Global Lens:
New Cinema from the Developing World
From November 5 through December 1, in cooperation with the Global Film Initiative, a non-profit foundation with the mission to promote cross-cultural understanding through cinema, the Gene Siskel Film Center presents the series Global Lens, encompassing ten recent narrative features and one short from eight nations ranging from Algeria to Uruguay. Most of these films have premiered internationally to rave press at some of the world’s most respected festivals including Cannes, Rotterdam, and Toronto.
The down-and-dirty satire FUSE from Bosnia-Herzegovina and the droll comedy WHISKY from Uruguay play for extended runs within the series. Films including DAUGHTER OF KELTOUM, HOLLOW CITY, and UNIFORM, have been selected for special educational screenings to high school groups. See the shaded box on this page for details.
Global Lens demonstrates just how ingeniously filmmakers around the world routinely overcome slight means and limited technology to produce films steeped in the flavor of their cultures. The mention of developing nations may conjure up stereotypes of dreariness and poverty, but these films convey the power of the storytelling impulse through tales of fantasy, ambition, love, intrigue, and resistance to oppression.
--Barbara Scharres
The Gene Siskel Film Center invites inquiries from educators at the high school level to learn about opportunities for free daytime screenings of DAUGHTER OF KELTOUM, HOLLOW CITY, and UNIFORM for school groups. Call 312-846-2600 for information. These screenings are especially appropriate for students in a curriculum with an international or multi-cultural focus. Comprehensive study guides are available to teachers and may be downloaded at www.globalfilm.org/education.htm
film descriptions
BUFFALO BOY
(MUA LEN TRAU)
2004, Minh Nguyen-vo, France/Belgium/Vietnam, 103 min.
With Le The Lu, Nguyen Thi Kieu Trinh
“BUFFALO BOY has the elemental appeal of a wonderfully woven tale of life and survival.”--Giovanna Fulvi, Toronto Film Festival program
Set in coastal southern Vietnam in the 1940s, BUFFALO BOY takes on a timely resonance through its depiction of a world inundated by floodwater from horizon to horizon. Young Kim faces the first test of manhood when charged to herd his family’s only assets, two buffalo, through the watery waste to faraway pasture ground. Months become years as Kim enters the violent culture of the herders and becomes a kingpin, with belated second thoughts for the parents left behind. In Vietnamese with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Friday, November 25, 5:00 pm;
Monday, November 28, 8:00 pm
DAUGHTER OF KELTOUM
(BENT KELTOUM)
2001, Medhi Charef, France/Belgium/Tunisia, 106 min.
With Cylia Malki, Baya Bellal
The shimmering beauty of the Maghreb desert colors a story shaped by unbending tradition in this new feature by renowned North African novelist/filmmaker Medhi Charef (TEA IN THE HAREM). A risky search for roots brings Rallia, a woman raised in Europe by adoptive parents, to an Algerian mountain hamlet in search of her birth mother. Evolving into a road movie, DAUGHTER OF KELTOUM follows willful, westernized Rallia, newly united with her mother’s half-crazy sister, on a journey that ends with shocking revelations. In French and Arabic with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Note: High school students will be admitted free of charge upon presentation of a valid school ID at the box office.
Sunday, November 6, 3:00 pm;
Wednesday, November 9, 8:15 pm
HOLLOW CITY
(NA CIDADE VAZIA)
2004, Maria Jo�o Ganga, Angola, 88 min.
With Roldan Pinto Joao, Domingos Fernandes
“Making her feature debut with the clear-eyed, powerful HOLLOW CITY, Maria Jo�o Ganga establishes herself as a talent to be watched.”--Jay Weissberg, Variety
An orphan who witnessed the slaughter of his family in the Angolan revolution, 11-year-old N’dala escapes the care of well-meaning rescue workers to strike out on his own in the city of Luanda. Wary, but driven by innocent curiosity and a strong survival instinct, he finds new friends, but in dangerous places. Hyper-real yet eerily infused with a sense of wonder, HOLLOW CITY dangles a world of promise before the sensitive boy, even as the specter of tragedy bears down on him. In Portuguese with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Note: High school students will be admitted free of charge upon presentation of a valid school ID at the box office.
Friday, November 18, 6:00 pm;
Sunday, November 20, 3:00 pm
KABALA
2002, Assane Kouyat�, Mali/France, 107 min.
With Dj�n�ba Kon�, Modibo Traor�
Young warrior Hamalla is disgraced and expelled from his village after a tribal ritual reveals his illegitimacy and sets off persecution of the elderly “witch” discovered to be his real mother. When the outcast returns four years later, bearing the technology that could end the cholera caused by tainted water drawn from the sacred well, he meets the challenges posed by deadly spells, brotherly deception, and the consequences of forbidden love. In French, Mandingo, and Bambara with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, November 26, 8:00 pm;
Wednesday, November 30, 8:00 pm
LILI’S APRON
(EL DELANTAL DE LILI)
2004, Mariano Galperin, Argentina, 90 min.
With Luis Zembrowski, Paula Ituriza
This wacky satire on love’s triumph in a time of economic crisis has morose restaurant chef Ram�n endure “for better or for worse” to the limit for his ditzy, emotionally unbalanced wife Lili. Out of work, with mortgage foreclosure looming, Ram�n scores a job in the manner of Mrs. Doubtfire, as the live-in maid to an American businessman and his pampered Buenos Aires mistress. One hell of a cook, but one lumbering lady in a dowdy wig, the masquerading “Lili” gets by until sex-starved wife Lili makes jealousy the guiding force in her chaotic plan to spring Ram�n from his servitude. In Spanish with English subtitles. 35mm.
The program open with the short AS FOLLOWS (BREGMAN, AL SIGUIENTE) by Federico Veiroj (2004, Uruguay, 13 min.). Shy teen Rafael earnestly prepares for his Bar Mitzvah, unaware of the surprise his dad has in store. In Spanish with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, November 5, 7:45 pm;
Monday, November 7, 6:00 pm
TODAY AND TOMORROW
(HOY Y MA�ANA)
2003, Alejandro Chomski, Argentina, 87 min.
With Antonella Costa, Manuel Navarro
The seamier side of Buenos Aires by night plays a major role in TODAY AND TOMORROW once fledgling actress Paula (Costa) realizes that turning tricks is her only way to make the rent in 24 hours. Fired from her waitress gig for tardiness and too proud to bend to her wealthy father’s will, she looks up a childhood friend, now a hooker. The doors to the school of hard knocks are flung open to the vulnerable apprentice, who realizes too late in the game for regrets that prostitution is a service industry. In Spanish with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Sunday, November 13, 3:15 pm;
Wednesday, November 16, 8:30 pm
UNIFORM
(ZHIFU)
2003, Diao Yinan, Hong Kong/China, 92 min.
With Liang Hong-li, Zeng Shuo-qiong
“One of the best movies to emerge from China’s burgeoning video underground, it’s a potent allegory of a spiritually uprooted generation’s identity quest.”--Dennis Lim, Variety
Note: High school students will be admitted free of charge upon presentation of a valid school ID at the box office.
Saturday, November 12, 7:30 pm;
Monday, November 14, 8:00 pm
WHAT’S A HUMAN ANYWAY?
(INSAN NEDIR KI?)
2004, Reha Erdem, Turkey, 128 min.
With Ali D�senkalkar, K�ksal Eng�r
A cast of loony characters gravitates to pudgy cabdriver Ali, who appears to have amnesia, and who may or may not have been the getaway driver in a jewelry store robbery. Ali has his own reasons for subterfuge, but his neighbors are equally artful dodgers, evading marriage, the draft, and, in the case of a frantic 6-year-old, circumcision. A resourceful dog gets ditched in a courtship ploy, a ruby ring is passed from hand to hand, and Ali regains his memory not a moment too soon as this mini-portrait of contemporary Istanbul skips blithely to the finish line. In Turkish with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
