Stranger than Fiction
January is the Gene Siskel Film Center’s month to celebrate the art of the documentary in a special way, above and beyond the very visible presence of documentaries in our programming year ‘round. A few of the international sneak previews and premieres screening throughout the month, including AMERICAN FUGITIVE, MY LIFE AS A TERRORIST, and BULLSHIT, tackle subjects and issues with heightened contemporary relevance. Others like Lynne Sachs’s STATES OF UNBELONGING (director in person on January 21), and Lesley Ann Patten’s WORDS OF MY PERFECT TEACHER, take a first-person approach to documentary form.
The series opens with UNAUTHORIZED AND PROUD OF IT: TODD LOREN’S ROCK ‘N’ ROLL COMICS by Chicago-based filmmaker Ilko Davidov. Pop culture and corporate interests collide in this gripping chronicle that is part murder mystery, part David vs. Goliath battle over First Amendment issues.
Playwright Tony Kushner is essentially the star of his own show in Oscar-winning Frieda Lee Mock’s intimate portrait WRESTLING WITH ANGELS, exploring the creative, political, and personal aspects of the affable writer/activist’s life. The travails and triumphs behind the creation of two recent stunners on the architectural scene, Santiago Calatrava’s “Turning Torso” in Malmö, and Norman Foster’s “Gherkin” in London, are detailed entertainingly in THE SOCIALIST, THE ARCHITECT, AND THE TWISTED TOWER and BUILDING THE GHERKIN, playing as a combo.
Also this month, we premiere ABDUCTION: THE MEGUMI YOKOTA STORY in a run the week of January 26 - February 1 (see p. ? for details). Currently short-listed for an Oscar nomination, JONESTOWN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PEOPLES TEMPLE, returns January 19 - 25 (nominations announced January 23). Ever-popular ANTONIO GAUDÍ returns for two screenings in the context of our Hiroshi Teshigahara retrospective.
- Barbara Scharres
feature films
AMERICAN FUGITIVE: THE TRUTH ABOUT HASSAN
2006, Jean-Daniel Lafond, Canada, 70 min.
In 2001 Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s KANDAHAR became a surprise international success. Even more surprising was the revelation that the film’s leading man, billed as Hassan Tantai, was actually David Belfield, an expatriate African American on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for the 1980 assassination of an associate of the Shah of Iran in Washington, D.C. Centering on candid interviews with Belfield/Hassan, AMERICAN FUGITIVE builds a complex, tragic portrait of a man whose multiple identities include Black Power idealist, Islamic revolutionary, terrorist, CIA pawn, and, presently, an exile without a country or a future. Beta SP video. (MR)
Friday, January 26, 6:00 pm
Monday, January 29, 8:00 pm
Architecture with a Twist
THE SOCIALIST, THE ARCHITECT, AND THE TWISTED TOWER
(SOSSEN, ARKITEKTEN OCH DET SKRUVARDE HUSET)
2005, Fredrik Gertten, Sweden, 59 min.
BUILDING THE GHERKIN
2005, Mirjam von Arx, Netherlands, 52 min.
In THE SOCIALIST, THE ARCHITECT, AND THE TWISTED TOWER, a saga that spirals to the edge of disaster, the head of a Swedish housing cooperative attempts to bestow a monumental sculpture on his not entirely eager members by hiring acclaimed Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to construct the unique “Turning Torso” as a residential high-rise. In Swedish and English with English subtitles.
In BUILDING THE GHERKIN, the tense race to complete London’s controversial Norman Foster-designed office tower on the site of an IRA bombing runs parallel to public debate over whether the building is a visionary addition to the skyline or whether the city has gotten itself into a pickle. Both in Beta SP video. (BS)
Saturday, January 20, 5:30 pm
Tuesday, January 23, 8:00 pm
BULLSHIT
2005, Peå Holmquist and Suzanne Khardalian, Sweden, 73 min.
Honored in 2002 as one of Time magazine’s “Heroes for the Green Century,” environmental activist Vandana Shiva has also been called “the green killer” by her corporate opponents, and presented with a “bullshit award” by a lobbyist. For two energetic years, the filmmakers follow the engaging sari-clad firebrand in her global campaign against genetically engineered crops, and in confrontations with entities including the WTO, Monsanto, and Coca Cola. Beta SP video. (BS)
Saturday, January 6, 5:15 pm
Tuesday, January 9, 8:15 pm
MY LIFE AS A TERRORIST:
THE STORY OF HANS-JOACHIM KLEIN
(DE TERRORIST HANS-JOACHIM KLEIN)
2005, Alexander Oey, Netherlands, 70 min.
With offhand calm, convicted German terrorist-turned-farmer Hans-Joachim Klein narrates shocking archival footage of the 1975 attack on OPEC headquarters in Vienna that resulted in the kidnapping of 70 officials, the murder of three, his own near-fatal wounding, and a flight to Algeria with hostages. Discovering later that his radical cell was actually the pawn of feuding Middle Eastern oil interests, Klein hid for more than twenty years before exposing his former cohorts in a high-profile 1998 trial. MY LIFE AS A TERRORIST is an insider’s story of one man’s journey through terrorist ideology with a startling resonance in today’s political climate. In German with English subtitles. DV-CAM video. (BS)
Saturday, January 13, 5:45 pm
Wednesday, January 17, 6:00 pm
Lynne Sachs in person!
STATES OF UNBELONGING
2005, Lynne Sachs, USA, 63 min.
THE SMALL ONES
2006, Lynne Sachs, USA, 3 min.
“Sachs has created a challenging, invigorating film-essay that could rank with the multi-layered ruminations of Chris Marker.”-Fernando F. Croce, Cinequest Film Festival
Haunted by a news item on the death of a woman like herself, a young mother of two and a filmmaker, as the result of a terrorist attack on an Israeli kibbutz, Lynne Sachs embarks on a profoundly meditative journey to the emotional core of the Israel/Palestine conflict. A moving, diary-like work, STATES OF UNBELONGING stands apart from the political in its focus on the past and present as a human continuum in a tragically disputed land.
Preceded by THE SMALL ONES, an abstracted portrait of a WWII doctor assigned to reconstruct the bodies of American soldiers from bone fragments. Both in Beta SP video. (BS)
Filmmaker Lynne Sachs will be present for audience discussion on Sunday.
Sunday, January 21, 3:00 pm
Monday, January 22, 7:30 pm
UNAUTHORIZED AND PROUD OF IT:
TODD LOREN’S ROCK ‘N’ ROLL COMICS
2006, Ilko Davidov, USA, 76 min.
“What could be more rock ‘n’ roll than comic books?”-Alice Cooper
This exuberant documentary, produced by Chicago’s BulletProof Film, charts the short, controversial life of Todd Loren, who produced a series of scandalous comic-book bios of rock stars. Starting with Guns N’ Roses and continuing through Kiss, Dead Kennedys, New Kids on the Block, and many more, Loren’s fast-and-loose factualizations enraged (and occasionally charmed) their subjects, provoked numerous law suits, and led to a landmark First Amendment case, before he was brutally murdered in 1992. Interviewees include Alice Cooper, Mojo Nixon, Cynthia Plastercaster, and many of the artists and writers who were inspired and exploited in Loren’s employ. Beta SP video. (MR)
Friday, January 5, 8:15 pm
Monday, January 8, 6:00 pm
WORDS OF MY PERFECT TEACHER
2003, Lesley Ann Patten, Canada, 103 min.
“Lively and funny. You have to love a filmmaker who gets Bernardo Bertolucci and Steven Seagal in the same movie.”-Vancouver Sun
The stereotypes of the Buddhist master as formidable authority figure and the disciple as humble supplicant are overturned in this rollicking adventure in enlightenment-seeking. Soccer-loving film director Dzongsar Khyentse Norbu Rinpoche (THE CUP, TRAVELLERS & MAGICIANS) is also one of the world’s most revered Buddhist teachers, third in line to the Dalai Lama. When his student Patten decides to make a very personal documentary about him, she doesn’t anticipate that the process will become less a pilgrimage than a wild goose chase after a humorous, charismatic trickster, with an earnestly puzzled clutch of devotees bringing up the rear. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, January 27, 4:45 pm
Wednesday, January 31, 8:15 pm
WRESTLING WITH ANGELS
2006, Frieda Lee Mock, USA, 98 min.
A must-see for anyone with an interest in Tony Kushner (Angels in America), WRESTLING WITH ANGELS is also a revealing introduction for the viewer who has yet to discover the passionate, funny, and socially engaged playwright’s work. Oscar-winning Frieda Lee Mock (MAYA LIN: A STRONG CLEAR VISION) delineates Kushner’s life and times in three acts exploring his work as a political activist, his involvement in the gay rights movement, and his Jewish heritage. Included are substantial behind-the-scenes peeks at productions including Caroline or Change, Homebody/Kabul, and Munich, and the film ANGELS IN AMERICA. 35mm. (BS)
