It’s here. Thank God and Goddesses, it’s spring! Two things mean spring in Minneapolis: The film festival and Mayday.
The 36th Annual Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival (Ms Piff to those of us who care), April 13-29, will be bringing us 250 new films from more than 70 countries. What a cure for cabin fever! Finally, a good reason and a good time to go outside and see what the world is thinking.
All films will be shown at St. Anthony Main, unless otherwise noted.
MALI BLUES
Mali/Germany
When Radical Islamists take over in Northern Mali, all music gets banned, musicians are threatened with death or maiming and have to flee. They declare music as unpure and say musicians brought the devil amongst the people. Female artist Fatoumata Diawara: “Because I cannot imagine a life without music, for a while I thought life was over. It felt like the earth would stop turning. It’s like a hospital, music.”
Mali musicians will not be silenced. They make music for peace, a tolerant Islam and change in their country. Mali music gets in your mind, body and soul and has been the country’s heart for thousands of years. It reaches deep inside you, gives you chills with its beauty and pain.
Musician Bassekou Kouyate plays an amplified ngoni. The ngoni is known to have existed since 1352 and is believed to have evolved into the banjo in North America after Mande slaves were exported there. Kouyate is an incredible musician and his playing brings Hendrix to mind.
This is a film about the importance and power of music and the danger of religious fanatics. (David Goldstein)
93 minutes
Fri Apr 14 at 4:45 pm (Uptown Theatre), Thu Apr 20 at 2:20 pm, and Mon Apr 24 at 5:25 pm (Rochester Galaxy 14 Cine)
THE FURY OF A PATIENT MAN (TARDE PARA LA IRA)
Spain
Director Raul Arevalo is a highly regarded veteran actor in Spain and this is his directorial debut. The film is quintessentially Spanish; you can see this from the first frame, and as it goes on, you can see that it’s further a study of machismo, with all its pain and shared suffering. In this it has a close affinity to classic American westerns, and several reviewers have remarked on the “John Ford” influence. The film won four Goyas, the Spanish Oscar equivalent, including Best Supporting Actor for Manolo Solo and for Arevalo, Best Film, New Director and Original Screenplay. The male lead is shared between Antonio de la Torre (Jose, the “patient man”) and Luis Callejo (Curro, the object of his fury, perhaps.) Ruth Diaz plays Ana, the girlfriend of Curro who is imprisoned in 2007 for an armed robbery that resulted in the brutal killing of a female store clerk. She has a son who was conceived on a conjugal visit with him. Jose is a regular at the bar where she works while waiting for Curro’s release. Jose is gently courting Ana, and when Curro is released and becomes jealous and violent, he persuades her to take refuge in his country hideaway in rural Segovia. And then the thriller kicks off and nothing is as it seemed. (Debra Keefer Ramage)
91 minutes
Sat Apr 15 at 10 pm (Uptown Theatre), Sat Apr 22 at 9:30 pm, and Fri Apr 28 at 9:55 pm
MAY GOD SAVE US (QUE DIOS NOS PERDONE)
Spain
This raw, unsettling, dark and violent film makes one long for salvation. It’s a hot summer in Madrid. Two very macho detectives with enough issues to fill a few psychology textbooks are trying to find a serial killer whose pathology tops theirs. Similar as the three main male characters are, though, especially in their relationships with women, their violence manifests in extremely different ways. The story is riveting as little by little by little the officers get closer and closer to the perpetrator. Along the way there’s a very emotional scene in which one of the detectives, Alfaro, has to bury his dead dog.
The filmmaker, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, said he wanted to talk about violence. I’ve always believed that at the root of violence is fear, but seeing this film challenged that notion: The characters’ actions express pure, unadulterated psychological pain; deep need; a noble sense of right and wrong; primordial possessiveness; righteous indignation. The title is translated literally as “May God Forgive Us” many places on the internet, but here in the film festival it’s translated as “May God Save Us,” which provides the insight that forgiveness is salvation. At the end of the film we don’t know entirely what that means; yet, there is a sense of mercy, if not from God, at least from the filmmaker for all the variables in the development of male sexuality, and how pitiable it is to be human. (Mary Ann Vincenta)
127 minutes
Fri Apr 14 at 9:35 pm and Tue Apr 18 at 9:50 pm (Uptown Theatre)
J: BEYOND FLAMENCO
Spain
The way you say “j” in Spanish is “jota.” The jota is also the name of a very lively Spanish folk dance in 3/4 time whose castanet rhythms and foot patterns are captivatingly intricate. The jota, I learned from the film, originated in the region of Aragon, has Oriental and Arabic roots, and has developed into many unique styles throughout Spain, Latin America and the Philippines. It has a deep relationship with flamenco. The film shows numerous variations of the jota, staged in formal performances rather than as footage of people in villages dancing in outdoor local festivals. The rich color and glittering energy stay with you long after the movie ends. You can feel iconic director Carlos Saura’s great love for performance as he artfully records it. Saura at 85 is still working. This is his 46th film. (Elaine Klaassen)
87 minutes
Fri Apr 14 at 4:30 pm and Thu Apr 20 at 4:45 pm (Uptown Theatre)
FORTUNE FAVORS THE BRAVE
Germany
Kids on the loose! In Germany! Running amok! Norbert Lechner has directed a colorful and buoyant narrative film that submerges viewers into youthful immaturity, poor judgment, courage, creativity, and eventually, good fortune. Living in Germany, Vietnamese sisters Ling, 11, and her sister, Tien, age 9, are forced to team up with 11-year-old Pauline, a German girl rejected and bullied by her own peer group. When their mother is forced to return to Vietnam to care for a parent, the sisters’ efforts to remain under the radar screen to avoid deportation are sabotaged in a series of mishaps. All ends well, and in the process, consciousness is raised about the relative ease and privilege of dominant culture versus the minefield of immigrant terrain—surely a timely and relevant global theme. This comic film sugarcoats the reality of these challenges in the real world—Germany has its own shades of Hollywood. (Nancy Ruppenthal)
96 minutes
Sat Apr 15 at 12 pm and Sun Apr 23 at 9:15 am
ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE: TRUTH, DECEPTION, AND THE SPIRIT OF I.F. STONE
Canada
I really wanted to like this film. I love I.F. Stone. I still love him. I subscribed when I was 19 or 20. I.F. Stone and The Weekly Guardian were my two sources of information in the ’50s and early ’60s. He was my moral guide and mentor.
But this film isn’t much about him, it’s more about the journalists and writers who come after him, and they seem a rather arrogant and self-satisfied lot. Typical is Michael Moore who says, “I can draw a line from I.F. Stone to what I do now.” That gets a bit tedious after a while.
I went to the March on Washington to protest the war in Vietnam in March of 1964. We were small, 35 to 50,000 people. But we knew this was just the beginning of resistance. This moment was our baptism for battle, and the High Priest who blessed us and began the rally by saying, “Welcome to Washington,” was I.F. Stone. The antiwar movement was born at that moment, and, to paraphrase Michael Moore, “You could draw a line from that blessing and that march to the antiwar work of Women Against Military Madness and The Anti-War Committee of Minneapolis today.”
See.
Claims of paternity are tedious.
And the film doesn’t mention I.F. Stone’s greatest investigation. He stopped doing the Weekly (I think it became a bi-weekly for a couple of years) and learned the Ancient Greek language so he could unravel the mystery of Socrates’ death. He concluded Socrates was a jerk and probably responsible for Athens losing the Peloponnesian War to Sparta, but he didn’t believe in capital punishment, so he wouldn’t have condemned Socrates to death.
Reading the book was like reading the columns all over again. New information. Things you hadn’t thought about. Relentless logic.
Yes, Michael Moore is probably right, Izzy created a generation that has now created a new generation of journalists and activists.
Yes, you probably should go to the movie. And take your children. And tell them, “That’s my grandfather up there.” (Ed Felien)
92 minutes
Sat Apr 15 at 7:40 pm, Tue Apr 18 at 4:35 pm, and Thu Apr 27 at 4:45 pm (Capri Theater)
93 DAYS
Nigeria
The opening of the film takes you directly to First Consultants Medical Centre in Lagos, Nigeria. After that you see the breadth of Lagos in sweeping, wide, beautiful shots that capture the sense of its 21 million inhabitants going about their daily lives. The stage is then set for the story of courage on every imaginable level as medical personnel from First Consultants, to ordinary people who risked their lives, to experts from the World Health Organization, especially a dedicated doctor from Kentucky, worked to stop the spread of the Ebola virus in 2014.
The warmth, respect, strength and kindness in the interactions among the characters endeared them to me from the beginning and I wished I knew them. This was more of a tearjerker than an academic discussion of how to control an epidemic, although the film is very informative on that level. (Elaine Klaassen)
124 minutes
Sat Apr 15 at 1:50 pm and Fri Apr 21 at 2:10 pm
EL AMPARO
Venezuela/Colombia
In 1988, in the sleepy Venezuelan town of El Amparo on the border with Colombia, a group of men get hired for the day to go fishing down the river. They are singing, drinking and arguing with their wives. They aren’t thinking about the Colombian Army or the Venezuelan Army or about various guerrilla and paramilitary groups active in the area. Only two of the men return. They soon become aware of what the radio says happened to their friends and relatives, but they know the truth of their own experience.
There is turmoil in the village as people realize their powerlessness against the forces around them. What options do they have? The astonishing strength and heroism of the survivors and some of the other villagers is inspiring as they commit to the truth whatever the cost. To this day their struggle continues. The imbalance between the powerful and the powerless goes on. The loose ends in the story, a character named Hilario, and the somewhat inept reporters, were left there because in the actual story they also didn’t make sense. (Elaine Klaassen)
99 minutes
Sat Apr 15 at 1:45 pm (Uptown Theatre), Wed Apr 19 at 9:30 pm, and Fri Apr 28 at 9:45 pm
IN BETWEEN (BAR BAHAR in Arabic)
Israel
The first feature film by young female Arab-Israeli filmmaker Maysaloum Hamoud is probably a little bit autobiographical, or at least focuses on a community she knows well, and is all the better for that. Billed as a comedy, it is bittersweet in its humor, but clearly pure sweetness in its affection for the three main characters, a more likeable “Sex in the City” trio than the American originals. There is a clear bad guy in the hypocritical fiance of dutiful Muslim grad student Nour (Shaden Kanbourah); a more nuanced antagonist in the admirable but flawed love interest of attorney and party girl Layla (Mouna Hawa); a terrifying patriarch in the father of Christian lesbian Salma (Sama Jammalieh); and finally a minor but shining hero in the father of Nour: He comforts and affirms his daughter when she breaks off the “perfect” betrothal he had so carefully arranged for her, and she can’t even tell him why. The Arabic title literally means “Land / Sea” and has the connotation of “neither here nor there.” The director and the three female leads all received death threats for this complex representation of women at the crossroads of two cultures and trying to self-actualize under the patriarchy, not easy even in the relatively permissive “West.” (Debra Keefer Ramage)
96 minutes
Sun Apr 16 at noon, Mon Apr 24 at 9:40 pm, and Thu Apr 27 at 9:45 pm
FANNY’S JOURNEY
France/Belgium
This is the true story of a 12-year-old who led her two younger sisters and a half dozen other children out of Nazi-occupied France and Italy to safety in Switzerland. It is a harrowing adventure story.
The point of understanding history is to not repeat it. Unfortunately, Donald Trump and his supporters will probably not see this film, and his immigration policies will tragically repeat the horrors of the past. The hatred of Jews by the Nazis is now directed at Latinos. Trump called them “rapists” and justified criminalizing all Latin Americans.The Star Tribune reported last week that more than a thousand unaccompanied minors have crossed the Mexican-U.S. border since 2014 to escape violence in their native countries. Most of the Latin gang violence is fueled by U.S. demand for drugs. (Ed Felien)
“Fanny’s Journey” brings back the horror of the “Nazi Solution” as seen through the eyes of French children whose crime was to have been born Jewish. They are made to see the terror of persecution, the worst of humanity and suffer the constant fear of capture when they should be enjoying adolescence. They had to assume non-Jewish names, fabricate a new identity and seek shelter and safety with various organizations that hid them from the Germans until someone inevitably informed the Gestapo and they had to escape once more.
While Trump’s immigration policy is horrendous, hideous and needs to be stopped, it cannot be compared to the rounding up and killing of millions of men, women and children that Adolph Hitler unleashed on the world. We have to make sure the world never forgets and that it never comes to that again for any race, creed, nationality or color. (David Goldstein)
94 minutes
Sun Apr 16 at 10 am and Sun Apr 23 at 1:45 pm
PARADISE
Russia/Germany
It’s hard to decide which is the best feature of “Paradise,”Andre Konchalovsky’s film set in France and an unspecified concentration camp. Is it the amazing performances of the three principal characters—Julia Vysotskaya as Russian emigree princess Olga, Christian Clauss as aristocratic Nazi officer Helmut, and Phillipe Duquesne as corrupt Vichy policeman Jules—who form what I guess you could call an unconsummated love triangle? Is it the fact that a film has actually found new angles to explore and new things to say and portray about the most relentlessly documented thing in the 20th century: the Nazi regime and the Holocaust? Is it the astonishingly beautiful cinematography of Aleksandr Simonov, an “ink and porcelain,” retro-monochrome vision that somehow looks almost futuristic, or perhaps outside of time altogether? “Paradise” has all these things, plus a complex tale that utterly sucks you in, and a marvelous plot twist about halfway through and then another one at the end. (Debra Keefer Ramage)
130 minutes
Wed Apr 19 at 2 pm (Uptown Theatre), Fri Apr 21 at 6:50 pm, and Thu Apr 27 at 4:15 pm
CHURCH OF FELONS
USA
Jordan Mederich, based in Osceola, Wis., won the Best First-time Filmmaker Award at the Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards for this riveting 87-minute film. The narrator tells us that Wisconsin has no minimum drinking age, that OWIs (which often involve boats, motorcycles and snowmobiles as well as cars) are treated casually for the first-time offense, and that 9% of Wisconsin mothers self-report drinking throughout their pregnancies. Unsurprisingly, the state, and Polk County in particular, have crippling rates of drug and alcohol related crimes and traffic accidents. (Polk County also has a serious meth problem, along with the usual prescription drugs and weed). The documentary tells the stories of four especially harrowing cases, and of the tales of redemption that flow from the Osceola Community Church, a place rich in music, forgiveness and felons. Along the way, other offenders, family members, victims, and one single prosecutor, who in a shocking twist, is himself stopped on an OWI, offer their surprisingly gentle, loving and merciful takes on it all. (Debra Keefer Ramage)
87 minutes
Thu Apr 20 at 7:10 pm and Sat Apr 29 at 2:30 pm
VINCE GIORDANO: THERE’S A FUTURE IN THE PAST
USA
Some people find a passion (or obsession) in childhood that forms their life trajectory. Vince Giordano, band leader (The Nighthawks), musician and archivist of Tradjazz/Hot Jazz stock charts from the 1920s and ’30s, is one of them. Dave Davidson and Amber Edward’s profile gracefully integrates music history and Giordano’s personal history with plenty of performance and artist interviews. In the process they recognize the team effort that forms the essence of any successful band. Whether or not this genre holds allure, this film has educational value on many levels.
In the 1980s Giordano’s height of success as a revivalist hero was largely based out of Sophia’s in Manhattan. The film highlights gigs in diverse locales including Music Mountain, The Newport Jazz Festival and Wolf Trap Farm, where the Nighthawks are featured by Garrison Keillor on “A Prairie Home Companion” broadcast. There’s plenty of backstage footage here including reference to a comment Keillor made as he recognized band member Andy Stein from his days with Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Fans of the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” will be quite familiar with Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks. Fun will be had by all. (Nancy Ruppenthal)
90 minutes
Fri Apr 21 at 2:40 pm, Sun Apr 23 at 2:30 pm
BILL FRISELL, A PORTRAIT
Australia
Bill Frisell, virtuoso composer and guitarist, is an international treasure. Emma Franz has managed to replicate his calm and unhurried/unharried personal and musical demeanor throughout her film in a most refreshing fashion. Viewers can settle in for a truly naturalistic journey, meeting many artists, groups, venues and insightful musings all the way.
The Twin Cities have had the good fortune of many performances by a number of Frisell’s groups in the past decade or so. For newcomers to his music, this film will be a fine introduction. A picture of Frisell’s influences and development are interwoven with solo and collaborative interviews and sessions showing his wide-ranging, cross-genre talents. Add to this the commentary of a long list of artists (Bonnie Raitt, Joey Baren, Jim Hall, Jason Moran, John Abercrombie, Paul Motian, Jack DeJonette and Ron Carter, to name a few). This is vastly satisfying material for the improvising culture as well as high quality education for the curious. For the Paul Motian fans out there, segments of Paul’s last performance appear in the film.
Folks raised in any musically cultish environment may view Bill Frisell as a liberator of sorts. He has worked his way from any restrictive ideas about taste and genre to an authentic ability to recognize and honor the music that moves him. Think of the film as a rare oasis from politics in any form. Yes, it’s possible. Yes, you need it. (Nancy Ruppenthal)
114 minutes
Mon April 24 at 6:45 pm, Fri Apr 28 at 4:30 pm
40 YEARS OF MAY DAY
USA
This film is a collection of short documentaries that capture the spirit of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre’s annual May Day Parade, Tree of Life Ceremony and Festival every first Sunday in May in Powderhorn Park. It’s a lovely compilation with stunning photograpy by local photographers and filmmakers. Mike Rivard, Daniel Polsfuss and Will Hommeyer are responsible for the three major sequences. Sandy Spieler, the artistic director for its 40-plus years, begins the film by saying the Mayday Parade began as a kind of protest to the war in Vietnam, “But the strongest form of protest is to build community. War tears us apart as a community. Mayday tries to bring us together.”
1975, when the first Mayday Parade marched down Bloomington Avenue to Powderhorn Park, was a unique moment of revolutionary optimism. I felt very much a part of it. I was elected to the City Council in 1974, and (as an unrepentant Maoist) I was proposing municipalization of the electric company, rent control to protect renters, a gay rights ordinance (that actually got passed), etc. Some ultra-left revolutionaries took over the food co-ops they had begun just a few years before and tried to change them from food boutiques into proletarian fast food take-outs. They had the best of intentions, most of them, but they had a left-dogmatic analysis that ended up alienating everybody. Out of all that chaos, the Mayday Parade is all that remains. And it is a continuing beacon of hope at the end of winter.
More than 50,000 people come every spring to participate and be part of the annual ritual. The raising of the Maypole celebrates a rite that must go back before recorded history for those of us whose ancestors came from Northern Europe. Mayday would be the point midway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It was time to signal to the village, to the community, to the tribe, that it was time to begin planting. The erect Maypole stood as a phallus against the sky, a symbol of fertility. The community danced around it, anxious for its blessings.
Mayday always captures that spirit. There is always hope. But it is a hope that understands there are problems. We are not at the Promised Land. We have miles to go before we reach the Promised Land, but we are marching there together. And maybe that’s it. Maybe we never actually get there. Maybe getting there, is going there with people you love. Maybe this, here and now, is the blessed community.
You can taste that moment of hope and the blessed community this Mayday, Sunday, May 7, at about 12 p.m. when the Parade starts down Bloomington Avenue and around 2 when it starts the pageant and the raising of the Maypole in Powderhorn Park. But every Saturday in April from 9 to 11 and from 1 to 3, and every Tuesday and Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m., you can participate in workshops building puppets and costumes to wear in the Parade. You can be part of the Celebration. It’s at Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater at 15th Avenue and Lake Street in the old Avalon Theater.
Happy Mayday! (Ed Felien)
98 minutes
Wed Apr 26 at 7 pm and Sat Apr 29 at 11:10 am
