:: FRIDAY, MAY 31 - THURSDAY, JUNE 6 ::

📽️ Crucial Viewing

Hiroshi Shimizu’s CHILDREN OF THE BEEHIVE (Japan)

Chicago Film Society at Northeastern Illinois University (The Auditorium, Building E, 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) – Wednesday, 7:30pm

Like many Chicago cinephiles I’m jealous of my peers in New York City who’ve been enjoying the two-part, 27-film Hiroshi Shimizu retrospective at the Museum of the Moving Image and the Japan Society. (It even has a Cine-File connection, having been co-programmed by one-time contributor Edo Choi, now associate curator of film at MoMI.) Thankfully, the Chicago Film Society has made sure we don’t go completely without, bringing two of Shimizu’s films here in June: this one and then JAPANESE GIRLS AT THE HARBOR (1933) later in the month. Admittedly I don’t know much about Shimizu, but these screenings provide a grand opportunity to rectify that. The NYC retrospective covers the two phases of Shimizu’s career: his tenure at Shochiku, where he made films starting in the the mid-’20s through the end of World War II (and where he worked alongside such greats as Ozu and Mizoguchi, who, despite overshadowing Shimizu on the international stage, greatly admired the unsung auteur; Mizoguchi went so far as to exclaim, “People like me and Ozu get films made by hard work, but Shimizu is a genius”) and his postwar years and turn to independent filmmaking, of which CHILDREN OF THE BEEHIVE is a prime example. It’s the first in his self-produced Beehive Trilogy, three films centered on children orphaned during the war, the second being a sort-of sequel to the first, called CHILDREN OF THE BEEHIVE: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT (1951), and finally CHILDREN OF THE GREAT BUDDHA (1952), following the titular young people as they work as tour guides in the ancient capital of Nara; Shimizu didn’t just make films about kids but also founded his own orphanage, called the Beehive for the jubilant “buzz” the children emanated, from where he found the first and second films' young amateur actors. As Imogen Sara Smith notes in her piece on the retrospective for Reverse Shot, CHILDREN OF THE BEEHIVE was made the same year as Roberto Rossellini’s GERMANY, YEAR ZERO and Fred Zinnemann’s THE SEARCH (the latter not an outright neorealist film like the former but nevertheless of a piece with the mode), both of which also center on children's experiences during the war; I’d imagine Shimizu, however, was the only such filmmaker who went past social realism into social action. The film opens at a train station, where repatriated Japanese soldiers are on their way back to Tokyo. A group of unattended children are "working" at the station, picking pockets (though not the soldiers') and, more benignly, begging for food to give to their “boss,” a one-legged vagrant, who then sells it for money. A lone, unnamed soldier hangs back, attracting the attention of the children—all boys—who learn he’s also an orphan. Eventually the soldier and the boys begin traveling together, working odd jobs along the way to the reform school where the young man had been educated. (The school in question is the same from Shimizu’s 1941 film INTROSPECTION TOWER, an interesting overlap; the soldier even references the film.) One of the young boys’ mothers died at sea and, as a result, he yells “mother, mother” whenever he sees the water. The film is mostly light-hearted in that the tragedies of the war loom large but aren’t explicitly acknowledged, allowing for the kids’ wise-cracking street smarts to amuse even as we understand it to be a defense mechanism. But this boy’s manifestation of grief and his later attachment to the film’s lone female character, a young woman also making a trek in search of connection following the destruction of the war, is all the more poignant in its simplicity. It also portends the film’s final, heartbreaking moments, which ignites the otherwise slow burn of its moving plaintiveness into a full-on emotional maelstrom, in which the chaos of war cedes to the unity of hope. Part of the film was shot among the ruins of Hiroshima, which was rare for this period as Japan was under occupation by the Allies, whose forces were censoring such references for fear of impacting public sentiment against them. In fact the Civil Information and Education Section had a hand in removing any explicit mention of the bombing from the film’s script, deeming it unnecessary to the story; ironically, however, the CIE considered the film “an excellent one ‘on welfare of homeless war orphans and expatriates,’” according to Mick Broderick’s book Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film. Still, what did make the cut is an incredible sequence, stunning in both its aesthetic—if antithetical—beauty and its faint political implications. Subtlety and simplicity are far from unusual in Japanese cinema, but, as is on display here, Shimizu wields them for their unassuming ferocity, evidencing power in what goes unsaid and is more impactful just being felt. Preceded by Robert McKimson’s 1950 cartoon short BOOBS IN THE WOODS (7 min, 35mm). (1948, 86 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

Sidney Lumet's 12 ANGRY MEN (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 3pm and Wednesday, 6pm

Sidney Lumet was a drastically uneven filmmaker and, by his own estimation, not an auteur. He tended to think of himself as a director in the theatrical sense, an interpreter of scripts who made his presence felt through acting style, pacing, and marginal detail. But as far as these values are concerned, Lumet was undoubtedly a master. He brought the intensity and internalized realism of Method Acting to the screen more effectively than Elia Kazan, and his eye for professional environments reflected a knowing, beat-journalist alacrity. These qualities can be found readily in 12 ANGRY MEN, the first feature Lumet made for theatrical release after directing hundreds of television plays. For a movie set only in one room, it generates a remarkable amount of tension, even when a very '50s brand of over-earnestness threatens to turn things flaccid. (This is where the director's underrated cinematic sense comes in: Lumet and his cinematographer, Boris Kaufman, shot the opening scenes with wide-angle lenses and gradually increased the focal lengths to create the feeling that the room was getting smaller as the drama mounted.) But that over-earnestness, of course, is central to the movie's status as a testament to the rational virtue of the American Justice System. Screening as part of the Sidney Lumet Centennial Series. (1957, 96 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Marco Bellochio’s KIDNAPPED: THE ABDUCTION OF EDGARDO MORTARA (Italy/France/Germany)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

Since his feature film debut, the incendiary épater le bourgeois fable FISTS IN THE POCKET (1965), Marco Bellochio has made a career out of excoriating authoritarian systems of power. He returns to the subject of perhaps his most reviled social institution, the Catholic Church, in KIDNAPPED, a dramatization of the notorious Mortara scandal. In 1858 Bologna, in what was then the Papal States of Italy, six-year-old Jewish boy Edgardo Mortara was seized from his family by Pope Pius IX’s military police. The head inquisitor of the Holy Office was informed that the boy had been secretly baptized, and was thus for all intents and purposes Catholic. Because the Papal States forbade non-Christian parents from raising Christian children, it was mandated that Edgardo be raised and educated by the Church in a boarding school for boys of converted Jewish parents. Thanks in part to the tireless advocacy efforts of the Mortara parents, the incident caused an uproar around the world and was seen as a contributing factor to the dissolution of the Papal States and the unification of Italy in 1870. Bellocchio and co-screenwriter Susanna Nicchiarelli cover a lot of history here, but they do it with a brisk, at times didactic straightforwardness that keeps the film from feeling overburdened by plot. Aided by Francesco Di Giacomo’s often painterly cinematography and Fabio Massimo Capogrosso’s melodramatic orchestral score, Bellochio directs with a formal classicism considerably removed from the more iconoclastic stylings of his earlier features. But within the conventional trappings of his storytelling, he dwells on intriguing ambiguities. How, and what, did Edgardo Mortara feel about the Church and his religious captors? Why did he embrace Christian doctrine? As the young Edgardo, Enea Sala gives a provocatively sullen, inscrutable performance, his doe eyes betraying acquiescent contentment at one moment and despondency the next. The character’s ambivalence only grows as he ages into priesthood, and Bellochio shows us a young man wrestling with an identity that might not even be his. Whatever the real Edgardo felt, KIDNAPPED makes it clear that his clerical life was the result of forced assimilation under the name of Christianity. For Bellochio, it’s a patent example of the effects of one of the world’s most historically tyrannical institutions. (2023, 133 min, DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]

John Huston’s THE MISFITS (US)

Music Box Theatre – Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am

There’s so much extra-textual significance hanging over THE MISFITS that it threatens to drag down the film. Most writers are quick to point out that it was the last movie to star either Clark Gable (who died of a heart attack less than two weeks after production wrapped) or Marilyn Monroe (who died of a drug overdose about a year and a half after its premiere), that Arthur Miller’s screenplay was influenced by his souring feelings toward Monroe (and that his marriage to her was coming apart while the movie was being shot), and that the film’s story of desperate, aging cowboys suggests a death knell for the Western as a popular genre. One might add that, with its pervasive sense of defeat, THE MISFITS also has ties to numerous other films by John Huston, who returned to the subject of failure throughout his long and varied career. Indeed, THE MISFITS often feels like it isn’t about the failings of its characters so much as failure in its abstract, idealized form—the film often seems to be reaching for something very big just beyond its grasp, and this overly ambitious quality sometimes upstages the more human-sized virtues. Yet those virtues are quite real, from Russell Metty’s superb black-and-white cinematography to the nuanced performances from the supporting cast. Montgomery Clift (appearing five years after his near-fatal car crash and five years before his own untimely death) is heartbreaking as the rodeo cowboy suffering from too many blows to the head; Thelma Ritter, as Monroe’s confidante, brings a winning proletarian feistiness to a character who may have otherwise come off as a shrewish caricature; and Eli Wallach, arguably the MVP of the cast, has a spontaneity that distracts from the schematism of Miller’s writing. (Wallach has a drunk scene that’s particularly memorable for how he underplays it; Huston, no stranger to inebriation, instructed him to try very hard to act like he wasn’t drunk.) THE MISFITS has a classical three-act structure that reflects Miller’s theatrical background: the first concerns Monroe’s character getting a divorce in Reno, where she meets up with the characters played by Wallach and Gable; the second follows them to the rodeo where Clift is angling for quick cash; and the third follows all the major characters as they go to the mountains to round up wild horses to sell them for dog food. The film may teem with wasted machismo, but Monroe’s performance is arguably what holds it together (even though she claimed to have hated her character), playing on her vulnerability to tragic effect. Screening as part of the Liz & Monty Matinees series. (1961, 125 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

McG’s CHARLIE’S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE (US)

Music Box Theatre – Saturday, Midnight

Director McG returns with his aughties fast-paced music video style for CHARLIE’S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE, a sequel to his 2000 film, based on the ‘70s television series. This film is definitely style over plot, with MacGuffins, misdirects, and misunderstandings galore—not that that’s a bad thing, especially when it's so self-aware. There’s an easy comedic looseness to this sequel, highlighting entertaining action set pieces, slow-motion hair flips, and the undeniable charisma and chemistry of the three main stars (Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz ,and Lucy Liu) as they’re placed in a myriad of scenarios involving distinct—and usually suggestive—costumes and disguises. It’s not, however, entirely style over substance, as FULL THROTTLE finds the trio facing the fact they aren’t going to be Angels forever, prompted by the appearance of accomplished former Charlie employee, Madison Lee (a riveting Demi Moore). This is especially tough on Dylan (Barrymore) who’s also forced to face her past with the return of her violent Irish mob ex-boyfriend (a shirtless Justin Theroux). The extended cast features Bernie Mac as the new Bosley, cameos from Carrie Fisher, Bruce Willis, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and the return of Crispin Glover as the mysterious weirdo the Thin Man, who gets a bit more of a backstory here. All in all, the repeating sight gags and jokes are welcome; it’s a colorful world that doesn’t easily wear thin, due to its cast and genuine sense of humor and friendship at the heart of the film. This is demonstrated by the bloopers featured over the end credits, a touch I always found delightful about these films. There’s something terribly charming about witnessing the cast having a good time, evidence to not take any of it too seriously and that everyone—audience and cast alike—are all in on the fun. Featuring a vinyl DJ set with Gaudy God at 11:30pm before the screening. (2003, 98 min, 35mm) [Megan Fariello]

Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES (Spain)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

Sofía Otero, who’s around 10 years old, won an acting prize at the Berlin Film Festival for this understated family drama, and one can appreciate why she was given the award: the whole movie hangs on her performance, which requires her to explore the most intimate aspects of her identity on screen. That’s a tall order for an actor of any age, let alone one so young, yet Otero is consistently graceful and unself-conscious in the role. 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES takes place over the course of a summer in which Otero’s character comes to realize she identifies as a girl during an extended visit to her grandmother’s home in the Basque country. Also along for the vacation are her mother (a sculptor who’s taking some time apart from her husband), two older siblings, aunt, and cousins. While the mother, brother and sister love Otero unconditionally from the start, the other members of her family are slower to accept her; the movie charts their development as well as Otero’s. The overall arc of the story recalls that of another recent European film, Emanuele Crialese’s L’IMMENSITÁ (2022), which also considered the maturation of a transgender child. The key difference is that Crialese observed his protagonist in early adolescence, when children are far more articulate about their needs than they are at eight or nine; the protagonist of 20,000 SPECIES reaches an understanding of her identity more through intuition. Sticking largely with this character’s perspective, Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren (making her feature debut as writer-director) emphasizes her physical, immediate experiences—going swimming, playing with her siblings and cousins, learning about her grandmother’s bee colony—and presents the adults in her life mostly when she overhears their conversations. The filmmaker’s naturalistic approach has the effect of normalizing an experience with which many spectators remain unfamiliar; the movie serves as a reminder of how cinema can dismantle social taboos simply by refusing to acknowledge them as such. (2023, 128 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Shinya Tsukamoto's TESTSUO: THE IRON MAN (Japan)

Alamo Drafthouse – Monday, 10:45pm and Wednesday, 7pm

Unmistakable in its bold style and nihilistic tone, TETSUO: THE IRON MAN is truly one of a kind. This low-budget feature holds an important place in the history of cyberpunk cinema, testing the limits of its own aesthetic through 16mm film, shoddy stop-motion animation, and practical body-horror effects created by taping broken electronics to the actors' bodies. The film's cult following (in spite of its nonexistent budget and DIY approach) is a testament to the idea that anyone can make a classic with the right vision and dedication; and man, did Tsukamoto have both. The film was shot over 18 grueling months with a crew that was constantly shrinking, leaving only Tsukamoto, co-cinematographer Kei Fujiwara, and a few others at the end of filming. To emphasize how small this crew was to begin with, Tsukamoto and Fujiwara also act in the film as two of the major characters, only surpassed in screen time by Tomorowo Taguchi in one of the other leading roles. The plot is very loose: a Japanese salaryman and an outcast who was struck in a mysterious car accident both face unimaginable, dreamlike horrors as they morph into monsters made out of metal and other miscellaneous machinery. What's more important to the film than what brought them to these changes is how these changes affect their views of the world. Through each of these men, we see reality quickly turning into a nightmare, whether it's in the form of senseless death, fetishized murder, or people and their surroundings turning into jagged, unappealing masses of metal. It comes as no surprise how quickly the main characters morph into the violent, mechanical creatures they seem fated to become, and in a weird way it almost feels expected that they take their misfortune out on the world around them. TETSUO: THE IRON MAN is a high-octane joyride from start to finish, and there's no other film that has quite captured its relentless, unsettling grit. (1989, 67 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Bates]

Make it a Double - Family Fright Edition
Gremlins: DO NOT OPEN

FACETS Cinema – See below for showtimes

Joe Dante's GREMLINS (US)
Friday, 6:30pm
Filmed on backlots in homage to IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and styled after Norman Rockwell illustrations, GREMLINS creates a memorable nightmare of the wholesale destruction of its settings by the titular monsters. The movie can be genuinely scary, but it’s also a laugh riot, thanks in part to the adolescent glee that Dante and company take from laying waste to such cherished American institutions as Christmastime, Walt Disney, and suburban architecture. A product of ’60s counterculture and ’70s exploitation cinema, Dante has always maintained his outsider bona fides no matter how mainstream his productions have gotten, and one of the joyous qualities of GREMLINS is how it feels like a bunch of weirdos successfully crashing the ultra-square party that was Reagan-era Hollywood. The movie’s subversive humor reaches its strongest expression in Phoebe Cates’ sickly funny Santa Claus monologue (which would have been cut from the finished film had not executive producer Steven Spielberg intervened with Warner Bros. studio bosses), but the sentiment can be found even in the premise—that inside every cuddly Spielbergian creation is a destructive monster desperate to come out. Both Dave Kehr and Jonathan Rosenbaum have likened Dante to Frank Tashlin, the Warner Bros. cartoonist who carried over the rubbery reality of Looney Tunes to his work as a director of live-action satires, and like Tashlin, Dante makes fun of his subjects with an air of gee-whiz affection. But Dante’s electrifying shifts between humor and horror show the influence of directors who came before Tashlin, namely James Whale, who was mixing the two genres in the early 1930s, as well as the pop-obsessed auteurs of the French New Wave. Indeed, GREMLINS is so rich in knowledge of film history that it requires several viewings to catch all the references Dante hides around the frames, which are as visually packed in their way as Vincente Minnelli’s. (1984, 106 min, Digital Projection) [Ben Sachs]
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Joe Dante's GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (US)
Friday, 8:45pm
The etymologically mysterious "gremlin" is one of the most modern of myths, with its origin in WWII airmen's tales of technological sabotage; and while the 1984 film GREMLINS—set in a backlot-simulated small town—limited the mischievous animatronic-puppet destruction to consumerist sites of household goods and department stores, its sequel appropriately centers on a symbolic temple of managerial capital, a hyper-automated midtown office tower inspired simultaneously by Trump and Tati. As with the 21st-century horror film CABIN IN THE WOODS, an antiseptic and efficient surveillance bureaucracy is portrayed as a form of social organization whose continued survival is undeserved, and which must be duly and gleefully demolished by monsters of its own creation. This destruction is enacted through scene after scene of diverse genre parodies of camp cinema. (1990, 106 min, Digital Projection) [Michael Castelle]

Frank Perry's MOMMIE DEAREST (US)

Music Box Theatre – Tuesday, 7pm

Among the general public the rest of Frank Perry's oeuvre pales mightily in comparison to MOMMIE DEAREST, his notorious adaptation of Christina Crawford's memoir. The film's portrait of Joan Crawford, thanks to a no-holds-barred performance/recreation by Faye Dunaway, decades of cable TV repeats and hearsay drag queen re-enactment, has cemented MOMMIE DEAREST's status as a true cult classic. But experiencing it solely as an over-the-top melodrama sells the movie short. Viewed differently, it's actually a vivid and disturbing examination of child abuse, the perils of being a movie star and of being the child of a star. And Perry uses the same cool, clean style as in DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE. His objective camera, usually at some distance from the action, makes Joan's outbursts of aggression and violence that much more unsettling. This apparent neutrality confounds any easy emotional release on the part of the audience, most notably during the infamous "wire hanger" sequence. It's no wonder that the movie has long been experienced as camp; without using humor as a shield, the events onscreen would be much too disturbing to take at face value. Here is a film that cries out for a re-evaluation. But that will have to wait. Followed by a post-screening Q&A with author A. Ashley Hoff about his new book With Love, Mommie Dearest, moderated by Richard Knight (1981, 128 min, DCP Digital) [Rob Christopher]

Alice Rohrwacher's LA CHIMERA (Italy/France/Switzerland)

FACETS Cinema – See Venue website for showtimes

For Arthur, there’s little that separates the living from the dead. Played by a steely, towering Josh O’Connor, most often seen sidling through scenes donning a detritus-laden white linen suit, he spends his days wandering about with his merry band of "tombaroli," pilfering the tombs hidden beneath their feet across Italy, raiding a myriad of resting places for long-lost Etruscan treasures that, in their eyes, aren’t doing the dead any good just sitting about. Arthur’s mind wanders about, too, to his long-lost love Beniamina, a figure seen in flickers, dreamlike, perhaps also sitting in that nebulous zone between what we know is gone but what we wish was still here. Indeed, our first glimpse of Arthur is of him riding a train back home after the end of his prison sentence, his own resurrection back into the land of the "living." Alice Rohrwacher’s film tends to navigate various planes of existence, often changing aspect ratios, film stocks, even genres; the story curves through tropes found in heist thrillers, comedies, and romances, employing techniques found within the realms of silent film, experimental essay, and documentary filmmaking. Her collage of storytelling ends up falling somewhere—​spiritually and thematically—​between a fairy tale and a ghost story, weighing the love of the present with the love of that which is long past, of building your life in deference to death, of weighing one’s soul against the thrill of unearthing objects not meant for human eyes. Arthur himself is gifted with an otherworldly spirit of divining, of knowing in his very soul where these underground treasures lie, with Rohrwacher’s camera literally performing revolutions to find Arthur in another visual plane, familiar yet upside-down. What a gift to find a film so brimming with passion, humor, and otherworldly desire brimming from every frame for those curious enough to pull on the threads Rohrwacher leaves lying before us. Perhaps a glimmer of light will shine through after all that digging. (2023, 130 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

Robert Zemeckis’ BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Sunday and Thursday, 3:30pm and Tuesday, 7pm

Beginning immediately after the end BACK TO THE FUTURE, this sequel takes Doc’s return from the future as a jumping off point for a whole new set of time travel quandaries. Or are they new? In his only film franchise, Robert Zemeckis uses repetition and reflection to examine history doomed to forever echo. While BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II loses the magic of the effortlessness of the original, it’s still a rowdy and often contemptuously biting look at the Reagan era. Doc (Christopher Lloyd) has urged Marty (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend (Elisabeth Shue) to join him in traveling to the future to help with their floundering son (also played by Fox). The future here is what you’d expect from an '80s vision of 2015, all bright neons and holographs—it doesn’t feel too far off, though. Perhaps this is due to our current nostalgic trends, and the film portentously captures that as well, when Marty finds himself in an '80s themed diner. Zemeckis has an uncanny knack for making historical connections. Marty returns to 1985 from the future to find his father dead, the town destroyed, and his mother (Lea Thompson) remarried to Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), who here resembles a not-so-thinly-veiled Donald Trump. Biff, discovering the time machine, has found a way to make a lot of money and take over Hill Valley for himself. Now this means Marty must go back to 1955 to fix everything–again. Like much of Zemeckis’ work around this time, it's full of zaniness and excess, particularly the future sequences which includes an incredible hoverboard chase scene. The repetitiveness of the sequences, as Marty’s adventures through time always seem to mirror each other, don’t feel stale. Rather, the darker nature of Marty’s task–and its larger, dire historical ramifications—suggests that the first movie, despite its magic, wasn’t enough to ensure that history is safe from the likes of Biff. (1989, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]

🎞️ ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Alamo Drafthouse
Richard Linklater’s 2023 film HIT MAN (115 min, DCP Digital) continues. See Venue website for showtimes. More info here.

⚫ Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
Cinema in Relation: Yearnings for the Beyond, the 2024 documentary media MFA showcase, screens Wednesday and Thursday starting at 7pm. Following the screening, filmmaker Edgar Jorge Baralt will join the filmmakers for a conversation and Q&A with the audience. Free admission. More info here.

⚫ Chicago Film Archives
The CFA Media Mixer: Homemade takes place Thursday, 8pm, at Constellation Chicago (3111 N. Western Ave.). This year each artist pair is working with the home movies of an individual family, meeting with members of the families to gain a sense of who they are beyond what is seen and depicted in the home movies. This year’s filmmaker-musician artist pairs are Henry Hanson and Fire-Toolz; Caitlin Ryan and Johanna Brock; and Kioto Aoki and AJ McClennon. The 2024 Media Mixer is curated by Emily Eddy and hosted by Romi Crawford.

The Chicago Transit Authority, in partnership with CFA, presents a new, one-of-a-kind temporary art installation at the Cicero Green Line station (4800 W. Lake St.). The installation, called we love, is a filmic exhibition of home movies and amateur films selected from collections housed and preserved at CFA. The video will be projected onto a wall in the mezzanine area of the station and will run day and night through March 15, 2026. More info on all screenings and events here.

⚫ Chicago Public Library
View all screenings taking place at Chicago Public Library branches here.

⚫ Cinema/Chicago
Asli Özge’s 2016 film ALL OF A SUDDEN (112 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 6:30pm, at the Chicago History Museum (1601 N. Clark St.) as part of the organization’s free summer screenings. Free admission; rush only at this time. More info here. 

⚫ Comfort Film at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.)
Maya Roussell’s DA CAPO, a video art piece celebrating the history of the Chicago live music scene with a
live score performed by Erez Dessel, Tyler Wagner, and Scott Taylor, screens Wednesday at 8pm. Free admission, outside on the Comfort Station lawn weather permitting. More info here. 

⚫ Green Line Performing Arts Center (329 E. Garfield Blvd.)
Preview: Projections of Panafrica, organized as part of the Pan-Africa research project at the Neubauer Collegium, inaugurates a citywide constellation of exhibitions and events that explore Pan-Africanism in association with the Art Institute of Chicago exhibition “Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica,” opening in December 2024. The event will begin with a screening of Sarah Maldoror’s 1968 short film MONANGAMBÉ (18 min, Digital Projection), introduced by members of the Project a Black Planet curatorial team. A listening session with DJ Rae Chardonnay will explore local connections to the film, which includes music by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and show how Pan-Africanist cultural production has emerged from Chicago and continues to circulate in the city. Then a discussion and reception will follow. More info here.

⚫ Music Box Theatre
Music Box Garden Movies continue. See Venue website for films and showtimes.

Sophie Dupuis’ 2023 film SOLO (101 min, DCP Digital) begins and Pamela Adlon’s 2024 comedy BABES (109 min, DCP Digital) continues screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.

Chris Nash’s 2024 horror film IN A VIOLENT NATURE (94 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday at 11:45pm; Sunday at 9:15pm; and Monday and Wednesday at 9:30pm. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ Sweet Void Cinema (3036 W. Chicago Ave.)
Find more information on the Humboldt Park microcinema, including its larger screening and workshop schedule, here. 

🎞️ ONLINE SCREENINGS/EVENTS

⚫ VDB TV
Filmmaker-choreographer Sarah Friedland's feature-length trilogy Movement Exercises, presented in conjunction with Friedland's participation in the Visual Studies Workshop (VSW) Project Space Residency, screens for free on VDB TV. More info here.

CINE-LIST: May 31 - June 6, 2024

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Michael Bates, Michael Castelle, Rob Christopher, Megan Fariello, Ben Kaye, Jonathan Leithold-Patt