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)
May 27, 28; June 3, 4 at 8pm • Sunday, May 29 and Sunday, June 5 at 4pm and 7pm • IU Fine Arts Theater • Purchase Tickets The extraordinary adventure of the young members of the Piedmont Speleological Group who, having already explored all the caves of Northern Italy, changed course in August 1961 and went South to explore other caves unknown to man, 700 meters below the Earth, in the untouched Calabrian hinterland. The intruders’ venture goes unnoticed by the inhabitants of a small neighboring village, but not by the old shepherd of the Pollino plateau whose solitary life begins to interweave with the group’s journey. Another work of nearly wordless organic beauty that touches on the mystical by Michelangelo Frammartino, the visionary director of Le Quattro Volte; those of you who were lucky enough to see that film when we screened it in 2012 remember the loud, sustained ovation it received. Casting real speleologists, Frammartino meticulously details the exploration of this seemingly fathomless cave of startling wonder and beauty, himself spending hours inside, using cameras with extended fiber optic cables. ( 93 min)
Co-presented by Bloomington Indiana Grotto, a chapter of the National Speleological Society (caves.org).
Pandemic Protocols: Filmgoers will no longer be asked to wear their masks once they are seated in the theater. However, filmgoers must be vaccinated and should be prepared to show proof of vaccination. Please continue to bring a photo of your vax card. Minors (under 18) have the option of presenting a dated, negative Covid test. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
June 3-12 Visit The Ryder.com for dates, times and locations This buoyant French comedy from filmmaker Charline Bourgeoise-Tacquet follows a free-spirited, 30-something woman in her search for stability. Behind on her rent and her thesis, Anais searches for inspiration while hurtling through lovers with abandon. Things get especially crazy when she falls in love with the wife of a book publisher she had been seeing. This effervescent, cliche-shattering feature debut weaves a tale of self-discovery as literate as it is unexpected, keeping viewers and Anais off-balance until the final scene. (98 min)
Pandemic Protocols: Filmgoers will no longer be asked to wear their masks once they are seated in the theater. However, filmgoers must be vaccinated and should be prepared to show proof of vaccination. Please continue to bring a photo of your vax card. Minors (under 18) have the option of presenting a dated, negative Covid test. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
May 6, 7, 13, and 14 at 7:30 • May 8 and 15 at 3pm • All screenings at the IU Radio & Television Theater Purchase Tickets
Everything is in its proper place, yet nothing is ever what or where it seems. The Girl and the Spider charts several days in the lives of two young women who have shared an apartment: one is in the process of moving out while the other is staying behind. Though its setup is simple, the film—and the ambiguous relationship between the women—is anything but. The architectural precision of the filmmaking belies the inchoate longings that appear to course through the two roommates. As a succession of friends, neighbors, family members, carpenters and movers come and go, the apartment itself becomes an all-seeing, silent presence. The Girl and the Spider is written and directed by twin brothers Ramon and Silvan Zürcher. It won the Best Director prize at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival. (99 min / in German with subtitles)
Pandemic Protocols: Filmgoers will no longer be asked to wear their masks once they are seated in the theater. However, filmgoers must be vaccinated and should be prepared to show proof of vaccination. Please continue to bring a photo of your vax card. Minors (under 18) have the option of presenting a dated, negative Covid test. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
January 7 and 8 at 7:30 at the IU Radio & Television Theater Sunday Matinee! Jan 9 at 3pm IU Radio & Television
In this evocative triptych — three taut stories set in Tokyo about the mysteries and depths of women’s desires — coincidence seems as natural as the passing of time, and both are depicted in equal measure as whimsical and sharp: A fashion model discovers her friend is dating the ex who may have been her true love; a college student attempts to avenge humiliation by enlisting his lover to lure his sadistic professor into a “Me Too” situation; two middle-aged women make a poignant, enigmatic connection. Filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi homes in on deceptively simple moments, finely sketched to reveal the strangeness of true intimacy.
2021 / 120 min / in Japanese with subtitles / Coming in January:Ryûsuke Hamaguchi ‘s Drive My Car
“Critic’s Pick. The geometry of desire is elegantly plotted… a wistful, moving, outwardly unassuming movie… (by) one of the more intriguing filmmakers to emerge in the last decade…” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“Ingenious, playful, sparklingly acted and thoroughly entertaining portmanteau collection. Elegant and amusing, with a delicacy of touch and real imaginative warmth. An invigorating experience.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (UK)
Tickets: only $8
Covid Protocols: Filmgoers must be vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination. Filmgoers must wear masks in the theater. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity.
Dec 17 and 18 at 6:30 at the IU Fine Arts Theater Scandi noir! Sidse Babett Knudsen stars as kindly Aunt Bodil (a 180-degree reversal from her role as the morally impeccable Danish Prime Minister in the TV series Borgen), who provides a home for her orphaned teen-aged niece. As it turns out, her smiling aunt is the grande dame of a ruthless crime family. Sandra Guldberg Kampp is riveting as an emotionally fragile, grieving young woman who is grateful to her new relations but conflicted about their enterprise. 2021 • Denmark • in Danish with subtitles • 88 min
Dec 17 and 18 at 8:30 at the IU Fine Arts Theater A hardworking Maltese fisherman, Jesmark, is faced with an agonizing choice. He can repair his leaky luzzu – a traditional, multicolored wooden fishing boat – in the hopes of eking out a meager living at sea for his wife and newborn son, just as his father and father’s father did before him. Or he could cast his lot with a sinister black-market operation that is decimating the Mediterranean fish population and the livelihoods of the local families who depend on it. Luzzu heralds the arrival of writer-director-editor Alex Camilleri, a gripping storyteller in the neorealist tradition of early Luchino Visconti and the Dardenne brothers and and calls to mind the work of the film’s producer Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, The White Tiger). Nonporofessional actor Jesmark Scicluna, a real-life Maltese fisherman, won an award at Sundance for his extraordinary performance. Malta / 95 min / in Maltese with subtitles
Dec 10 and 11 at 7pm at the IU Fine Arts Theater During the summer of 2016, a fishing boat off the shores of Iceland made a most curious catch: four reels of 35mm film, seemingly of Soviet provenance. The film turned out to be an incomplete print of a popular Soviet comedy from 1969, water damaged no less. Did that mean it had no value? Filmmaker Bill Morrison thought not. (Some of you saw his film Dawson City, Frozen Time when we screened it in 2017) Morrison makes movies from ghostly fragments of lost films. He uses these four reels as a jumping off point for his latest meditation on cinema’s past, offering a journey into Soviet history and film accompanied by a gorgeous score by Pulitzer and Grammy-winning composer David Lang. 2021 • in English and in Russian with subtitles • 81 min Morrison’s movies feel like half-remembered reveries formed from memories you can no longer consciously recall. Hovering at the intersection of reappropriation, preservation, history, music, and art, any one of his works will haunt you for the rest of your life. – Hyperallergic
Covid Protocols: Filmgoers must be vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination. This includes IU students, faculty and staff. (You can show us your vaccination card us on your phone.) Filmgoers must wear masks in the theater. Seating will be capped at 35% of capacity. Where Are Films Shown?Where Can I Park for free on Campus? Any other Questions? Send an email to ed****@Th******.com
