Onion City Festival Opening Night Program

The Opening Night Program of the 24th Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival, a production of Chicago Filmmakers, features an exciting and eclectic line-up of work. All are Chicago premieres.

BIG IN VIETNAM (2012, France, 29 min.): Mati Diop’s Rotterdam Film Festival prize-winner is a stunningly-photographed and resonant look at loss and displacement as Henriette, a French-Vietnamese film director, searches Marseille for a missing actor while her son carries on the production of an adaptation of “Les liaisons dangereuses.”

BOXING IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS (2011, The Philippines, 7 min.): Ghostlike images of amateur boxers and of favorite Filipino son Manny Pacquiao shimmer, jitter, glitch, and struggle for perceptibility in Raya Martin’s mesmerizing take on his country’s boxing obsession.

WELL THEN THERE NOW (2012, USA, 13 min.): Basing the film primarily on a 1980s script by musician John Zorn, with additional narration taken from Alain Robbe-Grillet and Phillipe Soupalt, Lewis Klahr fashions a haunting and elusive tale of desire and uncertainty.

ONE WAY TO FIND OUT (2012, USA, 5 min.) by Scott Stark: Hand-printed sections from 35mm movie trailers create a chaotic and densely layered retelling of Hollywood form. Loosely about desire, fear of coupling, and the consequences of moving forward, with results both catastrophic and ecstatic.

Plus additional films to be announced. For the entire Onion City schedule, visit chicagofilmmakers.org. Various formats. (Patrick Friel)