Fri, Dec 2 at 7:30 • Sat and Sun, Dec 3 at 4:30 and 7:30 • IU Radio & Television Theater • Purchase Tickets
In March 2002, a state TV station in China was hijacked by members of outlawed spiritual group Falun Gong. Their goal was to counter the government narrative about their practice. In the aftermath, police raids sweep Changchun City, and comic book illustrator Daxiong, a Falun Gong practitioner, is forced to flee. He arrives in North America, blaming the hijacking for worsening a violent repression. But his views are challenged when he meets the lone surviving participant to have escaped China, now living in Seoul, South Korea. Combining present-day footage with 3D animation inspired by Daxiong’s art, Eternal Spring retraces the event on its 20th anniversary, and brings to life an unprecedented story of defiance, harrowing eyewitness accounts of persecution, and an exhilarating tale of determination to speak up for political and religious freedoms, no matter the cost.
A thrilling, all-consuming film that challenges traditional documentary tropes. – Toronto Globe and Mail
Sat and Sun, Nov 19 and 20 at 4pm and 7pm • IU Fine Arts Theater • Purchase Tickets
Fri, Dec 2 at 7pm • Sat and Sun, Dec 3 and 4 and 20 at 4pm and 7pm • IU Fine Arts Theater • Purchase Tickets
In October 2019, there was an unexpected revolution, a social explosion. One and a half million people demonstrated in the streets of Santiago for more democracy, a more dignified life, a better education, a better health system and a new Constitution. Chile had recovered its memory. The event that activist-filmmaker Patricio Guzmán had been waiting for since his student struggles in 1973 had finally materialized.
After decades in which Guzmán saw Chile turn into a sort of “huge mall with windows that didn’t show what was going on behind them,” society at large woke up to see their young turning the streets into battlefields, and the state using disproportionate force against them.
Guzmán was there when the coup against Salvador Allende took place in 1973 — his epic film depicting those events, The Battle of Chile, remains one of the most widely praised documentary films of all time, and was named “one of the 10 best political documentary films in the world” by Cineaste.My Imaginary Country offers filmgoers one of this year’s most keen and perceptive accounts of transformative events and social change happening right before our eyes. As Elisa Loncón, a Mapuche woman who presided over the Constitutional Convention states powerfully: “Marichiweu! The people won’t be defeated!”
Directed by Patricio Guzmán • 2023 • 83 min • in Spanish with English subtitles)
CRITIC’S PICK! Hundreds of thousands of Chileans took to the streets.They were met with tear gas, baton charges and plastic bullets aimed at their eyes. Some fought back with cobblestones chiseled from the street, which they hurled at the police. My Imaginary Country has a resonance specific to Chile, and to the career of its director, Patricio Guzmán, now in his early 80s, who can fairly be described as Chile’s biographer, and also its cinematic conscience. He has seen events like this before. – A. O. Scott, The New York Times
It’s a vindication, not just for the nation, but for its most clear-eyed, full-hearted chronicler. Would that all countries were so lucky as to have a Patricio Guzmán, to help with the painful process of recovering what has been lost and, as with My Imaginary Country, occasionally to celebrate what has been gained. — Jessica Kiang, Variety
With civil liberties in America under attack, those willing to fight to keep the liberties we have in place could learn a thing or two from … My Imaginary Country. — Valerie Comkplex, Deadline
Despite all the sorrow from the ever-present trauma of young lives lost or permanently scarred, My Imaginary Country drips with the contagious thrill of hope… it is hard not to be moved. — Rafaela Sales Ross, The Playlist
Fri, Nov 18 at 7:30 • Sat and Sun, Nov 19 and 20 at 4:30 and 7:30 • IU Radio & Television Theater • Purchase Tickets
In 1993, 16-year-old Brandon Lee enrolled at Bearsden Academy, a secondary school in a well-to-do suburb of Glasgow. What followed over the next two years became the stuff of legend. One of the most talked-about documentaries at Sundance, My Old School unravels the astonishing true story of a mysterious new student who may not be who his classmates and teachers believe. (Scotland • 104 min)
FRIDAY, OCT 28 • 7:30 • IU RADIO & TELEVISION THEATER
SAT, OCT 29 & SUN, OCT 30 • 3:45 & 7:30 • IU RADIO & TELEVISION THEATER
FRIDAY, NOV 4 • 7:30 • IU RADIO & TELEVISION THEATER
SAT, NOV 5 & SUN, NOV 6 • 3:45 & 7:30 • IU RADIO & TELEVISION THEATER PURCHASE TICKETS
Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues offers an intimate and revealing look at the world-changing musician, presented through a lens of archival footage and never-before-heard home recordings and personal conversations. This definitive documentary, directed by Sacha Jenkins, honors Armstrong’s legacy as a founding father of jazz, one of the first internationally known and beloved stars, and a cultural ambassador of the United States. The film shows how Armstrong’s own life spans the shift from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement, and how he became a lightning rod figure in that turbulent era.
Directed by Sacha Jenkins • 2022 • 104 minutes
Mining an archival mother lode of audio and video interviews and clips, Jenkins delivers a bountiful portrait of one of the 20th century’s superstars — on Armstrong’s own terms. — The New York Times (10/28/2022)
FRIDAY, OCT 21 • 7pm • IU RADIO & TELEVISION THEATER
SAT, OCT 22 & SUN, OCT 23 • 4:15 & 7PM • IU RADIO & TELEVISION THEATER
FRIDAY, OCT 28 • 7pm • IU FINE ARTS THEATER
SAT, OCT 29 & SUN, OCT 30 • 4:15 & 7PM • IU FINE ARTS THEATER PURCHASE TICKETS
Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) gives another riveting performance as Clarisse, a woman on the run from her family for reasons that aren’t immediately clear.
Widely renowned as one of France’s great contemporary actors but less well-known in North America for his equally impressive work behind the camera, Mathieu Amalric’s sixth feature as director is his most ambitious to date. You’ll be uncertain as to the reality of what your seeing until the final moments of this unpredictable, richly rewarding film.
France • 97 min
“Vicky Krieps mesmerizes… she delivers a disarmingly vulnerable, yet understated performance.” – Indiewire
“Gripping… cathartic…Amalric’s generosity of feeling and commitment to a percolating, hypnotic poetry of image, sound and human expression is noteworthy” – The Wrap
“Rich and evocative thanks to a bravura performance by Vicky Krieps.” – The Playlist
“Krieps’ performance is a standout in its profound, elegiac devastation—one not seen since Juliette Binoche’s turn in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors: Blue.”– Paste
Friday, October 21 at 7:30 • Sat, Oct 22 and Sun, Oct 23 at 3:30 and 7:30 • IU Fine Arts Theater • Purchase Tickets to campus screenings
From master creature-maker and special effects guru Phil Tippet, comes a decades long, handcrafted passion project that must be seen to be believed.
Set in a hallucinogenic hellscape populated by mad scientists, defecating monsters and crushed humanoids, Mad God is a wildly imaginative, stop-motion animated adventure that follows a lone, intrepid soldier on a mission through a Miltonesque world.
Phil Tippett is best known for his pioneering work at Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic on such films as Robocop, Starship Troopers and of course Star Wars. Mad God is a visually inventive, hand-crafted cinematic creation—try to imagine Dante’s Inferno by way of Hieronymus Bosch and Clash of the Titans on acid. That said, Mad God is a strikingly original, dark fantasy all its own.
Fri, Oct 7 at 7:30 • Sat, Oct 8 and Sunday, Oct 9 at 4:15 and 7:30 • IU Radio & Television Theater • Purchase Tickets
Katia and Maurice Krafft loved two things — each other and volcanoes. For two decades, the daring French volcanologist couple roamed the planet, chasing eruptions and documenting their discoveries. Directed by Sara Dosa with narration from filmmaker Miranda July, Fire of Love is a lyrical and moving portrait of two bold explorers as they venture into the unknown, leaving a legacy that forever enriches our knowledge of the natural world, all for the sake of love.
in English and French with subtitles • 93 minutes
Fire of Love is co-presented by Cicada Cinema
One of the most moving and mesmerizing films of the year, a meditation on the wonders of nature and human curiosity. – The Atlantic
A one-of-a-kind story of both science and romance, a movie which captures the overlapping unpredictability and ineffable beauty of both volcanoes and human bonds, and the unknown length of fuse which each ultimately possess – The AV Club
One of the year’s few awe-inspiring documentaries. – The Wall Street Journal
The Greatest Lava-Fueled Love Story Ever Told. – Rolling Stone
SEPT 30 & OCT 1 AT 7:30 • SUNDAY, OCT 2 at 4:15 & 7pm • IU FINE ARTS THEATER • PURCHASE TICKETS
Marcel is an adorable one-inch-tall shell who ekes out a colorful existence with his grandmother Connie in this blend of live-action and stop motion animation. Once part of a sprawling community of shells, Marcel and Connie now live alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy.
Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer Camp’s quirky short films about Marcel have an enthusuastic online following. Marcel is voiced by Slate and Connie by Isabella Rossellini, who’s come a long way since Blue Velvet. (89 min)
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is one of the most, inventive, and downright lovely films of the year. It’s a film with massive ambitions and an even larger heart. – Collider
The film’s heap of personality tics places it adjacent to Wes Anderson and softer Spike Jonze in a way that would seem smarmily optimistic were it not for the tinges of darkness that Slate, Camp, and co-writer Nick Paley weave into the story. Maybe quirky earnestness is back—so long as it’s done with as much care and insight as this rather marvelous curio. – Vanity Fair
AN UNASSUMING GEM! UNIQUE AND UNFORGETTABLE! -ABC News
One of those movies that sneaks up and surprises you with how good it is. There is great depth to this uncomplicated story. – Film Threat
Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995), not unlike her infamous protagonist, the charming and deadly Tom Ripley, led a double life.
Loving Highsmith looks at the life of the visionary American author known for her strange, cinematic stories of suspense. Strangers on a Train, her first novel, became the Alfred Hitchcock classic. Her second, The Price of Salt (published pseudonymously in 1952), dared to give lesbian lovers a happy ending and was soundly rejected by publishers. Decades later, it was made into the Todd Haynes film Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
Highsmith felt forced to keep her sexual identity hidden. Loving Highsmith is based on her private notebooks and diaries (found posthumously in a laundry closet) and the intimate reflections of lovers, friends and family. Excerpts from her diaries voiced by Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), beautifully interwoven with interviews and archival material, create a vivid portrait of a woman ahead of her time, whose brilliant literary output belied her belief that “My life is a chronicle of unbelievable mistakes.” Swiss filmmaker Eva Vitija says that her film, in part, is “a plea for the women of the Highsmith generation who fought for the right to live and love according to their true identity.” (83 minutes)
Filmmaker Eva Vitija does a great service not only to fans of Highsmith’s, but to all of queer history. As seen through the eyes of her former lovers (merely a few of many), Highsmith’s life is brought sharply into focus, revealing as much about her humanity as her work. – Indiewire
For over 35 years, Marcy Neiditz has been a ceramic artist, potter, sculptor and vessel maker. The artworks in this exhibit embody her love of color, pattern, design and texture—painted and carved on the surface of clay. Her work often references plant-life, nature, the microscopic world, and is inspired by the art of indigenous cultures and mid-century modern design. The abstract characters, drawn on the forms, come from her quirky imagination. The overall surface design has a narrative quality, and the story is left to the viewer’s imagination. Her newest body of work, Marcy Neiditz: New Work in Clay – 2022, is on exhibit at By Hand Gallery, Fountain Square Mall, 101 W. Kirkwood Ave., Ste. 109, Bloomington, IN 47404 www.byhandgallery.com. Ph: 812-334-3255 Exhibit dates are September 2–October 2, 2022. Opening Reception: Friday, September 2nd, 5 pm–8 pm For more info and images of Marcy’s artwork, visit her website: www.marcyneiditz.com
