Special Event
Saturday, October 9, 7:30 p.m.
Arts Night Out: Contemporary Iranian Animation
  (1994-2001, Iran, 84 min., 35mm)
Produced by Iran's Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, these animated shorts weave tales that are humorous, graceful, thoughtful, and sometimes silly. Using techniques ranging from hand painting to silhouettes to claymation to knitting, they are sure to please any animation fan, young or old. One film is in Farsi with English subtitles; the others have no dialogue. Special thanks to Tom Vick of the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. for making the program available.
Shangoul and Mangoul (Farkhondeh Torabi & Morteza Ahadi, 2000, 17 min., 35mm)
The Flower, the Bird and The Sun (Bahram Javaheri, 2001, 11 min., 35mm)
Bahador (Abdollah Alimorad, 2001, 27 min., 35mm)
Sweet Story   (Mohammad Reza Abedi, 1995, 14 min., 35mm)
Companion (Ali Asgharzadeh,   1994, 15 min., 35mm)

Friday, October 29, 7:30 p.m.
Late Spring
( Banshun )
(Japan, 1949, 108 min., 35mm)
Dir. Yasujiro Ozu Writ. Kazuo Hirotsu, Kôgo Noda, Yasujiro Ozu Cast Hohi Aoki, Setsuko Hara, Masao Mishima, Kuniko Miyake, Chishu Ryu.
One of Ozu's personal favorites, the film was the first to star Setsuko Hara opposite Chishu Ryu.   The film centers on a young woman who refuses to marry so that she may provide companionship to her widowed father. Determined to marry her off, he lets her think he plans to remarry. Film scholar Donald Richie has hailed the film as "one of the most perfect, most complete, and most successful studies in character ever achieved in Japanese cinema."

Saturday, November 13, 7:30 p.m.
Max Havelaar
( Max Havelaar of de koffieveilingen der Nederlandsche Handelsmaatschappij )
(Netherlands, 1976, 170 min., 35mm)
Dir./Prod. Fons Rademakers Writ. Gerard Soeteman, based on novel by Multatuli Cast Joop Admiraal, Sacha Bulthuis, Peter Faber, Rutger Hauer.
Lavishly shot and sprawling in scope, Max Havelaar tells the story of an idealistic bureaucrat sent to the Dutch East Indies, where his plans for reform are met with resistance from the natives and colonizers. Like Herzog's Fitzcarraldo and Coppola's Apocalypse Now , Rademakers's film is an epic examination of Western imperialism.

Thursday, December 9, 4:00 p.m.
11:14 (USA, 2003, 85 min., 35mm) � with filmmaker Greg Marcks in person!
Dir./Writ. Greg Marcks Cast Hilary Swank, Patrick Swayze, Barbara Hershey, Henry Thomas, Rachael Leigh Cook, Colin Hanks, Ben Foster, Shawn Hatosy, Stark Sands.
On Thursday at 4:00 (note the special early start time), award-winning indie filmmaker Greg Marcks will present his debut feature film 11:14 - starring Hilary Swank, Barbara Hershey and Patrick Swayze-as part of the CommArts colloquium series, in an event co-sponsored by the Cinematheque and Wisconsin Film Festival. The director will introduce the film and hold a Q & A session afterwards. In a sleepy suburban town, the lives of a drunk driver, a bored teenager, a protective father, a slacker motorhead, and a manipulative girl collide in a series of deadly ironic twists that all converge at the fateful hour of 11:14 pm. "Non-stop action and macabre humor . . . its energy, misanthropic characterizations and infectiously gruesome fun are reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction.'" -Toronto Film Festival, 2003. Marcks studied creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University and directing at the Florida State University Film School. His short films screened internationally at over 50 film festivals and garnered various accolades, most notably a 2001 Student Academy Award. Marcks has twice been a Chesterfield Fellowship semi-finalist and is a 2002 winner of the Cinestory Screenwriting competition. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Friday, December 10, 7:30 p.m.
The Art of Falling
(Sztuka spadania)

The Big Animal
(Duze zwierze)
(Poland, 2000, 72 min., 35mm)
Dir. Jerzy Stuhr Writ. Krzysztof Kieslowski Cast. Jerzy Stuhr, Anna Dymna, Rubio the camel
Scripted by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski (Blue, White, Red) and shot in shimmering black-and-white by cinematographer Pawel Edelman (Academy Award-nominee for Roman Polanski's The Pianist) Big Animal is a lovely, small film that exposes greed and pettiness while celebrating the most beautiful human themes: Love, friendship and tolerance. When the circus leaves town, Zygmunt Sawicki and his wife Marysia unwittingly adopt a camel into their family. The couple quickly forms a close bond with the nameless camel. At first the townspeople, too, are enthralled with the giant animal, since it is a welcome distraction from their everyday routine. As the bond between the couple and their camel grows stronger, the town-people suddenly begin to ostracize them.