Friday 3/5 – Thursday 3/11
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The Chicago Irish Film Festival begins tonight with the U.S. premiere of Mystics, a black comedy in which two washed-up actors set up shop as spiritual mediums. Two actors from the film, David Kelly and Milo O’Shea, will attend, as will Colm Meany (best known to Trekkies as engineering genius Chief O’Brien) and Irish Film Institute curator Sunniva O’Flynn. A reception starts at 6:30 and the screening follows at 8 at the Beverly Arts Center of Chicago, 2407 W. 111th; tickets are $30. The festival runs through Sunday, March 7. Tickets to all other screenings are $10; a pass good for all seven films as well as the opening night party is $50. Call 773-445-3838 or see the festival sidebar in Movies in Section Two for more information.
After a year writing about pedophile and secretly married priests, Sun-Times metro reporter Cheryl L. Reed began to wonder whether nuns were as unhappy as their male counterparts seemed to be. She traveled the country to interview more than 300 sisters–some from cloistered orders who were only allowed to talk for an hour a day, others employed as everything from university professors to prison chaplains–to write her new book, Unveiled: The Hidden Life of Nuns. She’ll appear tonight at 7:30 at Barnes & Noble, 1441 W. Webster; call 773-871-3610. At 5 PM on Sunday, March 7, she’ll read at Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark (773-769-9299), and at 7 PM on Monday, March 8, she’ll be at the Book Stall at Chestnut Court, 811 Elm in Winnetka (847-466-8880).
9 TUESDAY In the deferential context of a museum, it’s easy to forget that Italian Renaissance items like reliquaries, colorful bowls, and bronze inkwells were meant to be used, not merely admired. In The Uses of Art in Renaissance Italy, these and other pieces are explained within their original settings in an attempt to present them without contemporary notions of “art” getting in the way. The exhibit opens tonight at 5:30 at the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood. Admission is free; call 773-702-0200.
