Film at MMoCA

FALL 2011 SERIES

MMoCA’s Spotlight Cinema series returns this fall with the Madison premieres of five critically acclaimed and award-winning documentary and narrative features. From “the most necessary film you’ll see this year” (The Interrupters), to the first film from Kashmir in over forty years (Zero Bridge), to a film with a tour-de-force performance from Tilda Swinton that is already receiving Oscar buzz (We Need to Talk About Kevin), these films spotlight contemporary international art cinema at its finest.

Spotlight Cinema is curated by Mike King, academic curator for the UW-Madison Department of Communication Art, and Tom Yoshikami, doctoral candidate in film studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and advisor for the Wisconsin Union Directorate Film Committee, both of whom also serve as programmers for the Wisconsin Film Festival. Spotlight Cinema is a program of MMoCA’s education department. The series is funded by Venture Investors, LLC, and the Maia Foundation. Films are screened at 7 pm in MMoCA’s lecture hall. Admission is free for MMoCA members and $7 per screening for the general public.

September 22
The Interrupters
2011, USA, 125 minutes, digital
Director: Steve James

The Interrupters is an award-winning documentary that tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. Directed by acclaimed documentarian Steve James (Hoop Dreams) and bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz, the film is an unusually intimate journey into the stubborn persistence of violence in our cities. Hailed as "a gut-wrenching documentary" by Manohla Dargis (The New York Times), the film may be "the most necessary film you'll see this year" (Dana Stevens, Slate). View trailer.

October 13
Zero Bridge
2008, Kashmir/USA, 96 minutes, digital
Director: Tariq Tapa. Cast: Mohamad Emran Tapa, Ali Muhammad Dar, Taniya Khan

The first film from Kashmir in over forty years, newcomer Tariq Tapa's impressive debut eschews Bollywood fantasies in favor of neorealism. Set in the Indian-occupied city of Srinagar, Zero Bridge tells the story of Dilawar, a teenage pickpocket who longs to reunite with his mother in Delhi, and his complicated relationship with Bani, a woman (herself fleeing an arranged marriage) whose passport he has stolen.

“Made for a song with a non-pro cast and DV camera gear out of his backpack, Tariq Tapa's debut feature shows the young Kashmiri-American as a filmmaker of enormous promise and precocious maturity. Tapa's poetic neorealism is less a stylistic intrusion than a keeping of faith, through the film's deliberately uneven pacing, with a life devoid of rhythms to count on” (Ella Taylor, Village Voice). In Kashmiri and Urdu with English subtitles. View trailer.

October 27
We Need to Talk About Kevin
2011, UK/USA, 112 minutes, 35mm
Director: Lynne Ramsay. Cast: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller

One of the most talked-about films at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, this suspenseful and psychological thriller based on Lionel Shriver's best selling novel, showcases Tilda Swinton, in a tour-de-force performance, as a mother who is forced to deal with her troubled, perhaps evil son. John C. Reilly co-stars in Lynne Ramsay's long-awaited third feature (following Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar) that combines masterful storytelling and a provocative moral ambiguity, which builds to a chilling, unforgettable climax. Note that our screening of We Need to Talk About Kevin is presented two months in advance of the film's American theatrical run, scheduled for December, 2011. View trailer.

November 10
Corpo Celeste
2011, Italy/France/Switzerland, 98 minutes, 35mm
Director: Alice Rohrwacher

Fresh from screenings at the prestigious 2011 Cannes and New York Film Festivals, this coming-of-age tale recalls the neorealist marvels of the Dardenne brothers. Newly returned after ten years in Switzerland to her native small town on the Italian coast, 13-year-old Marta is a stranger to her peers, at once knowing and naive. Her lone social outlet is Catechism class, where her budding spirituality must endure eye-rolling pronouncements like “seeing the Spirit is like wearing really cool sunglasses.” Strikingly photographed and impeccably acted, director Alice Rohrwacher’s impressive debut is an uncommonly graceful and intimate slice of adolescent life. In Italian with English subtitles. View trailer.

December 8
Bonsái
2011, Chile/Argentina/Portugal/France, 95 minutes, 35mm
Director: Cristián Jiménez. Cast: Diego Noguera, Nathalia Galgani

Touted as the discovery of this year's Cannes Film Festival by Village Voice film critic Karina Longworth, Bonsái is a wry romantic comedy equally indebted to Marcel Proust and the Ramones. Juio is a shy college student in love and lust with his punk classmate Emilia, with whom he reads: in bed, on the beach, and everywhere else. Eight years later, he's still not over her, and begins composing a memoir of their affair under the name of a famous author for whom he works. Shuttling between the two eras, director Cristián Jiménez crafts a hip, literate romance that is “one of the finest accomplishments from the freewheeling new generation of Chilean filmmakers. By turns gentle, deadpan, droll and sarcastic” (Robert Koehler, Variety). In Spanish, English, and Latin with English subtitles. View trailer.