đœïž BLACK HARVEST FILM FESTIVAL
Siskel Film Center â See below for showtimes
Elegance Brattonâs MOVE YA BODY: THE BIRTH OF HOUSE (US/Documentary)
Friday, 5:45pm
This is a heartfelt and informative introduction to house music, and itâs also a must-see if youâre looking for a dose of Chicago pride. As the title implies, MOVE YA BODY: THE BIRTH OF HOUSE focuses on the origins of the musical genre, which can be traced to our own South Side. The film argues that house as well as hip-hop grew out of the ashes of disco as new styles of dance music created by and for people of color. But before getting to the development of these forms, Elegance Bratton grants solemn consideration to the death of disco, noting that the reaction against the genre was essentially racist and homophobic. Chicago, sadly, also played a role in the âdisco sucksâ movement, as MOVE YA BODY relates in a passage about the notorious âDisco Demolition Nightâ at Comiskey Park in 1979. Given the antagonism toward disco and the people who enjoyed it, house emerged as a form of rebellion in its open embrace of Black and queer culture. (As some interviewees note, this distinction kept away white racists and Black gangbangers from early house parties.) From here, MOVE YA BODY looks at the rise of Chicagoâs house scene in the 1980s, with sections devoted to influential DJs, popular clubs, and the musicâs larger cultural impact. The film concludes on a somewhat sour note when it addresses how house music was appropriated by mainstream culture and how many of the pioneering artists never got a fair shake financiallyâphenomena common to too many underground movements. Regardless, this succeeds in inspiring admiration for house and conveying its energy and inclusivity. (2025, 92 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
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Angela Lynn Tuckerâs THE INQUISITOR (US/Documentary)
Saturday, 12pm
When many of us think of groundbreakers in US politics, Barbara Jordan comes immediately to mind. Jordan, a native of Houston, Texas, became the first Black woman from the South to be elected to the US House of Representatives, where she served Texasâs 18th District until she retired from politics to teach at the University of Texas at Austin. She gained a national reputation serving on the House Judiciary Committee during deliberations on the impeachment of President Richard Nixon, during which the nation got to witness her articulate intelligence. Angela Lynn Tuckerâs THE INQUISITOR, titled after a term Jordan used to refer to herself, was created to air on PBSâs The American Experience and adheres closely to the template of such documentaries. It hits the highlights of Jordanâs life and career, including her formative years in a family that expected excellence; her close relationships with President Lyndon Johnson and Texas Governor Ann Richards; and her lifelong, though not public, partnership with Nancy Earl that the US National Archives says makes her the first LGBTQ+ woman to serve in Congress. She is shown to be pragmatic while trying to extend protections to vulnerable Americans, and upbeat and active through a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis until complications of leukemia ended her life at the age of 59. If you donât know much about Jordan, this is a great introduction that should leave you wanting to learn more about her. (2025, 90 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Ossie Davisâ BLACK GIRL (US)
Sunday, 6pm
Ossie Davisâ BLACK GIRL is a clear, forthright endeavor, yet it suffered from a divisiveness that somewhat obfuscates its potency. Itâs based on J.e. Franklinâs successful 1969 stage play (she also wrote the screenplay), but she didnât like many of the changes made to the story or the eventual marketing; a poster for the film emphasized a particularly violent scene thatâs an aberration in an otherwise nuanced domestic drama, capitalizing on the Blacksploitation subgenre that Davis, had contributed to with his directorial debut COTTON COMES TO HARLEM (1970), which made him the third Black man to direct a Hollywood film. Critics didnât much care for BLACK GIRL either, with Roger Greenspun for the New York Times writing that itâs âa poor movie that makes it look as if there never had been a good play.â There are plenty of repertory films that were panned upon their initial releases but then found new life as critically fresh artifacts, with viewers coming to avow them as quality cinema. Itâs hard to say if we wouldâve liked the films when they came outâwhich raises questions about how timing impacts perceptionâbut what matters is we like them now. And I genuinely found BLACK GIRL to be enjoyable, thought provoking, and well directed. The film centers on a family of three half-sisters, their mother and grandmother, and the latterâs live-in boyfriend; one of the sisters, Billie Jean (Peggy Pettitt), has just dropped out of high school and aspires to be a dancer, while her two half-sisters have jumped quickly into marriage and motherhood. Their own mother has in the past taken in young women who needed a safe place to stay. One of those girls is Netta (Leslie Uggams), now a college studentâthe mother, called Mama Rosie (Louise Stubbs) by her one-time ward, looks at her as the proverbial golden child, even though not her own. When Netta finally returns âhomeâ (also to her disabled mother, played by Davisâ wife Ruby Dee) things come to a head among the sisters, with the other two clearly threatened by Netta and her influence on Billie Jean. Mama Rosie is more than just the impetus for her daughtersâ conflict; at one point, two of the girlsâ father, Earl (Brock Peters, Tom Robinson from Robert Mulliganâs TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD), comes to visit, and she and him have an illuminating conversation that reveals both to be more than whatever stereotypes may have befallen them. The performances are riveting. As Billie Jean, Pettitt, a real-life dancer for whom this was her only screen performance, is sinewy and prone; as Mama Rosie and her other daughters, Stubbs, Gloria Edwards and Loretta Greene are subtle yet evocative, as is Claudia McNeil as the grandmother. About the film Davis said, âIt is a serious film about a Black family for those who want some real information about ourselves as a way of understanding who we are and to use that understanding to protect and defend ourselves as a community.â Whether it accomplishes that isnât for me to say, but itâs absolutely worth investigating for yourself. (1972, 97 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Kat Sachs]
đœïž CRUCIAL VIEWING
Mikio Naruseâs EVERY-NIGHT DREAMS (Japan/Silent)
Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre â Sunday, 11:30am
Throughout EVERY-NIGHT DREAMS, Mikio Naruse underscores the drama by quickly moving the camera toward the principal character or characters, imbuing whatever it is theyâre feeling with kinetic energy. Itâs a startling device no matter how many times Naruse employs it due to its peculiar mix of artificiality and sincerity. On the one hand, the director is drawing attention to the cameraâs presence by tracking at such noticeable speed; on the other, heâs doing it to pull the spectator into the action as if grabbing them by the lapel. Naruse would adopt a more sober approach in subsequent decades, but his mission was often the same as it was here: to inspire sympathy for women whom society generally looks down upon. In EVERY-NIGHT DREAMS, he turns his focus on a barmaid in Ginza whoâs been raising her son on her own since her husband walked out on her three years ago. Omitsu no longer cares that her work is considered disreputable; she sees it as what she needs to do to care for the boy she loves. Like many a Naruse heroine, she maintains a strong sense of dignity in spite of her degrading circumstances, demonstrating resilience and good moral character. Thereâs a remarkable scene early on where Omitsu bluntly asks her boss for an advance so she can give something to the older couple who watches her son while sheâs at workâitâs one of the triumphant moments of Depression-era cinema from anywhere in the world. The filmâs second act begins when Omitsuâs deadbeat husband turns up requesting another chance. Naruse grants this character sympathy too, letting him explain that he only abandoned his family because he was ashamed of being unable to support them financially. Omitsu takes him in, and they and the boy attempt to lead a normal life; however, the husband canât get over his shame of unemployment or the fact that his wife is a barmaid, and his resentments prove to be their undoing. Though EVERY-NIGHT DREAMS is a silent film, it resembles a lot of the early talkies that were being made in Hollywood around the same time in its socially relevant subject matter as well as its narrative concision. The film runs just a little over an hour, but it covers three well-developed acts and a surprisingly wide tonal range, incorporating moments of social realism and light comedy within the general melodramatic flow. Preceded by Rudy Burckhartâs 1946 short film UP AND DOWN THE WATERFRONT (8 min, 16mm). (1933, 64 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Abbas Kiarostami's THE TRAVELER (Iran) and Manoel de Oliveiraâs THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA (Portugal)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Sunday, 3pm
Abbas Kiarostami considered THE TRAVELER (1974, 74 min, DCP Digital) to be his first "true" feature, and it was also the first film in which he worked "alone with [his] actors, without scripted dialogue," as he once told critic Jonathan Rosenbaum. Itâs also the last film he shot in black and white. All that considered, if youâre anything like Qassem, the young protagonist of this compact work, nothing will deter you from getting to a screening of it. But itâs not a film that Qassem hopes to see; rather, itâs a soccer match in Tehran. He raises the money for his bus fare by stealing from his mother, pretending to take photos of his classmates, and selling his friendsâ soccer equipment. Once in Tehran, he waits several hours to buy his ticket and then another few hours for the game to start. Sadlyâand ironicallyâhe misses it after he falls asleep outside the stadium. Considered to be Kiarostamiâs first masterpiece, it introduces motifs that appear in many of his later films, such as oblique journeys and inconclusive conclusions. THE TRAVELER is about a child, just as most of his early films were about children, something he wouldn't make a film about again after HOMEWORK in 1989. One might say that Kiarostamiâs career matured just like a child going into adulthood, with the themes of his films progressing accordingly. Yet Kiarostami here is indiscriminate; Qassemâs quest is treated as seriously as Mr. Badiiâs in TASTE OF CHERRY, the plight of the child given as much weight as that of the adult. The formerâs determination is admirable despite his underhanded tactics, though such machinations result in a guilt-induced nightmare. This dream sequence is unique in Kiarostamiâs work, and itâs perhaps even out of place in a film that borders on neo-realism. In CLOSE-UP, Hossain Sabzian, the man whose arrest for impersonating Mohsen Makhmalbaf is the basis of the film, remarks that heâs the child from THE TRAVELER whoâs left behind, in retrospect adding further gravitas to Qassemâs ill-advised tenacity. [Kat Sachs]
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Manoel de Oliveira wrote the first draft of THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA (2010, 97 min, 35mm) sometime around 1950 but didnât complete the film for another six decades, releasing it when he was 101 years old. Appropriately, the movieâs principal themes are death and renewal, with a special focus on how these things are reflected in photography (and, by implication, cinema). The story centers on Isaac, a Sephardic Jewish immigrant living in the northern Portuguese city of RĂ©gua and working as a photographer. At the start of the film, Isaac (played by Ricardo Trepa, de Oliveiraâs grandson and a frequent onscreen presence in the directorâs very late period) is called upon by a wealthy couple to take pictures of their daughter Angelica, who died of mysterious circumstances shortly after she got married. When Isaac looks at Angelica through his viewfinder, she opens her eyes and smiles at him; later, when he looks at the developed photographs, she appears to do the same thing. Like Dana Andrews in LAURA (1944), Isaac finds himself falling in love with this strange woman through her replicated likeness, which seems to perform miracles just for him. The big question of de Oliveiraâs film is why Isaac, a Jew among Catholics, should be the recipient of such divine gifts. Is it because of his intimate connection to the photographic medium, which preserves moments of life for perpetuity? Or maybe heâs just death-obsessed? Photography, after all, has its morbid side, as it freezes the instant in a death-like embrace. THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA meditates on this yin-yang nature of the medium with the beatific reserve one associates with the last few decades of de Oliveiraâs output. Often employing tableau-like shots in which actors simply stand still if they donât have anything in particular to do, the director creates images that lend themselves to a kind of reflection more akin to reading than watching movies. Thatâs not to say the film (or anything by de Oliveira) is anti-cinematic; rather, it exists in that rarefied world occupied by some of the directorâs heroes (Dreyer, Bresson, Rossellini) in which simple images convey the complexity of life and death. [Ben Sachs]
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Preceded by Louis LumiĂšreâs 1985 short film EMPLOYEES LEAVING THE LUMIĂRE FACTORY (46 sec, DCP Digital); Georges MĂ©liĂšsâ 1902 short film THE HUMAN FLY (1 min, Digital Projection) and Auguste and Louis LumiĂšreâs 1896 short film THE ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN (1 min, DCP Digital). The program will be followed by a Q&A with Marta Mateus and Jonathan Rosenbaum.
Picture Restart: Mean Streets (Shorts)
Chicago Filmmakers â Saturday, 6pm
The penultimate installment of Ben Creech's Picture Restart Series (seriously, if you haven't made it out one of these showings yet, time is rapidly running out) is a paranoid, noir-tinged city symphony of a program that will send you racing down darkened alleyways and through dimly lit backrooms where danger could be lurking around any corner. Sally Kellman's DANGER IS MY BUSINESS (1982, 4 min, 16mm), occasionally dubbed a âpocket detective novel,â miniaturizes a murder mystery by setting its narrative beats to the brisk pace of a punk rock tune. The city is alive in Caroline Heyward's VOYAGE (1977, 5 min, 16mm), an animated short that seems to have Ulysses on its mind as it mounts a psychedelic exploration of the lone individual as a conduit for vast amounts of psychic data, channeling all of the synaesthesia and syncretism and city-body metaphors that make Joyce's modernist cityscape so enveloping. A truly amazing find follows in the form of Gus Van Sant's MY FRIEND (1983, 3 min, 16mm), a little-seen early work that sees Van Sant dabbling in cheeky video diary parody. The piece is initially reminiscent of Curt McDowell in its presumed earnestness and direct address, although it drifts carefully and assuredly towards a somber and constructed conclusion, revealing a supremely confident director who is unsurprisingly poised to shoot his MALA NOCHE (1986). Lisa Craftâs GLASS GARDENS (1982, 5 min, 16mm) is a wildly haunting scene of creativity prevailing in the midst of apocalypse, animated with the uncanny languidness of a point-and-click adventure game, that follows a woman who tinkers with the refuse of consumer capitalism left abandoned in the street. The film presents such a stark and arcane portrait of human expression that all I can think to liken it to is the scene depicted in Albrect DĂŒrer's masterpiece, Melencolia I. One of the great pleasures of these Picture Restart programs has been seeing the wealth of stellar underground animation, generally well outside of my purview, dredged up from the archive and given another shot at life. HONKY-TONK BUD (1985, 12 min, 16mm) is a remarkable jazz-rap musical from director Scott Laster that charts the downfall of the titular character as he is framed for drug distribution and viciously prosecuted by the FBI in order to set an example. It's worth the cost of admission alone to hear the film's score from Chicago jazz icon Ed Wilkerson and his sprawling ensemble players the Shadow Vignettes, all of whom appear on screen jamming out in the jury box at the film's conclusion. The program's anchor piece is Lisa Gottlieb's MURDER IN A MIST (1980, 30 min, 16mm), a feminist detective spoof that caused a sensation on its release, netting the film an Academy Award and paving the way for Gottlieb to take off for LA from Columbia College in order to shoot her cable-classic debut film JUST ONE OF THE GUYS (1985). Of course, the real allure for the hometown crowd is that Chicago Filmmakers' own Executive Director Brenda Webb has a brief screen cameo in another flash of outrageous serendipity that proves just how homegrown and essential these programs have proven to be. [David Whitehouse]
Konrad Wolfâs I WAS NINETEEN (East Germany)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Tuesday, 7pm
A 19-year-old lieutenant in the Red Army rolls with his unit into the German town of Bernau near the end of World War II and is made the commander of the Russian occupying forces there more or less by default. So begins the war adventures of Gregor Hecker, the fictional version of director Konrad Wolf, who began his extremely fruitful collaboration with cineaste Wolfgang Kohlhaase with this remarkable semi-autobiographical film. Jaecki Schwarz was a charismatic young actor who was relatively unknown when he took on this strange ingenue role of a punctilious Russian lieutenant who proves invaluable to the advancing Russian troops because he spent his first eight years in Cologne, Germany, before his parents left a destitute Germany to start over in Moscow. His role is not to fight battles, but rather to convince Germans to give themselves up, a task that takes him from the Spandau Citadel harboring SS officers and some civilians to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen and back to Russia. While itâs impossible to overlook the propaganda promoting a benevolent Russian presence that flies in the face of the brutality they visited upon the conquered Germans, the film has the feel of boots on the ground reality. Heckerâs episodic travels through eastern Germany reminded me of John Fordâs THEY WERE EXPENDABLE (1945), down to a final tragedy that befalls Hecker during an unexpected attack by SS paramilitaries firing on their own men for surrendering. An image that foregrounds the film of a German soldier, hanged and moving slowing down a river on what seems like a floating island, is a haunting bit of gratuitous filmic invention, as is the camerawork of Werner Bergmann at the beginning of the film that owes much to Russian montage techniques of the 1920s. The majority of the film never reaches these expressionist heights, but Wolfâs invention never flags, particularly during the long middle of the film in which Hecker and his idealistic comrade (Vasiliy Livanov) try to negotiate a surrender with the officers holed up at Spandau. Within the constrictions of the East German film industry, the A-team of Wolf and Kohlhaase created marvelously entertaining films that still managed to tell the truth. Screening as part of the Konrad Wolf on the Centennial series. (1968, 115 min, 16mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Ira Sachsâ PETER HUJARâS DAY (US/Germany)
Siskel Film Center â See Venue website for showtimes
It seems fitting for a film about a photographer to feel like a snapshotâa life captured briefly, but intentionally, in a moment of stillness that exists as a rich, textured object. Director and adapter Ira Sachs seems fully cognizant of the task, majestically exhuming a conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and nonfiction author Linda Rosenkrantz from December 19th, 1974, a dialogue originally destined to be part of a larger project of Rosenkrantz's, chronicling how artists fill up their days. The project was abandoned, with the disparate interviews seemingly lost to time, before Rosenkrantz miraculously discovered the transcript of her conversation with Hujar decades later. Thus, PETER HUJARâS DAY exists as resurrection, roleplay, and altogether earnest experiment, a noble and meaningful attempt at remembering the act of remembrance itself, using the artificial construction of cinema to access an honest moment between two immortal artists. Sachs reteams with Ben Whishaw, a powerful force in Sachsâ previous PASSAGES (2023), who plays Hujar across from the equally beguiling Rebecca Hall as Rosenkrantz. Hujar has been tasked with meticulously noting the tasks of his previous day to recount in full detail across a conversation sprinkled with tea breaks, excursions to the roof, and brief dance interludes. There are metatextual flourishes across the film (we see a clapperboard open the film, alongside a boom mic being preset for a scene mid-film) alongside artful photoshoot-style montages of the two players, but for the most part, the film is concerned with little more than two figures in conversation, Hujarâs day primarily consisting of a photoshoot with Allen Ginsberg alongside other seeming mundanities of New York City living. Even as low-stakes as this might feel, Lindaâs curiosity in âhow do people fill up their daysâ has some urgency and value to it, turning the everyday into something meaningful, textured, and, yes, cinematic. It helps that Whishawâs summoning of Hujar feels as lived-in as the best film performances out there, his ease with his interpretation immediately palpable to the viewer, his movements, speech, posture, existing simultaneously as a performance and a conjuring. Throughout the film, my mind wandered to Louis Malleâs immortal MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1981), another conversational two-hander for the screen concerning New York artists contending with what makes up their lives. But where that film finds two forces directly colliding, here our two spirits glide side by side, their connection made not through conflict, but through shared space and understanding. Here, the truth of intimacy comes not through bared souls, but through exhaustive listening and shared space. This is perhaps how Hujar worked with his subjects, his vivid photography casting figures in poses carrying ease and intention. Hujar sits alongside fellow photographers like Nan Goldin and David Wojnarowicz and Robert Mapplethorpe, grand chroniclers of a queer dynasty on the brink of plague (Hujar himself would be diagnosed with AIDS and pass away at the age of 53, just thirteen years after this conversation). Itâs a testament to his legacy that Sachsâ film feels like a worthy extension of the spirit of Hujarâs work without featuring a single one of his photos. (2025, 76 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
đœïž ALSO RECOMMENDED
Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bassâ THE LAST UNICORN (US/Japan/Animation)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Friday, 9:30pm
Following a trend in many fantasy films of the 1980s, thereâs a driving sense of melancholy in THE LAST UNICORN. Itâs beautiful, silly, and at times very bizarre, but overwhelmingly this animated adaptation of Peter S. Beagleâs 1968 novel (scripted by the author) is very sad. A unicorn (sweetly voiced by Mia Farrow) overhears from two hunters in the woods that sheâs likely the last of her kind, the rest having been driven into the sea by an evil fire beast, the Red Bull. On her quest to find out if she is in fact that only one left, the unicorn is joined by a fumbling magician, Schmendrick (Alan Alda), and a middle-aged woman, Molly Grue (Tammy Grimes). When they encounter the Red Bull, Schmendrick transforms the unicorn into a lovely woman, who takes the name Lady Amalthea. This savior moment isnât well received, as Molly points out that a unicorn trapped will go slowly insane, and Amalthea herself fears her human body even more than the Red Bull. The group finds their way to the seaside castle of King Haggard (Christopher Lee), who happens to house the Red Bull, and it's there that things become even thornier as Amalthea falls in love with the kingâs son, Prince LĂr (Jeff Bridges), and begins to forget her true self. With direct references to the famous Unicorn Tapestries of the late Medieval period, THE LAST UNICORNâs visuals have become iconic, with a soft palette of purples, pinks, and blues. Though a musical, written by Jimmy Webb and performed by the group America, the songs arenât particularly memorable, but they support the lamenting tone. What is most remarkable about the film, beyond its looks, is its approach to darker themes, especially related to the woman of the film. Loss of innocence and the grief that comes with aging are addressed in the unicornâs desolation at becoming a human woman, highlighting the devastation often felt with experiences of love and mortality. Exceptionally distressing is Mollyâs own dismay at meeting a unicorn late in life. Associated so strongly with maidens, the older Molly cries out, âWhere have you been? How dare you come to me now when I am this!â THE LAST UNICORN continues to resonate in its message that, while change is inevitable, itâs also an overwhelmingly sad process. Screening as part of the Charting Imaginary Worlds: Three Fantasy Films series. (1982, 93 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
Charles Burnett's KILLER OF SHEEP (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Saturday, 7pm
Critic J. Hoberman proposed two types of film debuts that can perhaps unfairly overshadow a directorâs entire career: First, debuts that are radically new and arrive seemingly fully-formedâthink CITIZEN KANE and BREATHLESSâand second, works that have an innocence and rawness born of circumstances that can never be replicated, for which he cites Satyajit Rayâs PATHER PANCHALI, Jack Smithâs FLAMING CREATURES, and Charles Burnettâs 1978 masterpiece KILLER OF SHEEP. In Burnettâs case those lightning-in-a-bottle circumstances involved a shoestring budget and weekend-only shooting with mostly non-professional actors over the course of several years beginning in 1972, all in service of what was to be the young directorâs MFA thesis at UCLA. Because Burnett initially had academic, not theatrical, aspirations for the work he never secured the rights to the 22 classic R&B, jazz, and soul songs on the soundtrack. For this reason, the film never saw a wide release until 2007. The film takes place in post-riot Watts, Los Angeles and involves the day-to-day lives of families in the neighborhood. The main protagonist is Stan, an amiable slaughterhouse worker who toils mightily to support his wife and two children while maintaining his integrity. The rhyming of Stanâs lot in lifeâa powerless man conveyed from scene to scene by an overwhelming sense of inevitabilityâwith his own methodical killing and processing at the slaughterhouse transcends the political. The depiction of black family life solely for the purposes of overt polemic is the type of clichĂ© Burnett fought throughout his career. Ultimately, the film is too warm to be scathing. Instead, much like Stan, KILLER OF SHEEP feels innocent and unassuming. Itâs a sincere statement by a young director that earns its comparisons to the classics of Italian neorealism. And like those classics, Burnettâs sense of realism is universal: The charactersâ victories and defeats are all smallâa stroke of the knee and a smirk, a flat tire, a scraped elbowâbut feel earth shattering in the moment. We sense out of narrative habit redemption is coming in the end, but when art imitates life and it doesnât, we accept it like fate. Dinah Washingtonâs âThe Bitter Earth,â which is played multiple times to increasingly devastating effect, perfectly encapsulates KILLER OF SHEEP. At once beautiful, fatalistic, despairing, in the end it leaves us only with hope: âIâm sure someone may answer my call, and this bitter earth may not be so bitter after all.â Screening as part of the New Releases and Restorations series. (1978, 81 min, DCP Digital) [James Stroble]
William Friedkinâs THE GUARDIAN (US)
Alamo Drafthouse â Tuesday, 9:30pm
A woman feeds four-week-old babies to a tree for eternal youth, while William Friedkin pulls off the impossible, creating a killer-tree movie rooted in realism. Instead of leaning into satire or paying homage to Roger Cormanâs creature features, he builds a world that feels disarmingly present. He takes the psycho-nanny setup, threads it with folk horror, and commits so fiercely to its internal logic that its paganism seeps into the ordinary. Friedkin was entering a decade of experiments and detours, and THE GUARDIAN sits strangely, almost perfectly, between RAMPAGE (1987) and BLUE CHIPS (1994). Each of these films was made with sincerity, and this one is no different. Dissatisfied with the hydraulic tree originally built for production, he ordered it remade from scratch. The story, loosely pulled from Dan Greenburgâs The Nanny, passed through Sam Raimi and Stephen Volk before Friedkin reshaped it into something that could plausibly exist within our reality. His familiar obsessionsâurban unease, uncanny domesticity, and horror sprouting from small human gesturesâall surface, along with editing rhythms reminiscent of SORCERER (1977). The film opens like a warped bedtime story: a boy reads a pop-up Hansel and Gretel to his baby sister while their parents pack for a trip and toss Stephen Kingâs IT into their suitcase. Then the witch-nanny steals the baby and hurries off into the woods, offering her to the trees. Three months later, Phil (Dwier Brown) and Kate (Carey Lowell) move from Chicago to Los Angeles, nest in their new home, paint trees on the nursery walls, and soon welcome their son. With Octoberâs baby arrives the need for help. Guardian Angel Nanny Services sends Camilla (Jenny Seagrove), who calmly mentions that after four weeks a childâs cells change and theyâre "no longer a baby." Itâs the kind of oddity a modern parent might dismiss as progressive jargon, but Friedkin films it with quiet menace. An earthquake motif trembles beneath Camillaâs polished surface as she seamlessly integrates into the household. She anticipates Baby Jakeâs needs, cooks, cleans, and radiates preternatural calm. In a moment of folk horror, Phil glimpses Camilla bathing the baby while nude, a scene that should feel innocuous, yet Friedkin lingers just long enough to brew Philâs attraction, fear, and bewilderment. An idyllic picnic in the park with the baby is disturbed by a trio of knife-wielding splatter-fodder. The woods will swallow predators who attempt to attack her. At the center, a great tree that dispenses grisly justice through impalement and decapitation. A sequence shot with the blunt force of late '80s/'early 90s practical gore, but tethered to the logic of a bedtime fable. Even the erotic dream sequences, where branches curl around bodies, carry an earnestness: Friedkin never winks. What anchors everything is how fiercely he protects the infantâs reality. The baby-exam scene is quietly terrifying because it feels so ordinary: gloved hands, worried parents, talk of formula, the gentle press of tiny fingers. This cocoon of normalcy makes each later threat quake with added suspense. When Camilla promises the child that it will have eternal life through her ("Isnât that beautiful?"), the horror lands because she speaks to the child with genuine tenderness. The climax, with howling coyotes, a Cujo standoff, and a jeep bouncing through extreme terrain erupts with operatic frenzy. A chainsaw duel with a tree instantly becomes less about the spectacle of the absurd and more about the preservation of a terrorized family. THE GUARDIAN, for all its wild mythology, thrives on that tension: the miraculous stitched into the mundane, the monstrous creeping through the domestic, and a filmmaker steady enough to convince us that even the most bizarre nightmare grows from the soil of everyday life. Screening as part of Terror Tuesdays. (1990, 92 min, 35mm) [Shaun Huhn]
Kelly Reichardtâs THE MASTERMIND (US)
The Davis Theater â See Venue website for showtimes
THE MASTERMIND begins, like so many Kelly Reichardt films, obliquely and suggestively. A man moseys through an art museum, his gaze oddly intense. In another room, a woman, turned away from the camera, ignores her chatty boy; both then ignore another, similar-looking boy who sits down beside the other, nose in a comic book. As a security guard naps in the background, the man nicks a small figurine from a glass case and slips it unnoticed into the womanâs bag before they and the kids leave together. In this quietly observant opening, Reichardt succinctly sets the stage for a film about compromised attention and useless hubris, and how a personâs myopic self-interest ultimately effects a self-defeating estrangement from the world. The ubiquitous Josh OâConnor is smartly cast as James, bringing a soft-spoken affability to a character who is profoundly selfish and dishonest. Living a comfy, conservative middle-class life with his wife (Alana Haim, sadly underused) and two kids in suburban Massachusetts circa 1970, he puts it all on the line by plotting the heist of four Arthur Dove paintings from the museum he was scouting in the opening scene. Only, the unduly confident James doesnât feel heâs risking anything at all, and after heâs able to successfully steal the paintings with his two accomplices, he thinks heâs in the clear. But things fall apart quickly, not with the frenzy of a traditional thriller but with the placid melancholy Reichardt has honed throughout a filmography populated with the most ordinary and hapless of outcasts and loners. James takes the inverse course to many of the filmmakerâs protagonists, starting from social privilege before becoming increasingly displaced and alienated. Surrounded by news broadcasts of the Vietnam War and the activism of protestors, he can do nothing but retreat ever-inward; his tragedy is not born from his criminal activity but his chronic failure to attend to the things that actually matter. Reichardtâs longtime DP Christopher Blauvelt shoots in glowing autumnal shades that gradually give way to the chilly light of late fall; Rob Mazurekâs lively jazz score is the only element not joining in the sense of regressive drift. By the deeply ironic denouement, thick with societal disillusionment, THE MASTERMIND has repeatedly and dolefully shown that its ostensible heroâperhaps America itselfâhas no clothes. (2025, 110 min, DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (West Germany)
Leather Archives & Museum (6418 N. Greenview Ave.) â Saturday, 7pm
Rainer Werner Fassbinder was not yet 28 when he released the film adaptation of THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT, yet he had already written and directed a dozen features. This set of factors helps explain why the movie feels at once youthful and mature. On the one hand, PETRA VON KANT (which Fassbinder originally staged as a play in 1971) exudes a brash defiance of conformism; itâs a profoundly angry work about how we internalize the oppressive order of capitalist society and replicate it in our personal affairs. On the other hand, the film reflects the confidence of a master artist: the eloquent camera movements, bold visual compositions, and astute manipulation of melodramatic conventions combine to make the cynical message feel like the stuff of earned wisdom. The action takes place exclusively in the apartment of the titular fashion designer (played by Margin Carstensen) and charts the rise and fall of her romance with a younger model, Karin (Fassbinderâs supreme muse Hanna Schygulla). The narcissistic Petra thinks sheâs flaunting convention with her lesbian affair, and in the tradition of classical tragedy, her pride signals a fallâblinded by her infatuation with the younger, flightier Karin, Petra fails to recognize that her beloved does not love her back. Fassbinder embraced melodrama, in part, because he saw in the highly theatrical form a means of critiquing the unnatural conventions of society at large, in this case competition, oneupmanship, and exploitation. (Fassbinder took flak for showing that these conventions could be replicated even in a historically marginalized community, yet in hindsight, this decision underscores the universality of his concerns.) Yet he also loved melodrama for its ability to stir viewersâ emotions, and indeed, PETRA VON KANT is a heartbreaking experience in spite of (or perhaps because of) its cynicism. The film may be as crammed with movie referencesâthe all-female cast recalls George Cukorâs THE WOMEN (1939), the central relationship recalls Joseph L. Mankiewiczâs ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), and the sinuous tracking shots and ostentatious mise-en-scĂšne evokes the work of Josef von Sternbergâbut the force of Fassbinderâs anger cuts through the distancing devices. Screening as part of the Fetish Film Forum. (1972, 124 min, Digital Projection) [Ben Sachs]
Neil Jordan's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Saturday, 9:30pm
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE was a staple for my best friend and me in high school, with its sexy vampires, extended plot that spans centuries, and overwrought performances. Itâs a film that delighted and intrigued us to no end; it inspired complicated inside jokes that I couldnât begin to explain to anyone else. I reached out to them while preparing to write this blurb, and we had an amazing conversation about how much the film meant to us, particularly in its impact as a queer film. Iâm not sure it was my gateway to vampire horror, but it was certainly part of establishing a lifetime love of the subgenre. Based on Anne Riceâs first novel, the film begins with a framing narrative about a reporter (Christian Slater) interviewing Louis (Brad Pitt), a man who claims to be a 200-year-old vampire. Louis relates his early life as a human, leading up to his encounter with the charming but cruel Lestat (Tom Cruise), who turns him into a vampire and makes him his protĂ©gĂ©. Itâs essentially an unrequited love story between the two: Louis struggles to commit to the violence necessary for a vampiric lifestyle, and Lestat constantly pressures him to stay. He does this primarily by turning a young girl into a vampire (Kirsten Dunst) and forcing Louis to stay on to protect the child. This subplot provides most sincere emotion and horror, due largely to Dunstâs excellent performance. But INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIREâs general self-seriousness is what makes it so enjoyable. It attempts to say something thoughtful about American history through Louisâ tale, but this is a story about glam vampires destructively making their way to the 20th century, and it works best when it leans into its gothic, melodramatic nature. Director Neil Jordan would go on to make another moody vampire film, BYZANTIUM (2012), which follows a mother-daughter vampire pair; itâs even darker and more compelling, demonstrating the continuing cultural obsession and evolution of the horror subgenre. Screening as part of the Ethical Vampire: The Moral Dilemma of Vampirism series. (1994, 123 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
Tomas Alfredson's LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Sweden)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Thursday, 7pm
Vampire mythology has a rich history thatâs been explored in a myriad of different fashions throughout film history. From horror to comedy and more, itâs a subject thatâs proved to be quite malleable in cinema. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is centered on a 12-year-old boy named Oskar whoâs constantly picked on by his classmates and who fantasizes about getting revenge on them. One day, some new neighbors move in next door to his apartment, including the seemingly 12-year-old girl Eli, who is actually a vampire. Set during the 1980s in a sleepy town in the suburbs of Stockholm, Oskar and Eli strike up an unlikely friendship that grows to be mutually beneficial to the two socially isolated preteens. Itâs a beautifully crafted film. The cinematography features large swathes of snowy white that becomes marred with crimson red when Eli has to feed. The sound design is relatively music-free outside of a few diegetic pieces and instead forces the viewer to focus on the visceral. Its dark tone harmonizes the awkwardness of not fitting in at school, dealing with single-parent households, and the permanent reality Eli faces of having to stay 12 for the rest of her life. The romance that blooms between Oskar and Eli is innocent, sweet, and endearing, as the two become one anotherâs protectors at various times. Hauntingly beautiful, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is one of the finest vampire films ever made, one that soars thanks to its leadsâ excellent performances, its striking imagery, and the poignant undertones. Screening as part of the Ethical Vampire: The Moral Dilemma of Vampirism series. (2008, 115 min, 35mm) [Kyle Cubr]
Edward Yang's YI YI (Taiwan)
Siskel Film Center â Wednesday and Thursday, 6pm
Edward Yangâs final filmâone of the indisputable masterpieces of the Taiwanese New Wave, if not the culminating achievement of the entire movementâcontains one of my favorite moments of any narrative film. It occurs during a business dinner between the filmâs hero, middle-aged businessman NJ (Nien-Jen Wu, a key figure of the New Wave who collaborated on numerous screenplays with Hou Hsiao-Hsien), and a Japanese entrepreneur named Mr. Ota (Issei Ogata). Prior to this scene, Yang had presented Mr. Ota as something of a caricature, a nerdy computer whiz with limited social skills. But as the character opens up to NJ about his personal philosophy, something extraordinary happens: Mr. Ota transforms before oneâs very eyes into a three-dimensional human being worthy of sympathy and respect. Itâs an exemplary use of the long-takeânot flashy, but wise, playing on duration to manipulate the audienceâs understanding of character and interpersonal relationships. It also represents in microcosm what Yang accomplished with his small, but extraordinary body of work, employing a rigorous sense of form to better understand people, the social structures they inhabit, and how they can transcend those structures through a shared sense of humanity. YI YI is full of humanist epiphanies akin to the one at the business dinner, whether Yang is following NJ, his wife, his teenage daughter, or young son. (Many have commented on how this last character, pointedly named Yang-Yang and whoâs interested in taking pictures, serves as an autobiographical stand-in for the director.) The accumulation of these assorted character portraits feels literary, as one comes to understand the familyâs problems both intimately and on a societal levelâtheir feelings of loneliness, disappointment, and aspiration speak to universal human experiences as well as the anxieties felt by many urbanites at the end of the 20th century. âAt first glance,â wrote Kent Jones for the Criterion Collection in 2011, âYI YI appears to be a serene and becalmed film, in pace and spirit, a movie made by a director who has shed his youthful anger and made peace with the assorted confusions of âlate capitalistâ Taiwanese life. On close scrutiny, it becomes something else again. Yang has set his city symphonies in a variety of emotional keysâthe doleful lament of TAIPEI STORY (1985), the grid-like coolness of THE TERRORIZER (1986), the comic hysteria of A CONFUCIAN CONFUSION (1994), the carefully modulated fury of MAHJONG. In YI YI, he brings all of these moods together, never allowing any one of them to take precedence over another. Which is to say that this is a grand choral work, with a panoptic majesty and an emotional amplitude worthy of George Eliot or late Beethoven, whose âSong of Joyâ is quoted with the greatest delicacy in Kaili Pengâs piano score.â (2000, 173 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Ben Sachs]
Kathleen Collins' LOSING GROUND (US)
Siskel Film Center â Tuesday, 6pm
"There's nothing wrong with telling stories." So says one artist when another expresses envy over his ability to work instinctively as opposed to narratively. Director Kathleen Collins' LOSING GROUND is composed of various such oppositions that manifest themselves through Victor (played by GANJA & HESS director Bill Gunn) and his wife, Sara (Seret Scott), a professor of philosophy. He's artistic; she's logical. This is the jumping off point from which other dichotomiesâmale versus female, creativity versus intellectualism, abstraction versus specificityâare explored. With regards to race, which is a de facto theme owing to its being one of the first fictional features to be directed by a black woman, the film shows rather than tells; many suspect that it was neglected upon its release because it portrays Black characters as well-to-do professionals instead of as victims or thugs. (In response to being asked if minority filmmakers have a duty to address their respective struggles, Collins said, "I think you have an even greater obligation to deal with your own obsessions.") Though LOSING GROUND isn't exactly autobiographical, Collins herself was a professor, and the name of the film comes from one of her own short story collections. Sara's almost obsessive study of aesthetic experience both parallels the aforementioned oppositions and prompts the changes that occur over the course of the narrative. "Essentially it's that change is a rather volatile process in the human psyche," Collins said in an interview with James Briggs Murray for Black Visions. "And, that real change usually requires some release of fantasy energy." This last part refers to the dance-centric film-within-a-film that Sara acts in at the behest of one of her students, which she does in an attempt to achieve the same creative ecstasy as her husband and actress mother. (The meta-film also mirrors the central drama of the narrative.) Overall, the film is an astute meditation on a great many things: the academic experience, the aesthetic experience, the Black experience, and Sara's experience as a woman. Collins was also a person of varied interests; in addition to teaching, writing, and making films, she was also a playwright and an activist. Collins once remarked, "I'm interested in solving certain questions, such as: How do you do an interesting narrative film?" LOSING GROUND is an exceptional solution to that dilemma. There's nothing wrong with telling stories, indeed. Screening as part of the Interiority on Screen lecture series at the Film Center. (1982, 86 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Michael Curtiz's FLAMINGO ROAD (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Monday, 7pm
In between numbers three (Max OphĂŒlsâ LOLA MONTĂS) and five (Pier Paolo Pasoliniâs SALĂ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM) on the top ten list of his favorite films that Rainer Werner Fassbinder compiled a year before he died is an underappreciated Michael Curtiz noir called FLAMINGO ROAD. Starring Joan Crawford and billed as a follow-up to the director-star duo's 1945 Warner Bros. classic MILDRED PIERCEâone poster exclaimed ââMildred Pierce' does it again⊠and everybody tells!ââit makes sense why the German provocateur admired this filmic underdog; FLAMINGO ROAD is a little scuzzier, a little more boorish, and altogether just littler, a seeming afterthought following its more exalted predecessor. Curtiz was previously eyeing different fare, an adaptation of James M. Cainâs Serenade, the rights to which heâd purchased and Jack Warner had committed to producing. Producer Jerry Wald, whoâd also had a finger in the MILDRED PIERCE pie, convinced Curtiz to make FLAMINGO ROAD instead, though the underestimated journeyman resented having to do so, to such an extent that his production company eventually released a statement saying the whole thing had been called off due to problems with the script. Still, heâand itâpersevered. Based on both the eponymous novel by Robert Wilder and a stage adaptation by Wilder and his wife, FLAMINGO ROAD is impressively economical in its plotting. Crawford stars as Lane Bellamy, a carnival dancer stranded in a small southern town (one critic likened this aspect of the film to the beginning of Fassbinderâs FOX AND HIS FRIENDSâI also get a sense of Bergman from this outrĂ© plot point). She soon meets Fielding Carlisle (Zachary Scott, Monte in MILDRED PIERCE), a deputy sheriff whoâs being groomed for a political career by his boss, Sheriff Titus Semple (noir heavyweight Sydney Greenstreet). Fielding falls hard for Lane, though Semple convinces him to marry a girl from the right side of the tracks (âFlamingo Roadâ) and forget his romance with the lowly dancer. But thatâs not enough for the sheriff. In an attempt to run her out of town, he has Lane fired and framed on a prostitution charge. She later finds a job in the local roadhouse where political bigwigs go to do their dealing and meets businessman Dan Reynolds (David Brian, whom Crawford convinced to start acting); the two fall in together and marry. When Semple abandons Fielding and sets his sights on the governorship, all hell breaks loose between the interconnected characters, and Lane goes to great lengths to defend her honor and her man. Itâs an interesting, if perfunctory, reflection on the perverse power of political influence, which can thwart even the purest intentions of those outside it. Greenstreetâs grotesque rendering of a small-town sheriff is deeply unsettlingâhis milk consumption is as ominous as that of Alex DeLarge in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, another character wholly disconnected from any real sense of law and order. Notice that Semple is almost always sitting, powerful even from below, a human Welles shot. Curtizâs angular visual style, present in even his most assembly line efforts, here punctuates the disquieting narrative, the filmâs brutal efficiency highlighting the political barbarity rather than shortchanging it. Consider the scene where Lane is arrested for solicitation; itâs wham, bam, youâre arrested, maâam, with little ideological discourse. Eerily relevant in todayâs society, the film briskly embraces the sense of futility that undergirds any good entry of its genre. Fassbinder called Curtiz âcruelly underratedâ and âthe anarchist of film noirâ; FLAMINGO ROAD corroborates both sentiments. Screening as part of the Joan Crawford: Actress as Auteur series. (1949, 94 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Lee Chang-dong's POETRY (South Korea)
FACETS â Sunday, 3pm
The evolution of Lee Chang-dong from storyteller to soothsayer has been one of the glories of contemporary movies. A former novelist (and high school teacher before that), Lee began his filmmaking career in the energetic, confrontational manner that's marked so much recent Korean cinema. His first films as director, GREEN FISH and PEPPERMINT CANDY, are cannily placed needles in the national nerve; but his third, OASIS, is a revelation, one of the watershed moments in South Korean cinema. A romance between disabled characters that's neither sentimental or schematic or flippantly unkind, it demonstrated how a curiosity about challenging social taboos (a near-constant in the Korean New Wave) could blossom into a study of humanity, period. It is one of the finest films ever made about the opposing forces of love and civic propriety. After a four-year stint as South Korea's Minister of Culture, Lee made SECRET SUNSHINE, a film about the inevitabilities of suffering and spiritual awakening that already seemed timeless shortly after its release. And then, POETRY. The main character, Mija (played by '60s Korean icon Yoon Jeong-hee, who came out of retirement for the role), is an elderly woman deprived, by circumstance, of companionship and anxious to rediscover life by learning to write poems. Like much of Lee's work, this sounds potentially maudlin, though the realization of the material is anything but. As in the case of Jeon Do-yeon's character in SECRET SUNSHINE, Lee reveals different facets of Mija's personality through impulsive, often furtive action without ever betraying an audience's initial impression of her. Combined with the narrative unpredictability that has defined the director's best work, the result is a multi-faceted film that is inseparableâformally as well as structurallyâfrom its central character. Screening as part of the 50th Anniversary series: 5 Films / 5 Decades / 5 Critics and followed by a discussion with Michael Phillips and Charles Coleman. (2010, 139 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky]
Jean-Jacques Beineix's DIVA (France)
FACETS â Thursday, 6:30pm
DIVA was the flagship film of what came to be known as the âcinĂ©ma du look,â a wave of French movies released in the '80s and '90s that celebrated style over substance. At least this is how many critics characterized the films when they first came out. Time has been rather generous to the work of LĂ©os Carax, who was initially grouped in with the movement as a result of his first two features, BOY MEETS GIRL (1984) and MAUVAIS SANG (1986), and Jean-Jacques Beineix, who made DIVA, displays an interest in narrative trickery as well as visual expressiveness. (The films of fellow âlookâ director Luc Besson, on the other hand, still seem pretty superficial.) DIVA abounds with double-crosses and unexpected twists, and these enliven an otherwise basic chase film. Jules is an opera-loving Parisian postal worker who secretly tapes the performance of a recording-averse American singer; gangsters mistake the tape for the recorded confession of a mob-connected police chief, and soon theyâre after Jules in pursuit of his bounty. The film contains a famous motorcycle chase that partly takes place in the Paris subway; one of the most celebrated sequences of its day, it generates tremendous suspense while showcasing Beineixâs filmmaking chops. The rest of the movie is visually striking as well, as the director employs lots of extended tracking shots and surprising editing choices to draw you into the tale. (1981, 117 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Ben Sachs]
Sally Potter's THE TANGO LESSON (UK)
FACETS â Friday, 9pm
In tango, as all too often is unfortunately the case in cinema, itâs traditionally the men who lead and the women who follow. But itâs a compelling dynamic precisely because of that tension, which British filmmaker Sally Potter explores in THE TANGO LESSON, an intimate consideration of the relationships between men and women and artists and their craft, and the shifting affinity among them as they struggle for control while also embracing various degrees of submission to the act of creation. Potter stars as Sally, a semi-autobiographical character given her name and profession; Sally is a filmmaker, working on a new project titled RAGE (Potter would release a film called RAGE in 2009, also about the fashion world but not the same one hinted at here), bits of which we see in brief color sequences. Sheâs frustrated, not just with the creative process but also with the fiscal one, investors ultimately seeking something more commercial. Perhaps itâs these setbacks that compel her, after seeing Pablo (played by real-life Argentinian tanguero Pablo Veron) dance on a night out at the theater in Paris, to solicit lessons from him. The film is then divided into these âlessons,â though they eventually evolve past being such in the more traditional sense. Sally begins to toy with the idea of making a film starring Pablo, and he eventually invites her to dance with him in a showcase. Neither their artistic nor their romantic relationship is without conflict, the issue fundamentally being one of control, both reluctant to relinquish it and thus inherently at odds as a result. Potter studied tango in real life, and Veron choreographed all the dancing in the film. Yet the film isnât so much about art, but rather a personification of the relationship between the two forms embraced therein that emphasizes the ecstasy and vexation of each. The dancing is sublime, though, as is the filmmaking. Some critics at the time considered Potterâs casting of herself as indulgent, especially as sheâs an older woman in a relationship with a younger man, lazy criticism at best and misogynistic at worst. About the popularity of the film among her admirers, Potter once said that, âAt the age of 46 I put myself in a movie, dancing the tango with the best tango dancer in the world⊠It was so terrifying, and so driven by passion at the same time, maybe thatâs partly what people respond to.â So yes, there is a sense of indulgence to it, one of zeal and vulnerability that makes it compelling. (1997, 100 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
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Preceded by a screening of Damien Chazelleâs 2009 film GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH (82 min, DCP Digital) at 7pm, followed by an exclusive pre-recorded interview with Chazelle conducted by programmer Lee Kepraios. Both screen as part of a Staff Picks series.
Andrei Tarkovsky's MIRROR (USSR)
Siskel Film Center â Monday, 6pm and 8:15pm
Long before the great TREE OF LIFE euphoria of 2011, another film (from another director's famously sparse oeuvre) went off uncharted into the space between memories past and present, mapping onto them a universal significance. Andrei Tarkovsky's THE MIRROR may lack dinosaurs and metaphorical doors in the desert, but it does set a mean precedent for everything a passion project can be when an auteur is working on such an intensely personal level. Long a dream project of Tarkovsky's, it was only in the wake of SOLARIS that he was able to secure funding, and armed with a meager allotment of film stock, he began production in late 1973. Given the non-linear, dreamlike progression of the film, such obstacles aren't hard to comprehend, and they perhaps explain why this is his most fleeting film outside his debut, IVAN'S CHILDHOOD. Drawn across the middle of the 20th century, THE MIRROR takes a stream of consciousness journey through familial memories, with actors in dual roles as father and son, as wife and mother. Woven in are poems penned by Tarkovsky's own father, assorted clips of wartime newsreel footage, and the quiet, ethereal imagery characteristic of all his films. It all makes for a hazy dream of cinema, one from which you tragically wake too early. But lest the length should fool you, this is not Tarkovsky for beginners. No surprise that at his most personal, he's also at his most esoteric, so an afternoon spent with one of his aforementioned films would be a good primer. As for those already in his thrall, this is imperative viewing. Screening as part of the Interiority on Screen lecture series. (1974, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Tristan Johnson]
Wong Kar-wai's IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Hong Kong)
Northbrook Public Library (1201 Cedar Ln., Northbrook) â Wednesday, 2pm and 7pm
Taking place in 1960s Hong Kong or in the memory of 1960s Hong Kongâthat city deemed too modern, many of the film's exteriors were shot in Bangkok, after allâWong Kar Wai's film is a beautiful rumination on its title. Much has been made of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE's restraint, and there is that: a couple, married to other people who are themselves having affairs, become intimate in every way but physicalâsave for slight, loaded gestures and tight spaces. The film is pregnant with the overwhelming feeling of infatuation, executed in a lusciousness that recalls something from a dream. But for every restraint there is a counterpoint in excess: Maggie Cheung's many gorgeous dresses are as flamboyant as they are confining; the musical score is both pitch-perfect and overwhelming, familiar and foreign; the cinematography is so rich and meticulous that its multitude of color is evocative of Douglas Sirk's melodramas. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE has hit upon such acclaim because of its local particularityâa commemoration of sorts for Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty that had not yet happenedâas well as its thematic universality as a transnational melodrama. As characters move through Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Cambodia, and the film shifts forward and backward in time, we are reminded of the fluidity of borders, time, and memory. (2000, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Brian Welesko]
Gints Zilbalodis' FLOW (Latvia/Animation)
The Davis Theater â Sunday, 12pm
As a film enthusiast fixated on the art of animation who also just so happens to be a cat owner, I was somewhat predisposed to have a visceral emotional response to Gints Zilbalodisâ FLOW, a dialogue-free animated adventure centered on a feline protagonist thrown into various episodes of peril. But my own personal biases aside, the joys of Zilbalodisâ feature become self-evident early on, the painterly images and gentle atmosphere immediately creating a world youâre thrilled to inhabit for its nimble less-than-ninety-minute runtime. Animated entirely on the open-source software Blender, Zilbalodis and his team have created something almost akin to an open world video game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with charmingly rendered creatures navigating treacherous environs with puzzle-like intuition of how to get from one destination to the next. The narrative details of the world are purposefully thin, with preference given to a show-donât-tell mode of storytelling that trusts the audience to imagine what may or may not have led to this world of abandoned homes and cityscapes surrounded by ever-growing greenery. Even within us filling in the world-building gaps, the ever-rising waters and lack of any human inhabitants can easily lead us down some climate-fueled apocalyptic rabbit holes. One can imagine the worse version of the film, the animal cast (here; a cat, a capybara, a secretarybird, a lemur, and several adorable dogs) given snark-fueled vocal performances from celebrity actors that completely burst the bubble of sincerity. Thankfully, what we have instead is a crew of creatures grunting and meowing and barking, nowhere near approaching anthropomorphism, but still granted enough distinct personality for us to become invested in their journey. Something almost spiritual starts to take over the film, the journey of our lead cat hero becoming less and less about reaching a set destination, and more so merely attempting to find some sense of peace and community with this new pack of disparate animal friends amidst a world falling apart in disarray. Above all else, FLOW succeeds in doing what animation does at its most holy: forgoing the rules and expectations of âreal worldâ cinema to create something singular and spectacular from whole cloth. Most thrillingly, itâs in service of a story about stopping in oneâs tracks to take in all that is bigger than ourselves and finding the beauty in knowing that none of us are alone in our journey. (2024, 85 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
John Hughes' PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (US)
The Davis Theater â Monday, 7pm
Even in John Hughesâ first directorial deviation from the world of teenage angst he had explored so effortlessly in works like SIXTEEN CANDLES (1984), THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985), and FERRIS BUELLERâS DAY OFF (1986), he still found himself rooted in worlds of childish chaos, albeit of the grown adult variety. Thereâs nothing too complex about the formula that keeps the wheels on PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES spinning throughout its hour-and-a-half runtime, but Hughesâ traditional penchant for balancing whip-sharp dialogue with meaningful emotional stakes pays off in dividends here, especially when combined with a contagious dose of Looney Tunes-inspired antics. The set-up is simple enough: itâs two days until Thanksgiving, and a combination of inclement weather, less-than-savory personalities, and good old dumb luck leaves tight-ass Neal Page (Steve Martin) and blabbermouth Del Griffith (John Candy) inextricably tied together as they try to head home to Chicago in time for the holiday. Pitting two forces of opposite yet undeniably panicked energy at each otherâMartinâs droll, angry straight man versus Candyâs chummy good-natured buffooneryâis comedic dynamite that never fails to deliver, as this devilish twosome barrel along across motel rooms, diners, train cars, and cold highways, their fading sense of sanity ever loosening with their grasp. Each set piece tops the last, building up to a delirious climax with Del driving a rental car towards impending death where, ever so briefly, he literally becomes the Devil in the eyes of his beleaguered travel companion. Though the canon of Thanksgiving Cinema isnât nearly as heralded as those found within the Halloween and Christmas seasons, Hughes' tale of opposite personalities learning to find kinship with each other holds a deserved spot in any comedy loverâs November watch list. (1987, 93 mins, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
Clint Bentleyâs TRAIN DREAMS (US)
Music Box Theatre â See Venue website for showtimes
Adapting Denis Johnsonâs brief yet towering novella into a film is a formidable challenge, requiring a balance of the epic and intimate as well as the sacred and the decaying. Will Pattonâs voice introduces Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) against the majesty of Redwood trees, immediately establishing a tone of cosmic smallness. Director Clint Bentley and co-writer Greg Kwedar craft a story driven by atmosphere rather than events, following a man whose life embodies the loneliness of American progress. The film traverses Grainierâs decades with the rhythm of memory, glimpsing his youth as a logger and the quiet grace of his frontier life with Gladys Oakley (Felicity Jones). Moments of pastoral beautyâlike the couple lying by a riverâare starkly juxtaposed with brutality, such as Robert's witness to the expulsion of Chinese laborers. This moral failure through inaction becomes the film's hinge, quietly acknowledging that modernityâs advances are built on systemic violence and omission. To mirror Johnsonâs fragmentary poetics, Bentley employs a non-linear structure that collapses time. Parker Laramieâs editing fuses years into single breaths, while Pattonâs narration preserves Johnsonâs matter-of-fact mysticism. What the novella internalized, the film externalizes through potent imagery: the hand over a dying tree, the blank stare into wildfire, and the faint, vanishing flicker of a soot-covered girl. Cinematographer Adolpho Veloso renders the Pacific Northwest as both an Eden and a graveyard. Utilizing natural light or candles to match their era, Velosoâs framesâin which humanity is dwarfed by trees or locomotives slice through fogâevoke natureâs indifference and human awe. Bryce Dessnerâs score, enriched by Nick Caveâs collaboration, murmurs as it blends the sounds of trains, animal cries, and ghostly whispers until progress itself seems to mourn. The film pointedly asks what civilization costs its builders. Grainierâs hands laid the rails connecting the nation, yet his own life remains isolated. As machines replace men and the forest yields to fire, silence gives way to the roar of modernity. William H. Macy, as explosives expert Arn Peeples, issues an early, prophetic warning: felling a five-hundred-year-old tree âdoes something to a manâs soul.â Bentleyâs direction finds grandeur in the mundane, his camera observing with reverence, neither romanticizing nor condemning. TRAIN DREAMS fuses memory and melancholy but remains rooted in the working-class experience. Ultimately, Bentley transforms Johnsonâs spiritual isolation into a lament for the laborers who built modernity. Grainierâs obscurity, through Bentleyâs vision becomes luminous. Robert Grainierâs small life echoes beyond the screen as an elegy for the builders and the world they lost. A life carried on the wind through the pines and the fading whistle of a train. (2025, 102 min, 35mm) [Shaun Huhn]
Yorgos Lanthimosâ BUGONIA (US)
Music Box Theatre and various other Venues â See Venue websites for showtimes
Within the dense pages of the Byzantine Geoponicaâthe sole surviving record of Constantinopleâs agricultural methodsâlies mention of the Bugonia ritual: a belief that bees were born from the carcass of a cow. Life springing from death. A spontaneous empire of bees birthed from decay. Yorgos Lanthimosâ BUGONIA opens with a similar conception. Teddy (Jessie Plemons), a beekeeper of sorts, narrates, âIt all starts with something magnificent,â describing the kingdom of bees and their devotion to the queen. But his question lingers: what happens when the worker bees revolt? From the start, Lanthimos aligns this mythic order with political unrest. Teddy and his cousin Donnie (Aidan Delbis) are disillusioned Americans, suffocating under capitalismâs weight. Teddy, in particular, channels his resentment into a feverish anti-corporate crusade that gradually unravels into delusion. His manifestoâpart political revolt, part alien conspiracyâculminates in a conviction that the planet is under threat from the Andromedans, a race of extraterrestrials poised to attack during an impending lunar eclipse. Donnie becomes the third point in this ideological triangle between Teddy and pharmaceutical CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), whom the cousins kidnap to expose her supposed alien identity. Delbis gives Donnie an aching sincerity; his loyalty to Teddy feels both familial and tragic. âWe are not steering the ship, Don,â Teddy warns, as if resigned to cosmic manipulation. Lanthimos juxtaposes the cousinsâ rustic world with Michelleâs sterile minimalismâTeddy and Donnie framed in asymmetrical, natural compositions, while Michelle exists in crisp lines and geometric order. Rituals including yoga, running, and kickboxing mirror the discipline of hive behavior, showing the similarities as well as the disparity between the cousins and Michelle. These visual and thematic contrasts build toward confinement: a CEO bound and drugged in a basement, where philosophical arguments mutate into psychological warfare. The scenario echoes a cinematic tradition of class revenge fantasiesâSWIMMING WITH SHARKS (1994), THE REF (1994), even NATIONAL LAMPOONâS CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989)âwhere taking the powerful hostage serves as comic wish fulfillment. But Lanthimos transforms that fantasy into dread. As Teddy demands that Michelle contact the aliens to negotiate humanityâs survival, she retaliates with manipulations of her own. Teddyâs paranoia tries to outpace her corporate cunning. Despite its grim setup, BUGONIA thrives on absurd humor. âDonât call it a dialogue; this isnât Death of a Salesman,â Teddy quips, moments before using a homemade electroshock device to the tune of Green Dayâs âBasket Case.â His awkward apology, âI didnât realize you were a Queen; I thought you were just admin,â lands with the strange charm of Lanthimosâ earlier comedies. While less overtly Buñuelian than his previous work, Lanthimos maintains his surrealist flourishes. Flashbacks to Teddyâs dying mother (Alicia Silverstone), suspended by a string he holds like a balloon, reveal trauma fueling his delusions. His crusade against corporate aliens becomes an exorcism of grief and rage toward a pharmaceutical system that poisoned her. Adapted from Jang Joon-hwanâs SAVE THE GREEN PLANET! (2003), BUGONIA reimagines its source within the American landscape of YouTube manifestos, startup jargon, and class inequity. The bees pollinate while a Marlene Dietrich cover of Pete Seegerâs âWhere Have All The Flowers Gone?â plays. This seems the most apt visual metaphor. If Teddyâs theories prove correct, like rabbit-hole conspiracies that embolden and foster violent rhetoric, would that mean we are supposed to believe angry young white men who develop clickbait conspiracy? Or are they themselves the front line of our own extinction? CEOs like Michelle Fuller, who present a workplace of false diversity and âself-managedâ work hours, are part of the billionaire classâa concept very alien to most of usâwho get away with pushing untested drugs and trampling anyone in their way, are equally (if not more) dangerous. The more we hear from Teddy and Michelle, the more we realize that there could be hope in the Bugonia ritual. Maybe one day, from our rotten carcasses a better species will emerge. (2025, 117 min, DCP Digital) [Shaun Huhn]
đœïž ALSO SCREENING
â« Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
Robert Downey Sr.âs 1969 film PUTNEY SWOPE (84 min, 35mm) screens Friday at 7pm. Cartoonist Nathan Gelgud (Reel Politik) will appear in person for a discussion and audience Q&A. More info here.
â« Chicago Cultural Center (Claudia Cassidy Theater)
Gus Van Santâs 1989 film DRUGSTORE COWBOY (100 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 7pm, as part of the Siskel & Ebert at 50 series. Selected by FACETS programming director Charles Coleman, who will be in attendance for post-screening discussion. More info here.
â« Chicago Filmmakers
Employees Only Cine Club presents the aemi touring program The Said and the Unsaid on Sunday, 6pm, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Frank Sweeney and aemi co-founder Daniel Fitzpatrick. More info here.
â« Cinema/Chicago
Pierre Saint Martinâs 2024 film WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED (100 min, Digital Projection) screens Sunday, 2pm, as part of the National Museum of Mexican Art (1852 W. 19th St.). Free admission. More info here.
â« Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Rita Azevedo Gomesâ 1990 film THE SOUND OF THE SHAKING EARTH (93 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday, 4pm, as part of the Sounds of Shaking Earth: Landscapes of Portuguese Cinema series.
Manuela Serraâs 1985 film O MOVIMENTO DAS COISAS (90 min, DCP Digital) screens Wednesday, 7pm, also as part of the Sounds of Shaking Earth: Landscapes of Portuguese Cinema series. More info on all screenings here.
â« FACETS
Benny Safdieâs 2025 film THE SMASHING MACHINE (123 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday at 3pm, 5:30pm, and 8pm.
Chad Hartiganâs 2025 film THE THREESOME (112 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday at 12:30pm and 6:45pm.
Sweet Void Cinema presents a screenwriting workshop in the FACETS Studio on Wednesday at 6pm.
FACETS Film Trivia takes place Thursday at 7pm followed by a showcase of the films and shows featured on Means.TV at 9pm. More info on all screenings here.
â« Film Studies Center (at the University of Chicago)
The Exploding Digital Inevitable, a live essay from filmmaker, archivist, and essayist Ross Lipman, takes place Friday, 7pm, in joint presentation with Bruce Connerâs 1976 short film CROSSROADS (36 min, DCP Digital). More info here.
â« Music Box Theatre
Joachim Trierâs 2025 film SENTIMENTAL VALUE (133 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.
Todd Rohalâs 2025 film F*** MY SON! (94 min, 35mm) screens Friday and Saturday at 11:30pm.
t.o.L.âs 2002 film TAMALA 2010: A PUNK CAT IN SPACE (92 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday and Saturday, midnight, as part of the Animation Adventures series.
Joseph Kuoâs 1979 film THE MYSTERY OF CHESS BOXING (90 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday and Sunday at 11:30am as part of the Merciless Mayhem: Martial Arts Midnights & Matinees series.
Claudia Lonowâs 2025 film D(E)AD (82 min, DCP Digital) screens Tuesday at 7pm.
Found Footage Fest: Porcelain VHS Treasures screens Wednesday at 7pm.
Lana and Lilly Wachowskiâs 1999 film THE MATRIX (136 min, 35mm) screens Thursday, 9:45pm, presented by Rated Q and Ramona Slick! - A Celebration of Queer, Camp, & Cult Cinema with preshow drinks and DJ in Music Box Lounge at 9pm and a dragshow performance in the Main Theater at 9:45pm, with the screening to follow.More info on all screenings here.
â« VDB TV (Virtual)
oliverio rodriguez and Victoria Stob's 2018 short film LYNDALE (24 min) and Sandi DuBowski's 1993 short film TOMBOYCHIK (15 min) stream for free on VDB-TV. Programmed by Cine-File contributor Elise Schierbeek. More info here.
CINE-LIST: November 14 - November 20, 2025
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Kyle Cubr, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Shaun Huhn, Tristan Johnson, Ben Kaye, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Michael Glover Smith, James Stroble, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Brian Welesko, David Whitehouse