School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Undergraduate and Graduate
Film, Video, and Audio Presentations
Join us for two days of presentations by graduating BFA and MFA students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, highlighting the best and brightest emerging talents working in film, video, and audio. Productions in hand-drawn computer animation, 16mm film, and digital video plus a range of genres provide an exciting and provocative look into the hearts and minds of this year’s graduates. Program details and full schedule will be available at the box office.
Admission is free. Tickets may only be obtained through the box office during regular box office hours.
Monday, May 4, 4:30-10:30
Tuesday, May 5, 4:30-10:30
Friday, May 8, 4:30-10:30
Chicago premiere!
A ROAD TO MECCA: THE JOURNEY OF MUHAMMAD ASAD
(DER WEG NACH MECCA--DIE REISE DES MUHAMMAD ASAD
2009, Georg Misch, Austria, 92 min.
“Much more than a biography…a life that seems like a fictionalized T.E. Lawrence crossed with Zelig.”--Nora Lee Mandel, Film-Forward.com
In the early 1920s, Leopold Weiss, an Austrian Jew, studies the Koran in the course of his travels to Jerusalem, Jordan, and Syria, and converts to Islam with the new name of Muhammad Asad. This transformation is only the beginning of Asad’s incredible saga as philosopher, religious thinker, and humanitarian, as traced by director Misch over eight decades. The film captures Asad in all his complexity, underlining his unshakeable belief in universal brotherhood while carving out a career of astounding range, advising Middle Eastern leaders, translating the Koran into English, and co-founding Pakistan and serving as its UN ambassador. In English, German, Urdu, Ukrainian, and Arabic with English subtitles. DigiBeta video. (BS)
Sunday, May 10, 5:00 pm
Monday, May 11, 8:00 pm
Tuesday, May 12, 8:15 pm
New 35mm prints!
THE HUMAN CONDITION
1959-61, Masaki Kobayashi, Japan, 587 min.
With Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama
“A great work of art...Amazingly powerful in its emotional sweep and the depth of its historical insight.”--Anthony Lane, The New York Times
“Unequivocally the greatest film ever made...nine-and-a-half hours during which I have been awed, thrilled, harried and harrowed for every second.”--David Shipman, The Story of Cinema.
“Epically epic, a Tolstoyian, Dreiserian broad-sweep narrative...Kobayashi is light years beyond Kurosawa and almost any other contemporaneous director in his depiction of women. They live as complex inner and outer lives as the men.”--David N. Meyer, The Brooklyn Rail
Now available in newly struck prints for the first time in 20 years, Masaki Kobayashi’s ten-hour, three-part epic is--like Visconti’s THE LEOPARD, Rivette’s OUT ONE, Bertolucci’s 1900, and Bondarchuk’s WAR AND PEACE (returning to the Film Center this fall)--one of the cinema’s great immersive experiences.
Set before, during, and after World War II, the trilogy centers on Kaji (brilliantly portrayed by Tatsuya Nakadai of KAGEMUSHA and RAN), an everyman who struggles to maintain his ideals, resist oppression, and, finally, simply to survive in the face of injustice, militarism, and tyranny. In the first part, he is a labor manager fighting to improve brutal working conditions at an iron mine in occupied Manchuria. In the second part, he is conscripted into the infantry (as was director Kobayashi, who served six years as a private, refusing promotion in protest), where he finds the army’s rigid hierarchy and “Death Before Surrender” ethic as deadly as the Soviet tanks that bear down on the defeated troops. In the third part, generally considered by critics to be the strongest, he is brought to the brink of madness as a prisoner in a Siberian labor camp.
The widescreen black-and-white cinematography makes breathtaking use of clouds and horizons. The newly translated subtitles are gracefully idiomatic. The film’s Dickensian canvas of vivid recurring characters features several of Japan’s greatest actors, including Hideko Takamine (WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS), Chishu Ryu (TOKYO STORY), So Yamamura (SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN), and Minoru Chiaki (SEVEN SAMURAI).
Each of the three parts can stand on its own, but we urge you to take advantage of this rare opportunity to see the trilogy (long out of print in VHS and DVD) in its entirety. It may be viewed over three consecutive Thursdays (May 14, 21, 28), over three consecutive days on Memorial Day weekend, as a single-day marathon on May 24, or in any mix-and-match combination of the above. In Japanese with English subtitles. Newly struck 35mm widescreen prints. (MR)
Note: There will be a 10-minute intermission in each part.
Reduced admission for all three parts (must be purchased by May 13): $23 General Admission; $17 Students; $12 Members. Tickets purchased after May 13 available at our regular prices.
PART I: NO GREATER LOVE (1959, 208 min.)
Thursday, May 14, 6:30 pm;
Saturday, May 23, 3:00 pm;
Sunday, May 24, 12:00 pm
PART II: ROAD TO ETERNITY (1959, 183 min.)
Thursday, May 21, 6:30 pm;
Sunday, May 24, 4:00 pm
Wednesday, May 27, 7:45 pm
PART III: A SOLDIER’S PRAYER (1961, 196 min.)
Sunday, May 24, 8:30 pm;
Monday, May 25, 3:00 pm;
Thursday, May 28, 6:30 pm
Chicago premiere!
WIENER TAKES ALL: A DOGUMENTARY
2007, Shane MacDougall, Canada, 79 min.
The little-known world of wiener-dog racing is investigated with humor and charm in a film that appears to have (ahem) legs, based on the ecstatic audience response generated by its numerous festival screenings around the U.S. Reservations by animal rights activists can’t dim the enthusiasm of trophy-minded humans for racing their impossibly cute (and unbelievably fast!) tubular canines. Director and former standup comic McDougall catches it all: the legendary rivalry between Noodles and Pretzel, the personalities, the politics, the butt-sniffing camaraderie, and even the allegations of rigging, for one doggone good time. DigiBeta video. (BS)
Friday, May 15, 6:15 pm
Saturday, May 16, 5:45 pm
Monday, May 18, 8:15 pm
Chicago premiere!
LOST IN THE FOG
2008, John Corey, USA, 81 min.
“Too far out if it weren’t all true...high drama in this one-of-a-kind horse story about a one-of-a-kind horse.”--Michael Janusonis, The Providence Journal
This documentary set in the world of professional horseracing has all the elements of Hollywood fiction, but its story of the champion horse with the big heart and the unlikely name of Lost in the Fog is the real deal. In 2005, Harry Aleo, a crusty 88-year-old horse-owner with a so-so record of wins, risks it all buying a pricey colt. Against all odds, his wildest dreams come true, and this unknown quantity of a horse becomes the hottest thing since Seabiscuit, winning race after race at Aqueduct, Belmont, Churchill Downs, and more. Aleo and trainer Greg Gilchrist are overcome with joy at the triumphs of their undefeated champion, but fate has a wicked twist in store. HD-CAM video. (BS)
Sunday, May 17, 3:00 pm
Tuesday, May 19, 8:00 pm
New prints!
Don Klugman in person!
Three by Don Klugman
1964-9, Don Klugman, USA, 48 min.
The Chicago Film Archives presents new 16mm preservation prints (funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation) of three films by the unique Chicago-based filmmaker Don Klugman. NIGHTSONG (1964, 23 min.) is a portrait of the Chicago Near-North nightlife scene in the mid-1960s, centering around the struggles and romantic desires of an African American singer played by long-forgotten folk sensation Willie Wright. I’VE GOT THIS PROBLEM (1966, 8 min.) traces the romantic relationship between a young man and woman (played by Klugman and Judy Harris) who meet in a downtown coffee shop; their nonstop dialogue fluctuates between playful psycho-babble and sincere attempts to relay their innermost feelings. YOU’RE PUTTING ME ON (1969, 17 min.) seems to pick up the same couple (again played by Klugman and Harris) a few years later, as they attend a swinging bohemian party where they pilfer personal objects from the unsuspecting guests. (Michelle Puetz)
Don Klugman will be present for audience discussion.