The Chicago International Documentary Festival (which debuted last year as the Chicago International Doc Film Festival) continues Friday, April 2, through Sunday, April 11. Screenings are at the Beverly Arts Center; the Copernicus Center; Facets Cinematheque; Northwestern Univ. Thorne Auditorium; the Society for Arts, 1112 N. Milwaukee; and Univ. of Chicago Doc Films. Tickets are $8.50, $7 for seniors and students, and $6.50 for shows before noon or after 10 pm. Passes are available for $250 (all screenings), $125 (20 screenings), and $70 (10 screenings), but only the first includes admission to the closing-night gala; for more information call 773-486-9612. Films marked with a check (*) are highly recommended.
Carlos Rodriguez directed these Spanish films about the classical composer. A Symphony in Images (2003, 57 min.) uses footage from classic silent movies to bring Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique to the screen, and in Berlioz’s Trip (55 min.), Rodriguez documents the creation of the earlier film. (Copernicus Center, 6:30)
Gulag
The clash between American consumer culture and Cuban revolutionary fervor plays out in a fascinating, unpredictable manner in this colorful 2002 feature by David Schendel, about an offbeat collection of Havana painters, auto mechanics, and former racers who are slavishly devoted to their vintage American cars. Schendel introduces his subjects consecutively rather than interweaving them, and his episodic structure results in a fair amount of rambling. But he also uses the voluptuous shape and movement of the cars to create a jagged and mysterious Cuban landscape. In English and subtitled Spanish. 70 min. (Patrick Z. McGavin) (Facets Cinematheque, 9:00)
Ning Ying’s interesting but disorganized documentary Railroad of Hope (2001, in Mandarin with subtitles) documents the astoundingly crowded annual train trip of thousands of migrant laborers from Sichuan to the cotton fields of the Xinjiang region in the far west of China. The fictional HK Tale (2003) is director Filippo Lilloni’s attempt to capture the essence of Hong Kong, but its story, about a suicidal young woman and a Muslim man, is meandering and repetitious and reveals little about the city other than its amazingly constricted verticality. 104 min. (FC) (Society for Arts, 1:00)
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Sergej Loznitsa’s Portrait (2002) is a wordless series of “static portraits of common Russian people revealing time and its passing obscurity.” Sergey Vinokurov’s Return (2003), also wordless, is a meditation on Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son on its 300th anniversary. Edgar Bartenev’s Odya (2003, in Komi with subtitles) takes a mystical look at life in a remote Siberian village. 88 min. (Facets Cinematheque, 3:00)
This Ain’t No Heartland
