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

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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)!

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