Welcome Week

Futures of Control and Resistance

Wednesday, August 30 – 7pm – Free Screenings Saturday, September 2 – 9pm

The Matrix

There are two realities: one consists of the life we live every day and one lies behind it.  This action thriller tells of a race of vast and powerful computers who rule the Earth, using human beings as their energy source. The humans' passivity is ensured by a virtual reality device, the Matrix that convinces them they are experiencing life in the 20th century. When computer hacker Neo discovers that his seemingly normal life is an illusion, he opts to fight back.

(Larry & Andy Wachowski, US, 136 min., 35mm, 1999)

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Wednesday, August 30 – 10pm – Free Screening
One Show Only

Brazil

Terry Gilliam's claustrophobic vision of a totalitarian future society full of red tape and b follows Sam Lowry when his world is turned upside down by a computer bug.   Struggling to find the woman of his dreams as he fights the system with only a plumber for help, this is a one-of-a-kind film about flights of fantasy and the nightmare of reality; terrorist bombing and late night shopping.

(Terry Gilliam, 131 min., 16mm, 1985)

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Thursday, August 31 – 7pm – Free Screenings
Friday, September 1 – 9pm
Saturday, September 2 – 4:00 pm

V for Vendetta

Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, V for Vendetta is set in a totalitarian future London .   V a masked revolutionary decides to take down the government culminating with blowing up the Parliament building.  

(James McTeigue, US, 132 min., 35mm, 2006)

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Thursday, August 31 – 10pm – Free Screening
One Show Only

Fahrenheit 451

This outstanding novel by Ray Bradbury is brought to the screen with all its vividness and imagination intact. Set in a future electronic age, all books are banned and fireman must keep fires burning at 451 degrees—the temperature at which paper burns. Julie Christie plays dual roles—one as wife of fireman Oskar Werner and the other as a book-loving schoolteacher.

(Francois Truffaut, 113 min., 16mm, 1966)

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Friday, September 1 – 7pm – Free Screening
One Show Only

Tank Girl

Based on a cult favorite British comic book series, this is the wildly imaginative tale of a girl and her tank. This futuristic action adventure takes place in an ecologically devastated landscape where water has become the most precious resource. Tank girl must battle the corrupt Department of Water headed by a villainous crook.

(Rachel Talalay, 104 min., 35mm, 1995)

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Saturday, September 2 – 7pm – Free Screening
One Show Only

THX 1138

A chilling version of the 25th century: subterranean people are controlled by computers run by identical, androgynous citizens who are programmed into submission by the use of mind-calming drugs. THX 1138 was director George Lucas' first feature-length film.

(George Lucas, 88min., 35mm, 1971)

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Tuesday, September 5 – 7pm – Free Screenings
Thursday, September 7 – 9pm

X-Men the Last Stand

Hostility grows between mutants and humans as a “cure” for mutant kind is offered.   A mutant child with the ability to quell mutant qualities has been studied and adapted by scientists to be a hypodermic solution to the “mutant problem”.   In light of this the ethical divisions between Professor Xavier and Magneto blur. It's a battle royale as the X-Men take on Magneto to prevent him from kidnapping the child from the scientists.

(Brett Ratner, 104 min., 35mm, 2006)

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Wednesday, September 6 – Free Screening
One Show Only

28 Days Later

From the director of Trainspotting , a virus accidentally released from a research facility turns its victims into aggressive zombie-like husks of their previous selves. The human race is faced with extinction, as this virus ravages the entire planet. A handful of survivors are left to salvage a future from the on-setting apocalypse.   As they discover how to exist in the new zombie filled world they find the threats are not only from the undead, but the remaining humans as well.     

(Danny Boyle, UK , 113 min., 35mm, 2003)

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Thursday, September 7 – 7pm – Free Screening
One Show Only

Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor)

Night Watch is the first installment of a trilogy based on the best-selling sci-fi novels by Sergei Lukyanenko.   Set in contemporary Moscow , Night Watch revolves around the conflict and balance maintained between the forces of light and darkness -- the result of a medieval truce between the opposing sides. But, an ancient prophecy is about to come true and tip the balance, plunging the world into a renewed war between the dark and light.

(Timur Bekmambetov , Russia , in Russian w/ Eng. St . , 114 min., 35mm, 2005)

September 7 – 17

2006 Milwaukee Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Film/Video Festival

Milwaukee 's long-running LGBT Film/Video Festival shares the finest in local premieres of a striking array of international work by, about, and around the diverse LGBT community. This year's titles include: Christian Faure's A Love to Hide ; Auraeus Solito's The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros , Ramon Salazar's 20 Centimeters , Q. Allan Brocka's Boy Culture, Todd Stephens' Another Gay Movie , the BBC adaptation on Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty , Georgia Lee's Red Doors , Valérie Minetto's Looking for Cheyenne , Mary Jordan's Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis and more! Opening night is at the Oriental Theatre on September 7. For complete schedule information check out arts.uwm.edu/lgbtfilm or email lgbtfilm@uwm.edu.

Experimental Tuesday & Wednesday

Tuesday, September 19 – 7pm – Free Screening

Notes on Marie Menken

From the director of In the Mirror of Maya Deren , a personal portrait of Marie Menken, the highly influential, insufficiently celebrated filmmaker of the post World War II American avant garde. Filmmakers like Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, and Jonas Mekas have all testified to her friendship, influence, and inspiration. (And her relationship with her husband Willard Maas was also apparently the inspiration for Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.) This diary-like film, full of testimony and reminisces of her colleagues and friends, also unfurls never-before-seen work by Menken, including a 'duel for Bolex cameras' between Menken and Warhol. Co-presented with the Women Without Borders Film Festival

(Martina Kudlácek, 97 min., 2005)

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Wednesday, September 20 – 7pm – Free Screening

Bagatelles of Light and Motion: The Films of Marie Menken

Jonas Mekas wrote: “Marie was one of the first film makers to improvise with the camera and edit while shooting. She filmed with her entire body, her entire nervous system. You can feel Marie behind every image, how she constructed the film in tiny pieces and through movement.” Tonight's program will share a healthy cascade of Menken's film offerings, testifying to her singular energy and pursuit of delight. On why she makes films, Menken, per Stan Brakhage reported, “I just like the twitters of the machine.”

Thursday, September 21 – 7pm – Free Screening

Buyer, Be Fair: The Promise of Product Certification

Taking viewers to Mexico , the Netherlands , the United Kingdom , Sweden , the United States and Canada , this exquisitely photographed film explores how consumers and businesses can use the market to promote social justice and environmental sustainability through product labeling, with a focus on Fair Trade coffee and Forest Stewardship Council certified wood. This powerful documentary seeks to open a dialogue about new ways to make globalization work for all of us.

(John de Graaf & Hana Jindrova, US, video, 2006)

World Cinema

Friday, September 22 – 7 & 9pm
Saturday, September 23 – 5 & 9pm
Sunday, September 24 – 7pm

Look Both Ways

* Milwaukee Premiere

Look Both Ways is the first feature written and directed by Sarah Watt, an acclaimed creator of animated shorts.   Mixing animation and live action, Look Both Ways follows the misadventures of Meryl, a woman who sees disaster everywhere.   One day Meryl is witness to a real accident that connects her to the lives of others affected by the tragedy, among them Nick, a photographer emotionally inhibited by his own fears.   As Meryl and Nick tentatively attempt to connect, their story is shot through with humor, whimsical insight and compassion. “[P]oetic and unforgiving, romantic and stark.” -Roger Ebert CHICAGO SUN TIMES

(Sarah Watts, Australia , 100 min., 35mm 2006)

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Saturday, September 23 – 7pm – Free Screenings
Sunday, September 24 – 5pm

Animation of Suzan Pitt

Asparagus , a candy colored nightmare of stunning cel animation propels its blank-faced protagonist into the world of the phallus, rendered here as a field of asparagus. The film meditates on art and the cost of reproduction.   Joy Street is an ambitious, astonishing story of a woman's journey from suicidal despair to personal renewal, with the help of an unlikely spirit guide.   Pitt's latest film El Doctor revolves around a bitter, ailing, alcoholic doctor in Mexico who fails to find hope for a patient with holes throughout his body letting him die.

(Suzan Pitt, total run time 67min., 35mm, 1979 – 2005)

Tuesday – Thursday, September 26 – 28 – 7pm

My Country, My Country

* Milwaukee Premiere

Filmmaker Laura Poitras will be here to introduce the film September 26.

Laura Poitras worked alone in Iraq for over eight months to create this extraordinarily intimate portrait of Iraqis living under U.S. occupation.   Dr. Riyadh, an Iraqi medical doctor, father of six and Sunni political candidate is an outspoken critic of the occupation. He feels equally passionate about establishing democracy in Iraq , arguing that Sunni participation in the January 2005 elections is essential.   Interwoven with this is the landscape of the US military occupation and the UN officials who orchestrate the elections.

(Laura Poitras, in Arabic, English, and Kurdish w/ Eng. St. , 90min., 2006)

World Cinema

Friday, September 29 – 7pm
Saturday, September 30 – 4 & 9:30pm
Sunday, October 1 – 7pm

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Moartea Domnului Lazarescu)

* Milwaukee Premiere

Aging Mr. Lazarescu lives alone with three cats.   Feeling ill one night, he calls an ambulance to take him to the hospital. After a long wait and a visit to his neighbors, the ambulance finally arrives to take him on a tragic-comic odyssey. Taken from one hospital to another and given various contradictory diagnoses, treatment is incessantly delayed and Mr. Lazarescu descends deeper into the Bucharest night.   The film slowly envelops the viewer into its matter-of-fact look at the end of a lonely man's existence.   “ [T]he Romanian film "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" is a rich, strange and weirdly gratifying odyssey.” – Michael Phillips CHICAGO TRIBUNE

(Cristi Puiu, Romanian w/ Eng. St. , 150 mins., 35mm, 2005)

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Friday, September 29 – 10pm
Saturday, September 30 – 7pm
Sunday, October 1 – 4pm

4

* Milwaukee Premiere

An apocalyptic journey through the dark heart of the new Russia . Three strangers meet in a Moscow bar one late night and spin fantastic stories, all of them lies. They depart and journey their separate ways through a landscape filled with decaying meat, wild dogs, ravenous crones, cloned piglets, and modern industrial horrors. A completely unique and disturbing film.   "The stark surreal images evoke a mixture of terror and absurdity that comes as close to the experience of an actual nightmare as anything I've seen on the screen." - Stephen Holden , NEW YORK TIMES

(Ilya Khrzhanovsky, 128 mins., Russia , Russian w/ Eng. St. , 35mm, 2005)

Experimental Tuesday

Tuesday, October 3 & Wednesday, October 4 – 7pm – Free Screenings

44 th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival Touring Program

Programs 1 & 2 – Tuesday – 7pm
Programs 3 & 4 – Wednesday – 7pm

The oldest film festival in the U.S. showcasing experimental and independent work hits the road again to offer a representative sampling of the currents state of alternative cinema.   A selection of 23 award-winning new works by independent filmmakers will comprise two exciting programs.

(Various directors & countries, Tuesday 108 min., Wednesday 110 min., 2004-2006)

50 Years of Music Movies

Thursday, October 5 – 9pm – Free Screening

A Hard Day's Night

A re-release of the 1964 classic musical comedy about four shaggy-haired lads from Liverpool , this is a playful day-in-the-life look at the emerging rock stars: John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Pursued by hordes of shrieking girls caught up in Beatlemania, they dash in and out of railways, through London streets, and into a TV recording studio.   This movie survives as an indelible portrait of a particular time.

(Richard Lester, England, 85 min., 35mm 1964)

World Cinema

Friday, October 6 – 7pm
Saturday, October 7 – 5 & 9pm
Sunday, October 8 – 5 & 7pm

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

* Milwaukee Premiere

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes is the breathtakingly beautiful and long-awaited second feature from the Brothers Quay.   On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful opera singer Malvina is mysteriously killed and abducted by a malevolent Dr. Droz. Felisberto, An innocent piano tuner is summoned to Droz's secluded villa to service his strange musical automatons.   Little by little Felisberto learns of the doctor's plans to stage a “diabolical opera” with Malvina.   He secretly conspires to rescue her, only to become trapped himself in Droz's web.

 (Stephen and Timothy Quay, 99 mins., 35mm, 2005)

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Friday, October 6 – 9pm – Free Screening

Institute Benjamenta

The Quays' first live-action feature combines the fantastic, the mystical and the fairytale in a beautiful black-and-white reverie. A student at a boarding school for servants—a dilapidated, moribund institution whose curriculum constitutes the endless repetition of one single lesson—watches the slow disintegration of the Institute at the hands of its eccentric sibling proprietors.

(The Brothers Quay, 105 mins., 35mm, 1996)

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Saturday, October 7 – 7pm – Free Screening

A Cabinet of Dust and Dreams:   Brothers Quay Short Films

This program features some of the Brothers Quay's best known and most influential shorts including Streets of Crocodiles , The Comb , Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies and Nocturna Artificiala .   “ [ T]he unidentified dreamer's walk describes virtually all of their animations and live action cinema; for each is like a slow journey through the dream counties, a brief excursion into the realms of symbolic construction and myth.” – James Rose SENSES OF CINEMA

(The Brothers Quay, 16mm & 35mm 1979 – 2000)

Documentary Frontiers

Tuesday – Thursday, October 10 – 12 – 7pm

Our Daily Bread

* Milwaukee Premiere

Winner - Jury Award - Joris Ivens Competition, 2005 Amsterdam International Documentary Festival

In a series of visually stunning, continuously tracking, wide-screen images that seem right out of a science-fiction movie, we see the places where food is cultivated and processed: surreal landscapes optimized for agricultural machinery, clean rooms in cool industrial buildings designed for maximum efficiency, and elaborate machines that operate on a 'disassembly line' basis. Dispensing entirely with explanatory commentary or 'talking-head' interviews, Our Daily Bread unfolds on the screen like a disturbing dream.    

(Nikolaus Geyrhalter, 92 min., 2005)

Thursday, October 12 - 9pm

LOL

Filmmaker Joe Swanberg in attendance!

Featuring a nonprofessional cast and video contributions from people all over the world this funny and thoughtful film offers an honest portrait of how the latest tools of communication can either help us click or turn us off. Produced, directed, shot, edited, and co-written by twenty-four year old Joe Swanberg who also acts in the film, 'LOL' has been described by Gerald Peary of "The Boston Phoenix" as "a witty mini-satire of post-collegiates trying to connect romantically and erotically (at least, the women are) in a tangle of up-to-the-minute technology." The film has already played various film festivals including SXSW and the Chicago Underground Film Festival. This will be its Milwaukee premiere.

Joe Swanberg, 81 mins., video, 2005

Community Media Project presents

Friday – Sunday, October 13 – 15 – Free Screenings

Cinemas of the Scattered African Diaspora:   The Mirror of Memory

Friday, October 13 – 7pm

Zulu Love Letter

An evocative film about the personal and national struggles through a complex juxtaposition of narratives.   “[P]ast and present, loss and recovery, emotional distances and bridges, trauma and healing, this unsparing exploration of history's often hidden recesses embodies women's experiences as well as tenacious spirit and, remarkably, offers an intricate tapestry of hope.” Jude G. Akudinobi, University of California - Santa Barbara

(Ramadan Suleman, South Africa, in Eng. & Zulu w/ Eng. St . , video, 100 min., 2004)

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Saturday, October 14 – 7pm

Andanggaman

“Adanggaman is as fundamental, and as haunted, as a combat scar… [T}his modest yet appalling feature by Ivory Coast native and 30-year filmmaking vet Roger Gnoan M'Bala inevitably becomes a date with historicization. Ostensibly factual, helplessly self-conscious, targeted like a smart bomb at African society but cagily aware of Western eyes, Adanggaman is being touted as the continent's first film about slavery as it was experienced on African soil—where the victims and enslavers were both native peoples, often battling along tribal lines. Coming from today's equatorial belt, it's a startling analogue of contemporary horrors.” - Michael Atkinson, THE VILLAGE VOICE.

(Roger Gnoan M'Bala, Ivory Coast, in Bambara & Baule w/ Eng. St., 90 minutes, 35mm, 2000)

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Sunday, October 15 – 5pm

All about Darfur

Sudanese filmmaker Taghreed Elsanhouri talks with ordinary Sudanese in outdoor tea shops, markets, refugee camps and living rooms about how deeply rooted prejudices could suddenly burst into a wild fire of ethnic violence. The film includes interviews with intellectuals, activists, and genocide survivors and pays particular attention to the opinions and concerns of women.   "A sensitive and non-sensational portrayal of the war and destruction in Darfur that privileges the voice of the average Sudanese . ” - Salah Hassan, Cornell University

( Taghreed Elsanhouri , Sudan & UK , in Arabic & Eng. w/ Eng. St . , 82 min., 2005)

Documentary Frontiers

Tuesday, October 17 – 6pm

When the Levees Broke: A Katrina Documentary

* Milwaukee Premiere

Screening and Talk-Back with Director Sam Pollard

Join us for an evening with Emmy award-winning writer, producer, director and editor Sam Pollard.   Pollard is an associate professor of film and television at New York University . His editing career spans over 30 years, including his work films and works with Spike Lee: Bamboozled , 4 Little Girls and Clockers . Pollard produced and edited Lee's new documentary on Hurricane Katrina, When the Levees Broke .   Co-sponsored by Sociocultural Programming, Community Media Project, and the UWM Film Department.   Pollard will introduce the film and facilitate discussion after the screening.

50 Years of Music Movies

Thursday, October 19 – 7pm – Free Screening

DIG!

Winner of the 2004 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance

Filmed over seven years, DIG! tells an amazing true tale of success, self-destruction, friendship, and rivalry between two bands; Brian Jonestown Massacre led by tormented genius Anton Newcombe , and the Dandy Warhols led by a polished, but less visionary Courtney Taylor . DIG! is the story of their loves and obsessions, gigs and recordings, arrests and death threats, uppers and downers, and the delicate balance between art and commerce.   “ Heaven-sent! If universities ever start graduate programs in rock stardom, “Dig!” will surely be a cornerstone of the curriculum ” – A.O. Scott NEW YORK TIMES

(Ondi Timoner, 107 min., video, 2004)

World Cinema

Friday, October 20 – 7pm – Free Screening

Pitfall (Otishiana)

*New 35mm Print

For Teshigahara's first feature film he adapted experimental fiction writer Kobo Abe's story of a poor mining town.   Revolving around a series of mysterious murders by a man dressed in a spotless white suit, Teshigahara mixes stark realism with fantastical elements.   Throughout the film, ghosts of the victims appear like a Greek chorus to question the point of their lives and deaths.   Exploring states of consciousness and the subjectivity of reality, this psychological nightmare brought Teshigahara's film work international attention and introduced themes and techniques recurring in many of his films.

(Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japan, Japanese w/ Eng. St., 97 min., 35mm, 1962)

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Friday, October 20 – 9pm – Free Screenings
Saturday, October 21 – 7pm
Sunday, October 22 – 4pm

Woman in the Dunes
(Suna no onna)

*New 35mm Print

The events of this film are put into motion when a vacationing teacher misses the last train of the day.   Accepting shelter at a the house of a young widow, he finds himself trapped with her at the base of a sand pit and forced to continuously help her shovel sand away from town.   Like the myth of Sisyphus the purpose of their duty raises existential questions for the traveling teacher.   Based on a novel by Kobo Abe, Teshigahara creates such detailed textures of sand and flesh in the film they seem tangible. ``'Woman in the Dunes' retains its power because it is a perfect union of subject, style and idea.” – Roger Ebert CHICAGO SUN TIMES

(Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japan, Japanese w/ Eng. St., 147 min., 35mm, 1964)

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Saturday, October 21 – 5pm – Free Screenings
Sunday, October 22 – 7pm

Antonio Gaudí

*New 35mm Print

Teshigahara travels Spain to document the architectural works of Antonio Gaudí the legendary Catalan architect who sensually combined Gothic, Middle Eastern, and traditional architecture into his own unique style.   Immersing the viewer into Gaudi's unorthodox vision, Teshigahara uses lingering takes and mesmerizing panning sequences, accompanied by an equally eclectic soundtrack that vacillates from lyrical symphony to disquieting near silence.   “[T]eshigahara lets the buildings speak for themselves, stepping aside to let us gaze in slack-jawed amazement—it's nothing short of thrillling.” – LA WEEKLY

(Hiroshi Teshigahara, Spanish w/ Eng. St., 72 min., 1984)

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Saturday, October 21 – 9pm – Free Screening

Face of Another

*New 35mm Print

Horribly disfigured in an accident, Okuyama's face is covered in bandages and his wife can no longer look at him.   He finally resolves to use an experimental treatment giving him a whole new face.   Feeling freed of personal and professional attachments by this new anonymity he creates a new life for himself.   Based on an Abe novel, this film contains elements of Frankenstein-like mythology and explores the repercussions of lost identity.

(Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japan, Japanese w/ Eng. St., 124 min., 35mm, 1966)

Experimental Tuesdays

Tuesday, October 24 – 7pm – Free Screening

Mahagonny

The final and epic film from Harry Smith (1923-1991), experimental filmmaker, anthropologist, painter, and musicologist, who labored on this, a kaleidoscopic transformation of the Weill/Brecht opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny , for over ten years. Smith's idiosyncratically systematic version offers allegory; portraits of Patti Smith, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, and other New York City landmarks; and Smith's own animation. Tonight's print is a 35mm composite of the original four-projector 16mm work. “Infinitely complex and equally rewarding, Mahagonny is a virtuosic assemblage and a work of true originality.” --Harvard Film Archives. Print courtesy of the Harry Smith Archives and Anthology Film Archives.

(Harry Smith, 35mm, color/sound, 141 min., 1970-1980.)

Wednesday, October 25 – 7pm – Free Screening

Reel American Indian Film Screening

Film(s) made by American Indians and/or highlighting American Indian subject matter will be featured.   Contact American Indian Student Services at 414-229-5880 for more information.

50 Years of Music Movies

Thursday, October 26 – 7pm – Free Screening

New York Doll

This documentary brings together the not-often-associated worlds of punk rock and Mormonism. First-time director Greg Whitely focuses on the life of Arthur “Killer” Kane, former bassist for the influential punk band The New York Dolls. After their breakup, all of the band members found success except for Kane who hit rock bottom in 1989 but later found salvation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Kane was finally able to realize his dream of a band reunion with a concert at the Meltdown Festival in 2004.

(Greg Whiteley, 75 min., 2005)

World Cinema

Friday October 27 – 7pm & 9pm
Saturday October 28 – 5pm, 7pm, & 9pm
Sunday October 29 – 5pm, 7pm

The Bridesmaid

It is love at first sight when bridesmaid Senta meets handsome young Philippe at his younger sister's wedding. Though their passion for each other is obvious, Philippe soon discovers that Senta's life is shrouded in mystery and her stories surrounding her past anything but believable. When she asks Philippe for a terrible proof of his love, he must come to terms with who his lover might really be.  “A slyly enjoyable thriller with echoes of Hitchcock...quietly menacing...Smet delivers an impressive performance, suggesting her character's seductive sensuality and sinister stillness....Chabrol's perverse humour is still very much intact.” -BBC

(Claude Chabrol, France in French w/ Eng. St. , 2004, 35mm, 110 minutes)

Special Halloween Screening!

Tuesday, October 31 – 7pm – Free Screening
One Show Only!

Live Freaky! Die Freaky!

It is the year 3069 and the Earth has been robbed of all its natural resources, destroyed by war and ozone depletion, and is now only a barren desert. Nomadic tribes scour the desolate land in search of food.   One particular nomad finds something else entirely:   the book Helter Skelter , quickly adopted as divine law in the nomad's soon to be doomed society.   This musical comedy employs stop-motion animation with the voices of Asia Argento and Billie Joe Armstrong.

(John Roecker, US, video, 80 min., 2005)

50 Years of Music Movies

Thursday, November 2 – 7pm – Free Screening

Don't Need You

“don't need you” is a documentary film about the origins of Riot Grrrl in the American independent music scene of the 1990s, and how this feminist movement evolved into a revolutionary underground network of education and self-awareness through music, writing, activism, and women-friendly community.   The film shows how these women changed the history of music and feminism forever, featuring one-on-one interviews interspersed with rare, archival materials as well as seldom seen footage from pioneering Riot Grrrl bands like Bikini Kill, Heavens to Betsy and Bratmobile.

(Kerri Koch, 40 min., 2003)

World Cinema

Friday, November 3 – 7 & 9pm
Saturday, November 4 – 5, 7 & 9pm
Sunday, November 5 – 5 & 7pm

Woman is the Future of Man

* Milwaukee Premiere

As the first snow falls on Seoul , childhood friends, Hunjoon and Munho reunite over food and drinks at a local noodle shop.   Chatting about the years gone by, the drinks pour and their musing inevitably evokes the beautiful Sunhwa who Hunjoon abandoned when he went to America .   Unbeknownst to him, Sunhwa later found comfort with Munho.   Soon Hunjoon decides they should track down the woman they both loved.   Playing with linearity and structure, the film reveals these past relationships as if in parallel to the present.   “ [M]emory, desire and raw self-interest clash against one another with startling poignancy.”   – Manohla Dargis NEW YORK TIMES

(Hong Sangsoo, Korea, in Korean w/ Eng. St., 35mm, 88 min., 2004)

Special Election Day Screening!

Tuesday – Wednesday, November 7 – 8 – 7pm – Free Screenings

The Case of the Grinning Cat

* Milwaukee Premiere

The latest creation from legendary French filmmaker Chris Marker, takes us searching through Paris for a series of mysterious grinning cats whose stenciled image has sprung up all over the city.   Beginning in November 2001, Paris is still fresh from the shock of the September 11 attacks on the U.S.   Over the next year the city's youth march in numerous demonstrations their emblem none other than the grinning cats.   Accompanied by some of Marker's animal related short films.   "A bracing new political essay... might be called Marker's latest State of the Body Politic address, shot on both sides of the Atlantic and framed by a fantasy-reverie about graffiti of cartoon Cheshire cats mysteriously appearing in unexpected, hidden places.... " - Jonathan Rosenbaum, CINEMA SCOPE

(Chris Marker, France , video, 2004)

Thursday, November 9 – 7pm – Free Screening

Mystery Science 3000: The Movie

Discussion and Q&A with writer Mike Nelson!

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie is the big screen debut of the cult TV comedy.   Trapped in space and forced to watch truly awful films, Mike and his robot pals (Crow and Tom Servo) try to make the best of it by providing ongoing quips and jokes at the movies expense.   In this particular adventure, Mike and the bots riff and mock their way through the 1950's “classic” sci-fi film “This Island Earth”.   Bad movies have never been so good.   Co-sponsored by The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Club at UWM and CAB.

World Cinema

Friday, November 10 – 7 & 9pm
Saturday, November 11 – 5, 7, & 9pm
Sunday, November 12 – 5 & 7pm

La Moustache

* Milwaukee Premiere

One evening Marc decides on a whim to shave off the mustache he's worn all of his adult life. He waits patiently for his wife's reaction, but neither she nor his friends seem to notice. Stranger still, when he finally tells them, they all insist he never had a mustache. Is it madness or conspiracy?   Adapted from his own novel, Carrère has crafted an engrossing existential thriller, a story about a man who inadvertently loses himself .   “Carrere captures the small fissures that lurk in even the best relationships, both marital and professional… a keen glimpse into a marriage that appears perfect on the surface but when examined shows its deficiencies.” – Duane Byrge HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

(Emmanuel Carrère, France, French/English/Cantonese w/ Eng. St., 35mm, 86min., 2005)

Special Screening!

Monday, November 13 – 7pm – Free Screening

King of Masks

Wu Tianming will be present for the screening and discussion along with filmmaker Luo Xueying.

Set in 1930's Sichuan , this touching, exquisite tale combines theatrical flamboyance and evocative settings in which a traveling magician adopts a boy disciple who turns out to be a girl. Director Wu Tianming is a major influence on “Fifth Generation” filmmakers such as Zhang Yimou.   Co-sponsored by Center for International Studies, The Department of Comparative Literature and Film, and The ChinaFilm Project & The BlackFilm.

  (Wu Tianming, China, Mandarin w/ Eng. St., 101 min., 1999)

Experimental Tuesdays

Tuesday, November 14 – 7pm – Free Screening

Jim Jennings: Man with a Movie Camera

Jim Jennings in person!

The UWM Union Theatre and the UWM Film Department are excited to welcome truly independent filmmaker Jim Jennings for an evening of his 16mm films, which offer both crystalline moments of observation and the most kaleidoscopic and revealing of abstractions, all shaped through Jennnings' deft play with his camera. His camera movement and framing all offer – and testify to – a heightened sense of seeing, Jenning's kino eye illuminating here the plays of light and form to be found in the streets and hushed interiors of his New York City . “In his films, Jennings discovers boxes within boxes, frames within frames, new dimensions, new perspectives and wonder after wonder.”   (Goeth-Institut, Toronto )

Locally Grown

Wednesday, November 15 – 7pm – Free Screening

Locally Grown:   Alumni Screening

Locally Grown celebrates the history of the Union with a look at some of the thesis films by former UWM graduate students.   Employing a wide variety of film techniques and exploring a range of themes these films exemplify the quality and diversity of the UWM film department.

50 Years of Music Movies

Thursday, November 16 – 7pm – Free Screening

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Winner – Director's Award – 2005 Sundance Film Festival

A stunning portrait of an artist suffering from manic depression with delusions of grandeur.   Daniel Johnston's wild fluctuations, numerous downward spirals, and periodic respites are exposed in this deeply moving documentary.   The film artfully melds current footage, vintage performances, home movies, and dozens of recorded audiotapes from Daniel's life.   Now in his mid 40s, Daniel Johnston has recorded over ten full length albums, and his supporters have included Kurt Cobain, Matt Groening, Sonic Youth, David Bowie, Tom Waits, Beck, and The Flaming Lips.

(Jeff Feuerzeig, 110 min., 35mm, 2005)

World Cinema

Friday, November 17 – 7 & 9pm
Saturday, November 18 - 5, 7, & 9pm
Sunday, November 19 – 5 & 7pm

Fallen Idol

*New 35mm Print

Filmed between Odd Man Out and The Third Man and long unavailable to the public.   8-year-old Phil is left with the butler, Baines who he idolizes, while his parents take a weekend trip.   This thrilling story of moral ambiguity revolves around Baines' unhappy marriage and interest in another woman, seen from Phil's perspective.   The gap between what the child sees and understands of the adult relationships provides the tension and suspense aided by the use of disconcerting camera angles. "This is an example of a writer and director working in perfect harness, with Reed smoothly ratcheting up the story's suspense and Greene speculating on his cardinal theme of moral ambiguity." – Ann Hornaday WASHINGTON POST.

(Carol Reed, UK, 35mm, 95min., 1948)

Special Screening!

Monday, November 20 – 7pm – Free Screening

Pandora's Box

*New 35mm Print

G.W. Pabst's scintillating silent masterpiece is re-released on a new 35mm print in commemoration of the centennial of legendary icon Louise Brooks.   As the manipulative, destructive, yet magnetic demimondaine Lulu, Brooks created a landmark sexual persona so subtly charged that today's audiences are still electrified.   Based on plays by German writer Franz Wedekind. “A TOUR-DE-FORCE OF CINEMATIC EROTICISM! Capable of inspiring some critics to babbling gush — and reducing others to awed silence... Brooks's performance as Lulu retains a vitality, a live physical and affective presence, that has rarely, if ever, been matched on screen.” – A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES

(G.W. Pabst, Germany, Silent w/ live musical accompaniment, 110 min., 1929)

Experimental Tuesdays

Tuesday, November 21 – 7pm – Free Screening

6horts

A cycle of six short videos from acclaimed Malaysian film essayist Amir Muhammad, who here took up the digital video camera in pursuit of the idea of nonfiction and the form of the visual essay. Like his features – his most recent The Last Communist remains banned in his homeland – Muhammad's shorts are boundary-questioning hybrids of documenting and elaborating, diaristic considerations and formal investigation. The topics mapped here include missing identity cards, visits to a mosque and to a notorious high security prison; murder and celebrity; racial, sexual, and religious difference; and travel in a age of suspected terrorism.

(Amir Muhammad , Malaysia , video, 58.5 min, 2002-03)

World Cinema

Tuesday – Sunday, November 28 – December 3

Alchemist of the Surreal:  
A Jan Švankmajer Retrospective

One of the great Czech filmmakers, JanŠvankmajer first encountered film at the Laterna Magika Puppet Theatre.   Making films since 1964, he continues creating some of the most memorable and unique animated films ever made.   His work has influenced filmmakers from Tim Burton to The Brothers Quay.   Often mixing stop-motion animation with live-action and puppeteering, Švankmajer's vision remains as strikingly surreal and uncannily inventive as ever.  

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Tuesday, November 28 – 7pm – Free Screening

Švankmajer Shorts

The Last Trick (1964) Švankmajer's first film shows two magicians dueling to top each other with theatrics.   In Don Shayn (1970) an adaptation of the Don Juan story, Švankmajer mixes wooden puppets with live actors dressed as puppets to bring the old tale to life.   Dimensions of Dialogue (1982) features Archimboldo-esque animations interacting on the premise of domestic situations.   Also included:   J.S. Bach: Fantasia in G Minor (1965) , Punch and Judy (1966) , Leonardo's Diary (1972) , and Virile Games (1988)

( Jan Švankmajer, Czech Republic, TRT 101 min., 16 & 35mm, 1964 – 1988)

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Wednesday, November 29 – 7pm – Free Screening

Alice

Švankmajer's first feature film a characteristically witty and subversive adaptation of Alice in Wonderland which dives into the story's dark psychological dimensions.    Cutting away to close-ups of her lips, Alice narrates her adventure and voices all the characters.   Seamlessly combining live action with toy objects and animation, Svankmajer creates a surreal dream world unlike any other presented on film.

(Jan Švankmajer, Czech Republic/Switzerland/UK/West Germany, 35mm, 84 min, 1989)

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Thursday, November 30 – 7pm – Free Screening

Little Otik
(Otesánek)

Svankmajer brings a famous Czech legend eerily to life in this darkly hilarious cautionary tale.   Karel digs up a tree root and whittles something vaguely resembling a human baby.   His wife's maternal longings transform it into a living creature with a literally monstrous appetite. Svankmajer brilliantly mixes his wicked humor with his subversive politics and love of mythology into a stunning live-action fable for our times.   "A handmade dream, cobbled together from dirt, wood and more imagination than most of us can muster in our most fevered states." – NEW YORK TIMES

(Jan Švankmajer, Czech Republic/ UK, Czech w/ Eng. St., 35mm, 127 min., 2000)

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Friday, December 1 – 9pm – Free Screening

Conspirators of Pleasure
(Spiklenci slasti)

Modern-day Prague is the setting for this story of six ordinary, if somewhat seedy, individuals who concoct an orgasmic meal with the aid of the most eclectic array of objects, animals, devices and processes.   As their solitary paths crisscross, Svankmajer condenses the sexual, the social and the political in a society still breaking the habits of a sexually puritanical past.   The detailed constructions and modellings of forms and infernal machines are akin to the very act of animation itself. Svankmajer relates it all with mischievous misanthropy and a brilliant array of special effects and animation techniques.

(Jan Švankmajer, Czech Republic/Switerland/UK, 35mm, 83 min., 1996)

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Saturday, December 2 – 7pm – Free Screening

Faust
(Lekce Faust)

Svankmajer's Faust is an ordinary, inquisitive Everyman who, upon exiting a Prague subway station, is handed a map that draws him to his doom. Led to an abandoned theater he finds a copy of Goethe's Faust and reads aloud unwittingly summoning a doppelgänger Mephistopheles who offers him his heart's desires for his soul.   Peopled with shape-changing demons and puppet-versions of Goethe's characters, Svankmajer's tour-de-force is hilarious and shocking, and utterly unforgettable.

(Jan Švankmajer, Czech Republic/UK, English, 35mm, 97 min., 1994)

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Friday, December 1 – 7pm
Saturday, December 2 – 5 & 9pm
Sunday, December 3 – 5 & 7pm

Lunacy

The latest provocation from Jan Svankmajer is loosely based on two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe and inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade. In nineteenth-century France a young man is plagued by nightmares in which he is dragged off to a madhouse. Journeying back from his mother's funeral he is invited by a Marquis to spend the night in his castle resulting in a surrealistic trip to a lunatic asylum where the patients have complete freedom and the staff is locked up.   “This excellent jolt of blasphemy interrupts its gothic narrative to spy on the animated antics of raw meat, severed tongues, and autonomous eyeballs.” - Nathan Lee, THE NEW YORK SUN

(Jan Švankmajer, Czech Republic/Slovakia, Czech w/ Eng. St., 35mm, 118 min., 2006)

World Cinema

Tuesday – Sunday, December 5 – 6, 8 – 10

The Word and the Image:
A Peter Whitehead Retrospective

Legendary filmmaker, author, lover of some of the world's great beauties, and falconer to Arab princes, Peter Whitehead was at the heart of Swinging London and the counter culture of the 1960s.   Whitehead's films stand as an unrivaled document of the era.   The first ever American retrospective of Peter Whitehead's work marks the 40th anniversary of his career in film.  

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Tuesday, December 5 – 7pm – Free Screening  

Time Capsules:
Peter Whitehead Shorts

In The Perception of Life biological ideas expand as technology improves.   Filmed through microscopes scientists used from the 17th to the 20th centuries.   Wholly Communion effectively launched Whitehead's career, capturing the historic event at the Royal Albert Hall where American and English Beat poets first met. Among the performers featured are Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Gregory Corso.   Finally in Benefit of a Doubt Peter Brook directs the Royal Shakespeare Company in US, a semi-improvised work protesting England 's unseen and unacknowledged role in the Vietnam War.  

(Peter Whitehead, UK, video, TRT 128 min., 1964 – 1967)  

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50 Years of Music Movies

Wednesday, December 6 – 7pm – Free Screenings Saturday, December 9 – 9pm

Peter Whitehead: Pop Films

Whitehead's work with The Dubliners, The Small Faces and, above all, The Rolling Stones was the very inception of the artful, experimental and daring pop promo. This program includes the films Whitehead made with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Nico, The Stones, Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett performing live and in the studio, and some rare surprises from the director's extensive archive.

(Peter Whitehead, UK, video, 120 min., 1966 – 1969)

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Friday, December 8 – 7pm – Free Screenings
Sunday, December 10 – 5pm

The Fall

The Fall is an extraordinary piece of filmmaking, an extremely personal statement on violence, revolution and the turbulence within late sixties America .   Whitehead captured the mood on the streets of New York in the immediate aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination and spent several days inside the occupied buildings of Columbia University with subsequent mayhem and violence.   Filmed entirely in and around New York between October 1967 and June 1968, it features Robert Kennedy, Paul Auster, Tom Hayden, Arthur Miller, Robert Lowell, Robert Rauschenberg and The Deconstructivists.

(Peter Whitehead, UK, video, 120min., 1969)

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Friday, December 8 – 9pm – Free Screening  

Daddy

What began as a documentary about French sculptress Niki de St Phalle finished up as a fantasy about a woman's attempts to exorcise the influence of her sexually domineering father. Alternately gothic and surreal, de Saint Phalle and Mia Martin are the two protagonists in a kind of ‘Let's Get Daddy' charade, acting out their fantasies on the poor unfortunate patriarch, as played by Rainer Diez.

(Peter Whitehead, UK, video, 90 min., 1973)

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Saturday, December 9 – 5pm – Free Screening

Fire in the Water

In this alchemical allegory, a filmmaker reviews his brief movie career in the highlands of Scotland while his girlfriend explores the countryside alone. With Nathalie Delon, The Animals, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, David Hockney and John Lennon.

(Peter Whitehead, UK, video, 90 min., 1977)

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Saturday, December 9 – 7pm – Free Screening  

Tonite Let's All Make Love in London w/ Nothing to Do with Me

One of the few filmmakers trusted by the 60s rock illuminati, Whitehead was allowed unparalleled access into the center of the pop circle. With contributions from the likes of Mick Jagger, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Lee Marvin and David Hockney, Tonite presents a dazzling and intimate record from the very core of the ‘in-crowd.' “Not a documentary in any ordinary sense,” said Variety, “but rather an impression-istic view of the ‘land of mod' as seen by a sympathetic participant.”   Shown with Nothing To Do With Me ; after returning from the United States to shoot The Fall , Whitehead philosophizes in this remarkable autobiographical document.

  (Peter Whitehead, UK, video, TRT 100 min., 1967 & 1968)

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Sunday, December 10 – 7pm – Free Screening  

In the Beginning was the Image:   A Conversation w/ Peter Whitehead

A newly filmed interview with Whitehead, including clips from his films and television appearances, and a wealth of still images exploring his work and life as a filmmaker.

(Paul Cronin, 90 min., 2006) 

Wednesday, December 13 - 7pm - Free Screening

Locally Grown

Local filmmaker Sarah Buccheri's thesis screening, your first chance to see the stunning “Antarctica Expedition 2004.” The screening is sure to be a party – she's brought along a bunch of her friends! Work by Sarah Buccheri , Kerrie Welsh, Grant Wiedenfeld, Stephen Wetzel, John and Joe Riepenhoff, David Witzling, Kimberly Miller, Micaela O'Herlihy, Polina Malikin.

Friday, December 15 – 7pm

UWM Student Film and Video Festival

A juried showcase of the best short films and videos from the students of the pioneering UWM Film Department.   Followed by an exhibit of photography work.

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Saturday, December 16 – 7pm

Senior Projects Screening

A special evening showcasing the films and videos completed by the UWM Department of Film's graduating seniors.