|
Arakimentari
Saturday, Feb. 26 10:30pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Much of famed Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki's work walks a fine line between art and exploitation. Yet his female subjects love him as do celebrity fans like Bjork and Takeshi Kitano. With an original score by DJ Krush. In person: producer Jason Fried. |
|
BattleGround: 21 Days on Empire's Edge
Friday, Feb. 25 5:30pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Guerrilla News Network honcho Stephen Marshall has made countless short videos from hot spots around the world, not to mention music videos for Eminem, but this feature-length look at the war in Iraq is arguably his best work yet. |
|
Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt
Saturday, Feb. 26 3pm Blue Note | Midwest premiere. The poignant profile of the troubled and brilliant singer-songwriter. In person: director Margaret Brown and cinematographer Lee Daniel. |
|
The Beauty Academy of Kabul
Saturday, Feb. 26 6:30pm Missouri Theatre | In 2003, six idealistic hair stylists descend on Afghanistan. In person: director Liz Mermin. |
|
Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story
Friday, Feb. 25 10pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Bobby Dukes rose to fame on the paintball circuit, only to commit the ultimate sin — "wiping," deliberately removing a paint spot before the referee can verify the hit. Banned from the sport for 10 years, Bobby reappears, intent on reclaiming his title. |
|
Chain
Saturday, Feb. 26 11:30am Ragtag Cinemacafé | Jem Cohen (Instrument, Benjamin Smoke) offers this doc/fiction hybrid set in big box stores around the world. In person: producer Guy Picciotto. |
|
Czech Dream
Saturday, Feb. 26 4:00pm Missouri Theatre | Midwest premiere. A provocative and hilarious look at a large-scale consumer hoax involving the opening of a fictitious supermarket. In person: co-director Filip Remunda. |
|
The Education of Shelby Knox
Sunday, Feb. 27 11am Blue Note | Midwest premiere. The political transformation of Shelby Knox, a 15-year-old high school sophomore and conservative Southern Baptist in Lubbock, Texas, who ends up campaigning for sex education in schools. In person: star Shelby Knox. |
|
Secret Screening
Saturday, Feb. 26 9:30pm Blue Note | A sneak preview of a brand new music doc that will receive its official world premiere at another, much larger, festival. In person: the director. |
|
God Sleeps in Rwanda
Sunday, Feb. 27 5pm Missouri Theatre | In the aftermath of genocide, women have been entering the power vacuum to rebuild Rwanda. Plays with Waiting for Adnan and Little Peace of Mine. In person: director Kimberlee Acquaro and Rwandan survivor Norah Bagarinkah. |
|
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
Sunday, Feb. 27 10am Missouri Theatre | The fantastic true tale of heiress Patty Hearst's abduction and alleged induction into the Symbionese Liberation Army. In person: director Robert Stone. |
|
House of the Tiger King
Saturday, Feb. 26 8pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Midwest premiere. Fitzcarraldo meets Indiana Jones — an eccentric British adventurer searches the jungles of Peru for a lost city of gold. In person: director David Flamholc. |
|
I Like Killing Flies
Saturday, Feb. 26 8:30pm Missouri Theatre | Midwest premiere. Mad-genius chef dishes up exotic pancakes with a dash of philosophy. In person: director Matt Mahurin. |
|
Lend Us Your Ears: Best of the Third Coast International Audio Festival
Saturday, Feb. 26 10am Ragtag Cinemacafé | A "screening" without images — audio documentaries from this standout Chicago-based radio festival. In person: festival directors Johanna Zorn and Julie Shapiro. |
|
The Liberace of Baghdad
Sunday, Feb. 27 2:30pm Blue Note | Midwest premiere. Samir, once Iraq's most famous pianist, now performs in a half-empty and heavily fortified hotel bar. Bullets fly and ballads flow as filmmaker and subject attempt to navigate the nuances of the new Iraq. In person: director Sean McAllister and star Samir Peter. |
|
Lipstick & Dynamite: Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling
Saturday, Feb. 26 10:30pm Missouri Theatre | A crowd-pleaser about the brash and lovable pioneers of professional women's wrestling. |
|
Little Peace of Mine
Sunday, Feb. 27 5pm Missouri Theatre | Sneak preview. An Israeli boy, frustrated by grown-ups' failures to bring a peace, forms a coalition with like-minded Palestinian youth. In person: director Eyal Avneri. |
|
Mardi Gras: Made in China
Saturday, Feb. 26 6pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Midwest premiere. Tracing the Mardi Gras bead trail from festival-goers in New Orleans back to Chinese factories. In person: director David Redmon. |
|
Murderball
Friday, Feb. 25 7:30pm Missouri Theatre | Midwest premiere. Wheelchair athletes overcome unimaginable obstacles to master a sport that combines the finesse of soccer with the bone-jarring collisions of a demolition derby. In person: co-director and co-producer Dana Adam Shapiro; producer Jeff Mandel; co-director Henry Alex Rubin. |
|
Oscar-nominated shorts I
Thursday, Feb. 24 6pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Autism is a World (40 min.) — An inside look at autism through the eyes of 26-year-old Sue Rubin. |
|
Oscar-nominated shorts II
Thursday, Feb. 24 7pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Hardwood (29 min.) — A personal journey by director Hubert Davis, the son of former Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis, who explores how his father's decisions affected his life. Mighty Times: The Children's March (40 min.) tells the story of the courageous children of Birmingham, Alabama, who in 1963 challenged segregation in their city despite police dogs, fire hoses, and threats of arrest. |
|
Oscar-nominated shorts III
Thursday, Feb. 24 8:30pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Sister Rose's Passion (39 min.) — A Catholic sister's determination to fight anti-Semitism leads her to denounce Church doctrine blaming the Jews for Jesus's death. The Children of Leningradsky (35 mins.) — An intimate look at some of the 30,000 children who live in the streets, underground tunnels, stairways, and garbage containers of Moscow. |
|
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
Sunday, Feb. 27 10am Ragtag Cinemacafé | The places, people and peculiarities of life by California's largest lake. With a nautical-themed breakfast (10-10:20am), courtesy of Maude Vintage. In person: co-director Chris Metzler. |
|
Popaganda: The Art & Crimes of Ron English
Friday, Feb. 25 8pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Midwest premiere. Exploration of "subvertising" and the billboard-liberation antics of artist Ron English, in which an outdoor ad is altered to critique the original company or product. In person: director Pedro Carvajal and star Ron English. |
|
The Power of Nightmares
Saturday, Feb. 26 11am Blue Note | Midwest premiere. This controversial BBC production traces the parallel rise of neo-conservatives and radical Islamists, and argues that Al Qaeda is an overrated threat that military and intelligence agencies inflate because of their interest in maintaining the facade of an overwhelmingly dangerous and centralized enemy. In person: director Adam Curtis. |
|
Reel Paradise
Saturday, Feb. 26 4pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Midwest premiere. Steve James (Hoop Dreams) trails independent film guru John Pierson as he brings his family to run a remote cinema in Fiji. In person: stars John and Janet Pierson. |
|
Rhythm Is It!
Sunday, Feb. 27 12pm Missouri Theatre | A dance company made up of 250 no-experience, at-risk youths set out to perform Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring with the Berlin Philharmonic in just six short weeks. In person: co-director Enrique Sanchez Lansch. |
|
Rock School
Sunday, Feb. 27 7:30pm Missouri Theatre | Midwest premiere. Follows a group of Philadelphia kids learning to become rock stars from a failed performer (Paul Green) with a tough-love teaching style. In person: director Don Argott and producer Sheena Joyce. |
|
Shakespeare Behind Bars
Saturday, Feb. 26 5:30pm Blue Note | Midwest premiere. A group of Kentucky felons explore the nature of redemption during an jailhouse staging of Shakepeare's The Tempest. In person: star Curt Tofteland. |
|
Strange Flights shorts program
Saturday, Feb. 26 2pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Spotters (8 min.); LSD A Go Go (10 min.); Devil's Teeth (10 min.); The Brokaw Hoax (10 min.); The Mythologist (27 min.); Devil's Mask (5 min.). In person: director John Lundberg, producer Scott Calonico, director Rory O'Connor. |
|
The Take
Sunday, Feb. 27 12pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | Argentinian workers repossess closed factories, turning them into sustainable businesses. But will the bosses settle for this? Produced and directed by Canadian power pundit couple Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis. |
|
Three of Hearts: a Postmodern Family
Saturday, Feb. 26 1:30pm Missouri Theatre | Midwest premiere. The ups and downs of an unconventional marriage between two men and one woman. Plays with Small Town Secrets (8 min.). In person: stars Sam Cagnina and Samantha Singh Cagnina. |
|
This Revolution
Sunday, Feb. 27 5pm Blue Note | Midwest premiere. At the Republican National Convention a cameraman working for a corporate TV station falls in with a group of Black Bloc anarchists. Shows with controversial Eminem video White America (4 min.) and the presentation of the 2005 True Vision Award. In person: director Stephen Marshall. |
|
Up for Grabs
Sunday, Feb. 27 2pm Ragtag Cinemacafé | The bleakly comic skirmish between two fans: Alex Popov, who caught the ball, and Patrick Hayashi, who struggled for legal control of Barry Bonds' record-setting 73rd home run ball. In person: director Mike Wranovics. |
|
Waiting for Adnan
Sunday, Feb. 27 5pm Missouri Theatre | Locally-produced love story between a Bosnian refugee and the man she left behind. Plays with Little Peace of Mine (56 min.) and God Sleeps in Rwanda (27 min.). In person: director Kerri Yost. |
|
What's Up, Docs?
Sunday, Feb. 27 1pm Blue Note |
Innovative mixtures between documentary and animation. Featured are 15 animated documentaries produced in Columbia at a fall workshop with some of the best new works from around the world including the Oscar-nominated Ryan, the story of an acclaimed artist who now panhandles in Montreal. International: Obsessively Compulsive (6 min.); Backseat Bingo (5 min.); Ryan (14 min.); Birdlings Two (6 min.); Leona Alone (3 min.). Local: Hablas Espanglish? (Sarah Paulsen); What We Have is a Failure to Communicate (Alex Yalen); God and Country (Mike Marcum); Play (Isaac Sleadd); Pilot (Danielle Eldred); Lawn Warriors (Kim Sherman); In and Out (Giavanna Accurso); Misery (Michael Sleadd); No Child Left Behind (Xi Cheng & Stephanie Toliver); Exclusion (Cody Finley & Danny Giles); Bicycle Diaries (Simone Hughley); The Sidewalk & the Street (Zola Sturtz); Old People are a Menace (Paige Hinshaw & Erin Kullman); Who Should Be President (Javier Kelty & Grant Portel). In person: 20 local directors. |
|
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
Saturday, Feb. 26 11am Missouri Theatre | A modern-day story about a "Bohemian St. Francis" and his flock of avian friends. With Stealing Altitude (10 min.). In person: star Mark Bittner. |
| Installations (all weekend long) | |
|
Seadrift, Texas
Missouri Theatre mezzanine
| A video/living room installation about a fishing town's clash with a plastics plant. (Bill Daniel) |
|
The Yodeling Lesson
Blue Note mezzanine
| Bike-powered movie (Vanessa Renwick) at the Blue Note mezzanine. In The Yodeling Lesson, a zine publisher bombs the hills no-handed in this essay on gravity, commitment and freedom. |
|
Panorama Ephemera
Missouri Theatre lobby
| A collage of sequences drawn from a wide variety of ephemeral (industrial, advertising, educational and amateur) films in the Rick Prelinger Archives, touring the conflicted landscapes of twentieth-century America. The films' often-skewed visions construct an American history filled with horror and hope, unreeling in familiar and unexpected ways. |