European Union Film Festival

If you've got some free time, you should definitely check out the upcoming European Union Film Festival. The festival, which will take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center at the Art Institute of Chicago, will run from March 6 to April 2. According to their website, all 27 nations of the EU are represented, there will be a total of 59 films, and all of them are Chicago premieres. 

Apparently, tradition has it that the film festival is opened by a film from the country which currently holds the presidency of the EU. This year, that happens to be the Czech Republic. The film, entitled I'm All Good, will be screened Friday, and will be presented by the Czech Consul General. The director will also be there for an audience discussion. There will also be an exhibit of Czech film posters from the 1960s-1970s on display in the Siskel Film Center's gallery/cafe throughout the festival. 

Countries that overlap with our region and the EU which will also have films in the festival include Greece, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland and Lithuania, as well as a few others.  For the full schedule, including what other movies, visit the Siskel Center website and click on "European Union Film Festival." 

Polish Film Festival

More films from the CEERES region in Chicago!

The Polish Film Festival is taking place here in Chicago until November 23. Since it started the 8th, you've missed a few films, but there are still plenty to catch this weekend, including one on Saturday and Sunday which will feature the director in attendance. The festival not only includes Polish films, but films from other places as well, including Hungary and Russia.

(An article on the Festival from the Chicago Sun Times can be found here.)

44th Chicago International Film Festival

It's that time of year again, time for the International Film Festival! This year there are some great films from the CEERES region that we'd like you to be aware of.

Like last year, we've put together a list (for the full schedule visit chicagofilmfestival.org):

ABSURDISTAN (France/Azerbaijan)

Veit Helmer

It's 1968, and flower children Catherine, Yves, and Herve are dreaming of a world free from factories, the draft, and the bitter May revolts. Desperately in love and painfully idealistic, they convince several of their friends to join them in starting a commune in the countryside. Twenty years later, with communism collapsing and AIDS exploding, Catherine and Yves' children must deal with the fallout from the free love generation. WORlD CINEMA 88 min Russian with English subtitles

10/23/08 06:15:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

10/25/08 06:45:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

FOUR NIGHTS WITH ANNA / CZTERY NOCE Z ANNA (Poland)

Jerzy Skolimowski

Internationally acclaimed director Jerzy Skolimowski's (Moonlighting) first film in 17 years is an alternately zany and pitch-black portrait of Leon's madcap courtship of his neighbor, Anna. Leon's oddball behavior—like crushing sleeping pills into Anna's sugar so he can snoop through her apartment smelling things—is somehow endearing until we learn the dark secret behind his attraction. 87 Min. Polish with English subtitles.

10/26/08 07:30:00 PM AMC River East 21

10/27/08 08:00:00 PM AMC River East 21

THE HOMECOMING / I EPISTROFI (Greece)

Vassilis Douvlis

Ilias and his wife Eleni have returned to Greece after many years in Germany. Ilias feels like a foreigner in his home village, and life in the country is killing Eleni's spirit. The arrival of Albanian migrant Petros is the first in a chain of events that will change their lives. With an engrossing love triangle as his foundation, Douvlis touches on the perils of identity and the shifting definition of home experienced by immigrants around the world. 98 min. Greek with English subtitles.

10/24/08 04:00:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan
10/26/08 03:30:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

10/27/08 05:50:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

KATYN (Poland)

Andrzej Wajda

In 1939, more than 12,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia were executed by the Soviet army. Once the mass graves were discovered by the Nazis in 1943, the Soviets began an extensive campaign to cover up their involvement in the massacre. Katyn´ is a courageous film that tells the story of both the victims and those left behind: the survivors who became complicit in the cover-up, and those who refused to deny the truth. 118 min.

Polish, Russian, German with English subtitles.

10/19/08 12:45:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

10/25/08 01:15:00 PM AMC River East 21

THE MERMAID / RUSALKA (Russia)

Anna Melikyan

An Amélie-like fairy tale rich in a mesmerizing magic (literally) all its own, The Mermaid's heart is Alisa, a lonely little girl from a seaside town who takes a rebellious vow of silence at the age of five. Approaching her 18th birthday, Alisa is forced to relocate to Moscow, where a chance encounter with a free-spirited salesman of lunar real estate inspires her to speak again—and compete for his affection. 114 min. Russian with English subtitles.

10/22/08 08:20:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

10/28/08 08:15:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

NATIVE DANCER / BAKSY (Russia/Kazakhstan/France/Germany)

Gulshat Omarova

The award-winning director of Schizo returns with the absorbing story of a Kazakh baksy (shaman), Aidai, who has the power to heal people. She derives her power from the land she lives on, owned by wealthy businessman Batyr. But when the mafia and local authorities force Aidai from her home and build a motel on Batyr's land, a surprising chain of events springs from the powerful and mysterious woman. 87 min. Russian, Kazakh with English subtitles.

10/18/08 02:15:00 PM AMC River East 21

10/21/08 08:40:00 PM AMC River East 21

OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN / O RODICíCH A DETECH (Czech Republic)

Vladimír Michálek

Based on the award-winning novel by Emil Hakl, this candid and revealing relationship study unfolds during an often bittersweet and untamed conversation between a seventysomething father and his middle-aged son. The two men—who love, respect, and hate one another all at once—take to the streets of Prague for their monthly visit, moving with a gentle sweep through their humorous collective memories and careening toward newfound revelations. 112 min. Czech with English subtitles.

10/25/08 12:30:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

10/27/08 06:10:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

SNOW / SNIJEG (Bosnia-Herzegovina/Germany/France/Iran)

Aida Begic

The year is 1997, and the post-war village of Slavno is occupied by a mere handful of residents, mostly women. Some are widows. Others have had their children executed by the nearby Bosnian Serbs. Winner of the critics' week grand prize at Cannes, Snow picks up where most other war films leave off, capturing mournful, everyday lives with such attentiveness and regard that it becomes less a film of politics and more a film of touching fellowship. 99 min. Bosnian with English subtitles.

10/25/08 03:00:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

10/26/08 06:00:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

SUMMER BOOK / TATIL KITABI (Turkey)

Seyfi Teoman

Ten-year-old Ali is getting bullied at school. Older brother Veysel is looking to ditch military school for business school. Austere pop Mustafa disapproves, but uncle Hasan is all for it. Meanwhile, mom Guler is sure that her husband is having an affair. These minor family tensions come to a head one summer when Mustafa suddenly falls ill while away on a business trip. Named best Turkish film at the Istanbul Film Festival. 92 min. Turkish with English subtitles.

10/23/08 08:40:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

10/24/08 06:30:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

TRANQUILITY / NYUGALOM (Hungary)

Róbert Alföldi

Estranged from her daughter and cut off from the outside world, ex-actress Rebeka Weér lives with her deeply troubled son, Andor. Verbally abused by Rebeka since his childhood, Andor becomes a man who must learn to either live with their strained, yet sometimes tender, relationship or leave that suffocating environment behind to pursue love elsewhere. Somber, haunting, and erotic, Tranquility tells a story of self-destruction within the realm of a bizarre mother-son relationship. 108 min. Hungarian with English subtitles.

10/20/08 08:40:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

10/21/08 08:30:00 PM AMC 600 N. Michigan

THE VANISHED EMPIRE (Russia)

Karen Shakhnazaro

The 1970s marked the rise of communism and the peak of power in the Soviet Union. To teenager Sergey Narbekov, it meant friends, booze, girls, and The Rolling Stones. The Vanished Empire is an honest portrayal of four young friends transitioning from their late teens into adulthood. They live hard and love hard, giving no regard to the collapse of their country. 105 min. Russian with English subtitles.

10/19/08 12:30:00 PM ACM River East 21

10/20/08 06:10:00 PM ACM River East 21

It's time for Polish films

The Polish Film Festival in America is starting this week in Chicago, on Saturday Nov. 3, and continues through the month until November 18. Check it out here - http://www.pffamerica.com/schedule.htm

East Europe at Chicago Film Fest

The Chicago film fest began this week, and it runs until Oct. 17. There looks to be a strong showing of films from our region of the world (mostly central Europe; though a disappointing lack of films from the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia), so I decided to run through the program and list the films from our region in order to save you that step.

The full program is available here. The locations are spread throughout the city, and the program is rich with material.

There's an especially extensive list of films from Hungary, as well as an-person discussion with famed Hungarian film-maker Istvan Szazbo (Mephisto). The Romanian film 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS & 2 DAYS has already been generating great reviews for a year, and I hear that the Czech film I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND (OBSLUHOVAL JSEM ANGLICKÉHO KRÁLE) will be really good.

Below, I've culled the films from the CEERES region:

HARD-HEARTED
KREMEN
Director: Aleksei Mizgiryov
Russia
First-time director Aleksei Mizgiryov, who picked up the Best Debut prize at the Sochi Open Russian Film Festival, looks at the stark reality of Moscow through the eyes of Anton, a young war vet from the countryside. Anton’s rosy vision of the city, fueled by memories of a lost love, is quickly squashed on his first encounter with the city’s crooked cops. 82 min.
Wed 10/10 | 9:45pm | LM3 | EHHD1
Thurs 10/11 | 6:45pm | LM2 | EHHD2
Mon 10/15 | 7:15pm | AMC9 | EHHD3

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS & 2 DAYS
4 LUNI, 3 SAPTAMANI SI 2 ZILE
Director: Cristian Mungiu
Romania
Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, 4 Months combines documentary-style camerawork with naturalistic acting to draw viewers into a raw, realistic world. It’s 1987, at the tail end of the Ceausescu era in Romania, and college roommates Otilia and Gabita live in fear and oppression. Gabita is pregnant, and together they prepare to meet with a cruel abortionist who asks them for more than money in return for his dangerous and illegal procedure. Romanian with English subtitles. 113 min.
Sun 10/7 | 6:00pm | AMC4 | EMWD1
Tues 10/9 | 8:45pm | LM3 | EMWD2

THE BANISHMENT
IZGNANIE
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Russia
The power of The Banishment, like director Andrei Zvyagintsev’s previous film, 2004’s Golden Globe®-nominated The Return, lies in the information that is withheld from the audience. Alex hurries his wife, Vera, and two children from an anonymous city to the stilly, bucolic countryside, where Vera reveals to Alex a shocking secret—she’s pregnant, and the child isn’t his. Russian with English subtitles. 150 min.
Sun 10/7 | 7:30pm | LM4 | EBAN1
Mon 10/8 | 8:15pm | LM3 | EBAN2
Tues 10/16 | 4:30pm | AMC4 | EBAN3

OPIUM: DIARY OF A MADWOMAN
ÓPIUM: EGY ELMEBETEG NAPLÓJA
Director: János Szász
Hungary
Based on the infamous writings of Hungarian psychoanalyst Geza Csath, Opium peers inside the chilling confines of an experimental institute for the mentally ill in the early 20th century. Though the film offers plenty of hair-raising glimpses of archaic instruments and barbarous medical procedures, the focus is on the increasingly symbiotic relationship between a morphine-addicted doctor and one tormented patient, whose voluminous diaries offer a window into her ravaged brain. Hungarian with English subtitles. 110 min.
Wed 10/10 | 6:45pm | AMC4 | EOIM1
Thurs 10/11 | 9:30pm | AMC7 | EOIM2
Tues 10/16 | 4:15pm | LM7 | EOIM3

SAVIOR’S SQUARE
PLAC ZBAWICIELA
Directors: Krzysztof Krauze, Joanna Kos-Krauze
Poland
Savior’s Square, which has already racked up five top awards from the Polish Film Festival and four more from the Polish Film Awards, offers a devastating glimpse into a family’s struggle to stay afloat in post-Communist Poland. After losing his money in an apartment scam, Bartek is forced to move his wife and sons into his mother’s tiny Warsaw apartment. Personal hostilities within the apartment come to a boiling point as family values disintegrate. Polish with English subtitles. 105 min.
Tues 10/9 | 4:45pm | AMC4 | ESSQ1
Wed 10/10 | 7:00pm | LM3 | ESSQ2
Thurs 10/11 | 7:00pm | LM4 | ESSQ3

I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND
OBSLUHOVAL JSEM ANGLICKÉHO KRÁLE
Director: Jirí Menzel
Czech Republic / Slovakia
Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, this irreverent black comedy blends razorship wit and blunt tragedy into a no-holds-barred social commentary. The King begins in the 1950s with Jan Díte (Ivan Barnev) being released from a 15-year imprisonment imposed by the Communists. Flash back to the ’30s, when womanizing Jan, an ambitious go-getter who longs to be a rich hotelier, hooks up with a fervent Aryan as the Nazis begin to invade. Czech and German with English subtitles. 120 min.
Wed 10/10 | 9:00pm | AMC9 | ESKE1
Thurs 10/11 | 6:30pm | AMC7 | ESKE2
Tues 10/16 | 5:00pm | LM3 | ESKE3

ISKA’S JOURNEY
ISZKA UTAZÁSA
Director: Bollók Csaba
Hungary
Beautiful compositions of a criminally unfortunate way of life make for an eye-opening, dramatic experience in Iska’s Journey. Daily, poor young Iska must salvage enough scrap metal from the trash heaps to keep her witchy mother in booze and cigarettes. One day she and a lovestruck fellow ragamuffin decide to escape to the place of Iska’s dreams, the seaside—but the journey could lead to an even worse fate. Hungarian with English subtitles. 92 min.
Wed 10/10 | 8:45pm | LM7 | EIZJ1
Thurs 11/11 | 9:15pm | LM7 | EIZJ2
Sat 10/13 | 12:00pm | AMC4 | EIZJ3

THE MAN FROM LONDON
A LONDINI FÉRFI
Director: Béla Tarr
Hungary/France/Germany
Hungarian master filmmaker Béla Tarr follows 2000’s award winning stunner Werckmeister Harmonies with another black-and-white masterpiece that is at once dreamy, genuine, eerie, and breathtaking. After witnessing a murder, railway worker Maloin’s quiet life of seaside isolation changes forever. Forced to examine his thoughts on crime and punishment, Maloin begins to question his own worth and the meaning of his existence. Hungarian with English subtitles. 132 min.
Thurs 10/11 | 4:15pm | LM3 | EMFL1
Fri 10/12 | 6:30pm | LM4 | EMFL2
Sun 10/14 | 8:45pm | AMC9 | EMFL3

MEN IN THE NUDE
FÉRFIAKT
Director: Károly Esztergályos
Hungary
Middle-aged Tibor, unhappy in his marriage and career, never considered bisexuality, but a manipulative 19-year-old male prostitute pursues him and ignites a sexual passion and artistic inspiration that Tibor feared he’d lost forever. Bold and affecting visuals lead us through a rocky relationship plagued by the human fear of aging as well as the potentially tragic interplay between love and sexuality. Hungarian with English subtitles. 94 min.
Fri 10/5 | 10:00pm | AMC9 | EMIN1
Mon 10/15 | 9:45pm | LM3 | EMIN2
Tues 10/16 | 7:30pm | LM3 | EMIN3

TRADE ROUTES
Director: Jim Loftus
Bulgaria/USA
Against the backdrop of a high-stakes Bulgarian election, this dense political thriller finds an ingenuous, low-level CIA officer and her disgruntled boss trying to strike a dangerous deal with the prime minister’s top political officer, who desperately needs to finance his campaign. In a world where information buys money and money buys power, everyone along the trade routes faces questions of duty and betrayal. English and Bulgarian with English subtitles. 117 min.
Fri 10/5 | 9:30pm | LM2 | ETRR1
Sun 10/14 | 12:15pm | AMC9 | ETRR2
Mon 10/15 | 9:45pm | AMC7 | ETRR3

István Szabó
Friday, October 12 6:45 p.m.
Landmark’s Century
Centre Cinema
2828 N. Clark St.
The always entertaining Hungarian director István Szabó (Sunshine, Being Julia) spends an evening at the festival speaking on the intimacy and the insight that can be achieved with the use of the close-up in film. Szabó has said that film has “one singular quality that no other art form can supply. The moving picture is capable of showing us a living human face in close-up: this ability is the source of its special energy.” In his carefully cast films, Szabó perceptively uses close-ups to convey what he has called “life’s beautiful changes, the constant movements of the human expression in the most intimate moment, in the moment of its birth.” Szabó received an Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film for Mephisto, one masterpiece in a trilogy that includes Colonel Redl and Hanussen. Now is your chance to get up close and personal with one of the world’s great film artists.

Film Fest Friday

I'm learning that Chicago is a city of festivals. Especially in the summer, one finds dozens of large and small neighborhood street fairs, cultural heritage festivals, art fairs, and music festivals. Even when it gets cold here, one form of festival is a staple of the Chicago cultural landscape - films.

Given the city's ethnic heritage(s) and appetite for the arts, Chicago plays home to many fine film festivals and series dedicated in whole or part to films coming out of East Europe, Russia and the rest of the 28 former Communist states of our region. Even under repressive Communist regimes, the level of film production was very high in many of these states, especially in Russia, Czechoslovakia (as it was then), and Poland (some may even claim that often because of the repression, the quality of art was higher), and that tradition continues. Internationally acclaimed films are now coming out of many of these states, including Romania, Bulgaria, the republics of the former Yugoslavia, the Baltics, and Mongolia.

Here are some current and upcoming film events. [This is by no means a comprehensive list]

Cultural Film Festivals

• First Serbian Film Festival in Chicago, September 13- September 13-16, 2007 at the AMC Lowes Pipers Alley 4 Theatres, 1608 North Wells Street (North and Wells) in Chicago, 312- 642-6275. This is a new significant festival, taking its place in the pantheon of important culture specific festivals that find their home in Chicago each year.
• The Polish Film Festival in America, in Chicago, November 3-18, 2007.
• The Chicago Festival of Bosnian-Herzegovinian Films, usually in the spring.

Film Series

• Lech Majewski’s Landscape of Dreams, Gene Siskel Film Center, September 8-October 4, 2007. One of the strengths of the state-of-the-art Siskel Film Center is film series of directors' ouvres, regional films, and thematic runs. They also are able to show rare and remastered prints of films you could not find anywhere else. Recent examples of eclectic series at the Siskel include the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski; and annual EU film series; and Russian SciFi films.

Film Festivals

• The 43rd Annual Chicago International Film Festival, October 4-17, 2007. This competitive film festival hosted at multiple venues in Chicago is sure to feature the latest films coming out of such countries as Russia, Poland, Romania, and indeed out of all corners of the globe.
  

Lastly, I need to mention that Doc Films, the venerable and venerated student-run screen at The University of Chicago has just posted its upcoming calendar. At Doc, each day of the week is part of an ongoing series throughout the quarter, and on the weekends they tend to show the latest popular releases. I haven't seen a detailed description of the films for this quarter, but if there are films related to the CEERES countries, I'll try to include something about them in this space.