Wisconsin Film Festival
April 4, 2019 | Shannon Hall, Memorial Union
5:30 pm | Catered Reception in Main Lounge on 2nd floor of Memorial Union (hors d’oeuvres, cash bar) 7:00 pm | Golden Badger Awards Presentation, hosted by Wisconsin Public Television’s Pete Schwaba 7:15 pm |
Woman at War
(Icelandic with English subtitles, 2018, 100 min)
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
An absolute blast, this Icelandic comedy turns saving the world into a righteous thrill ride.
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TICKETS: $15 Opening Night Reception $11 Awards + Film
2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG 9:00 pm | Afterglow at the Madison Concourse Hotel, 1 West Dayton Street
TM
The Wisconsin Film Festival is presented by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts in partnership with the Department of Communication Arts.
IN THIS GUIDE
Ticket Information PAG E 5
Film Series List PAG E 7
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the beginning of the new documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, the Nobel laureate recalls a childhood memory. After accidentally using a certain four-letter-word in front of her parents, she learned a crucial life lesson: “words have power.” That fundamental truth can be hard to remember in this overstuffed age of “content,” where even the gas station pumps have little TVs with original programming. Day and night, we’re micro-targeted by invisible algorithms that pitch us inscrutable “recommendations,” besieged by hot takes and trending topics. But eight days a year, we can choose to tune in to something different, as a community. In this guide are 153 individual works of art that are imbued with their own power. Each of these films has the power to inspire, entertain, or infuriate. What they don’t have are highly paid publicists trying to steer the cultural discourse and convince you which reaction is correct. This week, you decide for yourself what to see, and listen to yourself to discover what thoughts and feelings it stirs within you. Get ready. Let’s focus. Put on your out-of-office reply. Climb off the news cycle. Don’t give social media corporations any free data for a week—you’ll catch the next round of vacation photos and political outrage. Better yet, just turn your phone off, bury it in the yard, and share one giant screen with your neighbors. Debate a film’s merits IRL, face-to-face in line with someone you’ve seen on the bus but have never spoken to. Douse your friends with an ice-cold take on a silent movie from 95 years ago. See a film that doesn’t have its edges sanded off, something impolite, from a country you’ve never visited in a language you don’t speak. See if you can get that pedometer down to double digits. Tear all 5 numbers on your Film Festival ballot. These features and short films stand together against groupthink. Some of them just might change the way you see the world.
– JIM HEALY
Director of Programming
MIKE KING
Senior Programmer
Film Descriptions PAG E 8
Daily Schedule at a Glance PAG E 2 0
Theaters & Transportation PAG E 3 7
Film Checklist PAG E 3 9
FESTIVAL STAFF FILM PROGRAMMING (UW-MADISON DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION ARTS) Professor Kelley Conway, Artistic Director Jim Healy, Director of Programming Mike King, Senior Programmer Ben Reiser, Wisconsin’s Own Programmer Zachary Zahos, Wisconsin’s Own Programmer & Print Traffic Coordinator Tiffany Ike, Wisconsin’s Own Programmer Karin Kolb, Big Screens, Little Folks Programmer
ADMINISTRATION (UW-MADISON DIVISION OF THE ARTS) John Baldacchino, Director Jennifer Harper, Operations Coordinator Ben Reiser, Outreach and Community Engagement Staci Francis, Associate Director Terry Kerr, Volunteer Coordinator and Big Screens, Little Folks & Screens for Teens Educational Coordinator Anna January, Assistant Director for Development Cathy Sheets, Art Director Kate Lochner, Digital Marketing Coordinator Heather Owens, Audience Development & Communications Specialist Lisa Spierer, Assistant Director for Media & Technology Sarah Chapeau, Assistant to the Director Kate Hewson, Assistant Director for Academic Programs Marina Kelly, Student Programs Coordinator Renee Cowles, Development and Finance Associate Marissa Sugrue, Digital Marketing Assistant Nancy Heingartner, World Cinema Day Coordinator
ABOUT US
Contact WISCONSIN FILM FESTIVAL 1050 University Ave, Madison, WI 53706 (608) 262-9009 info@wifilmfest.org | wifilmfest.org @wifilmfest (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube)
During the Festival SEE 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG For ticket questions, call the Box Office at (608) 265-2787.
Division of the Arts As a division of the University of Wisconsin– Madison, the Division of the Arts is a gateway to the arts at the university. As arts practitioners, theorists, historians, and educators in the cultural and creative world, we advance the arts as an invaluable resource that underpins the vital nature of the university and its wider community. We do this by promoting all forms of artistic expression, experience, and interpretation via a diversity of intertwined paths through which we engage and understand our world.
Jessica Mach, Film Guide Editor
1050 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706 (608) 890-2718 info@arts.wisc.edu | artsdivision.wisc.edu | arts.wisc.edu
FILM PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
Arts on Campus The Arts on Campus website is a resource for arts events, academics, and resources on campus. arts.wisc.edu @uwmadisonarts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube)
Vic Barrett, Mary Ladoni, Brette Olpin, Junlin Ou, Duncan Slagle, Dequadray White, and Jing Zeng, Student Assistants and Photographers
Kelley Conway (KC), Jim Healy (JH), Mike King (MK), Karin Kolb (KK), Tiffany Ike (TI), Ben Reiser (BR), Zachary Zahos (ZZ), Matt St. John (MSJ), Tim Brayton (TB), and Kristin Thompson (KT)
PROJECTIONISTS Olivia Babler, Travis Bird, Justin Dean, Tanner Engbretson, Roch Gersbach, Barb Rasmussen, and Cameron Worden
SUPPORT STAFF Bob Dischler, Erik Gunneson, Boyd Hillestad, James Runde, Peter Sengstock, and Michael Trevis
TRAILER Ben Reiser, Aaron Granat, Matthew Sanborn, Jennifer Harper, Brian Daly, Asa Derks, Terry Kerr, and Aliya Mayers
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First launched in 1999, the Wisconsin Film Festival has brought about 2,500 films to Madison audiences. The Festival presents the best new independent film (feature, documentary, and experimental), world cinema, and programming for children along with restorations and rediscoveries. The Festival also showcases the works of Wisconsin filmmakers through our Wisconsin’s Own section.
Aaron Granat, Videographer
The Wisconsin Film Festival is presented by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts in association with the Department of Communication Arts.
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STAY CENTERED
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Proud Supporter of the Wisconsin Film Festival | www.concoursehotel.com/wisconsin-film-fest 1 W Dayton St | Madison, WI 53703 800 365 8293 | concoursehotel.com
Ticket Information
HOW TO PURCHASE TICKETS NOTE: There is one box office this year. Ticket buyers are encouraged to buy online.
ORDER ONLINE
STOP BY
CALL
2019.wifilmfest.org
Advance tickets will be available online beginning SATURDAY, MARCH 9 AT 11:00 AM.
Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office
608-265-2787
Phone lines are open during Campus Arts Ticketing hours (see hours of operation below).
QUESTIONS? boxoffice@wifilmfest.org
in Memorial Union beginning March 9.
See box office information for locations and hours of operation.
NOTE: All tickets this year are processed by Campus Arts Ticketing.
BOX OFFICE INFORMATION
TICKET PRICES
Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office
All tickets, whether bought online, over the phone, or in-person are the same price. Processing fee applies to ALL ticket purchase methods. ALL TICKET SALES ARE FINAL. No refunds or returns for tickets or vouchers. No refunds or replacements for lost tickets. To guarantee admittance, ticket holders MUST ARRIVE 15 MINUTES BEFORE the start of a film (suggested arrival is 30 MINUTES before).
ALL-FESTIVAL PASS
MEMORIAL UNION (800 LANGDON STREET, MADISON)
$
Hours of Operation: OPENING DAY OF TICKET SALES
TO BE ADMITTED TO ANY AND EVERY FILM OF YOUR CHOICE:
(SAT, MARCH 9): 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
MARCH 11 – APRIL 12
MON – FRI: 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM (March 18 – 22)* SAT: 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM Closed SUN
NOTE: Online sales are available 24/7 until 5:00 PM the night before each screening. After that, any available tickets can be purchased at the venue door the day of your film.
* SPRING BREAK HOURS Waiting until the DAY OF your film to get tickets? Any available tickets will only be available for purchase at the venue where the film is being shown – cash or voucher only.
Opening Day of Ticket Sales Tips
Buying and Using Vouchers
Arriving at the box office with a completed Ticket Check List (found on page 39) will help keep you organized and speed up your transaction. There will be box office attendants available to assist with in-person sales at the Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office in the Memorial Union as well as the Annex Room on the second floor. Staff and volunteers will be on site to assist with the flow of traffic. Ticket sales will begin at 11:00 AM.
A voucher is a coupon good for one film (subject to availability). A voucher must be exchanged for a real ticket IN PERSON at the box office or at the “rush tickets/ door sales” table at the venue of your film. Vouchers can be purchased in person, over the phone, or online (under “V” in the online Film Guide). They cannot be returned, refunded, or replaced if lost. They CAN be given to others to use.
We recommend you review your film check list in advance before purchasing tickets and have alternative films in place. The website will time out at 30 minutes on opening day and then afterwards at 20 minutes.
Redeeming Gift Certificates When speaking with box office staff (in person or over the phone), share your card and redemption numbers (printed on your gift card) with person assisting you.
Purchasing Tickets During the Festival Day-of-show tickets are available at each of the venues, but only for films being shown that day at that location. Tickets will be available for sale beginning one hour prior to the first film being shown at that venue that day. Cash or vouchers only.
Rush Tickets Subject to availability, rush tickets are sold within 15 minutes of the start of a film and can be purchased with cash or voucher only. We recommend showing up at least 30 minutes or more before the film begins. All rush tickets are $11 each, except for Big Screens, Little Folks tickets, which remain $6.
Refunds/Exchanges All ticket sales are final. No refunds or replacements for lost tickets and no refunds for vouchers. Tickets for past films cannot be exchanged for future ones. Tickets for upcoming films may be exchanged in person until close of business the day before the original ticket’s screening, but only at the Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office (see hours of operation above). No exchanges are possible at other venues.
GENERAL ADMISSION
$
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Arrive at the venue at least 15 minutes before show time.
BIG SCREENS, LITTLE FOLKS SCREENINGS
$
Present your pass to box office staff to receive a ticket for your screening.
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Check in with theater volunteers for admittance to auditorium.
STUDENT, SENIOR, MILITARY, UW FACULTY & STAFF
$
* Only 4 discounted tickets allowed per screening, per transaction. Discounted tickets are available to
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students of any university, college, high school, etc.; seniors 65 and over; military personnel; and current UW system or UW Health faculty/staff. All discounted tickets are subject to verification. Please carry a valid ID.
TICKET DELIVERY OPTIONS
Will-Call:
Mail:
Print-at-Home
Prior to the day of a screening, tickets can be picked up at the Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office (beginning March 9). See box office information for hours of operation. For “day-of” screenings, your tickets will be held at the venue where your film is being shown.
Tickets purchased before Sunday, March 24 can be mailed to you. After that, all tickets will need to be printed at home or picked up at will-call. To exchange tickets that are being mailed to you, you need to have the tickets in hand and the exchange must be done in person at the Box Office.
After you print your tickets at home (using standard size 8.5” x 11” paper), they will be scanned at the door for entry. Please have your print-at-home tickets separated and ready to be scanned upon entering the theater.
USEFUL TIDBITS Many films are not rated and may include uncomfortable scenes and/or subject matter. Viewer and parental discretion is advised. Big Screens, Little Folks films are suitable for the recommended age range listed in the film descriptions. Festival Pass holders are given priority seating. (See website for Festival Pass details.) To guarantee admittance, ticket holders must arrive 15 minutes before the start of the film. After that time, unoccupied seats will be released for rush sale. All seats are general admission. No holding of seats between film screenings.
Any ticket holder with a discounted ticket may be required to show ID to verify the discount. Ticket scalping (for any amount) is prohibited on Wisconsin Film Festival grounds and social media. Concerned about mobility or accessibility issues within the theaters? Talk with a member of the box office staff at the time of purchase or send an email to boxoffice@wifilmfest.org For many venues, ticket holder and buyer lines will be outdoors. Wear appropriate clothing and bring an umbrella if needed.
CHECK 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG FOR NEWS AND UPDATES. FESTIVAL SCHEDULE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
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If purchasing your tickets online, visit 2019.wifilmfest.org to find the film guide. Once you’ve selected your films, proceed to checkout. During checkout: 1) click “Use Gift Card” and 2) enter your card and redemption numbers in the pop-up window (letters can be entered in either upper or lower case). You will have the option to use all or part of your certificate’s value as payment. Any remaining balance may be paid by credit card. Tickets can be mailed to you, designated for pick up (“will-call”), or printed at home. Orders placed after March 24, 2019 will not have a mailing option.
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A Festival Pass is your total access ticket for as many screenings and special events as you are able to attend. The pass is nontransferable, and will feature your name and photograph. Upon purchase, we will send an email request for a passport sized picture of yourself, which is required before passes can be issued.
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film series American Visions
American Factory Chained for Life Hail Satan? Her Smell Knock Down the House Light from Light Little Woods Making Montgomery Clift Mike Wallace is Here Mr. Jimmy Screwball The Tomorrow Man Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am Who Will Write Our History?
Best of Il Cinema Ritrovato A selection of international features screened at the 2018 edition of the Cineteca di Bologna’s annual festival. The Girl in the Window Hyenas Lucky to Be a Woman None Shall Escape La Religieuse Rosita When Tomorrow Comes
Big Screens, Little Folks A Bit Lost Colorbirds Dear Henri Doll’s Letters Dolphin Fruits of Clouds Granbad Home Sweet Home The House I Want to Live in the Zoo Konigiri-Kun Butterfly Kuap
Minuscule - Mandibles from Far Away My Grandpa is Hiding Once There was a House Outdoors Pen License The Pig on the Hill Raccoon and the Light Ralph Breaks the Internet Sherbert Rozencrantz, You’re Beautiful Slug Supa Modo A Tiger with No Stripes Tito and the Birds The Witch Hunters
New International Cinema Asako I & II Ash Is Purest White Dogman A Faithful Man Genesis Girls Always Happy The Good Girls Hotel by the River The Image Book In Fabric Leona Leto Long Day’s Journey Into Night Maya Monos Our Struggles Pause Peterloo Pig Rafiki Ray & Liz Rojo Shadow Los Silencios
New Women Directors
MINUSCULE - MANDIBLES FROM FAR AWAY
Bathtubs Over Broadway Girls Always Happy Little Woods Making Montgomery Clift Pause Los Silencios Sofia
Opening Night Woman at War
Restorations and Rediscoveries
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND
Between the Lines Creature from the Black Lagoon Forbidden Paradise Freud Gone with the Pope Good Morning Inquiring Nuns Jivaro The Juniper Tree Lonelyhearts The Melody Man None Shall Escape The Other Side of the Wind Police Story Suddenly, Last Summer The Swimmer
SINGULARITY STORIES, VOL. I
This Magnificent Cake!
New International Documentaries
The Tobacconist
Cold Case Hammarskjöld
Transit
The Disappearance of My Mother
The Trouble With You
The Edge of Democracy
Ulysses & Mona
The Eyes of Orson Welles
Vultures
The Hidden City
The White Crow
Meeting Gorbachev
Wild Rose
Midnight Traveler
Woman at War
The Raft
Yomeddine
Los Reyes
Sofia Styx
Wisconsin’s Own 140 N Hancock 1991 The Alligator Hunter Belly of the Beast Betty White: First Lady of Television The Cabin Divinities Do it for Dozer
Elephant Path Le Grand Remix Helen Hoan Alone: Personal Stories from the Bridge Hold My Horse Hudson River Miracle Husband, Ensured Lake Michigan Monster Laura Die Leere (The Emptiness) Life On The Mississippi The Lifesaving Medal look at me, less than one hundred times Lost Cause Meet Uncle Paul Old Rook Pet Names Pictured Rocks Played Out Psychosis Secret Music The Sequence of Years Sergey’s Fortune Singularity Stories, Vol. I Stabacab Tender Touches: Maniac Todd Traces of Memory A Valkyrie’s Tale We Were Hardly More Than Children Winter Cranes Yen Ching
3D Movies Creature from the Black Lagoon Jivaro Long Day’s Journey Into Night Minuscule - Mandibles from Far Away Ralph Breaks the Internet
Watch Film Trailers of 2019 Wisconsin Film Festival Selections plus Q&A with Festival organizers! Wed.
3/13 | 6:30 pm
Middleton Library
Tues.
3/19 | 6:00 pm
Central Library
Fri.
3/22 | 6:00 pm
Lakeview Library
Sat.
3/23 | 2:00 pm
Alicia Ashman Library
Wed.
3/27 | 6:00 pm
E.D. Locke Library APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG/EVENTS
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140 N Hancock SCREENS IN: PLAYED OUT
sions rise as safety hazards increase and low wages become standard. Attempts at organizing and demanding better conditions are thwarted by the staunchly anti-union Fuyao management. Things are then made more difficult when the threat of automation seems to portend more layoffs. American Factory, a powerful and gripping new documentary filmed over several years, observes the struggles at Fuyao from the inside and from both sides. Directors Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar are provided full access to all of the key players for this relevant story about increasing Chinese economic dominance and its effect on the American working class. Directing Award, U.S. Documentary Competition, 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (JH)
Asako I & II
Netemo Sametemo
FRI, APRIL 5 • 6:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 MON, APRIL 8 • 6:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Japan • 2018 • DCP • Japanese with English subtitles • 119 MIN Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi; Screenwriter: Sachiko Tanaka, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi; Producer: Yuji Sadai, Teruhisa Yamamoto, Yasuhiko Hattori; Editor: Azusa Yamazaki; Cast: Masahiro Higashide, Erika Karata, Koji Seto, Rio Yamashita, Sairi Ito, Daichi Watanabe; Cinematographer: Yasuyuki Sasaki SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
American Factory THU, APRIL 11 • 5:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 113 MIN Director: Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert; Producer: Julie Parker Benello, Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert, Jeff Reichert; Editor: Lindsay Utz; Cinematographer: Steven Bognar, Aubrey Keith, Jeff Reichert, Julia Reichert, Erick Stoll; Music: Chad Cannon SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Fuyao, a China-based automobile glass manufacturer, opened a factory on the site of a defunct General Motors plant in Dayton, OH in 2014. A billion-dollar company, Fuyao offered thousands of jobs to Dayton citizens, providing them the opportunity to resume their careers after the Great Recession led to the GM closing six years earlier. Working alongside transplanted Chinese labor and supervisors, the entire staff of the Fuyao factory are faced with a significant culture clash. At first, the problems seem not insurmountable as the “chatty” American workers begin working side-by-side with their less 8 casual Chinese counterparts, but ten-
Betty White: First Lady of Television
FRI, APRIL 5 • 3:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 SAT, APRIL 6 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6
SCREENS IN: YEN CHING
The Alligator Hunter
Ash is Purest White Jiang hu er nü
1991
SCREENS IN: IT’S ONLY NATURAL: OUT AND ABOUT WITH WISCONSIN’S OWN
Belly of the Beast SCREENS IN: LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER
A young woman finds love for the first time, and then again with her boyfriend’s doppelganger in this intriguing arthouse romance. When Asako falls for Baku, she falls hard, as twentysomethings do. She’s so smitten by this floppy-haired rogue that she happily looks past his habit of disappearing… until one day, he doesn’t come back. Two years later, she’s moved to Tokyo, and is thunderstruck to meet Ryohei, an exact double of Baku. As much as the two look alike, their personalities are polar opposites, and Asako eventually settles down with the more stable Ryohei. But has she truly gotten over her first love? A modern, date-night Vertigo, Asako I & II is a kindred spirit to the beguiling explorations of the heart by festival favorite Hong Sang-soo. “Quietly wise and perceptive… unfolds with the efficiency and poetry of a novella. With subtle command and a gift for elliptical storytelling, Hamaguchi tells this fable of love lost and found through a series of stylistic grace notes, serendipitous narrative strokes, and unexpectedly raw displays of emotion. Rare is the film whose female lead is granted such autonomy, allowing a complicated character to be perfectly imperfect” (Film Comment). (MK)
MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • China, France, Japan • 2018 • DCP • Mandarin with English subtitles • 137 MIN
FRI, APRIL 5 • 3:45 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION
Director: Jia Zhangke; Screenwriter: Jia Zhangke; Producer: Shôzô Ichiyama, Nathanaël Karmitz; Editor: Matthieu Laclau; Cast: Tao Zhao, Fan Liao, Yi’nan Diao, Xiaogang Feng; Cinematographer: Eric Gautier; Music: Giong Lim
69 MIN
SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Toying with genre to thrilling and affecting ends, Jia Zhangke refines long-standing concerns about modern China in this elegant, years-spanning gangster melodrama. It begins in 2001 in Shanxi Province, immersed in the jianghu underworld of smoky mahjong parlors. Triad leader Bin (Liao Fan) can order around his loyal enforcers but not his fierce, self-assured girlfriend Qiao (Zhao Tao), who knows her way with a gun and loves dancing to “YMCA.” Gangland tensions boil over in one knockout, bloody melee sequence, which Qiao puts an end to when she grabs her gun. Her choice reverberates over the following two decades, as Bin, Qiao, and mainland China’s fortunes shift and the drama’s innate emotional weight takes hold. A culmination of sorts for Jia, Ash Is Purest White also marks a peak for his wife Zhao, who follows towering work in A Touch of Sin (2013) and Mountains May Depart (2015) with her “richest, most subtly complex performance...to date” (Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times). (ZZ)
Bathtubs Over Broadway SAT, APRIL 6 • 8:30 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • DCP • 87 MIN Director: Dava Whisenant; Producer: Amanda Spain, Dava Whisenant, Susan Littenberg; Editor: Dava Whisenant; Cinematographer: Natalie Kingston, Nick Higgins SECTION: NEW WOMEN DIRECTORS
A total delight, this stranger-thanfiction documentary celebrates the bizarro world of corporate musicals. Produced by companies like GE, McDonald’s, and Ford, these lavish, Broadway-style stage spectaculars were usually performed exactly once for an exclusive audience of employees at sales conventions. This rah-rah
explosion of capitalism’s id reached its zenith with The Bathtubs are Coming, a jaw-dropping 1969 American Standard production that is even stranger than it sounds. Armed with corporate budgets that often far outstripped the “real” Broadway shows, industrial musicals attracted real talent, providing economic stability and a training ground for up-and-comers like Martin Short, Bob Fosse, and Cabaret songwriters Kander and Ebb, and as such, were occasionally almost… good? Judge for yourself, thanks to generous helpings of vintage clips that will have you humming along while rubbing your eyes in disbelief. Our tour guide through this magical land is Steve Young, a longtime writer for both of David Letterman’s late night shows who happened upon some of the souvenir “cast recording” LPs while researching a comedy bit. Seeing Young nerdily gush over key cuts like “My Bathroom (is a Private Kind of Place)” with fellow genre buffs (including Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra) is sure to cause feelings of kinship among record collectors and music fans of any stripe. (MK)
FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND
Meet Uncle Paul MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • DCP • English • 14 MIN Director: Jessica Bursi; Editor: Carol Brandt SECTION: WISCONSIN’S OWN
This intimate, moving documentary short paints a vivid portrait not only of Paul, a 62-year-old with Down syndrome and early stage dementia, but also of his loving caregivers: Paul’s sister Susie and her husband, Lee. (BR)
Betty White: First Lady of Television MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • DCP • English • 55 MIN Director: Steven Boettcher; Screenwriter: Steven J. Boettcher, Michael J. Trinklein; Producer: Steven J. Boettcher, Michael J. Trinklein, Stephanie Theisen; Cast: Betty White, Ryan Reynolds, Tina Fey, Carl Reiner SECTION: WISCONSIN’S OWN
From her riveting performance on Golden Girls to her hilarious, recordbreaking debut on Saturday Night Live, at 88-years-old, Betty White continues to win the hearts of Americans as the first lady of television. Through stories from co-stars, loved ones, and Betty herself, we take an intimate look into her life as an award-winning actress, a wife of Wisconsin-born Allen Ludden, and a wildlife activist. This documentary takes a deep dive into the rich history of a woman with over 80 years in show business. (TI) Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
KEY WISCONSIN’S OWN FILMS BIG SCREENS, LITTLE FOLKS FILMS GOLDEN BADGER WINNERS 3D FILMS
B-D
A Bit Lost
Un Peu Perdu
SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
The Cabin SCREENS IN: WISCONSIN GONE WILD
Cold Case Hammarskjöld FRI, APRIL 5 • 4:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 SAT, APRIL 6 • 11:00 AM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1
Between the Lines
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium • 2019 • DCP • English, French with English subtitles • 128 MIN
THU, APRIL 11 • 6:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 Narrative • USA • 1977 • DCP • 102 MIN
Director: Mads Brügger; Producer: Peter Engel, Andreas Rocksen, Bjarte M. Tveit; Editor: Nicolás Norgaard Staffolani; Cinematographer: Tore Vollan
Director: Joan Micklin Silver; Screenwriter: Fred Barron, David M. Helpern, Jr.; Producer: Raphael D. Silver; Editor: John Carter; Cast: John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Jeff Goldblum, Gwen Welles, Michael J. Pollard, Jill Eikenberry, Joe Morton, Marilu Henner; Cinematographer: Kenneth Van Sickle; Music: Michael Kamen
SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
Joan Micklin Silver’s 1977 feature is an ode to the counterculture alternative weeklies that sprung up across the US in the 1960s and struggled to maintain their financial solvency while staying on mission in the 1970s. The journalists, photographers, and office staff of the (fictional) Boston weekly, The Back Bay Mainline, are unflinchingly depicted in seriocomic episodes that show how they spend their time exploring romantic dalliances, planning for their futures, and plotting their escape to greener pastures. An ensemble piece like this rises and falls on the strength of its cast, and luckily Between the Lines has an extraordinarily deep bench of talent, led by fresh-faced performances by John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, and Jeff Goldblum, who, along with the rest of the cast, are at the start of what would become long careers in Hollywood. The cavalcade of future stars is impressive, but in particular, look out for scene-stealing turns from Marilu Henner as a stripper with a heart of gold, as well as memorable bits from character actors Lewis J. Stadlen as a lecherous salesman, and Raymond J. Barry as an impressively destructive performance artist. (BR)
Chained for Life TUE, APRIL 9 • 6:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: AARON SCHIMBERG WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 91 MIN Director: Aaron Schimberg; Screenwriter: Aaron Schimberg; Producer: Vanessa McDonnell, Daniel Patrick Carbone, Matthew Petock, Dan Schoenbrun, Zachary Shedd; Editor: Sofi Marshall; Cast: Jess Weixler, Adam Pearson, Charlie Korsmo, Sari Lennick, Stephen Plunkett, Joaquina Kalukango, Sammy Mena, Frank Mosley, Eleanore Pienta; Cinematographer: Adam J. Minnick SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
Colorbirds
Coucouleurs
SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
SUN, APRIL 7 • 2:45 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: BOB FURMANEK Narrative • USA • 1954 • DCP • 79 MIN Director: Jack Arnold; Screenwriter: Harry Essex, Arthur Ross, Maurice Zimm; Producer: William Alland; Editor: Ted J. Kent; Cast: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Nestor Paiva; Cinematographer: William E. Snyder SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
A scientific expedition down the Amazon turns deadly when a half man/half sea creature is discovered in the water. Taking a page out of King Kong’s book, the menacing “Gill-Man” sets his sights on the prettiest member of the crew, scientific researcher Kay Lawrence (played by the late Julie Adams). An influence on countless thrillers and horror films from Jaws to Anaconda, the original Creature itself spawned two sequels and was easily one of the most popular of the first wave of 3D releases in the 1950s. A follow-up to Universal Pictures’ successful 3D scifi outing of 1953, It Came from Outer Space, Creature reteamed director Jack Arnold, producer William Alland, and screenwriter Harry Essex. Arnold, working with cinematographer William E. Snyder, makes the most of 3D’s depth effects and places little emphasis on “comin’ at ya” gags. This provides the movie with a sense of limitless space (particularly in the underwater scenes) and an effective atmosphere of unknown danger. Great fun, this special 3D screening of Creature will be introduced by Bob Furmanek, founder of the 3D Film Archive and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the history of 3D. (JH)
Dear Henri SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET
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Strange, funny, and moving, this dreamlike indie tackles issues of representation with empathy and satirical bite. On the set of a schlocky exploitation movie directed by a wannabe Werner Herzog, the two lead performers develop a real connection off-camera. Both were cast for their looks: she’s a beautiful actress (Jess Wexler of Teeth), he has neurofibromatosis (like the actor who plays him, Under the Skin’s Adam Pearson). While their onscreen characters enact hokey stereotypes, the actors’ warm and tender relationship forms the stable center of an increasingly tricky narrative design, in which the lines between reality and fantasy blur. Shot on wondrously grainy 16mm, Chained for Life questions many things—notions of beauty, PC good intentions, the history of disfigurement in cinema from Freaks to The Elephant Man—and has the wisdom to reject pat answers. “An intoxicating whirlwind of ideas, spectacularly moving and entertaining. Chained for Life could be a defining film about representation for any group that Hollywood marginalizes” (Birth.Movies.Death.). “A truly mesmerizing mind trip of a movie sure to leave audiences reeling and pondering its mysteries long after the credits roll” (Indiewire). 2018 BFI London, Fantasia International, and Fantastic Film Festivals. (MK)
A murder investigation leads down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, only to come out the other side with revelations far more startling and wide-reaching than anyone expected. In 1961, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane crashed under mysterious circumstances in Africa. Fifty years later, documentarian Mads Brügger (Red Chapel, WFF 2011) takes up the case, doggedly tracking down rumors of international spy agencies and chasing stray clues from yellowed documents. Like Werner Herzog or Nick Broomfield, Brügger is a slyly amusing documentary showman, but as he digs deeper, his mischievous humor recedes into the background, along with the case he’s ostensibly investigating. By the end, Brügger has uncovered harrowing evidence of institutionalized white supremacy in Africa. A murder mystery that exposes a genocide, Cold Case Hammarskjöld massively raises the stakes on the true-crime documentary genre. “Sucks you in like a vortex… a singular experience that counts as one of the most honestly disturbing and provocative nonfiction films in years. It’s a movie that should be seen, grappled with, argued with, and experienced, because the questions it plants in us are dark enough to reverberate as powerfully as answers” (Variety). Best Director: World Cinema Documentary, 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (MK)
Creature from the Black Lagoon
9
D
Die Leere (The Emptiness)
Divinities SCREENS IN: WISCONSIN GONE WILD
Do it for Dozer SCREENS IN: STORIES WE TELL IN WISCONSIN
SCREENS IN: IT’S ONLY NATURAL: OUT AND ABOUT WITH WISCONSIN’S OWN
We were honored to have the opportunity to view a wide range of films for the Wisconsin’s Own program. While we recognize that each and every film has its own merits, three films stood out for all of us and we hope that audiences will be just as enamored with these selections as we were. It is our privilege as members of the Golden Badger Jury to present the following three selections for the Golden Badger Awards.
Played Out Played Out is a day in the lives of Madisonians who are at a crossroads. James Runde’s naturalistic direction crosscuts between three main characters who make choices about their careers, families, and lifestyles. Runde uses his family and friends in the film and achieves an intimate and improvisatory effect bringing to mind the quieter moments you’d find in John Cassavetes’ work. Runde is also a strong yet understated presence in the film and uses Madison as the perfect backdrop for his film.
Elephant Path Todd McGrain’s Elephant Path documentary profiles behavioral biologist Andrea Turkalo and her partner on the ground Sessely Bernard as they work to save forest elephant families from poachers. The film gives authentic details about that region’s social and political conditions. We observe the struggles that the locals are going through in their daily lives besides poaching. The film isn’t just about examining the efforts to save elephants from the ivory trade, it’s a reminder of our own journey and sometimes cyclical struggle to resist those who would rather pillage the Earth than protect it all weighed against our universal enemy: time.
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Life on the Mississippi
10
Life on the Mississippi is a unique journey on the iconic waterway that bisects our country. Director Bill Brown navigates the audience through smartly structured vignettes. The documentary exposes our past attempts to identify, celebrate, control, and destroy the river through romanticism, navigation, and economic growth. Brown uses Mark Twain’s imagery to weave together a powerful tale that is both informative as it is scenic. We would also like to give a special shout out to Maya Castronovo for Laura and Carol Brandt for Pet Names. We sincerely look forward to future entries from these budding talents.
EDWANIKE HARBOUR EMIR CAKAROZ D.P. CARLSON
The Disappearance of My Mother SAT, APRIL 6 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 TUE, APRIL 9 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Italy • 2019 • DCP • English, Italian with English subtitles • 96 MIN Director: Beniamino Barrese; Producer: Filippo Macelloni; Editor: Valentina Cicogna; Cinematographer: Beniamino Barrese SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
Benedetta Barzini only wants one thing: to disappear. She’s lived a full life by any standard: as an iconic fashion model in the 1960s, she hobnobbed at Warhol’s Factory, was photographed by Richard Avedon, and graced the cover of the first issue of Italian Vogue. In the 1970s, she bailed on her career, becoming a Marxist and feminist organizer in Milan. After a lifetime under the camera’s scrutiny, the 75-year-old finally decides “to go to a place that is opposite to the one I’ve lived in until now… to leave behind the white men who have devastated the world.” Her filmmaker son resolves to capture her inimitable spirit before she abandons society, sparking a showdown between the prying documentarian and stubborn subject. As much as she protests being filmed, Benedetta is absolutely fascinating onscreen, tossing off wise and withering bon mots on beauty, capitalism, and exactly what it is that parents and children owe one another. Deftly incorporating footage from throughout Benedetta’s life, Beniamino crafts an impressively complex tribute to this uncompromising woman, one that lovingly preserves her contradictions. Personal and profound, The Disappearance of My Mother tangles the line between familial bonds and individual privacy. 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (MK)
Dogman FRI, APRIL 5 • 9:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 SUN, APRIL 7 • 1:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Italy, France • 2018 • DCP • Italian with English subtitles • 103 MIN Director: Matteo Garrone; Screenwriter: Ugo Chiti, Matteo Garrone, Massimo Gaudioso; Producer: Paolo Del Brocco, Matteo Garrone, Jean Labadie, Jeremy Thomas; Editor: Marco Spoletini; Cast: Marcello Fonte, Edoardo Pesce, Adamo Dionisi, Alida Baldari Calabria; Cinematographer: Nicolai Brüel; Music: Michele Braga SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Mild mannered to a fault, scrawny Marcello (Marcello Fonte, who won the Best Actor award at Cannes for this performance) is just getting by with his dog-grooming business in a small seaside town near Naples. He is a devoted father to his daughter too, and he sells a little cocaine on the side in order to take her on vacations. When Marcello’s best pal (and regular customer), the brutal, hulking Simoncino (Edoardo Pesce), comes up with a not-well-thought-out criminal plan to make some quick cash, he forces our timid protagonist to be his accomplice. Through a series of surprising events, Simoncino discovers that Marcello’s loyalty can only be put to the test so many times. A stripped-down, slow-burn tale of the everyday underworld that also doubles as a riveting character study, Dogman is the latest entry in the diverse and unpredictable filmography of Italian director Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah). A radical departure from his last feature, the ornately detailed fantasy portmanteau Tale of Tales (WFF 2016), Dogman nevertheless reveals Garrone’s confident storytelling skills and his commitment to creating as convincing a milieu as possible. (JH)
Doll’s Letters
Письма куклы
SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
Dolphin
Delfin
SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
E-F
The Edge of Democracy SAT, APRIL 6 • 11:15 AM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Brazil • 2019 • DCP • Portuguese with English subtitles • 113 MIN Director: Petra Costa; Producer: Joanna Natasegara, Shane Boris, Tiago Pavan; Editor: Karen Harley, Tina Baz, David Barker, Joaquim Castro, Jordana Berg, Felipe Lacerda; Cinematographer: João Atala SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
Over the past several years, Brazil has undergone a dizzying series of political earthquakes. An astute blend of politi-
cal journalism and personal essay, this documentary charts Brazil’s turbulent recent history: the rise and fall of Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva and Dilma Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, through the recent election of far-right authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro. The coup-like machinations that led to Lula’s downfall are laid bare, as well as the subsequent groundswell of populist rage across the political spectrum. Acclaimed filmmaker Petra Costa proves an ideal guide through this tumultuous period—with exceptionally intimate access to Lula and Dilma through it all, her camera thrusts us into history as it is unfolding. At the same time, Costa also steps back to view her country’s ruptures through a personal lens, worrying in voice-over, “I fear our democracy was nothing but a short-lived dream.” A desperate missive from a country on the brink, The Edge of Democracy is a vital window into the state of our world. 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (MK)
Five Down SCREENS IN: INQUIRING NUNS
The Eyes of Orson Welles FRI, APRIL 5 • 3:45 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART WED, APRIL 10 • 1:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • UK • 2018 • DCP • 115 MIN Director: Mark Cousins; Screenwriter: Mark Cousins; Producer: Mary Bell, Adam Dawtrey; Editor: Timo Langer; Cinematographer: Mark Cousins SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
Elephant Path
Njaia Njoku
FRI, APRIL 5 • 11:00 AM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 SAT, APRIL 6 • 3:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 93 MIN FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND
Helen MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • DCP • 14 MIN Director: Mark Allen Davis; Producer: Jan Jensen SECTION: WISCONSIN’S OWN
A surprising tale of adoption, alternative lifestyles, creative homemaking, love, and loss from the creators of WFF 2017 selection The Bear and the Owl. (BR)
Elephant Path
Njaia Njoku
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2017 • DCP • English, Sangho with English subtitles • 79 MIN Director: Todd McGrain; Producer: Todd McGrain, Scott Anger; Editor: Andrew Stern, Sara Khaki, Todd McGrain; Cinematographer: Scott Anger SECTION: WISCONSIN’S OWN
Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
L’homme fidèle
FRI, APRIL 5 • 9:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 SAT, APRIL 6 • 2:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • France • 2018 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 75 MIN Director: Louis Garrel; Screenwriter: Louis Garrel, Jean-Claude Carrière; Producer: Pascal Caucheteux, Grégoire Sorlat ; Editor: Joëlle Hache; Cast: Louis Garrel, Laetetia Casta, LilyRose Depp; Cinematographer: Irina Lubtchansky SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
In this unpredictable and sometimes absurdly funny story of a love triangle, director Louis Garrel stars as Abel, a Parisian journalist. In the opening moments, Abel learns that his girlfriend Marianne (Garrel’s real-life wife Laetitia Casta) is pregnant and leaving Abel to marry the father, who also happens to be Abel’s best friend. Years later, Marianne comes into Abel’s life again, as does Eva (Lily-Rose Depp), the younger sister of the man Marianne married. While the complications pile up, Abel good-humoredly tries to navigate his challenging situation. A charming screen presence in many memorable contemporary French films, Garrel’s confidence as performer extends to the director’s chair for A Faithful Man, his second feature. Garrel also cowrote the witty screenplay with the great Jean-Claude Carrière, whose far-ranging credits take him from multiple collaborations with Luis Buñuel to Milos Forman on Taking Off (WFF 2012), to, most recently, Julien Schnabel’s Vincent van Gogh biopic At Eternity’s Gate. (JH)
Forbidden Paradise SUN, APRIL 7 • 11:00 AM UW CINEMATHEQUE Narrative • USA • 1924 • DCP • 73 MIN Director: Ernst Lubitsch; Screenwriter: Agnes Christine Johnson, Hanns Kräly; Cast: Pola Negri, Adolphe Menjou, Rod La Rocque, Pauline Stark, Clark Gable; Cinematographer: Charles Van Enger SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
As they fill major gaps in our appreciation of Ernst Lubitsch’s silent-era career in Hollywood, we rejoice in the painstaking restorations from New York’s Museum of Modern Art of Rosita (also screening at this year’s WFF) and now, Forbidden Paradise, available in its most complete version in nearly 100 years. This was Lubitsch’s only American film with the great silent star Pola Negri, with whom he had collaborated on six previous features in Europe. Negri stars in a delightfully ahistorical costume melodrama about the erotic seductions and lonely deprivations of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. Forbidden Paradise reveals itself to be what MoMA curator Dave Kehr calls “the first fully achieved film of Lubitsch’s mature period,” graced as it is with the comic touches and sophisticated rhythmic compositions for which Lubitsch would become legendary. Live piano by David Drazin. Restored by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation with funding provided by George Lucas Family Foundation.
Connect with the Wisconsin Film Festival on social media! @wifilmfest
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
This urgent documentary, a feat of empathy, artistry, and derring-do, examines the plight of forest elephants in the Central African Republic and the people who protect them. In sun-dappled Dzanga National Park, elephants play, bathe, and raise families under the watchful eye of Sessely Bernard, an elder of the Bayaka tribe, and American biologist Andrea Turkalo. Throughout the Congo basin, however, ivory poachers have exacted an alarming, violent toll, slaughtering thousands of these majestic creatures per year. With great patience and humanity, Elephant Path spotlights the bravery of eco-guards like Zephirine Mbele and the friendships formed between these selfless guardians of the animal kingdom. A sculptor by training, Todd McGrain transforms stunning, front-line footage into a study of elephant life in all its beauty and fragility. Winner of a 2019 Golden Badger Award. (ZZ)
The film critic and director behind the sprawling miniseries The Story of Film: An Odyssey returns with another impressively curated selection of clips in service to a poetic history of cinema. Taking the form of a fan letter addressed to Welles himself, this essayistic biography eschews straightforward chronology to explore several recurring themes in the director’s life, including his endless artistic ambitions, his progressive politics, and his several romances, as they manifested throughout his career. Focusing as much on Welles’s enormous volume of paintings and drawings as on his legendary films, Cousins crafts a story of a man blessed with a powerful and unique way of seeing the world as a collection of intensely lit spaces, dramatic angles, and offbeat human subjects. In teasing out the affinities between Welles’s work in multiple fields, the documentary shows the lifelong fascinations and preoccupations that defined him, showcasing him as a visionary in the truest sense. Along with Welles’s finally released The Other Side of the Wind (also playing at this year’s WFF), Cousins’ playfully personal celebration allows us to see the iconic filmmaker’s prodigious talents in a brand new light, demonstrating just how far we are from fully appreciating the true scope of this genius’s skills. (TB)
A Faithful Man
11
F-G
Genesis
Girls Always Happy
Genèse
FRI, APRIL 5 • 5:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 SAT, APRIL 6 • 6:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5
Freud SUN, APRIL 7 • 4:30 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART Narrative • USA • 1962 • 35mm • 139 MIN Director: John Huston; Screenwriter: Charles Kaufman, Wolfgang Reinhardt; Producer: Wolfgang Reinhardt; Editor: Ralph Kemplen; Cast: Montgomery Clift, Susannah York, Larry Parks, Susan Kohner; Cinematographer: Douglas Slocombe; Music: Jerry Goldsmith SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
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Director John Huston’s atmospheric biopic, filmed in Germany, spans five formative years in the life of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (Montgomery Clift). Susannah York plays a troubled woman who seeks Freud’s help and serves as a catalyst for him to come to terms with his own troubles. Structured like a detective film, Freud is an intelligent and insightful look at the Vienna-based theorist with virtuoso dream sequences and a moody, thriller-like score by Jerry Goldsmith, which earned the composer his first of 18 Oscar nominations. The high-contrast, black and white visual look is a triumph for cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, who later shot the first three Indiana Jones features. After successfully collaborating with Huston on The Misfits, Clift clashed with the director on this production, leading Huston to blame Freud’s production delays and lackluster box office performance on the actor’s behavior on and off set in Europe. However, Freud’s undeniable overriding virtue is Clift’s edgy, riveting, and dedicated performance, and Huston’s complaints and accusations are challenged in the new documentary Making Montgomery Clift screening at this year’s WFF. (JH)
Fruits of Clouds
Plody mraků
12 SCREENS IN: THE WITCH HUNTERS
Rou qing shi
FRI, APRIL 5 • 3:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 SUN, APRIL 7 • 3:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Canada • 2018 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 130 MIN Director: Philippe Lesage; Screenwriter: Philippe Lesage; Producer: Galilé MarionGauvin; Editor: Mathieu Bouchard-Malo; Cast: Théodore Pellerin, Noée Abita, Édouard Tremblay-Grenier, Pier-Luc Funk, Émilie Bierre, Maxime Dumontier, Paul Ahmarani, Jules Roy Sicotte, Antoine Marchand-Gagnon, Brett Dier; Cinematographer: Nicolas Canniccioni SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
A superlative look at young desire and heartbreak, Genesis perceptively traces the emerging love lives of two Montreal siblings. Guillaume is the smirking class clown of his boarding school, a natural performer who entertains his peers with impressions and pranks. In a parallel story, recent grad Charlotte dumps her boyfriend after an indecent proposal. Guillaume’s easy confidence hits a stumbling block when he develops feelings for his best friend, while Charlotte finds herself in a troubling situation after becoming involved with an older guy. Featuring excellent performances by its two up-and-coming leads and a knockout soundtrack, Genesis is quietly radical in relaying its universal tale, willing to go in whatever directions its heart takes it. “Exciting and heartbreaking like a true first love… feels intensely alive and in the moment” (The Hollywood Reporter). “Absolutely mesmerizes. Lesage’s eye for emotional truths is so keen and his cinematic voice so sensitive, every frame of this movie feels like a piece of youth distilled, raw and precious” (The Film Stage). “Superior, authentic, heartbreaking” (Screen Anarchy). Best Film, Best Actor, 2018 Montreal Festival of New Cinema. Best Film, 2018 Los Cabos Film Festival. (MK)
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • China • 2018 • DCP • Mandarin with English subtitles • 117 MIN Director: Yang Mingming; Screenwriter: Yang Mingming; Producer: Yang Chao, Yang Jing; Editor: Yang Mingming; Cast: Yang Mingming, Nai An, Zhang Xianmin, Li Qinqin, Huang Wei, Yuan Li, Li Wenbo; Cinematographer: Shen Xiaomin
The Girl in the Window La Ragazza in vetrina
WED, APRIL 10 • 6:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 THU, APRIL 11 • 1:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5
SECTION: NEW WOMEN DIRECTORS, NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Italy, France • 1961 • DCP • Italian with English subtitles • 92 MIN Director: Luciano Emmer; Screenwriter: Luciano Emmer, Vincio Marinuuci, Luciano Martino, Pier Paolo Pasolini; Producer: Emanuele Cassuto; Editor: Jolanda Benvenuti, Emma Le Chanois; Cast: Lino Ventura, Marina Vlady, Bernard Fresson, Magali Noël; Cinematographer: Otello Martelli; Music: Roman Vlad SECTION: BEST OF IL CINEMA RITROVATO
Federico (iconic Euro tough guy Lino Ventura) and Vincenzo (Bernard Fresson) are two migrant Italians working in a coal mine in The Netherlands. In a harrowing, unforgettable sequence, a cave-in leaves the two men trapped and running out of air. Saved, but traumatized, Federico and Vincenzo decide to recuperate by spending a weekend with a pair of prostitutes from Amsterdam’s Red Light district: the older, more experienced Chanel (Magali Noël) and new-to-the profession Else (Marina Vlady). The two miners soon recognize that these “girls in the window” are not about to give them the tension-free holiday they’re looking for, but maybe more deeper connections can be forged. Made during one of the richest periods in European film history, La Ragazza in vetrina is a mature, unpredictable drama that was never before released in the US. The film marked a culmination for the great Italian director Luciano Emmer, a former documentarian who had embarked on a remarkable string of narrative features in the 1950s. After the Italian release of this Franco-Italian co-production was delayed by censors who excised one scene, an embittered Emmer largely dedicated the next 30 years of his career to television commercials. The vivid black and white cinematography is by Otello Martelli, fresh off of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, and one of Emmer’s co-screenwriters was Pier Paolo Pasolini. This beautiful new digital restoration from the Cineteca di Bologna is the full, uncensored version of Emmer’s masterpiece. (JH)
In a tight hutong alley in Beijing, twentysomething Wu shares a tiny apartment with her middle-aged mother. Like many mothers and daughters living in such close quarters, these two are practically inseparable, except for the fact that they drive each other completely insane. They communicate in a fast-paced screwball repartee of sarcasm and bickering—Mom, in particular, has a way of giving advice that sounds suspiciously like an insult—often while chowing down on street food with gusto. They each have men they keep at just enough of a distance to keep some extra money coming in, until circumstances turn them against each other. Girls Always Happy marks an auspicious bow for first-time filmmaker Yang Mingming, who serves as the film’s director, writer, editor, and star. The exactitude of her comic timing and framing belie the film’s shoestring intimacy, and she writes gratifyingly complicated women with depth and sensitivity. Best of all, she never reduces these fully realized characters towards “likeability,” when what they are is so much more: lifelike. Best Director, 2018 Hong Kong International Film Festival. Best New Talent Award, 2018 Seattle Film Festival. (MK)
YEAR THREE
JUNE 6-13
MADBURGERWEEK.COM
#MADBURGERWEEK
G-H
Gone with the Pope SUN, APRIL 7 • 7:15 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: CHRIS INNIS, BOB MURAWSKI Narrative • USA • 2010 • 35mm • 82 MIN Director: Duke Mitchell; Screenwriter: Duke Mitchell; Producer: Duke Mitchell; Editor: Bob Murawski; Cast: Duke Mitchell, Lorenzo Dardado, Jim LoBianco, Peter Milo; Cinematographer: Peter Santoro; Music: Dominico Salvatora Miceli, Jeffrey Mitchell, Chris Virzi, Christopher Young SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
Paul (writer and director Duke Mitchell) is a sleazy small-time gangster who comes up with a particularly unholy scheme: kidnap the pope and demand a “dollar from every Catholic in the world” as ransom. Mitchell was
a former nightclub entertainer who, along with Sammy Petrillo, was one half of a popular Martin and Lewis knockoff act and co-star of Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952). In the 1970s, Mitchell turned to independent, low-budget filmmaking with the ultra-violent Massacre Mafia Style (1974). At the time of Mitchell’s death in 1981, his second feature, then titled Kiss the Ring, existed only in an unassembled form. Oscar-winning editor Bob Murawski (The Hurt Locker) has taken on an enormous labor of love by creating a finished film from Mitchell’s bawdy, imaginative, and often hilarious footage. The result is a fast-paced exploitation effort with plenty of nudity, violence, and deeply felt views on organized religion. Murawski, whose work on Gone with the Pope extended over 15 years, will be joined in person by Associate Producer Chris Innis to talk about what went into bringing this small-scale masterpiece back from the brink of cinematic oblivion and how it prepared Murawski for putting together Orson Welles’s similarly unassembled The Other Side of the Wind, also showing at this year’s WFF. (JH)
The Good Girls Las niñas bien
FRI, APRIL 5 • 11:15 AM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 SAT, APRIL 6 • 4:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Mexico • 2018 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 93 MIN Director: Alejandra Márquez Abella; Screenwriter: Alejandra Márquez Abella; Producer: Rodrigo S. González, Gabriela Maire; Editor: Miguel Schverdfinger; Cast: Ilse Salas, Cassandra Ciangherotti, Paulina Gaitán, Flavio Medina; Cinematographer: Dariela Ludlow SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Presented with support from UW-Madison Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program (LACIS)
Granbad SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET
Good Morning
Helen
Ohayo
SCREENS IN: ELEPHANT PATH
FRI, APRIL 5 • 11:00 AM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: PHIL JOHNSTON, DAVID BORDWELL Narrative • Japan • 1959 • 35mm • Japanese with English subtitles • 93 MIN Director: Yasujiro Ozu; Screenwriter: Yasujiro Ozu; Editor: Yoshiyasu Hamamura; Cast: Masahiko Shimazu, Koji Shidara, Kuniku Miyake, Chishu Ryu; Cinematographer: Yushun Atsuta; Music: Toshiro Mayuzumi
My Grandpa is Hiding
Mon papi s’est caché
SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET
SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
Ozu’s first film in color is the lightest and sweetest work of his late career. Reimagining the director’s classic silent film I Was Born, But... for the newly Westernized world of post-war Japan, Good Morning tells the story of two boys who commit to a vow of silence in protest of their parents’ refusal to buy a television set. Gently poking fun at the fledgling consumer culture pervading the country, the film is a good-natured satire that eschews the hushed domestic tragedy of Ozu’s better-known masterpieces for upbeat, at times very broad jokes, and a pervading sense of optimism. The delicate touch with which the film portrays the eternal conflict between weary parents and stubborn children pulls profound, universal emotions out of the highly specific, lovingly detailed setting. Throughout all of this, Ozu sacrifices none of his characteristic precision, rendering the whole film in sturdy angles that depict the life of a Japanese household with beautiful geometric rigor. If you’ve never seen a movie directed by this beloved genius, you could hardly hope for a more welcoming, warm-hearted place to begin. (TB) Good Morning is a personal favorite of filmmaker and UW-Madison alum Phil Johnston (Ralph Breaks the Internet). After the screening, he will participate in a conversation with Professor David Bordwell, author of Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema.
Le Grand Remix SCREENS IN: STORIES WE TELL IN WISCONSIN
Her Smell THU, APRIL 11 • 7:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 135 MIN
Hail Satan? SUN, APRIL 7 • 11:15 AM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 MON, APRIL 8 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 95 MIN Director: Penny Lane; Producer: Gabriel Sedgwick; Editor: Amy Foote, Aaron Wickenden; Cinematographer: Naiti Gámez SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
Devilishly hilarious and blessedly freethinking, this unlikely feel-good documentary peers behind the bloodred curtain of the Satanic Temple, a cabal of pranksters hell-bent on the separation of church and state. Make no mistake, these so-called Satanists aren’t real devil-worshippers at all, or even anti-religion; in fact, their version of the Ten Commandments, the Seven Tenets, are unassailable edicts of human rights, decency, and respect. Led by the black-clad, eminently reasonable Lucien Greaves, they’re a righteous cult devoted to exposing the unconstitutional cross-breeding of Christianity and the US government, preferably by using the state’s tools and religion’s iconography against them. Through a mix of ambitious stunts and cheekily transgressive performance art, they grab headlines by exposing hypocrisies, usually while adopting the occult imagery (and frequent nudity) of a black mass. In actuality, their congregation includes bow-tied squares as much as tatted-up hedonists, but as their gospel spreads and more people enlist, managing their ministry poses a problem—how
Director: Alex Ross Perry; Screenwriter: Alex Ross Perry; Producer: Matthew Perniciaro, Michael Sherman, Adam Piotrowicz, Elisabeth Moss, Alex Ross Perry; Editor: Robert Greene; Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Cara Delevingne, Dan Stevens, Amber Heard, Agyness Deyn, Gayle Rankin, Ashley Benson, Eric Stoltz, Dylan Gelula; Cinematographer: Sean Price Williams SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
Elisabeth Moss gives a fearless, tour de force performance as Becky Something, a self-destructive rock star at the height of the grunge era. She’s the talented, toxic frontwoman for Something She, a band on the verge of blowing up, so long as Becky doesn’t immolate first. Surrounded on all sides by exes, exploiters, estranged bandmates, hangers-on, and her own young child—and seemingly determined to make enemies of them all—Becky cultivates chaos like a rock ‘n’ roll witch. Her story unfolds over five bravura scenes, capturing key moments in the arc of Becky’s career in real time as she combusts and recovers. The best and bravest film yet from threetime collaborators Moss and writer/ director Alex Ross Perry maintains a structural control belied by the frenetic antagonism of its star. Her Smell dares to push Becky’s exhibitionist delirium towards the breaking point, only to loop back around with a powerful wave of well-earned emotional resonance. “Over and above the furious—and ultimately painfully tender—drama, Perry achieves something of a new, grand version of his own cinematic music. It also, when the time comes, draws time to a stop; two long takes, of Moss singing at home, are among the most exquisite, breath-stopping moments in recent movies” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker). 2019 SXSW Film Festival. (MK) 13
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Mexico City, 1982. Ensconced in a posh enclave of country clubs and pools, immaculately coiffed housewives indulge in elaborate parties and shopping sprees, blissfully oblivious to their country’s looming economic crash. Decked out in pure early-1980s luxury (more than one reviewer has noted the subtle satire in the film’s fashion sense), queen bee Sofia clucks over new-money arrivistes—at least until the unthinkable happens, and her own credit card is declined. As the cracks in her family’s facade deepen, keeping up appearances becomes an allconsuming mission. Writer/director Alejandra Márquez Abella sees no shortage of absurdity in this milieu, but admirably doesn’t simply mock her characters either, instead casting Sofia in a relatively sympathetic light, despite her bourgeois trappings. Credit is due to the remarkably poised and convincing lead performance by Ilse Salas (Güeros, WFF 2015), whose elegance Márquez Abella matches with graceful camera moves that glide across impeccably manicured estates. Praising its “distinctly female gaze,” The Globe and Mail named this their “Best Discovery” of the Toronto Film Festival: “It’s not hard to believe The Good Girls is a directorial coup that only a woman could pull off.” (MK)
do you create standard practices for a rebellion? Fighting injustice with tongue in cheek, the Satanic Temple shows you can stand up for what you believe in, and have fun doing it. 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (MK)
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Home Sweet Home
Le Refuge de l’écureuil
SCREENS IN: TITO AND THE BIRDS
Hudson River Miracle SCREENS IN: STORIES WE TELL IN WISCONSIN
The Image Book Le Livre d’image
WED, APRIL 10 • 8:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 POST SCREENING PANEL DISCUSSION WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Experimental • France, Switzerland • 2018 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 85 MIN
Hotel by the River Gangbyun Hotel
Husband, Ensured SCREENS IN: WISCONSIN GONE WILD
SUN, APRIL 7 • 7:00 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE WED, APRIL 10 • 2:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • South Korea • 2018 • DCP • Korean with English subtitles • 96 MIN
The Hidden City
Director: Hong Sang-soo; Screenwriter: Hong Sang-soo; Producer: Hong Sang-soo; Editor: Son Yeon-ji; Cast: Ki Joo-bong, Kim Min-hee, Song Seon-mi, Kwon Hae-hyo, Yu Jun-sang; Cinematographer: Kim Hyung-koo
FRI, APRIL 5 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 SAT, APRIL 6 • 6:15 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Spain, France, Germany • 2018 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 80 MIN Director: Víctor Moreno; Producer: Jose Alayón, Marina Alberti, Nayra Sanz Fuentes, Eva Chillon, Dirk Manthey, Víctor Moreno; Editor: Samuel M. Delgado, Víctor Moreno; Cinematographer: Jose Alayón SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
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Beneath the streets of every metropolis lies a parallel sub-city, a mysterious netherworld we’re all aware of, but rarely get to see for ourselves. This experiential documentary plunges us into Madrid’s underground maze of man-made tunnels, corridors, and caverns. Although built strictly for brute functionality, this alien landscape is revealed to contain its own uncanny aesthetic when viewed through the appreciative lens of director/spelunker Victor Moreno. Adjusting our eyes to the artificial twilight, we’re escorted into an out-of-time zone laced with peculiar architecture, hurtling subways, wildlife, and occasional glimpses of the world above, albeit through the bars of sewer grates. This catalog of visual oddities is complemented by a superb sound design that courses with mechanical shivers and rattles, metallic clangs and gasps. A subterranean kindred spirit to the deep-sea fishing documentary Leviathan (WFF 2013), The Hidden City can only be fully appreciated in a darkened theater with surround sound. “An incredible visual experience of the highest order. A glorious dance of light and dark, this portrait of the tunnels that exist under Madrid will knock you off your feet and make you gasp” (Unseen Films). (MK)
Hoan Alone: Personal Stories from the Bridge
14 SCREENS IN: STORIES WE TELL IN WISCONSIN
Hold My Horse SCREENS IN: STORIES WE TELL IN WISCONSIN
SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Another year means another gorgeous, beguiling, and quietly shattering film from Hong Sang-soo, “so clearly the greatest filmmaker of his time” (Dan Sallitt, MUBI). Convinced his days are numbered, a renowned poet (Ki Joo-bong) summons his two estranged sons (Hong mainstays Kwon Hae-hyo and Yu Jun-sang) to a hotel along the Han River in the dead of winter. A few rooms down, a young woman (Kim Min-hee, lead actress in The Handmaiden and Hong’s last five films) recouping from a bad break-up and a mysterious burn is consoled by her visiting friend (Song Seon-mi). These parallel storylines of feuding men and maltreated women intersect only in fleeting, comical ways, before converging in one of the most affecting climaxes of Hong’s career. Folding handheld camerawork into a signature style that includes zooms, long takes, and dreamlike digressions, Hotel by the River showcases this South Korean master’s recent shift toward a more raw and troubling intimacy. 2018 Locarno, New York, and Toronto International Film Festivals. (ZZ)
The House
Domek
SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
Hyenas Hyènes
WED, APRIL 10 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 Narrative • Senegal, France • 1992 • DCP • French, Wolof with English subtitles • 106 MIN Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty; Screenwriter: Djibril Diop Mambéty; Producer: PierreAlain Meier, Alain Rozanès; Editor: Loredana Cristelli; Cast: Ami Diakhate, Mansour Diouf, Calgou Fall, Faly Gueye; Cinematographer: Matthias Kälin; Music: Wassis Diop SECTION: BEST OF IL CINEMA RITROVATO
An icon of Senegalese and African cinema, Djibril Diop Mambéty directed just two feature films: Touki-Bouki (1973) and Hyenas (1992), which is funnier and even more incisive than its brilliant predecessor. Seeking to turn his village’s fortunes around, grocerturned-politician Dramaan invites old flame Linguere, now obscenely wealthy, to visit her former home after years of exile. However, Linguere has never forgiven Dramaan for the shame he brought onto her when she was just 17-years-old and pregnant with his unacknowledged child. She agrees to lavish the village with untold riches, under one condition: the locals must execute Dramaan. From such a grim scenario (adapted from Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s classic play, The Visit), Mambéty stitches gut-busting satire, postcolonial critique, and sweeping pathos together into one emotionally involving masterpiece. Hyenas boasts Mambéty’s signature use of bold colors, opulent costumes, and striking camera angles, all begging to be seen on the big screen in this new 4K digital restoration. (ZZ) Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of African Cultural Studies
Director: Jean-Luc Godard; Producer: Fabrice Aragno, Mitra Farahani; Editor: Jean-Luc Godard, Fabrice Aragno, Jean-Paul Battaggia, Nicole Brenez; Cinematographer: Fabrice Aragno SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Winner of the first-ever Special Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, the latest cine-essay from living legend Jean-Luc Godard appropriates all manner of found footage in order to reconcile the history of the 20th century with the history of image-making. Just as its purposefully degraded video images achieve a fractured beauty, The Image Book thrives on contradictions—it is alternately cosmic and cryptic, discursive and pointed, ancient and of-the-moment. From the jump cuts of Breathless to the cortexmelting 3D of Goodbye to Language, Godard has been cinema’s most consistent innovator for over five decades. With The Image Book, his boldest explorations are found in the radical sound design, which pushes Dolby surround sound to its fullest disorienting potential, making the theatrical experience a must. “A dense visual and aural collage that I’ve seen twice and expect to see several times more” (Manohla Dargis, New York Times). “A thrillingly dissonant, deafening synesthesia. Godard’s eyeball-frazzling video essay bewilders and delights” (The Guardian). “A conclusive statement in this far-reaching work from one of the great media artists of the last century” (Indiewire). 2018 Cannes and New York Film Festivals. (MK) Presented with support from the Kohler Fellows at the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery
WISCONSIN FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL ICE CREAM FLAVOR,
LOOK FOR IT WHEREVER BABCOCK DAIRY PRODUCTS ARE SOLD!
I-J PICTURED ROCKS
In Fabric FRI, APRIL 5 • 6:30 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH SUN, APRIL 7 • 8:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • UK • 2018 • DCP • 118 MIN Director: Peter Strickland; Screenwriter: Peter Strickland; Producer: Andy Starke; Editor: Mátyás Fekete; Cast: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hayley Squires, Leo Bill, Julian Barratt, Steve Oram, Gwendoline Christie; Cinematographer: Ari Wegner SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
A lonely woman (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), recently separated from her husband, visits a bewitching London department store in search of a dress that will transform her life. She’s fitted with a perfectly flattering, artery-red gown—which, in time, will come to unleash a malevolent curse and unstoppable evil, threatening everyone who comes into its path. From acclaimed horror director Peter Strickland (the singular auteur behind the sumptuous sadomasochistic romance The Duke of Burgundy and WFF 2013’s auditory giallo-homage Berberian Sound Studio) comes a truly nightmarish film, at turns frightening, seductive, and darkly humorous. Channeling voyeuristic fantasies of high fashion and bloodshed, In Fabric is Strickland’s most twisted and brilliantly original vision yet. “Sidesplittingly funny. Deeply delicious in sumptuous form and sly humor” (The Playlist). “Wonderfully weird. A movie of ravishing colors and textures that ultimately elevates style and sensuality into something genuinely meaningful” (Los Angeles Times). 2018 Toronto International and Fantastic Film Festivals.
It’s Only Natural: Out and About with Wisconsin’s Own
The Alligator Hunter
SAT, APRIL 6 • 8:30 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH
A man loses his wife to a beast and seeks revenge in this beautifully animated short that tackles grief through a painted, hand-drawn aesthetic. (TI)
77 MIN FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND
Come hang out with us while we explore the great outdoors. Each of the nine films in this Wisconsin’s Own shorts program deals with nature and our relationship with it. From the exquisite winter spectacle of the Upper Peninsula in Pictured Rocks, to the way light reflects off of speeding train cars in Todd, to an examination of the lives we’ve built for ourselves along the banks of a majestic body of water in Life on the Mississippi, these shorts capture the world around us and they beg to be seen on the big screen. Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
The Sequence of Years MIDWEST PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2018 • HD projection • 9 MIN Director: Ben Balcom
Inquiring Nuns FRI, APRIL 5 • 6:15 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART 91 MIN
Five Down Documentary • USA • 2018 • HD projection • 25 MIN Director: Erik Gunneson; Editor: Erik Gunneson; Cinematographer: Erik Gunneson
Inquiring Nuns MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 1968 • 16mm • 66 MIN Director: Gordon Quinn, Gerald Temaner; Editor: Gordon Quinn; Cinematographer: Gordon Quinn; Music: Philip Glass SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
Traces of Memory Dance, Experimental • USA • 2018 • HD projection • 6 MIN Director: Liz Sexe, Jack Neuman; Producer: Liz Sexe; Cast: Liz Sexe, Timothy Russell
A gorgeously photographed and choreographed dance; a meditation on memory and the passing of time, filmed in Madison’s own Olin Park. (BR)
Pictured Rocks WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary, Experimental • USA • 2018 • HD projection • 9 MIN Director: Jack Cronin
With a perspective at once granular and cosmic, this gorgeously shot, immersive tone poem captures the ebb and flow of seasons along Michigan’s Upper Peninsula lakeshore. (ZZ)
Todd WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • 2019 • HD projection • 6 MIN Director: Bill Bedford
Framed tight against a white background, cargo train cars speed by. Bedford’s film transforms the everyday into an entrancing blur of color, speed, and sound. (ZZ)
Director: Kyle V. James, Mallori Taylor, Michael Bourne; Screenwriter: Kyle V. James
Winter Cranes WORLD PREMIERE • Documentary • 2018 • HD projection • 4 MIN Director: Joseph V. Brown
In this loving ode to birds and birdwatching, flocks of sandhill cranes congregate in frigid Baraboo before migrating south for the winter. (ZZ)
The Lifesaving Medal Documentary • USA • 2018 • HD projection • 6 MIN Director: Maureen Mauk, Lillian Holman; Screenwriter: Maureen Mauk, Lillian Holman, Dewitt King; Producer: Maureen Mauk, Lillian Holman, Dewitt King, Hayden Mauk; Cast: Captain Robert Desh
Do you think of Wisconsin as a seafaring state? This brisk, studentproduced historical documentary will make sure that you do, focused as it is on tales of heroism along our shores. (ZZ)
Die Leere (The Emptiness) WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2018 • HD projection • 5 MIN Director: Anders Nienstaedt; Producer: Ben Van Howe; Music: Yuto Ohashi
A visual essay of small moments of life and death in the American West. Filmed over the course of a five-week bike trip between Montana and Ontario. (BR)
Life On The Mississippi Documentary • USA • 2018 • HD projection • 28 MIN Director: Bill Brown; Screenwriter: Bill Brown; Producer: Bill Brown
Retracing Mark Twain’s voyages along the Lower Mississippi River, this probing and haunting travelogue interrogates the myths of the American South. Brown’s pristine 16mm cinematography and wry voiceover uncover how technology, money, and nature have impacted storied spots and customs from New Orleans to St. Louis. Winner of a 2019 Golden Badger award. (BR)
Jivaro SAT, APRIL 6 • 8:30 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: BOB FURMANEK North American Premiere • Narrative • USA • 1954 • DCP • 92 MIN Director: Edward Ludwig; Screenwriter: David Duncan, Winston Miller; Producer: William H. Pine, William C. Thomas; Editor: Howard A. Smith; Cast: Fernando Lamas, Rhonda Fleming, Brian Keith, Lon Chaney, Jr., Rita Moreno; Cinematographer: Lionel Lindon; Music: Gregory Stone SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
Rio Galdez (a marvelous looking Fernando Lamas) is the proprietor of the only bar on a long stretch of the Amazon River in Brazil. Rio’s place has become a hangout for various American and European outcasts, including ex-engineer Jerry (Richard Denning, co-star of our other 3D Amazon adventure in this year’s WFF, Creature from the Black Lagoon) who is obsessed with finding the lost treasure of the head-hunting Jivaro natives. When Jerry goes missing, his fiancée (Rhonda Fleming) recruits Rio and his boat for a journey down the treacherous river in search of her man…and Jivaro gold. Climaxing in a series of action scenes featuring lots of flying arrows and spears, Jivaro was intended to be the third in a series of lush 3D Technicolor movies from Paramount Pictures and the producers William H. Pine and William C. Thomas. Diminishing box office returns for 3D releases in general led to Jivaro being originally released only in 2D prints. Unseen in 3D for more than 50 years after its original release, Jivaro will have its first digital 3D theatrical screening at this year’s WFF. The screening will be presented in-person by 3D authority Bob Furmanek, whose 3D Film Archive spearheaded the restoration efforts and rescued this action adventure romp from flat oblivion. (JH) 15
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Filmmaker Erik Gunneson distills footage he shot over the first five years of his daughter’s life into an unusually patterned and moving short-form work. (ZZ)
A cinéma vérité gem inspired by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer, Inquiring Nuns follows Sisters Mary Campion and Marie Arné as they ask strangers across Chicago a seemingly simple question: “Are you happy?” While responses cover daily challenges like jobs, family matters, and irritable store clerks, they repeatedly return to major concerns of the period, especially the Vietnam War. With locations including the Art Institute of Chicago, a South Side church, and sidewalks in the Loop, the film casually captures the look and feel of 1968 Chicago, as well as the preoccupations and problems of people from various backgrounds and perspectives. The nuns’ interviews range from serious reflections to light conversations, with memorable chance encounters like an appearance by actor Lincoln Perry, nearly unrecognizable from the days he was known as Stepin Fetchit. One of the first projects from nonprofit documentary production company Kartemquin Films, Inquiring Nuns features an early score composed and performed by Philip Glass. Presented on a restored 16mm print. (MSJ)
First-person camerawork, ambient music, and poetic verse interweave in this at once serene and kaleidoscopic journey through landscape and memory. (ZZ)
MADISON PREMIERE • Animation • USA • 2017 • HD projection • 4 MIN
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The Juniper Tree SAT, APRIL 6 • 1:00 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART Narrative • Iceland • 1990 • 35mm • 78 MIN Director: Nietzchka Keene; Screenwriter: Nietzchka Keene; Producer: Nietzchka Keene; Editor: Nietzchka Keene; Cast: Björk, Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir, Valdimar Örn Flygenring, Guðrún Gísladóttir, Geirlaug Sunna Þormar; Cinematographer: Randy Sellars; Music: Larry Lipkis SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
Before her groundbreaking solo album was released, Björk debuted as an actor in this spare, chilling tale of medi-
eval witchcraft. After their mother’s grisly execution, Margit (Björk) and Katla (Bryndis Petra Bragadottir) seek the protection of farmer Jóhann (Valdimar Örn Flygenring). Katla seduces Jóhann with magic, rousing the suspicions of Jóhann’s young, discerning son (Geirlaug Sunna Þormar). Struggling to placate the boy’s worries, Margit communes with her mother’s enigmatic ghost. Directed by late UWMadison film professor Nietzchka Keene, The Juniper Tree adorns its Grimm fairy tale premise with the otherworldly scenery of Iceland, as its characters pass through fumarole fields, black sand beaches, and racks of dried cod. A 35mm print of a new restoration by the Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research and The Film Foundation, with additional funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation, will be screened. (ZZ) Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic
thoroughly Wisconsin-esque love, Lake Michigan Monster is what things might have looked like if George Méliès had directed Cabin Boy. (BR) Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
Leto
Konigiri-Kun Butterfly
FRI, APRIL 5 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 SUN, APRIL 7 • 3:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1
こにぎりくん ちょうちょ SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
Laura SCREENS IN: STORIES WE TELL IN WISCONSIN
Kuap Leona SUN, APRIL 7 • 7:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 TUE, APRIL 9 • 3:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6
Lake Michigan Monster SUN, APRIL 7 • 4:30 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE
Director: Rachel Lears; Producer: Sarah Olson, Rachel Lears, Robin Blotnick; Editor: Robin Blotnick; Cinematographer: Rachel Lears
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SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s spectacular rise from working class bartender to national figure is captured as it happens in this exhilarating documentary. We meet Ocasio-Cortez at the dawn of her grassroots primary campaign, before she became “AOC;” knocking on doors between double shifts, psyching herself up for debates, and memorably dunking on her opponent’s lame campaign materials. With drive, intelligence, and charisma to spare, she rockets from rookie underdog to force to be reckoned with—here is the origin story of a political dynamo. Director Rachel Lears complements Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign with those of three other progressive women running Democratic primary challenges across the country—Paula Jean Swearingen in West Virginia coal country, Cori Bush in St. Louis, and Amy Vilela in Nevada—a useful cross-section that illustrates how similar messages play in different regions. Despite their passion and ideals, all four face long odds, but in the words of Ocasio-Cortez, “In order for one to get through, 100 of us have to try.”Pure, fist-pumping inspiration, Knock Down the House is “a tribute to the energy of every woman who pledged that in 2018 they would make a difference” (Variety). US Documentary Audience Award, 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (MK)
Director: Isaac Cherem; Screenwriter: Isaac Cherem, Naian González Norvind; Producer: Salomón Askenazi, Naian González Norvind; Editor: Roque Azcuaga; Cast: Naian González Norvind, Christian Vazquez, Carolina Politi, Daniel Adissi; Cinematographer: Diana Garay; Music: Jacobo Lieberman SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND
In this quietly compelling, sexually frank coming-of-age tale set in Mexico City, Ariela is a 25-year-old muralist; an only child who has been raised as part of that city’s tight-knit, insular group of Jews. As her friends settle into domesticity, she finds herself subject to constant pressure from her family to find a suitable husband from within the Jewish community. Meanwhile, she finds herself in an intensely physical, forbidden romance with an outsider, Ivan. That relationship is threatened by Ivan’s frustration at not being introduced to or recognized as worthy by Ariela’s family. As she navigates between the unyielding traditional expectations of her social circle and the desires and limitations of a procession of would-be suitors (including a spoiled man-child who lives with his parents in a childhood bedroom still festooned with New York Jets paraphernalia), Ariela finds it difficult to establish her own identity. As she patiently listens for signals from her own heart, complications ensue and easy answers remain elusive. Naian González Norvind (Gotham), a radiant lead, as well as Leona’s co-screenwriter and producer, perfectly captures Ariela’s outer reticence and inner strength, allowing her story to build towards an unexpected, subtle triumph. (BR)
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 11 MIN
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 86 MIN
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Mexico • 2018 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 94 MIN
89 MIN
Belly of the Beast
SAT, APRIL 6 • 4:00 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION
Screenwriter: Mikhail Idov, Lili Idova, Ivan Kapitonov, Kirill Serebrennikov; Producer: Pavel Burya, Georgy Chumburidze, Mikhail Finogenov, Murad Osmann, Ilya Styuart; Editor: Yuriy Karikh; Cast: Teo Yoo, Irina Starshenbaum, Roman Bilyk; Cinematographer: Vladislav Opelyants; Music: Roman Bilyk SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET
Knock Down the House
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Russia • 2018 • DCP • Russian with English subtitles • 126 MIN
Director: Lilly Warren; Screenwriter: Lilly Warren; Producer: Nova Czarnecki, Lilly Warren; Cast: David Pulliam, Ashley Coffey, Vic Czarnecki
What if you could swallow fun and enjoy it without getting off the couch? An inventor creates a pill that does just that in this silent but quirky short that explores the value of experience. (TI)
Lake Michigan Monster MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative, Experimental • USA • 2018 • DCP • English • 78 MIN Director: Ryland Tews; Screenwriter: Ryland Tews, Mike Cheslik; Editor: Mike Cheslik; Cast: Ryland Tews, Erick West, Beulah Peters, Daniel Long, Wayne Tews
Guy Maddin meets Guys on Ice in this relentlessly gonzo creature feature spawned from the depths of writer/ director/star Ryland Tews’ feverish, weird-bearded brain. As this black and white objet d’art opens, young Captain Seafield (Tews) has assembled a crew of specialists to help him in his quest to avenge the death of his seafaring father at the hands of the titular sea monster. As the jokes, visual effects, and elaborate editing techniques pileup, nothing is quite what it seems. A labor of handcrafted, demented, and
Filmed in luminous, widescreen black and white, with occasional vivid bursts of color and visual effects that paint outside the lines, Leto (Russian for summer) is set in Leningrad in the mid-1980s, and explores a critical time in the life of influential Russian singer-songwriter Viktor Tsoi. The film concentrates almost exclusively on Tsoi’s friendship with fellow songwriter and musician, Mikhail Naumenko and the love triangle that forms between the two of them and Mikhail’s wife, Natalia. With frequent surreal touches and onscreen warnings that “this didn’t happen”, Leto eschews historical and political context and instead spends its considerable energy on intimate moments and soaring, urgent musical numbers, including a spectacular version of The Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” set aboard a moving train. Leto is the rarest of specimens, a biopic that manages to avoid just about every trope and cliche of the genre while at the same time conjuring up the kind of rock ‘n’ roll verisimilitude not heard in a movie since Hedwig and the Angry Inch. (BR) Presented with support from UW–Madison CREECA
Life On The Mississippi SCREENS IN: IT’S ONLY NATURAL: OUT AND ABOUT WITH WISCONSIN’S OWN
The Lifesaving Medal SCREENS IN: IT’S ONLY NATURAL: OUT AND ABOUT WITH WISCONSIN’S OWN
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Lost Cause SCREENS IN: PLAYED OUT
Lonelyhearts FRI, APRIL 5 • 1:30 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART Narrative • USA • 1958 • 35mm • 101 MIN
Light from Light
Director: Vincent Donehue; Screenwriter: Dore Schary; Producer: Dore Schary; Editor: John Faure, Aaron Stell; Cast: Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan, Myrna Loy, Maureen Stapleton, Dolores Hart; Cinematographer: John Alton; Music: Conrad Salinger
MON, APRIL 8 • 7:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 TUE, APRIL 9 • 4:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5
SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: PAUL HARRILL WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 82 MIN Director: Paul Harrill; Screenwriter: Paul Harrill; Producer: James M. Johnston, Kelly Williams, Toby Halbrooks, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Headington, Theresa Steele; Editor: Courtney Ware; Cast: Marin Ireland, Jim Gaffigan, Josh Wiggins, Atheena Frizzell; Cinematographer: Greta Zozula; Music: Adam Granduciel, Jon Natchez SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
In East Tennessee, car rental service worker and single mother Sheila (Marin Ireland) occasionally moonlights as a paranormal investigator. Though she has had dreams that have proven prophetic, Sheila remains skeptical of the supernatural. After appearing on a local radio show, Sheila is contacted by a widower (Jim Gaffigan) who questions whether or not he is getting messages from his late wife at the farmhouse where he’s living alone. Sheila agrees to help explore the mysterious goings-on and she brings along her teenaged son and his girlfriend to help. In 2014, prize-winning filmmaker Paul Harrill presented the first-ever screenings of his debut feature, Something, Anything at WFF. Now he returns with his acclaimed follow-up, fresh from its premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Like the previous film, Light from Light is a thoughtful, moving story told with quiet precision and patience. The authentic brand of reality created by the naturalistic actors and Harrill’s straightforward rendering of their environments provides the perfect backdrop from which to explore the possibility of the spirit world. Avoiding the cinematic grammar of horror movies, this is a compassionate film that is first and foremost about people trying, through extreme grief and everyday hardships, to live in the here and now. (JH)
Little Woods MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 103 MIN Director: Nia DaCosta; Screenwriter: Nia DaCosta; Producer: Rachael Fung, Gabrielle Nadig, Tim Headington; Editor: Catrin Hedstrom; Cast: Tessa Thompson, Lily James, James Badge Dale, Lance Reddick, Luke Kirby; Cinematographer: Matt Mitchell SECTION: NEW WOMEN DIRECTORS, AMERICAN VISIONS
Tessa Thompson (Sorry to Bother You) and Lily James (Baby Driver) star as sisters on the edge of the law
2019 venues AMC Madison 6, Hilldale 430 N. Midvale Blvd. | amctheatres.com
Di qiu zui hou de ye wan FRI, APRIL 5 • 11:00 AM UW CINEMATHEQUE SAT, APRIL 6 • 3:00 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • China, France • 2018 • DCP • Mandarin with English subtitles • 150 MIN Director: Bi Gan; Screenwriter: Bi Gan; Producer: Han Han, Xiaoming Huang; Editor: Yanan Qin; Cast: Sylvia Chang, Huang Jue, Tang Wei; Cinematographer: Dong Jinsong, Yao Hung-i, David Chizallet; Music: Lim Giong, Point Hsu SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
3D is used to virtuoso ends in this arthouse neo-noir (which has nothing to do with Eugene O’Neill). The film begins in 2D, as Luo searches out old flames and foes in a neon-drenched Kaili. The entire final hour of the film is a single, unbroken 3D shot that draws us deep into Lou’s dream-state. Both a dazzling technical accomplishment and time-bending narrative trick, this epic shot comprises the most ingenious use of 3D in narrative cinema since Gravity. In China, this unlikely blockbuster racked up a massive $40 million in its opening weekend (!). “Reaches a new level of cinematic intrigue as an immersive experience, unfolding within a surreal context that combines technical wizardry with high art. In this masterful directing gamble, the camera peers deep into its protagonist’s soul, and finds a whole universe lurking in its confines” (Indiewire). “Like nothing you’ve seen before. Like many great filmmakers—from Alain Resnais and Andrei Tarkovsky to David Lynch and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, all of whom he recalls to varying degrees— Bi [Gan] seems to believe that new realms of cinema are possible in making the immaterial material” (Dennis Lim, Film Comment). 2018 Cannes, New York Film Festival. (MK)
Chazen Museum of Art 750 University Ave. | chazen.wisc.edu
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union 800 Langdon St. | union.wisc.edu
UW Cinematheque Room 4070, Vilas Hall 821 University Ave. | cinema.wisc.edu
The Marquee, Union South 2nd floor, 1308 Dayton St. | union.wisc.edu
look at me, less than one hundred times SCREENS IN: STORIES WE TELL IN WISCONSIN
Lucky to Be a Woman La Fortuna di essere donna TUE, APRIL 9 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 THU, APRIL 11 • 4:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5
Narrative • Italy, France • 1956 • DCP • Italian with English subtitles • 96 MIN Director: Alessandro Blasetti; Screenwriter: Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Ennio Flaiano, Alessandro Continenza; Producer: Raymond Alexandre; Editor: Mario Serandrei; Cast: Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Charles Boyer, Elisa Cegani; Cinematographer: Otello Martelli; Music: Alessandro Cicognini SECTION: BEST OF IL CINEMA RITROVATO
In the second of their eight on-screen pairings, Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni are irresistible in Alessandro Blasetti’s comedy of manners. Photographer Corrado (Mastroianni) turns Antoinette (Loren) into an unwitting tabloid sensation when he takes a snapshot of her as she adjusts her stocking. But Antoinette holds her own as she negotiates her way through a corrupt entertainment and sexual economy populated by dubious producers and agents, and ambitious starlets. Loren, by turns languid and feisty, spars expertly with the delightfully understated Mastroianni. In a role originally intended for Vittorio De Sica, the always-welcome Charles Boyer co-stars as a louche producer. Blasetti, a successful director with a knack for comedy, had first featured Loren and Mastroianni together in Too Bad She’s Bad (1955). This reunion film, released the following year, anticipates the portrait of paparazzi culture in La dolce vita and even shares Fellini’s cinematographer (Otello Martelli) but Lucky to Be a Woman offers a lighter and funnier view of human foibles. A sparkling new digital restoration from Istituto Luce Cinecittà will be screened. (KC) 17
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
SUN, APRIL 7 • 3:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6
in a North Dakota oil town. Out on parole, Ollie is trying to go straight, but mounting foreclosure bills thrust her back into the criminal underworld of prescription drug dealing. Writer/ director Nia DaCosta seamlessly incorporates several contemporary American crises into this realistic small-town thriller, illustrating the human-level fallout that results from larger social issues. DaCosta’s preternatural filmmaking ability earned a high-profile admirer in Jordan Peele, who hailed her as a “bold new talent” and hired her to direct the upcoming Candyman reboot. “Exceptional. A rare and insightful look at the life of America’s struggling working class” (The Playlist). “Affecting, sincere, and most importantly socially astute. DaCosta offers something much more valuable and exceptional than conventional thrills: women who are alive and authentic, whom we care about and believe in” (Film Threat). Nora Ephron Award, 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. (MK)
In the second screen adaptation of a novella by The Day of the Locust author Nathanel West, Montgomery Clift stars as a fledgling writer in over his head after being assigned to write an advice column by a bitterly sardonic newspaper publisher (Robert Ryan). Clift, seen here one year after his traumatizing car accident, is fascinating in his tender vulnerability, while Ryan taps into his signature hardedged darkness as a man determined to teach Clift’s character a lesson. However, the film is indisputably stolen by the official big screen debut of Maureen Stapleton, Oscar-nominated for her turn as a desperate housewife looking for a physical connection. Lonelyhearts is an earnest, decidedly adult melodrama that delivers a message about the importance of nonjudgmental empathy. West’s story was adapted into a screenplay by the progressive-minded producer Dore Schary, formerly head of production at both RKO and MGM studios. An excellent 35mm print from the Dore Schary collection at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research will be shown. (BR)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
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Meet Uncle Paul SCREENS IN: BETTY WHITE: FIRST LADY OF TELEVISION
The Melody Man SAT, APRIL 6 • 1:15 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE
Making Montgomery Clift
SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: RITA BELDA Narrative • USA • 1930 • DCP • 71 MIN
SUN, APRIL 7 • 1:15 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART MON, APRIL 8 • 2:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5
Meeting Gorbachev SUN, APRIL 7 • 1:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 MON, APRIL 8 • 4:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6
SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: ROBERT CLIFT, HILLARY DEMMON WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • DCP • 88 MIN Director: Robert Clift, Hillary Demmon; Producer: Robert Clift, Hillary Demmon; Editor: Hillary Demmon; Cinematographer: Robert Clift; Music: Anthony Taddeo SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS, NEW WOMEN DIRECTORS
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SUN, APRIL 7 • 6:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 WED, APRIL 10 • 4:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 MIDWEST PREMIERE • Documentary • USA, Qatar, UK, Canada • 2019 • DCP • Afghan Persian with English subtitles • 87 MIN Director: Hassan Fazili; Screenwriter: Emelie Mahdavian; Producer: Emelie Mahdavian, Su Kim; Editor: Emelie Mahdavian; Music: Gretchen Jude SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
When the Taliban called for the death of filmmaker Hassan Fazili in 2015, he and his family fled their home in Afghanistan. After 14 months of failed asylum applications, Fazili, his wife Fatima Hussaini, and their young daughters Zahra and Nargis were deported from Tajikistan, and they began creating this deeply personal document of their experience as refugees. Entirely shot on three cellphones, Midnight Traveler tracks their perilous journey as they attempt to find a permanent home in Europe by traveling a long, uncertain path through Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Serbia. The family encounters incessant obstacles including bureaucratic delays, corrupt smugglers, and anti-immigrant violence, but the film also shows the joy they find to fight quieter pressures, like one of the daughters overcoming her boredom by dancing to Michael Jackson at a refugee camp. As the film and their journey progress, Fazili questions the purpose of the project and its effects on his perspective. Midnight Traveler offers a poetic look at a global crisis, an intimate, first-person portrait of one family’s fear and hope as they face immediate threats, endless waiting, and an uncertain future. Special Jury Award, 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (MSJ)
Bella + Canvas - 3739 Unisex Full-Zip Hooded Sweatshirt Color: Dark Gray - 00138 Ink: White + PMS 299
Presented with support from UW–Madison Middle East Studies Program
Bella + Canvas - 3739 Unisex Full-Zip Hooded Sweatshirt Color: Asphalt - 73 Ink: White + PMS 1365
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APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
With an oeuvre that includes masterworks like Things to Come (WFF 2017) and Goodbye, First Love (WFF 2012), there is no doubt that Mia Hansen18 Løve ranks among the world’s great-
21 ST ANNUAL | APRIL 4-11, 2019
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STIVAL FE
SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
est filmmakers under 40. Her latest is about Gabriel (regular collaborator Roman Kolinka), a war correspondent just released from months of captivity in Syria. While in recovery, he returns to India, the country he grew up in, where he connects with Maya, the teenage daughter of his Indian godfather. As in her earlier films, Hansen-Løve takes a familiar premise and transforms it into a novelistic experience, a fleet collection of compact moments that add up to an extraordinarily moving whole. Shot on 35mm with a predominantly female crew (including ace cinematographer Hélène Louvart), Maya also captures the beauty of the Goa landscape. “One of modern cinema’s most brilliant new voices. [Maya] further cements her reputation as one of the best filmmakers alive” (Indiewire). “Full of the kind of tiny, keenly observed moments that make Hansen-Løve such a special filmmaker… the kind of pause for humanity we don’t get often enough in today’s cinema” (The Playlist). 2018 Toronto International, AFI, and BFI London Film Festivals. (MK)
Featuring wide-ranging conversations between co-director Werner Herzog and the last leader of the Soviet Union, Meeting Gorbachev is a tribute to a pivotal and misunderstood world figure in the twilight of his life. Employing archival footage and narrating with the intensity and dark Bavarian wit that only he can summon, Herzog details Mikhail Gorbachev’s political rise during the Brezhnev to Chernenko period, when seemingly every USSR leader was either dead or dying. Against this dire backdrop arrived Gorbachev, the telegenic, Western-friendly premier who promised glasnost and perestroika. Now nearing 90-years-old, the still quick-witted Gorbachev holds court with Herzog, reminiscing about the peace treaties signed and lamenting his vilification in Russia since Putin took power. This breezy, informative documentary is bound to break hearts anytime Gorbachev mentions his late wife, Raisa, whose presence he feels more acutely with each passing day. 2018 Telluride Film Festival. (ZZ)
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Director: Mia Hansen-Løve; Screenwriter: Mia Hansen-Løve; Producer: Philippe Martin, David Thion; Editor: Marion Monnier; Cast: Roman Kolinka, Aarshi Banerjee; Cinematographer: Hélène Louvart
SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
FESTIVAL
MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • France • 2018 • DCP • English, French with English subtitles • 107 MIN
Director: Werner Herzog, Andre Singer; Producer: Lucki Stipetic, Svetlana Palmer; Editor: Vladimir Rizun, Vaily Amochkin, Simon Bishop, Alexander Kuckuck; Cinematographer: Richard Blanshard, Yuri Barak; Music: Nicholas Singer
In a fit of jealous rage, renowned Viennese composer von Kemper (John St. Polis), murders his wife and her lover and flees Austria with his young daughter, Elsa. 15 years later in NYC, an incognito von Kemper is eking out a living playing violin at a small restaurant. Elsa, a developing musical prodigy who is ignorant of her father’s crimes, begins a flirtation with jazz musician Al Tyler (Buster Collier), much to the temperamental von Kemper’s chagrin. A fun and fast-paced discovery from the pre-code era, The Melody Man is Columbia Pictures’ contribution to the plethora of early talkies with multiple musical interludes. Released in early 1930, a year when Columbia was the smallest of the eight major studios, this adaptation of a nonmusical play by Rodgers and Hart is told without major stars and without the over-the-top production details that even another small studio like Universal would lavish on that same year’s King of Jazz. In its own charming, low-budget way, Columbia adds value with some lurid story elements, snappy musical performances, and by rendering the first sequence in an early form of Technicolor. A new 4K version of The Melody Man will have its world premiere at this year’s WFF, presented in person by Wisconsin’s Own Rita Belda, Vice President of asset management, film restoration, and digital mastering. (JH) M IL
MON, APRIL 8 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 TUE, APRIL 9 • 3:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1
SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • UK, USA, Germany • 2018 • DCP • English, Russian with English subtitles (English dialogue is not subtitled) • 91 MIN
One of the most influential actors of his generation, Montgomery Clift was a magnetically moody presence in movies whose life ended tragically at age 45 in 1966. Rumors and legends about Monty’s life circulated widely in the decades after his death, primarily due to the publication of two salacious and popular biographies. More than fifty years after the iconic performer’s passing, his nephew, Robert Clift, has co-directed a revealing and personal examination of his uncle’s life and craft, researched from a large family archive of papers, photos, home movies, and, most significantly, recorded phone conversations between Monty and his brother, Brooks, Robert’s father. This myth-shattering documentary challenges long-held ideas about Monty’s preparedness as an actor, his level of openness about his homosexuality, and the state of his mental health after a traumatizing 1957 car accident. “Propelled by a superb selection of vintage clips and home movies, adroitly edited by co-director [Hillary] Demmon, the film unravels the accepted wisdom that Clift’s life was one of inner conflict and painfully guarded truths” (Hollywood Reporter). (JH)
Maya
Director: Roy William Neill; Screenwriter: Howard J. Green; Producer: Harry Cohn; Editor: Leonard Wheeler; Cast: William Collier, Jr., Alice Day, John St. Polis, Johnnie Walker; Cinematographer: Ted Tetzlaff
Midnight Traveler
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film guide at a glance THURSDAY, APRIL 4 5PM O P E N I N G N I G HT
Shannon Hall Memorial Union
6PM
7PM
8PM
9PM
10PM
Total running time does NOT include 30 minute Q&A at most screenings that film guests are scheduled to appear
W I S C O N S I N ’ S OW N F I LM S
11PM
B I G S C R E E N S , LIT TLE F O LK S F I LM S
Opening Night Reception Woman at War 5:30pm + Golden Badger Awards
Q & A / PA N E L
7:00pm • 115 min
FRIDAY, APRIL 5 10AM
11AM
12PM
1PM
2PM
3PM
C A M PU S | U N I V E R S IT Y O F W I S CO N S I N - M A D I S O N
Shannon Hall Memorial Union
4PM
5PM
6PM
Betty White: First Lady of...
The Trouble With You
Good Morning
UW Cinematheque
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
Lonelyhearts
11:00am • 93 min
1:30pm • 101 min
The Eyes of Orson Welles
Inquiring Nuns
3:45pm • 115 min
6:15pm • 91 min
Ralph Breaks the Internet
11:00am • 150 min
8PM
When Tomorrow Comes 8:15pm • 90 min
Pet Names
8:30pm • 80 min
In Fabric
4:30pm • 82 min
11PM
8:45pm • 95 min
6:15pm • 90 min
Rafiki
10PM
Vultures
Minuscule
2:30pm • 111 min
The Marquee, Union South
9PM
6:15pm • 107 min
3:45pm • 69 min
Chazen Museum of Art
7PM
Wisconsin Gone Wild
6:30pm • 118 min
9:00pm • 82 min
AMC MADISON 6
Elephant Path
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1
Leto
11:00am • 93 min
The Good Girls
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5
Cold Case Hammarskjöld
1:30pm • 126 min
Los Silencios
11:15am • 93 min
Girls Always Happy
1:15pm • 89 min
9:15pm • 103 min
The Hidden City
5:45pm • 130 min
Ash is Purest White
12:45pm • 97 min
Dogman
6:45pm • 119 min
Genesis
3:15pm • 117 min
The Raft
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6
Asako I & II
4:00pm • 128 min
8:30pm • 80 min
Peterloo
3:00pm • 137 min
A Faithful Man
6:00pm • 153 min
9:00pm • 75 min
SATURDAY, APRIL 6 10AM
11AM
12PM
1PM
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
C A M PU S | U N I V E R S IT Y O F W I S CO N S I N - M A D I S O N
20
2PM
3PM
Shannon Hall Memorial Union
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
Chazen Museum of Art
Yen Ching
The Juniper Tree
The Other Side of the Wind
UW Cinematheque
Rosita
The Melody Man
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
The Marquee, Union South
11:00am • 119 min
11:00am • 76 min
11:00am • 95 min
Short and Sweet
10:00am • 66 min
Tito and the Birds 11:45am • 87 min
Shadow
4PM
1:30pm • 115 min
1:00pm • 78 min
5PM
Knock Down the House 4:00pm • 86 min
3:00pm • 122 min
1:15pm • 71 min
3:00pm • 150 min
The Witch Hunters 1:45pm • 96 min
Stories We Tell in Wisconsin
4:00pm • 79 min
6PM
7PM
Transit
6:15pm • 101 min
The Swimmer
6:00pm • 95 min
8PM
9PM
Bathtubs Over Broadway 8:30pm • 87 min
Pig
8:30pm • 108 min
The Hidden City
Jivaro
Played Out
It’s Only Natural: Out and About...
6:15pm • 80 min
6:15pm • 78 min
10PM
8:30pm • 92 min
8:30pm • 77 min
AMC MADISON 6
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1
Cold Case Hammarskjöld
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5
Pause
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6
11:00am • 128 min
11:30am • 96 min
The Edge of Democracy 11:15am • 113 min
Yomeddine
1:30pm • 96 min
Ray & Liz
1:45pm • 108 min
A Faithful Man
2:00pm • 75 min
Elephant Path
Our Struggles
3:30pm • 93 min
The Good Girls
4:00pm • 93 min
The Tobacconist
3:45pm • 113 min
6:30pm • 98 min
Genesis
6:00pm • 130 min
Ash is Purest White 6:15pm • 137 min
The Disappearance of My Mother 8:30pm • 96 min
Rojo
8:45pm • 109 min
Rafiki
9:00pm • 82 min
11PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 7 10AM
11AM
12PM
1PM
C A M PU S | U N I V E R S IT Y O F W I S CO N S I N - M A D I S O N
Chazen Museum of Art
Secret Music
UW Cinematheque
Forbidden Paradise
The Marquee, Union South AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1
None Shall Escape
Ulysses & Mona
11:00am • 82 min
Hail Satan?
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6
Midnight Traveler
11PM
10PM
11PM
10PM
11PM
Los Silencios
6:15pm • 108 min
Styx
3:15pm • 103 min
10PM
8:00pm • 118 min
Ray & Liz
Little Woods
11PM
In Fabric
6:00pm • 87 min
3:45pm • 117 min
1:15pm • 91 min
10PM
6:15pm • 101 MIN
Girls Always Happy
Meeting Gorbachev
11:15am • 95 min
Wild Rose
3:30pm • 126 min
1:30pm • 109 min
11PM
7:00pm • 96 min
Leto
Rojo
10PM
Hotel by the River
4:30pm • 89 min
4:00pm • 105 min
1:00pm • 103 min
9PM
7:15pm • 82 min
Screwball
Dogman
8PM
Gone with the Pope
Lake Michigan Monster
2:00pm • 78 min
11:30am • 80 min
7PM
4:30pm • 139 min
Los Reyes
Sofia
6PM
Freud
2:45pm • 79 min
12:00pm • 83 min
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5
5PM
Creature from the Black Lagoon
12:45pm • 86 min
Supa Modo
10:00am • 58 min
4PM
1:15pm • 88 min
11:00am • 73 min
Shorter and Sweeter
3PM
Making Montgomery Clift
11:00am • 80 min
AMC MADISON 6
2PM
8:30pm • 89 min
Leona
5:30pm • 94 min
7:30pm • 94 min
MONDAY, APRIL 8 10AM
11AM
12PM
1PM
2PM
AMC MADISON 6
3PM
Our Struggles
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1
4PM
7PM
7:45pm • 82 min
Meeting Gorbachev
Hail Satan?
4:00pm • 91 min
1:45pm • 94 min
8:30pm • 107 min
Light from Light
4:30pm • 114 min
Styx
9PM
Maya
6:00pm • 119 min
Suddenly, Last Summer
2:00pm • 88 min
8PM
Asako I & II
3:45pm • 96 min
Making Montgomery Clift
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6
6PM
Yomeddine
1:30pm • 98 min
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5
5PM
6:15pm • 95 min
The Raft
8:15pm • 97 min
TUESDAY, APRIL 9 10AM
11AM
12PM
1PM
2PM
AMC MADISON 6
3PM
The Disappearance of My Mother
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1
4PM
Leona
8:30pm • 82 min
Pig
6:15pm • 96 min
Mike Wallace is Here
3:45pm • 94 min
1:15pm • 113 min
9PM
Ulysses & Mona
Lucky to Be a Woman
4:00pm • 82 min
The Tobacconist
8PM
6:00pm • 91 min
Light from Light
1:00pm • 96 min
7PM
Chained for Life
3:30pm • 107 min
Pause
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6
6PM
Maya
1:30pm • 96 min
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5
5PM
8:15pm • 108 min
Mr. Jimmy
5:45pm • 94 min
8:00pm • 112 min
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10 10AM
11AM
12PM
1PM
2PM
AMC MADISON 6
3PM
4PM
Hotel by the River
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1
6:15pm • 75 min
La Religieuse
1:15pm • 115 min
8:00pm • 85 min
Hyenas
8:30pm • 106 min
Who Will Write Our History?
4:00pm • 78 min
9PM
The Image Book
6:30pm • 92 min
Los Reyes
1:45pm • 94 min
8PM
The Girl in the Window
3:45pm • 135 min
Mike Wallace is Here
7PM
This Magnificent Cake
4:15pm • 87 min
The Eyes of Orson Welles
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6
6PM
Midnight Traveler
2:00pm • 96 min
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5
5PM
Screwball
6:00pm • 96 min
8:15pm • 105 min
10AM AMC MADISON 6
AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1 AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5 AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6
11AM
12PM
1PM
2PM
3PM
This Magnificent Cake 1:15pm • 75 min
The Girl in the Window 1:45pm • 92 min
Transit
1:30pm • 101 min
4PM
5PM
Vultures
6PM
7PM
Monos
3:00pm • 95 min
5:30 pm • 102 MIN
Lucky to Be a Woman 4:00pm • 96 min
The Tomorrow Man 3:45pm • 94 min
Between the Lines 6:00pm • 102 min
American Factory 5:45pm • 113 min
8PM
9PM
Her Smell
7:45pm • 135 min
Police Story
8:30pm • 100 min
The White Crow
8:15pm • 127 min
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
THURSDAY, APRIL 11
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APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
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@ H I L L DA L E M A D I S O N
M-O
Mike Wallace is Here TUE, APRIL 9 • 5:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 WED, APRIL 10 • 1:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6
the process a young ladybug is accidentally trapped in a box with a French delicacy and is suddenly on its way to the lush Caribbean island, Guadeloupe. While our rescue team (a parent ladybug, an ant, and a spider) is looking for the ladybug in paradise, the native habitat there gets threatened by beachfront developers. Will our rescue squad make it in time for both, the ladybug and the island? Join us for a wild 3D ride in this live-action animation hybrid with an ecological message from a bug’s perspective. (KK)
None Shall Escape SUN, APRIL 7 • 12:45 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE
Presented with support from SSM Health
SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: RITA BELDA Narrative • USA • 1944 • DCP • 86 MIN
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 94 MIN
Director: Andre de Toth; Screenwriter: Lester Cole, Alfred Neumann, Joseph Than; Producer: Samuel Bischoff; Editor: Charles Nelson; Cast: Alexander Knox, Marsha Hunt, Henry Travers, Ruth Nelson; Cinematographer: Lee Garmes; Music: Ernst Toch
Director: Avi Belkin; Producer: John Battsek, Avi Belkin, Peggy Drexler, Christopher Leggett, Rafael Marmor; Editor: Billy McMillin; Music: Kevin Kiner SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
For over 50 years on television, Mike Wallace interviewed—and interrogated—some of the world’s most powerful leaders and celebrities, most memorably during four decades on the consistent ratings champion 60 Minutes. Wallace’s aggressive and sometimes fear-inducing style of reporting set the standard for the countless number of TV “magazines” and infotainment shows that sprung up in imitation of 60 Minutes. Avoiding the standard model of storytelling in recent documentary biographies, director Avi Belkin relies entirely on archival footage of Wallace as interviewer and as interviewee—as well as some revealing behind-thescenes moments not meant for broadcast—to explore this controversial figure’s personal and professional sides. Not merely the story of Wallace’s life and career, Belkin’s movie reflects on Wallace’s legacy in the present era, where celebrity-driven sensationalism often triumphs over good investigative journalism. Expertly assembled and coherently told without added narration or captions, Mike Wallace is Here is both a thoughtful reflection on Wallace’s accomplishments and an exciting piece of cinema. (JH)
Minuscule Mandibles from Far Away Minuscule - Les mandibules du bout du monde Animation, Live Action • France • 2018 • DCP • No Dialogue • 90 MIN Director: Hélène Giraud, Thomas Szabo; Screenwriter: Hélène Giraud, Thomas Szabo; Producer: FUTURIKON; Editor: Valerie Chappellet, Benjamin Massoubre; Music: Mathieu Lamboley SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS
As the first snow flakes fall in the valley, it is high time to gather yummy winter supplies. Unfortunately, in
Monos THU, APRIL 11 • 5:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Colombia, Argentina, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Uruguay • 2019 • DCP • English, Spanish with English subtitlest • 102 MIN Director: Alejandro Landes; Screenwriter: Alejandro Landes, Alexis Dos Santos; Producer: Alejandro Landes, Fernando Epstein, Santiago Zapata, Cristina Landes; Editor: Yorgos Mavropsaridis, Ted Guard, Santiago Otheguy; Cast: Julianne Nicholson, Moisés Arias, Sofia Buenaventura, Deiby Rueda, Karen Quintero, Laura Castrillón; Cinematographer: Jasper Wolf; Music: Mica Levi SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
From the 2019 Sundance Film Festival guide: “Belonging to a rebel group called ‘the Organization,’ a ragtag band of child soldiers, brandishing guns and war names like Rambo, Wolf, Lady, and Bigfoot, occupies a derelict ruin atop a remote mountain where they train themselves, watch over a ‘conscripted’ milk cow, and hold hostage a kidnapped American engineer, Doctora (Julianne Nicholson). But after an attack forces them to abandon their base, playtime is over for the motley young crew. The visionary third feature of Alejandro Landes (Cocalero, Porfirio), Monos captivates us with its striking baroque aesthetic, otherworldly setting, and ingenious reframing of the war film— one that uses adolescence to insinuate a youthful but elusive dream of peace. With enthralling performances from Nicholson and a talented young ensemble led by Moises Arias, Landes constructs a stylized, deceptively surreal space that teeters between tedium and hedonism, made more unsettling by its disquieting soundscape and Mica Levi’s brilliant score. As they descend into a jungle, captors and captive alike find themselves in an increasingly anarchic, unhinged ‘nowhere world’ that echoes Lord of the Flies and Apocalypse Now.” 2019 Berlin Film Festival.
Mr. Jimmy TUE, APRIL 9 • 8:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: PETER M. DOWD MIDWEST PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • English, Japanese with English subtitles • 112 MIN Director: Peter Michael Dowd; Producer: Peter Michael Dowd; Editor: Peter Michael Dowd; Cinematographer: Matthew Blute, Ivan Kovac SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
Like a lot of teenagers around the world in the 1970s and 1980s, Akio Sakurai was transformed by the sound of Led Zeppelin. Growing up in the small, snowy city of Tokamachi, Japan, Akio was particularly moved by the innovative reverb sound of guitarist Jimmy Page. As an adult in Tokyo, Akio found work as a kimono salesman by day, but at night transformed himself into “Mr. Jimmy,” performing note-for-note re-creations of vintage Zeppelin concerts in small nightclubs. In 2012, the real Jimmy Page dropped in to one of Akio’s shows and praised the performance, spurring “Mr. Jimmy” to quit his day job. Peter M. Dowd’s documentary follows Akio as he leaves behind his family to move to Los Angeles and join “Led Zepagain.” But no one knows better the “what is and what should never be” of Led Zeppelin than Akio. His need for precise replication— copying everything from the sound of the music to the exact creases and stitching in Page’s stage costumes—inevitably leads to a culture clash with his American tribute bandmates. Beautifully lensed and full of fascinating details, Mr. Jimmy is an offbeat portrait of an artist whose art is meticulous, obsessive-to-a-fault imitation. 2019 SXSW Film Festival. (JH)
While WWII raged on in Europe in 1944, Columbia Pictures released this innovative and prescient drama that predicts a future where the allies have been victorious. Facing a war crimes tribunal not unlike those that would come to be held in Nuremberg, Nazi commander Wilhelm Grimm (Alexander Knox) listens as witnesses recall his rise to power in a small Polish village. A series of flashbacks reveal Grimm’s cruel, retributive, and brutal tactics, including his overseeing of a deportation of the village’s Jews to a concentration camp, making this movie one of the first and only Hollywood movies to address the Holocaust during the war. The director, Hungarian émigré Andre De Toth, was a witness to the German invasion of Poland in 1939. De Toth also made uncredited contributions to the screenplay credited to soon-to-be-blacklisted writer Lester Cole, one of the Hollywood Ten. Our screening of a new 4K restoration of None Shall Escape will be introduced by Rita Belda, Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Vice President of asset management, film restoration, and digital mastering. (JH) Presented with support from the UW-Madison Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies
Oh Willy... SCREENS IN: THIS MAGNIFICENT CAKE
My Burden Min Börda
SCREENS IN: THIS MAGNIFICENT CAKE
Old Rook
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
FRI, APRIL 5 • 6:15 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE
SECTION: BEST OF IL CINEMA RITROVATO, RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
SCREENS IN: STORIES WE TELL IN WISCONSIN 23
O-P bleak litany that seems to cover every aspect of her being. By the time his absurdly grim monologue ends, it’s become funny, a good indication of the dark wit running through this portrait of a housewife on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Back at home, she fantasizes about finally lashing out at her domineering husband—at least, she thinks they’re only fantasies. First-time director Tonia Mishiali exhibits a remarkable tonal precision, keeping us glued to Elpida’s increasingly cracked perspective, while unsure in the moment as to whether what we are seeing is real or imagined. “A work of considerable tonal complexity, as it stirs moments of pitchblack humor and short and violent reveries into an otherwise austerely told tale of spousal strife that wants to smash the patriarchy with feats of cinematic derring-do” (The Hollywood Reporter). FIPRESCI Award, 2018 Thessaloniki Film Festival. (MK)
Once There was a House
ЖИЛ БЫЛ ДОМ
SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET
Our Struggles Nos Batailles
SAT, APRIL 6 • 6:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 MON, APRIL 8 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1
for a weekend camping trip with her ex (Rene Cruz). Mixed signals and power games follow suit, as the two awkwardly dredge up their past. With frank discussions of sex, desire, and heartbreak, this anti-romantic comedy foregrounds queer experience to a natural and refreshing degree. Handsomely shot and rife with small moments funny and true, Pet Names clinches Brandt’s reputation as one of Wisconsin’s most perceptive up-andcomers. Rounding out the talented cast is Goose (Chato), hands down the cutest and chubbiest pug on screen at the fest. 2018 SXSW Film Festival. (ZZ) Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • France, Belgium • 2018 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 98 MIN
The Other Side of the Wind SAT, APRIL 6 • 3:00 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: BOB MURAWSKI WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • 35mm • 122 MIN Director: Orson Welles; Screenwriter: Orson Welles, Oja Kodar; Producer: Frank Marshall, Filip Jan Rymsza; Editor: Bob Murawski, Orson Welles; Cast: John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Norman Foster, Oja Kodar, Edmond O’Brien, Susan Strasberg, Mercedes McCambridge, Lilli Palmer, Cameron Mitchell, Paul Stewart; Cinematographer: Gary Graver; Music: Michel Legrand SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Nearly 50 years after production began, the long uncompleted late masterwork by the legendary Orson Welles has at last been unveiled for audiences. Welles’s friend and fellow filmmaker John Huston stars as Jake Hannaford, a once successful Hollywood director. Over the course of his final evening on earth, Hannaford desperately tries to raise money to salvage his latest project, also titled The Other Side of the Wind, while celebrating his 70th birthday and surrounded by collaborators, journalists, studio executives, groupies, and film students. Putting his own iconoclastic spin on the “found footage” storytelling format, Welles employs a wide array of film stock and camera lenses as he tells both Hannaford’s story and provides us with glimpses of the film-within-a-film. Innovative and undeniably personal, The Other Side of the Wind stands as an unexpectedly towering achievement, not only for Welles but for the team of filmmakers, including editor Bob Murawski, who labored with love to bring Welles’s unassembled vision to life. Academy Award winner Murawski (The Hurt Locker) will join us in person to present a 35mm print and discuss the process of putting The Other Side of the 24 Wind together. (JH)
Director: Guillaume Senez; Screenwriter: Raphaëlle Desplechin, Guillaume Senez; Producer: Philippe Martin, David Thion, Isabelle Truc; Editor: Julie Brenta; Cinematographer: Elin Kirschfink; Music: Romain Duris, Basile Grunberger, Laetitia Dosch, Lucie Debay,
Peterloo
SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
A supervisor and labor representative at a large warehouse and fulfillment center, Olivier (Romain Duris) does the best he can to fight injustice with his comrades at work. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Olivier’s wife Laura (Lucie Debay) abandons her family home, leaving her husband to juggle the needs of their two children, his increasingly pressurized work situation, and life’s other daily challenges. Faced with these new responsibilities, Olivier struggles to find the right balance. In his second feature, Belgian filmmaker Guillaume Senez quietly delivers a moving, humanistic vision of one contemporary middle class family rocked by a difficult, but not insurmountable hardship. Senez succeeds through a generous serving of humor and levity, and the deployment of an energetic and naturalistic cast of actors, in particular Laetitia Dosch as Olivier’s supportive but eccentric sister. “The major drama happens upfront in Our Struggles; the process of living with its less eventful but consistently taxing fallout, however, is where the meat of Guillaume Senez’s simple, affecting new film lies” (Guy Lodge, Variety). Audience Award, 2018 Torino Film Festival. (JH)
FRI, APRIL 5 • 6:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6
Pen License SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET
Pet Names 80 MIN FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND
Tender Touches: Maniac MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 5 MIN
SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET
Pause Pafsi
SAT, APRIL 6 • 11:30 AM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 TUE, APRIL 9 • 1:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Cyprus, Greece • 2018 • DCP • Greek with English subtitles • 96 MIN Director: Tonia Mishiali; Screenwriter: Tonia Mishiali; Producer: Andros Achilleos, Stelana Kliris, Tonia Mishiali; Editor: Emilios Avraam; Cast: Stela Fyrogeni, Andreas Vasiliou, Popi Avraam; Cinematographer: Yorgos Rahmatoulin SECTION: NEW WOMEN DIRECTORS, NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
On the island of Cyprus, Elpida sits stonefaced as her doctor recites the symptoms of aging, an increasingly
Director: Mike Leigh; Screenwriter: Mike Leigh; Producer: Georgina Lowe; Editor: Jon Gregory; Cast: Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Neil Bell, Philip Jackson, Vincent Franklin; Cinematographer: Dick Pope; Music: Gary Yershon SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
FRI, APRIL 5 • 8:30 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE
Outdoors
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • UK • 2018 • DCP • 153 MIN
Director: Sarah Smith; Screenwriter: Phillip Guttmann; Producer: Sarah Smith, Phillip Guttmann; Cast: Frances Chewning, Paula Lauzon SECTION: WISCONSIN’S OWN
In this delirious, bite-sized musical comedy, an animal healer (Frances Chewning) rehabilitates a despondent parakeet named Portia de Rossi through song. (ZZ)
Pet Names MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 75 MIN Director: Carol Brandt; Screenwriter: Meredith Johnston; Producer: Chris James Thompson, Suzanne Jurva; Cast: Meredith Johnston, Rene Cruz SECTION: WISCONSIN’S OWN
Grad-school-dropout Leigh (Meredith Johnston) ducks out of Milwaukee, where she cares for her ailing mother,
After Topsy-Turvy (1999) and Mr. Turner (2014), both innovative explorations of artistic lives in the 19th century, English writer-director Mike Leigh returns to the 1800s again for a mosaic-like recreation of the events leading up to the tragic Peterloo massacre in Manchester. Set in the four years following Britain’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, the story is told from the perspective of multiple key players—unemployed and unarmed textile workers and their families, along with community magistrates, military leaders and armed cavalry—who all ultimately converged at St. Peter’s Field for a demonstration by the underprivileged demanding voting rights. Peterloo offers dozens of characters—some of whom are fictional, while others are actual historic figures—to dramatize the events leading up to the disaster. As in other contemporary cinematic works based on complex historical happenings, from All the President’s Men to Zodiac, Leigh’s movie has all the compelling aspects of a great piece of well-researched journalism. While a great deal of attention has been paid to re-creating the period through authentic dialogue, costumes, and settings, Leigh never loses his grasp on the emotional core of Peterloo: heartfelt compassion for the working class trying to better their lives, and rage for the privileged who use violence to maintain power. (JH)
P-R
Pictured Rocks SCREENS IN: IT’S ONLY NATURAL: OUT AND ABOUT WITH WISCONSIN’S OWN
Police Story Played Out SAT, APRIL 6 • 6:15 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH 78 MIN FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND
Pig
Khook
SAT, APRIL 6 • 8:30 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART TUE, APRIL 9 • 8:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Iran • 2018 • DCP • Farsi with English subtitles • 108 MIN Director: Mani Haghighi; Screenwriter: Mani Haghighi; Producer: Mani Haghighi; Editor: Meysam Molaei; Cast: Hasan Majuni, Leila Hatami, Leili Rashidi, Ali Mosaffa, Parinaz Izadyar, Siamak Ansari; Cinematographer: Mahmoud Kalari SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
A wildly unpredictable ride that encompasses broad comedy, surreal musical numbers, and a murder mystery, it’s a safe bet Pig is like no Iranian movie you’ve seen before. Endearingly pompous in his AC/DC t-shirt and bushy beard, Hassan is a blacklisted filmmaker whose misguided efforts to get his life back on track only lead to further indignities. Stuck shooting insecticide ads to make ends meet, Hassan learns that a serial killer is roaming Tehran, beheading Iran’s most famous directors. It is emblematic of the film’s inspired, offbeat humor that Hassan reacts to this news not with fear, but with jealousy. Lamenting that he is being overlooked by the murderer in favor of less-talented colleagues, he moans “what do they have that I don’t?” As if that weren’t enough, his celebrity mistress (A Separation star Leila Hatami) is ditching him for a rival, his senile mom pulls an antique rifle on everyone who rings her doorbell, and he seems to have acquired a rather ambitious stalker. “A wildly original art house comedy” (Godfrey Cheshire, RogerEbert.com). “Comedic and aweinspiring… Haghighi brings it all to life with a razor-sharp comedic precision” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker). (MK)
WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 14 MIN Director: Joe Schwaba; Screenwriter: Joe Schwaba; Producer: Ryan Dura, Will Corgan, Wil Lalonde; Cast: Ryan Dura, Will Corgan, Joe Schwaba
Teenager Ryan makes one last desperate attempt to reclaim a stolen item out of the clutches of his childhood nemesis in Joe Schwaba’s wryly amusing comic short. (BR)
140 N Hancock WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • English • 4 MIN Director: Arielle Bordow; Screenwriter: Arielle Bordow, Audrey Bachman; Editor: Kristen Johnson-Salazar; Cast: Audrey Bachman, Arielle Bordow; Cinematographer: Misha Latyshev
Two roommates perform a series of gross-out, blackout sketches that are equal parts obnoxious, pathetic, and hilarious. (BR)
Played Out WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 53 MIN Director: James Runde; Screenplay/Director/ Producer: James Runde; Cinematographer: Violet Wang, Pamanisha Gross, Mark Lim; Sound: Violet Wang, Pamanisha Gross; Cast: Tim West, James Runde, Leslie Gavin, Alicia Darden, Glenn Gavin
Booda is a rapper struggling to live the hip hop lifestyle and promote his new tracks while dealing with parental and spousal responsibilities, Leslie is a single mom trying to find the right way to tell her teenage son she’s quit her job. James (who is in a rock band with Leslie) is trying to juggle eating cold pizza and getting high, with getting home in time to celebrate his kid sister’s birthday. A day in the life of these quintessential Madisonians forms the loose-limbed, shaggy dog structure of James Runde’s deliciously off-handed and self-assured first feature. If John Cassavetes and Richard Linklater had joined forces and tried to capture the young and restless souls inhabiting Madison’s music scene, they would have been lucky to evince performances as lived-in, and atmospheres as quietly melancholic as Runde does here. Winner of a 2019 Golden Badger Award. (BR) Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
THU, APRIL 11 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: DAVID BORDWELL Narrative • Honduras, Hong Kong • 1985 • DCP • Cantonese with English subtitles • 100 MIN Director: Jackie Chan; Screenwriter: Jackie Chan, Edward Tang; Producer: Leonard Ho; Editor: Cheung Yui Chung; Cast: Jackie Chan, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheune, Bill Tung; Cinematographer: Cheung Yui Chung; Music: Michael Lai SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
Before Hollywood entered its golden age of action pictures in the late 1980s with thrilling and over-the-top cop epics like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, the cinematic miracle known as Jackie Chan had mastered the genre and laid the template with his 1985 Hong Kong classic Police Story. Chan co-wrote the script, directs, and stars as Ka-Kui, an HK inspector protecting a star witness (Brigitte Lin) and going rogue while trying to take down a cruel drug lord. Most famously, Chan performs all his own stunts in a dizzying and literally bone-crunching collection of action set pieces that show him hanging from the side of a speeding bus and, in a moment repeated from several different angles, shattering dozens of electrified glass lights while sliding down a pole at a shopping mall. A brand new 4K restoration of the uncut Police Story will be shown in its original Cantonese with English subtitles, preceded by a special introduction from David Bordwell, author of Planet Hong Kong. (JH)
Rafiki FRI, APRIL 5 • 4:30 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH SAT, APRIL 6 • 9:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Kenya, South Africa, France, Lebanon, Norway, The Netherlands, Germany • 2018 • DCP • English, Swahili with English subtitles • 82 MIN Director: Wanuri Kahiu; Screenwriter: Wanuri Kahiu, Jenna Bass; Producer: Steven Markovitz; Editor: Isabelle Dedieu; Cast: Samantha Mugatsia, Sheila Munyiva, Neville Misati, Jimmy Gathu, Nini Wacera; Cinematographer: Christopher Wessels SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Kena spends her days skateboarding and hanging out with friends in her Nairobi neighborhood, as she waits on exam results to start nurse training. When charismatic, rainbow-haired Ziki catches Kena’s eye one afternoon, they quickly begin a tender, private romance that is complicated by their rival political families and prohibited by their conservative, religious environment. As Ziki and Kena grow closer, their parents, friends, and neighbors notice and react with rumors threatening the love and joy the young women find in each other. With its expressive cinematography and vivid settings and costumes, Rafiki portrays Ziki and Kena’s relationship with both realism and hope, grounded in the understated, beautiful performances of lead actresses Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva. Director Wanuri Kahiu’s vibrant sophomore feature was Kenya’s first entry at the Cannes Film Festival, but it was banned in its home country for its positive representation of a same-sex romance. (MSJ) Presented with support from UW–Madison African Studies Program and Gender & Sexuality Campus Center (GSCC)
The Raft Psychosis SCREENS IN: WISCONSIN GONE WILD
FRI, APRIL 5 • 12:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 MON, APRIL 8 • 8:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Sweden • 2018 • DCP • French, Japanese, English, Swedish, German, Spanish with English subtitles • 97 MIN Director: Marcus Lindeen; Producer: Erik Gandini; Editor: Dominika Daubenbüchel, Alexandra Strauss; Cinematographer: Måns Månsson SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
Raccoon and the Light SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
It was one of the craziest and most dangerous sociological experiments of all time: in 1973, eleven strangers boarded a raft, and floated across the Atlantic Ocean. The 101-day
journey from Spain to Mexico was the brainchild of anthropologist Santiago Genovés, and was intended to study violence, aggression, and sex in group behavior—with a particular emphasis towards the latter. Through ads in international newspapers, he recruited six women and four men from a variety of countries and walks of life, all conspicuously young and attractive. Loftily dubbed “The Peace Project” by Genovés and “The Sex Raft” by the press, everyone’s interactions were copiously evaluated in real time through diaries, interviews, and 16mm film. But when the purportedly impartial Genovés wasn’t getting the results he wanted, he began manipulating the experiment even further. Now, with forty years of hindsight, the experiment’s six surviving women and one man reunite to reexamine their time aboard this strange vessel, bringing an overdue female perspective to Genovés’s one-of-a-kind research. Thanks to the trip’s extensive film documentation, we are able to witness the spectrum of emotions and danger in this one-of-a-kind voyage for ourselves. Best Documentary, CPH: DOX Festival. (MK) 25
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
The Pig on the Hill SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
Lost Cause
Ging chaat goo si
R
Ray & Liz SAT, APRIL 6 • 1:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 SUN, APRIL 7 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • UK • 2018 • DCP • 108 MIN
Ralph Breaks the Internet FRI, APRIL 5 • 2:30 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: PHIL JOHNSTON Animation • USA • 2018 • DCP • 111 MIN Director: Phil Johnston, Rich Moore; Screenwriter: Phil Johnston, Rich Moore, Jim Reardon, Pamela Ribon, Josie Trinidad; Producer: Clark Spencer; Editor: Jeremy Milton, Fabienne Rawley; Cast: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Taraji P. Henson; Cinematographer: Nathan Warner; Music: Henry Jackman
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
SECTION: BIG SCREENS, LITTLE FOLKS
Disney Animation’s imaginative, laugh-a-minute follow-up to Wreck-It Ralph reunites Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) as they ditch their arcade game origins for the loud and limitless reaches of the World Wide Web. Their endearing bond faces a real test, however, when Vanellope ascends the leaderboards of the online video game “Slaughter Race” and befriends fellow racer Shank (Gal Gadot). Ralph and Vanellope’s separate journeys wind through a richly designed, all-too-recognizable digital world, populated with e-commerce skyscrapers, cat-filled viral content hubs, and a clickbait-infected underworld. As much as it pokes fun at the here and now, this replete sequel also looks back across Hollywood history, folding in show-stopping musical numbers, hilarious Rockyesque montages, and a feminist crash course on Disney princess lore before the runtime is up. Ralph Breaks the Internet crashes the fest in 3D, the ultimate format to enjoy this beloved and dazzling film. This very special screening will be presented in person by UW–Madison alum Phil Johnston, co-screenwriter of Zootopia and the original Wreck-It-Ralph, who, working with Rich Moore, made his feature directorial debut on Ralph Breaks the Internet. After the movie, Johnston will provide a behind-thescenes look at the production: character design, early animation tests, story development, special effects, and more! (ZZ)
26 Presented with support from SSM Health
Director: Richard Billingham; Screenwriter: Richard Billingham; Producer: Jacqui Davies; Editor: Tracy Granger; Cast: Ella Smith, Justin Salinger, Patrick Romer, Deirdre Kelly, Tony Way, Sam Gittins, Joshua MillardLloyd; Cinematographer: Daniel Landin SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
This superb memory piece renders three vignettes from a working-class English family’s life with such vivid attention to detail, it feels as though you’ve entered a photo album. In a run-down public housing flat in Thatcher-era Birmingham, alcoholic Ray and layabout Liz leave their two young sons to their own devices, to an almost surreal degree. Etched in tactile 16mm by Under the Skin cinematographer Daniel Landin, Richard Billingham’s family portrait exudes a raw tenderness that imbues even its starkest tableaux with a twinge of reminiscence. Expanding upon his signature autobiographical collection Ray’s a Laugh, the Turner-nominated photographer combines two key modes of British cinema, threading the kitchen-sink squalor of Ken Loach with the preserved-in-amber childhood evocations found in the early films of Terence Davies and Lynne Ramsay. “By turns sad, funny, and humanist, Billingham’s film is a successful example of a visual artist grasping the unique language of cinema and its power to convey both time’s passing and its jolting immediacy. While each of the characters is exquisitely sketched and superbly acted, the film accrues power by the strength of its indelible details” (Cinema Scope). (MK)
La Religieuse
Suzanne Simonin, la religieuse de Diderot
WED, APRIL 10 • 3:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • France • 1965 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 135 MIN Director: Jacques Rivette; Screenwriter: Jacques Rivette, Jean Gruault; Producer: Georges de Beauregard; Editor: Denise de Casablanca; Cast: Anna Karina, Liselotte Pulver, Micheline Presle, Francisco Rabal; Cinematographer: Alain Levent; Music: Jean-Claude Eloy SECTION: BEST OF IL CINEMA RITROVATO
Not cited nearly enough in discussions of the French New Wave’s greatest films, Jacques Rivette’s La Religieuse (The Nun) has, like its protagonist, long endured neglect thanks to ignorance and scandal. Adapted from a Denis Diderot novel set in 18th-century Paris, Suzanne (iconic nouvelle vague star Anna Karina) is forced by her family to join a convent and take binding vows, after learning her mother conceived her by another man. Taunted, isolated, and even exorcised by her fellow sisters, Suzanne soon takes radical measures to test the boundaries of her own womanhood, faith, and freedom. In 1965, French Catholics and cultural conservatives decried the film with such vitriol that the Minister of Information delayed its release for a year, and it did not receive American distribution until now, over a halfcentury later. While at times grueling, this infamous “banned film” also possesses a rare spiritual clarity in its singular focus on the ways Suzanne finds meaning in her plight. Through Karina’s expressive performance and Rivette’s stark, period-accurate miseen-scène, La Religieuse fuses form with feeling so ably that any close-up or cut can deliver a punch to the gut. (ZZ)
Los Reyes SUN, APRIL 7 • 2:00 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH WED, APRIL 10 • 4:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Chile, Germany • 2018 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 78 MIN Director: Bettina Perut, Iván Osnovikoff; Producer: Maite Alberdi; Editor: Bettina Perut, Iván Osnovikoff; Cinematographer: Pablo Valdés SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
The most memorable duo of this year’s fest might be Football and Chola, a pair of stray dogs who’ve taken up residence in a Santiago skate park. A black mutt with distinguished
flecks of gray and a sleek black Lab, the inseparable duo laze about in the Chilean sun, play inscrutable games with plastic bottles, and survey their territory with amusing indifference to the skaters’ lewd chitchat—basically, behave exactly as dogs do in real life but almost never onscreen. Adopting a dog’s-eye view of the world, documentarians Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff show commendable restraint in refusing to anthropomorphize their subjects. Free from explanatory voice-over or text, Los Reyes simply immerses us in its subjects’ lives, giving us a rare, welcome opportunity to consider Earthly existence from a nonhuman perspective. But as the film arrives at its moving conclusion, you may find yourself surprised at just how attached you’ve become to these two animals. “Extraordinary. Full of striking compositions that make the ordinary beautiful, without falsely aestheticizing it. What the film tells us so wonderfully is that any animal, looked at attentively and patiently enough, becomes not just exemplary, but the living, hearing, seeing center of the world” (Film Comment). (MK)
Rojo SAT, APRIL 6 • 8:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 SUN, APRIL 7 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France, The Netherlands • 2018 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 109 MIN Director: Benjamin Naishtat; Screenwriter: Benjamin Naishtat; Producer: Barbara Sarasola-Day, Federico Eibuszyc; Editor: Andrés Quaranta; Cast: Dario Grandinetti, Andrea Frigerio, Alfredo Castro, Diego Cremonesi; Cinematographer: Pedro Sotero SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
APRIL 4, 2019 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Set in 1970s Argentina, this political thriller begins with flawlesslyexecuted setup straight out of a classic film noir. Well-respected lawyer Claudio is seated at a restaurant awaiting his wife, when a menacing stranger becomes incensed that Claudio is taking up a table by himself. After dinner, their bizarre altercation unexpectedly escalates when the man is waiting for them outside, By the night’s haunting end, Claudio will drive deep into the desert, barreling toward a point of no return. Months later, a Chilean celebrity detective starts poking his nose around in search of the missing stranger. From here, Rojo develops into a cat-and-mouse game performed by two great South American actors, with Dario Grandinetti (Talk to Her, Wild Tales) as Claudio, and Pablo Larraín regular Alfredo Castro as the detective on his trail. Benjamin Naishtat’s gripping commentary on a dark chapter of Argentine history won the Best Director, Actor, and Cinematography prizes at the 2018 San Sebastián Film Festival. “Superbly sinister and stylish. Full of unexpected formal flourishes and darkly witty dilemmas… Rojo is a witheringly provocative examination of temporary moral eclipse becoming permanent moral apocalypse” (Variety). (MK)
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Secret Music Screwball Rosita SAT, APRIL 6 • 11:00 AM UW CINEMATHEQUE Narrative • USA • 1923 • DCP • 95 MIN Director: Ernst Lubitsch; Screenwriter: Norbert Falk, Edward Knoblock, Hanns Kräly; Producer: Mary Pickford; Cast: Mary Pickford, Holbrook Blinn, Irene Rich, George Walsh; Cinematographer: Charles Rosher SECTION: BEST OF IL CINEMA RITROVATO
In their one collaboration, silent screen superstar Mary Pickford stars in legendary director Ernst Lubitsch’s charming romantic fantasy. Pickford is the title character, a Spanish street singer and dancer who catches the eye of a philandering king. Rosita is a street-wise, confident young woman clever enough to hold off the king’s advances while tricking him into lavishing her and her family with clothes and a villa, but complications ensue when she falls in love for real with a young soldier and must save him from the gallows. Although this was his first Hollywood movie, Lubitsch had learned American style while still working in Berlin and Rosita is a neat blend of Lubitsch’s two favorite genres during his German period, comedy and historical epic. This impressive new restoration from The Museum of Modern Art has greatly improved the intertitles and visual quality from previously existing copies. Live piano by David Drazin. Restored by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation with support from the Louis B. Mayer Foundation, RT Features, and the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation. (KT)
SUN, APRIL 7 • 4:00 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH WED, APRIL 10 • 8:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • DCP • 105 MIN Director: Billy Corben; Producer: Alfred Spellman, Billy Corben; Editor: David Cypkin; Cinematographer: B.J. Golnick, Alexa Harris SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
Imagine a Coen Brothers script about baseball’s doping scandal and you’re in the ballpark of this riotously entertaining documentary. It turns out those steroid-enhanced home run derbies that ensnared All-Stars like Alex Rodriguez and Milwaukee Brewer Ryan Braun were the half-brained scheme of a few Miami crooks with phony medical licenses. Human growth hormone peddler Anthony Bosch and his cronies recount their bewildering rise and mortifying fall with amusing frankness, leaving us to anticipate and savor their comeuppance. Chockablock with FBI bag drops, tanning salon burglaries, and wads of illicit cash, this is a real-life sports caper to beat I, Tonya, and would certainly be pegged as too farfetched if it weren’t true. But the icing on the cake is in Screwball’s ingenious reenactments: to emphasize the childish behavior of its subjects, the reenactments are performed entirely by children. Cute little crooks get rich, talk tough, and double-cross each other, while a pint-sized A-Rod dubiously denies any wrongdoing. “Brazenly entertaining. Suggests what might result if the Monty Python troupe were given carte blanche to produce an investigative report for 60 Minutes” (Variety). (MK)
SUN, APRIL 7 • 11:00 AM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: DANIEL BELIAVSKY MIDWEST PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • HD projection • 80 MIN Director: Daniel Beliavsky; Screenwriter: Daniel Beliavsky, Victor Ilyukhin; Editor: Victor Ilyukhin, Bodine Alex Boling; Cast: David Del Tredici, Daniel Beliavsky; Cinematographer: Michael LaVoie SECTION: WISCONSIN’S OWN
In Secret Music, Pulitzer prize winning composer David Del Tredici takes us step by step through the process that led to his transformative and uninhibited commitment to writing what he calls “gay music,” “a repertoire that honors the joys and struggles of his life as a gay man, as well as of gay life, as he understands it. This clear-eyed and intimate documentary (by concert pianist and music theorist, Daniel Beliavsky) treats us to relaxed and expansive interviews with its subject. It also grants us front row seats when Del Tredici puts vocalists and Beliavsky through their paces as they rehearse some of his most provocative and challenging pieces, including a song derived from the ecstatically explicit Allen Ginsberg poem, “Please Master.” Secret Music is a rare glimpse of the work and thought that goes into art, a profound and revelatory experience for music lovers and the uninitiated alike. (BR) Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin and UW-Madison Gender & Sexuality Campus Center (GSCC)
The Sequence of Years
Shadow SAT, APRIL 6 • 1:30 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • China • 2018 • DCP • Mandarin with English subtitles • 115 MIN Director: Zh ang Yimou; Screenwriter: Li Wei, Zhang Yimou; Producer: Ellen Eliasoph, Zhang Zhao, Pang Liwei, Liu Jun, Wang Xiaozhu; Editor: Zhou Xiaolin; Cast: Deng Chao, Sun Li, Zheng Kai, Wang Qianyuan, Wang Jingchun, Hu Jun, Guan Xiaotong, Leo Wu; Cinematographer: Zhao Xiaoding SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
This magnificent combination of balletic action and palace intrigue has been widely celebrated as a return to form for director Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers). In ancient Pei, a gravely injured military commander attempts to take control of the kingdom via a secret weapon—a perfect lookalike, who serves as the commander’s imposter on the battlefield. Through this body double, the commander maneuvers Pei’s army towards an unforgettable battle royale at the walled city of Jing. Shadow easily matches Zhang’s previous action spectacles for rhapsodic beauty, but where those films reveled in florid colors, here the veteran director boldly introduces a fantastic new look. Drawing on the monochromatic color scheme of traditional Chinese ink-wash painting, Shadow’s sets and costumes are executed entirely in rich slate grays and velvet blacks. The film’s spellbinding not-quite black-and-white visuals only serves to emphasize the impact of the crimson red that flows in the climax. “Breathtakingly beautiful… matches Zhang’s best work for the sheer voracious elegance of the images and possibly surpasses much of it for inventiveness” (Variety). “Just about everything one could want from a Zhang Yimou film. Beautiful to look at, with amazing stuntwork, complicated characters, and a story that constantly twists and turns” (Birth.Movies.Death.). (MK)
SCREENS IN: IT’S ONLY NATURAL: OUT AND ABOUT WITH WISCONSIN’S OWN
Sergey’s Fortune SCREENS IN: WISCONSIN GONE WILD
Sherbert Rozencrantz, You’re Beautiful
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
SAT JUNE 15 2019
SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET
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DOLL’S LETTERS
SUN, APRIL 7 • 10:00 AM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH 58 MIN AGE RECOMMENDATION: 5-8 (ALL AGES) SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS
DEAR HENRI
Short and Sweet SAT, APRIL 6 • 10:00 AM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH 66 MIN AGE RECOMMENDATION: 8+ SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS
Our family-friendly program offers award-winning short films from all around the world. Meet a tadpole who is a tad behind, and a house who is tad too tall. Help grandma find a missing bird. Meet Henri who is missing her granddad and two grandsons who love to play with theirs. Admire guinea pig Sherbert, and find out what a pen license is. Please note: Some of the short films are in a foreign language with English subtitles. Presented with support from SSM Health
Dear Henri Animation, Live action • USA • 2017 • DCP • 13 MIN Director: Matthew Sandager
After the loss of her namesake and pen pal, Grandpa Henry, 9-year old Henri finds an imaginative way to maintain their special connection. Will she get an answer? (KK) Courtesy of director Matthew Sandager
Granbad Live action • UK • 2018 • DCP • 6 MIN Director: Annabel Vine
After a boy is pressured to graffiti a wall, he reveals his feelings—and his dyslexia. In the end he makes his bully realize that there are people out there who are only a phone call away. (KK)
Animation, Live action • Switzerland • 2018 • DCP • No dialogue • 7 MIN Director: Nils Hedinger
A little tadpole falls a tad behind and feels like an outsider, but there is always next spring. An animated story about growing up that takes place in front of a live-action background. (KK)
Once There was a House ЖИЛ БЫЛ ДОМ
Animation • Russia • 2018 • DCP • No dialogue • 6 MIN Director: Svetlana Andrianova
Presented with support from SSM Health
A Bit Lost
Un Peu Perdu
Animation • France • 2017 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 5 MIN Director: Helene Ducrocq
Little Owl has fallen from the nest and is looking for his mom. With the help of squirrel, they search the forest. Based on the book by Chris Haughton. (KK)
Colorbirds
Coucouleurs
Animation • France • 2016 • DCP • No dialogue • 6 MIN
In the beginning, the new high-rise building is admired by everyone. But when the elevator breaks people get nostalgic…The latest short by Two Trams (WFF 2018) director Svetlana Andrianova. (KK)
Director: Oana Lacroix
Courtesy of director Svetlana Andrianova
Doll’s Letters
Outdoors Animation • France • 2017 • DCP • No dialogue • 6 MIN Director: Anne Castaldo, Sarah Chalek, Elsa Nesme, Adrien Rouquié
What do you do when you are the reason your elderly neighbor’s bird has escaped? You put on your roller skates and chase through New York City to follow the clues. But what do you do when the neighbor is suddenly missing too? (KK)
Pen License Live action • Australia • 2018 • DCP • 10 MIN Director: Olivia Peniston-Bird
In a forest inhabited by birds of a single color, everyone has found their place. But one day a two colored bird shows up and causes a little more than chirping. (KK)
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Brazil, France, Colombia • 2018 • DCP • Spanish, Portuguese with English subtitles • 89 MIN
Our friend the little riceball is back. This time as a butterfly lover who decides to do the right thing: feed them and let them fly. A new adventure by Mari Miyazawa. (KK)
Director: Beatriz Seigner; Screenwriter: Beatriz Seigner; Producer: Beatriz Seigner, Leonardo Mecchi, Thierry Lenouvel, Daniel Garcia; Editor: Renata Maria, Jacques Comets; Cast: Marleyda Soto, Enrique Diaz, Maria Paula Tabares Peña, Adolfo Savinino; Cinematographer: Sofia Oggioni
The Pig on the Hill
SECTION: NEW WOMEN DIRECTORS, NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Animation • USA • 2018 • DCP * 6 MIN
In the dead of night, a rowboat carrying Amparo and her two young children glides up the Amazon river. It comes ashore at La Isla de la Fantasia, a tiny, flood-prone island of rickety stilt houses at the nexus of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. Having fled violence in Colombia but not yet emigrated to Brazil, Amparo’s family is caught in the liminal state of refugees. But something more is going on in this eerie landscape, where it seems that the line between living and dead is as porous as the national borders. What began as a realist refugee story seamlessly transforms into a powerful meditation on spiritual existence. “Artistically and spiritually nourishing… bewitches by degrees, softening up the viewer with entrancing visuals to ensure the last-act emotional sucker punch lands with maximum force” (The Hollywood Reporter). “Balances social realism and shivery paranormal activity with arresting, uncontrived ease. By the deeply moving climax, which blurs a host of human boundaries both cultural and mortal, the film is blazingly alight. If there is life after death, Los Silencios reassures us that it can be a brighter one” (Variety). 2018 Cannes Film Festival. (MK)
Director: Jamy Wheless, John Helms
When his new neighbor Duck moves in next door, Pig does not warm up at first. But thankfully this will change soon. (KK) Courtesy of Jamy Wheless and John Helms
Raccoon and the Light Animation • USA • 2018 • DCP • No dialogue • 4 MIN Director: Hanna Kim
Courtesy of director Hanna Kim
Nacktschnecke
Courtesy of director Natalia Grofpel
Delfin
A slug is envious of snails and their shells. However, in the end, it has to ask itself if a shell is really the right fit. (KK)
Director: Julia Ocker
A Tiger with No Stripes
Dolphin Animation • Germany • 2018 • DCP • No dialogue • 4 MIN
Live action • Australia • 2018 • DCP • 10 MIN
Director: Veronika Zacharová
Director: Natalie Van Den Dungen
The house is outraged when it wakes up and finds that it was deserted in exchange for a modern high-tech mansion. With only a shiny red business card as a clue it sets out to find its former inhabitants. (KK)
FRI, APRIL 5 • 1:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 SUN, APRIL 7 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5
Director: Mari Miyazawa
Slug
Domek
Milly’s pet guinea pig Sherbert is all she plays with. Her mom is worried and therefore invites aerobics-loving cousin Carlie over for a playdate. Will there be a happy end? (KK)
Animation • Japan • 2017 • DCP • No dialogue • 5 MIN
When a little girl loses her favorite doll in the busy city, the nicest postman on earth invents an incredible story to help the girl get over her loss. (KK)
Sherbert Rozencrantz, You’re Beautiful
An aging grandfather explains to his grandson that he must take care of his garden when he is no longer around. A poetic and moving film about losing a loved one, but also keeping that per28 son’s memory alive. (KK)
こにぎりくん ちょうちょ
Director: Natalie Grofpel
Animation • Russia • 2016 • DCP • No dialogue • 7 MIN
Animation • France • 2018 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 8 MIN Director: Anne Huynh
Konigiri-Kun Butterfly
Письма куклы
My Grandpa is Hiding
Mon papi s’est caché
Los Silencios
What happens when a nocturnal creature finds a left-behind flashlight? More than you think! Winner of the Student Academy Award-Winner. (KK)
A short film about a coming of age ritual that every Australian child has to go through. They need to pass a test, in order to write with a pen instead of a pencil. This short focuses on 9-year-old Tiana who soon realizes it’s not about being perfect, but about persistence. (KK)
Courtesy of director Annabel Vine APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Kuap
Join us for this exciting program of family-friendly, award-winning short films from around the world! Adventures begin when a little girl looks for her favorite doll, a little owl looks for her one and only mom, and an empty house looks for its former inhabitants. Meet a slug who longs to find a shell and a raccoon who finds a flashlight in the woods. Discover why Dolphin and birds are upset. Meet a girl who wants to live in the zoo and a pig who does not want to live with a neighbor. And welcome back our friend the little rice ball. Please note: These short films are either in English or do not have dialogue (with one exception).
Animation • Germany • 2018 • DCP • No dialogue • 4 MIN Director: Julia Ocker
Supported by the Goethe-Institut
An absentminded swordfish pricks the colorful bubble that dolphin was playing with. He then tries to fix the situation. (KK)
Le Tigre sans rayures
Supported by the Goethe-Institut
The House
Little tiger is sad because he has no stripes. He decides to take a journey to look for them. Will he find them in the end? (KK)
Animation • Czech Republic • 2016 • DCP • No dialogue • 5 MIN
I Want to Live in the Zoo
Animation • France • 2018 • DCP • No dialogue • 9 MIN Director: Raúl Robin Alejandro Morales Reyes
Animation • Russia, UK • 2017 • DCP • No dialogue • 5 MIN Director: Evgenia Golubeva
Who wants to do homework, tidy up, and eat porridge when one can live in a zoo? (KK)
Singularity Stories, Vol. I
Courtesy of Soyuzmultfilm Film
SCREENS IN: WISCONSIN GONE WILD
S LE GRAND REMIX
Slug
Nacktschnecke SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
Stories We Tell: Wisconsin’s Own Shorts SAT, APRIL 6 • 4:00 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH 71 MIN FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND
Sofia SUN, APRIL 7 • 11:30 AM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Qatar, France • 2018 • DCP • Arabic, French with English subtitles • 80 MIN Director: Meryem Benm’Barek; Screenwriter: Meryem Benm’Barek; Producer: Oliver Delbosc; Editor: Céline Perreard; Cast: Maha Alemi, Lubna Azabal, Sarah Perles, Faouzi Bensaidi, Hamza Khafif; Cinematographer: Son Doan SECTION: NEW WOMEN DIRECTORS, NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
At a dinner party in her parents’ Casablanca home, 20-year-old Sofia suddenly buckles over in pain. Her medstudent cousin Lena is first to realize what is wrong: Sofia has gone into labor without knowing she’s pregnant. Mindful of the conservative generation gathered in the next room, Lena discretely ferries Sofia off to a hospital. But once the baby is delivered, their troubles have only begun. In Morocco, pre-marital sex is a criminal offense, and Sofia must locate the father or risk prosecution. That night, the two women venture into the Casablanca slums in search of a man Sofia barely knows. When the families finally meet to discuss the terms of a potential marriage, Sofia’s camerawork and tone shift from handheld and urgent to locked-down and incisive. Writer/director Meryem Benm’Barek’s taut social drama won a Best Screenplay award at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, the first of many prizes it’s picked up since. FIPRESCI Prize, 2018 Thessaloniki Film Festival. New Voices/New Visions Grand Jury Prize, 2019 Palm Springs International Film Festival. (MK)
There are a lot of stories to tell in our state, and there are lots of talented storytellers to tell them. Sometimes these storytellers pick up and head west, or east, or north, or south, but they still have stories to tell no matter where they wind up. In this program of Wisconsin’s Own shorts we will travel from the Daniel Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee to the Hudson River in New York, and from a medicine cabinet in Fitchburg to a house party in New Orleans, but rest assured, wherever we go, there will be stories there for us to see, hear, and be moved by. Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
look at me, less than one hundred times WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • 2018 • DCP • 4 MIN Director: Frances Tyska
Splicing together Midwestern “vlogs” that have each been viewed fewer than 100 times, Frances Tyska discovers unexpected affinities and propulsive rhythms in local digital ephemera. (ZZ)
Hoan Alone: Personal Stories from the Bridge MADISON PREMIERE • Animation, Documentary • USA • 2018 • DCP • 9 MIN Director: Aaron Johnson; Screenwriter: Aaron Johnson; Producer: Aaron Johnson
Stories of witnessing, responding to, and attempting suicide are interwoven into a conversation that explores Milwaukee’s Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge in this unique animated short. (TI)
Laura MADISON PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2018 • DCP • English, Hebrew with English subtitles • 4 MIN Director: Maya Castronovo; Screenwriter: Maya Castronovo; Producer: Maya Castronovo
Old Rook WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • 2018 • DCP • 3 MIN
Stabacab SCREENS IN: WISCONSIN GONE WILD
Cast: Jacob Feiring, Shahin Izadi, Christian Strevy; Cinematographer: Madeliene Bishop
A group of aging, competitive bros try to shoot hoops in their cramped apartment, yielding humorous results. (ZZ)
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • English, French, Vietnamese with English subtitles • 17 MIN Director: Austin Alward; Screenwriter: Austin Alward; Producer: Austin Alward, Sam Claitor, Win Riley; Editor: Andrew Jon Wallace; Cast: Marie Ba, Chloe Nelson; Cinematographer: Matt S. Bell; Music: Louis Michot
A trippy French-language short set in New Orleans and chock full of stylish camera work, clever transitions, livedin performances, and a healthy dose of magic realism and magical dance numbers. (BR)
Hold My Horse MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • DCP • 8 MIN Director: Timothy Troy; Screenwriter: Timothy Troy; Producer: William Eichler, Jeremy Bevard; Cast: Christian Stolte
A pompous young Civil War Lieutenant learns a lesson in humility and respect from a grizzled, older General in this handsomely-produced historical narrative short. (BR)
We Were Hardly More Than Children WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary, Experimental • USA • 2019 • DCP • 9 MIN Director: Cecelia Condit; Screenwriter: Cecelia Condit; Producer: Cecelia Condit; Cast: Flora Coker, Cecelia Condit; Music: Renato Umali
In this abstract tale of survival and friendship, two woman take a journey through time as they recount the painful, shared experience of an illegal abortion and the bond that kept them strong. (TI)
Styx SUN, APRIL 7 • 5:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 MON, APRIL 8 • 1:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Germany, Australia • 2018 • DCP • English, German with English subtitles • 94 MIN Director: Wolfgang Fischer; Screenwriter: Wolfgang Fischer, Ika Künzel; Producer: Marcos Kantis, Martin Lehwald; Editor: Monika Willi; Cast: Susanne Wolff, Gedion Oduor Wekesa; Cinematographer: Benedict Neuenfels SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
A woman alone in a boat at sea, a sudden storm, and a race against time. It’s a basic formula that has been used several times in recent years, but this is more than just a survival adventure. It’s also a moral thriller, in which a comfortable European doctor is confronted with her own helplessness in the face of a sinking ship full of North African refugees. Relying on rigorously simple filmmaking techniques to place us in the cramped, isolated boat with our reluctant hero, Styx is both a challenging geopolitical fable and a tense genre exercise in which every glance over the empty ocean and every fruitless conversation with the coast guard takes on unbearable levels of tension. In what amounts to a one-woman show, Susanne Wolff offers a remarkable display of finely-tuned, tightly-wound desperation, as we watch her character slowly sink into panic without ever losing her fortitude or determination. Critically lauded from the moment of its Berlin Film Festival premiere, this is a sterling example of thoughtful, politically engaged cinematic art that’s also riveting entertainment. (TB)
Hudson River Miracle WORLD PREMIERE • Animation, Experimental • 2018 • DCP • 7 MIN Director: Vlash Droboniku; Screenwriter: Vlash Droboniku; Producer: Vlash Droboniku
Painstaking, sui generis hand-drawn animation dramatizes the story of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and US Airways Flight 1549, to hypnotic effect. (ZZ)
TT H RTUH R U
Do it for Dozer MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • DCP • 18 MIN Director: Emma Siewert; Producer: Bryce Chinault
A story of loss turns into a season of triumph when the Cambridge High football players head to the championships in this touching documentary about a community’s efforts to heal after the death of a close friend and teammate, Dustin “Dozer” Zuelsdorf. (TI)
MADBEERWEEK.COM #MadBEERWEEK
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
The contents of a medicine cabinet tell a heartbreaking tale of friendship and loss in this remarkably original and eloquent short from high school student, Maya Castronovo. (BR)
Le Grand Remix
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Suddenly, Last Summer MON, APRIL 8 • 4:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 5 Narrative • USA • 1959 • DCP • 114 MIN Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz; Screenwriter: Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams; Producer: Sam Spiegel; Editor: William Hornbeck, Thomas G. Stanford; Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Merceded McCambridge, Albert Dekker; Cinematographer: Jack Hildyard; Music: Malcolm Arnold, Buxton Orr SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
Elizabeth Taylor is a breathy neurotic and Katharine Hepburn is a carnivorous, grasping villain in what is surely among the most lurid of all 1950s American films (both women went on to win well-earned Oscar nominations). Adapted by Gore Vidal from a one-act play by Tennessee Williams, it’s no surprise that the film goes all-in on sweaty camp, with Hepburn’s Violet Venable pressuring Montgomery Clift’s confused Dr. John Cukrowicz to lobotomize her niece, before the young woman can share a torrid family secret. The film, expertly directed by the legendary Joseph L. Mankieicz (All About Eve), brings a healthy dose of Expressionist horror to the Southern Gothic setting, depicting the Venable mansion as a series of prison-like rooms centered around a primordial jungle of a greenhouse. Though Williams would keep himself at arm’s length from the final product, there might not be a better film adaptation of the humidity, venality, and dysfunctional sexuality that dominated his work. A must-see for any fan of cinematic perversion or gorgeously shot psychological thrillers, especially in the new 4K restoration from Sony Pictures. (TB)
box office APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Tickets can be purchased:
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;;in person at the Campus Arts Ticketing at Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street ;;by phone at 608-265-ARTS (2787) ;;online at 2019.wifilmfest.org until 5:00 pm the evening before any screening
Supa Modo SUN, APRIL 7 • 12:00 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH 83 MIN AGE RECOMMENDATION: 11+
The Swimmer SAT, APRIL 6 • 6:00 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART
A Valkyrie’s Tale
SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: CHRIS INNIS
Animation • USA • 2018 DCP • 9 MIN
Director: Frank Perry; Screenwriter: Eleanor Perry; Producer: Roger Lewis, Frank Perry; Editor: Sidney Katz, Carl Lerner, Pat Somerset; Cast: Burt Lancaster, Janice Rule, Janet Landgard, Kim Hunter, Joan Rivers; Cinematographer: David L. Quaid; Music: Marvin Hamlisch
Director: Crestwood Elementary 4th Graders; Screenwriter: Crestwood Elementary 4th Graders; Editor: Luke Bassuener; Music: Shawn Weber McMahon, Crestwood Elementary 5th Graders SECTION: WISCONSIN’S OWN
The fourth and fifth graders from Crestwood Elementary are back at it with this stop-motion, spectacular retelling of a Norse myth, using blockprinted characters on hand-drawn construction paper backgrounds. (ZZ) Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
Supa Modo Live action • Germany, Kenya • 2018 • DCP • English, Kikuyu, Swahili with English subtitles • 74 MIN Director: Likarion Wainaina; Screenwriter: Wanjeri Gakuru, Gathoni Kamau; Producer: Sarika Hemi Lekhani, Marie SteinmannTykwer; Editor: Christian Kramer, Charity Kuria; Cast: Stycie Waweru, Marrianne Nungo, Nyawara Ndambia; Cinematographer: Enos Olik, Volker Tittel; Music: Sean Peevers SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS
Obsessed with Jackie Chan and action films, Jo, a brave and witty 9-year old, terminally ill girl, finds comfort in her dreams of being a superhero. When her mother takes her back to her rural village to live out the rest of her short life, her teenage sister Mwix motivates the entire village of Maweni, Kenya to make Jo’s dream come true. Stunning newcomer Stycie Waweru as Jo makes us believe that superheroes really do come in all ages, shapes and sizes in this tremendously moving drama. This honest and inspiring story about the strength of young people in the face of adversity is brought to us by first time feature filmmaker Likarion Wainaina (with the help of co-producer Tom Tykwer). Supa Modo won more than 20 prizes at international film festivals including the 2019 European Children’s Film Association award. (KK) Content advisory: This uplifting film deals with difficult issues, including the impending death of a child. Presented with support from SSM Health and the Goethe-Institut
Narrative • USA • 1968 • 35mm • 95 MIN
SECTION: RESTORATIONS AND REDISCOVERIES
Burt Lancaster stars as Ned Merrill, a middle-aged married father who, one summer afternoon, makes the unusual decision to swim his way home through the backyard pools of his upper middle-class Connecticut neighborhood. Without the use of flashbacks, Ned’s past is revealed gradually as each pool evokes past memories, events, and relationships. As he gets closer to home, the darker and more disturbing aspects of Ned’s character bubble to the surface. One of the most unusual and underrated films of the 1960s, director Frank Perry’s The Swimmer began life as a popular John Cheever short story that was adapted into script form by Perry’s wife, Eleanor. The fascinating cult movie had a tumultuous production history, including an extensive series of re-shoots where Perry was replaced by another director, Sydney Pollack. Academy Award winning editor Chris Innis, the ultimate Swimmer authority, will be present to introduce this 35mm print and discuss her extensive research after the screening. (JH)
Tender Touches: Maniac SCREENS IN: PET NAMES
This Magnificent Cake! Ce magnifique gâteau!
WED, APRIL 10 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 THU, APRIL 11 • 1:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 75 MIN
My Burden Min Börda
Animation • Sweden • 2017 • DCP • Swedish with English subtitles • 14 MIN Director: Niki Lindroth von Bahr; Screenwriter: Niki Lindroth von Bahr; Producer: Kalle Wettre; Cinematographer: Niki Lindroth von Bahr; Music: Hans Appelqvist
A favorite of last year’s WFF, My Burden, a mini musical epic, returns to join two other singular pieces of animation. The late night animal occupants of a shopping plaza/office block sing out their existential angst—doomed by the apocalyptic banality of subsistence in the modern age. Simultaneously recalling the films of Roy Andersson and Jacques Demy, this unforgettable stop-motion short is a masterpiece of filmmaking. (JH)
Oh Willy... Animation • Belgium, France, Netherlands • 2012 • DCP • 17 MIN Director: Emma de Swaef, Marc James Roels; Screenwriter: Emma de Swaef, Marc James Roels
A man travels to a nudist colony on melancholy business, before finding himself in the midst of a sweeping fable of life, death, rebirth, and balance with nature. Winner of the prestigious Cartoon d’Or in 2012, this film was an early experiment in directors Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels’s woolly aesthetic. (TB)
This Magnificent Cake!
Ce magnifique gâteau! WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • Belgium, France, Netherlands • 2018 • DCP • French, Flemish, Malinke (Pygmy dialect) with English subtitles • 44 MIN Director: Emma de Swaef, Marc James Roels; Screenwriter: Emma de Swaef, Marc James Roels; Producer: Steven de Beul, Ben Tesseur; Cinematographer: Marc James Roels SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Alternating whimsy and political gravitas, this remarkable work of stop-motion animation—in which everything from waterfalls to buildings to the characters themselves have been hand-crafted from wool and other fabrics—breaks down the brutal history of Belgian interference in Africa with wit, wisdom, and unexpected moments of sublime beauty. Five interconnected short stories sketch out the darkness of life under 19th-century European colonialism in Africa as it affects a Pygmy hotel worker, a lost businessman, an enslaved porter, an army deserter, and even a depressed king. One of 2018’s most celebrated animated features, winning awards and praise at major film festivals across the world, This Magnificent Cake! is playful and warm without sacrificing its merciless insight into the rot at the heart of the colonial project. It’s a unique experience for fans of thoughtful, challenging animation for adults, though you’ll definitely want to leave the kids at home. (TB)
T suspenseful and visually stunning animated feature closes with the message that it’s okay to be scared, so long as you don’t let it define you. Best Animated Feature, 2018 Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. (KK) Content Advisory: limited use of strong language, children shown in perilous situations.
A Tiger with No Stripes
Presented with support from SSM Health and Shout! Factory
The Tomorrow Man THU, APRIL 11 • 3:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6
Le Tigre sans rayures SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 94 MIN
The Tobacconist Der Trafikant
SAT, APRIL 6 • 3:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 TUE, APRIL 9 • 1:15 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6
Director: Noble Jones; Screenwriter: Noble Jones; Producer: Luke Rivett, Nicolaas Bertelsen, James Schamus, Tony Lipp; Editor: Zimo Huang; Cast: John Lithgow, Blythe Danner, Derek Cecil, Katie Aselton; Cinematographer: Noble Jones; Music: Paul Leonard-Morgan SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
From the 2019 Sundance Film Festival guide: “Retiree Ed Hemsler (John Lithgow) spends his quiet days watching the news, checking internet
forums, and preparing for the end of the world. As a self-proclaimed ‘prepper,’ Ed is constantly making arrangements for the future, often at the expense of things in the here and now—such as his waning health and his strained relationship with his adult son. But then he spots Ronnie Meisner (Blythe Danner) and knows there is something different about her. The two form an unlikely bond and are happy together despite their combined emotional baggage—until, one day, it all spills out before them. In his debut feature, writer/director and cinematographer Noble Jones candidly explores modern society’s unacknowledged fear of aging and the erroneous assumption that getting older means losing control. John Lithgow and Blythe Danner wholeheartedly embody Ed and Ronnie’s divergent yet complementary convictions about life and love. And as these two headstrong characters learn to embrace one another’s quirks, they also learn to accept each other’s outlook on what tomorrow holds.”
WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Germany, Austria • 2018 • DCP • German with English subtitles • 113 MIN
Tito and the Birds
Tito e os Pássaros
SAT, APRIL 6 • 11:45 AM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH 87 MIN AGE RECOMMENDATION: 10+
Home Sweet Home
Le Refuge de l’écureuil Animation • France • 2019 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 14 MIN Director: Chaïtane Conversat SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS
A collage of stories connects an aging and forgetful grandmother and her granddaughter despite time and distance. Latest film by Little Seed director (WFF 2017) Chataine Conversat (KK)
Tito and the Birds
Tito e os Pássaros Animation • Brazil • 2018 • DCP • Portuguese with English subtitles • 73 MIN Director: Gabriel Bitar, André Catoto, Gustavo Steinberg; Screenwriter: Eduardo Benaim, Gustavo Steinberg; Producer: Gustavo Steinberg, Daniel Greco, Felipe Sabino SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS
SAT, APRIL 6 • 6:15 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION THU, APRIL 11 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Germany, France • 2018 • DCP • German, French with English subtitles • 101 MIN
SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Todd SCREENS IN: IT’S ONLY NATURAL: OUT AND ABOUT WITH WISCONSIN’S OWN
Director: Christian Petzold; Screenwriter: Christian Petzold; Producer: Antonin Dedet, Florian Koerner von Gustorf; Editor: Bettina Böhler; Cast: Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese, Lilien Batman, Maryam Zaree; Cinematographer: Hans Fromm SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am SAT, APRIL 6 • 11:00 AM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 119 MIN Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders; Producer: Timothy GreenfieldSanders, Johanna Giebelhaus, Chad Thompson, Tommy Walker; Editor: Johanna Giebelhaus; Cinematographer: Graham Willoughby SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
A suitably reverent portrait of one of America’s essential writers, this intimate documentary grants us the gift of hearing Toni Morrison tell her own story. Warmly gazing straight through the lens and into our soul, the 87-year old Nobel laureate reflects on her trailblazing career with the same abundance of grace, insight, and humanity found in her novels. In transcendent works including Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved, Morrison strove to depict the myriad aspects of the African-American experience that were totally absent from literature, illustrating time and again how “the history of the place of black people in this country is so varied, complex, beautiful, and impactful.” In addition to extensive interviews with Morrison, friends and peers including Angela Davis, Oprah Winfrey, Hilton Als, and Fran Lebowitz expand on the author’s seismic cultural impact and individual importance. Whether you are a lifelong fan or new to her work, this celebration of an American icon will send you racing to the library. 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (MK)
Sure to be a staple of “Best of 2019” lists, this riveting film noir “unfolds like a remake of Casablanca as written by Franz Kafka” (Indiewire). Fleeing a fascist regime, Georg reaches the port city of Marseille, where he hopes to acquire a transit card out of Europe. While navigating Marseille’s undocumented underground, Georg adopts the identity of a recently deceased novelist, only to slowly fall for the dead man’s widow (Paula Beer, Frantz, WFF 2017). In a brilliantly executed highwire act, modern master Christian Petzold (Phoenix, WFF 2015) transposes the action of a WWII-era novel to an alternate version of our present day, one without computers, smartphones, and other digital technology. Not quite 1942, not quite 2019, Transit exists in two tenses, allowing us to consider the recurrences of history from both the before and after points. At the center of this essential film is star-in-themaking Franz Rogowski, the kind of utterly compelling performer you simply can’t tear your eyes from: Germany’s answer to Joaquin Phoenix. “An elegant, ingenious brain-bender whose slipperiness serves a larger purpose: This is a movie about how disturbingly little the present has diverged from the past. It should not be missed” (The AV Club). 2018 Berlin and New York Film Festivals. (MK) Presented with support from UW–Madison English Department
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Together with his two friends Sarah and Buiú, Tito, an inventive and bright 10-year-old embarks on a journey to find his father’s missing research on bird songs. This missing piece of research is the one thing that just might save their world from an epidemic where fear is crippling people, making them sick and transforming them into stones. But with his quest for a cure, also begins the search for his father, a scientist exiled from the family home after a failed experiment severely injured Tito. With a distinctive style using oil paintings, digital drawings, and graphic animation, Tito and the Birds is a candid political allegory for young audiences with its timely exploration of fear in contemporary society. This
Transit
Director: Nikolaus Leytner; Screenwriter: Nikolaus Leytner, Klaus Richter; Producer: Dieter Pochlatko, Jakob Pochlatko, Ralf Zimmermann; Editor: Bettina Mazakarini; Cast: Bruno Ganz, Simon Morzé, Johannes Krisch, Emma Drogunova ; Cinematographer: Hermann Dunzendorfer; Music: Matthias Weber
The late Bruno Ganz, in one of his final performances, co-stars as Sigmund Freud in this elegant character drama set in Vienna on the brink of World War II and Nazi occupation. Adapting Robert Seethaler’s celebrated novel, The Tobacconist is the generous, melancholic story of a confused young man attempting to find his way in life and love as Europe teeters on the edge of collapse. Along the way, he’s helped by advice from the famous psychoanalyst, a client at the tobacco shop where he works. Boasting sensitive, subtle performances laced with wry humor and understated fear, the film handsomely brings life to a city rife with racial and political tension, along with the looming threat of encroaching fascism that overwhelms the simple human-sized hopes and dreams of its hapless lead. Befitting its iconic subject, the film is full of symbolic libidinal imagery and ethereal, placeless dream sequences, crafting fanciful and disturbing visual expressions of an uncertain, nervous adolescence. (TB)
Traces of Memory SCREENS IN: IT’S ONLY NATURAL: OUT AND ABOUT WITH WISCONSIN’S OWN
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T-W every character (including one played by Amélie herself, Audrey Tautou). It may be a goofy lark, but the hijinks are carried off with a continental panache that earned The Trouble With You a whopping nine nominations at the 2019 César Awards (the French Oscars equivalent), including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, and all four Acting categories. “Totally irresistible. A jubilant cinematic experience that left audience members at the Cannes Film Festival in a rare state of collective joy” (Cineuropa). (MK)
The Trouble With You En Liberté!
from his wife and son and put an end to his career. Living alone with his dog Joseph in a grand old manor on the edge of a forest, the bored Ulysses now spends his days playing tennis with a machine or listening to horror movie soundtracks. 20-year-old Mona (Manal Issa) is an art student who also finds her life uneventful. Naively hoping to become Ulysses’ assistant, she decides to crash his secluded home. After a clumsy first meeting, both of them end up on a surprise-filled odyssey. Like Wes Anderson, writer-director Sébastien Betbeder has a whimsical, colorful touch and he peppers his story with plenty of verbal and visual jokes, as well as cinematic references that include a riff on Frank Perry’s The Swimmer (also screening at this year’s WFF). This lightness of style blended with the gravity of the issues Betbeder’s characters grapple with, yields a distinctive, piercing kind of melancholy rarely found in contemporary movies. The final scenes of Ulysses and Mona are some of the most surprising and moving in recent cinema releases. (JH)
FRI, APRIL 5 • 6:15 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • France • 2018 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 107 MIN Director: Pierre Salvadori; Screenwriter: Pierre Salvadori, Benjamin Charbit, Benoît Graffin; Producer: Philippe Martin, David Thion; Editor: Isabelle Devinck, Géraldine Mangenot; Cast: Adèle Haenel, Pio Marmaï, Damien Bonnard, Audrey Tautou, Vincent Elbaz; Cinematographer: Julien Poupard SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Ulysses & Mona
This exuberant comedy kicks off with a bang—a knockabout action-film parody that sets the bar for the giddy fun ahead. Rising star Adèle Haenel (Love at First Fight, WFF 2015) shines as Yvonne, a principled police detective who is distraught to learn that her late, universally adored husband was in fact a crooked cop. She sets out to right his wrongs by helping the innocent people he unjustly convicted, starting with Antoine. But Yvonne’s do-gooder intentions backfire when it turns out that, framed or not, Antoine is a total maniac. Perfectly unpredictable, this fizzy romp follows the triedand-true illogic of classic screwball comedies, complete with overlapping love triangles that involve practically
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Vargur
MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • France • 2018 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 82 MIN
FRI, APRIL 5 • 8:45 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION THU, APRIL 11 • 3:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1
Director: Sébastien Betbeder; Screenwriter: Sébastien Betbeder; Producer: Frédéric Dubreuil; Editor: Céline Canard; Cast: Manal Issa, Eric Cantona, Quentin Dolmaire, Marie Vialle; Cinematographer: Romain Le Bonniec; Music: Minizza
MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Iceland • 2018 • DCP • Icelandic, Polish, Serbian with English subtitles • 95 MIN
SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
A Valkyrie’s Tale
It’s been four years since Ulysses (Eric Cantona), a once wildly successful 55-year-old artist, ran away
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Director: Börkur Sigþórsson; Screenwriter: Börkur Sigþórsson; Producer: Agnes Johansen, Baltasar Kormákur; Editor: Sigvaldi J. Kárason; Cast: Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Marijana Jankovic, Steinunn Ólína Þorsteinsdóttir, Anna Próchniak; Cinematographer: Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson; Music: Ben Frost SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
A sharply-dressed, high-living real estate developer, Erik would appear to be the embodiment of success in an economically booming Iceland. His brother Atli, a petty criminal just released from prison, is stuck in a downward spiral when Erik offers him a chance to team up on a potentially lucrative scheme to smuggle drugs into their home country. The other key person in their plan is Sofia, a young Polish mule who does her part by swallowing multiple pellets filled with cocaine. Things start to go wrong on a flight into Iceland when Sofia realizes she is a less-than-perfect vessel for the plastic pellets. Soon, a rule-breaking cop named Lena starts closing in on Erik and Atli, a crisis which reveals the true character of each brother. The first feature of Icelandic writer-director Börkur Sigþórsson is a tense, edge-of-your-seat thriller with darkly humorous trappings and oddball character flourishes that recalls the neo-noirs of the Coen Brothers. Basing his script on multiple true crime stories, Sigþórsson has crafted a briskly-told debut that also explores issues of economic status and social class on this volcanic island of Scandinavia. (JH)
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I Want to Live in the Zoo
We Were Hardly More Than Children
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When Tomorrow Comes FRI, APRIL 5 • 8:15 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART Narrative • USA • 1939 • 35mm • 90 MIN Director: John M. Stahl; Screenwriter: James M. Cain, Dwight Taylor; Producer: John M. Stahl; Editor: Milton Carruth; Cast: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Barbara O’Neil, Onslow Stevens, Fritz Feld; Cinematographer: John J. Mescall SECTION: BEST OF IL CINEMA RITROVATO
The second big-screen romance to team movie stars Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, When Tomorrow Comes was released in 1939, just five months after the premiere of their first pairing in Leo McCarey’s Love Affair. Melodrama specialist John M. Stahl (Back Street, Seed) directs the story of a waitress whose love for a wealthy pianist is thwarted by surprising and moving circumstances. Dwight Taylor’s screenplay, filled with humor and unexpected developments, and neatly unified to unfold over three days, was inspired by a short story authored by James M. Cain (Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity). Dunne and Boyer were teamed a third time, in the forgettable and aptly titled 1944 comedy Together Again, but When Tomorrow Comes has endured as one of the greatest of all golden age Hollywood melodramas. It matches Love Affair’s power to grab an audience and move them to tears, but Stahl’s movie has rarely been as celebrated as McCarey’s, perhaps because it has never officially been released on any home video format. Our WFF screening of an excellent archival 35mm print from Universal Pictures will give you the opportunity to discover this masterpiece for yourselves. (JH)
Rudolf Nureyev and his defection to the West in 1961. As The White Crow begins, we find the 22-yearold Nureyev (played by professional dancer Oleg Ivenko) dressed in a black beret and a dark suit on a plane flying from St Petersburg to Paris. Nureyev, not yet the figure of legend he would become, is a member of the worldrenowned Kirov Ballet Company, travelling for the first time outside the Soviet Union. Parisian life delights Nureyev and the young dancer is eager to consume all the culture, art and music the dazzling city has to offer. This incredible journey by a unique artist will transform the world of ballet forever. Fiennes, who co-stars as Nureyev’s ballet master and mentor Alexander Pushkin, has made a movie that is “lovely, elegant…[with] a true-life East-meets-West intrigue to rival Cold War… the film’s many ballet scenes are stunning, to say the least” (Peter Debruge, Variety). (JH)
SUNDAY, APRIL 7 • 6:15 PM MARQUEE THEATER, UNION SOUTH WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • UK • 2018 • DCP • 101 MIN Director: Tom Harper; Screenwriter: Nicole Taylor; Producer: Faye Ward; Editor: Mark Eckersley; Cast: Jessie Buckley, Julie Walters, Sophie Okonedo; Cinematographer: George Steel SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Who Will Write Our History? WED, APRIL 10 • 6:00 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • DCP • Yiddish, Polish, English with English subtitles • 96 MIN Director: Roberta Grossman; Producer: Roberta Grossman; Editor: Chris Callister, Ondine Rarey; Cast: Jowita Budnik, Piotr Glowacki, Piotr Jankowski, Wojciech Zielinski ; Cinematographer: Dyanna Taylor; Music: Todd Boekelheide
APRIL 11 • 8:15PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • narrative • UK, France • 2018 • DCP • English, Russian, French with English subtitles • 127 MIN
SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
In his third outing as director, Ralph Fiennes dramatically recreates the true story of Soviet ballet superstar
Giving a rousing performance, Jesse Buckley (Beast) stars in this crowdpleaser as Rose-Lynn Harlan, a Scottish single mother of two and ex-convict who dreams of becoming a country music star in Nashville. Just out of prison, Rose-Lynn finds that her hell-raising past has made it impossible to return to her old gig as the house band singer at Glasgow’s Grand Ole Opry, but she is able to work as a housekeeper for the wealthy Susannah (Sophie Okonedo). When Susannah takes an interest in Rose-Lynn’s career and offers to help sponsor a trip to the Country Music Capital, Rose-Lynn’s mom (the always reliable Julie Walters) tries her hardest to get her daughter to take responsibility, especially when it comes to her own two young children. Wild Rose is “transcendent… [a] story about good old-fashioned selfdiscovery, a lost lamb finding herself, but once again the journey doesn’t zig and zag exactly how you’d expect” (The Hollywood Reporter). (JH)
Wisconsin Gone Wild FRI, APRIL 5 • 9:00 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH 82 MIN FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND
Come take a walk on the wild side with us. This group of Wisconsin’s Own shorts is for anyone who enjoys a little spice in their cinematic feasts. From an unpleasant family reunion to a hitman’s lament and from a not-quite grieving widow to a not so quietly paranoid computer programmer, these seven tales do away with niceties and cut straight to the bone. Consider yourself warned! Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
Stabacab MIDWEST PREMIERE • Animation, Experimental • USA • 2018 • DCP • 3 MIN Director: Eric J. Nelson; Screenwriter: Eric J. Nelson; Producer: Eric J. Nelson, Kristin Larson; Music: ViBRATiONLAND
Creepy-crawlies made of putty, fur, tubing, chatter teeth, and googly eyes evolve and decay in this breakneck, stop-motion music video that would make Bruce Conner proud. (ZZ)
The Cabin WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 12 MIN Director: Ryan Wolf; Screenwriter: Ryan Wolf & Josh Moss; Producer: Ryan Wolf & Tom Turley; Cast: Monette Magrath, Zane Phillips, Matt Porter, Sprague Theobald, Michael Twaine, Lana Gordon
When 3 siblings don’t see eye to eye on an inheritance, their response leads to an intense family reunion. (TI)
Singularity Stories, Vol. I MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 11 MIN Director: Asa Derks; Screenwriter: Asa Derks; Producer: Asa Derks, Jack Whaley; Cast: Colleen Madden, Carey Cannon
Winter Cranes SCREENS IN: IT’S ONLY NATURAL: OUT AND ABOUT WITH WISCONSIN’S OWN
What might happen if Alexa decided she’d had enough of your lame-ass taste in music? Colleen Madden finds out in this comedic sci-fi short that feels eerily enough like a real possibility. (BR)
Sergey’s Fortune WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 16 MIN Director: Peter Mackie; Screenwriter: Nick Vitale; Producer: Peter Mackie, Kseniya Yorsh, Dorothea Paschalidou; Cast: Yorgos Karamihos, Ravil Isyanov, Anthony Howes, Hudson Long, Jami Alix, Nick Mutuma
A Ukrainian hitman having a nogood, very bad day meets his match in the form of a gang of obnoxious YouTube vloggers in this acidic, Tarantino-esque comedy-thriller. (BR)
Husband, Ensured WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 16 MIN Director: Gabe Reiss; Screenwriter: Gabe Reiss; Producer: Jimmy Morrissey; Cast: Na’Imah Graham, Kamil Borowski, Maurice McNicholas
Expecting a check after the death of her husband, Joyce’s insurance company instead offers her a different sort of payout in this darkly funny, pointedly cynical existential comedy. (BR)
Divinities WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2018 • DCP • 10 MIN Director: Evan Dale Karg; Screenwriter: Evan Dale Karg; Producer: Leah Chen Baker, Kristian King; Cast: Catherine Curtin, Judith Roberts, Melissa van der Schyff
A Christian woman (Orange Is the New Black’s Catherine Curtin) grows suspicious of a friend’s claim to speak in tongues, before an overpowering epiphany. (ZZ)
Psychosis WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 14 MIN Director: Ben Feldman, Brandon Weisner, Noah Guthman; Screenwriter: Ben Feldman, Daniel Feldman; Producer: Autumn Griffin, Ben Feldman, Willis McCord, Noah Guthman, Jonny Bazelon; Editor: Ben Feldman; Cast: Jack Alberts, Alexandra Ivey, Matthew Rhodes; Cinematographer: Enrique De La Garza; Music: Christian Whittemore
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Director: Ralph Fiennes; Screenwriter: David Hare; Producer: Gabrielle Tana, Ralph Fiennes, Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Andrew Levitas, François Ivernel; Editor: Barney Pilling; Cast: Oleg Ivenko, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Ralph Fiennes, Raphaël Peronnaz, Chulpan Khamatova, Sergei Polunin, Calypso Valois, Louis Hoffman, Olivier Rabourdin; Cinematographer: Mike Eley; Music: Ilan Eshkeri
In the fall of 1939, 400, 000 Jewish residents of Warsaw, Poland were corralled into a walled off, overcrowded ghetto where, for the next four years, they were systematically starved and brutalized, forced to turn on each other, and eventually shipped off to concentration camps. From inside the ghetto, Emanuel Ringelblum, a PolishJewish historian, launched a desperate, secretive campaign to preserve the history and the voices of those about to be wiped off the face of the earth. Ringelblum formed a collective of 60 artists, academics, and writers known as Oyneg Shabes (The Joys of Shabbat) to achieve a goal of preservation: writing and collecting diaries, journals, and photographs - and then hiding them from the Nazis. Their struggle forms the basis of Roberta Grossman’s hauntingly immersive documentary, which utilizes a nimble blend of extensive archival footage,
STABACAB
Presented with support from the Mosse/ Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies
Wild Rose
SECTION: AMERICAN VISIONS
The White Crow
vivid re-enactments, talking head interviews, and voice-over readings of the contemporaneous journals of those involved. Grossman skillfully and eloquently paints a complete and devastating picture of one of the most notorious episodes of barbarism and genocide in recent human history. As Ringelblum and his compatriots heroically struggled to ensure their history wouldn’t be rewritten by German propagandists, their story shines a light on the importance of journalism and documentation in the face of oppression and inhumanity that seems especially urgent and timely in 2019. (BR)
A neurotic programmer holed up in an isolated workspace begins to suspect a technological entity has taken over the world. As his paranoia grows, this well-crafted short ratchets up the twists, turns, and intensity. (BR) 33
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Yen Ching SAT, APRIL 6 • 11:00 AM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART 76 MIN FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND SECTION: WISCONSIN’S OWN
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The Witch Hunters
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE • Documentary • 2018 • HD projection • English, Arabic with English subtitles • 12 MIN
Zlogonje
SAT, APRIL 6 • 1:45 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH
Director: Saif Alsaegh
Finding the personal in the political, Saif Alsaegh meditates on the distance between himself (a MFA student in Milwaukee) and his mother (an Iraqi immigrant living in Turkey). This poignant documentary examines the ways cultural rituals intersect with traumatic legacies of war. (ZZ)
96 MIN AGE RECOMMENDATION: 9+
Fruits of Clouds Plody mraků
Animation • Czech Republic • 2017 • DCP • No dialogue • 10 MIN Director: Kateřina Karhánková
Yen Ching
SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS
When their food supply runs low, little Furry makes a great discovery. But it needs to overcome its fear of the dark woods to get to the food source. Will Furry make it? (KK)
Woman at War
The Witch Hunters
115 MIN
Live action • Serbia, Macedonia • 2018 • DCP • Serbian with English subtitles • 86 MIN Director: Rasko Miljkovic; Screenwriter: Marko Manojlovic, Milos Kreckovic; Producer: Jovana Karaulic; Editor: Djordje Markovic; Cast: Mihajlo Milavic, Silma Mahmuti; Cinematographer: Miksa Andjelic; Music: Nevena Glusica
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS
Jovan, a shy and self-conscious 10-year-old, was born with cerebral palsy. With enough on his plate including school, homework and draining daily physical therapy, he often escapes into an imaginary world where he is a superhero called Shade. His meticulously planned daily routine gets disrupted when Milica, a new student, arrives and gets seated next to him. Milica is determined to tear down the wall that Jovan has built around himself. She eventually asks her new friend to help liberate her father from his new girlfriend, whom she believes is a witch. Preoccupied with this plan, Jovan begins to enjoy life and overcomes many of his insecurities in the process. Rasko Miljkovic’s first feature is an honest portrayal of struggle and acceptance, and how true friendship can lead to unknown inner strength. 2019 Sundance Film Festival, Young People’s Jury Award for Best Feature Film, 2018 Toronto Kids Film Festival. (KK) Content Advisory: Some scenes may be frightening to the youngest viewers (imaginary sequences featuring witches); physical fight at school; instances of strong language. Age recommendation: 9+
34 Presented with support from SSM Health
THU, APRIL 4 • 7:00PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION
Golden Badger Awards Presentation 15 MIN
Pete Schwaba (Wisconsin Public Television’s Director’s Cut) hosts our annual Golden Badger Awards presentation. The Golden Badger Jury will be on hand to present awards to this year’s winning films: Elephant Path, Played Out, and Life on the Mississippi.
Woman at War
Kona fer í stríð WISCONSIN PREMIERE • narrative • Iceland, France, Ukraine • 2018 • DCP • Icelandic with English subtitles • 100 MIN Director: Benedikt Erlingsson; Screenwriter: Benedikt Erlingsson, Ólafur Egill Egilsson; Producer: Marianne Slot; Editor: DavíðAlexander Corno; Cast: Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, Jóhann Sigurðarson, DavíðÞór Jónsson, Magnús Trygvason Eliasen, Ómar Guðjónsson; Cinematographer: Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
An absolute blast, this Icelandic comedy turns saving the world into a righteous thrill ride. Halla is a woman on a mission. A much-loved Reykjavik choir conductor by day, she moonlights as an eco-warrior, toppling pylons with expert bow and arrow shots. Dubbed the “Mountain Woman” by the press, Halla is on a one-woman crusade to protect Iceland’s breathtaking landscape from encroaching big industry. Just as she’s ramping up her superhero activism, Halla receives the long-awaited news that she’s been cleared to adopt. Can she raise a child while donning disguises and outfoxing government helicopters? Carried off with the zip and precision of one of Halla’s arrows, Woman at War achieves a sublime perfection of snappy timing, gorgeous nature, and good humor. “Is there anything rarer than an intelligent feel-good film that knows how to tackle urgent global issues with humor as well as a satisfying sense of justice? Look no further than Woman at War” (Variety). “Winningly mixes absurdist comedy and tense thriller. Cinematographer Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson shoots his Icelandic landscapes with such an eye for its barren beauty that it makes [Halla’s] motivation crystal clear. This is a beautiful world that is well worth saving” (Sight & Sound). 2018 Cannes Film Festival. (MK)
MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2018 • HD projection • English, Chinese with English subtitles • 64 MIN Director: Yinan Wang; Producer: Yujing Wang
What starts as an appetizing, nutsand-bolts documentary about Milwaukee’s beloved Yen Ching restaurant ends as a layered and moving portrait of intergenerational differences and the Chinese-American immigrant experience. First-in, last-out owner Guishan Chen commands the screen with his energy, humor, and thriftiness—he buys 3,000 new plates to clean after hours, for instance, rather than pay a dishwasher who skips work. Before long, however, Chen’s patient and devout wife, Alan Lin, and their two sons come into view. When their youngest, Xin, returns from college expected to carry the family torch, his curt objections reflect age-old tensions and contemporary economic and cultural realities. Wang’s mature vérité style, attentive to the complexities of familial interaction and off-screen sound, mark this as an astounding feature debut. (ZZ) Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin
Yomeddine SAT, APRIL 6 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 MON, APRIL 8 • 3:45 PM AMC MADISON - CINEMA 1 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Egypt, USA, Austria • 2018 • DCP • Arabic with English subtitles • 96 MIN Director: Abu Bakr Shawky; Screenwriter: Abu Bakr Shawky; Producer: Dina Emam; Editor: Erin Greenwell; Cast: Rady Gamal, Ahmed Abdelhafiz; Cinematographer: Federico Cesca SECTION: NEW INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
Living in a leper colony adjacent to a garbage dump, Beshay (Rady Gama) makes a living selling salvaged trash out of his donkey-led cart. Abandoned at the colony when he was a child, Beshay decides to take the cart north to the City of Qena in order to seek out his birth family. By the time Beshay realizes that his young friend Obama (Ahmed Abdelhafiz) has stowed away in the cart, it is too late to turn around and return the boy to the orphanage he is running away from. On the road, the odd couple are met frequently with hostility, particularly from those who wrongly think Beshay’s leprosy is contagious. Beshay and Obama also find warm companionship from fellow outsiders, especially an unflappable legless former truck driver. This warm and affecting road/buddy movie marks the feature directorial debut for Egyptian writerdirector A.B. Shawky. Yomeddine (Arabic for Judgment Day) so impressed the programmers of the Cannes Film Festival that they included it in the Festival’s main competition, a prestigious acknowledgment rare for debuting filmmakers. “A sweet, solid first feature marbled with genuinely touching moments…while Shawky ensures a firm sense of place, essential for any road movie, he maintains his focus on the characters themselves” (Jay Weissberg, Variety). (JH)
2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Wisconsin Film Festival
Check it out!
We show kids the world... Big Screens, Little Folks (BSLF) films will be shown Friday, April 5 through Sunday, April 7 at the Marquee at Union South. Look for Cam, the BSLF mascot to find BSLF listings throughout this guide. All BSLF tickets are $6.
2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG/BSLF The Wisconsin Film Festival is presented by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts in association with the Department of Communication Arts.
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
For complete Big Screens, Little Folks listings, check out the handy dandy guide in your hands, or visit us at:
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Information. Inspiration. 88.7 FM wpr.org
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Wisconsin and the World.
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theaters & Transportation CAMPUS & DOWNTOWN
INSET
AMC Madison 6 HILLDALE 430 North Midvale Boulevard (608) 316-6900 WEBSITE: amctheatres.com/movietheatres/madison/amc-madison-6 HANDICAP ACCESSIBLE BUS ROUTES: Weekdays: 2, 10, 70, 71, 72 Weekends: 2, 8 SUGGESTED PARKING: Hilldale offers numerous free parking options: indoor ramp, stalls in front of shops, and two large lots (one by AMC Madison 6 and one behind Macy’s).
UW–MADISON CAMPUS
Chazen Museum of Art* AUDITORIUM 750 University Avenue (608) 263-2246 WEBSITE: chazen.wisc.edu HANDICAP ACCESSIBLE
UW Cinematheque* ROOM 4070, VILAS HALL 821 University Avenue (608) 262-3627 WEBSITE: cinema.wisc.edu HANDICAP ACCESSIBLE Cinematheque is located at 4070 Vilas Hall, immediately south and east of the intersection of Park Street and University Avenue. Room 4070 is in the center of the open fourth-floor plaza of Vilas Hall and is accessible from the Park Street stairs and elevator, the stairs and ramp on University Avenue, and the stairs facing University Square and the Lucky Building.
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union* 800 Langdon Street (608) 265-2787 WEBSITE: union.wisc.edu/visit/memorial-union/ HANDICAP ACCESSIBLE
SECOND FLOOR, UNION SOUTH 1308 West Dayton Street (608) 890-3000 WEBSITE: union.wisc.edu/visit/union-south/the-marquee HANDICAP ACCESSIBLE BUS ROUTES: Weekdays: 3, 7, 80, 82, 84 Weekends: 2, 3, 8, 80, 82, 84 SUGGESTED PARKING: UW Lots 17, 20, and 80. Weekend and evening (after 4:30 pm) parking is also available in UW Lots 16, 54, and 56.
All screenings are general admission. We recommend arriving at the venue 30 MINUTES in advance. To guarantee admittance, ticket holders must arrive 15 MINUTES before the start of a film. For accessibility and mobility-related questions, visit the venue websites. For all ticketing questions, the Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office phone number is (608) 265-2787. Individual venues will not have ticketing information.
Bike There are bike lanes and racks both on campus and in the Hilldale area. You can also rent bicycles at BCycle.
Bus
A Madison Bed & Breakfast A Madison Bed & Breakfast
Bus routes listed stop within a few blocks of each venue. There may be additional bus routes to venues that are not listed below. Visit the City of Madison’s Metro Transit website for more information, including a bus route planner at cityofmadison.com/metro.
Parking UW–MADISON CAMPUS: Find parking on campus along with nearest bus routes to the venues: map.wisc.edu Number of parking stalls available in realtime: transportation.wisc.edu/parking-lots/lot-occupancy-count CITY LOTS: City operated parking availability: cityofmadison.com/parking-utility/ garages-lots/current-hourly-parking-availability
BUS & PARKING – CHAZEN, *CINEMATHEQUE & MEMORIAL UNION BUS ROUTES: Weekdays: 2, 4, 6, 14, 15, 80, 82 | Weekends: 2, 4, 6, 80, 82 Additional bus routes pick up/drop off at University Avenue and Park Street & Johnson Street and Mills Street. SUGGESTED PARKING: UW Lots 7, 46, and 83. Weekend and evening (after 4:30 pm) parking is also available in UW Lots 56 and 61. A city ramp parking option is the State Street Campus Garage at Lake Street (415 North Lake Street) and Frances Street (430 North Frances Street). This ramp is open and enforced 24/7. There is also public parking at the corner of Lake Street and University Avenue (entrance on Lake Street).
Where History Meets Hospitality Phone: (608) 238-6317 Where History Meets Hospitality Email: info@livingstoninnmadison.com Phone: (608) 238-6317 www.livingstoninnmadison.com Email: info@livingstoninnmadison.com www.livingstoninnmadison.com
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
The Marquee, Union South
Many Festival admission lines form outside the theater, including those at AMC Madison 6. Please dress appropriately and bring an umbrella if there is a chance of precipitation.
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DIRECTOR’S CUT
WISCONSIN FILM FESTIVAL EDITION
Preview the festival’s best films with host Pete Schwaba, Wisconsin Film Festival organizers and filmmakers.
“Wear something that says ‘Here I am!’ today.” – Iris Apfel
9 p.m. Monday, April 1 on Wisconsin Public Television Watch this episode online anytime at wpt.org.
230 State Street • 608.255.7372 • littleluxuriesmadison.com
www.centuryhouseinc.com
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
take time
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3029 & 3420 university ave. madison 608.233.4488
Film Checklist Use this chronological checklist by filling in number of tickets in each box. Plan your fest your way. Take it to the Box Office for a speedier transaction or just fold it up and keep it in your pocket.
Thursday, April 4 5:30 PM
Opening Night Reception
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union
7:00 PM
Woman at War
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union
Friday, April 5 11:00 AM Elephant Path AMC Madison - Cinema 1
11:00 AM Good Morning Chazen Museum of Art
11:00 AM Long Day’s Journey Into... UW Cinematheque
11:15 AM
The Good Girls
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
12:45 PM The Raft
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
1:15 PM
Los Silencios
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
1:30 PM
Leto
1:30 PM
Lonelyhearts
AMC Madison - Cinema 1 Chazen Museum of Art
2:30 PM
Ralph Breaks the Internet
UW Cinematheque
3:00 PM
Ash is Purest White
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
3:15 PM
Girls Always Happy
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
3:45 PM
Betty White: First Lady of...
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union
3:45 PM
The Eyes of Orson Welles
Chazen Museum of Art
NAME
PHONE
ADDRESS
9:00 PM
Wisconsin Gone Wild
6:30 PM
Our Struggles
6:00 PM Midnight Traveler
9:15 PM
Dogman
8:30 PM
Bathtubs Over Broadway
6:15 PM
Ray & Liz
8:30 PM
The Disappearance of My...
6:15 PM
Wild Rose
10:00 AM Short and Sweet
8:30 PM
It’s Only Natural: Out and...
The Marquee, Union South
7:00 PM
Hotel by the River
The Marquee, Union South
11:00 AM Cold Case Hammarskjöld
8:30 PM
Jivaro
7:15 PM
Gone with the Pope
The Marquee, Union South AMC Madison - Cinema 1
Saturday, April 6
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union AMC Madison - Cinema 1
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
UW Cinematheque
11:00 AM Rosita
8:30 PM
Pig
UW Cinematheque
Chazen Museum of Art
11:00 AM Toni Morrison: The Pieces I...
8:45 PM
Rojo
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
11:00 AM Yen Ching
9:00 PM Rafiki
Chazen Museum of Art
11:15 AM
The Edge of Democracy
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
11:30 AM Pause
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
11:45 AM Tito and the Birds The Marquee, Union South
1:00 PM
The Juniper Tree
Chazen Museum of Art
1:15 PM
The Melody Man
UW Cinematheque
1:30 PM
Shadow
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union
1:30 PM
Yomeddine
1:45 PM
Ray & Liz
AMC Madison - Cinema 1 AMC Madison - Cinema 5
1:45 PM
The Witch Hunters
The Marquee, Union South
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
Sunday, April 7
4:00 PM
Meeting Gorbachev
11:30 AM Sofia
4:30 PM
Suddenly, Last Summer
12:00 PM Supa Modo
6:00 PM Asako I & II
12:45 PM None Shall Escape
6:15 PM
Hail Satan?
7:45 PM
Light from Light
11:15 AM
Hail Satan?
AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 5 The Marquee, Union South UW Cinematheque
3:30 PM
Elephant Path
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
6:15 PM
Inquiring Nuns
3:45 PM
The Tobacconist
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
6:15 PM
Minuscule
4:00 PM
The Good Girls
The Marquee, Union South
6:15 PM
The Trouble With You
4:00 PM
Knock Down the House
6:30 PM
In Fabric
4:00 PM
Stories We Tell in Wisconsin
6:45 PM
Asako I & II
6:00 PM Genesis
8:15 PM
When Tomorrow Comes
6:00 PM The Swimmer
8:30 PM
The Hidden City
6:15 PM
Ash is Purest White
8:30 PM
Pet Names
6:15 PM
The Hidden City
8:45 PM
Vultures
6:15 PM
Played Out
9:00 PM
A Faithful Man
6:15 PM
Transit
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union The Marquee, Union South AMC Madison - Cinema 1 Chazen Museum of Art
AMC Madison - Cinema 5 UW Cinematheque
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union AMC Madison - Cinema 6
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union The Marquee, Union South AMC Madison - Cinema 5 Chazen Museum of Art
AMC Madison - Cinema 6 UW Cinematheque
The Marquee, Union South Shannon Hall, Memorial Union
1:00 PM
Dogman
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
1:15 PM 1:15 PM
1:30 PM
Making Montgomery Clift Meeting Gorbachev Rojo
2:00 PM Los Reyes 2:45 PM
Creature from the Black...
UW Cinematheque
3:15 PM
Little Woods
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
3:30 PM
Leto
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
3:45 PM
Girls Always Happy
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
4:00 PM
Screwball
The Marquee, Union South
4:30 PM
Freud
Chazen Museum of Art
4:30 PM
Lake Michigan Monster
UW Cinematheque
5:30 PM
Styx
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 5 AMC Madison - Cinema 1 AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 5 AMC Madison - Cinema 1 AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 5
8:15 PM
The Raft
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
8:30 PM
Maya
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
Tuesday, April 9 1:00 PM
Pause
1:15 PM
The Tobacconist
1:30 PM
The Disappearance of My...
3:30 PM
Maya
3:45 PM
Leona
4:00 PM
Light from Light
5:45 PM
Mike Wallace is Here
AMC Madison - Cinema 5 AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 1 AMC Madison - Cinema 1 AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 5
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
6:00 PM Chained for Life AMC Madison - Cinema 1
6:15 PM
Lucky to Be a Woman
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
8:00 PM Mr. Jimmy
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
8:15 PM
Pig
8:30 PM
Ulysses & Mona
AMC Madison - Cinema 5 AMC Madison - Cinema 1
Wednesday, April 10 1:15 PM
The Eyes of Orson Welles
1:45 PM
Mike Wallace is Here
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
2:00 PM Hotel by the River
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
3:45 PM
La Religieuse
4:00 PM
Los Reyes
4:15 PM
Midnight Traveler
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 1
6:00 PM Who Will Write Our History?
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
6:15 PM
This Magnificent Cake
6:30 PM
The Girl in the Window
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
8:00 PM The Image Book
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
8:15 PM
Screwball
8:30 PM
Hyenas
AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 5
Thursday, April 11 1:15 PM
This Magnificent Cake
1:30 PM
Transit
1:45 PM
The Girl in the Window
3:00 PM
Vultures
3:45 PM
The Tomorrow Man
4:00 PM
Lucky to Be a Woman
5:30 PM
Monos
5:45 PM
American Factory
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 5 AMC Madison - Cinema 1 AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 5 AMC Madison - Cinema 1 AMC Madison - Cinema 6
6:00 PM Between the Lines
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
7:45 PM
Her Smell
8:15 PM
The White Crow
8:30 PM
Police Story
AMC Madison - Cinema 1 AMC Madison - Cinema 6 AMC Madison - Cinema 5
TOTAL:
APR. 4-11 | 2019.WIFILMFEST.ORG
Peterloo
UW Cinematheque
Monday, April 8
Yomeddine
6:00 PM
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
Los Silencios
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
3:45 PM
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
Chazen Museum of Art
Chazen Museum of Art
8:30 PM
11:00 AM Ulysses & Mona
The Other Side of the Wind
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
2:00 PM Making Montgomery Clift
Chazen Museum of Art
3:00 PM
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
8:00 PM In Fabric
11:00 AM Secret Music
Genesis
Chazen Museum of Art
Leona
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
Styx
5:45 PM
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
7:30 PM
1:45 PM
UW Cinematheque
Long Day’s Journey Into...
UW Cinematheque
Chazen Museum of Art
11:00 AM Forbidden Paradise
3:00 PM
The Marquee, Union South
UW Cinematheque
Our Struggles
Rafiki
4:30 PM
AMC Madison - Cinema 6
The Marquee, Union South
1:30 PM
The Marquee, Union South
2:00 PM A Faithful Man
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
AMC Madison - Cinema 5
10:00 AM Shorter and Sweeter
Cold Case Hammarskjöld
4:00 PM
AMC Madison - Cinema 1
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