Weeklong Runs
Chicago premiere!
AZUR & ASMAR
2006, Michel Ocelot, Spain/Italy/Belgium/France, 99 min.
“Impossibly gorgeous…The year’s most beautiful animated film.”--Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com
“Magnificent, entrancing…so gloriously bright, audiences with sensitive eyes may need shades.”--Leslie Felperin, Variety
“Sheer dazzlement…Cinema whose every frame could be hung on an art gallery wall…think of illuminated manuscripts, Quattrocento art, Douanier Rousseau or Carl Fabergé--or if possible, all at once.”--Nigel Andrews, Financial Times
This new film from the director/animator of the celebrated KIRIKOU AND THE SORCERESS spins a fantastic tale of Medieval adventure for all ages in the sumptuous realm of Middle Eastern mythology. Raised as brothers, blue-eyed white-skinned Azur, son of a rich man, and brown-eyed brown-skinned Asmar, son of a maid, become cruelly separated until Azur, now grown, makes an arduous and punishing journey to the exotic land of his once-brother and his surrogate mother. Azur, now ragged and blind, and princely Asmar are destined to meet again, this time as rivals in love for the hand of the Fairy of the Djinns. In English. 35mm. (BS)
January 2--8
Fri., Mon.-Thu. at 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm, 5:15 pm, and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm and 5:15 pm
Chicago premiere!
HOUSE OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES
(DAS HAUS DER SCHLAFENDEN SCHÖNEN)
2006, Vadim Glowna, Germany, 99 min.
With Vadim Glowna, Angela Winkler, Maximilian Schell
“Seductively filmed…mesmerizing…Sex, death, and the endless fascination of unclothed innocence.”--Jeanette Catsoulis, The New York Times
“Glowna’s alternately lyrical and disturbing adult fairy tale has mood to spare.”--New York Magazine
Edmond (Glowna), a lonely man grieving for long-ago family deaths, becomes a patron of a secret and highly unusual Berlin brothel through a discreet tip from his best friend (Schell). A prim, steely madam (Winkler of THE TIN DRUM and THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM) oversees the specialty of the house: the company of a sleeping (willingly drugged) virgin for nights of passive caresses. Based on Yasunari Kawabata’s acclaimed novella, this study in mysterious contrasts takes an even darker turn when intimations of murder in the opulent mansion bring new vigilance to Edmond’s carnal reveries. In German with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
January 9--15
Fri., Mon.-Thu. at 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm, 5:15 pm, and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm and 5:15 pm
Chicago premiere!
PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL
2008, Abigail Disney and Gini Reticker, USA, 72 min.
“The story of how an entire country went from madness to sanity, prodded by women who would not be denied.”--Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
“Tells a story that would be nearly impossible to believe were it not true…powerful enough to make even the most cynical believe in the ability of ordinary people to induce political change.”--Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
Currently short-listed for an Oscar nomination, this compelling and admirably low-key documentary details how in 2003, Liberia’s wives and mothers joined forces to end the horrendous conflict raging between the nation’s corrupt president Charles Taylor, notorious for his child armies, and the greedy, brutal warlords who aspired to supplant him. Sick literally to death of rampant rape, mutilation, and slaughter, women of all ages, both Christian and Muslim, set aside their differences to rise up daringly and dangerously in non-violent revolution and succeed in bringing the murderous chaos skidding to a stop. 35mm. (BS)
January 16--22
Fri., Mon.-Thu. at 6:15 pm and 7:45 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm, 4:45 pm, 6:15 pm, and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm and 4:45 pm
STRANDED:
I’VE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED IN THE MOUNTAINS
2008, Gonzalo Arijón, France, 126 min.
“Intimate, terrifying and positively riveting.”--Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com
“An exceptional film, at once disturbing and elevating, deliberate yet powerful.”--Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
“Packs a knock-out punch.”--John Anderson, Variety
The facts made it the biggest news story of its day: a fatal 1972 plane crash in the snow-covered Andes, the near-miraculous emergence of 16 young rugby players weeks after hope had been abandoned, and finally, the startling revelation that the living had survived on the bodies of the dead. The personal story of the survivors in their own words and in face-to-face interviews has never been told, despite the book Alive! and a subsequent Hollywood movie. From their perspective, director Arijón, a childhood friend of the victims, movingly recounts with sensitivity and unprecedented detail, the crash, 72 days of perilous survival, and 35 years living with the aftermath. In Spanish with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
January 23--29
Fri., Mon.-Thu. at 6:00 pm and 8:30 pm
Sat. at 3:00 pm, 5:30 pm, and 8:00 pm
Sun. at 3:00 pm and 5:30 pm
Back by popular demand!
DEAR ZACHARY:
A LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER
2008, Kurt Kuenne, USA, 95 min.
“We really, really want you to go see it. We want to tell you how powerful and moving it is...Just take our advice and bring tissues. You’re going to need them.”--Hank Sartin, Time Out Chicago
“A gut-wrenching true-crime story...a virtuoso feat.”--Peter Debruge, Variety
“One of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen...unfolds like a masterful thriller.”--Erik Childress, eFilmCritic.com
A tale of madness, murder, revenge, and thwarted justice plays out in escalating increments of horror in a documentary begun as the filmmaker’s tribute to a friend. The 2001 murder of personable 28-year-old Dr. Andrew Bagby by a 40-year-old former girlfriend prompted filmmaker Kuenne, his best friend since earliest childhood, to begin a documentary in the form of a letter to the dead man’s infant son. Fast-breaking events involving the ex-lover/accused murderer, the child, Bagby’s parents, and the law, take the film in an unanticipated new direction with Kuenne scrambling to keep pace with the unfolding of an emotionally powerful real-life drama of Shakespearean dimensions. Beta SP video. (BS)