Special Events
Chicago premiere!
OVER THE GW
2007, Nick Gaglia, USA, 75 min.
With George Gallagher, Kether Donohue
“Emotionally potent.”--Joe Leydon, Variety
A resourceful drama based on director Gaglia’s own experiences in a cult-like rehab clinic, OVER THE GW takes a surreal plunge into the world of brainwashing druggies for profit. Well-meaning Bronx parents stage an intervention to commit a resisting Tony (Gallagher) and his younger sister Sofia (Donohue) to what is alleged to be a tough 30-day rehab program. Instead, the siblings are in effect held hostage for more than two years of sadistic reprogramming. Sofia escapes but Tony faces a more tenuous journey to health and freedom. Strong, realistic characterizations by a young cast are complemented by Nicholas Serra’s moving performance as the dad who belatedly discovers the truth. Beta SP video. (BS)
Friday, September 7, 8:00 pm
Saturday, September 8, 8:15 pm
World premiere!
Peter Berggren, Christian Lindberg, and Charles Vernon in person!
CHICK ‘A’ BONE CHECKOUT:
ACROSS THE POND AND BEYOND--A CONCERTO IS BORN
2007, Peter Berggren, USA, 57 min.
In 2005, Swedish composer and trombonist Christian Lindberg was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to compose a concerto for that normally neglected instrument, the bass trombone, tailored to the extraordinary talents of the CSO’s trombone virtuoso Charles Vernon. Inspired by Carl Sandburg poems, the piece was designed to capture the vital spirit of the city of Chicago. Peter Berggren’s energetic documentary follows the course of this remarkable collaboration from conception to triumphant premiere, centering on the chemistry between the go-go-go globe-trotting composer and the drawling, charismatic soloist. DigiBeta video. (MR)
Director Peter Berggren, composer Christian Lindberg, and trombonist Charles Vernon are expected to be present for audience discussion.
Saturday, September 8, 3:00 pm
Chicago premiere!
Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon in person!
CUT
2007, Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, USA, 70 min.
CUT looks at the present-day controversy surrounding infant male circumcision in a personal exploration that draws experts with a passion both for and against the practice into soul-searching debate. Revered by Jews as a sacred symbol of their covenant with God, promoted by some medical authorities as a health benefit, and even embraced in past eras as a supposed deterrent to masturbation, circumcision has increasingly come under attack as genital mutilation and an irreparable violation of a child’s human rights. From the viewpoint of a man struggling with his Jewish identity, director Ungar-Sargon engages Jews and non-Jews alike in a spirited consideration of colliding theories and traditions. Mini-DV video. (BS)
Director Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, will be present for audience discussion.
Sunday, September 9, 5:00 pm
Chicago premiere!
Pere Portabella and Jonathan Rosenbaum in person!
THE SILENCE BEFORE BACH
(DIE STILLE VOR BACH)
(aka EL SILENCIO ANTES DE BACH)
2007, Pere Portabella, Spain, 102 min.
With Àlex Brendemühl, Feodor Atkine, Christian Brembeck
In a radical new work, assuredly not a biopic, avant-garde Spanish director Pere Portabella takes a non-linear approach to the life and career of Johann Sebastian Bach. An understanding of Bach as an inexhaustible worker more than an inspired genius is central to the film’s evocation of the meaning of his music as it resonates through the centuries to the present. Bach is in the center of Portabella’s larger canvas, which is all of Europe, with (in the director’s words) “a tense, conflictive, dramatic history.” The film’s stunning soundtrack features Bach’s compositions in addition to two sonatas by Mendelssohn and a Ligeti etude. In Spanish, Italian, and German with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Director Pere Portabella will be present for audience discussion in a program moderated by Chicago Reader film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum. Presented in cooperation with the Instituto Cervantes, Chicago.
Saturday, September 29, 8:00 pm
Pere Portabella in person!
NOCTURNO 29
1968, Pere Portabella, Spain, 83 min.
With Lucia Bosé, Mario Cabré
EL SOPRAR
1974, Pere Portabella, Spain, 35 min.
Two early works by Pere Portabella are presented in cooperation with the Instituto Cervantes, Chicago. NOCTURNO 29, co-scripted by poet Joan Brossa, became one of the most influential works of the Barcelona avant-garde, although like all Portabella’s early films, it circulated only in an underground fashion. Eschewing dialogue, the director constructs a non-narrative story in fragments that reveal the daily live of an adulterous couple interspersed with a cryptic stream of unrelated imagery. The title of this homage to directors including Eisenstein, Antonioni, Bergman, and Buñuel refers to the 29 “black years” of the Franco dictatorship. 35mm.
Preceded by EL SOPRAR, an unorthodox documentary revolving around the execution of Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich for his resistance to the Franco regime. Note: no film print of EL SOPRAR survives; we screen it in a Beta SP preservation copy. Both in Spanish with English subtitles. (BS)
Director Pere Portabella will be present for audience discussion.