Cine-File continues to cover streaming and other online offerings during this time of covidity. 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. Cine-File takes no position on whether theaters should be reopening, nor on whether individuals should be attending in-person. Check the venues’ websites for information on safety protocols and other procedures put in place.
CINE-FILE SELECTS: SON OF THE WHITE MARE
Held-Over for One More Week!
Marcell Jankovics' SON OF THE WHITE MARE (Hungary/Animation)
In partnership with film distributor Arbelos, Cine-File is presenting the exclusive Chicago virtual screening of Marcell Jankovics’ 1981 animated Hungarian feature SON OF THE WHITE MARE, in a stunning new digital restoration. The film is available here through Thursday, September 17; rental is $10, with half the proceeds going to Cine-File (funds will be used for general expenses, future programming, and to provide honoraria to our contributors). Cine-File may be presenting additional occasional virtual screenings (primarily new restorations of retrospective titles) if this first one proves successful.
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Read a recent interview with Jankovics on the film, its restoration, and reception here.
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Read Cine-File contributor Michael Metzger’s write up on the film on our blog here.
PHYSICAL SCREENINGS
Jon Stevenson’s RENT-A-PAL (New US)
Music Box Theatre – Check Venue website for showtimes
Written, directed, edited, and produced by Jon Stevenson, RENT-A-PAL is about as complete a vision of a single person as any film could possibly be. And what a completely creepy vision that is. Stevenson offers us some wonderful low-budget indie horror fare, served chillingly cold. In a past time this probably would have been a black and white, 16mm affair; but thanks to the democratization of filmmaking technology we have a glorious color film with amazing sound design. The simplicity of RENT-A-PAL is what makes it enjoyable. From the beginning we understand the world of the film. David is a socially awkward adult living with his mother as her caretaker. Largely isolated due to this lifestyle—he doesn’t need a job because her social security is enough for the two to subsist—he’s turned to the wonderfully weird world of video dating. I’m glad to see this phenomenon be the crux of the narrative because it is absolutely replete with possibilities for the horror genre. Nowadays it’s absolutely normal to meet complete strangers from the internet. We get in their cars, we have them bring us our food, we flirt with them and go to their homes. But back in the 1990s, when this film takes place, it was still seen as somewhat odd, and a tad bit sad and desperate, to go that route. It was the last gasp of losers and malcreants—and RENT-A-PAL shows it. Desperate for any kind of connection, David ends up with a VHS tape he finds at the video dating service’s office called “Rent-A-Pal.” Based on an actual videotape “Rent-A-Friend” from the ‘80s, this “Rent-A-Pal” tape offers an interactive hangout with a man named Andy. It’s innocent enough, although kind of sad. Over time though, David starts to interact with Andy in a way that questions the very fabric of reality. Andy’s conversations with David appear to be changing each viewing. Stevenson gives us an unnerving psychodrama, not unlike VIDEODROME, where the confluence of media and psyche are called into question. When a potential romantic interest finally responds to David’s dating video he has to decide between a real woman and his video friend Andy. The pacing of this film is tight, and I can see why Stevenson wanted to not only direct it but edit it himself. It’s masterfully put together, with no detail left unnoticed. The sound design is especially well done, with the sounds of magnetic tape distortion becoming almost another character at times. And not to sound too nostalgic, but I sincerely hope this gets one of those limited-edition VHS collector releases that have been hitting the market over the past few years. As clean as the production is, this film demands to been seen on the format it plays with. It’s a glorious meta-tribute to strange, dark side of VHS. (2020, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Justine Triet's SIBYL (New French)
Music Box Theatre – Check Venue website for showtimes (also available to rent here)
SIBYL is going to infuriate viewers who go to films to gain insight into the reasoning behind people’s behavior, and delight viewers who get off on puzzling out the logic that guides the construction of a work of art. The interplay between these two processes—the bad judgment that promises to tear lives and careers apart, the erratic impulses that improbably guide artists towards successful creation—is vividly, even ludicrously dramatized in Justine Triet’s film, which follows an established psychotherapist, Sibyl (Virginie Efira), as she abandons her practice to return to creative writing. Unable to extricate herself from Margot (Adèle Exarchopoulos), one of her needier clients, Sibyl begins surreptitiously recording their sessions, drawing on her patient’s drama for her own writing. Triet’s go-for-baroque plotting finds room to explore her heroine’s fraught relationships with her underemployed sister, AA group, son, partner, her other patients, and her own therapist, while multiple flashbacks peer into Sibyl’s reawakened memories of a passionate love affair gone sour. And that’s before things go fully meta, as Margot’s crisis—she’s an actress, pregnant from an affair with her co-star, and unable to decide whether to keep or terminate the pregnancy—gradually ensnares Sibyl as well. Once the therapist is called to help her patient make it through a tense film shoot on—get this—the volcanic island of Stromboli, the film’s lower-key comic elements erupt, thanks especially to the welcome midway addition of TONI ERDMANN’s Sandra Hüller as the disconcertingly pragmatic film director whose partner has been fooling around with Margot. The willful improbability of the second act will throw viewers for a loop, but it’s entirely in keeping with a film about the pleasures of breaking rules and taking license as a woman and as an artist. In this, I was reminded of two other recent films which contemplate female empowerment by dramatizing the pitfalls of the creative process, Greta Gerwig’s LITTLE WOMEN and Céline Sciamma’s PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN ON FIRE; like those films, SIBYL proposes that the social boundaries of acceptable behavior for women are inextricably linked to the boundaries of how art should or shouldn’t be composed. In all three films, narrative unfolds towards the fulfillment of creative desire, defiantly leaving a trail of broken rules behind—SIBYL just breaks more than the rest. (2019, 100 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Metzger]
Christopher Nolan’s TENET (US)
Music Box Theatre – Check Venue website for showtimes
Christopher Nolan has a fascination with time in nearly all of his movies, whether it’s the dilation of time as in INTERSTELLAR, the deconstruction of narrative time as in MEMENTO, or telling a story utilizing different increments of time as in DUNKIRK. TENET marks the first time in which he actually tackles time travel. The film centers on a CIA agent known only as The Protagonist (John David Washington) who’s placed on a mission to stop a global terror threat that could end the world. His only hope to accomplish this task is through the use of time inversion, which essentially allows him to interact with the world around him while time flows in reverse. TENET is Nolan’s most technically accomplished film, with ornate, awe-inspiring action sequences and impressive visual effects, many of which are accomplished in camera. It’s a clear homage to many of the James Bond films and, particularly, to the grand, often-times outlandish global plots found in that franchise’s entries from the ‘90’s and ‘00’s. In fact, the entire film seems to be constructed around its grandiose moments of visual splendor. Much of the film’s exposition relies on key-conversations amongst The Protagonist and several other characters, which can be frustratingly difficult to comprehend at times due to TENET’s sound design, which prioritizes the cacophony of its action sequences and its booming score. Nevertheless, the film offers viewers many clues needed to unlock its narrative puzzle, though, like other Nolan films, it may demand multiple viewings to fully decript. (2020, 151 min, 70mm) [Kyle Cubr]
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More info on the in-person Music Box screenings (including COVID policies) at www.musicboxtheatre.com.
The Chicago Latino Film Festival presents a socially-distanced “pop-up” screening of Emilio Ruíz Barrachina’s 2012 Mexican/Spanish film THE SALE OF PARADISE (105 min, Digital Projection) at Joe's on Weed St. (940 W. Weed St.) on Tuesday at 7pm. Tickets available here.
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – New Reviews
Bob Hercules’ MIKVA! DEMOCRACY IS A VERB (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
Tikkun olam—heal the world. This Jewish concept is almost an unconscious command to many Jews, but especially those who came up during the Depression and World War II. One of those Jews was Abner Mikva, a Milwaukee-born, Chicago-based attorney, Democratic politician, and legislator who eventually was confirmed to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals, only to resign to become White House counsel to President Bill Clinton. He taught law at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, where he developed a close relationship with Barack Obama. In addition, he and his wife Zoe started the Mikva Challenge, a civic leadership program for young people that gives them not only the civics lessons they were denied in school, but also a chance to work to bring about change through the political process. By all measures, Mikva lived up to the credo of tikkun olam, and it would do for all of us to be reminded of how much good can come out of the political process. Bob Hercules’ documentary MIKVA! DEMOCRACY IS A VERB provides a pointed overview of Mikva’s background, accomplishments, and beliefs through archival footage, interviews with such politicos as Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, strategist David Axelrod, and former FCC chair Newton Minow, as well as Mikva’s children and grandchildren. Mikva was a thorn in the side of Richard J. Daley and his Democratic machine, and they repeatedly tried to knock him out of politics by redrawing the lines of his congressional district. After a court challenge to this redistricting and one unsuccessful race, Mikva served the 10th Congressional District, to the north of Chicago, for several productive years. The documentary affirms how he became an effective legislator who won friends on both sides of the aisles. We also learn the sobering fact that Mikva was fighting for gun control back in the 1970s and that the NRA spent $1 million in a campaign against him—an object lesson in how long guns have been at the center of our national debates and our worst tragedies. What heartens me about seeing this concise, informative documentary is how inspired young people are by his lessons and legacy, just as I was when I worked on his unsuccessful 1972 congressional race. I kept the faith and was rewarded by his wonderful lifetime of service. I look forward to seeing the great things today’s youth have in store for us in part due to Mikva’s legacy. (2020, 58 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Held Over/Still Screening/Return Engagements (Selected)
Jonás Trueba’s THE AUGUST VIRGIN (Spain)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
THE AUGUST VIRGIN announces its intentions right from the start, when Eva (Itsaso Arana) is ushered into the Madrid apartment she will live in for the first two weeks of August by its current occupant, who is leaving the city to escape the oppressive heat and settle his recently deceased mother’s estate. He tells her he is working on an article about American philosopher Stanley Cavell and the influence of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson on Cavell’s work. He explains to Eva that Cavell is best known for his book on 1930s Hollywood comedies, Pursuits of Happiness, and voices his admiration for actors like Barbara Stanwyck and Katharine Hepburn who were self-possessed and strong. This opening sets the stage for Eva’s quest to discover her true self as she moves through her picturesque hometown by day and celebrates the festivals of San Cayetano, San Lorenzo, and La Paloma by night, going out with friends, having long talks about life, and wondering what it takes to really emerge into adulthood. Arana wrote the screenplay, and she hones in on the issues that matter to women in their thirties and what it looks like to let go of limitless possibilities and put some stakes in the ground. THE AUGUST VIRGIN will hit many viewers where they live; for those long past this stage of life, Eva’s struggle is a bit nostalgic and very touching. (2019, 125 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Barbara Kopple’s DESERT ONE (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
In DESERT ONE, Barbara Kopple explores US-Iranian relations before, during, and after the capture of 52 Americans at the United States Embassy in Tehran and their holding as hostages for 444 days during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The documentary offers a fascinating and in-depth look at the covert extraction attempted in 1980 through a combination of archival footage, animated reenactments, and interviews with some of the hostages, members of the extraction plan (including Jimmy Carter), and some of the Iranians who played witness during the entire affair. Kopple’s storytelling approach here is methodical, candid, and thorough. She seemingly leaves no stone unturned to tell the most complete version of the narrative possible. This process not only offers an emotional connection to the parties involved but also provides thorough context to what both America and Iran were thinking at the time. The documentary also serves a s a vehicle to discuss the political discourse happening in the U.S. during the 1980 presidential election between Carter and Reagan, while providing a platform for Carter to provide a post-mortem of sorts on the event that came to define the final year of his presidency. Considering the endless saber-rattling that characterizes the present-day foreign policy between the United States and Iran, DESERT ONE shows that relative civility existed between the two countries despite obvious tensions in the late 70’s-early 80’s, and that perhaps there is a path for reconciliation one day. (2019, 108 min) [Kyle Cubr]
Daria Price's DRIVEN TO ABSTRACTION (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
There are few things in the world that give me more joy that a well-played hoax. Hoaxes, schemes, scams, swindles, or cons, I love them all. They really show you how fragile our society actually is. How so much of what we believe to be a bedrock of society is really just blind faith that what everyone else is saying or doing is actually true. But an art hoax? These might be my favorite hoaxes of all time. Art is so arbitrary already. The idea that there is a multi-billion-dollar industry that is the art world balancing on pieces of art is so fascinating. I often don’t understand how it works, and how everyone can be so sure that a painting worth $10 million actually is just that. DRIVEN TO ABSTRACTION illuminates this issue by focusing on one of the greatest art hoaxes of all time, one with $80 million worth of forgeries—resulting in the closing of the oldest art gallery in NYC. The documentary investigates the scandal surrounding the Knoedler art gallery and its director, Ann Freedman. I say investigates because the film comes off very much like reportage. There’s a dryness to it that feels like a long form article in an arts magazine, or newspaper, more so than a film. We get a very standard amount of talking heads (mostly experts) and the ubiquitous partial zooms of still photos that so many modern docs have, all with a background score of mostly ignorable smooth jazz. But even with the formal elements of the film perhaps leaving something to be desired, the story itself is utterly fascinating; how the high minded, exclusive art world of NYC got tricked by an unknown Latinx art dealer and a Chinese immigrant painter is a story of hubris, deception, and self-deception. Frustratingly absent are interviews with those who pulled off the scam; we’re only left with the side of those who were had by them or eventually caught them, leaving a bit of one-sidedness to this oh-so-curious tale. Even so, we still have some of these experts tacitly admitting that which all of us on the outside of the art world wonder every day, “All of this is kinda bullshit, but that’s just the way it is.” It’s rare to have a secretive curtain pulled back by the gatekeepers themselves, especially on film. DRIVEN TO ABSTRACTION satisfies if you’re at all interested the story of a great hoax, as an erudite discussion of what makes art valuable, or you just want a peek into the exclusive world of high-end NYC art dealings. (2020, 84 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Hubert Sauper’s EPICENTRO (Austria/France/Documentary)
Available streaming through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
The newest documentary by Academy Award nominated filmmaker Hubert Sauper explores the contemporary world of post-colonial Cuba. Sauper spent three years living in Cuba, befriending locals and the children he has referred to as “prophetic youth,” whom he made the focal point of this film. We see how erudite these per-pubescent children really are as they educate us on the history of colonialism in Cuba and even bring up particular articles of the Platt Amendment as explanation. Sauper follows these children, at once politically indoctrinated, but equally philosophical, and counterbalances their story with a dissection of film and media itself. As a documentarian Sauper is very much aware of the dynamics of filmmaker vs. subject, and filmmaking as tourism. We see an unnamed NYC photographer taking pictures of locals and pontificating paternal about how bad they have it—pure poverty tourism. After taking the photograph of one child, the child asks for compensation. The photographer gives him a pen from New York City, and then goes on to tell about how one girl asked for money and he refused because its “an honor to be photographed” by him. Immediately we can see the line between that and Sauper’s filmmaking, the exploitation of the former and the amplification of voice of the latter. While this is an indirect delineation, it fits into the greater narrative that Sauper has been weaving about the power of the image. The term “epicentro” here refers to the city of Havana as the epicenter of not just Cuba, but American Imperialism, the Cold War, and European imperialism itself. Havana was where the Spaniards staked their flag. Cuba, the first place the Americans did. Looking through the lens of imperialism at the lens of cinema, Sauper shows how recreated images of executions and naval battles in the nascent days of cinema were sold to the US public as documentary in order to sell war and imperialism. The echoes of the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine are a theme throughout the film. EPICENTRO goes far beyond the usual documentary of modern Cuba—there are no cigars, and the old cars are referenced as a symptom of a larger situation. Here we have Cubans at the center of the film, not Cuba or Cuban politics. EPICENTRO focuses on Cubans and their history. This distinction is paramount, and makes EPICENTRO far more relevant that its peers. (2020, 108 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Bas Devos’ GHOST TROPIC (Belgium)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here
The first shot of Bas Devos’ GHOST TROPIC depicts a domestic interior, well kept despite some slight hints of untidiness; over four full minutes, nothing moves within the frame except the light, dimming as night falls. Eventually, shadows consume the screen, and a whispered voice on the soundtrack claims the space as her own, as a labor of love and a container of memories. “But if suddenly, a stranger appearing from nowhere were to enter this room,” the voice asks, “what would he see, what would he hear? And would he feel anything by being here?” Like the patience-testing shot, this question offers a muted provocation to the viewer, asking us to strain our eyes and ears to absorb the richness of quiet lives lived on the margins of Brussels. In its opening scenes, GHOST TROPIC appears so radically pared-down, and so immaculately composed, as to feel more like a photo essay than a narrative feature—a generously grainy portrait of the nocturnal life of Khadija, a middle-aged cleaning woman from North Africa. We begin to make out the warmth of the film’s subject and the chill of the night air, and gradually, a plot takes shape between cinematographer Grimm Vandekerckhove’s patinated frames: having fallen asleep on the train home, Khadija must cross the city on foot. On first glance, this Kiarostami-like narrative has an almost sub-anecdotal level of incident, leaving ample room for atmosphere, sociological insight, and characterization. But the depth of detail we discern in Khadija’s fleeting interactions with night watchmen, squatters, shopworkers, and partygoers steadily develops, and as it does, the nature of Khadija’s dilemma changes. The question is no longer how to find our own way home across a strange city, but how to make a home for one another in a more familiar one. As GHOST TROPIC examines how community forms and diverges across classes, cultures, generations, and the boundary between night and day, its deeper ambitions come into focus: the film’s spectral utopia is in fact an invisible form of decency, one that should be implicit in our day-to-day exchanges, yet which has seemingly vanished from both our social reality and our cinema. As the film’s opening monologue suggests, our capacity for compassion depends on the sensitivity of our eyes and ears. Through its perceptive, self-sacrificing heroine and its supremely intentional use of 16mm, the film both models, and solicits, an empathetic, care-giving form of looking. (2019, 85 min) [Michael Metzger]
Tsai Ming-liang’s THE HOLE (Taiwan)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here
Among the myriad defining characteristics of the cinema of Tsai Ming-liang, perhaps none is as instantly evocative as the steady trickle of rain, tears, urine, and assorted other liquids that pervasively dampens his environments and characters. Water doesn’t just run across so many of the auteur’s films, it threatens to overflow them, seeping through walls and floors as the emergence of something insufficiently repressed, revealing the sometimes-stubborn boundaries of both modern Taipei and the human soul as, in fact, profoundly porous. Amazingly, in this most pluvial of filmographies, THE HOLE is possibly the drippiest of them all, or at least the one in which leakage takes on the most central metaphorical significance. Sometime just before the turn of the 21st century, a mysterious virus has taken over Taiwan, afflicting its victims with crazed, cockroach-like behavior. Despite mass evacuations and warnings that the government will shut off water in quarantined zones, a man (Lee Kang-sheng) and the woman living below him (Yang Kuei-mei) stay put in their apartments. If cabin fever weren’t enough to deal with, a botched plumbing operation has left a rubble-strewn hole in the floor separating the two units. Suddenly, these isolated strangers are made vexingly aware of their close proximity, with the cavity serving as a passageway for all manner of solids, liquids, aerosols, sounds, and, inevitably, appendages (it must be noted, however, that the prurient possibilities here are left strictly to the imagination). With echoes of the stifled would-be lovers of VIVE L’AMOUR and the psychosomatic malaise of the previous year’s THE RIVER, Tsai engages here in some of his most succinct, deadpan observations about the strange tensions of apartment dwelling and the percolating anomie of contemporary life. Yet what stands out about THE HOLE is not so much the dribbling, depopulated quasi-dystopia Tsai would hone to an acid tip with STRAY DOGS, but its surprising romanticism. At regular intervals, the film bursts into Technicolor song, with Yang’s frustrated, toilet paper-hoarding tenant lip-syncing 50s hits by Chinese chanteuse Grace Chang. Tsai figures these numbers explicitly as the woman’s fantasies, eventually bringing in her neighbor—now with pompadour—for some enchanting pas de deux. Humorously juxtaposing the bright music and dance of the fantasy with the dark, dank interiors and despondency of his end-of-the-millennium “reality,” Tsai validates a kind of movie escapism that for so long has served to inspire people in times of anxiety. Totally earnest or ironic, its insistent presence alone nevertheless reflects an impulse, a need, to believe in something better waiting on the other side. It’s yet one more element in Tsai’s cinema that punctures the dam, letting loose a flood of feeling that can hardly be contained. (1998, 90 min) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
Melissa Haizlip and Sam Pollard’s MR. SOUL! (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
From 1968 through 1973, public television station WNET in New York embarked on an experiment in programming that would eventually stand as an influential cultural icon for generations of African-American artists. Soul!, a weekly one-hour talk and variety series produced by Ellis Haizlip, a Howard University-educated impresario in New York’s Black arts scene, was wholly dedicated to the talents and concerns of the Black community. Haizlip was ideally suited to elevate Black culture on TV, with his vast network of contacts, unerring radar for budding talents, and supreme belief in the value of presenting the finest that the Black civic and cultural community had to offer. Among the firsts on Soul! were the introduction of singing duo Ashford and Simpson before they had even cut their first album and the appearance of Toni Morrison reading from her first novel, The Bluest Eye. Haizlip loved dance and included performances by the Alvin Ailey Dancers and the George Faison Universal Dance Experience, among others. As MR. SOUL! highlights, there may never have been another show of any kind that was as great for poetry as Soul! was, including appearances by Nikki Giovanni and Amiri Baraka, and bucking the censors by booking Last Poets to perform their works. These performances make clear the generations-long continuum of poetic expression that has sustained the Black community and from which rap arose. Political activists Kathleen Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, Betty Shabazz, and Lynn Brown also showed up, and in one revealing clip, Haizlip, an out gay man, even got homophobic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to accept that gay converts to Islam were part of his flock. The musical guests were nonstop, from Stevie Wonder and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles to the Billy Taylor Trio, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Billy Preston. And Haizlip did not forget the Black diaspora in other parts of the Americas, asking African-Latino-American Felipe Luciano, a member of Last Poets and the Young Lords Party, to introduce the Afro-Cuban rhythms of Tito Puente and Willie Colon and their orchestras to Soul!’s audience. Co-directors Melissa Haizlip (Ellis Haizlip’s niece) and Sam Pollard have assembled a dizzying array of personal photos, clips from Soul!, talking-head interviews with some of the guests who appeared on the show and those who were inspired by it, as well as archival footage of the roiling times during which Soul! aired and Haizlip’s own words delivered in voiceover by actor Blair Underwood. This approach helps viewers get acquainted with Haizlip and his history, but also locates him and his work within the societal attitudes that made Soul! possible and the darkening national landscape under President Richard Nixon that spelled the show’s doom. What Soul! meant to the Black community is best summed up by African-American writer Chester Himes (A Rage in Harlem, Cotton Comes to Harlem) who, along with the vocal group The Dells, was a featured guest on a 1972 episode: “This is one of the highlights of my life to be on this sort of Black television program before a Black audience, because this is the first experience that I have had.” I knew nothing about Soul! or the estimable Ellis Haizlip before watching MR SOUL! I am so happy to have been introduced to both. (2018, 99 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s SICILIA! (France/Italy)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here
Throughout their venerated partnership, the filmmaking team of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet drew on work by writers as diverse as Franz Kafka, Frederich Engels, and Sophocles. Regardless of who they adapted, Straub and Huillet were faithful to their source material, often having actors deliver long passages of the original text in a declamatory manner so the language created its own music. Given their love of the spoken word, it’s possible that the duo chose to adapt Elio Vittorini’s 1941 novel Conversations in Sicily because of the title alone. SICILIA! contains plenty of conversations, but it also contains passages of silent contemplation where the directors patiently observe faces and landscapes. This dichotomy between speech and reflection generates a fascinating artistic tension. Like the Vittorini novel, SICILIA! concerns a man’s brief return to his village in Sicily after living away for 15 years. (Where the hero had been living in Milan in the book, here he’s coming home from New York City.) The narrative takes place over the course of a day where he arrives on the island, travels by train, and reunites with his mother for a home-cooked meal; each leg of his journey is punctuated by a ruminative discussion with someone he meets. The conversations touch on cultural traditions and the differences between Italy and the United States, but they’re grounded in prosaic details about eating habits, speech patterns, and the like—even the mother’s reminiscence about the hero’s impoverished childhood centers on what the family could afford to eat. Literary critics have praised Conversations in Sicily for its subtle, allegorical critique of fascist Italy and for its non-naturalistic style. On the other hand, the politics of SICILIA! are difficult to parse and the images, while gloriously lit and composed, are generally plainspoken. (The great William Lubtchansky was the principal cinematographer.) Still, Straub and Huillet render each of the hero’s encounters so tantalizing that one senses hidden meanings behind all of them; the film opens the door for a wide range of interpretations. (1999, 67 min) [Ben Sachs]
Christopher Boone and Kevin Smokler’s VINYL NATION (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here
Recently I’ve found an odd comfort in experimenting with low-tech electronics. I’ve been writing letters to friends old and new on an electric typewriter in attempts to be more offline. I cancelled my music streaming service in favor of an old iPod Nano and a weathered tape deck—anything that gives me a semblance of pause in an increasingly accelerated and hyper-online world. Vinyl records, naturally, seem like the next step in that journey. Christopher Boone and Kevin Smokler’s documentary VINYL NATION is a thorough examination on vinyl’s second wave and why we keep coming back to formats previously rendered obsolete. Featuring a wide array of interviewees—from music critics and historians, to DJs, musicians, and music producers—VINYL NATION chronicles the rise and fall and rise again of the record industry. It serves as a useful guide for those unfamiliar with the format's history: its origins, its popularity amongst consumers and musicians from various subgenres, how it differs from other audio formats, and how it’s adapted to a digital world. The film heralds the conception of Record Store Day—an annual consumer holiday featuring exclusive pressings and other limited-edition ephemera—as the thing that brought vinyl back into the mainstream. But sometimes the lines between how the film depicts saving a dying industry and outright glorifying capital—like Urban Outfitters’ commodification of vinyl, or the ever-Instagrammable Crosley’s—are a bit murky. Where VINYL NATION is most necessary is in its analysis of how the consumer culture of vinyl has changed. Young people, especially young women, are rapidly gravitating towards this format in large swaths, effectively changing the face of the industry. VINYL NATION is nothing if not a love letter to the community that brought a seemingly dying format back to life—and an enthusiastic look at its future. (2020, 92 min) [Cody Corrall]
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Also Screening/Streaming
Chicago Film Archives
CFA partners with Experimental Sound Studio to present this year’s commissioned Media Mixer films as part of ESS’s online Quarantine Series. The Media Mixer pairs a local moving image artist and a local music/sound artist to collaborate on a short video using films sourced from CFA’s collection. This year’s pairs are Jean Sousa and Kioto Aoki (THE MERMAID), Jiayi Chen and Ronnie Kuller (FOUR DANCES FOR THREE COUPLES), and Cine-File contributor Rob Christopher and David Boykin (GOVERNMENT WASTE). It’s on Wednesday at 7pm, with a selection of previous Media Mixer shorts first, then the new commissions at 7:30pm. Info here.
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
The MCA presents the shorts program Sci-Fi Sessions on Sunday at Noon, with work by Neil Beloufa, Meriem Bennani, and Bertrand Dezoteux. RSVP here; streaming here.
Video Data Bank
VDB is presenting Video Art and Mass Incarceration Part I free on their website here through September 30. Programmed by VDB staff member Zach Vanes, this first part of a two-part series includes Annie Goldson and Chris Bratton's DEATHROW NOTEBOOKS (1992), Harun Farocki’s I THOUGHT I WAS SEEING CONVICTS (2000), Lawrence Andrews’ AND THEY CAME RIDING INTO TOWN ON BLACK AND SILVER HORSES (1992), and Laurie Jo Reynolds’ SPACE GHOST (2007).
Sin Cinta Previa
Sin Cinta Previa and Chuquimarca present the free online screening Tempo falacioso; Superimposiciones botánicas, featuring PAISAGENS FICCIONAIS [Fictional Landscapes] (2020, 24 min) by Luíza Bastos Lages, THE DENSITY OF BREATH (2020, 13 min) by Nancy D. Valladares, and EXPECT PEOPLE TO BE EXHAUSTED (2020, 13 min) by Chucho Ocampo. A Zoom Q&A is on Saturday, September 26 at 7:30pm; details here.
Asian Pop-Up Cinema
Asian Pop-Up Cinema is presenting a series of drive-in screenings (through October 31) and online screenings (through October 10). The drive-in screenings are at the Davis Theater Drive-in at Lincoln Yards (1684 N. Throop St.). More information and ticket links here.
Northbrook Public Library
NPL presents newly-recorded introductions to five silent films by local film accompanist Dave Drazin. Each will be available on Wednesdays in September via the library’s website (registration is required to receive a viewing link; the films being introduced are not being hosted by the library—they would need to be viewed via Kanopy, Hoopla, or other streaming services). This week, on September 16, is an introduction for William Beaudine’s 1925 film LITTLE ANNIE ROONEY. Visit the library’s events page here, select September 16, and then register for one of the two event listings.
Chicago Film Society
The Chicago Film Society currently has four 1980s snipes featuring Chicago radio icon Larry Lujack up on their Vimeo page here. A more general set of snipes are also available here.
American Writers Museum
Elizabeth Coffman and Mark Bosco’s 2020 documentary FLANNERY (97 min) is available for rent locally via the AWM here.
Facets Cinémathèque
Check here for hold-over titles.
Gene Siskel Film Center
S. Leo Chiang and Yang Sun’s 2019 Chinese/US documentary OUR TIME MACHINE (86 min) is available for streaming beginning this week.
Music Box Theatre
Rodd Rathjen’s 2019 Australian film BUOYANCY (92 min) and John Brewer’s 2018 documentary CHUCK BERRY (103 min) are both available for streaming beginning this week.
Chicago International Film Festival
Check here for titles currently available for rental.
Chicago Latino Film Festival
CLFF is offering a selection of features and shorts for rental. Information here.
ADDITIONAL ONLINE RECOMMENDATIONS
Atom Egoyan’s GROSS MISCONDUCT: THE LIFE OF BRIAN SPENCER (Canada)
Available to rent or stream (with subscription) on Amazon Prime Video
Atom Egoyan’s anatomy of the making of a professional hockey player—the real-life Brian Spencer was drafted into the National Hockey League by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1969—completely defamiliarizes the recognizable contours of the sports biopic. Organized as a succession of short, foreboding scenes punctuated by title cards (“Basic Training,” “Higher Education”), Egoyan’s made-for-television GROSS MISCONDUCT observes Spencer (seen throughout the years but played as an adult by Daniel Kash) enduring a desolate childhood in snowy Fort St. James, British Columbia; achieving brief renown, including on the TV program Hockey Night in Canada, as an NHL enforcer-type nicknamed “Spinner”; and later meeting an early death at age 38 in a roadside robbery. But the director, despite the single-minded focus implied by the name of the movie (adapted by Paul Gross from the book by Martin O'Malley), brings his usual narrative gamesmanship to bear, fracturing Spencer’s story to deliver a series of powerful psychological insights. He dovetails Brian’s point of view with that of the athlete’s father, Roy (Peter MacNeill), a stern disciplinarian who equips his isolated homestead with a downsized hockey rink and stadium lights. (In one fearful tableau, Roy broods at the kitchen table overnight while watching Brian skate laps as punishment for his reluctance to engage his twin brother in contact drills.) As Brian hurtles through various dysfunctional relationships and stints with different franchises, Egoyan zeroes in on the minutiae—chores around the house, an after-dinner nap—leading up to Roy’s equally shocking death. Egoyan also breaks up GROSS MISCONDUCT with a recurring to-camera testimonial from the boyhood Brian (Shawn Ashmore), dressed in hockey pads and speaking with incongruous maturity and hindsight about the motivating factors of his life. These dueling perspectives—in concert with the director’s customary emphasis on screens and the role of media—add up to a frightening essay on misplaced machismo and a culture of violence that echoes through the generations. (1993, 94 min) [Danny King]
Milwaukee Underground Film Festival – Program 1
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Film Department – Program 1 is available free September 15-22 here
Within the film community, Milwaukee and Chicago are forever conjoined and happily jumbled. People make the trek on the daily and the lines become blurred. I see some Milwaukee filmmakers around town more often than I see film friends who live in my neighborhood. We definitely have many of the same serious problems, but maybe Milwaukee is a hipper city, what with their pleasant hills and cheap parking and Laverne and her be-gloved beer bottles. But this time we don't get to drive to Milwaukee for the University of Wisconsin's always excellent student-run Underground Film Festival. So no stops at Mars Cheese Castle. No cases of ÆppelTreow nor New Glarus in the trunk on the way home. But thankfully the films and the programming and the fantastic effort by the students and faculty advisor Lori Felker remain. This "Opening Night" virtual program provides a sharp synopsis of current analog/digital hybrids and a sampling of splashy low-budget mood pieces. Erinn E. Hagerty & Adam Savje's RE-EDUCATION OF THE SENSES (2019) is a mesmeric animated hybrid that starts off as a bifurcated geometric pulse that breaks apart and rounds the edges with human smears. It alternates between sharp and noodling modes and it's got a good beat and you can dance to it. Allison Radomski's BRIGHT ORANGE (2019) is a cheery shot-on-film celebration of being broke and young and figuring stuff out. Cassie Shao's THERE WERE FOUR OF US (2019) is an impressive dreamlike flittering fragment of a narrative of blame and responsibility, with a strong mix of techniques and fun and inventive flourishes. Philip Rabalais's EARTH FM (2019) is a mannered chunk of spectral fun featuring playful sci-fi twists and goofs wrapped up with the magical appearance of a strange hirsute force in a suburban basement with an HVAC system standing in for alien technology. Derek Taylor's SCENES FROM THE PERIPHERY (2019) glitches the analog and flattens the digital for a skipping and bleary riff on maps and aerial footage. Danski Tang's UMBILICAL (2019) is one of two standouts in this program. It's a confident and powerful animated piece about inherited trauma and pain with soft and achy suggestive lines and disquieting bangs that lead to a messy humane affirmation. Giuseppe Boccassini's TEMPLE OF TRUTH (2018) is an adroitly suggestive compilation of archival edits from material taken from the Chicago Film Archive combined with a vigorous and savvy score from Experimental Sound Studio's Alex Inglizian. Elena Duque's VALDEDIOS (2019) is the other standout of the program. Ostensibly a portrait of a small monastery and its surroundings, really it's just an excuse/inspiration for Duque to explode with a crude and bold flourish. The film slaps together simple filmic riffs and smart delicate diversions with a sense of confidence and fun. Finally, Lasha Mowchun & Dylan Baillie's SCOPOPHOBIA (2019) is a comedic feminist twist on the Lynch/Bunuel/Bergman doubling of actresses combined with a touch of short-form improv games. (2018-19, approx. 75 min total) [Josh B. Mabe]
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The festival is presenting one program per week for six weeks, through October 27. Each program premieres as a livestream at 5pm on Tuesday, and then will be available online for one week (select titles may not be included after the livestream, per filmmaker agreements).
SUPPORT LOCAL THEATERS AND SERIES
As we wait for conditions to improve to allow theaters to reopen, consider various ways that you can help support independent film exhibitors in Chicago weather this difficult time. Memberships, gift cards, and/or merchandise are available from the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Music Box Theatre, and Facets. Donations can be made to non-profit venues and organizations like Chicago Filmmakers, the Chicago Film Society, South Side Projections, and many of the film festivals. Online streaming partnerships with distributors are making films available through the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Music Box Theatre, and Facets; and Facets also has a subscription-based streaming service, FacetsEdge, that includes many exclusive titles.
COVID-19 UPDATES
All independent, alternative, arthouse, grassroots, DIY, and university-based venues and several festivals have suspended operations, closed, or cancelled/postponed events until further notice. Below is the most recent information we have, which we will update as new information becomes available.
Note that venues/series marked with an asterisk (*) are currently presenting or plan to do regular or occasional “virtual” online screenings.
OPEN:
Music Box Theatre – The Music Box has reopened in a limited capacity, presenting physical, in-theater screenings and also continues to present online-only screenings*
Comfort Film (at Comfort Station) – Comfort Film is doing socially distanced outdoor film screenings. More information here.
CLOSED/POSTPONED/HIATUS:
Beverly Arts Center – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Events cancelled/postponed until furtuer notice*
Chicago Film Archives – The CFA’s annual “Media Mixer” event, previously scheduled for May, has been rescheduled for September 16
Chicago Film Society – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Chicago Filmmakers – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice*
Conversations at the Edge (at the Gene Siskel Film Center) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Screenings cancelled until further notice
Facets Cinémathèque – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)
Film Studies Center (University of Chicago) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
filmfront – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Gallery 400 (UIC) *
Gene Siskel Film Center – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)*
The Nightingale – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
The Park Ridge Classic Film Series (at the Park Ridge Public Library) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Festivals:
Rescheduled with new dates announced:
The Gene Siskel Film Center will present a delayed online edition of the Black Harvest Film Festival from November 6-30. Information will be available at the Siskel website, www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
The Chicago Latino Film Festival – Originally scheduled for April, the Chicago Latino Film Festival will take place as a delayed online edition September 18-27. Information available at www.chicagolatinofilmfestival.org.
Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival (presented by Chicago Filmmakers) has announced that the festival will take place online September 24-October 4. Information will be available at https://reelingfilmfestival.org.
Postponed with no announced plans yet:
The Cinepocalypse film festival (June) – Postponed with plans to reschedule at a future time
The Windy City Horrorama festival (April 24-26) – Cancelled; will possibly be rescheduled or reconfigured at a future date
The Chicago Critics Film Festival (May 1-7) – Postponed until further notice
The Chicago Underground Film Festival (June 10-14) – Postponed (tentatively in September)
CINE-LIST: September 11 - September 17, 2020
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS // Ben Sachs, Kathleen Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Cody Corrall, Kyle Cubr, Danny King, Marilyn Ferdinand, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Josh B. Mabe, Raphael Jose Martinez, Michael Metzger