Runs & Limited Engagements

A letter, a newspaper story, and the making of this very documentary function as the instruments for change on a global scale as a shocking story of Chinese slave labor unfolds. In 2012, an Oregon woman opened a box containing a Halloween decoration - ironically, a Styrofoam tombstone - and discovered a plea for help from Sun Yi, a political prisoner half a world away. The letter, written in Chinese and English, detailed the suffering of thousands held in China's notorious Masanjia labor camp, where prisoners were tortured, starved, and forced to manufacture cheap goods for the world market. Filmmaker Lee (HUMAN HARVEST) recreates the sequence of events, teaming up with now ex-prisoner Sun to film a clandestine exposé that serves to blow the lid off the secrets of China's slave-labor system. Sun's evocative illustrations in the manner of a graphic novel detail the inner workings of the camp and his own harrowing torture sessions, while interviews with two shamefaced and repentant former guards underline the horrifying veracity of the tale. In English and Mandarin with English subtitles. DCP digital. (BS)

Buster Keaton was the most modern and cinematically sophisticated of the great silent comedians; his films have scarcely dated at all. Director/critic Bogdanovich (WHAT'S UP, DOC; PAPER MOON), who knows a thing or two about film comedy and film history, pays tribute to Keaton's ageless genius in this loving, beautifully assembled documentary. Narrated by Bogdanovich himself, the film traces Keaton's life from his vaudeville-star childhood through his first films with Fatty Arbuckle, heyday as an independent producer, and disastrous move to the constrictive MGM studio. An impressive roster of talking heads - including Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks, Bill Hader, Johnny Knoxville (a kindred connoisseur of dangerous stunts), Quentin Tarantino (who recognizes Keaton's skill as an action director), and many more - contribute appreciative and often insightful commentary. Rather than leap-frogging to Keaton's triumphant late-life rediscovery, the film explores his three decades of decline and obscurity, studded with rare and little-known items that show his comic brilliance still flickering. Bogdanovich then ends the film on the highest of high notes: a dazzling thirty-minute crescendo of excerpts from Keaton's masterpieces of the 1920s. DCP digital. (MR)

Vigo's innovative style transforms a simple and engaging plot (a young woman's stormy initiation into married life on a river barge) into a kaleidoscope of overlapping subjectivities, dazzling digressions, and offbeat characterizations. Chief among the last is Michel Simon's legendary performance as Père Jules, expanding a gruff-old-man stereotype into an uproarious, demented genie who forms the very heart of Vigo's magical, anarchic universe. Ranked #12 on Sight and Sound's most recent Greatest Films poll, L'ATALANTE is an intoxicatingly inventive masterpiece filled with tour-de-force scenes: the drolly funereal wedding procession that opens the film; Père Jules's proud display of his incredible "museum" of exotic marvels; the husband's enchanting underwater vision of his missing bride; and a feverishly, frankly onanistic bout of long-distance lovemaking that critic Geoff Andrew called "the most genuinely erotic scene I have ever seen." In French with English subtitles. New 4K DCP digital restoration. (MR)

Heroines of Nicaragua's 1979 Sandinista Revolution get their due in this documentary that underlines for posterity the leading role of women in the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) through present-day encounters with the female leaders who made it happen. First-person accounts by key women, including former commander Dora Maria Téllez, reveal how thousands of sheltered country girls and home-bound wives and mothers answered the call of the nation's struggle for social and economic justice to become warriors who shattered gender barriers and matched or bested the men in combat against the troops of the totalitarian Somosa regime in the U.S.-backed Contra War. Compelling historical interviews and combat footage serve to create then-and-now portraits of the film's featured interview subjects, who ushered in a new era of equality, only to see their place in history gradually diminished and erased under the administration of Nicaragua's current president Daniel Ortega. In Spanish with English subtitles. DCP digital. (BS)

The title reminds us of the all-important second front of the Vietnam War: the protest movement that erupted on campuses across the country. Nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar and now rejuvenated through a crowd-funded 4K digital restoration, THE WAR AT HOME focuses on one of the most embattled of those second-front hot spots: the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Working in the analytic post-verité tradition of their mentor Emile de Antonio, directors Silber and Brown (longtime editor of Spike Lee's films) blend interviews and archival footage to provide a vivid overview of the ten-year period 1963-1973, as we see Madison evolve from a self-styled "All-American City" to a virtual war zone. Among those heard from are student activist leader Paul Soglin, who later became mayor of Madison; Senator Edward Kennedy, whose confrontation by student hecklers is one of the highlights of the film; Quaker peace activist Betty Boardman, who helped bring medical supplies to North Vietnam; and convicted US Army Math Research Center bomber Karl Armstrong, whose father has the film's final words: "They were telling us the truth. And we weren't listening." New 4K DCP digital restoration. (MR)

A hapless schnook (Neal) hitchhikes west to join his Hollywood-hopeful girlfriend and falls face first into the American Nightmare. Featuring a brilliant pulp script and a hair-raising femme fatale, DETOUR is deservedly a legend among connoisseurs of B-movies, film noir, and Poverty Row auteur Ulmer. Now a great film is reborn through a great restoration. DETOUR has captivated generations of cultists and cinephiles in scruffy, scratchy prints that were all that existed. Using original nitrate print sources and advanced digital technology, the Academy Film Archive and the Film Foundation have produced a restoration whose pristine, richly textured quality seems startling, even magical. You may have seen DETOUR before, but we guarantee that you have never seen this DETOUR. New 4K DCP digital restoration. (MR)

Winner of five Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay), this expert blend of romantic comedy, social satire, and character-rich drama seems fresher then ever. Jack Lemmon stars as insurance-company drone C.C. Baxter, who attempts to climb the corporate ladder by loaning out his bachelor apartment to philandering executives in need of a handy bed. Baxter’s life becomes even more complicated when he falls for a pretty elevator-operator (MacLaine) and strikes a devil’s bargain with his manipulative boss (Fred MacMurray). Showcased in this new 4K DCP digital restoration, Joseph LaShelle’s black-and-white widescreen cinematography captures the romance and loneliness of holiday-season New York. (MR)

Based on an astonishing true story about a paternal love that survived the test of time and the horrors of war, AYLA recounts a harrowing tale with a humanitarian heart. Director Ulkay avoids sentimentality but brings immense warmth to this tale in which the brutality of conflict is tempered by the innocence of a child. In 1950, Suleyman (Hacioglu), a Turkish soldier, heads off to the Korean War as a member of a UN task force. Amid the wreckage of a slaughtered village he discovers a small survivor still holding her dead mother’s hand. Suleyman names the little girl Ayla. With no other means of support, she becomes the mascot of the platoon, cared for by the men until the day that her loving surrogate dad is forced by officials to relinquish the child to an orphanage despite his frantic attempts to adopt her. Half a century later, Suleyman searches for Ayla. In Korean, English, Turkish, and Chinese with English subtitles. Presented in cooperation with the Consulate of the Republic of Turkey, Chicago. DCP digital widescreen. (BS)

In 2012, workers striking for more humane conditions at South Africa’s Lonmin platinum mine are set upon by police, and 37 are massacred. This shocking event mobilized the women of the Marikana community to action in pursuit of justice--a quest related in this inspiring documentary. Primrose and Thumeka, grandmothers and longtime best friends, come to the fore as powerfully respected elders pursuing roles as catalysts bringing together the women of their impoverished makeshift town in the new organization Sikhala Sonke (We Cry Together). Primrose runs for Parliament and wins, taking their concerns national, while Thumeka remains the prime mover locally, addressing the Lonmin company’s massive default on legal obligations to build worker housing and provide a living wage. Now separated by distance and a differing focus of responsibilities, will their combined efforts on behalf of a still-struggling community prevail against the forces arrayed against them? Co-presented with Human Rights Watch, Chicago. ProRes digital. (BS)

The reckless air of a border town gives extra flavor to a Mexican New Year’s Eve when the night urges Latin American Studies professor Alejandro (Deveze) into the waiting arms of temptation. A missed flight to his home in León strands the cautious middle-aged professor in Tijuana, where the town’s seedy air suggests danger, but the energy in the streets issues an irresistible invitation. After an unexpected encounter with pretty blonde former student Ana (Veta), an American, he joins a party of reveling academics. It’s the first course in an evening laced with comic undertones that will evolve into a tangled odyssey of new sights, new emotions, and a dangerous attraction. Director van Baal (LARGO) makes superb use of Tijuana’s colorful panorama of street action as Alejandro mixes with the vendors, mystery characters, sex workers, and would-be friends who will challenge his status quo. In Spanish with English subtitles. DCP digital. (BS)

Now in its 20th year, this is the ace of animation compilation shows, prized by fans, students, and industry professionals. It is curated by animation expert and producer Ron Diamond, who has scouted 38 eventual Oscar nominees and 11 winners among the many prize-winners culled from around the globe.
This year’s crop of 15 films from 6 nations includes:
THE GREEN BIRD, French gag-fest about a nervous bird's frantic efforts to protect her unhatched offspring;
ONE SMALL STEP, the touching tale of a girl's dream to become an astronaut;
GRANDS CANONS, a rapid-fire survey of the vast inanimate domain of tools, implements, instruments, appliances, and utensils;
FLOWER FOUND!, a provocative Dutch fable of barnyard injustice;
AGE OF SAIL, the sweeping saga of a misanthropic sailor who reluctantly rescues a teenaged girl;
MY MOON, a spectacularly visualized fantasy of a celestial love triangle;
WEEKENDS, the dreams and realities of an imaginative boy shuttled between his divorced parents.
In English and German with English subtitles. Note: Some violent content. DCP digital. (MR)

They don't make politicians like Daniel Patrick Moynihan anymore, although we could certainly use someone like the man who said, "People are entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts." Growing up poor in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City, Moynihan (who died in 2003) wore many hats--technocrat, author, Harvard professor, adviser to presidents, U.N. ambassador, U.S. Senator--but this lively documentary portrait is more than a resumé. It gets to the heart of a complex, unclassifiable individual: flamboyant yet thoughtful, effectively pragmatic without abandoning his New Deal-bred principles--whether they involved crafting LBJ's War on Poverty, writing the controversial Moynihan Report, passionately defending Israel in the U.N., or shocking his colleagues by joining the Nixon Administration (where he came one Senate vote short of putting through a revolutionary Family Assistance Program). DCP digital. (MR)

This year’s most deliciously offbeat and unpredictable film blends the otherworldly edge of Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindquist ("Let the Right One In") and the fantastical bent of director Abbasi (SHELLEY) for a contemporary fable that messes with the mind on the darker side of folklore. Tina (Melander), a customs agent with an instinct for detecting smugglers and felons through her unique sense of smell, detains a suspicious man. Although innocent of wrongdoing, he’s strangely familiar, with a stubby, hulking physique that matches her own. The two bond over other similarities, including strange matching scars, and what Tina ominously calls “chromosomal abnormalities.” Director Abbasi holds a whopper of an astounding reveal close, as this chameleon-like story unfolds as an investigative mystery, bizarre romance, and revenge drama traversing the border between real and surreal. In Swedish with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. (BS)

In this vivid and violent family saga, the five brothers of the peasant Parondi clan are traced from their beginnings in grinding rural poverty to the flowering of their rivalries and ambitions in working-class Milan.  Through the changing fortunes of one family, Visconti charts the societal changes that swept a generation from the fields of their ancestors to the cold concrete of the 20th-century city, and sent moral compasses spinning wildly.  In Italian with English subtitles.  4K DCP digital restoration.   (BS)

One of the earliest French-language hits in the U.S., this fondly remembered film has been hard to come by in recent years, making this sharp, more complete, newly subtitled 4K restoration all the more welcome. Novelist/playwright/director Pagnol (whose Marseille Trilogy played here last year) turns once again to his native Provence to tell a story imbued with regional flavor and a deft blend of humor and heartache. Lacking good bread and eye-catching women, a rural village is all agog over the arrival of a skilled baker (Raimu) and his sultry young spouse (Leclerc of LE CORBEAU), but their bliss proves short-lived when the lust-struck lass runs off with a hunky shepherd. The grieving baker's loaves turn as low as his spirits, so the famished villagers set aside their differences to find the wayward wife and persuade her to come home. Orson Welles called Raimu "the greatest actor who ever lived" and, in a 1952 poll, selected THE BAKER'S WIFE as one of the twelve best films of all time. In French with English subtitles. New 4K DCP digital restoration. (MR)