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KSanders writesLife Preservers: Reviews of “Pictures of Ghosts,” “Bye Bye Tiberius,” “Food Roots,” and “They Shot the Piano Player”
by Kyle Sanders
If you’re a sucker for nostalgia, then it would help if you’re also a prolific filmmaker. That way, anything from your past that helped define your entire being can be the subject of your next project.
In the process, you’re also helping preserve a legacy that viewers can appreciate with what you’ve documented. And the more love and passion you put into it, the better your film will be received.
Several of the documentaries featured at this year’s Chicago International Film Festival involve a subject very personal to the filmmaker, be it family, hobby, or both. There appears a common thread between them as well: preventing the passage of time from allowing these subjects to disappear forever.
In Pictures of Ghosts (Brazil), Kleber Mendonca Filho lovingly reflects on the places of his past, all of which revolve around his love of film. From his boyhood home, where he watched his first movies (and began making them as well), to the cinemas of Recife, which provided him his first job as a teenager and a father figure of sorts from a friendly projectionist.
Filho cuts and pastes together an ode to an era of movie marquees (lovingly referred to as "timekeepers" that comment on life in the world) that no longer exists in the city where he grew up—at least outside of his memory, that is.
Pictures of Ghosts
KSanders writesSuffer the Little Children: Reviews of “We Grown Now,” “A Happy Day,” “The Boy and the Heron,” “Monster,” and “Explanation for Everything”
by Kyle Sanders
A peculiar thing happened to me while attending the press screening for We Grown Now, this year’s Opening Night title at the 59th Chicago International Film Festival: A family of six (including four children who could not have been any older than five years) walked in at around the half-hour point, clumsily staking out their spot.
After about ten minutes (of which half that time was spent settling into their seats), they got up and left. Apparently, they were not there to see Minhal Baig’s Chicago-set story about a friendship between two Black boys living in the Cabrini-Green housing complex during the early 1990s, but somehow didn’t realize their mistake until after quite some time. They exited the same way as they entered—as a thorn in my side.
While I found the disruption irritating (and before you judge me), I certainly didn’t blame the children. Despite the amount of time it took for them to settle down, as well as their inability to lower their voices, it’s the parents who should’ve recognized the faux paux sooner.
Because adults should know better, correct? This is something I was taught as a child: to listen to the adults in the room because “they know better.”
In We Grown Now (U.S.), little Malik and Eric are too young to know better outside the cinder-blocked walls of their Cabrini-Green homes. There, they each live with their non-nuclear families, gathered around dinner tables in the evenings while attending school during the day.
As much as their single parents work to provide for them, Malik’s mother Delores and Eric’s father Jason are unable to prevent the violence from crawling up to their doorstep. Once it does, the two boys must confront adulterated matters regarding racism, police brutality, and death.
We Grown Now
KSanders writesHighlights From the 2023 Chicago International Film Festival
by Kyle Sanders
I hope our CHIRP Music Film Festival (co-programmed by yours truly, no less) gave you a taste for more celebrations of cinema, because Chicago's got another heap of films for your viewing pleasure--this time spanning from around the globe.
That's right, it's time for the 59th Annual Chicago International Film Festival! With 99 feature films, 58 shorts, 19 U.S. premieres, and 1 international premiere spread out across eight venues, it might just be the biggest one yet!
It's also a special milestone for me, because this will be my tenth attended festival. I moved to Chicago in August of 2013, so this particular film festival was one of the very first citywide events I ever experienced after moving here, and I've been coming back ever since.
That first year only provided me one title to see (Italy's Salvo, which reminded me of Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive--sans the scorpion bomber jacket), but every year since, I've added more and more to my must-see list, and if I'm able to chew what I've bitten off for this year's lineup, I'll have seen over thirty films (as I'm writing this, I've already crossed off TWENTY titles)!
Kevin Fullam writesReflections on “Almost Famous” (Screening This Saturday at the CHIRP Music Film Festival)
by Kevin Fullam
"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." -- Lester Bangs
"Famous people are just more interesting." -- Lady Goodman, aka Penny Lane
Hmm. Is Penny right? Famous people might be fascinating for what they do -- but that doesn't mean they'll be able to wax philosophical about it afterwards.
At the conclusion of Almost Famous, journalist/teenage wunderkind William Miller (Patrick Fugit) finally gets his sit-down interview with Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) for Rolling Stone and leads with, "What do you love about music?"
Er... how does one begin to tackle a question that broad? And are musicians themselves going to be the ones to offer up the most eloquent treatises on the medium?
CHIRP Radio writesCOMING SOON: “Out of Time: The Material Issue Story” at the CHIRP Music Film Festival
Out of Time: The Material Issue Story (2021)
Sunday, September 17th 7:00pm
The first CHIRP Music Film Festival concludes with Balin Schneider's examination of Chicago band Material Issue. Formed in 1985, the trio released four albums before their time was tragically cut short by the death of frontman/song-writer Jim Ellison. But the band's influence and legacy remains in the International Pop Overthrow (the band's debut album, as of 2010 an annual multi-city music festival) and the sounds of other bands who attempt to capture power pop magic.
Out of Time will be followed by an array of Chicago bands paying tribute to Material Issue by each covering a pair of the band's songs.
The CHIRP Music Film Festival takes place at the historic Davis Theater in Chicago September 14th-17th. Tickets are available at Eventbrite.