Film festival scheduled at UW-Madison

Three independent filmmakers and restored prints from the Motion Picture Academy archives will highlight a festival of cinema April 29-May 1 at UW–Madison.

Great Wisconsin Film Festival web site

The events were originally planned in collaboration with the Wisconsin Film Office’s Great Wisconsin Film festival. The state postponed the event Friday (March 12). But the university’s film festival activities will carry on, according to Tino Balio, UW–Madison professor of communication arts and director of the UW–Madison Arts Institute, which is coordinating the upcoming events.

Screenings and activities will include special presentations by the UW–Madison Cinematheque. All Cinematheque events will be held in 4070 Vilas Hall. They include:

• A lecture on film preservation by Michael Pogorzelski of the Academy of Motion Pictures, followed by the screening of a restored 35 mm print of Sam Fuller’s 1955 “The Crimson Kimono,” a tale of two detectives in love with the same woman. The lecture and film are scheduled Friday, April 30, at 7:30 p.m.
• An appearance by independent filmmaker Jennifer Montgomery, who will present her latest film “Troika,” which recreates an interview with Russian ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The showing is Saturday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m.
• An appearance by Sundance Film Festival veteran Ben Speth, who will show his Sundance entry “Dresden,” a dancer’s eye view of New York City, Saturday, May 1, at 10 p.m.

Across Library Mall at the Wisconsin Union, the Wisconsin Union Directorate and the UW–Madison student production group Independent Film and Video Collective will present the Madison premiere of the 1999 Slamdance Film Festival Audience Award-winner “Man of the Century.” The film is a farce about a journalist in present-day Manhattan who is convinced he’s living in the 1920s. Director Adam Abraham will be present at the screening, Thursday, April 29 at 9 p.m. in the Wisconsin Union Theater.

Other events at the union will include a 20th anniversary screening of “The War at Home,” a documentary on anti-war protests at the University of Wisconsin during the 1960s. Filmmaker Glenn Silber will be present for the occasion Saturday, May 1, at 4 p.m. in the Memorial Union’s Fredric March Play Circle.

All events are free.

Balio says UW–Madison students have been instrumental in planning the UW–Madison film festival. One of them, communication arts Ph.D. candidate James Kreul, UW–Madison Cinematheque student programmer, predicts the 1999 events foretell even bigger things to come.

“We’ve put together a solid lineup of truly independent films, and we hope we’ve paved the way for future festivals,” he says. He and other festival organizers have scheduled a feedback session Sunday, May 2, at 1 p.m. in 4070 Vilas Hall to discuss future film festivals.

The complete festival lineup soon will be posted on the Great Wisconsin Film Festival web site. For more information about the UW–Madison film festival, contact Kreul at (608) 262-2277.

Moose Speros, Wisconsin Secretary of Tourism, says the state film office will continue to explore the possibility of holding a Wisconsin film festival sometime in the future.