“I’m going to yell at him when I go back to Iran,” Maryam Sepehri said while we chatted in the lobby of the Downer Theatre. She was referring to Mohammed Rasoulof, whose risky new feature “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” screened at this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival. Maryam, a documentary filmmaker from Tehran, knows Rasoulof but was […]
2014 Milwaukee Film Festival: Eric Beltmann’s Top Five Read More »
Guitar gods, of course, only play after the openers are through. No wonder the Milwaukee Film Festival saved its Centerpiece selection, a biopic starring Outkast’s André Benjamin as legendary musician Jimi Hendrix, for its final week. “Jimi: All Is by My Side” is written and directed by Mequon native John Ridley, who earned an Oscar
2014 Milwaukee Film Festival: Week Two Picks Read More »
Maybe close your eyes and start throwing darts at the program guide. It’s tough to choose movies to see from among the 276 feature and short films being presented at this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival. Selecting at random can be a rewarding methodology—after all, the potential return rises with an increase in risk—but there’s equal
2014 Milwaukee Film Festival: Week One Picks Read More »
For the Milwaukee Film Festival, the Times they are a-changin’. The festival is shaking things up for its sixth year, most notably by adding the Times Cinema in Washington Heights to its roster of sites. The cozy, single-screen theater has been a community treasure since 1935, making it a natural fit for a festival that
Introducing the 2014 Milwaukee Film Festival Read More »
“Hey, Teach, sit down and let me get you a pastry,” said Rachel Engel, one of the theater managers for the Milwaukee Film Festival, in an effort to soften the blow. Technical glitches forced the cancellation of “Drug War,” Johnnie To’s latest Hong Kong action ballet. For To junkies like me, a film and literature
Notes from the 2013 Milwaukee Film Festival Read More »
Iranian filmmaker Maryam Sepehri (left) won an award at the 2013 Milwaukee Film Festival for “Habibeh,” a documentary about painter Habibeh Bedayat (right). In the dead of night she labors, trance-like, over a canvas. By the end of “Habibeh,” viewers will comprehend all of the thorny reasons why this fascinating woman—a painter, mother, teacher, and
MFF Interview: A Conversation with Maryam Sepehri Read More »
Many movies at this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival, which closed October 10, were epic in scope, but the very best film, “Closed Curtain,” tapered into smaller and smaller space until filmgoers were locked inside the mind of a single individual—the director, Jafar Panahi. After releasing five allegories critical of his home country of Iran, Panahi
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Sapphire represents September birthdays and fifth anniversaries, and while both meanings apply to this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival, the real link is emblematic—like the blue gem, the festival is defined by its sense of constancy. There’s a reason why the festival’s fifth installment feels like its tenth: Since many of the behind-the-scenes players cut their
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“Starbuck” has a comic premise that Kevin Smith might envy: After years of donating sperm, a truck driver discovers that he has sired more than 500 kids—and now 142 of them want to know the identity of their prolific dad. At first glance, this French-Canadian production fits cozily into the present American trend of building
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“Good luck,” warned Jack Turner as he introduced “Compliance,” Craig Zobel’s squirmy new film, to a sold-out crowd at the Downer Theatre. Turner, a producer working on Zobel’s next project, reminded filmgoers at the Milwaukee Film Festival that “Compliance” provoked walkouts and charges of misanthropy at Sundance. Nervous energy rippled through the rows, but the
Notes from the 2012 Milwaukee Film Festival Read More »
