Voir Il y a Longtemps Que Je T’aime et Auf Der Anderen Seite à Springfield. Translation: See I’ve Loved You So Long and The Edge of Heaven in Springfield.
The closing of Kerasotes’ White Oaks Cinema last September was the most recent of several blows to
independent and foreign cinema in Springfield. As venues for more obscure
movies dwindle, The Springfield Art Association is set to present its 18th
annual film festival. The SAA has secured the rights to screen some of the best
recent films from around the world, which include official selections from the
Cannes, Toronto, Tribeca, Telluride, Sundance and New York film festivals. Six
foreign features will be screened between Jan. 11 and March 24.
The festival begins with Tell No One, the French adaptation of Harlan Coben’s best-selling thriller, in which American audiences will recognize actress
Kristin Scott Thomas.
Thomas makes a second festival appearance in the Golden Globe-nominated I’ve Loved You So Long, an adult melodrama about a woman’s struggle for redemption after being released from prison. The movie was a huge
success in France and is expected to contend for several awards-season honors.
The Edge of Heaven is a Turkish-German film written and directed by Fatih Akin, and will run in
February. It takes place in both countries and examines the relationship
between an aging widower and a prostitute. Four other complex characters join
the tragic story, which Variety calls an “utterly assured, profoundly moving… superbly cast drama.”
The lone documentary in this year’s fest is Man on Wire, which tells the story ofPhilippe Petit’s illegal 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center. The nonfiction work became the sixth film in festival
history to win both the GrandJury Prize and an Audience Award at Sundance.
Son of A Lion, directed by an Australian but cast with non-professional Pakistanis, tells the
story of a Pashtun boy who wants to trade life in his father’s weapons workshop for days at school. Set on the Afghan border, the movie was
co-written by local villagers that director Benjamin Gilmour (a paramedic by
trade) met during a visit in August of 2001, days before 9/11. Gilmour decided
to make the movie after the terrorist attacks to humanize the region’s non-Taliban inhabitants. In order to do so, he had to shoot his movie in
secrecy in a closed and hostile region.
The final film of the festival is A Christmas Tale, which critics describe as “energizing, captivating, passionate, satisfying and evocative.” The French movie deals with the younger members of a dysfunctional family who
concoct a scheme designed to heal their domestic relationships. It stars
Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace) and Catherine Deneuve.
Many of the festival’s selections are winding up on critics’ year-end lists. Four of the six movies that will be screened were included as New York Times Critics’ Picks, with Stephen Holden selecting The Edge of Heaven, A Christmas Tale and Tell No One, while A.O. Scott chose to include Man on Wire and The Edge of Heaven. Roger Ebert also picked Man on Wire as one of the year’s best.
All movies will be shown at Parkway Pointe Cinema. The festival runs Sundays at
1 p.m. and 4 p.m. and Tuesdays at 7 p.m.. Tickets at the door are $7, $4 for
students, and free to UIS students. Series tickets are available from the
Springfield Art Association for $35.
The schedule: Jan. 11 and 13 – Tell No One, Jan. 25 and 27 – Man on Wire, Feb 8 and 10 – The Edge of Heaven, Feb. 22 and 24 – I’ve Loved You So Long, March 8 and 10 – Son of a Lion, March 22 and 24 – A Christmas Tale.
Zach Baliva is a filmmaker living in Springfield.
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2009.
