2020 Wisconsin Film Festival Film Guide by Wisconsin Film Festival

Background photo by Jeff Miller / UW–Madison

—————————— OFFICIAL FILM GUIDE ——————————

OPENING NIGHT Thursday, April 2 | 5:30-9:30 pm Shannon Hall, Memorial Union | 800 Langdon St. 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

Background photo by Jeff Miller / UW–Madison

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

7:25 pm |

Boys State

(Documentary, USA, 2020, 109 min) Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize Winner!

TICKETS: $15 Opening Night Reception $11 Opening Night Film: Boys State + Awards Presentation

2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG 9:30 pm | Afterglow at the Madison Concourse Hotel, 1 West Dayton Street

The Wisconsin Film Festival is presented by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts in collaboration with the Department of Communication Arts. To request accommodations, please contact venue@wifilmfest.org or 608-262-9009.

IN THIS GUIDE

Ticket Information PAG E 5

Theaters & Transportation PAG E 7

Film Descriptions PAG E 8

Daily Schedule at a Glance PAG E 2 0

Film Checklist PAG E 3 9

pon receiving one of his many, much-deserved awards this year, Bong Joon Ho declared, “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” The Wisconsin Film Festival, of course, has taken this maxim to heart for 22 years running— diehards may recall that we celebrated Bong’s genius with a complete retrospective 11 years ago. This year, you can even take a deep dive into the subtitle itself with a special presentation on the history and evolution of those sentences flashing along the bottom of the screen, an often-overlooked piece of the puzzle that makes our festival possible. But, all due respect to the master, our subtitles are more like 18 inches high. Still, you can clear that barrier. We believe in you.

Background photo by Jeff Miller / UW–Madison

Elections naturally have a way of taking up all the oxygen in the room (and, unfortunately, Bong can’t win them all). Political campaigns can make for great cinema—this year’s spectacularly entertaining Opening Night film belongs in the hall of fame—but keeping up with them can be more than a little exhausting, especially as the day-to-day grind stretches into month-to-month. The relentless alpha competition, the purported blackand-white certainty over complex issues, the endless recriminations, is this really what we’re about? Let the Wisconsin Film Festival be your respite, a weeklong oasis of subtlety, ambiguity, beauty, and other virtues that you won’t find on a debate stage. Call it self-care, call it being human again, just take a few days to recharge your batteries (we’ll give you a pass the morning of April 7 to vote). It’s a wide world out there— experience it through the lives of people you have nothing in common with, be it language, gender identity, class, or ideology. Take a breather from the moral high ground and see a film whose protagonist is utterly irredeemable—and all the funnier for it. Bask in awe of a film’s aesthetics and nothing else. Be moved to tears by a film’s story, and also cop an interior design idea from the hero’s home decor. Bail on this young decade altogether and exclusively attend films set or made in the previous millennium. Get into an argument with your friends and neighbors over something fun and ultimately meaningless for once. Cast a vote for our Audience Choice Award based purely on impulse, without feeling like the weight of the freaking world is resting on your ballot. Change your mind. It feels great.

– JIM HEALY

Director of Programming

MIKE KING

Senior Programmer

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 Programming Zachary Zahos, Wisconsin’s Own Programmer & Print Traffic Coordinator Ben Donahue, Fiona Quinn and Eleanor Stark, Wisconsin’s Own Programmers Karin Kolb, Big Screens, Little Folks Programmer ADMINISTRATION (UW–MADISON DIVISION OF THE ARTS) Susan Zaeske, Interim Director Kate Hewson, Interim Associate Director Lisa Spierer, Interim Director of Operations Ben Reiser, Outreach and Community Engagement Manager Terry Kerr, Volunteer Coordinator and Big Screens, Little Folks & Screens for Teens Educational Coordinator Emilie Schada, Sponsorship, Grant and Development Manager Kathy Ricci, Wisconsin Film Festival Sponsorship Coordinator Cathy Sheets, Creative Director Kate Lochner, Integrated Marketing & Communications Strategist Gwendolyn Rice, Writer & Communications Specialist Heather Owens, Audience Development & Communications Specialist Amanda Sweno, Digital Marketing Specialist

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 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG For ticket questions, call the Box Office at (608) 265-2787.

Division of the Arts

Arts on Campus

Nancy Heingartner, World Cinema Day Coordinator

The Division of the Arts is a gateway to the arts at the University of Wisconsin– Madison. As arts practitioners, theorists, historians, and educators, we advance the arts as an invaluable resource. The arts underpin the vital nature of the university and its wider community. We promote all forms of artistic expression, experience, and interpretation via a diversity of intertwined paths through which we engage and understand our world.

The Arts on Campus website is a resource for arts events, academics, and resources on campus.

Mary Ladoni, Tristan Mentz, Brette Olpin, Junlin Ou, Mats Rudels, Duncan Slagle, and Gracie Wallner, Photographers, Videographers and Student Assistants

The Wisconsin Film Festival is presented by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts in collaboration with the Department of Communication Arts. 1050 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706 (608) 890-2718 | info@arts.wisc.edu artsdivision.wisc.edu | arts.wisc.edu

arts.wisc.edu @uwmadisonarts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube)

Aaron Granat, Videographer

FILM PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS Ben Donahue (BD), Jim Healy (JH), Mike King (MK), Karin Kolb (KK), Fiona Quinn (FQ), Ben Reiser (BR), Matt St. John (MSJ), Eleanor Stark (ES), Kyle Westphal (KW) and Zachary Zahos (ZZ) PROJECTIONISTS Julian Antos, Olivia Babler, Travis Bird, Justin Dean, Tanner Engbretson, Roch Gersbach, Becca Hall and Barb Rasmussen SUPPORT STAFF Bob Dischler, Erik Gunneson, Boyd Hillestad, James Runde and Peter Sengstock TRAILER Ben Reiser, Monica Cliff, Aaron Granat, Annie Chiles, Matthew Sanborn and Terry Kerr

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

First launched in 1999, the Wisconsin Film Festival curates, promotes, and exhibits programs that showcase the art and history of world cinema. A non-profit annual event supported by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Festival advances the teaching, research, and public service mission of the University by exposing the campus and the greater community to films and filmmakers from Wisconsin and beyond. The Wisconsin Film Festival is firmly grounded in the belief that cinema is an essential art form that enriches human experience and enhances our knowledge of diverse cultures. As such, we seek to create a strong sense of community by creating a diverse program of films for viewers of all ages presented with state-of-the-art projection. The Wisconsin Film Festival is the Wisconsin Idea in action.

Rachel Niles, Assistant to the Director

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

STAY CENTERED WITH US

1 W Dayton St. Downtown Madison | concoursehotel.com | 800 356 8293

Ticket Information

HOW TO PURCHASE TICKETS

ORDER ONLINE 2020.wifilmfest.org

CALL 608-265-2787

Advance tickets will be available online beginning SATURDAY, MARCH 7 AT 11 AM.

STOP BY

Phone lines are open during Campus Arts Ticketing hours. (See hours of operation below.)

HOURS OF OPERATION:

Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office MEMORIAL UNION (800 Langdon Street, Madison)

OPENING DAY OF TICKET SALES

MARCH 9-APRIL 9* *SPRING BREAK Monday–Friday

(March 16–20)

11 AM–5 PM

Saturday

Closed Sundays

Saturday, March 7

10 AM–7 PM

11:30 AM–2:30 PM

10 AM–5 PM

Questions? BOXOFFICE@WIFILMFEST.ORG. NOTE: All tickets are processed by Campus Arts Ticketing.

TICKET PRICES

All-Festival Pass

325

NEW THIS YEAR

General Admission PER TICKET

Free Day-Of Screening Tickets for UW–Madison Students Every current UW–Madison student with a valid WisCard is eligible for one free ticket to every screening at every Festival venue all Festival long— a chance to see any of our more than 150 films FOR FREE!

Learn more at go.wisc.edu/wffstudent

Big Screens, Little Folks Screenings Student, Senior, Military, UW Faculty & Staff

7 $9 $

PER TICKET PER TICKET

Rush Ticketing To guarantee admittance, all ticket holders must arrive at least 15 minutes before the start of the film. After that time, unoccupied seats will be released as rush tickets. Subject to availability, rush tickets are sold within 15 minutes of the start of a film at the venue of its screening and can be purchased with cash or redeemed with a WisCard or voucher. To have the best chance at rush seats, we recommend showing up at least 30 minutes before the film begins. Note: No discounts apply.

CHECK 2020.W IFILMFEST.ORG FOR NEWS A N D UPDATES. FESTI VA L SCHEDU LE IS SU BJECT TO CH A NGE.

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

For more information on opening day of ticket sales, redeeming holiday gift certificates, vouchers, purchasing tickets during the Festival, refunds/exchanges, ticket delivery options, and other useful tidbits, visit 2020.wifilmfest.org/box-office.

Be part of the largest university-sponsored film festival in the country! AMC Theatres celebrates the work of the Wisconsin Film Festival, whose mission to bring audiences together through its diverse offerings ranging from child-friendly to avant-garde international cinema make it a one-of-a-kind salute to the artistry of filmmaking

amctheatres.com/artisan-films

Filmmaking is an art, and AMC is its museum. And just as there are masterpieces of traditional art, there are exceptional works of film. AMC Artisan Films brings a curated gallery of the finest movies to AMC where everyone can enjoy them. Any movie with the AMC Artisan Films seal is an artistdriven film that advances the art of making movies.

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

At AMC, we celebrate movies that are driven by innovators and encourage discussion, with fresh, diverse perspectives. AMC Artisan Films is a curated gallery of these works that encompasses a broad range of themes, styles and genres. Though the films may be vastly different from each other, they all have one thing in common: They advance the art of making movies.

Do you speak in movie quotes? Have a movie moment that changed your life? If you love all things movies, you may be a perfect fit for our team. Scan the QR code and apply today!

6 AMC2020-WFF_ad-revA.indd 1

2/25/20 10:56 AM

Theaters & Transportation

Shannon Hall Memorial Union 800 Langdon Street

union.wisc.edu

Chazen Museum of Art 750 University Avenue

chazen.wisc.edu

UW Cinematheque Room 4070, Vilas Hall 821 University Avenue

cinema.wisc.edu

2 3 4

Lake Mendota

The Marquee

2nd Floor, Union South 1308 Dayton Street

union.wisc.edu

Lake Monona

430 N. Midvale Boulevard

amctheatres.com

Lake Wingra All Film Festival venues are accessible by bike, bus, and car. For details on transportation and accessibility, visit 2020.wifilmfest.org/venues

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

AMC Madison 6

1-A Let Your Sisters Be MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • New Zealand • 2019 • DCP • English, Maori with English subtitles • 15 MIN Director: Aileen O’Sullivan; Screenwriters: Mary Sewell, Haaere Williams; Producers: Aileen O’Sullivan, Kath Thomas, Mary Sewell; Cast: Moana Maniapoto, Tandi Wright, Stephanie Wilkin, Miriama McDowell, Tinihuia Lee-Lemon

All in the Family: Wisconsin’s Own Shorts SUN, APRIL 5 • 5:30 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND 75 MIN

Families—we’re all part of at least one. These seven insightful shorts from our Wisconsin’s Own program explore the ins and outs, and highs and lows of being a family member. They touch on many of the complexities that come along with being someone’s mother, father, daughter, son or sibling. Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

Dad’s Apple

SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: DAVID MARMOR, ALLARD CANTOR (1BR) BEN SARGENT (SPILT MILK)

Spilt Milk MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 16 MIN Director: Ben Sargent; Screenwriter: Ben Sargent; Producer: Ben Sargent; Cast: Britta Pogue, Claire Carlson, Nick Woods

Emir Cakaroz completes his “family” trilogy (Two Photographs, WFF 2012; Revza, WFF 2016) with a stylistically bold memory piece in which Cakaroz portrays his father, and Cakaroz’s son, Rafael, plays young Emir. (BR)

Mother’s Love

In the aftermath of a breakup, Megan tries to pick up the pieces at a local bar where she and her sister drink, flirt, sing karaoke, and play with fire. (BR)

WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • United States • 2019 • DCP • 4 MIN

1BR

Ranging from relatable to outlandish, a mother’s snarky voiceover may hit uncomfortably close to home in this new short from Maya Castronovo (Laura, WFF 2019). (ES)

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 90 MIN Director: David Marmor; Screenwriter: David Marmor; Producers: Alok Mishra, Shane Vorster, Sam Sandweiss; Cast: Nicole Brydon Bloom, Taylor Nichols, Giles Matthey

New to Los Angeles and looking to break into show business, Sarah (Nicole Brydon Bloom) finds an apartment deal—affordable rent, friendly neighbors—that sounds too good to be true. It is. Soon enough, Sarah is unknowingly pulled into a dark cult by her fellow residents, two-faced folks who make the conspirators of Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives look like the Waltons. Making his feature debut, writer-director David Marmor proves himself worthy of comparison to contemporary horror masters like Jordan Peele and Ari Aster in the way that he transforms an enjoyably pulpy premise into an artfully constructed piece of claustrophobic horror. An expert at creating wonderfully paranoid atmosphere, Marmor also delivers enough twists, turns, and violent shocks to keep you performing a balancing act on the edge of your seat for 90 suspenseful minutes. An award-winning favorite on the horror and genre film festival circuit for the last few months, 1BR was co-produced by UW–Madison alum Allard Cantor. (BD) Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

Neptune

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • United States • 2019 • DCP • English • 19 MIN Director: Jackson Eagan; Screenwriter: Jackson Eagan; Producer: Elliot Zarrabi; Cast: Pat McCarthy, Peter Knox

This endearing slice of life about fatherhood and growing old won’t fail to warm hearts, despite taking place in snowpacked southwestern Wisconsin. (BD)

Another Night SCREENS IN: GENERATION NOW: STORIES FROM WISCONSIN’S OWN

Director: Emir Cakaroz; Screenwriter: Emir Cakaroz; Producers: Emir Cakaroz, Sarah Buccheri; Cast: Rafael Cakaroz, Emir Cakaroz

FRI, APRIL 3 • 6 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH

Angel’s Trumpet

MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary, Experimental • United States • 2019 • DCP • Turkish with English subtitles • 16 MIN

1BR

Director: Maya Castronovo; Screenwriters: Maya Castronovo, Leslie Bow

Handheld

WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • United States • 2019 • DCP • English • 12 MIN Directors: Pisie Hochheim, Tony Oswald; Screenwriters: Pisie Hochheim, Tony Oswald, Crystal Oswald; Producers: Brandon Colvin, Nora Stone; Cast: Jordan Gosnell, Emery Oswald

Before sending her son to bed, a single mother must answer painful questions contained in an old video camera. Pisie Hochheim and Tony Oswald (2018 Golden Badger winner Great Light) marshal every aspect of the medium in this compact, evocatively detailed drama. (ZZ)

I’m fine

WORLD PREMIERE • Documentary, Experimental • United States • 2019 • DCP • English • 4 MIN Director: Chase Millam; Screenwriter: Chase Millam; Producer: Chase Millam; Cast: Chris McGee

KEY

Faulting his own inaction, a father recounts the suicide of his son in this quietly haunting tone poem. (ES)

WISCONSIN’S OWN FILMS

Hunting Arrowheads with My Father

BIG SCREENS, LITTLE FOLKS FILMS GOLDEN BADGER WINNERS 3-D FILMS

Trying to reconcile past trauma with their abuser’s death, two sisters journey to the funeral of a local hero to seek closure. The vivid landscape of New Zealand also accompanies a village girl who suppresses suffering of her own, connecting the anguish of two generations. (ES)

WORLD PREMIERE • Documentary • United States • 2019 • DCP • 5 MIN Director: Jeri Griffith; Screenwriter: Jeri Griffith; Producer: Jonathan Griffith

6:1 SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

Plainspoken text and archival photos combine to form a powerfully evocative short about father-daughter bonding. (BR)

Archie And Then We Danced

SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

WED, APRIL 8 • 5:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 THU, APRIL 9 • 1 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Sweden, Georgia, France • 2019 • DCP • Georgian with English subtitles • 113 MIN Director: Levan Akin; Screenwriter: Levan Akin; Producers: Mathilde Dedye, Ketie Danelia; Editors: Levan Akin, Simon Carlgren; Cast: Levan Gelbakhiani, Bachi Valishvili, Ana Javakishvili; Cinematographer: Lisabi Fridell; Music: Zviad Mgebry, Ben Wheeler

A passionate gay romance reminiscent of Call Me By Your Name, this “luminous tour-de-force” (Indiewire) has become a flashpoint in its home country. In sun-dappled Tbilisi, Merab is a talented young dancer who is excelling in the ultra-conservative world of traditional Georgian dance. As a rare spot opens in the national ensemble, the arrival of a new troupe member awakens in Merab a new sense of lust and rivalry. A festival favorite from Cannes to Sundance, And Then We Danced is distinguished by its vibrant depiction of Georgian culture, exemplified in athletic dance sequences and breathtaking music. The film has had a real-world impact in Georgia, where its release was met with violent protests, bringing the country’s repressive anti-LGBTQ+ laws under public scrutiny like never before. “Enormously charming, quietly revolutionary” (Film Comment). “One of the most intimate, devastating and euphoric love stories ever told on screen” (GQ). “Sumptuous, passionate and joyful. It is a testament to the power of art when a fictional film can change how an entire country addresses LGBTQ+ rights” (Chicago Reader). (MK) Presented with support from UW–Madison Gender and Sexuality Campus Center

The Art of Subtitling SUN, APRIL 5 • 11 AM UW CINEMATHEQUE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: BRUCE GOLDSTEIN MADISON PREMIERE • Various • 60 MIN

“Once you overcome the one-inchtall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films” (Bong Joon Ho). An important part of film distribution and restoration today is one often overlooked: subtitling. Subtitles were first introduced at the beginning of the “talkie” era for international films released to arthouses, like Fritz Lang’s M. Initially, subtitles were added sparsely to foreign language films because of the belief held by distributors that audiences resented going to the movies and having to read. In recent years, new technology has allowed subtitles to be sharper than ever, both visually (no more “white on white”) and textually. The best subtitles, though, are those the audience doesn’t notice. Bruce Goldstein, repertory director of New York’s Film Forum and founder of classics distributor Rialto Pictures, is your guide through this illustrated presentation that provides a history of cinematic subtitling and translation, as well as dubbing. Goldstein will also provide his own insights as subtitle editor for over 50 classic films. (JH)

A-B

Avelina

Basic Economy

SCREENS IN: GENERATION NOW: STORIES FROM WISCONSIN’S OWN

SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

Blood Quantum TUE, APRIL 7 • 8:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6

Fort Irwin MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • United States • 2019 • DCP • English • 11 MIN Director: Quinn Else; Screenwriter: Quinn Else; Producer: Marc Tarczali; Editor: Yiqing Yu; Cast: Cristian Valle, Hannah Elder; Cinematographer: Ben Long; Music: Sam Horn

Billie Balloon

SUN, APRIL 5 • 11 AM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION

SAT, APRIL 4 • 4:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 SUN, APRIL 5 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1

Director: James Erskine; Producers: Victoria Gregory, Barry Clark Ewers, James Erskine, Laure Vaysse; Editor: Avdhesh Mohla

MIDWEST PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 96 MIN

Qi Qiu

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • China • 2019 • DCP • Tibetan with English subtitles • 102 MIN Director: Pema Tseden; Screenwriter: Pema Tseden; Producers: Huang Xufeng, Jacky Pang; Editors: Liao Ching-Sung, Jin Di; Cast: Sonam Wangmo, Jinpa, Yangshik Tso; Cinematographer: Lu Songye; Music: Peyman Yazdanian

Presented with support from UW–Madison Center for East Asian Studies

Dylda

FRI, APRIL 3 • 6 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 SUN, APRIL 5 • 11:45 AM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Russia • 2019 • DCP • Russian with English subtitles • 130 MIN Director: Kantemir Balagov; Screenwriters: Kantemir Balagov, Alexander Terekhov; Producers: Natalia Gorina, Sergey Melkumov, Alexander Rodnyansky; Editor: Igor Litoninskiy; Cast: Viktoria Miroshnichenko, Vasilisa Perelygina, Andrey Bykov, Igor Shirokov; Cinematographer: Kseniya Sereda; Music: Evgueni Galperine

It is the fall of 1945 in Leningrad, a city reeling from war and siege. Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko), a tall and traumatized nurse derided as “beanpole” by all who know her, tends to disabled veterans and amputees, who adore her baby son Pashka. Her closest friend Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina) at long last returns from the frontlines, but only after an unspeakable tragedy. As empathetic as it is hard-edged, Kantemir Balagov’s critically acclaimed historical drama imagines the psychological turmoil of WWII’s forgotten women through eerie, first-person sound design and two terrific debut performances. Kseniya Sereda shoots the vintage interiors and tungsten-lit streets with a painter’s eye, drawing out some of the boldest vermillion and Vermeer-like greens you will ever see on the big screen. 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, New York Film Festival. (ZZ) Presented with support from UW-Madison CREECA

Bitter with a Shy Taste of Sweetness SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

Blood Quantum WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Canada • 2019 • DCP • 96 MIN Director: Jeff Barnaby; Screenwriter: Jeff Barnaby; Producer: John Christou; Editor: Jeff Barnaby; Cast: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kawenna’Here Devery Jacobs, Michael Greyeyes, Brandon Oakes, William Belleau, Gary Farmer; Cinematographer: Michel StMartin; Music: Joe Barrucco, Jeff Barnaby

On an isolated reserve in the Great White North, the indigenous Mi’gmaq community discovers they are immune to the virus that is turning the rest of the world into flesh-eating zombies. Soon, non-infected white people fleeing the big cities begin to crowd the reserve’s borders, and then the undead begin arriving in hungry droves. Writer/director Jeff Barnaby, himself born on a Mi’gmaq reserve in Quebec, has interpreted the zombie apocalypse from the point of view of his people. While he does not scrimp on the blood and guts, Barnaby also delivers a great deal of visual wit, beginning with the image of a partly filleted salmon who begins to swim again. Barnaby’s flair for blunt dialogue in the vein of John Carpenter finds the perfect mouthpiece in actor Michael Greyeyes (Fear the Walking Dead, True Detective) as the reserve Sheriff/crisis leader Traylor. Like all good zombie films, Blood Quantum smartly takes its cue from the influential work of George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead) in the way that it deploys the nightmarish fantasy of the ghoulish walking dead (and the not-so-far-out concept of a mass plague) to draw attention to real-world conflicts and issues of social injustice. 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, Torino Film Festival. (JH) 9

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

It’s the early 1980s in rural Tibet, where three generations of a shepherd family live at the crux of tradition and modernity. Balloon’s playful sensibility is evident from the start: its very first images are glimpsed through the hazy sheen of an inflated piece of latex being played with by two brothers, unaware that the “balloon” they discovered in their parents’ bedroom is actually their last condom. Practically, this omen isn’t so funny, as China has recently instituted its one-child policy, and the family can’t afford the penalty of having another. The coincidental timing of a sudden death and an unplanned pregnancy exposes them to a profound moral dilemma between the Buddhist belief in reincarnation and China’s restrictive family planning laws. Director Pema Tseden has achieved global stature as Tibet’s most acclaimed filmmaker, but at home he is also known as an accomplished author. This novelist’s sensibility shines through in Balloon, as social and ethical pressures combine to rupture a previously content family. “Beautiful, funny, and tragic… both a gorgeously intimate family drama and an idiosyncratic artistic statement flecked with humor and sorrow” (Variety). 2019 Venice Film Festival. (MK)

Beanpole

This is not your grandma’s Billie Holiday documentary. This is not Ken Burns’s Jazz. This is not the usual erudite, know-it-all talking heads pontificating endlessly and airlessly about some past master. This is not the latest Verve re-release. Linda Lipnack Kuehl was a journalist and Billie Holiday obsessive. She spent most of the 1970s tracking down and interviewing a stunning cavalcade of Billie’s contemporaries, including her bandmates, her lovers, and her childhood friends. We’re talking Count Basie, we’re talking Sylvia Sims, we’re talking about the federal drug enforcement agents tasked with tracking her every move. Kuehl recorded all of these people and wound up with hundreds of hours of tapes. Then, in 1979, she died. She never finished the book she was working on. No one ever heard these tapes...until now. Four decades later, director James Erskine has come along to pick up the pieces, to finish the work Kuehl started, evocatively weaving Kuehl’s recordings with archival interviews and poignant performance footage into a powerful cinematic portrait. It’s an unvarnished portrait—we’re talking industrial strength paint remover, walls stripped down to the original wood planks—revealing the artist behind the art with no artifice. It’s a vision of Lady Day like none we’ve seen or heard before. Billie presents a raw but nuanced Holiday, whose devastating abilities were shaped, colored, and damaged by the complex, and often harrowing life she led, including sex trafficking, rampant drug use, exploitative managers, abusive partners, and heartbreaking struggles against racism and discrimination. But as Kuehl believed, and Erskine sets about proving, Holiday was no victim. She was a groundbreaking pioneer, a singular talent, and as this stunning new doc makes clear, a once-ina-generation force of nature. (BR)

A Purple Heart recipient stars in this gritty yet understated short as a veteran coping with PTSD who roleplays in a disturbingly realistic training exercise for new army recruits. (ES)

B-C ban wrote Chuskit under the mentorship of award-winning Dutch writer Jolein Laarman (Kauwboy WFF 2015). Chuskit won the Amnesty International Award at the prestigious Giffoni Film Festival in Italy. (KK) Age recommendation: 8+ Presented with support from SSM Health and DIscovery Film Festival

Casserole SCREENS IN: LAST WEEK AT ED’S

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets THU, APRIL 9 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1

Closed Circuit

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2020 • DCP • 98 MIN

SCREENS IN: FRITZI: A REVOLUTIONARY TALE

Directors: Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross; Producers: Michael Gottwald, Chere Theriot; Editor: Bill Ross IV; Cast: Michael Martin, Bruce Hadnot, Pete Radcliffe, Pam Harper, Shay Walker; Cinematographers: Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross; Music: Casey Wayne McAllister

It’s last call at Roaring 20’s, a dive bar on the outskirts of Las Vegas that would fit right in in Wisconsin. It’s closing down, so the regulars assemble for one last 24-hour bender, some bellying up to the bar well before noon—audience members may be tempted to place bets on who will be the last person standing. As the night deepens, emotions swirl with the inscrutable logic of drink: camaraderie withers into sniping and back again, hilarious carousing seamlessly transforms into tender soul-baring. Codirectors Bill and Turner Ross have long created documentaries with a bit of fiction up their sleeve, and this new project blurs the line even further. Though the film could absolutely pass for one of their earlier documentaries, Roaring 20’s is actually in New Orleans, it’s still open, and its denizens are a specifically cast group of locals worthy of Denis Johnson or John Cassavetes. At the same time, the night we see is real; there was no script, only the barest of outlines, and those are real drinks going down. The result is a captivating and original slice of pure cinema, exactly as authentic as you feel after a few too many—which is to say, very. 2020 Sundance, Berlin Film Festivals. (MK)

Catholic Boy SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

Boys State WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2020 • DCP • 109 MIN Directors: Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine; Producers: Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine; Editor: Jeff Gilbert; Cinematographer: Thorsten Thielow

The most entertaining film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival may well have been this rollicking election documentary set among Texas high schoolers, which won the Grand Jury Prize and broke Knock Down the House’s record for highest-ever nonfiction sale. Every year, a thousand 17-year-old boys from across Texas convene to create a mock government, complete with competing political parties, and culminating in an election for the highest office in the pretend land: governor. We’re introduced to a group of truly unforgettable teens, several of whom seem destined to join national Boys State alums like Bill Clinton, Cory Booker, and Scott Walker in the history books. There’s the principled liberal, the Rovian puppetmaster, dirty backroom dealings, social media scandals, even a threat of impeachment. Also, a talent show. The Texas youth turn out to be more ideologically diverse than you might expect, even if they won’t always cop to it on the debate stage. As one of the program’s few black students puts it, “At first, I thought this was a conservative indoctrination camp. No, this is what every liberal needs.” As election day approaches, you can’t help but get invested, and Boys State achieves what seems truly impossible in 2020: it makes watching a political campaign fun and inspirational. (MK)

MIDWEST PREMIERE • Documentary • United States • 2020 • HD Projection • English • 86 MIN

After “Act 10” protests and a Supreme Court gerrymandering case, a potent question lingered in the minds of Wisconsinites: What happens when your government stops listening? The answer is contained in this—Wisconsin’s own version of Knock Down the House. Can You Hear Us Now? gives us an intimate, on the ground view of several assembly and state-wide races from the 2018 midterm elections, focusing on the campaigns of some fresh-faced female Democratic candidates. As the women crusade against strict voter I.D. laws, gerrymandering, and the Republican establishment, they expose the inequities in our state’s current electoral process. The film becomes a bracing document, laying bare the state of our state. (ES)

Director: Jim Cricchi; Producer: Susan Peters

Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Box Office

Tickets can be purchased: ;;in person at the Campus Arts Ticketing at Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street ;;by phone at 608-265-ARTS (2787) ;;online at 2020.wifilmfest.org until 5:00 pm the evening before any screening

Connecting the Dots

THU, APRIL 2 • 7 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION

Can You Hear Us Now? SAT, APRIL 4 • 6:30 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: JIM CRICCHI

SCREENS IN: THE FEELING THROUGH EXPERIENCE

Chet Speedstar SCREENS IN: GENERATION NOW: STORIES FROM WISCONSIN’S OWN

Chuskit FRI, APRIL 3 • 11 AM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • India • 2018 • HD projection • Ladakhi with English subtitles • 89 MIN Director: Priya Ramasubban; Screenwriter: Priya Ramasubban; Cast: Jigmet Dewa Lhamo, Morup Namgyal, Sonam Angchok; Cinematographer: Arvind Kannabiran; Music: Mathias Duplessy SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS

Chuskit is a 9-year-old who lives with her family in a beautiful, remote village in Tibet. After an accident, she is confined to a wheelchair and her dream of attending school becomes elusive. Fighting her tradition-bound grandfather and the mountainous terrain of her village, Chuskit ultimately triumphs over adversity. Chuskit was written, directed, and produced by female filmmaker Priya Ramasubban, who was chosen to participate in a screenwriting lab organized by India’s National Film Development Corporation. Inspired by the work of her sister with differently-abled kids, Ramasub-

A Conversation with Jill Soloway FRI, APRIL 3 • 4 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION On the occasion of Jill Soloway (’87, Communication Arts) receiving a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Wisconsin Alumni Association, please join us for this special event in Shannon Hall. Soloway will be on hand to accept the award from Chancellor Rebecca Blank and Chief Alumni Engagement Officer Sarah Schutt. Immediately following the presentation, Soloway will participate in a wide-ranging conversation and Q&A with the audience. Soloway created the Emmy Award-winning Amazon series Transparent and won a Sundance Film Festival Directing Award for Afternoon Delight. Soloway cofounded the Hollywood equity initiative 5050 by 2020 and launched Topple, a media production company and imprint founded on the principle that the stories of women, people of color, queer people, and their allies can change the world.

The Cordillera of Dreams La Cordillera de los Sueños SUN, APRIL 5 • 2:45 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART TUE, APRIL 7 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Chile, France • 2019 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 85 MIN Director: Patricio Guzmán; Screenwriter: Patricio Guzmán; Producer: Renate Sachse; Editor: Emmanuelle Joly; Cinematographer: Samuel Lahu;

The Andes Mountain range covers 80 percent of Chile, forming a majestic, vertiginous spine along the country’s long eastern border and beyond. Winner of the Best Documentary prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, this

poetic essay film contemplates Chile’s rocky landscapes—both natural and political. Given the grandeur of its terrain, The Cordillera of Dreams boasts no shortage of spectacular vistas and swooning aerial photography, but, coming from master documentarian Patrico Guzmán (Nostalgia for the Light, The Battle of Chile), the film has much more on its mind, as well. Adopting the eternal perspective of his subject, Guzmán casts a long lens on Chile’s turbulent political history, drawing strength from the idea that “during the entire dictatorship, the Cordillera remained in its place… the mountain is a witness.” The importance of resilience and bearing witness emerge as major themes in the filmmaker’s discussions with volcanologists, sculptors, and fellow documentarians. As he has done throughout his career, Guzmán specializes in drawing previously unseen connections—between nature and politics, between archival footage and modernity, between himself and his country—making this very personal statement feel like a grand summation of his life’s work. (MK)

From an appliance salesman who helps pioneer a radical cancer treatment to missionary Jews in Montana and skate punks on an Apache reservation, our weekend of screening films to choose the Golden Badger Award winners was eye-opening and transformative. In the end, after much deliberation, we chose three documentaries. These three films brought us the most surprises, generated the liveliest conversation, and left us with lasting impressions from their excellent storytelling and indelible characters.

Personhood Jo Ardinger’s documentary Personhood forces us to face a truly fundamental question: When does a fertilized egg become a person and when (or why) is a pregnant woman forced to forfeit her personhood? Personhood explores the criminalization and policing of pregnant women by kindly, carefully, and rigorously following the story of Tammy Loertshcer’s fi ght to be listened to in the state of Wisconsin. It’s worth noting that this fi lm is also a fantastic parade of brilliant and determined women lawyers, community activists, politicians, and doctors. Sadly, this fi lm reminded us of our horribly broken system, but thankfully, it expertly introduced us to the tools and the team members with which to fi x it. – LORI FELKER

N of 1 Corpus Christi FRI, APRIL 3 • 6:30 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Poland • 2019 • DCP • Polish with English subtitles • 116 MIN Director: Jan Komasa; Screenwriter: Mateusz Pacewicz; Producers: Leszek Bodzak, Aneta Hickinbotham; Editor: Przemyslaw Chruscielewski; Cast: Bartosz Bielenia, Eliza Rycembel, Aleksandra Konieczna, Tomasz Zietek, Leszek Lichota, Lukasz Simlat; Cinematographer: Piotr Sobocinski Jr.; Music: Evgueni Galperine, Sacha Galperine

Presented with support from UW–Madison CREECA

The Mystery of Now Through his company Apache Skateboards, artist Douglas Miles has spent the past 30 years creating an outlet for Native teenagers who feel like outsiders in their own country. In The Mystery of Now, we ride along the wings of sweeping cinematography and tight editing into the golden hour-lit world of the San Carlos Apache reservation’s skateboarding community. Audrey Buchanan directs with a deft hand, giving us frenetic and gritty glimpses into the lives of the young adults Douglas has mentored. The Mystery of Now is an important look at how the punk scene serves as an important place of release for tomorrow’s generation of Native American youth, inspiring them to take back their future. – CAROL BRANDT

The jury also wanted to recognize six films as honorable mentions. We believe that any of these could have been Golden Badger recipients. They truly are inspiring and remarkable films.

A FEATURE DOCUMENTARY: DETERMINED, directed by Melissa Godoy highlights the struggle of family members providing care for relatives with dementia and the promising research taking place at UW–Madison.

TWO NARRATIVE SHORTS: HANDHELD, directed by Tony Oswald and Pisie Hochheim, is a creatively rendered story of memory and loss showing a single mother and her son viewing footage of the boy’s father. FEELING THROUGH, directed by Doug Roland, is a moving story of a transformative encounter between a homeless teen and a deaf and blind man he encounters at a street corner.

THREE EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS: BITTER WITH A SHY TASTE OF SWEETNESS by Saif Alsaegh MIRAGE by Jack Cronin GARDEN CITY BEAUTIFUL by Ben Balcom

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Oscar-nominated for Best International Film, this superb Polish drama about an imposter priest is based on a surprising true story. Fresh out of juvie, 20-year-old Daniel lands in a rural village and is mistaken for the local church’s incoming priest. Trading his prison garb for liturgical vestments, this roguish delinquent suddenly finds himself behind the altar, hearing confessions and forgiving sinners. To his amazement, the parish not only buys his charade, but comes to rely on his wisdom—coasting on sheer charisma and late-night cram sessions with the Bible, it turns out Daniel is as natural a man of the cloth as he is a con artist. Can a person find their true calling through deceit? A worthy counterpart to Poland’s recent Oscar winner, Ida (WFF 2014), Corpus Christi is a profound, down-to-earth sermon on the desire for a moral compass in a chaotic world, wherever you can find it. Like its magnetic main character, here is a film unafraid to look life in square in the eye, in all its violence, humor, and beauty. “A knockout. Gritty, dark, thrilling & with an incendiary lead” (Edgar Wright, Baby Driver). “Great film. Totally engaging, funny and brutal” (Sean Baker, The Florida Project). (MK)

When all else fails, call Howard! Of all the characters we met during our long and fruitful weekend of viewing Wisconsin’s Own films, the name that was on all our lips was Howard Simons. This unassuming appliance parts salesman and part-time rabbi from Toronto plays a central role in the stranger-than-fiction tale we couldn’t stop talking about. Director Bernard Friedman, a UW–Madison grad, introduces us to Kayte, a 23-year-old Florida resident diagnosed with a rare and terminal form of cancer. She meets Howard through her social media networks, and he combs through medical journals and ends up matchmaking her with an Israeli immunologist and a London-based transplant surgeon for an experimental treatment in an Indian hospital. It’s a riveting and heart-wrenching story of innovation and creative thinking — the Wisconsin Idea for the global age. – CATHERINE CAPELLARO

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

C-D

The County Héra∂i∂

FRI, APRIL 3 • 1:00 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION WED, APRIL 8 • 3:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6

Dear Esther SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Iceland, Denmark, Germany, France • 2019 • DCP • Icelandic with English subtitles • 92 MIN

Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic

Cuentos Para Niños #2 APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

Dad’s Apple

SCREENS IN: ALL IN THE FAMILY: 12 WISCONSIN’S OWN SHORTS

Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

Deerskin

Director: Grímur Hákonarson; Screenwriter: Grímur Hákonarson; Producer: Grímar Jónsson; Editor: Kristján Lo∂mfjör∂; Cast: Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir, Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson, Sigur∂ur Sigurjónsson; Cinematographer: Mart Taniel;

An Icelandic dairy farmer dares to stand up against an all-powerful food co-op in this Nordic David-and-Goliath story, “full of feisty female energy and imagery, and sprinkled with rousing ‘you go girl!’ comic moments” (Variety). Like the rest of her community, Inga is totally under the thumb of the local cooperative that has attained a monopoly on trade in the region. Drowning in debt, Inga decides she’s finally had enough, and begins to speak truth to power, no matter the repercussions. Given the milieu, it isn’t long before shovelfuls of fertilizer are being weaponized. Determined, righteous, and indomitable, Inga plays like a spiritual sister to the memorable heroine of Woman at War (WFF 2019), and The County benefits from a similarly impressive lead performance by Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir. Having previously directed the widely lauded Rams, Grímur Hákonarson again displays a deep understanding of rural Icelandic communities, and how their particular sets of values can affect their livelihoods. In the end, we can all breathe a sigh of relief knowing that none of our local food co-ops inspire this kind of cultish devotion in their members… right? (MK)

Melissa Godoy, longtime collaborator of Julia Reichert, this clear-eyed documentary secures access not only to the high-stakes inner workings of medical research, but also to the intimate personal lives and families of the participants. Determined examines, in heartbreaking detail, the toll of Alzheimer’s, particularly on the inner lives of caregivers. It also introduces us to three brave women and a team of doctors who, together, give us hope for a brighter future. (ZZ)

Le Daim

FRI, APRIL 3 • 9:15 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION DCP • 84 MIN

The Shawl Animation • USA • 2020 • DCP • 7 MIN Director: Sara Kiener; Producer: Zachary Luke Kislevitz; Cast: Shane O’Neill, Dusty Childers

The Deer Gavaznha

WED, APRIL 8 • 7:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 Narrative • Iran • 1974 • DCP • Farsi with English subtitles • 121 MIN Director: Masoud Kimiai; Screenwriter: Masoud Kimiai; Editor: Abbas Ganjavi; Cast: Behrouz Vossoughi, Faramarz Gharibian, Nosrat Partovi, Garshasb Raoufi, Enayat Bakhshi, Parviz Fannizadeh; Cinematographer: Némat Haghighi; Music: Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh

For two consecutive decades and in various Iranian critics’ polls, The Deer has occupied the very top place as “the best Iranian film ever made.” Known for his revenge drama Gheysar (1969)—which changed the course of Iranian cinema—director Masoud Kimiai adds an explicitly political dimension to the story of his typically defiant characters. Here, in a nod to Hollywood’s “buddy film,” the familiar hero of Iranian popular cinema is prompted into social action, far beyond the usual romantic conquests. There is a sense of an imminent revolution in this story of a former champ turned junkie, who reunited with a leftist classmate and is redeemed by revolutionary anger. Picking up where the antihero of Gheysar left off, the leading character, Seyyed, (played by versatile method actor Behrouz Vossoughi) again takes the law into his own hands and challenges the established order. When it premiered at Tehran International Film Festival in November 1974, the film severely suffered from censorship. Despite the censorship, every sequence of this moving, political manifesto resonated with millions of Iranians. Almost unseen outside Iran, this is a rare chance to see a poignant and essential moment in film history when cinema and politics clash. (EHSAN KHOSHBAKHT) Presented with support from UW–Madison Middle East Studies Program

A funny, beautifully animated portrait of a couple with strong opinions on Stevie Nicks’s wardrobe. Featuring Shane O’Neill, frontman of the much-missed maniacs of Madison’s music scene, Screamin’ Cyn Cyn and the Pons. 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (MK)

Deerskin Le Daim

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • France • 2019 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 77 MIN

A Dim Valley

Director: Quentin Dupieux; Screenwriter: Quentin Dupieux; Producers: Mathieu Verhaeghe, Thomas Verhaeghe; Editor: Quentin Dupieux; Cast: Jean Dujardin, Adèle Haenel; Cinematographer: Quentin Dupieux

SAT, APRIL 4 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5

Oscar winner Jean Dujardin and Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s Adèle Haenel delight in this hilarious, shocking comedy, about a man so enamored with his new jacket that he vows to destroy all others. When he first gazes upon himself in a mirror, adorned in a vintage, fringe-covered deerskin jacket, all George can say is, “killer style.” Turns out, he means it literally. Seized by the conviction that his should be the only jacket in the whole world, George starts collecting them, right off people’s backs, whether the owners want to give them up or not. He finds a surprisingly loyal co-conspirator in Denise, a bartender and aspiring filmmaker who thinks George’s increasingly bloody campaign has the makings of a great movie. (She’s right.) Between OSS: 117, Love at First Fight, and The Trouble With You, Dujardin and Haenel have been cracking up WFF audiences for years. Having them together at last is a joy, particularly for such a nutty, one-of-a-kind venture. This unsparing satire of a midlife crisis has been variously described as “hilarious” by Indiewire, “hilarious” by The Playlist, “laugh-out-loud hilarious” by Film Threat, and “hilarious” by us in the first sentence of this paragraph. 2019 Cannes Film Festival. (MK)

Director: Melissa Godoy; Producers: Melissa Godoy, Eileen Littig, Therese Barry-Tanner, Maggie Bowman, Julia Reichert; Editors: Melissa Godoy, Jim Klein, Jaime Meyers Schlenck; Cinematographer: Melissa Godoy; Music: Brendon Anderegg

Determined SUN, APRIL 5 • 3 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND WORLD PREMIERE • Documentary • United States • 2019 • DCP • 72 MIN

After losing their mothers to Alzheimer’s disease, three Wisconsin women—determined to find a cure— volunteer their bodies and minds to a pathbreaking UW–Madison study. Hailing from Milwaukee, Madison, and Washburn County, respectively, Karen, Sigrid, and Barb face strenuous cognitive exams, exercise tests, and neural scans as part of the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP). Directed by

SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: BRANDON COLVIN MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2020 • DCP • 92 MIN Director: Brandon Colvin; Screenwriter: Brandon Colvin; Producers: Brandon Colvin, Tony Oswald, Nora Stone; Editors: Tony Oswald, Pisie Hochheim; Cast: Zach Weintraub, Whitmer Thomas, Robert Longstreet, Rachel McKeon, Rosalie Lowe, Feathers Wise; Cinematographer: Cody Duncum

Mystical, sexy, and funny, this dreamlike indie casts you under its spell. Deep in the Appalachian wilderness, a pair of ecology grad students are collecting flora and fauna samples and getting high—anything to avoid spending more time in the cramped cabin with their grouchy, harddrinking advisor. Out in the forest, they encounter a trio of nymph-like backpackers looking to “fulfill their purpose.” They lure the men into a trance-like state of magical awakening and desire, with a pansexual charge between seemingly every character. The sextet’s enigmatic bond is deepened over a late night that encompasses teary tarot readings and half-assed Scrabble games. Drawing inspiration from Twin Peaks and Hayao Miyazaki, UW PhD Brandon Colvin’s third feature cultivates a surreal, sylvan atmosphere that still makes room for perfectly timed gags. The absolutely spot-on cast includes superlative turns from indie stalwart Robert Longstreet and up-andcoming comedian Whitmer Thomas, whose HBO special The Golden One premiered in February. (MK)

D-F Roland’s inspiring drama dismantles pernicious stereotypes around disability, race, and homelessness. Produced in partnership with the Helen Keller National Center, Feeling Through also makes history as the first film starring a deaf-blind man in a leading role. (ZZ)

Eat Cheese or Die SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

Even When We Sleep

Même quand nous dormons SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

Dinner in America MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 106 MIN Director: Adam Carter Rehmeier; Screenwriter: Adam Carter Rehmeier; Producers: Ben Stiller, Nicholas Weinstock, David Hunter, Ross Putman, John Covert, Sam Slater; Editor: Adam Carter Rehmeier; Cast: Kyle Gallner, Emily Skeggs, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Pat Healy, Griffin Gluck, Lea Thompson; Cinematographer: Jean-Philippe Bernier; Music: John Swihart

Punk rocker Simon (Kyle Gallner), on the run from police, meets the indescribably eccentric Patty (Emily Skeggs), and hides out in the house Patty lives in with her square parents. Setting off on a series of anarchistic adventures in bland suburbia, Simon and Patty discover they have more in common than either realized. Beginning with an aggressively funny series of sequences that establish the outsider status of our heroes, Dinner in America, in the words of one of its characters, “takes it down a notch” and the movie blossoms into a sweet story of friendship, and maybe even love, between this decidedly non-conformist duo. Because of the fully committed performances from Gallner and Skeggs, Simon and Patty are impossible to not care about as they attempt, through music and mayhem, to make their small-minded community a more comfortable place in which they can live. Dinner in America’s Sundance 2020 premiere prompted critical and audience comparisons to cult classics like Repo Man, Napoleon Dynamite, Heathers, and Ghost World! “Adam Rehmeier’s film takes no prisoners with an energy that reflects its youthful protagonists… By the end, I was a little sad to say goodbye to these two” (Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com). 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (JH)

THU, APRIL 9 • 3:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • UK • 2020 • DCP • 102 MIN Director: Euros Lynn; Screenwriter: Neil McKay; Producers: Katherine Butler, Tracy O’Riordan; Editor: Jamie Pearson; Cast: Toni Collette, Damian Lewis, Joanna Page, Nicholas Farrell, Peter Davis, Siân Phillips; Cinematographer: Erik Alexander Wilson; Music: Benjamin Woodgates

A documentary about the making of Feeling Through and the search for the deaf-blind man who inspired it.

“In a sleepy, working-class community, Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) struggles to find meaning in her life while waiting tables at the local pub. One night, a chance encounter with an arrogant customer, Howard Davies (Damian Lewis), a former racehorse syndicate leader, inspires her to take on a new challenge. Despite her parents’ skepticism, Jan recruits neighbors and barflies alike into a crazy scheme to contribute to a community fund and breed a racehorse. After a rocky start, Dream Alliance—the horse and the syndicate—is born. After the horse wins one race after another, the syndicate’s success enriches the lives of all its members, giving them a sense of purpose they had never imagined before. Welsh director Euros Lyn translates this miraculous underdog story, which was the subject of the award-winning documentary Dark Horse, into a dramatic narrative by heightening the tension, both on and off the track. Toni Collette inspires as the strong-willed Jan, while supporting performances by the motley crew of fellow racehorse owners infuse the film with warmth and humor.” (From the Sundance Film Festival 2020 Catalogue)

The Farm Ema

SCREENS IN: GENERATION NOW: STORIES FROM WISCONSIN’S OWN

FRI, APRIL 3 • 8:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 MON, APRIL 6 • 8:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6

An integral part of The Feeling Through Experience is bringing the deaf-blind community together with others to discuss the film’s various themes, as well as topics related to people who are deaf-blind. This portion of the event includes a discussion with filmmaker, Doug Roland, and deaf-blind actor, Robert Tarango. Presented with support from Ultratec and Arts For All Wisconsin and Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Chile • 2019 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 106 MIN Director: Pablo Larraín; Screenwriters: Pablo Larraín, Guillermo Calderón, Alejandro Moreno; Producer: Juan de Dios Larraín; Editor: Sebastián Sepúlveda; Cast: Gael García Bernal, Mariana di Girolamo; Cinematographer: Sergio Armstrong; Music: Nicolás Jaar

Vivid, sexy, and literally explosive, Pablo Larraín’s dance-film follow-up to the Oscar-nominated Jackie is “one of the year’s most electrifying movies” (Indiewire). In an incandescent breakout performance, Mariana Di Girolamo commands the screen as platinum blonde Ema—exactly the type of freethinking, rebellious female lead that too rarely gets to take center stage in cinema. She’s a dancer, pyromaniac, and mother, in that order; Gael García Bernal plays her partner in crime, life, and everything in between. When their adopted son is taken away after mimicking his parents’ wild behavior too closely, this anarchic power couple attempts to reset their lives. Between its exuberantly-staged dance sequences on the streets of Valparaíso and its scenes of intense eroticism, Ema is a cinematic firecracker. “Explodes off the screen like a Roman candle. Exhilarating, daring and deeply human… a picture of pure freedom” (Time Out). “As lovable as a genius-level sudoku puzzle… the cinema of what-the-helldid-I-just-watch uncategorizability has a new title for its pantheon” (Sight & Sound). 2020 Sundance, Rotterdam Film Festivals. (MK)

The Feeling Through Experience SAT, APRIL 4 • 11 AM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND 90 MIN

The Feeling Through Experience is a 90-minute, three-part event made in partnership with the Helen Keller National Center to entertain, inform and connect. The central focus of the experience is the short film, Feeling Through, the first film ever starring a deaf-blind actor in a lead role. It is the story of the unlikely connection between a teen in need and a deaf-blind man, and underscores the human capacity to transcend differences. This heartwarming film can be enjoyed by the whole family. Feeling Through is followed by a documentary about the making of the film and a discussion with writer/ director Doug Roland, and deaf-blind actor, Robert Tarango. An integral part of The Feeling Through Experience is bringing the deaf-blind community and other communities together.

Feeling Through WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • United States • 2019 • DCP • 18 MIN Director: Doug Roland; Screenwriter: Doug Roland; Producer: Doug Roland, Phil Newsom; Cast: Steven Prescod, Robert Tarango

Emily SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET

In downtown New York, Tereek (Steven Prescod), a young man looking for a place to crash, encounters Artie (Robert Tarango), a deaf-blind man who needs help finding his way home. Tereek pushes through doubt and frustration to communicate with Artie, forging a life-changing friendship before the night is through. Doug

Feels Good Man SUN, APRIL 5 • 7:45 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2020 • DCP • 92 MIN Director: Arthur Jones; Producers: Giorgio Angelini, Caryn Capotosto, Arthur Jones, Aaron Wickenden; Editors: Aaron Wickenden, Drew Blatman, Katrina Taylor; Music: Ari Balouzian

Laidback artist Matt Furie created the goofy cartoon character Pepe the Frog for his stoner hangout comic Boy’s Club, but in a twist that could only be caused by internet chaos, Pepe transformed into an irony-laden tool in the alt-right’s attempts to confuse reality and enact violence. Feels Good Man harnesses every imaginable expert— internet researchers, 4chan users, occultists, crypto currency traders, you name it—to explain how Furie’s frog went from a silly meme of immense popularity to a cartoon associated with historic and contemporary atrocities. Longing for the days of a purer Pepe, Furie fights to reclaim the character from nameless 4chan trolls and infamous online villains like Alex Jones, but the iconic image might be too far gone, fundamentally altered by an angry subculture averse to “normies.” Director Arthur Jones’s remarkably assured, gripping debut exposes the unbelievable truth about a confounding meme and a perplexed artist who just wants to be “hardcore happy”—a vibe best illustrated by the film’s many groovy animated sequences. U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker, 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (MSJ) 13

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Dream Horse

Director: Doug Roland; Screenwriter: Doug Roland; Producer: Doug Roland, Phil Newsom

45 MIN

SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: ADAM CARTER REHMEIER

SCREENS IN: GENERATION NOW: STORIES FROM WISCONSIN’S OWN

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • United States • 2019 • DCP • English • 24 MIN

Engaging the Community

SAT, APRIL 4 • 8:30 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH

Dormball

Connecting the Dots

Director’s Cut

Wisconsin Film Festival Edition 8 P.M. MONDAY, MARCH 30 ON PBS WISCONSIN

No radio? No problem! Find us on Facebook, Twitter and at wpr.org.

Preview the festival’s best films with host Pete Schwaba, Wisconsin Film Festival organizers and filmmakers.

YOUR HOME FOR INDEPENDENT FILM

Watch this episode online anytime at pbswisconsin.org.

FELLINI CENTENNIAL

4/10 THE WHITE SHEIK 5/1 NIGHTS OF CABIRIA

UW CINEMATHEQUE

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

UW CINEMATHEQUE 14

SPRING 2020

FREE ADMISSION. LIMITED SEATING.

F Legal Alien US PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2018 • HD projection • 2 MIN Director: Israel Vasquez, Shahin Izadi

Wisconsin Film Festival 2014, 2018, and 2019 alum, Shahin Izadi is back with a cinematic one-liner. In its brief runtime it manages to touch on immigration, fear of the foreign, and UFO conspiracy theories. (BD)

Dear Esther WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2019 • HD projection • 7 MIN

Finding Yingying

Director: Nora Stone; Screenwriter: Nora Stone; Producer: Brandon Colvin; Cast: Mary Ann Moore, Amber Davis, Nora Stone

WED, APRIL 8 • 8:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: JENNY SHI WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2020 • DCP • English, Mandarin with English subtitles • 96 MIN Director: Jiayan “Jenny” Shi; Producers: Jiayan “Jenny” Shi, Diane Quon, Shilin Sun, Brent Huffman; Editor: John Farbrother; Cinematographers: Jiayan “Jenny” Shi, Shilin Sun; Music: Nathan Halpern, Chris Ruggiero

The Fight SAT, APRIL 4 • 11 AM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2020 • DCP • 96 MIN Directors: Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, Eli Despres; Producers: Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, Eli Despres, Maya Seidler, Peggy Drexler, Kerry Washington; Editors: Eli Despres, Greg Finton, Kim Roberts; Cinematographer: Sean McGing

This rousing snapshot of the ACLU in action will have you pumping your fist at the screen, in both inspiration and righteous indignation. They may not have the three-letter name recognition of RBG or AOC, but these lawyers doing the nitty gritty work of human rights are just as essential to the health of our democracy. Meet the heroic, workaholic lawyers grappling with four landmark cases that cover a broad spectrum of American life: family separation, voting rights, transgender rights, and the right to choose. The filmmakers behind the recent Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary Weiner take us behind the scenes of this justly venerated organization, getting up close and personal with both the ACLU staff and the people they’re defending. We’re right alongside the legal teams as they purposefully plot their cases, and we share in their frustrations and inspirations, their distress, as well as a surprising amount of levity, culminating in a truly ecstatic sequence to rival the climax of Knock Down the House (WFF 2019). “Powerful, necessary, and illuminating… feels as urgent as ever” (POV). Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking, 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (MK)

Filmfarsi WED, APRIL 8 • 5:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 THU, APRIL 9 • 1:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 Director: Ehsan Khoshbakht; Screenwriter: Ehsan Khoshbakht; Producer: Ehsan Khoshbakht; Editors: Niyaz Saghari, Abolfazl Talooni

Discover a hidden world of Iranian film with this fascinating archival documentary, which resurrects the long-lost popular cinema that thrived in pre-revolution Tehran. Though today it is best known for worldclass auteurs like Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi, Iranian cinema

Presented with support from UW–Madison Middle East Studies Program

FRI, APRIL 3 • 8:30 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND 66 MIN

One may be the loneliest number, yet filmmakers always find fresh ways to express the personal. This diverse collection of experimental shorts isn’t made up of strictly one-person projects, but all of them feel like pure expressions of an individual, original viewpoint. From unruly reflections on upbringing to portraits of land and city shot through with feeling, this is Wisconsin’s Own at its most personal and beautiful.

AMC Madison 6, Hilldale

430 N. Midvale Blvd. | amctheatres.com

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

WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2020 • HD projection • 3 MIN Director: Bill Bedford

A transfixing reflection on locomotion that finds a sublime beauty hidden within the mechanical. (BD)

Mirage WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2019 • HD projection • 6 MIN Director: Jack Cronin

Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

Through striking black-and-white compositions and a meticulous soundscape, Western vistas contrast with the urban infrastructure and uncanny advertisements of Las Vegas. (FQ)

Catholic Boy

Salvation

WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2020 • HD projection • 13 MIN Director: James Runde

Chockablock with found images—including subjects such as JFK, John Paul II, and the CIA—this rollicking, Bruce Conner-esque collage film by James Runde (2019 Golden Badger winner Played Out) interrogates the history of Catholicism in America and the meaning of “good citizenship.” (ZZ)

Cuentos Para Niños #2

2020 Venues

Mark

MADISON PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2019 • HD projection • Spanish with English subtitles • 4 MIN Director: Michelle Trujillo; Screenwriter: Michelle Trujillo; Cast: Fernando Trujillo, Vanessa Reuter

A haunting journey through mythic legends made visceral, via 16mm film and experimental techniques. (BR)

Bitter with a Shy Taste of Sweetness MADISON PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2019 • HD projection • 9 MIN Director: Saif Alsaegh

Using askew camera angles, pop music, and highly saturated colors, Saif Alsaegh renders the uncanny dislocation of an Iraqi immigrant living in Los Angeles, before ending with a jaunty, light-hearted take on the postapocalypse. (ZZ)

WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2019 • HD projection • 3 MIN Director: Anders Nienstaedt; Screenwriter: Anders Nienstaedt

A man passes the same gleaming billboard over and over again, in this downtempo, contemplative dream piece. (ZZ)

Eat Cheese or Die WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2020 • HD projection • 3 MIN Directors: Olivia Babler, Justin Dean

Three pals journey into the psychedelic depths of Wisconsin tourist spots. (MK)

Basic Economy WORLD PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2020 • HD projection • 5 MIN Director: Casey Long

Filmed from an airline passenger window, this minimalist study of frigid plateaus, wetlands, and cityscapes summons a wealth of feeling. (ZZ)

Garden City Beautiful MADISON PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2019 • HD projection • 11 MIN Director: Ben Balcom

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Iran, UK • 2019 • DCP • Persian, English • 84 MIN

between the 1950s and 1970s was sensational and melodramatic, chock full of sex and violence. As director Ehsan Khoshbakht wryly notes, the actual quality of many of these films, “starts at B and descends to the last letters of the alphabet,” but today they provide a valuable window into the country’s midcentury psyche. Created in a culture caught between religious tradition and modernity, these lowbrow genre films often encapsulated contradictory ideas—on the common motif of actresses wearing miniskirts along with their headscarves, Khoshbakht observes that “women’s freedom meant a feast of male visual pleasure.” Nearly all of the more than 100 films excerpted in Filmfarsi were eventually banned in Iran, relegated to the VHS bootlegs that form the raw materials of this invaluable history. To complement our screenings of Filmfarsi, Khoshbakht has provided an exceedingly rare opportunity to see The Deer, a high-water mark of pre-revolution Iranian cinema. (MK)

At 26 years old, Yingying Zhang left her family and longtime boyfriend in China to study agriculture at the University of Illinois. In her diary, she recorded her difficulties in her new home and her excitement for a promising future, until she disappeared after just six weeks. Filmmaker Jenny Shi, a former international student in the United States herself, joins Yingying’s family as they tirelessly search for her in an unfamiliar community, even though they’re limited by financial costs and insufficient government support for their efforts. With thorough access to the investigation, Shi twists the conventional crime documentary by reflecting on her own connections to Yingying and the similarities of their experiences. Throughout the film, Shi’s readings from Yingying’s diaries center the missing woman’s feelings and choices as the truth comes to light. Finding Yingying elevates the typical approach to a crime story by following how the disappearance has affected Yingying’s loved ones in an intimate, sensitive portrait of a family determined to find justice. 2020 SXSW Film Festival. (MSJ)

First Person, Singular: Wisconsin’s Own Experimental Shorts

In 1989, a woman writes to her mentor, architectural historian Esther McCoy, about the destruction of Irving Gill’s Walter L. Dodge house in West Hollywood, 20 years prior. Blending narrative, archival documentary, and avantgarde impulses to novel and poignant ends, this uniquely structured short feels as out of time as the modernist masterwork it beautifully laments. (ZZ)

Two Milwaukee commuters daydream of a better future. Shot on 16mm, this spellbinding work of (un)consciousness-raising resembles a Cream City portrait by Straub-Huillet, casting Milwaukee outskirts, I-794, and even potholes in a radical new light. (ZZ) 15

F-G

Fort Irwin SCREENS IN: BLOOD QUANTUM

In 1989 East Germany, 12-year-old Fritzi is delighted to watch Sputnik, her best friend Sophie’s dog, while Sophie and her mother leave for a short vacation to Hungary. However, when school starts and Sophie has still not returned, it dawns on Fritzi that they may have fled the country and that she will not see her best friend for a long time. Nevertheless, Fritzi decides to try and reunite Sputnik with Sophie. Matthias Bruhn and Ralf Kukula’s (Fred and Annabel, WFF 2016) stunningly animated film vividly illustrates the (mostly) peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union. (KK) Age recommendation: 9+ Content advisory: Film includes a tense scene with armed border guards. Presented with support from SSM Health

Dormball WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 8 MIN Director: Joe Schwaba; Screenwriter: Joe Schwaba; Cast: Joe Schwaba, Dhrtvan Sherman, Jake Melka, Rachel Alsbury, Aidan Seeberg

It’s college bros gone mild in this deadpan take on the seriousness of recreational dorm life. Joe Schwaba’s short is a fitting follow-up to his previous WFF entry, last year’s Lost Cause. (BR)

Avelina MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 •DCP • 3 MIN Director: Reanna Madson; Screenwriter: Reanna Madson; Cast: Laine Vanden Boom, Lauren May; Cinematographer: Tim Schwagel, Tony Carlson, Henry Wisner

Enamored with a new student, Avelina finds herself part of a dreamy dance sequence in this whimsical exploration of love at first sight. (ES)

The Fox & the Pigeon SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

Another Night Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 13 MIN

Garden City Beautiful SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

Le Franc

Director: Samantha Marz; Screenwriters: Eric Rhiel, Josh Frank; Producer: Samuel Dunnum; Cast: Max Rumble, Bowdie Bentz, Aaron Schmidt, Elaine Knaus

Ghost Tropic FRI, APRIL 3 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 SAT, APRIL 4 • 1:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Belgium, Netherlands • 2019 • DCP • Dutch, French with English subtitles • 85 MIN Director: Bas Devos; Screenwriter: Bas Devos; Producers: Nabil Ben Yadir, Bas Devos, Marc Goyens, Tomas Leyers, Benoit Roland; Editors: Dieter Diependaele, Bas Devos; Cast: Saadia Bentaïeb, Maaike Neuville, Stefan Gota, Nora Dari, Willy Thomas; Cinematographer: Grimm Vandekerckhove; Music: Brecht Ameel

A cleaning woman dozes off on her train home, sending her on an overnight odyssey through Brussels. When Khadija awakens at her

subway’s last stop in the middle of the night, she’s left stranded at the other end of the city. Fresh out of cash, there’s nothing else to do but start walking. This modest woman finds herself relying on the understanding and decency of her fellow third-shifters: the security guards and convenience store employees who share her rung on the economic ladder. What emerges is a warm portrait of the ethnicities that keep Brussels (and most cities) running overnight—Khadija herself is Maghrebi, and most of those she encounters are immigrants as well. Filmed in rich and beautiful 16mm, Ghost Tropic casts a nocturnal spell on the viewer, capturing the hushed, out-of-time atmosphere of a very late night. “A delicate miniature that’s magnificently humanist, occasionally amusing and shot in a palette of rich, saturated nighttime hues, this is the kind of really small movie that is actually really great. Suggests that kindness and beauty are all around us. All it takes to see it is an effort to look for it” (The Hollywood Reporter). 2019 Cannes Film Festival. (MK)

Against the backdrop of a restless night out, the frat boy demeanors of two college athletes melt into a raw, yet fleeting vulnerability. (ES)

The Farm

SCREENS IN: THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SOLD THE SUN & LE FRANC

WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 6 MIN Director: Riley Sweeney Lynch; Screenwriter: Riley Sweeney Lynch; Producer: Polina Yamschikov; Cast: Nicole Calloway, Brandon Root

Generation Now: Stories from Wisconsin’s Own Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale

Fritzi—Eine Wendewundergeschichte

SAT, APRIL 4 • NOON THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH FILMMAKER SCHEDULED TO ATTEND

Closed Circuit WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • USA • 2019 • DCP • 6 MIN

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Director: Lauren Morrison; Screenwriter: Lauren Morrison; Producers: Lauren Morrison, Zev Chevat, Tom Sylla

A robot cares for a ship full of sleeping passengers on an interstellar voyage, and one day she discovers she is not alone in this delightfully animated Wisconsin’s Own short. (BD)

SAT, APRIL 4 • 4 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH FILMMAKERS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND 63 MIN

The kids are alright, and they’re here to tell you some stories to prove it. There’s the one about the guy who delivers custom-made delicacies on his ten-speed, the one about the girl who fights through her mental illness to get where she’s gotta go, the one about the two college hockey teammates spending an interesting night on the town together, and a bunch of others, including the Golden Badger-winning The Mystery of Now, which reminds us of the age-old adage—ain’t nothing cooler than a bunch of Native American, punk-rock skateboarders! Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale

Chet Speedstar

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Czech Republic • 2019 • DCP • 86 MIN

Director: Miles Kietzer; Screenwriter: Miles Kietzer; Producer: Abner Jacobson; Cast: Maddi Conway, Miles Kietzer; Cinematographer: Sydney Bertun

Fritzi—Eine Wendewundergeschichte

Directors: Ralf Kukula, Matthias Bruhn; Screenwriters: Beate Völcker, Péter Palátsik; Producers: Ralf Kukula, Matthias Bruhn; Editor: Stefan Urlaß; Music: André Dziezuk

16 SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS

WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2019 • DCP • 11 MIN

Across sun-dappled Madison, a bikeloving chef creates mayhem, absconds with a set of kitchen knives, and cooks really good grub. (FQ)

Capturing a young couple at a fork in their road and in gorgeous close-ups, Riley Lynch’s sensitive romance begs the question: What are we to do when the person we love leaves us? (FQ)

Staring at Socks NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE • Narrative • Australia • 2019 • DCP • 6 MIN Director: Claire Read; Screenwriter: Claire Read; Producers: Annie Bhatt, Jierui Chen; Cast: Laneikka Denne, Oli Stening

Innovative sound and editing patterns firmly root us in the headspace of a young woman struggling with mental illness, leading us to see how this unique perspective affects the world she sees around her. (BD)

The Mystery of Now WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 16 MIN Director: Audrey Buchanan; Screenwriters: Audrey Buchanan, Douglas Miles; Producers: Kaylee Cole, Douglas Miles, dream hampton, Archana Chattha, Vijay Chattha; Cast: Douglas Miles, Douglas Miles Jr., Tashadawn Hastings, Di’orr Greenwood, Tray Polk, Reuben Ringlero, Tommy Guerrero

In response to centuries of indigenous oppression, Apache Skateboards founder Douglas Miles has dedicated his life to designing equipment and inspiring youth. This beautifully photographed documentary short confronts stereotypes and shines light on a creative culture too often ignored. (FQ) Winner of a 2020 Golden Badger Award

Gimme Shelter TUE, APRIL 7 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 Documentary • USA • 1970 • DCP • 91 MIN Directors: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin; Editors: Ellen Giffard, Robert Farren, Joane Burke, Kent McKinney

In late 1969, at the peak of their popularity, the Rolling Stones agreed to appear at a festival rock concert at the Altamont Speedway in northern California. This ultimately disastrous event, ending in mayhem and murder, has come to be considered by many as the symbolic nail in the coffin of the 1960s. Interviewed after Altamont, and captured at other venues on their tour by a camera crew that included George Lucas, Joan Churchill, and This is Spinal Tap cinematographer Peter Smokler, the Stones are spellbinding subjects and stage presences performing classics like “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” and “Under My Thumb.” Originally released by Cinema 5, Donald Rugoff’s distribution company (and the subject of another documentary at this year’s WFF, Searching for Mr. Rugoff), Gimme Shelter was cut to earn a PG rating. Uncensored in this 4K digital restoration, the movie also has a revamped Dolby Stereo soundtrack. In the 50 years since its original release, Gimme Shelter has steadily been regarded as one of the greatest of all “rockumentaries.” Join us as we celebrate a half century of this exhilarating and haunting classic. (JH)

G-H

Presented with support from

Holiday

The Giverny Document & Seven Years in May

SAT, APRIL 4 • 6 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: RITA BELDA Narrative • USA • 1938 • DCP • 105 MIN

SAT, APRIL 4 • 1:45 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART

Director: George Cukor; Screenwriters: Donald Ogden Stewart, Sidney Buchman, based on the play by Philip Barry; Producer: Everett Riskin; Editors: Al Clark, Otto Meyer; Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres, Edward Everett Horton, Henry Daniell; Cinematographer: Franz Planer

84 MIN

The Giverny Document (Single Channel)

A Girl Missing Yokogao

FRI, APRIL 3 • 3:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 TUE, APRIL 7 • 5:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Japan, France • 2019 • DCP • Japanese with English subtitles • 112 MIN Director: Koji Fukada; Screenwriter: Koji Fukada; Producers: Daisuke Futagi, Kazumasa Yonemitsu, Masa Sawada; Editors: Koji Fukada, Julia Gregory; Cast: Mariko Tsutsui, Mikako Ichikawa, Sosuke Ikematsu, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Hisako Okata; Cinematographer: Kenichi Negishi; Music: Hiroyuki Onogawa

Presented with support from UW–Madison Center for East Asian Studies

Director: Ja’Tovia Gary; Producers: Paige Wood, Artesia Balthrop, Ja’Tovia Gary; Editor: Ja’Tovia Gary; Cinematographer: Mia Cioffi Henry; Music: Dyani Douze, Nelson Bandela

On a street corner in Harlem, director Ja’Tovia Gary asks a series of black women one simple question: “Do you feel safe in your body?” Their answers vary as widely as their ages and the places they are from: Jamaica, Sierra Leone, North Carolina. This inquiry, which recalls the iconic 1960s documentaries Chronicle of a Summer and Inquiring Nuns (WFF 2019), is just one of an array of experimental techniques deployed by Gary in this avant-garde knockout. Direct animation, found footage, extended excerpts from an absolutely incendiary 1976 Nina Simone concert, and sequences shot in Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France, combine in a visionary cinematic poem of black femininity. Moving Ahead Award, 2019 Locarno Film Festival. (MK)

Seven Years in May

Sette Anos En Maio WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Experimental • Brazil, Argentina • 2019 • HD projection • Portuguese with English subtitles • 42 MIN Director: Affonso Uchôa; Producers: Affonso Uchôa, Camila Bahia, Jerónimo Quevedo, Victoria Marotta; Editor: João Dumans; Cinematographers: Lucas Barbi, Rodrigo Beetz

Following up his acclaimed Araby, Brazilian filmmaker Affonso Uchôa confounds distinctions between documentary and fiction, testimony and art with this disturbing and timely featurette. Rafael Rocha plays himself, a laborer who, seven years prior, suffered untold abuse from state police without pretense. Untold, that is, until the events of this film, as Rocha confesses his story to an unseen friend next to a campfire, in one bravura, 17-minute take. Bookended by a low-light reenactment of Rocha’s torture at the start and a chilling display of muscle memory before the end, Seven Years in May defamiliarizes the rise of far-right authoritarianism worldwide, while carving out a reflective space for working class memory and resistance. (ZZ)

The Glass Web 3-D FRI, APRIL 3 • 11 AM UW CINEMATHEQUE Narrative • USA • 1953 • DCP • 81 MIN Director: Jack Arnold; Screenwriters: Robert Blees, Leonard Lee, based on a novel by Max Ehrlich; Producer: Albert J. Cohen; Editor: Ted J. Kent; Cast: Edward G. Robinson, John Forsythe, Kathleen Hughes, Marcia Henderson, Richard Denning, Kathleen Freeman; Cinematographer: Maury Gerstman

Between making It Came From Outer Space (also showing at this year’s WFF) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (WFF 2019), Jack Arnold directed this terrific and unjustly forgotten 3-D film noir—one of the very few. On the set of ripped-from-the-headlines live television procedural “Crime of the Week,” hotshot screenwriter Don Newell (John Forsythe) and meticulous researcher Henry Hayes (Edward G. Robinson, swinging between steely and paranoid) vie for their producer’s attention. After hours, they also compete for the same woman, actress Paula Rainer (Kathleen Hughes), though without each other knowing. A downright combustible femme fatale, Paula blackmails Don, who is married, and bleeds Henry dry with mocking glee. On his way to pay for Paula’s silence, Don stumbles into a crime scene—and Henry decides to recreate it, with every incriminating detail, for this week’s episode. Satirizing the TV industry’s bloodlust before A Face in the Crowd, Network and The King of Comedy, The Glass Web spins a workplace rivalry into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse. The eternally underrated Arnold directs it all with sleek, riveting economy: a key sequence in Paula’s apartment rivals Hitchcock with its handling of real time, modern architecture, and red herrings. The newly restored 3-D is sure to elicit vocal reactions with a nearfatal traffic collision, water spray, and, no kidding, flying cabbages, surely some of the most outrageous effects from the format’s golden age. (ZZ)

Devil-may-care Johnny Case (Cary Grant) stumbles into an engagement with Julia Seton (Doris Nolan), the youngest daughter of an unfathomably rich Fifth Avenue dynasty. When she brings him home for the holidays, Johnny turns down a lucrative job from Dad (Henry Kolker) and declares his intentions to take a total break from work after the wedding, flummoxing all in Julia’s family except for her similarly free-spirited sister, Linda (Katharine Hepburn). Released between Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story, Holiday reunites Grant and Hepburn for perhaps their most irresistible, sublimely modulated pair-off, a dramatic and often literal dance between would-be lovers, thinkers, and rebels of the upper crust. Linda’s lived-in “playroom” plays host to a number of the film’s most immortal scenes, from drunken confessionals and gymnastics to a most tender New Year’s sway to “Auld Lang Syne.” George Cukor’s adaptation of the hit Philip Barry play rounds out with a terrific supporting cast, including Lew Ayres as Linda’s surprisingly sensitive brother and Edward Everett Horton with his trademark double takes. At the end of the day, a peak not only for Grant, Hepburn, and Cukor, but for the classical Hollywood cinema in toto. A new 4K DCP of Holiday will be introduced by Rita Belda, Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Vice President of Asset Management, Film Restoration, and Digital Mastering. (ZZ)

Handheld

Hunting Arrowheads with My Father

SCREENS IN: ALL IN THE FAMILY: WISCONSIN’S OWN SHORTS

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Entangled in a crime she had nothing to do with, a Tokyo woman’s life unravels as collateral damage to careless media coverage. A diligent nurse providing at-home care for an aging painter, Ichiko has worked for the Oishos for so long that she’s practically a member of the family, even helping their two daughters with their homework during her shift. Their world collapses when the Oishos’ youngest is kidnapped. She’s quickly found, but Ichiko is alarmed to discover that the culprit is her nephew. After confiding to the older daughter, she is encouraged to keep her familial tie a secret—a discretion that will wind up costing her everything. Told in a novelistic flashback structure and anchored by a standout lead performance by Mariko Tsutsui, A Girl Missing is a web of tricky questions and hidden motivations. As one character puts it, “Does someone who’s broken a family deserve a happy future?” “Exemplary… a Dostoevskyian tale collapsing the lines between crime and punishment into a complex grey area of juxtaposing social norms and selfserving desires” (ioncinema). “Deft and absorbing… A Girl Missing is a satisfying slow-burn drama expertly told” (Screen). 2019 Locarno, New York Film Festivals, 2020 Rotterdam Film Festival. (MK)

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Experimental • USA • 2019 • HD projection • 42 MIN

I’m fine SCREENS IN: ALL IN THE FAMILY: WISCONSIN’S OWN SHORTS

The Incredible Shrinking Man SAT, APRIL 4 • 2 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: BRUCE GOLDSTEIN Narrative • USA • 1957 • DCP • 81 MIN

Identifying Features Sin Señas Particulares

TUE, APRIL 7 • 8 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 WED, APRIL 8 • 3:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: FERNANDA VALADEZ MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Mexico, Spain • 2020 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 95 MIN Director: Fernanda Valadez; Screenwriters: Fernanda Valadez, Astrid Rondero; Producers: Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez, Jack Zagha, Yossy Zagha; Editors: Fernanda Valadez, Astrid Rondero, Susan Korda; Cast: Mercedes Hernández, David Illescas, Juan Jesús Varela, Ana Laura Rodríguez, Laura Elena Ibarra; Cinematographer: Claudia Becerril Bulos; Music: Clarice Jensen

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández) hasn’t heard from her son Jesús in the two months since he left their small village to cross the border into the U.S. Joined by the recently deported Miguel (David Illescas), Magdalena leads a desperate search for her son, whom the authorities believe to be dead, into some of the most violent and remote territories of present-day Mexico. Crossing rugged landscapes by foot and trying to elude countless armed bandits, Magdalena and Miguel’s odyssey offers an unflinching view of a current, harrowing crisis. Identifying Features is a chilling and artfully told thriller that marks the auspicious feature-length directorial debut of Fernanda Valadez, whose boldly pronounced style includes suspenseful and fluid long takes, a thought-provoking use of focus, and a precise eye for point-of-view and composition. A co-screenwriter with Astrid Rondero, Valadez’ talents also include a humanistic touch in creating characters with an inner life, allowing us to believe they exist beyond the frames of the movie. “Impressive in many ways, from its strong naturalistic performances to the vivid sense of dislocation and vulnerability felt by the principal characters in dangerous or unfamiliar surroundings” (Dennis Harvey, Variety). World Cinema Dramatic Category Winner, Audience Award and Special Jury Award for Best Screenplay, 2020 Sun18 dance Film Festival. (JH)

Director: Jack Arnold; Screenwriter: Richard Matheson; Producer: Albert Zugsmith; Editor: Al Joseph; Cast: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, William Schallert, April Kent, Billy Curtis; Cinematographer: Ellis W. Carter

“The mist...That mist!” After being exposed to an ominous cloud while relaxing at sea, everyman Scott Carey (Grant Williams) discovers that he is suddenly shrinking in stature. At first, Scott’s condition causes tension in his marriage, then he must contend with the media when he becomes a national curiosity. Soon down to a tiny fraction of his former size, the title character finds himself in a strange new world fraught with danger that comes from previously harmless things around his house, like his pet cat, a leaky water heater, and a basement spider. Working with a clever, literate screenplay by science fiction and fantasy giant Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Twilight Zone), the talented Universal Pictures contract director Jack Arnold (whose 3-D movies The Glass Web and It Came from Outer Space are also screening at this year’s WFF) manages to deliver action-packed, ingeniously devised special effects sequences while keeping a firm grip on Matheson’s powerful, existential subtext and awe-inspiring conclusion. This screening of a 1950s sci-fi classic, newly restored in a 4K digital presentation, will feature a special introduction from Bruce Goldstein, Repertory Programmer at New York’s Film Forum and Shrinking Man specialist. He will discuss the movie’s miniaturizing effects and other fun facts about Scott Carey’s fantastic journey. (JH)

Initials S.G. SAT, APRIL 4 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 WED, APRIL 8 • 6 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Argentina, USA, Lebanon • 2019 • DCP • English, Spanish with English subtitles • 98 MIN Directors: Rania Attieh, Daniel Garcia; Screenwriters: Rania Attieh, Daniel Garcia; Producers: Ivan Eibuszyc, Shruti Ganguly, Georges Schoucair; Editors: Leandro Aste, Daniel Garcia; Cast: Diego Peretti, Julianne Nicholson, Daniel Fanego, Malena Sanchez, Francisco Lumerman; Cinematographer: Roman Kasseroller

An aging Serge Gainsbourg wannabe’s week goes from bad to worse to worst in this twisty, pitch-black comedy. When Sergio was a young recording artist in Buenos Aires, his sleazy charisma might’ve worked on some… but these days, his acting career has been reduced to VR porn, a bicycle accident has crumpled what was left of his looks, and he’s been sentenced to anger management. Really, the best thing he’s got going is that Argentina’s in the World Cup finals. He finally catches a break when he meets Jane (Julianne Nicholson), an American in town for business and looking for a fling. Her apparently low standards prove irresistible for a quickie, but their relationship kicks up a notch when they abruptly go from lovers to accomplices. The ultimate romantic antihero, you wouldn’t wish Sergio on your worst bad date, but his crass misadventures are great fun to watch onscreen. “Delightful. Highly recommended” (David Edelstein, Vulture). “Genius. The way that Attieh and Garcia were able to pack so much action, drama, and hilarity into one 90-minute movie is truly masterful. 10/10” (Film Threat). Winner of the Nora Ephron Award at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, awarded annually to female writer-directors. (MK)

L’innocente SUN, APRIL 5 • 8:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 WED, APRIL 8 • 12:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 Narrative • Italy, France • 1976 • DCP • Italian with English subtitles • 129 MIN Director: Luchino Visconti; Screenwriters: Luchino Visconti, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Enrio Medioli, based on the novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio; Producer: Giovanni Bertolucci; Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni; Cast: Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli, Jennifer O’Neill, Massimo Girotti; Cinematographer: Pasqualino De Santis; Music: Franco Mannino

One of the greatest of all Italian filmmakers, Luchino Visconti was an aristocrat turned staunch Marxist whose career as a director began with neo-realist portraits of working class life like Ossessione and La Terra Trema

and concluded with lush and romantic, yet critical studies of Europe’s most privileged citizens like The Leopard and Ludwig. For L’innocente, his posthumously released final film, Visconti returned to familiar territory: an adaptation of Gabriele d’Annunzio’s celebrated novel about jealousy among the ruling class in fin-de-siècle life. The philandering Tullio Hermil (Giancarlo Giannini) falls back in love with his neglected wife, Giuliana (Laura Antonelli), but only after she is unfaithful to him and has become pregnant with another man’s child. Confined to a wheelchair during shooting, the ailing Visconti nonetheless contributed his usual painstaking attention to details of performance, set design, and costumes, “leaving us with a beautiful vision of a world that has disappeared” (Peter Bondanella, Italian Cinema). “Visconti seems to be savoring the things of this world for the last time. No Visconti film to date has conveyed so intense a feeling of loss” (Andrew Sarris). “Masterly in its expressive turn-of-the-century décor, and in its control” (Pauline Kael). (JH) Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of French and Italian

Invisible Life

A Vida Invisível de Eurídice Gusmão SAT, APRIL 4 • 6 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 MON, APRIL 6 • 3:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6

MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Brazil, Germany • 2019 • DCP • Portuguese with English subtitles • 140 MIN Director: Karim Aïnouz; Screenwriters: Murilo Hauser, Inés Bortagaray, Karim Aïnouz, based on the novel by Martha Batalha; Producers: Rodrigo Teixeira, Michael Weber; Cast: Julia Stockler, Carol Duarte, Fernanda Montenegro, Flávia Gusmão, António Fonseca; Cinematographer: Hélène Louvart; Music: Benedikt Schiefer

Adapted from Martha Batalha’s beloved novel, The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão, this decades-spanning saga begins in Rio de Janeiro in 1950. The impulsive Guida (Julia Steckler) elopes with a Greek sailor and leaves for Europe, while her sister Euridice (Carol Duarte) continues studying classical piano in Rio, and dreams of being accepted at a Vienna conservatory. When Guida returns, pregnant and alone, she is kicked out of her family’s home by their father, and the two sisters are kept apart by a cruel lie. In the ensuing years, Guida and Euridice lead separate, sometimes dramatic lives in Rio, while each woman believes the other is half a world away. An emotional and completely absorbing period melodrama with two riveting central performances, Invisible Life was Brazil’s official submission for the Best International Feature Academy Award in 2019. “It’s a drama of resilient women, thoughtless men and crushingly unrealized dreams, told with supple grace, deep feeling and an empathy that extends in every direction” (Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times). Winner, 2019 Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard Award, Best Director. (JH)

CON T I N U E D ON PA GE 23

Blockbuster Health Care! Blockbuster Health Care!

ANOTHER G R E AT SCENE.

We're dedicated to providing an exceptional health care experience and helping to create a healthier Wisconsin.

SSM Health is a proud sponsor of the Big Screens, Little Folks film series.

B A R TAC O

M U R A M OTO

CAFE HOLLANDER

D U M P L I N G H AU S

T H E G R E AT DA N E P U B

PAS Q U A L â&#x20AC;&#x2122;S

& B R E W I N G C O M PA N Y S H A K E S H AC K F O R AG E K I TC H E N

(COMING SOON)

E X P LO R E H I L L DA L E , P R O U D S U P P O R T E R

H I L L DA L E .C OM

ssmhealth.com

@ H I L L DA L E M A D I S O N

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

OF T H E W I S CO N S I N F I L M F E ST I VA L .

FILM GUIDE AT A GLANCE THURSDAY, APRIL 2 5 PM

6 PM

7 PM

8 PM

9 PM

Total running time does NOT include 30 minute Q&A at most screenings that fi lm guests are scheduled to appear

W I S CO N S I N ’ S OW N F I LM S

10 PM

B I G S C R E E N S , LIT TLE F O LK S F I LM S

O PE N I N G N I G HT

Opening Night Reception Boys State & Golden Badger 5:30 PM • 90 MIN Awards Presentation

Shannon Hall Memorial Union

MAIN LOUNGE

Q & A / PA N E L

7 PM • 109 MIN + 25 MIN

FRIDAY, APRIL 3 10 AM

11 AM

NOON

1 PM

2 PM

3 PM

4 PM

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

The County

Shannon Hall Memorial Union Chuskit

9:15 PM • 84 MIN

First Person, Singular...

6 PM • 87 MIN

Simple Men

3 PM • 120 MIN

8:30 PM • 66 MIN

Simple Women

5:30 PM • 105 MIN

8 PM • 85 MIN

1BR

The Marquee, Union South

10 PM

Deerskin

Personhood

Robin and Marian

1 PM • 85 MIN

9 PM

6:30 PM • 116 MIN

3:15 PM • 99 MIN

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin

11 AM • 81 MIN

8 PM

Corpus Christi

Max Richter’s Sleep

1 PM • 103 MIN

The Glass Web 3-D

UW Cinematheque

7 PM

4 PM • 90 MIN

Long Time no Sea

11 AM • 89 MIN

6 PM

A Conversation with Jill Soloway

1 PM • 92 MIN

Chazen Museum of Art

5 PM

Sanzaru

6 PM • 106 MIN

9 PM • 88 MIN

AMC MADISON 6

Noura’s Dream

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1

Saudi Runaway

11:30 AM • 92 MIN

White on White

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5

8:15 PM • 94 MIN

Rounds

5:45 PM • 90 MIN

Martin Eden

1 PM • 93 MIN

Three Summers

The Twentieth Century

3:30 PM • 109 MIN

Rocks

11 AM • 83 MIN

6:15 PM • 83 MIN

A White, White Day

1:30 PM • 85 MIN

The Woman Who Loves Giraffes

Lina From Lima

3:45 PM • 112 MIN

Ghost Tropic

11:15 AM • 100 min

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6

A Girl Missing

1:45 PM • 88 MIN

8:30 PM • 106 MIN

Beanpole

3:15 PM • 127 MIN

Ema

6 PM • 130 MIN

8:45 PM • 106 MIN

SATURDAY, APRIL 4 10 AM

11 AM

NOON

1 PM

APR. 2-9 | 2020.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

Shannon Hall Memorial Union

The Fight

Chazen Museum of Art

Max Richter’s Sleep

UW Cinematheque

It’s Great to Be Alive & The Last Man on Earth

The Marquee, Union South

11 AM • 96 MIN

1:15 PM • 115 MIN

The Giverny Document & Seven Years in May 1:45 PM • 84 MIN

The Incredible Shrinking Man

11 AM • 145 MIN

2 PM • 81 MIN

Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale

Shorter and Sweeter

My Extraordinary Summer with Tess

12 PM • 92 MIN

10 AM • 61 MIN

A Son

11:30 AM • 96 MIN

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6

The Feeling Through Experience

2 PM • 82 MIN

Initials S.G.

1:30 PM • 98 MIN

Ghost Tropic

1:45 PM • 85 MIN

11:15 AM • 120 MIN

11 AM • 90 MIN

3 PM

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

11 AM • 99 MIN

AMC MADISON 6

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1

2 PM

Martin Eden

1 PM • 127 min

4 PM

5 PM

6 PM

It Must Be Heaven

7 PM

The Truth

4 PM • 97 MIN

6:30 PM • 106 MIN

N of 1

Can You Hear Us Now?

3:45 PM • 101 MIN

Private Lives Public Spaces... 4 PM • 67 MIN

Generation Now...

4 PM • 63 MIN

Balloon

4:15 PM • 102 MIN

Simple Women

3:45 PM • 85 MIN

Rocks

4 PM • 93 MIN

6:30 PM • 86 MIN

Holiday

8 PM

9 PM

10 PM

The Whistlers

9 PM • 97 MIN

Last Week at Ed’s

9 PM • 75 MIN

6 PM • 105 MIN

Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream

Promising Young Woman

Dinner in America

6 PM • 113 MIN

Saudi Runaway

6:30 PM • 88 MIN

A Dim Valley

6:15 PM • 92 MIN

Invisible Life

6 PM • 140 MIN

8:30 PM • 80 MIN 8:30 PM • 106 MIN

Zombi Child

8:30 PM • 103 MIN

White on White

8:45 PM • 100 MIN

The Painter and the Thief 9 PM • 102 MIN

SUNDAY, APRIL 5 10 AM

11 AM

NOON

1 PM

2 PM

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

Billie

Chazen Museum of Art

So Late So Soon

UW Cinematheque

The Art of Subtitling

Die Kinder Der Toten

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1

Three Summers

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6

Beanpole

5:45 PM • 81 MIN

All in the Family: Wisconsin’s...

The Woman Who Loves Giraffes

L’innocente

6 PM • 109 MIN

The Wild Goose Lake

8:15 PM • 129 MIN

The Painted Bird

4:30 PM • 110 MIN

2:30 PM • 83 MIN

8:30 PM • 104 MIN

A White, White Day

3:30 PM • 120 MIN

11:45 AM • 130 MIN

The Perfect Candidate

6:15 PM • 102 MIN

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

1 PM • 90 MIN

7:45 PM • 92 MIN

Balloon

4 PM • 96 MIN

The Twentieth Century

Feels Good Man

5:30 PM • 75 MIN

A Son

1:30 PM • 92 MIN

11 AM • 85 MIN

It Came from Outer Space 3-D

3 PM • 74 MIN

Noura’s Dream

11:15 AM • 94 MIN

10 PM

4:45 PM • 79 MIN

Determined

1 PM • 89 MIN

9 PM

7:45 PM • 90 MIN

3:45 PM • 84 MIN

Too Far Away

8 PM

The Last Shift

Toni

1 PM • 123 MIN

11 AM • 73 MIN

7 PM

The Rabbi Goes West

2:45 PM • 85 MIN

Mr. Klein

Short and Sweet

6 PM

4:15 PM • 129 MIN

The Cordillera of Dreams

12:45 PM • 90 MIN

11 AM • 60 MIN

5 PM

Zappa

1:30 PM • 126 MIN

11 AM • 70 MIN

AMC MADISON 6

4 PM

Talking the Pictures

11 AM • 96 MIN

The Marquee, Union South

3 PM

7 PM • 169 MIN

MONDAY, APRIL 6 10 AM

11 AM

NOON

1 PM

AMC MADISON 6

2 PM

3 PM

The Rabbi Goes West

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1

4 PM

Mr. Klein Rounds

9 PM

8:15 PM • 103 MIN

The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun & Le Franc 8:30 PM • 91 MIN

The Wild Goose Lake

3:30 PM • 140 MIN

10 PM

Zombi Child

6 PM • 84 MIN

Invisible Life

1:15 PM • 102 MIN

8 PM

Narrowsburg

4:15 PM • 70 MIN

The Painter and the Thief

7 PM

5:45 PM • 115 MIN

So Late So Soon

2 PM • 106 MIN

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6

6 PM

The Servant

3:15 PM • 123 MIN

1 PM • 79 MIN

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5

5 PM

Ema

6:15 PM • 110 MIN

8:45 PM • 106 MIN

TUESDAY, APRIL 7 10 AM

11 AM

NOON

AMC MADISON 6

1 PM

2 PM

3 PM

The Perfect Candidate

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1

The Cordillera of Dreams

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6

The Painted Bird

5 PM

Lina From Lima

1 PM • 104 MIN

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5

4 PM

6 PM

8 PM

A Girl Missing

3:15 PM • 83 MIN

Gimme Shelter

6 PM • 93 MIN

8:30 PM • 91 MIN

Two of Us

Blood Quantum

6:15 PM • 95 MIN

2 PM • 169 MIN

10 PM

8 PM • 95 MIN

Searching for Mr. Rugoff

3:30 PM • 84 MIN

9 PM

Identifying Features

5:30 PM • 112 MIN

Narrowsburg

1:30 PM • 85 MIN

7 PM

8:15 PM • 107 MIN

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8 10 AM

11 AM

NOON

1 PM

AMC MADISON 6

2 PM

3 PM

Sorry We Missed You

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1

6 PM

The Deer

7:30 PM • 121 MIN

And Then We Danced

Finding Yingying

5:45 PM • 113 MIN

3:45 PM • 92 MIN

10 PM

8:30 PM • 90 MIN

5:30 PM • 84 MIN

The County

1:45 PM • 95 MIN

9 PM

Die Kinder Der Toten

Filmfarsi

3:15 PM • 91 MIN

Two of Us

8 PM

6 PM • 98 MIN

The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun & Le Franc

12:30 PM • 129 MIN

7 PM

Initials S.G.

3:30 PM • 95 MIN

L’innocente

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6

5 PM

Identifying Features

1:15 PM • 102 MIN

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5

4 PM

8:15 PM • 96 MIN

10 AM

11 AM

NOON

1 PM

AMC MADISON 6

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 6

3 PM

4 PM

N of 1

AMC Madison 6 Cinema 1 AMC Madison 6 Cinema 5

2 PM

Personhood

1:45 PM • 101 MIN

Filmfarsi

1:15 PM • 84 MIN

And Then We Danced 1 PM • 113 MIN

5 PM

4 PM • 87 MIN

The Whistlers

3:15 PM • 97 MIN

Dream Horse

3:30 PM • 102 MIN

6 PM

7 PM

Sorry We Missed You 6:15 PM • 102 MIN

8 PM

9 PM

10 PM

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets 8:30 PM • 98 MIN

For additional screening updates, please check 2020.wifilmfest.org

Silent Running

6 PM • 89 MIN

Spaceship Earth 8 PM • 113 MIN

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

THURSDAY, APRIL 9

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Receive One FREE 12oz. Great Dane Tap Beer (Must be 21+ years of age) One per person/per visit/one-time redemption. Ticket redeeming is valid at Madison Hilldale Great Dane location only. Digital movie ticket or ticket stub accepted the day of showing/attending.

I-K

It Came from Outer Space 3-D SUN, APRIL 5 • 5:45 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: BOB FURMANEK Narrative • USA • 1953 • DCP • 81 MIN Director: Jack Arnold; Screenwriters: Harry Essex, Ray Bradbury; Producer: William Alland; Editor: Paul Weatherwax; Cast: Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Russell Johnson, Kathleen Hughes, Joe Sawyer; Cinematographer: Clifford Stine

A group of visitors from beyond our galaxy crash land their spaceship in the American Southwest. In order to proceed undetected while mak-

ing repairs to their damaged craft, the aliens assume the identities of several Arizona civilians. It’s up to a local stargazer (Richard Carlson) and his school teacher girlfriend (Barbara Rush) to figure out the inter-galactic shenanigans and stop It before more people are taken over. Released during the early years of the Cold War, It Came from Outer Space plays directly to audience anxieties about the “other,” but the story has a few surprising twists up its sleeve, courtesy of co-scenarist Ray Bradbury. Universal Pictures genre specialist Jack Arnold (whose Creature from the Black Lagoon delighted audiences at last year’s WFF) directs in his typically expressive but economical fashion. It is the first of four features Arnold shot in 3-D. This digital restoration from the knowledgeable folks at the 3-D Film Archive corrects some vertical alignment issues and the 3-D effects look better now than when It Came from Outer Space was first released in 1953! The screening will be preceded by another fun introduction from the 3-D Film Archive’s founder, Bob Furmanek. (JH)

It Must Be Heaven SAT, APRIL 4 • 4 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • France, Qatar, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Palestine • 2019 • DCP • Arabic, English, French with English subtitles • 97 MIN Director: Elia Suleiman; Screenwriter: Elia Suleiman; Producers: Serge Noel, Laurine Pelassy, Edouard Weil, Thanssis Karathanos, Zeynep Ozbatur Atakan; Editor: Veronique Lange; Cast: Elia Suleiman, Gael García Bernal, Grégoire Colin, Tarik Kopty; Cinematographer: Sofian El Fani

SAT, APRIL 4 • 11 AM UW CINEMATHEQUE

Two features for the price of one ticket, this program unites a fantastic sci-fi comedy from the silent era and its delightful pre-Code remake.

35mm print preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with support from the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation.

The Last Man on Earth

Directors: Kelly Copper, Pavol Liska; Screenwriters: Kelly Copper, Pavol Liska, based on a novel by Elfriede Jelinek; Producers: Claus Philipp, Georg Aschauer; Editors: Kelly Copper, Pavol Liska, Michael Palm; Cast: Andrea Maier, Greta Kostka, Klaus Unterrieder, Georg Beyer; Cinematographers: Kelly Copper, Pavol Liska; Music: Wolfgang Mitterer

Director: John G. Blystone; Screenwriters: Donald W. Lee, John D. Swain; Cast: Earle Foxe, Grace Cunard, Gladys Tennyson, Derelys Perdue; Cinematographer: Allen M. Davey

Live piano by David Drazin! Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

It’s Great To Be Alive SAT, APRIL 4 • 11 AM UW CINEMATHEQUE Narrative • USA • 1933 • 35mm • 70 MIN Director: Alfred Werker; Screenwriters: Paul Perez, Arthur Kober, John D. Swain; Editor: Barney Wolf; Cast: Gloria Stuart, Raul Roulien, Edna May Oliver, Joan Marsh, Dorothy Burgess, Edward Van Sloan; Cinematographer: Robert H. Planck

A musical remake of The Last Man on Earth, produced during the lascivious pre-Code era, It’s Great To Be Alive hardly stints on the racy implications of its premise. Brazilian crooner Raul Roulien stars as the last surviving XY specimen, a dashing aviator who accidentally missed the masculinitis epidemic by pouting the years away on a remote island after being teased once too often by gal pal Gloria Stuart. And his discovery couldn’t come at a better time—Edna May Oliver’s efforts to create a synthetic man in her laboratory have run aground. After treating Roulien to a ticker-tape parade, the women of the world compete for his affections through a dance showcase: Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands—show us what you’ve got! One of

SUN, APRIL 5 • 12:45 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART WED, APRIL 8 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Austria • 2019 • HD projection, DCP • German • 90 MIN

Narrative • USA • 1924 • 35mm • 75 MIN

Not to be confused with the postapocalyptic Vincent Price vs. zombies pic adapted from Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, the silent version of The Last Man on Earth is a work of speculative science fiction super-charged by festering 19th Amendment anxieties. It is the not-too-distant-future and the world has been beset by a global pandemic of masculinitis, a disease that mysteriously kills off all men aged 14 and older. In the forest is discovered one straggler, Earle Foxe, a tree-dwelling Rip Van Winkle utterly unprepared to become a planetary sex symbol. (His childhood crush once taunted him, saying she wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man on earth. Who’s laughing now?) Foxe is soon set upon by female gangsters, female politicians, female scientists, female everything. The climax even comes down to an extended boxing match between the “Senatoresses” representing rival states! (KW)

Die Kinder Der Toten

Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream SAT, APRIL 4 • 8:30 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE 80 MIN

Slow Volumes Experimental • USA • 2019 • 35mm • 5 MIN Director: Mike Gibisser

Shot with a hand-built, 35mm camera, this abstract wonder bends the rules governing cinematic time and space. (MK)

Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle

MADISON PREMIERE • Experimental • France • 2019 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 75 MIN Director: Frank Beauvais; Screenwriter: Frank Beauvais; Producers: Justin Taurand, Michael Klein; Editor: Thomas Marchand

“I watched over 400 films between April and October 2016. This footage comes from them.” So begins Frank Beauvais’s astonishing feature debut, a found footage memoir refracting seven tumultuous months of life through an unceasing fusillade of movie clips. With Knausgaardian candor, Beauvais narrates the story of his break-up; his father’s death; his life in provincial Alsace, France; and above all, his all-consuming cinephilia, which accelerates as personal calamity and world events (from the Bastille Day attack in Nice to Prince’s passing) draw him further inward. The film’s rapid, wildly imaginative montage toggles between film snippets largely obscure and hard-to-place: a pre-Code dame here, a giallo knife plunge there, an aside on all the Soviet films cluttering his hard drive, John Carpenter’s Christine, etc. Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream makes for a perfect mid-Festival watch for its incisive, full-bore exploration of all the ways obsessive movie watching can bleed into one’s personal life, and vice versa. (ZZ) Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of French and Italian

A small village in Austria’s mountainous Styrian region is ground zero for the apocalypse when the dead begin to rise and attack the living in this satirical and fascinatingly strange adaptation of a novel by Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 2004. As the disaster begins, a few residents and tourists are joined by a group of refugee Syrian poets (they have misread the restaurant sign that says “Styrian Food”). Faced with the prospect of death by zombies (or zombs, as another misinformed character refers to them), the survivors discover that the dead are being brought back to life inside a cinema owned by a Nazi’s widow. Shot on small gauge film stock without any synch sound, Die Kinder Der Toten is presented as a traditional silent movie, complete with intertitles and an effects-and-music-only soundtrack. This one-of-a-kind adaptation is the work of Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, founding members of the New York-based theater troupe Nature Theater of Oklahoma. Copper and Liska worked exclusively with non-professional actors, all residents of the Austrian Alps, and created their screenplay from a condensed synopsis of Jelinek’s 600+ page book because the book has yet to be translated into English! “Unlike any other zombie movie ever made. Imagine a Monty Python sketch as filmed by Abraham Zapruder” (Slash Film). 2019 Berlin Film Festival, Fantastic Fest. (JH)

KEY WISCONSIN’S OWN FILMS BIG SCREENS, LITTLE FOLKS FILMS GOLDEN BADGER WINNERS 3-D FILMS

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Palestine’s leading cinematic auteur Elia Suleiman (Divine Intervention) has returned with his first feature in ten years: a comic chronicle of an artist looking for funding for his next project. Without uttering more than a handful of words, Suleiman plays himself, a writer-director who leaves his oft-absurd daily life in Nazareth to court producers and actors (including Gael García Bernal) in Paris and New York City. Concerned with a lot more than just show business, Suleiman fixes his camera on a number of droll characters and situations: a ballet of cops on Segways, an all gun-carrying citizenry of Manhattan, and a stubborn, implacable sparrow, among many others. Told in a series of sequences that are as deadpan as the expression on Suleiman’s face, It Must Be Heaven recalls the comic genius of Jacques Tati, Jerry Lewis, and Sweden’s Roy Andersson. “Affably self-effacing meta-commentary blankets the film, skewering the very notion of a standard-bearing national artist by revealing how tenuous geographic borderlines can be” (Charles Bramesco, Little White Lies). FIPRESCI Prize and Jury Special Mention Award, 2019 Cannes Film Festival. (JH)

It’s Great to Be Alive & The Last Man on Earth

a seemingly endless roster of neglected Fox musicals, It’s Great To Be Alive features a handful of numbers from forgotten composer William Kernell, including “I’ll Build a Nest,” and “Good Bye, Ladies.” Fox had hoped to build up Roulien as a major star, but alas, his third-billed role in RKO’s Flying Down to Rio later that year hardly helped. His planned breakthrough was overshadowed by fourth- and fifth-billed Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Though his career in movies proved too short, Roulien himself never fell victim to masculinitis: he lived to be 94! (KW)

K-L

The Kite

Let Your Sisters Be

Pouštět draka / Šarkan

Last Week at Ed’s

SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET

SCREENS IN: ALL IN THE FAMILY: WISCONSIN’S OWN SHORTS

SAT, APRIL 4 • 9 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART 75 MIN

Casserole WORLD PREMIERE • Narrative • United States • 2019 • HD projection • 10 MIN Director: Taylor Siolka; Screenwriter: Taylor Siolka; Producer: Taylor Siolka; Cast: Shelly Lipkin

Konigiri-Kun: The Boat SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

Condolences and grief, Wisco-style, in this comic drama about a widower wrestling with a heavy heart and an overstocked fridge. (BR)

The Last Shift SUN, APRIL 5 • 7:45 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: RICHARD JENKINS MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2020 • DCP • 90 MIN Director: Andrew Cohn; Screenwriter: Andrew Cohn; Producers: Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa, Sam Bisbee, Alex Lipschultz, Bert Kern; Editor: Mindy Elliott; Cast: Richard Jenkins, Shane Paul McGhie, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Ed O’Neill; Cinematographer: W. Mott Hupfel III; Music: Mark Orton

The Last Days of Autumn Le dernier jour d’automne

SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

The Last Man on Earth

At Oscar’s Chicken and Fish, Stanley (Richard Jenkins) is about to hang up his apron. A fast food graveyard shift supervisor for 38 years, Stanley is calling it quits and training his young replacement, Jevon (Shane Paul McGhie), a talented and thoughtful writer who doesn’t have long-term goals in this deep fryer environment. Tensions arise between the aging high school dropout and his opinionated protégé over issues of privilege, racial bias, and exploitation of labor. The Last Shift may surprise you in the trajectories of Stanley and Jevon, two characters who are worlds apart when introduced. With an honest, sensitive, and detailed depiction of average Americans and low-wage jobs, writer/director Andrew Cohn has made a humanistic and entertaining feature debut after a decade making documentaries. His talents are matched by the terrific cast, especially the well-paired newcomer McGhie and two-time Academy Award nominee Jenkins. The veteran actor will join us in person to discuss his work on The Last Shift and his decades as one of the most admired and gifted of movie performers. 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (JH)

SCREENS IN: IT’S GREAT TO BE ALIVE & THE LAST MAN ON EARTH

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

YEAR

FOUR

JUNE 4–11

May Divorce be with You NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE • Documentary • 2019 • HD Projection • Dutch with English subtitles • 25 MIN Director: Irene Lagendijk; Producer: AKV | St. Joost

A child of divorced parents, Irene Lagendijk strives to re-enact the most integral moments of her parents’ marriage, with Mom and Dad playing themselves. This artful, affecting documentary explores the impact divorce leaves on all parties involved, years after a marriage’s demise. (FQ)

Last Week at Ed’s WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • United States • 2019 • HD projection • 40 MIN Directors: Lawrence Kasdan, Meg Kasdan; Producers: Lawrence Kasdan, Meg Kasdan

This fly-on-the-wall documentary vividly captures the emotional, final week of a beloved, West Hollywood diner as staff and longtime customers prepare to say goodbye to the 60-yearold institution. Directors Lawrence and Meg Kasdan warmly capture the lively and colorful personalities of the employees and patrons that populate the restaurant. The film paints a richly textured portrait through its eccentric characters and the stories they tell. Last Week at Ed’s tenderly examines aspects of community, family, and loss, and the comfort food that’s at the center of it all. (BD) Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

MADBURGERWEEK.COM

#MADBURGERWEEK

Legal Alien SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

Lina From Lima Lina de Lima

FRI, APRIL 3 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 TUE, APRIL 7 • 3:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Chile, Argentina, Peru • 2019 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 83 MIN Director: María Paz González; Screenwriter: María Paz González; Producers: Giancarlo Nasi, Maite Alberdi; Editor: Anita Remón; Cast: Magaly Solier, Emilia Ossandón; Cinematographer: Benjamín Echazarreta; Music: José Manuel Gatica, Cali Flores

A charming, colorful musical set in the world of migrant labor, Lina From Lima is as unconventional as it is empathetic. Lina came to Santiago ten years ago to work for a wealthy family, just in order to be able to support her own back in Lima. While planning her annual Christmas trip home, Lina gets the sinking feeling that she is the only one looking forward to her homecoming—her teenaged son is solely focused on what he wants as a present, and her ex has moved on with a new family. While secretly crashing in her boss’s gleaming new house, Lina decides to act on her own desires for once, starting with signing up for a dating hookup app. It starts to feel like skipping her trip home was just what she needed. Director María Paz Gonzalez sets her film apart through lush musical numbers that bring us into Lina’s inner state. Drawing on traditional Peruvian folk music, these miniature Busby Berkeley routines give life to “the world Lina houses within herself. A world so glittering and so lively that it’s bewitching” (Remezcla). Best Chilean Film, 2019 Valdivia Film Festival. (MK)

L-M

Mark SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • UK, USA • 2019 • DCP • 99 MIN

FRI, APRIL 3 • 1:00 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART

MON, APRIL 6 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 WED, APRIL 8 • 3:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 91 MIN

As the auteur behind Touki-Bouki and Hyenas (WFF 2019), Djibril Diop Mambéty is a giant of Senegalese and African cinema. In the mid-1990s, Mambéty embarked on a planned trilogy entitled “Tales by Ordinary People,” though he only finished two before his premature death in 1998. This screening pairs these mid-length featurettes, both marked by a rich sense of humor, gorgeous street music, and an affectionate yet acute eye toward the poor and how they navigate cutthroat economies. In Le Franc, a penniless musician glues a lottery ticket to his door, hiding this splurge from his landlady—but when the ticket actually wins, he must rip the door off its hinges and trek into town. The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun’s title is itself a sly pun, for it follows a disabled street girl who sells newspapers (“Buy the Sun!”) on Dakar turf ruled by troublemaking boys. Each film’s plot possesses a parable-like simplicity, yet Mambéty conjures a sense of bustling, bounteous life, barely contained by the frame. (ZZ)

Le Franc

Narrative • Senegal, France, Switzerland • 1994 • DCP • Wolof with English subtitles • 46 MIN Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty; Screenwriter: Djibril Diop Mambéty; Cast: Dieye Ma, Aminata Fall

The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun La petite vendeuse de soleil

Narrative • Senegal, France, Switzerland • 1999 • DCP • Wolof, French with English subtitles • 45 MIN Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty; Screenwriter: Djibril Diop Mambéty; Editor: Sarah Taouss-Matton; Cast: Moussa Baldé, Lissa Balera; Cinematographer: Jacques Besse; Music: Wasis Diop Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of African Culture Studies

APRIL 2, 2020 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS

The Weaver Girl and the Cowherd Animation • USA • 2019 • HD projection • 7 MIN Director: Crestwood Elementary 4th Graders (2018-2019); Screenwriter: Crestwood Elementary 4th Graders (2018-2019); Producers: Crestwood Elementary School; Editor: Luke Bassuener; Music: Crestwood Elementary 5th Graders (2018-2019), Shawn Weber McMahon

Long Time No Sea MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Taiwan • 2018 • HD projection • Tao, Aboriginal Taiwanese, Mandarin, with English subtitles • 96 MIN Director: Heather Tsui; Screenwriter: Heather Tsui; Producer: Heather Tsui, et. al; Editor: Heather Tsui, Gene Yao, Zhi-Han You; Cast: Shang-Ho Huang, Pangoyod Si, Feng-Ying Lee; Cinematographer: Ching-Yao Liao; Music: Cincin Lee

Heather Tsui’s debut feature won the special Jury Award at the Seattle International Film Festival for “commitment to ensuring that stories of unseen communities are told.” This uplifting film explores the Tao community of Orchid Island, where kids are left behind with grandparents while their parents work on the mainland. It features a cast of almost exclusively non-professionals. The one exception is heartthrob Shang-Ho Huang, appearing as the children’s new teacher, Zhong-Xun Yu. In an effort to boost his fledgling career as an educator, Yu eagerly volunteers to prepare students for a traditional dance competition. Yet the longer Yu remains, and the more he works with the kids, the fonder he grows of the island and his complex students. The 14-year-old Pangoyod Si created a stir when he won the Best New Performer Award at the Golden Horse Awards (the Chinese Oscar equivalent) for his portrayal of Ma Na Wei, one of the left-behind boys. Tsui’s beautifully shot film, with its “unforced authenticity” (Variety), is a must-see. (KK) Age recommendation: 10+ Content advisory: Some depictions of drinking Presented with support from SSM Health

Martin Eden FRI, APRIL 3 • 3:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 SAT, APRIL 4 • 1 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Italy, France • 2019 • DCP • Italian, French with English subtitles • 127 MIN Director: Pietro Marcello; Screenwriters: Maurizio Braucci, Pietro Marcello; Producer: Pietro Marcello; Editors: Aline Herve, Fabrizio Federico; Cast: Luca Marinelli, Carlo Cecchi, Jessica Cressy, Vicenzo Nemolato, Marco Leonardi, Denise Sardisco, Carmen Pommella; Cinematographers: Francesco Di Giacomo, Alessandro Abate

A handsome, illiterate sailor, Martin Eden (a phenomenal Luca Marinelli), strives for literary success, fueled by his love for a wealthy university student, Elena (Jessica Cressy), and a desire to surpass his station. Martin sequesters himself in the countryside for two years, vowing to Elena that he will return an accomplished writer. But instead he descends into poverty and develops an ambivalent connection to burgeoning socialist politics. Adapted from Jack London’s 1909 novel of the same name, Pietro Marcello’s sweeping bildungsroman (like Christian Petzold’s Transit at last year’s WFF) takes place at an unspecified, indeterminate time: seemingly turn-of-the-century Naples, but with enough sly anachronisms in fashion and technology to feel out of time altogether. Well-chosen pop music cues and archival footage interludes further disturb the film’s classical, fictional surface. Anchored by a years-spanning romance and a nuanced sociopolitical worldview, Martin Eden stays in the heart and mind long after first viewing. 2019 Venice International Film Festival, New York Film Festival. (ZZ)

A concert film like no other, this dreamy documentary basks in awe at one of the most ambitious musical performances of our age, altering our sense of time itself. Clocking in at 8 ½ uninterrupted hours, acclaimed minimalist composer Max Richter’s magnum opus Sleep is meant to be listened to overnight—you’re even encouraged to fall asleep during it. Documentarian Natalie Johns captures a sublime outdoor performance at Los Angeles’s Grand Park, where 500 strangers gather in the dark, stretch out on cots and under blankets, and share a collective dream. The audience may be drifting in and out of consciousness, but Sleep is a demanding technical feat for the musicians onstage, requiring intense focus and stamina just to rehearse. Alongside philosophical discussions between Richter and his partner Yulia Mahr about their creative process, Johns profiles the audience members who are drawn towards this grand experience. As the sun rises, Max Richter’s Sleep becomes a testament to the power of large-scale art to achieve a communal awakening, delivered with the clarity and purpose of the well-rested. 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (MK)

May Divorce be with You SCREENS IN: LAST WEEK AT ED’S

Mirage

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

AWARDS PRESENTATION

Director: Natalie Johns; Producers: Julie Jakobek, Yulia Mahr, Stefan Demetriou, Oualid Mouaness; Editor: Dom Whitworth; Cinematographer: Elisha Christian; Music: Max Richter

103 MIN

Every year, Crestwood Elementary’s fractured folktales and mirth-filled myths get wittier and more imaginative. This year’s tale of star-crossed lovers (are there any other kind?) continues the trend. (BR)

FRI, APRIL 3 • 3:15 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART SAT, APRIL 4 • 11 AM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: NATALIE JOHNS

Long Time No Sea The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun & Le Franc

Max Richter’s Sleep

SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS 25

M-N

Mother’s Love SCREENS IN: ALL IN THE FAMILY: WISCONSIN’S OWN SHORTS

My Brother Luca Mi Hermano Luca

SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

My Life in Versailles La Vie de Château

SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET

The Mystery of Now SCREENS IN: GENERATION NOW: STORIES FROM WISCONSIN’S OWN

Narrowsburg MON, APRIL 6 • 6 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 TUE, APRIL 7 • 3:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: MARTHA SHANE MIDWEST PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 84 MIN

Mr. Klein SUN, APRIL 5 • 1 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE MON, APRIL 6 • 3:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 Narrative • France, Italy • 1976 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 123 MIN

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Director: Joseph Losey; Screenwriter: Franco Solinas; Producers: Raymond Danon, Alain Delon, Robert Kupferberg, Jean-Pierre LaBrande; Editor: Henri Lanoë; Cast: Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Michel Lonsdale, Francine Bergé, Juliet Berto, Massimo Girotti; Cinematographer: Gerry Fisher; Music: Egisto Macchi, Pierre Porte

Legendary leading man Alain Delon is the title character—an art dealer in Nazi-occupied Paris of 1942. The Gentile Mr. Klein is mistaken by the police for another man who bears his name, a Jewish activist who may be engaged in a plot against the Gestapo. Mr. Klein is compelled to clear himself both by attempting to prove his “racial purity” and by trying to locate the “guilty” other Mr. Klein. As he searches for his elusive namesake, the art dealer loses his possessions, his mistress, and his prominent social status. Recalling great works of Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Conrad, Mr. Klein is one of the most haunting and enigmatic of all cinematic doppelganger stories, and the most significant film from the final decade in the career of Wisconsin-born director Joseph Losey. A victim of the McCarthy era Hollywood blacklist, Losey was naturally fascinated by this tale of a man whose obsessive quest forces him to become involved in the hideous and pervasive repercussions of the prevailing power. As in Losey’s The Servant, also showing at this year’s WFF, Mr. Klein “is concerned with the shifting relationship of victim and oppressor, and the theme is drawn with tremendous care and subtlety” (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader). A new 4K restoration from Rialto Pictures will be shown. (JH)

Presented with support from the Mosse/Weinstein 26 Center for Jewish Studies and UW–Madison Hillel

Director: Martha Shane; Producers: Beck Kitsis, Martha Shane; Editors: Chris McNabb, Frederick Shanahan; Cinematographer: Jarred Alterman; Music: Nathan Michel

My Extraordinary Summer with Tess

Mijn bijzonder rare week met Tess

SAT, APRIL 4 • 2 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Netherlands • 2019 • DCP • Dutch with English subtitles • 82 MIN Director: Steven Wouterlood; Screenwriters: Anna Woltz, Laura van Dijk; Producer: Bind Film; Editor: Christine Houbiers; Cast: Sonny Coops Van Utteren, Josephine Arendsen, Jennifer Hoffman; Cinematographer: Sal Kroonenberg; Music: Franziska Henke SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS

Steven Wouterlood, director of the shorts Everything Goes (WFF 2015) and King’s Day (WFF 2016), is back at our Festival with his first feature film. Sam, a 10-year-old driven by his fear that, as the youngest in his family, he will outlive everyone, uses his summer vacation to train himself to be alone. But on the first day, his training goes awry when he has a brief but memorable encounter with Tess, a chaotic girl with an agenda of her own. Desperately in need of someone’s help, she shares a secret with him. While things don’t go as planned, the two friends discover that, as messy and vulnerable as life is, maybe togetherness isn’t so bad. Winner of the Adult Jury Award at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, My Extraordinary Summer with Tess is “straightforward youth cinema with surprising emotional depth” (Variety). The film has won numerous other awards, including the Grand Prize Feature at the New York International Children’s Film Festival. (KK) Age recommendation: 10+ Content advisory: Film includes some coarse language, including sexual references, by a teenager. Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic and Dutch Culture USA Presented with support from SSM Health

N of 1 SAT, APRIL 4 • 3:45 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART THU, APRIL 9 • 1:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: BERNARD FRIEDMAN (4/4 ONLY) MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • United States • 2019 • HD projection, DCP • 101 MIN Director: Bernard Friedman; Producer: Bernard Friedman; Editor: Matthew Moul

An appliance repairman from Canada, an immunologist from Israel, and a transplant surgeon from England meet in a hospital in India. This might sound like the start of an elaborate joke, but it is actually a remarkable real-life collaboration, established in an effort to save the life of 26-year-old Kayte, a young Florida woman dying of liver cancer. As this unlikely team invents and then carries out an experimental procedure, the stakes could not possibly be higher, both for Kayte and for the broad implications for currently untreatable cancers. An emotionally charged documentary, equally notable for its vivid, unforgettable characters and for its thought-provoking twists and turns, Bernard Friedman’s Golden Badger-winning directorial debut takes the viewer on a journey that spans five countries, and elicits the widest possible gamut of emotions. A riveting tale and an eye-opening exploration on the front lines of Western medicine, N of 1 is a potent inquiry into the nature of innovation. (BR) Winner of a 2020 Golden Badger Award Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

A corrupt regional film festival is at the center of this hilariously entertaining true crime documentary, which doubles as a head-spinning cautionary tale about the allure of the spotlight. Narrowsburg, New York, was a sleepy hamlet along the Delaware River (population: 414), when Richie and Jocelyne Castellano rolled into town and declared that they would turn it into the “Sundance of the East.” An ingratiating grifter whose sole claim to fame was a bit part in the Billy Crystal/Robert De Niro mob comedy Analyze This, Richie charmed the whole town into a collective movie fever. In quick succession, Richie launched the Richard Castellano School of Acting and the Narrowsburg Film Festival, and enlisted seemingly every one of Narrowsburg’s 414 souls into the production of a derivative mob movie entitled Four Deadly Reasons. Needless to say, none of these panned out quite as the local investors had hoped. Director Martha Shane snags interviews with all parties involved, who spin a Rashomon-like tale, packed with surprise twists, big personalities, and dashed dreams. Shane also dares to call into question the larger economics of the independent film landscape, where profits are scarce and desperation can too often turn aspiring artists into willing marks. (MK)

Neptune SCREENS IN: ALL IN THE FAMILY: WISCONSIN’S OWN SHORTS

N-P

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life SAT, APRIL 4 • 1:15 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin Noura’s Dream FRI, APRIL 3 • 1 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SUN, APRIL 5 • 11 AM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5

MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • UK • 2019 • DCP • 85 MIN Director: Werner Herzog; Producers: Lucki Stipec, Steve O’Hagan; Editor: Marco Capalbo; Cinematographers: Louis Caulfi eld, Mike Paterson; Music: Ernst Reijseger

In Werner Herzog’s newest documentary, the famed German auteur recreates the journeys of his friend and collaborator Bruce Chatwin, a celebrated adventurer and writer who died from AIDS in 1989. Through eight distinct chapters, Herzog travels to Patagonia, the Black Mountains of Wales, and the Australian Outback, encountering concepts, people, and places from Chatwin’s explorations. An eclectic mix of teachers and experts, from mountain guides to Australian aboriginal elders, discuss the convergences of nature and myth that fascinated Chatwin, and heartfelt interviews with his widow and biographer reveal insights into his personal life. Chatwin’s own audio recordings, added to the mix, give him a vivid presence in this tender tribute. Despite the focus on another artist, the signatures of Herzog’s films are all here: his reflective voiceover, gorgeous shots of bizarre landscapes, and clips from his past projects that involved Chatwin in some way. Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin finds Herzog in an elegiac mode of filmmaking, contemplating the loss of a friend and trying to recapture his unique perspective on a mysterious world. 2019 Tribeca, Telluride, and Vancouver International Film Festivals. (MSJ)

FRI, APRIL 3 • 11:30 AM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 SUN, APRIL 5 • 1:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Tunisia, Belgium, France, Qatar • 2019 • DCP • Arabic with English subtitles • 92 MIN Director: Hinde Boujemaa; Screenwriter: Hinde Boujemaa; Producers: Imed Marzouk, Tatjana Kozar, François d’Arte; Editor: Nicolas Rumpl; Cast: Hind Sabri, Lofti Abdelli, Hakim Boumassoudi, Belhassen Harbaoui; Cinematographer: Martin Rit

Working long, hard hours in a laundry to support her children while her abusive husband is in jail, the tireless Noura (Tunisia’s leading actress Hind Sabri) finds renewed happiness in a secretive affair with a co-worker, Lassad. But just days before Noura can complete her divorce, her violent, petty criminal of a husband is released and our determined heroine must extricate herself from a complex new crisis, with several layers of social stigma. Noura’s Dream is told with all of the suspense mechanics of a thriller, including some surprising and shocking moments, but, thanks to the superb naturalistic performances (especially Sabri), the story and characters always feel authentic. “Throughout, Noura weathers every indignation quietly, not because she’s unwilling to fight for herself, but because she’s picking her battles. In this world where men reign, and rarely leave Noura’s frame, the only way to survive is to play the game” (Alex Heeney, Seventh Row). 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Winner, FIPRESCI Prize, Best Director, 2019 Torino Film Festival. (JH)

MIDWEST PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 115 MIN Director: Ric Burns; Producers: Leigh Howell, Bonnie Lafave, Kathryn Clinard; Editors: Li-Shin Yu, Tom Patterson, Chih Hsuan Liang; Cinematographer: Buddy Squires; Music: Brian Keane

In Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, the renowned neurologist and author reflects on a lifetime of studying others as he nears his own death. Both celebrated and criticized for his scientific case studies with literary appeal, like Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Sacks carefully observed people with a range of neurological disorders, telling the stories of those who are often ignored. With archival footage of Sacks and his patients throughout the film, his own recollections of his childhood and research appear alongside enthusiastic, insightful interviews with loved ones and prominent friends, from fellow neurologists to Temple Grandin and New York Review of Books editor Robert Silvers. Sacks offers honest, often humorous anecdotes about his past, but he also reveals the traumas that led him to decades of solitude, like his mother’s cruelty about his homosexuality and his reckless period obsessed with weightlifting and drugs. But throughout his unpredictable story, Sacks met every obstacle with endless curiosity and unique empathy for his patients. Oliver Sacks: His Own Life is a moving profile of an extraordinary man who seeks to understand himself by learning about the world around him. 2019 Telluride, New York, and AFI Film Festivals. (MSJ)

SUN, APRIL 5 • 7 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 TUE, APRIL 7 • 2 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Czech Republic, Ukraine, Slovakia • 2019 • DCP • Slavic Esperanto with English subtitles • 169 MIN Director: Václav Marhoul; Screenwriter: Václav Marhoul, based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinski; Producer: Václav Marhoul; Editor: Ludek Hudec; Cast: Petr Kotlár, Stellan Skarsgård, Harvey Keitel, Barry Pepper, Julian Sands, Udo Kier; Cinematographer: Vladimir Smutny

A popular and controversial novel by Jerzy Kosinski (Being There), The Painted Bird has been turned into a powerful new movie by Czech director Václav Marhoul. The story is set in unspecified sections of Eastern Europe during the final months of World War II, where a young boy (Petr Kotlar), separated from his parents, wanders the countryside witnessing and experiencing first-hand the brutal violence and horrors of war. The Painted Bird is a harrowing film that some will find deeply disturbing. It is also totally engrossing, deeply moving, and, despite its literary source, a fully realized work of cinema. Marhoul keeps dialogue at a minimum and most of what is spoken is rendered in an amalgamated Slavic Esperanto. Without relying heavily on spoken words, Marhoul emerges as a superb visual storyteller, aided by the haunting widescreen and black-and-white cinematography of Vladimir Smutny. Marhoul has also assembled an impressive cast of international actors, including Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgard, Udo Kier, Julian Sands, and Barry Pepper, but his master stroke of casting is the unforgettable Kotlar, who appears in nearly every scene. “Inarguably effective and immersive, its hard, unyielding gaze backed up by the muscularity of its craft” (Guy Lodge, Variety). “Starkly compelling as a reminder of why war survival stories are essential to our understanding of innocence and beastliness” (Robert Abele, The Wrap). 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, Venice Film Festival. (JH) Presented with support from the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies and UW–Madison Hillel

Presented with support from UW–Madison Gender and Sexuality Campus Center

G OPENIN NIGHT

Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of African Cultural Studies

Opening Night Reception THU, APRIL 2 • 5:30 PM MAIN LOUNGE, MEMORIAL UNION Opening night of the 2020 Wisconsin Film Festival is Thursday, April 2 at Memorial Union. Join us for a reception in the Main Lounge from 5:30–7 PM on the second floor of Memorial Union for appetizers, drinks, and a toast to commemorate Opening Night. Then make sure you get tickets for our Opening Night selection and the Golden Badger Awards presentation, downstairs in Shannon Hall at 7 PM.

The Painter and the Thief SAT, APRIL 4 • 9 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 MON, APRIL 6 • 1:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Norway • 2020 • DCP • English, Norwegian with English subtitles • 102 MIN Director: Benjamin Ree; Producer: Ingvil Giske; Editor: Robert Stengård; Cinematographer: Benjamin Ree, Kristoff er Kumar; Music: Uno Helmersson

A late-night art heist is at the core of this rabbit hole of a documentary, which begins when a pair of large oil paintings are stolen from an Oslo gallery. The police quickly track down one of the culprits—far from a crimi-

nal mastermind, he’s a junkie who inexplicably claims to have no idea where this unusual loot could have gone. Hoping to learn what happened, the artist whose work was taken convinces him to let her paint his portrait. As the thief becomes a muse, the two recognize in one another a kind of kindred spirit, forging the unlikeliest of bonds. But looming over their relationship is a nagging question: Where are the missing paintings? Following his subjects for years and a dramatic series of life changes, documentarian Benjamin Ree cleverly switches between their perspectives, first telling the story from the painter’s pointof-view, then the thief’s, creating a back-and-forth dialogue that deepens our understanding of both. “Genius. The cinematic equivalent of a cubist portrait, in which an artist and her unlikely muse are made to overlap, revealing unexpected dimensions of one another over time” (Variety). 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (MK) Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

90 MIN

Official merchandise available at select venues throughout the Festival

The Painted Bird

P-R

Preschool Poets: Bullets SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET

The Perfect Candidate SUN, APRIL 5 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 TUE, APRIL 7 • 1 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Saudi Arabia, Germany • 2019 • DCP • Arabic with English subtitles • 104 MIN Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour; Screenwriters: Haifaa Al Mansour, Brad Niemann; Producers: Roman Paul, Haifaa Al Mansour, Brad Niemann, Gerhard Meixner; Editor: Andreas Wodraschke; Cast: Mila Alzahrani, Dhay, Nourah Al Awad, Khalid Abdulrhim; Cinematographer: Patrick Orth; Music: Volker Bertelmann

After making history with her 2012 debut Wadjda, the first film directed by a female Saudi filmmaker, Haifaa Al Mansour follows up with this sharp, empowering tale of one Saudi woman’s unlikely political campaign. Barred from traveling to a medical conference due to Saudi Arabia’s guardianship policy, Dr. Maryam spins a bureaucratic paperfiling fluke into a long-shot race for city council—the first female to ever try in her small town. For her modest platform, Maryam vows to pave the dirt road leading to her hospital, but the more chauvinism she encounters, the deeper her resolve grows. Meanwhile, Maryam’s father, recently a widower, tours the peninsula playing the oud in an Arabic band, hoping to return to see his daughters by election day. With confidence and nonchalance, Maryam shoulders through the patriarchy and charts a more democratic future for her country in the process. 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, 2019 Venice International Film Festival, 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (ZZ)

Preschool Poets: Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Crumpy and Mr. Bumpy SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

amounted to one of the largest and most significant bodies of movingimage work produced in the 20th century. This fun program of highlights from “Private Lives Public Spaces,” curated and hosted by MoMA Film Collections Manager Katie Trainor, puts a spotlight on artists, celebrities, world travelers, and the public at large. These filmmakers used 16mm and 8mm equipment to produce work that is by turns vigorous, sentimental, frank, and sometimes transgressive. Dating from 1927 to 1981, the selections include home movies of famed photographer Edward Steichen, silent movie idols Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford (with a cameo from Charlie Chaplin!), and Salvador Dali captured in Port Ligot, Spain. Plus, a view of NYC’s Tompkins Square Park in the late 1960s, an Amtrak journey from Washington, DC to Los Angeles in 1977, family life in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, and more! (JH)

Martin Family, Steichen Archive 1927 • 9 MIN

Spanish People at Pickfair 1929 • 12 MIN

Tompkins Square Park 1967 • 10 MIN

My Dream Trip 1977 • 12 MIN

Jarrett Family Home Movies 1958-1963 • 10 MIN

Preschool Poets: Supergirl SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

New York 1981 • 12 MIN

Salvador Dali Home Movie 1954 • 2 MIN

Personhood FRI, APRIL 3 • 6:00 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART THU, APRIL 9 • 4:00 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: JO ARDINGER (4/3 ONLY) 87 MIN

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Place of the Pike: Ginoozhekaaning WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • 2019 • HD Projection, DCP • 7 MIN Director: Finn Ryan; Producers: Finn Ryan, Dylan Jennings, Charlie Rasmussen; Editor: Lukas Korver; Cinematographer: Mike Palzkill; Music: Sean Carey, Ben Lester, Zach Hanson

One man and his fishing boat catalyzed the Ojibwe people’s reclamation of their treaty rights. This documentary short tells the story of A.B. LeBlanc, who was arrested for fishing without a license and fought the state of Michigan to pre28 serve his community’s identity. (ES)

Winner of a 2020 Golden Badger Award Presented with support from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: GERRY PEARY AND AMY GELLER

Directors: Gerald Peary, Amy Geller; Screenwriter: Gerald Peary; Producer: Amy Geller; Editors: David Reeder, Lucia Small; Cinematographer: David Reeder

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • United States • 2019 • HD Projection, DCP • 80 MIN

Passed in 1997, Wisconsin’s “Unborn Child Protection Act” protects a fetus in the event of substance or alcohol abuse by the mother. When Tammy Loertscher discovered she was pregnant, she decided to disclose her past drug use to her doctor. This alarming, exhaustively researched documentary tells the story of the unending nightmare that followed, in which the state assigned an attorney to her fetus and stripped Loertscher of her constitutional rights. With an unwavering eye, Jo Ardinger’s directorial debut bears witness to outrages on both a local and national level, from the breaching of doctor-patient confidentiality to the criminalization of lower income women. When justice becomes a privilege rather than a right, this film asks, do pregnant women lose their personhood? 2019 Doc NYC. (FQ)

The Rabbi Goes West SUN, APRIL 5 • 4:45 PM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART MON, APRIL 6 • 1 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 MADISON PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • HD projection, DCP • English, Hebrew, Yiddish with English subtitles• 79 MIN

Personhood Director: Jo Ardinger; Screenwriter: Jo Ardinger; Producers: Rosalie Miller, Jo Ardinger; Editor: Jo Ardinger; Cinematographer: Marc Pingry

parents’ house since dropping out of medical school. She and her friendly boss, Gail (Laverne Cox), gab away days at the cafe. The way she spends her evenings, however, reveals a boiling vendetta. Men who cross her path are in serious danger, as beautiful and brutal Cassie seeks to heal from past trauma by doling out scathing lessons. When Ryan (Bo Burnham), a former classmate, re-enters her life, so does the possibility of healing—until new details about the death of her best friend infuriate Cassie and inspire her most potent confrontation yet. Screenwriter/director Emerald Fennell marks her feature debut with the signature bite, wit, and re-imagined femme fatales she brought to TV’s Killing Eve’s. Fennell and her team paint a perversely heroic portrait and a eulogy to the loss of potential that occurs when male cruelty claims yet another promising young woman. (From the Sundance Film Festival 2020 Catalogue.)

Private Lives Public Spaces: Home Movies and Amateur Films from the Museum of Modern Art SAT, APRIL 4 • 4 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: KATIE TRAINOR 67 MIN

Currently on exhibition at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, “Private Lives Public Spaces” is MoMA’s first gallery installation of home movies and amateur films drawn exclusively from its collection. Long before camera phones, the 1923 introduction of small-gauge film stock heralded the unofficial birth of affordable home moviemaking. Over the subsequent decades, many thousands of reels of amateur film shot around the world

Promising Young Woman SAT, APRIL 4 • 6 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2020 • DCP • 113 MIN Director: Emerald Fennell; Screenwriter: Emerald Fennell; Producers: Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara, Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell; Editor: Frédéric Thoraval; Cast: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Laverne Cox, Connie Britton, Jennifer Coolidge; Cinematographer: Benjamin Kračun; Music: Anthony Willis

Suspiciously unambitious Cassie (Carey Mulligan) leads a quiet existence as a barista who lives in her

Chaim Bruk, a self-proclaimed “salesman of God” proves to be relentless in his efforts to “sell Judaism” in this disarming, provocative documentary by Gerald Peary (Archie’s Betty, WFF 2016) and Amy Geller. Brooklyn-born Bruk finds himself living in Bozeman, Montana, placed there by Chabad, a branch of Judaism that puts a high value on outreach. Previously established reformed and conservative local Jewish communities are not entirely receptive to the methods of this brash interloper, and the ways in which Chabad’s priorities (slapping a mezuzah on the door of any and every willing Jew in the area) clash with the customs and methods of those communities. Sparks fly when these conflicting Jewish communities come together for a conversation featuring such topics as support of Israel, women’s rights, and interpretations of the Torah. Those sparks threaten to turn into flames when neo-Nazis are added to the mix; luckily Bruk and his elementary school-aged children are regulars on the gun range. (FQ) Presented with support from the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies and UW–Madison Hillel

R-S

Salvation SCREENS IN: FIRST PERSON, SINGULAR: WISCONSIN’S OWN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

Robin and Marian FRI, APRIL 3 • 3 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: RITA BELDA Narrative • USA • 1976 • DCP • 120 MIN Director: Richard Lester; Screenwriter: James Goldman; Producer: Denis O’Dell; Editor: John Victor Smith; Cast: Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Shaw, Denholm Elliott, Richard Harris, Nicol Williamson, Ian Holm; Cinematographer: David Watkin; Music: John Barry

A middle-aged Robin Hood (Sean Connery) returns to Sherwood Forest after 20 years of fighting in the Crusades with Richard the Lionhearted (Richard Harris). Reunited with an equally middle-aged Maid Marian (Audrey Hepburn, returning to the big screen after a nine-year hiatus), Robin hopes to settle down. But the ever-oppressive Sheriff of Nottingham (Robert Shaw) again steps in to cause trouble. An English equivalent to America’s revisionist Westerns of the 1960s and 1970s, Robin and Marian is a thoughtful transformation of a legendary tale into a moving examination of aging, the ending of eras, and the way history and myth can conceal the ugliness of violence. American expat director Richard Lester (A Hard Day’s Night, Petulia) assembled one of the great casts of any 1970s movie. Working with the muted palette of his regular cinematographer David Watkin, Lester delivers a rugged, realistic vision of the Middle Ages that stands in marked contrast to the Technicolor hues of the Disney and Warner Bros./ Errol Flynn versions of the Robin Hood legend. This newly created 4K DCP of Robin and Marian will be introduced by Rita Belda, Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Vice President of Asset Management, Film Restoration, and Digital Mastering. (JH)

Rocks

Director: Sarah Gavron; Screenwriters: Theresa Ikoko, Claire Wilson; Producers: Faye Ward, Ameenah Ayub Allen; Editor: Maya Maffi oli; Cast: Bukky Bakray, Kosar Ali, D’angelou Osei Kissiedu, Shaneigha-Monik Greyson, Ruby Stokes, Tawheda Begum, Anastasia Dymitrow, Afi Okaidja, Sarah Niles; Cinematographer: Hélène Louvart; Music: Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch

A vibrant portrait of London’s multicultural youth, “Rocks is a real treat: full of warmth, honesty and authenticity” (Screen). Shola is a 15-year-old Nigerian British girl, better known to her tight-knit group of friends as Rocks. She and her kid brother suddenly find themselves on their own when their single mom abruptly skips out on them. Independent down to her bones, Rocks comes to rely on her friends’ immigrant families to get back on her feet. Director Sarah Gavron demonstrated her innate understanding of teenagers with the documentary Village at the End of the World (WFF 2014), and her new film’s incredible authenticity is the result of an open collaboration with her winning young cast. Their buoyant charisma keeps Rocks funny and fresh, even in troubled times. “An energetic five-star triumph. With its creativity, its raw passion and its fun, this film and its newcomer cast are the best thing I’ve seen at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. This film is such a rush of vitality. It rocks” (The Guardian). “A wildly charming street-level celebration of modern teenage wit and resilience. A pleasure to behold” (The Telegraph). 2019 London Film Festival, 2020 Rotterdam Film Festival. (MK)

Rounds FRI, APRIL 3 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 MON, APRIL 6 • 2 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5

Over the course of one long night in Sofia, three pairs of cops make their rounds, encountering all manner of

schemers, misfits, and crooks—the latter a group that frequently includes themselves. It’s the eve of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, putting everyone in a reflective mood about the sinking state of their nation, and a bit more on edge. The three sets of partners all face complex, realistic morality tests, but even at their best, none are immune to compromise—and several are comfortable with far worse. Given its hard-boiled, seen-it-all beat, it’s no surprise that this ride-along indulges in a deep well of (very funny) gallows humor—the repeated disposal of one particularly stubborn body makes for an especially great, grim gag. As he cuts between each team throughout the night, director Stefan Komandarev fluidly captures each scene in a single shot, drawing us deeper into the situation and emphasizing the inherently immediate nature of police work. Engrossing and darkly humorous, Rounds makes for a rewarding night ride. Best Actress, Cineuropa Award, 2019 Sarajevo Film Festival. (MK) Presented with support from UW–Madison CREECA

Sanzaru FRI, APRIL 3 • 9 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: XIA MAGNUS MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • USA • 2020 • DCP • 88 MIN Director: Xia Magnus; Screenwriter: Xia Magnus; Producers: Alyssa Polk, Anthony Perdone, Nathan Hertz; Editor: Joshua Raymond Lee; Cast: Aina Dumlao, Justin Arnold, Jayne Taini, Jon Viktor Corpuz, Tomorrow Shea, Matthew Albrecht; Cinematographer: Mark Khalife; Music: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs

On a run-down Texas ranch where a young Filipina nurse (Aina Dumlao) works as a live-in caregiver for an elderly matriarch (Jayne Taini) slipping into dementia, strange things start happening. This is the setting and setup for the deeply unsettling modern day gothic, Sanzaru. Making his directorial feature debut, Xia Magnus (Round River, Golden Badger winner, WFF 2016; Hunter, WFF 2017) establishes a mood of quiet dread right from the start. As the screws tighten in this well constructed slowburner, the atmosphere becomes almost unbearably tense, and nothing is quite what it seems. Gorgeously photographed by Mark Khalifé and featuring a note-perfect lead performance by Dumlao, Sanzaru expertly balances traditional genre thrills and chills with a deeper, more contemporary examination of the complications that result from buried secrets and repressed childhood trauma. (BR)

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Switzerland • 2020 • DCP • Arabic with English subtitles • 88 MIN Director: Susanne Regina Meures; Producer: Christian Frei; Editor: Christian Frei; Cinematographer: Muna

Filmed in secret by a young woman in Saudi Arabia—often from beneath her hijab—as she plots her escape to Europe, this riveting documentary is both a towering act of courage and an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Already well aware she’s a secondclass citizen in her homeland, Muna is facing down an arranged marriage to a near-stranger and an ensuing lifetime of repression. But in her upcoming fairy-tale honeymoon in Abu Dhabi, she sees an opportunity for escape—perhaps the best shot she’ll ever have at getting out. Smartphone in hand, Muna shares her world with diaristic intimacy, in all its contradictory emotions: her excitement at the prospect of a different future, her necessary deceptiveness as she plays along with the wedding planning, her heartache over leaving her family along with her country, and her nervousness at getting caught along the way. “Exhilarating, nail-biting, and extraordinarily gutsy. Transforms selfie-style narcissism into radical resistance” (Manohla Dargis, The New York Times). “Breathtaking. Muna deserves an Oscar” (The Hollywood Reporter). 2020 Sundance, Berlin Film Festivals. (MK)

Workshops Workshops for young film buffs will be posted on the 2020 Film Festival site, 2020.wifilmfest.org. Details coming soon!

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Director: Stephan Komandarev; Screenwriters: Simeon Ventsislavov, Stephan Komandarev; Producers: Katya Trichkova, Stephan Komandarev; Editor: Nina Altaparmakova; Cast: Ivan Barnev, Assen Blatechki, Stoyan Doychev, Vassil Vassilev-Zouek, Irini Jambonas, Stefan Denolyubov; Cinematographer: Vesselin Hristov

SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

FRI, APRIL 3 • 1:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 SAT, APRIL 4 • 6:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • UK • 2019 • DCP • 93 MIN

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Bulgaria, Serbia, France • 2019 • DCP • Bulgarian with English subtitles • 106 MIN

Robot and the Whale

Saudi Runaway

FRI, APRIL 3 • 1 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 SAT, APRIL 4 • 4 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6

Searching for Mr. Rugoff TUE, APRIL 7 • 6 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: IRA DEUTCHMAN WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2019 • DCP • 93 MIN Director: Ira Deutchman; Producer: Ira Deutchman; Editor: Brian Gersten; Cinematographer: Peter Gilbert; Music: Leo Sidran

One of the most influential people in the history of independent movies, Donald Rugoff was a New York theater chain owner who later founded his own distribution company, Cinema 5. With a gruff, and sometimes downright impossible personality, Rugoff kicked art films into the mainstream with outrageous marketing schemes and pure bluster. Some of his most successful releases included CostaGavras’s Z, Lina Wertmuller’s Swept Away, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Robert Downey’s Putney Swope, and the legendary Rolling Stones documentary, Gimme Shelter (screening at this year’s WFF). His impact on the art film business is undeniable. Yet, mysteriously, Rugoff has become a virtually forgotten figure. In Searching for Mr. Rugoff, director Ira Deutchman, himself an important figure in independent releasing, sets out to find the truth about the man who had such a major impact on his life, and uncovers some surprising and poignant facts. “An enthralling documentary that movie buffs everywhere will want to see. Don Rugoff… had a dream, and Searching for Mr. Rugoff is an infectious salute to what that dream was: a place where cinema could live” (Owen Gleiberman, Variety). (JH)

The Servant MON, APRIL 6 • 5:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 Narrative • UK • 1963 • DCP • 115 MIN

(whose Mr. Klein is also showing at this year’s WFF in a new restoration). Losey’s deliberately jarring use of cuts between sequences, along with the striking black-and-white visuals of genius cinematographer Douglas Slocombe (Freud, Raiders of the Lost Ark), combine with the jazzy John Dankworth score and haunting Cleo Laine theme song for an unforgettable movie experience. Controversial and critically acclaimed as one of the best British productions of its era, the influence of The Servant can be tracked internationally over the decades in films ranging from Performance and The Remains of the Day (both featuring James Fox in variations on his Servant performance) to David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers and Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite. A restoration created for The Servant’s 50th anniversary in 2013 will be screened. (JH) Presented with support from UW–Madison English Department

Director: Joseph Losey; Screenwriter: Harold Pinter; Producers: Joseph Losey, Norman Priggen; Editor: Reginald Mills; Cast: Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig, Catherine Lacey, Patrick Magee; Cinematographer: Douglas Slocombe; Music: John Dankworth

Tony (James Fox), a wealthy bachelor just released from military duty, purchases a posh London townhouse, and, at the same time, hires a personal manservant, Barrett (Dirk Bogarde). The tensions that Barrett initiates between Tony and his fiancée Susan (Wendy Craig) are only exacerbated when the butler introduces his sister Vera (Sarah Miles) to Tony. In time, the sinister Barrett has fully corrupted the traditional relationship between a servant and his master. Loosely adapting an autobiographical novel by Robin Maugham, Nobel laureate Harold Pinter made his debut as a screenwriter with this chilling study of class struggle and perversion. Pinter’s signature dialogue—enigmatic and elliptical—is brought to vivid life by an extraordinary cast under the lean direction by La Crosse, Wisconsin native Joseph Losey

Short and Sweet SUN, APRIL 5 • 11:00 AM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH 73 MIN SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS

Preschool Poets: Bullets MADISON PREMIERE • Animation • USA • 2018 • DCP • 1 MIN Directors: Nancy Kangas, Josh Kun

Preschooler Brayden has a simple approach to gun violence. He feels that people, as well as guns, should relax and stop shooting people. Stas Santimov visualizes the deeper meaning of this intense poem. (KK)

Seven Years in May Sette Anos En Maio

SCREENS IN: THE GIVERNY DOCUMENT & SEVEN YEARS IN MAY

The Kite

Pouštět draka / Šarkan WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • Czech Republic • 2019 • DCP • 13 MIN Director: Martin Smatana

This touching short portrays a grandpa who loves to fly kites with his grandson. Told with enchanting, mixed media images, The Kite is an homage to those who are no longer with us. (KK)

Emily MIDWEST PREMIERE • Animation • The Netherlands • 2018 • DCP • 8 MIN Director: Marlies van der Wel; Screenwriter: Marlies van der Wel

Marlies van der Wel (Jonas and the Sea, WFF 2016) is back with Emily, a beautiful animated short about an elderly florist. (KK)

Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days

The Shawl SCREENS IN: DEERSKIN

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • Canada,France,Portugal • 2019 • DCP • 13 MIN Director: Regina Pessoa; Editor: Abi Feijo; Cast: Regina Pessoa, Abi Feijo, Normand Roger

This intense short describes, in melancholy images, the special relationship between director Regina Pessoa and her eccentric uncle. This moving tribute to a poet of the everyday won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject. (KK)

My Life in Versailles La Vie de Château

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • France • 2019 • DCP • French, with English subtitles • 28 MIN Directors: Clemence Madeleine-Perdillant, Nathaniel H’limi; Screenwriters: Clemence Madeleine-Perdillant, Nathaniel H’limi; Cast: Anne Alvaro, Frédéric Pierrot, Céline Ronté, Albin de la Simone

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

MMSD Spring Break

STAYCATION! Travel the world without leaving Madison. No passport required to see 150 films from around the globe.

2020.wifilmfest.org

Who doesn’t want to live in a castle? While that sounds like a dream, it is a nightmare for Violette, an 8-year-old orphan, whose Uncle Régis works at Versailles. (KK)

Mi Hermano Luca

Mi Hermano Luca WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • Mexico • 2019 • DCP • Spanish with English subtitles • 10 MIN Directors: Carlos Algara, Catalina Serna; Screenwriters: Carlos Algara, Catalina Serna, Sofía Garza; Cast: Eugenia Lozano Serna

An imaginative sister discovers that her brother Luca might have superpowers. She sets out on a quest to make sure everyone else sees him as she does. Will she be able to show the world, or not? (KK) Presented with support from SSM Health

S My Brother Luca

Mi Hermano Luca WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • Mexico • 2019 • DCP • 10 MIN Directors: Carlos Algara, Catalina Serna; Screenwriters: Carlos Algara, Catalina Serna, Sofía Garza; Cast: Eugenia Lozano Serna

An imaginative sister discovers that her brother Luca might have superpowers. She sets out on a quest to make sure everyone else sees him as she does. Will she be able to show the world, or not? (KK)

Even When We Sleep

Même quand nous dormons

Shorter and Sweeter SAT, APRIL 4 • 10 AM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH 61 MIN SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS

Join us for this exciting program of family-friendly, award-winning short films from around the world! Please note that our Shorter and Sweeter short films are either in English or do not contain dialogue.

Konigiri-Kun: The Boat MIDWEST PREMIERE • Animation • Japan • 2019 • DCP • 5 MIN Director: Mari Miyazawa; Screenwriter: Mari Miyazawa

Say hello to our friend the little rice ball as they compete at the Tokyo Olympics. (KK)

6:1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • Russia • 2018 • DCP • 3 MIN Director: Sergei Ryabov

Playing checkers on the train can be so much fun. When Cat loses over and over again, a plan is set in motion... (KK) Special thanks to Sergei Ryabov.

Angel’s Trumpet MIDWEST PREMIERE • Animation • Estonia • 2019 • DCP • 3 MIN Director: Martinus Klemet

What if hummingbirds could interact with musical instruments the same way they do with plants like angel’s trumpets? What kind of melodies would the hummingbirds inspire? (KK)

Archie WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • UK • 2019 • DCP • 5 MIN

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • France • 2017 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 3 MIN Director: Camille Monnier; Screenwriter: Paul Eluard

Based on Paul Eluard’s poem “En sortant de l’école,” the film depicts an old woman and her cat. Watch in wonder as daily life turns into a beautiful work of art. (KK)

Directors: Michelle Chua and 9 others; Producer: Michelle Chua

Fox obediently does as he is told by the narrator. But when he gets into a fight with pigeon over a very tempting looking ice cream cone, both realize that they need to take control of their own destinies. (KK) Special thanks to Sheridan College and OOV Studios.

Tough Teeth MIDWEST PREMIERE • Animation • USA • 2019 • DCP • 4 MIN Director: Brianna Kastner

After a long day of chomping, Crocodile is losing his teeth. He has no idea that this is a normal process and tries to hide his loss, much to Grandma’s sorrow! (KK) Special thanks to Brianna Kastner. Presented with support from SSM Health

Simple Men FRI, APRIL 3 • 5:30 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE Narrative • USA • 1992 • 35mm • 105 MIN Director: Hal Hartley; Screenwriter: Hal Hartley; Producers: Jerome Brownstein, Hal Hartley, Ted Hope, Bruce Weiss; Editor: Steve Hamilton; Cast: Robert John Burke, Bill Sage, Karen Sillas, Elina Löwensohn, Martin Donovan; Cinematographer: Michael Spiller; Music: Yo La Tengo

“There’s no such thing as adventure. There’s no such thing as romance. There’s only trouble and desire.” When their long-lost father, a famed anarchist shortstop, escapes from a

hospital, two brothers head to Long Island in search of him. It’s not like they have anywhere else to go: Bill is a rough-hewn thief who just got double-crossed, while his younger brother Dennis is a naïve college grad with a degree in philosophy. Their mission gets sidetracked at a small-town diner, where they become romantically involved with a pair of local women. Made at the height of writer/director Hal Hartley’s powers, Simple Men is packed with his inimitably funny, ever-quotable dialogue, and features some of his signature scenes, particularly an indelible dance routine set to Sonic Youth’s “Kool Thing.” In her first feature film, Elina Löwensohn steals the show (even from Hartley favorite Martin Donovan), launching a decades-long career which now includes Simple Women, a new look back on her debut, also screening at our festival. “A beautifully realized American art film” (Variety). 1992 Cannes Film Festival. (MK)

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • France • 2018 • DCP • 4 MIN Director: Florent Hill; Screenwriter: Florent Hill; Cast: Colin Hill, Fanny Hill, Cyril Cotinaut

A little boy hates it when his grandmother slurps her soup. He tries to correct her bad habit. Find out for yourself if it works in Florent Hill’s funny short. (KK)

Silent Running

Preschool Poets: Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Crumpy and Mr. Bumpy

Narrative • USA • 1972 • DCP • 89 MIN

MADISON PREMIERE • Animation • USA • 2018 • DCP • 1 MIN Director: Nancy Kangas, Josh Kun

Preschooler Alexa describes her feelings about her sick grandmother while animator Ross Hogg visualizes them in this touching short. (KK)

The Last Days of Autumn

Le dernier jour d’automne WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Animation • Belgium, France, Switzerland • 2019 • DCP • 7 MIN Director: Marjolaine Perreten

With winter on its way, the animals of the forest make their last preparations for an unusual race. While the autumn leaves are still showing off their beautiful colors, they need to reach their winter shelters in time for hibernation. (KK)

[secret short]

Archie and his dog make the long journey to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland to say goodbye to beloved Aunt Betty. While a storm rages, memories of nice times come flooding back. (KK)

Director: Lena von Döhren; Screenwriter: Lena von Döhren; Editor: Fee Liechti

MADISON PREMIERE • Animation • Switzerland • 2020 • DCP • 5 MIN

Preschool Poets: Supergirl

Screening made possible with support from Consulate General of Switzerland, Chicago.

MADISON PREMIERE • Animation • USA • 2018 • DCP • 1 MIN

Robot and the Whale Wisconsin Premiere • Animation • Sweden • 2019 • DCP • 6 MIN Director: Jonas Forsman

Robot is not very fond of water. It does not agree with him. But when he sees a stranded whale, he overcomes his fears and embarks on a rescue mission. (KK)

THU, APRIL 9 • 6 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 Director: Douglas Trumbull; Screenwriters: Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, Steven Bochco; Producer: Michael Gruskoff; Editor: Aaron Stell; Cast: Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint; Cinematographer: Charles F. Wheeler; Music: Peter Schickele

This science fiction cult classic is set in a future when all organic plant life has disappeared from earth. A wildeyed Bruce Dern plays Freeman Lowell, one of four human astronauts eight years into their mission aboard the space vessel Valley Forge. Assigned to watch over the geodesic domes that protect and nourish the last remnants of trees and vegetation, Lowell is the only one of his comrades who is devastated when orders are given to destroy the forests. Lowell’s impulsive reaction sends him and his plants hurtling toward Saturn, accompanied only by three drones he re-names Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Silent Running marked the directorial debut of genius special effects creator Douglas Trumbull, celebrated for his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Working from a script written by Michael Cimino and Deric Washburn, future collaborators on The Deer Hunter, with an assist from soon-to-be-TV-colossus Steven Bochco, Trumbull crafted an unforgettable tale of survival and a potent ecological warning. The wonderful costumes, production design, and miniature effects later influenced a number of other sci-fi milestones from Star Wars to Alien to Interstellar. Silent Running also played a real-life role in inspiring the creators of Biosphere 2, whose story is captured in the documentary Spaceship Earth, also playing at this year’s WFF. (JH)

Simple Women FRI, APRIL 3 • 8 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE SAT, APRIL 4 • 3:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: CHIARA MALTA MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Italy, Romania • 2019 • DCP • Italian, English, Romanian with English subtitles • 85 MIN Director: Chiara Malta; Screenwriters: Chiara Malta, Sébastien Laudenbach, Marco Pettenello; Producers: Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Paonessa, Ada Solomon; Editors: Ioachim Stroe, Giogiò Franchini; Cast: Jasmine Trinca, Elina Löwensohn; Cinematographer: Tudor Vladimir Panduru

In adolescence, Federica became obsessed with Hal Hartley’s 1992 American independent movie Simple Men (also showing at our Festival this year). In particular, Federica was struck by the charismatic supporting turn (and dancing!) by actress Elina Löwensohn, especially since Löwensohn played a character who has epileptic fits, just like Federica. Now a young adult, Federica (Jasmine Trinca) has become a film director herself, and a chance encounter with the real Elina Löwensohn leads to the two women collaborating on a new movie, ostensibly about Löwensohn’s personal trajectory from a childhood in Ceausescu’s Romania to appearing in Hartley’s Long Island-filmed cult classic. But Federica has trouble communicating her vision for the project, and after another epileptic episode, the lines that separate fiction and reality, as well as Federica and Elina’s personas, begin to fade away. Funny, imaginative, and wonderfully odd, this meta-take on the artistic process and its relation to the subconscious springs from the mind of co-writer and director Chiara Malta, inspired by her own encounter with Elina Löwensohn. “A dizzying story about ambition and artistic competition” (Amy Nicholson, Variety). (JH)

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Special thanks to Young Films and Ainslie Henderson.

We have a surprise for you, a short so new we can’t even mention its name. Trust us, you’ll love it. It’s got birds AND bees! (KK)

Written and recited by preschooler Penny, animator Henri Baroque brings Supergirl to life, but also lets her sleep when necessary. Discover just how super someone can be in this marvelous short. (KK)

MIDWEST PREMIERE • Animation • Canada • 2019 • DCP • 4 MIN

Slurp

Director: Ainslie Henderson; Screenwriter: Domenica More Gordon; Producer: Chris Young; Editor: Tim Owen; Cinematographer: John Duffy; Music: Keith Duncan

Directors: Nancy Kangas, Josh Kun

The Fox & the Pigeon

let's go to the movies

Union Cab

UNLIMITED

W INE SAMPLING

OVER

WINE 120 SAMPLES FROM 30 WINERIES

SATURDAY, MAY 16 • 3-6PM MCPIKE PARK, MADISON Tickets at isthmusuncorked.com

#isthmusuncorked

Tickets to Isthmus events support local, independent journalism. Thank you for your support of Madison’s alt-weekly.

2020

WISCONSIN FILM FESTIVAL

—————— Free

at Madison Area Public Libraries ——————

SNEAK PEEKS

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Watch Film Trailers of 2020 Wisconsin Film Festival Selections plus Q&A with Festival organizers!

Monday 3/9 | 6:00 pm Hawthorne Library*

Saturday 3/21 | 3:00 pm Central Library*

Tuesday 3/17 | 6:00 pm Alicia Ashman Library*

Thursday 3/26 | 6:30 pm E.D. Locke Public Library —McFarland

Wednesday 3/18 | 6:00 pm Middleton Library

Friday 3/27 | 6:00 pm Lakeview Library

Your sunglass destination on State Street for 30 years!

* Events at the Madison Public Library are made possible by a grant from the Madison Public Library Foundation The Wisconsin Film Festival is presented by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts in collaboration with the Department of Communication Arts.

2020.wifilmfest.org/events

Curated gifts to support your well designed, mindful, sustainable lifestyle.

@littleluxuriesmadison.com

littleluxuriesmadison.com

S-T

Slow Volumes SCREENS IN: JUST DON’T THINK I’LL SCREAM

A Son

Bik Eneich

SAT, APRIL 4 • 11:30 AM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 SUN, APRIL 5 • 4 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Tunisia, France, Lebanon, Qatar • 2019 • DCP • Arabic, French with English subtitles • 96 MIN

Slurp SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

So Late So Soon SUN, APRIL 5 • 11 AM CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART MON, APRIL 6 • 4:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2020 • DCP • 70 MIN Director: Daniel Hymanson; Producers: Josh Penn, Kellen Quinn, Trace Henderson, Noah Stahl; Editor: Isidore Bethel

It’s a bright summer’s day in Tunisia, and a vacationing family is cruising through the desert in their SUV, singing along to a pop song. This scene of joy is shattered when they barrel straight into a military skirmish. The couple’s son is caught in the crossfire, but could be saved by an organ transplant. The search for a donor unexpectedly creates a web of knotty dilemmas—both in the form of painful personal revelations and frustrating impasses resulting from Tunsia’s restrictive laws. Mehdi M. Barsaoui’s debut feature faces difficult, irresolvable questions head-on, and is grounded by a pair of outstanding lead performances from Najla Ben Abdallah and Sami Bouajila, who won a Best Actor Award at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. “Riveting. Not many debuting directors are able to bring subtlety and depth to a heart-rending subject, which is just one reason why Mehdi M. Barsaoui’s superb A Son deserves significant attention” (Variety). “Reminiscent of the work of Iranian master Asghar Farhadi (A Separation)… an exciting and complex debut” (Cineuropa). Best Arab Film, 2019 Cairo Film Festival. (MK)

oil tycoon hoping to acquire licensable technologies for space colonization, the mission of Biosphere 2 was to maintain an isolated, sustainable environment for two years. It was a mission that led to significant ecological crises under the geodesic domes, including near starvation, polluted air, and a serious problem with cockroaches. Biosphere 2 generated a lot of press, but little was revealed about the people who created it. Using archival footage and new interviews with the surviving participants, Spaceship Earth follows the visionary countercultural collective over half of a century, beginning with early experiments and avant-garde theater performed around the globe leading up to Biosphere 2. If Spaceship Earth is a cautionary tale about the forces that threaten our planet, it is also an inspirational tribute to what a small creative group can achieve. (JH)

Spilt Milk SCREENS IN: 1BR

Staring at Socks SCREENS IN: GENERATION NOW: STORIES FROM WISCONSIN’S OWN

Talking the Pictures Katsuben!

SUN, APRIL 5 • 1:30 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION

Presented with support from UW–Madison Middle East Studies Program

MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Japan • 2019 • DCP • Japanese with English subtitles • 126 MIN Director: Masayuki Suo; Screenwriter: Shozo Katashima; Producers: Shoji Masui, Motoi Sasaki, Kazuhito Amano, Takao Tsuchimoto, Shintaro Horikawa; Editor: Junichi Kikuchi; Cast: Ryo Narita, Yuina Kuroshima, Naoto Takenaka, Eri Watanabe, Masatoshi Nagase; Cinematographer: Junichi Fujisawa; Music: Yoshikazu Suo

Sorry We Missed You WED, APRIL 8 • 1:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 THU, APRIL 9 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • UK • 2019 • DCP • 102 MIN Director: Ken Loach; Screenwriter: Paul Laverty; Producer: Rebecca O’Brien; Editor: Jonathan Morris; Cast: Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Stone, Katie Proctor; Cinematographer: Robbie Ryan; Music: George Fenton

Six decades of vigorous, politically committed filmmaking have not slowed Ken Loach down one bit,

Spaceship Earth THU, APRIL 9 • 8 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative, Documentary • USA • 2020 • DCP • 113 MIN Director: Matt Wolf; Screenwriter: ; Producer: Matt Wolf, Stacey Reiss; Editor: David Teague; Cast: ; Cinematographer: Sam Wooton; Music: Owen Pallett

In 1991, eight men and women were sealed into Biosphere 2, an airtight terrarium in the Arizona desert containing miniature versions of various Earth ecosystems: desert, ocean, rainforest, etc. Partly inspired by the movie Silent Running (also showing at this year’s WFF) and funded by an

The latest film from the prize-winning director of Shall We Dance? is a comic and affectionate romp through the silent era of Japanese film history that will delight all varieties of movie lovers. As children in the 1920s, Umeko and Shuntaro become friends after stumbling onto the location set of a samurai drama and sneaking into a local cinema. There, Shuntaro is dazzled by the area’s best benshi, whose narration proves as big a draw as the films themselves. Ten years later, Shuntaro has become involved with bandits who have him do his own knockout benshi act while they rob the houses of villagers who are at the movies. Umeko, meanwhile, is an aspiring actress dating another self-involved benshi who has promised to help Umeko break into movies. Soon, the two childhood friends are reunited and wrapped up in a caper involving gangsters, a failing movie house, a suitcase full of money, and a basket of nitrate film excerpts. “It’s not often one finds a period film born of reverent, deeply researched cinephilia that is also a rip-roaring slapstick comedy suitable for the whole family (those able to read subtitles, that is), but the utterly adorable Talking the Pictures fits just that double bill” (Jessica Kiang, Variety). (JH) Presented with support from UW–Madison Center for East Asian Studies

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

In Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, a house has been transformed into a work of art. First glimpsed using dental floss to suspend a toy midair in her kitchen, Jackie Seiden has turned each room into an everchanging art installation, while lifesize animal sculptures by her husband Don roam the backyard. The house is central to their identity and a testament to their unconventional 50-year relationship, but like anything else, it won’t last forever. Leaks and pests start to chip away at Jackie’s good humor, along with the realization that the couple’s own bodies are giving out along with the house. Documentarian Daniel Hymanson met Jackie as a toddler enrolled in one of her preschool art classes, and the decades of trust built up between them has resulted in a knowing, frequently funny look at life’s inevitabilities. A pioneer in the field of art therapy, Don founded that program at the School of the Art Institute, where he taught for many decades. Their brightly-colored, cluttered house may be the most memorable documentary dwelling since Grey Gardens. (MK)

Director: Mehdi M. Barsaoui; Screenwriter: Mehdi M. Barsaoui; Producers: Marc Irmer, Habib Attia, Chantal Fischer; Editor: Camille Toubkis; Cast: Sami Bouajila, Najla Ben Abdallah, Youssef Khemiri; Cinematographer: Antoine Héberlé; Music: Amine Bouhafa

as evidenced here in the director’s latest work, an intimate look at the pitfalls of the gig economy. Looking to rebound after losing his home and job in the 2008 financial crash, Ricky (Kris Hitchen) takes on a quasifreelance courier job, though it means punishing hours, working under a ruthless manager, and making a substantial investment up front. Ricky’s devoted wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood), a home-care nurse, makes her own sacrifices to give her family this fresh start, while their graffitiartist son Seb (beautifully played by newcomer Rhys Stone) experiences his own troubles and political awakening. Ricky’s plan to provide for his loved ones turns out to be the biggest threat to their closeness. In influential 1960s classics like Cathy Come Home and Kes, to award-winning contemporary projects like The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake (WFF 2017), Loach has been steadfastly sympathetic to the struggles of the UK’s working class, while being unrelentingly critical of the policies and institutions that make life hard for his protagonists. Working again with long-time screenwriter Paul Laverty, Loach’s knack for casting and urgent, distinct style of neo-realist storytelling combine to render invisible things like plot and narrative contrivances. Loach and Laverty also manage to imbue Ricky and his family with a warmth and sense of humor that makes their fight for dignity and fairness all the more real and moving. (JH)

Toni SUN, APRIL 5 • 3:45 PM UW CINEMATHEQUE Narrative • France • 1935 • DCP • French, Italian, Spanish with English subtitles • 84 MIN

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection SAT, APRIL 4 • 11:15 AM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 SUN, APRIL 5 • 3:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Lesotho, South Africa, Italy • 2019 • DCP • Sesotho with English subtitles • 120 MIN Director: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese; Screenwriter: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese; Producers: Cait Pansegrouw, Elias Ribeiro; Editor: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese; Cast: Mary Twala Mhlongo, Jerry Mofokeng Wa Makhetha, Makhaola Ndebele, Tseko Monaheng, Siphiwe Nzima; Cinematographer: Pierre de Villiers; Music: Yu Miyashita

Manota’s not about to budge for anyone, least of all some pesky government officials who want to relocate her entire community just to make way for a dam. This tough woman has spent all of her 80 years in her remote village in the mounatins of Lesotho, and is resolved to stay put even after her death. Her standoff is at the center of this stunningly crafted cinematic experience, which director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese based on the life of his grandmother. The premise may be rooted in reality, but Mosese treats it with a visionary style, heightening this fable-like tale through an exceptionally rich combination of sound and image. This first narrative feature by a native Lesotho director introduces a vital new voice in global art cinema. “Every once in a while, a movie reinvigorates one’s faith in the artistic capacity of an entire medium through pure intuition of form and mastery of intent… This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection is that rare gem of a film that falls into an unclassifiable category” (The Playlist). “Unforgettable. Mosese’s mise-en-scène and camerawork are breathtaking” (Slant). Special Jury Award for Visionary Filmmaking, 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (MK) Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of African Cultural Studies

Three Summers

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Três Verões

FRI, APRIL 3 • 8:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 SUN, APRIL 5 • 11:15 AM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Brazil, France • 2019 • DCP • Portuguese with English subtitles • 94 MIN Director: Sandra Kogut; Screenwriters: Sandra Kogut, Iana Cossoy Paro; Producers: Marcello Ludwig Maia, Laurent Lavolé; Editors: Sergio Mekler, Luisa Marques; Cast: Regina Casé, Rogério Fróes, Otavio Müller, Gisele Fróes; Cinematographer: Ivo Lopes Araújo; Music: Berna Ceppas

Madá is the middle-aged caretaker for a handful of beachfront villas owned by 34 a wealthy Rio de Janeiro family. Dur-

ing three consecutive summers—2015 to 2017—Madá attempts to open her own business while tending to her privileged and not-always-kind employers. Later, she becomes a bystander in a major money-laundering scandal, and eventually launches a whole new career. Director and co-writer Sandra Kogut’s keenly observed comedy-drama authentically captures the rhythms of daily life and the genuine struggles of working-class people, especially in relation to their pampered employers. A great deal of the credit for the energy and humor of Three Summers must be given to Regina Casé for her funny, charismatic, and very real performance as Madá, a clever and big-hearted character who reminds us that optimism and shrewd judgement are sometimes the most valuable currencies. “Kogut’s script allows gentle comedy to seep into her observations of the resilience of those working in the service of others” (Caitlin Quinlan, Cinema Scope). 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Winner, Best Actress, 2019 Rio de Janeiro Film Festival. (JH)

Director: Jean Renoir; Screenwriters: Jean Renoir, Jacques Levert; Producers: E. Boyer, Marcel Pagnol; Editors: Suzanne de Troeye, Marguerite Renoir; Cast: Charles Blavette, Celia Montalván, Édouard Delmont, Max Dalban; Cinematographer: Claude Renoir; Music: Paul Bozzi

The late 1920s. Leaving his home in fascist Italy to look for work in the South of France, Toni (played by French actor Charles Blavette) falls hard for another immigrant, the Spanish Josefa (played by Mexican actress Celia Montalván). But when Josefa takes up with a brutal foreman and Toni marries his landlady, the stage is set for jealousy and murder. Inspired by the naturalism in the writings of Marcel Pagnol (Toni’s producer) and taking his story from a real-life crime, director Jean Renoir retreated from studio sets to film outdoors on actual locations in Martigues, using direct sound, deep focus cinematography, and long takes. Renoir’s work on this movie was an inspiration later to the Italian neo-realists, including Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Luchino Visconti. In fact, at age 27, Visconti was Renoir’s assistant director on Toni. (Visconti’s final feature, L’innocente also screens at this year’s WFF). This new 4K digital restoration was taken from Toni’s original camera negative. “One of the key films in Jean Renoir’s work... the film in which he pushed his personal and cinematic quest the farthest” (André Bazin). “Very beautiful, kind of lyrical and very sad; a great Renoir movie” (Wes Anderson). (JH)

When the residents of his town are forced to evacuate, Ben struggles to fit in at his new school in a nearby city. Another newcomer, a talented soccer player from Syria named Tariq, initially represents unwanted competition, but ultimately becomes a friend. Director Sarah Winkestette’s debut film is a thoughtful reflection on migration, belonging, and the nature of friendship. The film has won several prizes, including the 2019 Children’s and Youth Film Award of the GoetheInstitut. (KK) This screening made possible with support from Goethe-Institut Chicago. Presented with support from SSM Health

Tough Teeth SCREENS IN: SHORTER AND SWEETER

Director: Matthew Rankin; Screenwriter: Matthew Rankin; Producers: Gabrielle Tougas-Fréchette, Ménaïc Raoul; Editor: Matthew Rankin; Cast: Dan Beirne, Mikhaïl Ahooja, Catherine Saint-Laurent, Sarianne Cormier, Brent Skagford; Cinematographer: Vincent Biron; Music: Peter Venne, Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux

The Truth La vérité

Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda; Screenwriter: Hirokazu Kore-eda; Producer: Muriel Merlin; Editor: Hirokazu Kore-eda; Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke, Ludivine Sagnier; Cinematographer: Eric Gautier; Music: Alexeï Aïgui

SUN, APRIL 5 • 1 PM THE MARQUEE, UNION SOUTH WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Germany • 2019 • DCP • German with English subtitles • 89 MIN Director: Sarah Winkenstette; Screenwriter: Susanne Finken; Producers: Jonas Weydemann, Jakob D. Weydemann, Milena Klemke, Yvonne Wellie; Editor: Nicole Kortlüke; Cast: Yoran Leicher, Sobhi Awad, Anna König; Cinematographer: Monika Plura; Music: Leonard Petersen SECTION: BIG SCREENS LITTLE FOLKS

Ben, an 11-year-old, loves his hometown—especially his soccer club, where he practices for hours each day.

FRI, APRIL 3 • 5:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 SUN, APRIL 5 • 1 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Canada • 2019 • DCP • 90 MIN

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • France, Japan • 2019 • DCP • English, French with English subtitles • 106 MIN

Too Far Away

The Twentieth Century SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: MATTHEW RANKIN

SAT, APRIL 4 • 6:30 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION

Zu Weit Weg

through her mom’s book and discovers that it paints a much rosier portrait of her childhood than what she actually experienced. Kore-eda’s first film outside Japan is of a piece with the kindhearted, multigenerational family portraits he has specialized in for the past decade, while doubling as a heartfelt ode to French cinema itself. “From first shot to last, it’s a film of high wit and confidence and verve, an astonishingly fluid and accomplished act of boundary-leaping. Catherine Deneuve is magnificent” (Variety). 2019 Venice Film Festival. (MK)

Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, and Ethan Hawke star in this “warm and moving family portrait, with the kind of sensitivity and emotional intelligence only a master storyteller can bring to the table” (Indiewire). That master storyteller is the great Hirokazu Kore-eda—recently Oscarnominated for Shoplifters—whose films are so often a balm to the soul. Deneuve plays Fabienne, an iconic French movie star who is about to publish a much-anticipated memoir; Binoche is her estranged daughter Lumir, back home for the first time in years with her American husband (Hawke) and daughter. Their reunion takes a turn when Lumir starts paging

Sick to death of contemporary politics? Rewind to an even crazier campaign with this gloriously ludicrous delight, set in the improbably cutthroat political landscape of Toronto, 1899. Very loosely based on Mackenzie King, the real-life tenth prime minister of Canada (who would surely be baffled by his own biopic), the film ushers us into a gorgeously realized, faux-technicolor dreamscape, rife with surreal sex and nonstop backstabbing. The impossible-tosynopsize plot is a screwball send-up of Canadian national identity, leading its characters through a veritable ice maze of repression. Jam-packed with jokes and dazzling to behold, The Twentieth Century is guaranteed to be the most fun you have watching political machinations all year. “Matthew Rankin’s hilarious and unbridled debut is a national treasure, boasting incredible cinematic compositions and stylized set pieces, while delivering a magnificent burn of Canadian identity politics and manhood” (The Globe & Mail). “A nonstop wonder... the film’s style is impeccable, its comedic delivery perfectly timed, and its editing sharp and energetic. Every laugh segues immediately into anticipatory giggling at what’s to come next. The Twentieth Century being a biopic is merely the icing on the cake of Rankin’s incredible artistry, craft, and utterly bonkers comic and visual sensibility” ( /Film). 2020 Berlin Film Festival. (MK)

T-W unforgettable. The film wants viewers to ask questions about how ‘artistic’ images can be used to aestheticize and whitewash historical events, cleverly represented by DP Jose Angel Ayalon’s dazzling shots of snowstorms obscuring the landscape and nighttime hunts by torchlight” (Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter). Winner, FIRPRESCI Prize, Human Rights Network Award, and Best Director (Venice Horizons), 2019 Venice Film Festival. (JH)

thrown up between the two by people who know nothing of their relationship, and are baffled by the intensity of their connection. As time goes on and her heartache intensifies, Nina resolves to reconnect with her lost love, no matter the cost. “An entirely unique and uniquely vital lesbian love story” (Variety), Two of Us is carried by the chemistry and control of its lead performers, particularly legendary German actress Barbara Sukowa, best known for playing the title role in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Lola. (MK) Presented with support from UW–Madison Gender and Sexuality Campus Center

Two of Us Deux

TUE, APRIL 7 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 WED, APRIL 8 • 1:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6

The Whistlers

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • France, Luxembourg, Belgium • 2019 • DCP • French with English subtitles • 95 MIN Director: Filippo Meneghetti; Screenwriters: Filippo Meneghetti, Malysone Bovorasmy; Producers: Elise André, Donato Rotunno, Patrick Quinet, Stéphane Quinet; Editor: Ronan Tronchot; Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Martine Chevallier, Léa Drucker, Muriel Benazeraf, Jérôme Varanfrain; Cinematographer: Aurélien Marra; Music: Michele Menini

SCREENS IN: SHORT AND SWEET

The Weaver Girl and the Cowherd SCREENS IN: LONG TIME NO SEA

4 - m ay 3 , 2 20 il r 2 p

MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • Romania, France, Germany • 2019 • DCP • English, Romanian with English subtitles • 97 MIN Director: Corneliu Porumboiu; Screenwriter: Corneliu Porumboiu; Producers: Marcela Ursu, Patricia Poienaru, Sylvie Pialat, Benoit Quainon, Janine Jackowski, Jonas Dornbach, Maren Ade; Editor: Roxana Szel; Cast: Vlad Ivanov, Catrinel Marlon, Rodica Lazar, Antonio Buil, Agusti Villaronga; Cinematographer: Tudor Mircea

A corrupt Bucharest cop, Cristi (Vlad Ivanov) discovers he’s under surveillance when he travels to La Gomera, a small island in the Canaries. Aided by the mysterious Gilda (Catrinel Marlon), Cristi is tasked with learning to communicate in an indigenous whistle language called “El Siblo” that is untranslatable to the police. (It will sound like bird calls to you, too). Once mastered, Cristi can use the whistles as a code when communicating with accomplices in a plot to free a shady businessman. The Whistlers, a wonderful film, breaks new ground for the Romanian New Wave stalwart Corneliu Porumboiu, director of 12:08 East of Bucharest (WFF 2007) and Police, Adjective (WFF 2010). Droll, surreal, and unpredictable, the movie puts Porumboiu’s distinctive spin on the neo-noir crime movie, complete with femme fatales, double crosses, and even amnesia: elements that carry the audience along to a true jewel of an ending. Shooting on exotic locations and employing a soundtrack that spans from Iggy Pop to Strauss’s “Radetzky March,” Porumboiu has crafted a true audience favorite that has delighted film festival audiences all over the world. “The dirty cop trope gets an imaginative new workout in this sly and intricate crime drama” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker). 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival. (JH)

A clandestine love affair is at the heart of this exquisitely moving romance. Nina and Madeline have lived across the hall from each other for decades, and been secret lovers nearly as long. Unbeknownst to their families and neighbors, these two have created a private world of their own between the walls of their Parisian apartments. After years of planning, free-spirited Nina has finally convinced Madeline to run away together to Rome—forcing her to come out to her children in the process. Just before this can happen their world changes in an instant, and barriers are

Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days

SAT, APRIL 4 • 9 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION THU, APRIL 9 • 3:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5

YEARS of BEERS

White on White Blanco En Blanco

bee

c eek.

MIDWEST PREMIERE • Narrative • Spain, Chile • 2019 • DCP • English, Spanish with English subtitles • 100 MIN Director: Theo Court; Screenwriters: Theo Court, Samuel L. Delgado; Producers: Jose Alayon, Marina Alberti, Andreas Banz, Eva Chillon, Giancarlo Nasi; Editor: Manuel Munoz Rivas; Cast: Alfredo Castro, David Pantaleon, Lola Rubio, Lars Rudolph, Esther Vega; Cinematographer: Jose Angel Alayon; Music: Jonay Armas

Hvítur, Hvítur Dagur

FRI, APRIL 3 • 3:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 SUN, APRIL 5 • 6 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • Iceland, Denmark, Sweden • 2019 • DCP • Icelandic with English subtitles • 109 MIN Director: Hlynur Pálmason; Screenwriter: Hlynur Pálmason; Producer: Anton Máni Svansson; Editor: Julius Krebs Damsbo; Cast: Ingvar Sigur∂sson, Ida Mekkin Hlynsdóttir, Hilmir Snær Gu∂nason, Björn Ingi Hilmarsson, Elma Stefanía Ágústsdóttir, Sara Dögg Ásgeirsdóttir; Cinematographer: Maria von Hausswolff; Music: Edmund Finnis

Along the Icelandic coast, a man is working on his house. Tearing it down and rebuilding it, his circular progress is captured in a virtuoso time-lapse sequence that sets the tone for the captivating character study to follow. Still grieving the sudden loss of his wife two years earlier, Ingimundur’s tight bond with his granddaughter might be the only thing keeping him alive. As a policeman, he needs someone to blame for the injustice he’s experienced, and finds a target in a neighbor who he suspects was having an affair with his wife. In plotting his revenge, Ingimundur finally begins to find a purpose again. Still in his mid30s, director Hlynur Pálmason works in the commanding register of classic Nordic art-house cinema, and surely has a long career ahead of him: this stunningly assured, uncompromising vision is only his second feature. “Visually arresting and emotionally rewarding. Ingimundur is a fascinating character, splendidly portrayed” (Screen). Best Film, 2019 Torino Film Festival; Rising Star Award, 2019 Cannes Film Festival; Best Narrative Feature, 2019 Hamptons Film Festival; Best Actor, 2019 Transylvania Film Festival. (MK) Presented with support from UW–Madison Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

FRI, APRIL 3 • 11:15 AM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5 SAT, APRIL 4 • 8:45 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 5

A Chilean photographer of ambiguous moral character, Pedro (the great Alfredo Castro) arrives on the vast plains of Tierra del Fuego at the tail end of the 19th century to immortalize the marriage of a powerful white landowner to a child bride. Impressed by Pedro’s preliminary work, the mysterious and unseen landowner assigns the photographer to take more pictures of the rest of his staff, including the small army of hired gunman who, Pedro learns, are there to eliminate the indigenous tribes of Tierra del Fuego. When he breaks the rules in this already degenerative Wild West, Pedro finds himself a prisoner of a dark-hearted “civilization,” a land crawling with violence and soon to be marked by genocide. Told with a surprisingly delicate touch by co-writer/director Théo Court, who keeps much of the horror off screen, White on White is spellbinding, artful storytelling in the tradition of Stanley Kubrick and Werner Herzog, “Seductive, distressing and

A White, White Day

W-Z

Zombi Child SAT, APRIL 4 • 8:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1 MON, APRIL 6 • 8:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 1

The Wild Goose Lake

Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui SUN, APRIL 5 • 4:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 MON, APRIL 6 • 6:15 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6

WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Narrative • China, France • 2019 • DCP • Mandarin with English subtitles • 110 MIN Director: Diao Yinan; Screenwriter: Diao Yinan; Producer: Shen Yang; Editors: Kong Jinlei, Matthieu Laclau; Cast: Hu Ge, Gwei Lun Mei, Liao Fan, Wan Qian, Qi Dao; Cinematographer: Dong Jinsong

A box office smash at home and a hit with critics worldwide, this killer Chinese crime film has been hailed as “downright Hitchcockian” (AV Club). On the run after accidentally killing a cop, small-time gangster Zhou has a bounty on his head and nowhere to turn. Hiding out in the neon-streaked Wuhan Province, he is forced to place his trust in a mysterious woman with secrets of her own. A gleaming fusion of arthouse and film noir aesthetics, The Wild Goose Lake boasts brilliantly staged action sequences, exhilarating motorcycle chases, and surprises aplenty. “Diao Yinan cements his status as a master filmmaker with another ingenious crime epic. There’s not a single false step in its two hours; every edit, every shot setup, every movement of the camera maximizes the raw cinematic effect. When the fists (or bullets, or strategically concealed booby-traps) start flying, this film’s greatness transforms from the kind that sneaks up on you to the kind that blows you away” (Little White Lies). “Electrifyingly new. The Wild Goose Lake may just end up being the last word in Chinese crime noir” (Variety). 2019 Cannes, New York Film Festivals. (MK)

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

Presented with support from UW–Madison Center for East Asian Studies

MADISON PREMIERE • Narrative • France • 2019 • DCP • English, French, Creole with English subtitles • 103 MIN

The Woman Who Loves Giraffes

Director: Bertrand Bonello; Screenwriter: Bertrand Bonello; Producers: Bertrand Bonello, Judith Lou Lévy, Eve Robin; Editor: Anita Roth; Cast: Louise Labèque, Wislanda Louimat, Katiana Milfort, Mackenson Bijou, Adilé David, Ninon François, Mathilde Riu; Cinematographer: Yves Cape; Music: Bertrand Bonello

FRI, APRIL 3 • 11 AM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 SUN, APRIL 5 • 2:30 PM AMC MADISON 6, CINEMA 6 WISCONSIN PREMIERE • Documentary • Canada • 2018 • DCP • 83 MIN Director: Alison Reid; Producers: Joanne Jackson, Alison Reid; Editors: Mark Arcieri, Caroline Christie, Mike Munn; Cinematographers: Dale Hildebrand, Lainie Knox, Iris Ng; Music: Tom Third

Anne Innis Dagg traveled to South Africa alone to study giraffes in the wild in 1956, four years before Jane Goodall first observed chimpanzees in their habitats. As a young woman, Dagg was a new type of researcher, both in the field and the rigid university environment at home. Accompanied by first-person reflections from letters to her family, beautiful 16mm footage from this original journey captures her groundbreaking work, but a sexist system prevented her from receiving recognition and continued support. Decades later, a group of giraffe researchers try to find Dagg and restore the reputation she deserved all along, but she discovers different challenges and threats to the giraffes she still admires when she returns to study them. With inviting, personal interviews with Dagg herself, as well as colleagues and professionals who learned from her, The Woman Who Loves Giraffes is a warm, inspiring portrait that brings worthy attention to a scientist who has helped the world understand a magnificent creature and fought against the continued discrimination faced by women. (MSJ)

Zappa SUN, APRIL 5 • 4:15 PM SHANNON HALL, MEMORIAL UNION SCHEDULED TO ATTEND: PRODUCER GLEN ZIPPER MIDWEST PREMIERE • Documentary • USA • 2020 • DCP • 129 MIN Director: Alex Winter; Producers: Alex Winter, Glen Zipper, Ahmet Zappa, John Frizzell, Devorah DeVries; Editor: Mike J. Nichols

The motherlode of never-before-seen Frank Zappa footage, Zappa is the definitive portrait of a counterculture icon. Assembled from hundreds of film and audio reels in Zappa’s vast personal archive, this documentary mixes home movies with loads of mind-melting performance footage, dating from the earliest days of the Mothers of Invention to Zappa’s final classical music concert. Endlessly creative, exactingly perfectionist, Zappa was nothing if not an iconoclast: a maestro of the late 1960s freak scene who didn’t do drugs, a writer of extremely demanding compositions who indulged in juvenile lyrics, a controversial ironist who heroically testified before Congress in defense of free speech. Zappa’s career full of left turns makes for a fascinating biography—this is a guy who pioneered his own record label back in 1977, had his only crossover pop hit in his 40s, and was at one point a cultural ambassador for Czechoslovakia. Through skillfully assembled vintage interviews, Zappa himself leads us through his life, aided by new commentary from his family, band members, and key collaborators, who come together to illuminate the pressures entailed in realizing a singular artist’s grand vision. Whether you own all 62 of the records Zappa released in his lifetime and have solos from Hot Rats committed to memory or are new to his wild world, Zappa is a rewarding immersion. 2020 SXSW Film Festival. (MK)

A different breed of zombie film, this spellbinding chiller is set in the world of Creole voodoo, rather than among the typical walking dead. Haiti, 1962: a man drops dead in the street, only to be brought back in order to work on a sugar cane plantation. Contemporary Paris: at an elite all-girls boarding school, the zombi’s direct descendent joins a secret society. Fascinated by the new girl’s ancestry, one of her friends seeks to harness these voodoo powers to resolve a recent heartbreak. The two timelines converge in a jaw-dropping climactic seance. Drawn from the controversial account of Clairvius Narcisse, a real-life figure who was purportedly transformed into a zombi, the film provocatively addresses issues of colonialism and cultural appropriation while remaining narratively gripping. As demonstrated in films like Nocturama (WFF 2017) and House of Pleasures (UW Cinematheque 2012), director Bertrand Bonello is one of the preeminent stylists of modern cinema, and his latest is no exception—Zombi Child’s uncanny atmosphere will haunt you into the afterlife. “An out-of-body thrill ride… it gets under your skin, with the audacious and cunning mystique of a magician who always has one more trick prepared. Bonello leaves us hypnotized and hungrily begging for more” (Little White Lies). 2019 Cannes, New York, London Film Festivals. (MK)

For WISCONSIN FILM FESTIVAL tickets, tips, and updates, visit us online at

2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

A Madison Bed & Breakfast A Madison Bed & Breakfast

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

www.centuryhouseinc.com

take time

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

3029 & 3420 university ave. madison 608.233.4488

Big Screens, Little Folks We show kids the world... Big Screens, Little Folks (BSLF) films will be shown Friday, April 3 through Sunday, April 5 at the Marquee at Union South. Look for Cam, the BSLF mascot, to find BSLF listings throughout this guide. All BSLF tickets are $7. For complete Big Screens, Little Folks listings, visit

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

2020.wifilmfest.org/bslf

Brittingham Trust

The Wisconsin Film Festival is presented by the University of Wisconsinâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Madison Division of the Arts in collaboration with the Department of Communication Arts. To request accommodations, please contact venue@wifilmfest.org or 608-262-9009.

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 2 Main Lounge, Memorial Union

Golden Badger Awards

Friday, April 3 11 AM The Woman Who Loves Giraffes AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

9 PM Sanzaru

6:30 PM Saudi Runaway

4:45 PM The Rabbi Goes West

9:15 PM Deerskin

6:30 PM The Truth

5:30 PM All in the Family:

11 AM The Fight

8:30 PM Zombi Child

11 AM Max Richter’s Sleep

1 PM Long Time No Sea

11:15 AM This is Not a Burial,

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

of Bruce Chatwin

11:30 AM A Son

UW Cinematheque

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

1 PM Rocks

NOON Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale

1:30 PM Ghost Tropic

1 PM Martin Eden

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

1:45 PM Saudi Runaway

1:15 PM Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

3 PM Robin and Marian 3:15 PM Martin Eden

Chazen Museum of Art

3:30 PM A White, White Day

4 PM A Conversation with Jill Soloway

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

2 PM Rounds

1:45 PM Ghost Tropic

11 AM So Late So Soon

3:15 PM Mr. Klein

Chazen Museum of Art

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

11:15 AM Three Summers

3:30 PM Invisible Life

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

11:45 AM Beanpole

4:15 PM So Late So Soon

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

12:45 PM Die Kinder Der Toten

5:45 PM The Servant

Chazen Museum of Art

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

1 PM Mr. Klein

6 PM Narrowsburg

Chazen Museum of Art

Summer with Tess

The Marquee, Union South

3:45 PM N of 1

UW Cinematheque

1 PM Too Far Away

6:15 PM The Wild Goose Lake

3:45 PM Simple Women

The Marquee, Union South

4 PM Generation Now:

1 PM The Twentieth Century

8:15 PM Zombi Child

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

5:45 PM The Twentieth Century

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

6 PM 1BR

The Marquee, Union South

Chazen Museum of Art

6:30 PM Corpus Christi

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

8 PM Simple Women UW Cinematheque

8:15 PM Three Summers AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

8:30 PM First Person, Singular:

Wisconsin’s Own Experimental Shorts Chazen Museum of Art

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

8:30 PM The Little Girl Who

1:30 PM Noura’s Dream

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

2:30 PM The Woman Who Loves Giraffes

Home Movies and Amateur Films from the Museum of Modern Art

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

UW Cinematheque

2:45 PM The Cordillera of Dreams Chazen Museum of Art

4 PM Rocks

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

3 PM Determined

4:15 PM Balloon

The Marquee, Union South

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

3:30 PM This is Not a Burial,

Sold the Sun & Le Franc

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

8:45 PM Ema

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

Tuesday, April 7 1 PM The Perfect Candidate AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

1:30 PM The Cordillera of Dreams AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

It’s a Resurrection

2 PM The Painted Bird

6:30 PM Can You Hear Us Now?

3:45 PM Toni

3:15 PM Lina From Lima

6 PM Holiday

4 PM A Son

3:30 PM Narrowsburg

6 PM Promising Young Woman The Marquee, Union South Chazen Museum of Art UW Cinematheque

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

UW Cinematheque AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6 AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1 AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

Sold the Sun & Le Franc

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

3:30 PM Identifying Features

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

3:45 PM The County

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

5:30 PM Filmfarsi

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

5:45 PM And Then We Danced

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

6 PM Initials S.G.

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

7:30 PM The Deer

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

8:15 PM Finding Yingying

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

8:30 PM Die Kinder Der Toten

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

Thursday, April 9 1 PM And Then We Danced

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

1:15 PM Filmfarsi

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

1:45 PM N of 1

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

3:15 PM The Whistlers

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

3:30 PM Dream Horse

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

4 PM Personhood

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

6 PM Silent Running

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

6:15 PM Sorry We Missed You

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

8 PM Spaceship Earth

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

8:30 PM Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

Total:

APR. 2-9 | 2020.WIFILMFEST.ORG

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

4 PM Private Lives Public Spaces:

6 PM Personhood

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

1:30 PM Talking the Pictures

The Marquee, Union South

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

6:15 PM Lina From Lima

Stories from Wisconsin’s Own 4 PM It Must Be Heaven

6 PM Beanpole

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

Chazen Museum of Art

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

The Marquee, Union South

& Seven Years in May

5:30 PM Simple Men UW Cinematheque

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

11 AM Short and Sweet

2 PM My Extraordinary

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

1 PM The Rabbi Goes West

1:30 PM Initials S.G.

UW Cinematheque

3:45 PM A Girl Missing

Monday, April 6 1:15 PM The Painter and the Thief

2 PM The Incredible Shrinking Man

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

3:15 PM The Little Girl Who

of Bruce Chatwin

1:45 PM The Giverny Document

3:15 PM Max Richter’s Sleep

1:45 PM Two of Us

8:15 PM L’innocente

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

11 AM Nomad: In the Footsteps

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

1:15 PM Sorry We Missed You

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

8:30 PM The Perfect Candidate

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

UW Cinematheque

12:30 PM L’innocente

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

Sunday, April 5

Wednesday, April 8

7:45 PM The Last Shift

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

11 AM Billie

8:30 PM Gimme Shelter

The Marquee, Union South

9 PM The Whistlers

UW Cinematheque

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

7:45 PM Feels Good Man

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

The Marquee, Union South

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

6 PM A White, White Day

8:15 PM Blood Quantum

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

9 PM The Painter and the Thief

11 AM The Art of Subtitling

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

7 PM The Painted Bird

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

It’s a Resurrection

5:45 PM It Came from Outer Space 3-D

The Marquee, Union South

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

8:45 PM White on White

Chazen Museum of Art

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

6:15 PM Balloon

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

UW Cinematheque

8 PM Identifying Features

Wisconsin’s Own Shorts

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

Chazen Museum of Art

& Last Man on Earth

6:15 PM Two of Us

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

UW Cinematheque

11 AM It’s Great to Be Alive

8:30 PM Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream 9 PM Last Week at Ed’s

6 PM Searching for Mr. Rugoff

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

Chazen Museum of Art

The Marquee, Union South

11 AM The Feeling Through Experience

1 PM The County

1 PM Nomad: In the Footsteps

8:30 PM Dinner in America

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

Chazen Museum of Art

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

11:15 AM White on White

4:30 PM The Wild Goose Lake

5:30 PM A Girl Missing

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

The Marquee, Union South

UW Cinematheque

6:15 PM A Dim Valley

10 AM Shorter and Sweeter

11 AM The Glass Web 3-D

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1

8:45 PM Ema

Saturday, April 4

Chazen Museum of Art

11:30 AM Noura’s Dream

4:15 PM Zappa

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

11 AM Chuskit

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

The Marquee, Union South

Shannon Hall, Memorial Union

ADDRESS

6 PM Invisible Life

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 6

7 PM Boys State +

PHONE

8:30 PM Rounds

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 5

5:30 PM Opening Night Reception

NAME

Thank you to our 2020 festival sponsors Presented by

In collaboration with

Presenting

Leadership

Sustaining & Additional Support

Campus Partners African Cultural Studies Center for East Asian Studies Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia (CREECA) Department of French & Italian

Community Partners

Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic English Department Gender and Sexuality Campus Center Middle East Studies Program Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies

Individual & Foundation Support

Promotional Support

Brittingham Trust Goethe-Institut MGE Foundation

For a complete list of the many local businesses and organizations who have contributed to the 2020 festival, please visit 2020.wifilmfest.org. Thank you!