The eighth annual European Union Film Festival, with entries from all 25 member states, continues Friday through Thursday, March 18 through 24, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312-846-2800. Tickets are $9, $7 for students, and $5 for Film Center members.
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Alexander Voulgaris, the 23-year-old son of Greek director Pantelis Voulgaris, directed this romantic comedy about a randy young accountant. In Greek with subtitles. 100 min. (8:15)
The eccentric residents of a small Estonian village are characters in a live radio soap opera voiced by two dorky actors (Henrik Normann and Madis Milling) in this 2003 comedy. As the actors read their lines, director Rando Pettai intercuts staged scenes, with the leads playing their characters (some in drag). Something must have been lost in translation, because the wackiness is severely strained, and the farce, which for the most part consists of absurd plot developments precipitated by studio mishaps, falls flat. In Estonian with subtitles. 100 min. (Reece Pendleton) (8:30)
Originally planned as a TV miniseries, this six-hour drama (to be shown in two parts) was released theatrically in Italy to enormous success. Directed by Marco Tullio Giordana, it follows two brothers, one a policeman, the other a psychiatrist and political activist, through 40 years of Italian history. In Italian with English subtitles. 180 min. (2:00)
Shades of Happiness
This bleak 2003 Swedish melodrama finds its footing through an adroit ensemble cast led by Pernilla August as the wife of a philandering heart surgeon whose indiscretions cost him his job. Across town, in intersecting story lines, a ferocious divorcee terrorizes her ex-spouse and his much younger new wife, and a workaholic contractor faces a moral dilemma when a dotty elderly couple offers him a large sum to wall them into their house. Writer-director Bjorn Runge orchestrates the mounting tensions to an almost unbearable pitch as his characters lay waste, purging themselves through cruel games. In Swedish with subtitles. 108 min. (AG) (8:00)
