October 16, 2019
IT’LL HAVE BLINKING EYES AND A MOVING MOUTH
DescriptionDescription "If it ain't fun, don't do it," says artist Hobart Brown. His credo couldn't be more evident in It'll Have Blinking Eyes and a Moving Mouth, a documentary about Brown and the kinetic sculpture race he founded twenty-four years ago. From its modest beginnings as a whimsical parade of "Dr. Seuss" contraptions, the race...
October 16, 2019
IL CAPITANO
DescriptionDescription An austere but oddly powerful narrative of a young Finnish couple on a crime spree in Sweden that begins with minor burglaries and ends with a triple-murder. Based on a true story, the film has obvious echoes of the Manson killings, and Badlands. But Troell's film, with its subtle analysis of the master/slave relationship,...
October 16, 2019
I’M NOT COOKING TONIGHT
DescriptionDescription A wryly comical and inventive debut feature that captures the dynamics of love across cultures. Takaya Yamazaki, a Japanese native, based this story on his own relationship with his midwestern-born wife and the stormy waters that they sailed before finally settling into marriage. We find the couple engaged in a romantic "cold war" when...
October 16, 2019
HUNTING TIGERS
DescriptionDescription Kim Longinotto's and Jano Williams' Dream Girls is a fascinating documentary about the Takarazuka Revue, a musical troupe in Japan dedicated to romantic Hollywood-style musical extravaganzas, staged with spectacular sets and choreographyand an all-female cast. In Bui Doi: Life Like Dust, directors Ahrin Mishan and Nick Rothenberg create a subtle portrait of an imprisoned...
October 16, 2019
THE HOUSE BUILT ON SAND (DOM NA PESKE)
DescriptionDescription Russia in the 1930s serves as the setting for this memorable drama of two women from disparate social backgrounds united in a strange, tumultuous, and ultimately destructive friendship. There is a Chekhov-like intimacy to Adomenaite's characters, a feeling of people being trapped together. They keep gravitating to a house in the country where they...
October 16, 2019
HIGH SCHOOL II
DescriptionDescription One of America's foremost documentarians, Frederick Wiseman ( Titicut Follies), continues his examination of American institutional life with High School II. Unrelated to his 1969 film High School, High Schoof'llfocuses on Central Park East Secondary School, a successful, public, alternative high school in New York's Spanish Harlem. The film gives a fascinating glimpse into...
October 16, 2019
HELICOPTER
DescriptionDescription Dora Was Dysfunctional is a sweetly comic tale about a quirky young woman searching for love. When her boyfriend leaves her, she finds comfort in the Ukrainian love rituals recommended by her immigrant grandmother. Eugene, aka Helicopter, acts as manager for his friend Malik, prepping him for try-outs for the USC basketball team. Helicopter...
October 16, 2019
HELAS POUR MOI
DescriptionDescription AFI Fest is proud to present as its Middle Gala Jean-Luc Godard's internationally acclaimed new film, Helas Pour Mai, starring French superstar Gerard Depardieu and Laurence Masliah. Depardieu plays Simon, an ordinary man whose body is briefly inhabited by God. The film focuses on the relationship between Simon and his wile Rachel (Laurence Masliah),...
October 16, 2019
HEAT
DescriptionDescription Sylvia Miles is a fading, practically unknown star, given to game shows, TV movies, and studs. Joe Dallesandro is a one-time child actor living in a sunbaked motel, next door to Miles' freaked out daughter who lives with a baby and lesbian lover in a "suite." High comedy and low tragedy ... featuring a...
October 16, 2019
THE GOOD FAIRY
DescriptionDescription William Wyler's first comedy and Preston Sturges' screenplay sparkle with romance. Margaret Sullavan plays a woman just released from an asylum, whose innocence attracts the amorous advances of a millionaire. In haste, she claims she is married to Herbert Marshall (the first name she sees in a phone book).
