Film
Farming on Film: Mitra Sticklen documents life on the urban farm
“It’s not hard to make this stuff look good,” says filmmaker Mitra Sticklen, pausing in between shots of the bright green kale and collards on display on a stand at the 61st Street Farmers Market. “It’s beautiful stuff—beautiful footage.” The stand belongs to Windy City Harvest, an urban agriculture job training program of the... »
Doc of Love: From Ozu to Grit to WTF, what’s playing this quarter at the University of Chicago
Be still my caffeine-addicted, jumpy heart. Spring might not be in the air quite yet, but this quarter brings a new Doc Films calendar to plaster dorm and apartment walls across Hyde Park. And who should be on this quarter’s sepia-toned, oversized broadsheet but Cary Grant, heartthrob? Though Doc calendars are usually relegated to... »
Stereoscopic Dreams: Zoe Beloff uses archaic media to explore the boundary between illusion and reality
Though it’s been a goal of artists for centuries to simulate the experience of dreaming while awake—from lush romantic canvases of pastoral excess to surrealistic disjunction—the medium in which such a state is achieved shifts with time and technology. Artist Zoe Beloff, who works primarily in film and live performance, takes the dream almost... »
One Man’s Trash: Three University of Chicago alumni document Chicago’s scrap metal industry
As an undergrad at the University of Chicago, Ben Kolak saw men in battered old pick-up trucks or with old shopping carts picking up whatever miscellaneous pieces of metal they could find in the trash. He was immediately curious about these dedicated hunters, so much so that he decided to make a documentary about... »
Leading Man: Bronzeville filmmaker Morocco Omari contemplates life in the spotlight
Celebrities are consumer goods. Reading gossip in the press or on trashy blogs, fantasizing over new babies, new outfits, juicy breakups, and emotional breakdowns is a form of escapism. The allure is obvious. Celebrities embody some of our culture’s dominant desires—for wealth, status, beauty, exposure, mobility, access, and glamor. Like all consumer goods, celebs... »
Warsaw Nights: Polish cinema screens at the Beverly Arts Center
The romantic comedy and the grandiose epic are genres familiar to most Americans, so much so that we may think of them as indigenous to Hollywood. But however practiced we may be in the fine art of the chick flick, we can hardly claim a monopoly on it, as the schedule for this year’s... »
