We will list/highlight physical screenings at the top of the list for theaters and venues that have reopened, and list streaming/online screenings below.
Check the venues’ websites for information on safety protocols and other procedures put in place.
📽️ CINE-FILE PRESENTS
Revolutionary Puerto Rican and Chilean Films by Jaime Barrios (US/Experimental)
Comfort Film at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave. – Outdoor Screening) – Wednesday, 8pm
Upon his death in 1989, filmmaker Jaime Barrios left behind two complementary bodies of work: a series of films about the New York art world and another about the political realities of his native Chile under Pinochet. While the latter works remain obscure in America, a representative sample of Barrios's New York studies are available from the Film-Maker's Coop in 16mm, but they're not often revived. The three films from the Coop comprise this showcase, which provides an echt-sixties tableau of experimental theater, filmmaking, and poetry—a happening, if you will. Barrios's style remains somewhat chameleonic throughout these films. THIS IS NOT A DEMONSTRATION (1969, 8 min, 16mm) is a fairly straightforward work documenting Enrique Vargas's Guerilla Theater as they revive the spirit of Renaissance-era minstrels in the streets of Fun City. By contrast, HOMMAGE TO NICANOR PARRA (1968, 44 min, 16mm) appears, at first glance, to be another uninflected performance record as the Chilean poet recites his work and entertains friends and scenesters at a house party. But this work becomes stranger as it unrolls, and the accumulated weight of fluctuating sound synchronization, an ever-roving camera, and some mid-film kitten cameos makes clear that Barrios is less interested in preserving the text than in evoking the woozy, unstable texture of the milieu. (The Spanish dialogue in this film is not subtitled, but then, the text is secondary in this one.) The centerpiece of the program, FILM CLUB (1968, 26 min, 16mm), is something else again, a profile of and plea for an educational program developed under the auspices of the Young Filmmakers Foundation. Barrios was one of the founders of YFF; he was a 22-year-old elder statesman ministering to teenage cineastes on the Lower East Side. (YFF eventually re-branded as Film/Video Arts and served as a forerunner of the public access TV ethos, but watching Barrios's film today, one can't help but wonder about the latter-day fate of the Film Club building: is it now an organic yogurt dispensary or a kombucha bar?) The YFF put cameras and splicers in the hands of kids who would not have had access to them otherwise, and Barrios presents a cross-section of a rising generation that cuts across racial, gender, and socioeconomic lines. He includes excerpts from several of their adolescent epics, ranging from westerns to slapstick comedies. You probably won't come away from FILM CLUB eager to catch up with these amateur efforts, but the documentary remains a startling time capsule in its own right. For one thing, any non-profit development officer in the trenches today will marvel at the conventional wisdom of 1968, when the idea of bringing media resources into under-served communities of color was seen as an iffy funding prospect. The social utility of Film Club receives almost as much attention as the artistic mission here: at the twilight of the Robert Moses era, Film Club is touted as a bulwark against the complete social breakdown that awaits the city's “blighted slums” if urban renewal doesn't continue apace. One important-looking man in an office approvingly cites Film Club as "one of many projects to keep the ghettos cool." But when you recall that Film Club deployed a portable Moviebus to share its productions with residents of all five boroughs, the pre-gentrification ghetto of '68 looks pretty cool indeed. [K.A. Westphal]
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Thank you to Cine-File contributor JB Mabe for programming this screening.
📽️ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS
Erich von Stroheim's GREED (Silent/US)
Music Box Theatre – Thursday, 7pm
The story of GREED, of von Stroheim's slavish fidelity to the text of Frank Norris's naturalist novel, McTeague, of his obsessive, tyrannical treatment of his actors while on location for months in Death Valley, of MGM's butchering of his eight-hour cut into shreds and melting down the cut scenes for scrap silver, is surely so legendary that whatever dubious relationship to truth it once had is no longer relevant. It is the go-to example to illustrate so many spurious arguments: the impossibility of 'straight' adaptation, the dangers of trusting the Money Men, the dangers of allowing directors too much freedom, and so on. Von Stroheim's lost original version has become not merely a sort of Holy Grail of silent cinema enthusiasts but an Icarian fable all its own, warning through example of the punishment meted out to the hubristically ambitious, the psychotic perfectionist. But let us set all this aside, for GREED is so very much more than a mere legend. Quite simply, in this critic's estimation, GREED is the single best film ever made. Let me be clear: the GREED that was taken out of von Stroheim's hands, that Thalberg and his hackworkers took to pieces, the GREED that von Stroheim found so upsetting to watch years later that he compared seeing it to peering into a coffin—this shortened, adulterated, mutilated, damaged, and disavowed movie is the best I've ever seen. Whatever von Stroheim's original version might have actually been, the intensity, power, and overwhelming beauty of the GREED we have far outweighs the longing we might feel for the GREED we don't. There's a tremendous amount in GREED to discuss—its discussions of capitalism and violence, the masterful handling of a romance poisoned over time by its own lovers, the complex network of symbolism echoing through its iconography, the emotive and heart-rending performances by Zasu Pitts and Gibson Gowland. But think now just of the closing moments of the film. Having murdered his wife, McTeague has fled the authorities into the desolation of Death Valley, pursued to the end by his friend and betrayer, Marcus. Marcus has McTeague at gunpoint. McTeague's horse suddenly bolts, carrying off with itself the only canteen of water left between the two men, and Marcus, panicked, shoots the animal. What follows is the most moving moment in any work of art I know of, delivered through the crystalline perfection of von Stroheim's direction: a close up of a pair of fists, a lolling, crushed head, the briefest of kisses pressed atop a freed canary. As the visual patterning draws to a close, McTeague's avariciousness has proven itself the greatest, but it is the world itself that will dominate him, exterminate him, and indeed, as Nature must, forget him. No film more magically dwells on, depends on the fleshy interstices that we do our level best to imagine separate us from mere beasts, more tragically understands the depths of depravity humanity will sink to in any effort to maintain the illusion of civilization. In that rift between ourselves and our actions, our dreams—pouring out like the film's bloodied gold through a dead horse's saddlebags—never fail in von Stroheim's world to be the final casualties. Presented by the Chicago Film Society with live accompaniment by Dennis Scott. Preceded by D.W. Griffith’s A CORNER IN WHEAT (1909, 14 min, 16mm). (1924, 112 min, 35mm) [Kian Bergstrom]
Front Row Festival presented by the Chicago Cinema Society
Music Box Theatre – See here for showtimes and tickets
Frank Henenlotter’s BRAIN DAMAGE (US)
Friday, 9:30pm
Movies like BRAIN DAMAGE give schlock a good name. It’s crass but unpretentious, cheap but resourceful, and sick but imaginative. The film’s gross-out effects are every bit as disgusting as they aim to be, but then, this feels appropriate, as BRAIN DAMAGE is an overt metaphor for the hideousness of drug addiction. It centers on a young Manhattanite named Brian, who unwittingly becomes the host of a talking, phallic-shaped parasite. When the monster, Aylmer, bites Brian on the back of the head, a serum shoots into Brian’s brain that causes him to hallucinate and experience euphoria; in exchange for providing these sensations, Aylmer expects Brian to deliver human sacrifices so he can eat their brains. Brian quickly becomes addicted to Aylmer’s serum, and soon, there’s a trail of corpses all over New York’s late-80s punk scene. Henenlotter allegedly based the story on his own experience of cocaine addiction, and he balances the film’s gruesome horror with telling observations about the behavior of addicts. Note how Brian pushes away his girlfriend and his brother, the two people he loves the most, once he’s hooked on the serum—he can’t stand for them to see him at his lowest. There’s also a genuine sense of menace to the hellacious locales where Brian ends up in the throes of his addiction; the brain-eating scenes, on the other hand, are more disgusting than scary. (One sequence of Aylmer eating a victim’s brain by entering her body through her mouth—which anticipates the misbegotten climax of Tracy Letts’ play Killer Joe—was storied to have sickened even much of Henenlotter’s crew, who walked off the set in protest.) BRAIN DAMAGE is scuzzy and deliberately appalling, albeit in a knowing, authentic, and very New York kind of way; it would pair well with Abel Ferrara’s barely-a-vampire-movie THE ADDICTION (1995). And like much of Ferrara’s work, it delivers a more persuasive anti-drug statement than nearly any educational film with the same message. (1988, 86 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
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Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s PULSE (Japan)
Sunday, 7pm
Like Olivier Assayas’ DEMONLOVER (which was released the following year), PULSE gives poetic expression to anxieties of the early internet era. The film imagines an army of ghosts taking over the world wide web and influencing living users to commit suicide. It’s an eerie scenario that reflects how many of us recognized the internet’s potential at the dawn of the millennium but were uncertain of what that potential would give rise to. Viewed two decades later, the film’s conceit seems to anticipate how many people now give over their lives to online activity, losing sense of their bodily form in the process. Kiyoshi Kurosawa foregrounds this sense of displacement through his detached view of the film’s characters and through his quirky, unpredictable mise-en-scene, often placing the camera in the corner of a room or behind a stack of objects—you might feel like you’re spying on the action rather than simply watching it. These odd perspectives are a hallmark of Kurosawa’s work, and they command attention even when PULSE doesn’t seem to be advancing on a narrative level. What other director can conjure up such a vivid air of dread around an empty college computer lab? The film’s abandoned warehouses (which harken back to Kurosawa’s 1998 diptych of SERPENT’S PATH and EYES OF THE SPIDER) feel no less menacing. Kurosawa’s scrupulous manipulation of mood makes his early horror films the true heirs to those produced by Val Lewton, who famously overcame his low budgets by suggesting horror instead of showing it. The most frightening image of PULSE may be that of a door with its frame sealed with red tape: Kurosawa leaves it to the audience to imagine what lies on the other side, making the forbidden room a repository for all sorts of fears about what the future has in store. (2001, 119 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
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Also showing as part of the Front Row Festival are Man Kei Chin’s 1995 Hong Kong comedy-horror film THE ETERNAL EVIL OF ASIA (89 min, 35mm) on Friday at midnight; Hideki Takayama’s 1989 apocalyptic film LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND (108 min, 35mm) on Saturday at 4pm; and See-Yuen Ng’s 1977 Hong Kong-Taiwanese kung-fu film THE INVINCIBLE ARMOUR (90 min, 35mm) on Sunday at 9:30pm. Purchase tickets or a pass here.
Pitchfork Music Film Festival
Music Box Theatre – See below for showtimes
Morgan Neville’s 20 FEET FROM STARDOM (US/Documentary)
Monday, 7pm
“And the colored girls go ‘Doo do doo do doo do do doo… .’” Director Morgan Neville tees up this famous refrain from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” to foreground his examination of back-up singers, from the dainty white girls who accompanied crooner Perry Como to the largely Black performers who transformed the music of the headliners they supported. Through interviews and archival and current performance footage, Neville introduces us to the voices behind the voices: seasoned veterans Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Táta Vega, and Mable John, and up-and-comer Judith Hill. Clayton recalls how she watched the Raylettes on stage backing up Ray Charles, decided to become one—and did! Love, whose last name was changed from Wright by producer Phil Spector, was the lead singer of the Blossoms, who ghost-sang “He’s a Rebel” for Spector’s group, the Crystals; the song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1962. Fischer, who got her start with Luther Vandross and became a favorite back-up singer for Sting, has been the only female singer to tour with the Rolling Stones. (Mick Jagger repeats several times in his interview how “hot” Lisa is.) John became a minister and Vega, like most of these women, tried and failed to launch a solo career—an expensive proposition that Hill is shown pursuing. Neville really gets at the magic that back-up singers cast over a song and how the singers luxuriate in harmonizing with other voices. He also gets at the frustration these women have felt about remaining unknown voices in the background, but the sheer number of overlapping stories and absence of identifying captions left me confused about their identities as well. Nonetheless, I enjoyed meeting these women and learning about their vital contributions to so much great music. Curated by singer, songwriter, and poet and Jamila Woods. Before the screening Jamila will be in conversation with Pitchfork contributor Adrienne Samuel Gibbs. (2013, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan’s JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (US)
Wednesday, 7pm
Despite its connection to a larger IP (Archie Comics), JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS feels more closely aligned with the brightly colored, yet darkly satirical teen comedies that came out in the late 90s and early 2000s—movies like DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, JAWBREAKER, SUGAR & SPICE, and DICK. The film has gained cult status not only for its tongue-in-cheek takedown of commercialism in the record industry, but also for its eccentric supporting performances, fourth-wall-breaking humor and genuine sense of fun. After the sudden, tragic loss of DuJour, the world’s most popular boy band, singer-guitarist Josie (Rachael Leigh Cook) and her pals—compassionate bassist Val (Rosario Dawson) and ditzy-but-sweet drummer Mel (Tara Reid)—take their Riverdale band to the next level and snag a record deal. The Pussycats land a contract with MegaRecords, but their friendship is tested by a speedy rise to success. Complicating things further, the record company is not at all interested in the band, but rather in using their music to sell products subliminally. Alan Cumming and Parker Posey scene-steal as the villainous MegaRecords higher-ups with a plan for world domination; another standout is Missi Pyle as Alexandra Cabot, sister to the Pussycats’ original manager, who slyly claims she’s only tagging along because she “was in the comic book.” While not every moment holds up perfectly, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS’ overarching themes still feel extremely germane, especially in light of contemporary social media and influencer culture. The film also works as a time capsule of early aughties pop culture, which is unignorable in the bold fashions: all asymmetrical hemlines, body glitter, and chunky highlights. Perhaps most importantly, the film sports an authentically catchy soundtrack by its two fictional bands, with Josie’s vocals provided by Letters to Cleo lead singer Kay Hanley. Elfont and Kaplan will be in conversation with Pitchfork staff writer Quinn Moreland. (2001, 98 min, 35mm) [Megan Fariello]
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Also showing at the Music Box Theatre as part of the Pitchfork Music Film Series is Sam Jones’ 2002 documentary I AM TRYING TO BREAK YOUR HEART: A FILM ABOUT WILCO (92 min, DCP Digital), featuring a post-film discussion and Q&A with Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche and Pitchfork features editor Jillian Mapes, on Tuesday at 7pm. More info here.
Billy Wilder’s A FOREIGN AFFAIR (US)
Music Box Theatre – Sunday and Monday, 11:30am
A FOREIGN AFFAIR is something of a postwar update on Ernst Lubitsch’s immortal NINOTCHKA (1939), which was also written in part by the team of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. Both films are comedies about romance and consumerism undermining political dogmatism; but where NINOTCHKA took aim at humorless Soviets, A FOREIGN AFFAIR (which Wilder also directed) satirizes American conservatives and the do-right rhetoric of the Marshall Plan. Wilder lured Jean Arthur out of semi-retirement to star as Phoebe Frost, an uptight Republican congresswoman from Iowa who visits West Berlin to examine the behavior of the occupying American troops. At first appalled to see US soldiers gleefully buying goods on the German black market and consorting (to use a polite, Hays-era euphemism for it) with defenseless fräuleins, Frost changes her tune when she falls in love with the suave American Captain John Pringle. The poor congresswoman fails to realize that Pringle’s only pretending to seduce her so as to divert her attention from his lover, a former Nazi ingenue and current nightclub entertainer whom Frost wants to put in jail. Marlene Dietrich steals the show as the German woman, and the movie was such a hit that it revitalized her dormant career. (A staunch anti-Nazi who spent much of World War II cheerleading for the American war effort, Dietrich originally didn’t want to play the part; thankfully, Wilder was also skilled in the art of seduction.) Utilizing her wit, intellect, and sex appeal to dominate the men around her, Dietrich’s Erika von Schuletow represents German resilience in the face of postwar destitution (surely she was an inspiration on Fassbinder’s Maria Braun), though she also possesses the self-awareness to acknowledge her own vulnerability—and, ultimately, the fleetingness of her romance with Pringle. (The bittersweetness of Erika’s predicament demonstrates the long shadow Lubitsch cast over Wilder, his protégé and greatest admirer.) Wilder, an Austrian-born Jew, had fled Berlin in the early 1930s when Hitler came to power; most of his relatives remained in Europe and died in the Holocaust. The writer-director clearly experienced mixed feelings over the destruction of Berlin, and those conflicting emotions can be felt in the confused politics of A FOREIGN AFFAIR. The film is nowhere as sympathetic or as devastating as Roberto Rossellini’s GERMANY YEAR ZERO (which was released the same year), but it stands as an important personal statement by one of cinema’s most distinctive comic voices. (1948, 116 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
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Also showing at the Music Box Theatre are David Lowery’s 2020 film THE GREEN KNIGHT (126 min, DCP Digital) and Andreas Koefoed’s 2021 documentary THE LOST LEONARDO (100 min, DCP Digital); Danny Villanueva Jr.’s 2021 horror film I DREAM OF A PSYCHOPOMP (80 min, DCP Digital) screens one time, Friday at 7pm, with director and cast in attendance for a post-film Q&A. Also screening one time is David Lynch’s 1992 film TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (135 min, 35mm), featuring a pre-show presentation by theater projectionist Daniel Knox and a post-screening Q&A with Sheryl Lee and Dana Ashbrook, but the screening is sold out. There are four opportunities, however, to see Tom Hooper’s 2019 musical CATS (110 min, DCP Digital): Friday at midnight, and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 9:45pm. Check Venue website for all showtimes and the Music Box Garden Series line-up.
Gene Siskel Film Center
Check Venue website for all showtimes
Tsai Ming-liang's DAYS (Taiwan)
DAYS, Taiwanese master Tsai Ming-liang’s latest ode to urban loneliness, begins with a middle-aged man, Kang (Lee Kang-sheng), simply sitting in a room and staring out the window on a rainy afternoon. Tsai’s patient camera eye observes the man’s expressionless face for a full five minutes before cutting. It's an astonishing scene in which nothing seems to happen while also suggesting, on an interior level, that perhaps a lot is happening, thus setting the tone for the two hour audio-visual experience that follows. As viewers, we are invited to not only observe Kang as the shot’s subject but also allow our eyes to wander around the beautifully composed frame, noticing the details of what is reflected in the window out of which Kang stares (since the shot is framed from outside) as well as listen to the sound of the gently falling rain. From there, an almost entirely wordless narrative proceeds, in fits and starts, as the daily life of this man, who is suffering from and being treated for an unspecified illness, is juxtaposed with that of a younger man, a Laotian immigrant masseur named Non (Anong Houngheuangsya). Eventually, the lives of both protagonists come together in an erotic hotel-room encounter before breaking apart again, presumably for good. The way these two minimalist character arcs briefly intersect reveals a surprisingly elegant and classical structure lurking beneath the movie's avant-garde surface and also serves to function as a potent metaphor for nothing less than life itself: We may be born alone and we may die alone but, if we're lucky, we can make meaningful connections with other people along the way. DAYS is a formally extreme film, even for Tsai, and probably not the best place to start for those unfamiliar with the director's previous work. But I emerged from it feeling as refreshed and energized as I would if I had visited a spa. (2020, 127 min) [Michael Glover Smith]
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Federico Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA (Italian Revival)
Saturday, 3pm and Tuesday, 6:30pm
If 8 1/2 is Federico Fellini's Sistine Chapel, then surely LA DOLCE VITA is his Statue of David. Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni) is a paparazzo living in Rome whose life plays out over the course of seven episodes—each featuring a daytime and nighttime portion. Marcello is in a constant tug of war between the humility of literature (his own writings included) and the egocentric pull of the limelight and cults of personality. His fidelity waivers, as he expresses his love to his fiancé Emma (Yvonne Furneaux) in one scene only to cheat on her with an heiress or a painter in the next. Fellini's post-Fascism take on Italy is marked by the juxtaposition of high society versus traditional family values. The economy is in full upswing and money abounds as lavish parties are shown and the sightly architecture of the city is displayed. Each episode presents Marcello with a challenge to his personal beliefs and ends with him regressing toward his selfish tendencies or elevating toward the pragmatic. Does anyone truly change or do they ultimately end up how some predetermined fate tells them to be? Marcello ultimately succumbs to life in the spotlight and resolves to be a publicist, discarding his old dream of being a writer. The allure of vanity leaves him a bachelor in old age. His character rises and falls repeatedly as if he were in so many Shakespearean or Greek tragedies. Domestic violence and misogyny are in his life's blood with only the faintest glimmer of romanticism and empathy to be seen. Fellini's film is a masterpiece that beckons to be seen and immersed in. It breathes with vitality and effervescence. Some people never learn from their mistakes, and Marcello is no exception. (1960, 174 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]
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Also showing at the Gene Siskel Film Center are Chicagoland Shorts Vol. 7 (2021, 81 min, Digital Projection) and Marion Hill’s 2021 film MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY (93 min, DCP Digital). Check Venue website here for all showtimes. Screening as part of the Chicago Favorites series are Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 (though now just as timely) film CONTAGION (106 min, DCP Digital) on Saturday at 6:30pm, with an introduction by Dr. Allison Arwady, and Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly’s 1952 musical SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (103 min, 35mm) on Thursday at 7pm, with an introduction by Jon Carr, the executive producer of Second City.
The Chicago Park District’s Chicago Onscreen Local Film Showcase
Check program website for more information
Chicago Film Society presents Marsh Movies
Big Marsh Park (11559 S. Stony Island Ave. – Outdoor Screening) – Friday, 8pm
Per the Chicago Film Society, this will be “an evening of nature documentaries, industrial films, home movies, and animation which reflect the history and environment of Big Marsh, Chicago’s Park 564 which has transitioned from an active industrial area to a sanctuary for wildlife, foliage, and Chicagoans looking for something entirely magical. Program highlights include KUDZU (Marjie Short, 1977), a documentary about the infamously invasive vine once promoted by the Department of Agriculture as a solution to erosion; the heartbreaking juvenile delinquent educational film THE BOY WHO LIKED DEER (Barbara Loden, 1975); STILL LIFE and CASTRO ST. (both 1966) from Bruce Baillie, the avant-garde’s premiere chronicler of the natural world; recently unearthed amateur film footage of birds in Chicago from 1939, and more! All films will be presented on 16mm film.”
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Luchina Fisher’s MAMA GLORIA (US/Documentary)
Gill Park (825 W. Sheridan Rd. – Outdoor Screening) as part of the Chicago Park District’s Chicago Onscreen Local Film Showcase – Saturday, 8pm
MAMA GLORIA is a deeply personal documentary that illuminates a larger history of transgender people of color in Chicago. Gloria Allen, now in her 70s, is an icon of the community, having started a charm school for transgender people at the Center on Halsted. The charm school inspired Chicago playwright Philip Dawkins’ Charm, and Gloria became known for her maternal support of and engaged work with transgender youth. The charismatic Gloria narrates her own story, which is filled with traumatic moments of violent abuse and loving acceptance from her family and friends, especially her mother. Allen begins by telling how her grandmother worked as a seamstress for drag performers in the early 20th century; she’s aware of how her personal history intertwines with a broader one, framing her story against historically significant moments and people, from the Civil Rights Movement and Emmett Till to the Stonewall Riots and Marsha P. Johnson. MAMA GLORIA emphasizes the power of Gloria sharing her story, not just directly with the film’s audience, as she recounts her personal history into the camera, but also with others, most compellingly with the queer youth she inspires. Gloria mentions, in a lovely scene where she shares a meal with her friends from high school, that she was voted “most friendly,” and the camera captures her welcoming nature. Gloria is also aware that her older age signifies survival, as she mentions losing so many friends; MAMA GLORIA notes that only 14% of transgender-identifying adults in the U.S. are seniors. Gloria’s story is compelling not just in its engagement with history, but in its acknowledgement of contemporary struggles, as transgender rights are threatened and incidents of extreme violence against transwomen of color continue. MAMA GLORIA is an optimistic film that also recognizes there is still a lot of work to be done. This screening also includes the short films A GALAXY SITS IN THE CRACKS (dir. Amber Love) and KENYA’S SYMPHONY (dir. Carlos Douglas, Jr.). (2020, 76 min, Digital Projection) [Megan Fariello]
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More info here on all in-person screenings through Saturday. All sixteen of the 2021 Official Selections will be available for unlimited, any time viewing for three weeks after the in-person screenings.
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Held Over/Still Screening/Return Engagements (Selected)
Jamila Wignot’s AILEY (US)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
As a cinephile and one-time dance student, dance films are one of my obsessions. I have seen dozens of such films—musicals, novelty shorts, filmed dance performances, making-of documentaries, and lately, documentaries about dancer/choreographers. Among the latter, I have noticed that the filmmakers often subordinate a straightforward examination of their subject’s life to an attempt to find a deeper truth in their art. It’s an understandable urge, given how visual dance is, but the results are often mixed. I’m pleased to say that Jamila Wignot has such command of her art that she has been able to make a documentary in such sympathy with its subject, Alvin Ailey, that we feel as though we understand him from the inside out. Throughout this quasi-experimental film that pieces together historical footage, archival footage of Ailey’s works and press interviews, talking-head reminiscences of people in his life, and a present-day dance in the making, Wignot builds a biography unlike any I have ever seen. There is no footage of Ailey’s early life growing up fatherless and impoverished in racist Texas during the Depression. Thus, Wignot uses archival footage of poor Black children from the rural South to suggest what it might have been like for him and uses his voice to narrate the details. From there, the introduction and repetitions of the folk ballet that put him and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre on the map, “Revelations,” link his early life with his work. Wignot also places Ailey in the continuum of Black dancer/choreographers from his first influence, Katherine Dunham, through dancer and friend Carmen De Lavallade, to the dancer/choreographers who were inspired by him, including George Faison and Bill T. Jones The pressures Ailey felt as America’s token Black choreographer, his constant touring, his relentless privacy are all captured as a feeling—the way dance works on viewers. Wignot treats us to generous excerpts from Ailey’s works, some of which show the obvious influence of his former employer, Martha Graham, as well as dance clips that show off the magnificent, long arms he used so well as a dancer and insinuated into the casting and choreography for his own company. Periodically, Wignot hones in on choreographer Rennie Harris as he works on a commission from the Ailey company to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its founding. Even watching mere fragments of Harris’ “Lazarus,” inspired by Ailey’s life, we can plainly see what a powerful piece it is—and what a fitting tribute to a man who brought the Black experience to the rarified world of serious dance. Highly recommended. (2021, 82 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Timothy Covell’s BLOOD CONSCIOUS (US)
Available to rent through Facets Cinematheque here
Jordan Peele’s GET OUT and US have cast a very long shadow over contemporary horror. This isn’t to say that BLOOD CONSCIOUS is a rip-off of Peele’s horror-noire social commentary films, but that, thanks to him, we have more films like BLOOD CONSCIOUS. The film is about a grown brother and sister who, along with the sister’s fiancé, head out to a cabin to meet up with the siblings’ parents, only to find themselves stuck in a situation far beyond their control. Playing on the classic horror trope of the campground massacre, BLOOD CONSCIOUS creates a sense of dread that’s enhanced by the fact that the principal characters are people of color. Despite using the conceit of Black outsiders entering into a white world, BLOOD CONSCIOUS borrows more from John Carpenter than anyone else (even the music evokes Carpenter). There’s a taut paranoia in this film that channels some of Carpenter’s best works. Somehow race is both a non-factor and the dominant factor in this film, making it quite an interesting watch. One wonders if the white characters are reacting the way they do to the protagonists because of the color of their skin or because of something truly supernatural. BLOOD CONSCIOUS is a good first feature for writer-director Timothy Covell, who previously had made only a handful of horror shorts. While the film is somewhat by-the-numbers horror, it’s definitely an auspicious start. (2021, 81 mins) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Jonathan Wysocki’s DRAMARAMA (US)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
On the last day of summer in 1994, a group of theater-obsessed friends gather to celebrate the end of high school by dressing up as their favorite Victorian literary figures, drinking Martinelli’s, and daring each other to give the middle finger on camera—not the typical exploits of a teen movie. In Jonathan Wysocki’s coming-of-age film, DRAMARAMA, Gene (Nick Pugliese) is pulling away from his friends, struggling to come out to them, and questioning the Christian upbringing that has tied them all together. Leader of the group, Rose (Anna Grace Barlow), is leaving for NYU and hosts a murder mystery slumber party for Gene and their group of friends (Nico Greetham, Danielle Kay, and Megan Suri) to say goodbye. At first, the atmosphere is frenzied, as the group revel in Rose’s planned evening of games, filled with literary and theatrical references. The night is interrupted by the appearance of J.D. (Zak Henri), the pizza delivery man and friend of Gene’s, who also happens to be a recent high school dropout. J.D. immediately brings a more familiar vibe to the gathering, spiking the Martinelli’s with liquor and explaining why dropping out was the best decision he ever made. Despite leaving soon after, his presence haunts the rest of the evening, as the group faces their sheltered upbringing. It is easy to see why Gene gravitates more toward the open-minded J.D. than his current friends, who ridicule the idea of sex before marriage and play games that highlight their homophobia. In between the moments of bickering and tension, writer and director Wysocki also scatters in sincere fun, as the group quotes Mel Brooks films and dance to They Might Be Giants—an earnest portrayal of wavering friendships on the verge of profound change. While the group is well cast, Pugliese gives an especially touching performance, demonstrating the simultaneous love Gene has for his friends and the complete fear of their rejection should he come out to them. Danielle Kay, as the slightly wilder member of the group, Ally, also stands out, particularly as she anchors the emotional moments toward the end of the film. The promise of a traditional boisterous high school party hangs over the film, but ultimately DRAMARAMA is about the dynamics of the group—J.D. is the only outsider seen onscreen—and both how comforting high school friendships can be and knowing when it is time to let them go. (2020, 91 min) [Megan Fariello]
Quentin Reynaud's FINAL SET (France)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theater here
It seems that boxing has been the subject of more substantial narrative films than any other sport. This makes it all the more surprising that tennis, which has been concisely and accurately described as "boxing from a distance," has been the subject of so few. The best tennis movies have been documentaries centered on Roland Garros (the tournament more colloquially known as the French Open), such as William Klein's eye-opening behind-the-scenes account THE FRENCH (1982) or Julien Faraut's JOHN MCENROE: IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION (2018), a quirky portrait of the great American player's French Open campaign in 1984. Tennis fans should therefore make it a point to catch FINAL SET, a fiction film set at Roland Garros that was made by someone who clearly knows and loves the sport. This isn't to say that FINAL SET is without conventional aspects. It's a familiar underdog story in many respects: the story focuses on an aging French player, curiously named Thomas Edison (Alex Lutz), who makes a final bid for glory by attempting to qualify for his country's most prestigious tournament, in spite of the fact that his best years are behind him. Edison's most formidable obstacles aren't physical (e.g., the chronic blisters on his racquet hand or his thrice surgically-repaired knee); rather, they come in the form of opposition from his wife (a terrific Ana Girardot), who sees his waning days on tour as a money-losing proposition, and from his mother (Kristin Scott Thomas, doing her best in a stereotypical domineering-mommy part), who publicly chastises him for not being mentally tough enough. To his credit, writer-director Quentin Reynaud is never guilty of dumbing down the logistics of the game in order to appeal to a broader audience. Instead, he allows 20 minutes of real-time match play, a thrillingly shot and edited sequence, to serve as the film's climax; and Lutz, in addition to turning in a compelling performance as an athlete raging against the dying of the light, is also a genuinely fine tennis player himself, utterly convincing as a pro (something that can't be said about, say, Kirsten Dunst in WIMBLEDON or Shia LaBeouf in BORG VS. MCENROE). (2021, 105 min) [Michael Glover Smith]
John Gianvito’s HER SOCIALIST SMILE (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here
Across the ever-shifting terrain of streaming and "content," documentaries occupy a significant amount of digital space on our TVs and computers. Outside the work of a small handful of filmmakers, the documentary style has fallen on hard times, creatively and spiritually, with directors grasping at any intelligible way to approach the form, despite the abundance of options available. Of the hundreds of titles littered across Netflix and Hulu, it would be close to a miracle to land blindly on a few, let alone one, that doesn’t resemble the next two. So, in a time of worldwide confusion, it's reassuring to see one sail past the usual mediocrity and deliver a Zen-like immediacy that's urgent but calm, angry yet thoughtful. (The film is an independent production that undoubtedly will never be on any of the streaming titans’ sites). HER SOCIALIST SMILE is the rare occasion where form and subject are wholly integrated, enveloping both into a sensuous wellspring of serious-minded agitprop. John Gianvito continues on the trajectory of his previous documentary, PROFIT MOTIVE AND THE WHISPERING WIND, juxtaposing images of serene nature with a narrative centered around unjustly forgotten American figures and events. He uses the same stillness and hushed volumes of the earlier film to hypnotize viewers, forging an engagement with the material that serves the actual subject, rather than having the subject serving its makers and whatever their cagey instincts may be. Not only is this a welcome change of pace within the current trend of documentary filmmaking; it's a radical re-evaluation of the life and work of Helen Keller. Gianvito skims past the usual images and stories that usually comprise her place in the history books: her work for the blind, her relationship with Annie Sullivan and the water pump, plus that one image of her standing with Chaplin. Those clichéd short-cuts underwhelm and inexcusably ignore Keller’s most important accomplishments: her humanitarian work, helping establish the ACLU, and her passionate engagement with socialism and the plight of workers. In Keller’s time, however, she had to contend with shady figures like President Woodrow Wilson, who once celebrated her accomplishments, but turned on her the moment she publicly let slip her socialist beliefs and ideas. Keller's blindness and deafness suddenly became a tool for newspapers and politicians to discredit her ideas. No longer a hero for overcoming her disabilities, she was now portrayed as radically out of touch because of them. Wilson, who destabilized Latin America more than any other sitting U.S. President, recast individuals like Keller and Emma Goldman as enemies of the state that “poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life.” HER SOCIALIST SMILE shares a fair amount of Keller’s writing from this period, so there's no reason to recount them here, yet her words remain staunchly clear-headed, sober, and thorough: “Are not the dominant parties managed by the ruling classes, that is, the propertied classes, solely for the profit and privilege of the few?” When Keller was asked what the most important question for a President would be, she responded, “How [do you] keep the people from finding out that they have been fooled again?” Keller also spoke to her being discredited in the press, claiming, “So long as I confine my activities to social service and the blind, they compliment me extravagantly… but when it comes to burning social or political issues, especially if I happen to be, as I so often am, on the unpopular side, the tone changes completely.” Thankfully, Gianvito doesn't lazily insert these words into a lesser documentary swarming with talking heads and bland wall-to-wall music motivated less by feeling than by their creators’ lack of trust in their audience’s emotional intelligence. Gianvito respects his audience, but he respects his subject even more. For a film covering events and characters from over 100 years ago, there isn’t another documentary around that better understands our now routinely-caricatured times. (2020, 93 min) [John Dickson]
James Erskine’s THE ICE KING (UK/Documentary)
Chicago International Film Festival Summer Screenings – Available to stream starting Wednesday at 6:30pm, with a 24-hour watch window; more info here
Of all the sports in which athletes representing different nations compete, ice skating is the one that has proven to be the most controversial. Judges have shown an outrageous amount of national chauvinism and have found reasons ranging from costuming to music choices to mark competitors down or throw them out of contention altogether. So it was when British skater John Curry, the first openly gay figure skater and the greatest innovator ever to grace the sport, sought to win the 1976 World Figure Skating Championships. Contemptuous of the crude presentation of the Russian skaters who dominated the sport, he performed a flawless free-skate that combined intense athleticism with the grace of a dancer. The gamble paid off; a Czech judge overcame his loyalty to the Soviet team and put Curry onto the winner’s podium. It was an exciting moment for dance and skating fans like myself, and paved the way for Curry to win the 1976 Olympics and develop the ice dance theatre he’d long dreamed of since being denied dance lessons by his father and turning to a more manly activity in his father’s eyes—skating—when he was a child. THE ICE KING, a chronicle of the life of Curry, who died of AIDS in 1994, is the work of James Erskine, a frequent sports documentarian. Erskine focuses mainly on Curry’s creative life, packing the film with rare and wonderful footage of Curry in competition and performance, in TV interviews and home movies, and through narration of his personal letters by actor Freddie Fox. The film is frank about his homosexuality, but coy in detailing the dark side of his personality, which we are assured by Curry himself that he had. But only gossipmongers will care. Seeing the only extant footage of Curry performing the remarkable solo “Moonskate,” choreographed for him by modern dancer Eliot Feld, as well as the ensemble piece “Burn,” by choreographer Laura Dean, is more than worth the price of admission. (2018, 89 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Ira Deutchman’s SEARCHING FOR MR. RUGOFF (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Most of those of us who are devoted to arthouse films and the venues that show them have no idea how they came to be in the first place. SEARCHING FOR MR. RUGOFF provides the kind of entertaining history lesson that cinephiles like us need to learn—the story of Donald Rugoff, founder of Cinema 5, the New York City movie chain and distribution company that began the arthouse cinema movement and spawned such companies as Miramax, New Line Cinema, and New Yorker Films. Director Ira Deutchman—who worked for Cinema 5 until he was laid off when Rugoff closed down the distribution arm of the financially distressed company—hadn’t thought about his former boss until his name came up at a Gotham Awards ceremony. Distressed to hear that Rugoff had died penniless and was consigned to a pauper’s grave, Deutchman searched out the truth about the impresario’s last years. Deutchman keeps the excursions into his investigation short, preferring to take a deep dive into Rugoff’s life and cinephilia. The number of major directors who first played the United States in one of Rugoff’s exquisitely designed theatres is legion: Jean-Luc Godard, Costa-Gavras, Francois Truffaut, Lina Wertmüller. Indeed, Rugoff’s campaign to promote Z (1969) led to an unheard-of number of Oscar nominations and awards for a foreign film. Wertmüller, who is interviewed in the film, was courted by many distributors, but chose to sell SWEPT AWAY (1974) to Rugoff. In turn, he made her reputation in the United States. The film discusses his marketing ideas, which ranged from having employees promote MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975) by walking through Midtown Manhattan wearing chain mail to running ingenious ads in the newspapers. When a Cinema 5 employee said the ad for Robert Downey Sr.’s PUTNEY SWOPE (1969) was better than the movie, he was told in no uncertain terms never to repeat that statement again. Deutchman succeeds in his quest to track Rugoff down to his final resting place on Martha’s Vineyard, but the real show is the incredible film culture he resurrects—one that will make cinephiles nostalgic for a time when a movie opening was an exciting event every single week. (2019, 94 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Mariam Ghani’s WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED (US/Afghanistan/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
Now that Afghanistan is once again in a state of crisis, the local premiere of WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED provides welcome insight into that nation’s contentious modern history. The title refers explicitly to five films begun in Afghanistan between 1978 and 1991 and which were never completed due to government interference. Yet the title also hints at the unfinished nation-building efforts during this period by multiple organizations in Afghanistan: the Soviet Union, the People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (which staged a coup in April 1978), and the mujahideen fighters of the 1980s. Mariam Ghani (daughter of the recently deposed Afghan president Mohammad Ashraf Ghani) deftly interweaves the cinematic history lessons with the political ones, creating a portrait that seems towering despite the short running time. WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED recounts the enthusiasm felt by Afghan filmmakers at the time of heightened Soviet intervention into the national culture. As one interviewee notes, the Soviets recognized cinema’s power to indoctrinate audiences in the political outlook they hoped to spread, and they lavishly financed Afghan cinema in the hope of convincing viewers to embrace a pro-Communist worldview. Ghani expresses her skepticism of this project from the start, however, with an early title card that succinctly reads, “These movies imagine an ideal Afghan Communist Republic that only exists on film.” Her critical view of the Soviet Union carries over to her portrayals of the other political bodies, which seem just as blatant as the Soviets in their aim to use cinema as a political tool. (The various groups also seem to share in the view that history must be written in blood.) Even in the short clips presented, it’s clear who are the heroes and villains of the unfinished films, yet Ghani is careful not to disparage the artists who made them. WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED is highly sympathetic in its depictions of the actors and directors employed by the state film agency. They come across as creative individuals in spite of the state-serving messages they were forced to propagate. (2019, 71 min) [Ben Sachs]
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Also Screening/Streaming
⚫ Chicago International Film Festival Summer Screenings
Summer Screenings is a free weekly film series that celebrates sports and games from around the world. This week’s selection is Tamas Almasi’s 2009 Hungarian film PUSKÁS HUNGARY (115 min). More info here.
⚫ Facets Cinémathèque
Marisol Gómez-Mouakad’s 2016/2021 film ANGÉLICA (100 min) is available to rent through September 2.
Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo’s 2020 screwball thriller SLOW MACHINE (72 min) is available to rent through September 3.
Yamina Benguigui’s 2020 French/Algerian film SISTERS (90 min) is available to rent starting this week through September 23. More info on all films here.
⚫ Music Box Theatre
Check here for hold-over titles and the Music Box Garden Series line-up.
🎞️ ADDITIONAL ONLINE SCREENINGS
Filip Jan Rymsza’s MOSQUITO STATE (US/Poland)
Available to stream through Shudder here (Subscription required)
At a time when the horror genre is dominated by movies that seem terrified by the prospect of anyone missing their thematic importance, MOSQUITO STATE stands out by expressing itself primarily through form. The subject matter plays second fiddle to a vision of alienating architecture and apartments that could double as fashionable, icy gallery installations. Richard (Beau Knapp) is a workaholic Wall Street data analyst who rarely goes outside. (The film includes few exteriors, and despite the Manhattan setting, the interiors were all shot in Poland.) But his life changes when he attends a party. Here, he meets Lena (Charlotte Vega), to whom he becomes attracted, and gets bitten by a mosquito that slowly takes over his mind and body. Filip Jan Rymsza's compositions emphasize the film’s distance from Richard, who's often pushed to the background in long shots. This is an outgrowth of Richard’s personality: a shy, socially inept man, his introversion has helped him at work but has led to an unsatisfying, lonely life elsewhere. After Richard's bitten, his face swells up—the makeup effects are brilliantly done, gradually changing the shape of Knapp’s body—and his personality becomes more assertive. MOSQUITO STATE rests at the corner of Kafka and Cronenberg: while comparisons to THE FLY are obvious, MOSQUITO STATE also draws on the hothouse isolation of DEAD RINGERS and the hyper-capitalist world of COSMOPOLIS. (Of course, The Metamorphosis hovers over all tales of human-to-insect transformation, but Rymsza’s framing seems influenced by Orson Welles’ adaptation of Kafka's The Trial.) Despite the August 2007 setting and constant flow of cable TV news in the background, MOSQUITO STATE can’t be boiled down to a simple theme; however, those news clips establish that the 2008 financial collapse and Obama’s election are just around the corner. The film also makes American capitalism look like a more technologically advanced version of the societies established by insect species like bees and termites. (2020, 100 min) [Steve Erickson]
CINE-LIST: September 3 - September 9, 2021
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS // Ben Sachs, Kathleen Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Kian Bergstrom, Kyle Cubr, John Dickson, Steve Erickson, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Raphael Jose Martinez, Michael Glover Smith, K.A. Westphal