Film and Video Festival
The Spring 2026 First Nations Film and Video Festival runs Friday through Saturday, May 30 across six venues. Below are the screenings through Thursday.

A program of five short and feature-length films screens Friday, 6pm, at the Skokie Public Library (5215 Oakton St., Skokie). Free and open to the public.

A program of five films screens Saturday, 3pm, at Citlalin Gallery (2005 S. Blue Island Ave.).

Rondell Bearpaw's 2025 feature SHANK: THE MOVIE (105 min, Digital Projection) screens Monday, 7pm, at Hairpin Arts Center (2810 N. Milwaukee Ave., 2nd Floor), with a post-screening Q&A with Bearpaw.

A program of five films screens Tuesday, 6pm, at the Skokie Public Library.

A program of six short films screens Wednesday, 7:30pm, at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.), presented in partnership with Comfort Film.

Moirah Hayes's DEAR ALASKA, (87 min, Digital Projection) screens Thursday, 7, at FACETS, followed by a Q&A with Hayes. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ Goethe-Institut Chicago (150 N. Michigan Ave.)
Lateral Entrant, a site-specific exhibition by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Maya Nguyen incorporating video, photography, and performance, exploring migrant strategies of camouflage and adaptation across languages and visual cultures connecting Vietnam, Germany, and the United States, is on view through July 31. Public viewing hours are available by advance registration on Eventbrite, and a state- or federally-issued photo ID is required for building check-in. More info here.

⚫ Music Box Theatre
Tommy Wiseau's 2003 cult phenomenon THE ROOM (99 min, 35mm) screens Friday at midnight.

Keenen Ivory Wayan’s 2006 film LITTLE MAN (98 min, 35mm) screens Saturday at midnight.

Barbara Hammer's 1992 documentary NITRATE KISSES (67 min, 16mm) screens Sunday, 11:30am, preceded by two early Hammer shorts—PEARL DIVER (1984, 5 min, 16mm) and DYKETACTICS (1974, 4 min, 16mm)—as part of the Sapphopalooza series. This screening is co-presented with Gerber/Hart Library and Archives.

Barbara Hammer’s 1992 film NITRATE KISSES (67 min, 16mm) screens Sunday, 11:30am, The Chicago Film Society presents Mike Judge's 1996 film BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD DO AMERICA (80 min, 35mm) on Monday, 7pm, preceded by Wes Artcher’s 1985 short film JAC MAC & RAD BOY GO! (4 min, 16mm). More info on all screenings here.

⚫ Northbrook Public Library (1201 Cedar Ln., Northbrook)
Steven Spielberg's 2002 film CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (141 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 2pm, as part of the Way Back When Film Series. Free admission. More info here.

⚫ Siskel Film Center
Joel Alfonso Vargas's 2025 film MAD BILLS TO PAY (101 min, DCP Digital) begins screening. See Venue website for showtimes. 

National Theatre Live: All My Sons, a recorded stage production of Arthur Miller's family drama from the National Theatre in London, directed by Ivo Van Hove and starring Bryan Cranston and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, screens Saturday at 11:30am and Sunday at 2pm. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ Tone Glow Film Festival
The inaugural Tone Glow Film Festival takes place through Sunday at three venues: Chicago Filmmakers, Block Cinema, and a secret location in Wicker Park (address emailed to ticket holders on the day of the event). 

Shades of Silk: Mary Stephen's Early Films—three films including LABYRINTHE (1973, 5 min), A VERY EASY DEATH (1975, 8 min, and the new 2K restoration of SHADES OF SILK (1978, 62 min)— screens Friday, 6pm, at Chicago Filmmakers, followed by a virtual Q&A with Stephen.

Zhou Tao's 2026 film THE RIB OF THE GREATER BAY AREA (70 min) screens Friday, 8:30pm, at Chicago Filmmakers, preceded by Francisco Rojas's 2026 short film UNMEASURABLE PARTICLES (10 min).

Hallucinatory Detour: The Films of Ahmet Kut—including BLANC (1975, 5 min, 16mm), POUR FAIRE UN BON VOYAGE, PRENONS LE TRAIN (1973, 20 min, 16mm), and REGARD DE MA FENÊTRE (1974, 45 min, 16mm)—screens Saturday, 12pm, at Chicago Filmmakers.

Cinematic Jouissance: Philip Dubuquoy, Dominique Willoughby, and Claudine Eizykman—including Dubuquoy's COLOR ENTROPIE (1979–80, 10 min, 16mm), Willoughby's MASSES TURBULENTES (1976, 17 min, 16mm), and Eizykman's BRUINE SQUAMMA 3ÈME PARTIE: SÉRIES SATURÉES (1972–77, 33 min, 16mm)—screens Saturday, 2pm, at Chicago Filmmakers.

Three programs devoted to the husband-and-wife Australian filmmaking duo Arthur and Corinne Cantrill (constituting the largest US retrospective of their work in 25 years, all on rare 16mm prints) screen Saturday evening at Chicago Filmmakers: Light Contemplations at 6pm; Permanent Vacations at 7:30pm; and Eternal Accumulations at 9pm.

Two free programs screen Sunday, May 24, at Block Cinema: Arrivals: The Regional Spirits of Allen Ross and Peter Bundy at 12pm and Departures: Films of Place by Allen Ross, Peter Bundy, and Robert Fulton at 2pm.

David Gatten's Films for Invisible Ink screen Sunday, 6pm, at Chicago Filmmakers.

Kevin Walker and Jack Auen's 2026 film CHRONOVISOR (99 min) screens Sunday, 7:30pm, at Chicago Filmmakers, preceded by Park Kyujae's 2023–26 short MUR DE L'ATELIER (10 min).

The festival concludes with The Light Show, an after-party screening of Anthony McCall's LINE DESCRIBING A CONE(1973, 30 min, 16mm) and CONICAL SOLID (1974, 10 min, 16mm), on Sunday at 11:30pm, at a secret Wicker Park location. More info here.

CINE-LIST: May 22 - May 28, 2026

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Kian Bergstrom, Kyle Cubr, Megan Fariello, Shaun Huhn, Ben Kaye, Christy LeMaster, James Stroble, Drew Van Weelden, Brian Welesko