GENE SISKEL FILM CENTER (GSFC)
OF
THE SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO (SAIC)
SCREENINGS
AND EVENTS, JANUARY 6-FEBRUARY 2, 2017
Series
Stranger Than Fiction: Documentary Premieres (January 6-February 2), the Film Center’s 14th
edition of the annual series, showcases 10 Chicago premieres that feature director
appearances at select films that range from the decay of architecture sites
around the world (Homo Sapiens) to one of Stephen Sondheim’s legendary Broadway
flops, Merrily We Roll Along (Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have
Happened…), to a hopeful
portrait of Native American high school students on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge
Reservation (Little Wound’s Warriors), to animal cruelty expanding into an
examination of the basic relationship between humans, all other living beings,
and the environment (We Are One). http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/strangerthanfiction2017
The Magnificent Mifune (January 7-February 2) is a seven-film tribute to the legendary
Japanese actor who was instrumental in defining the modern action hero and
raising awareness of Asian cinema in the west, and will include documentary
portrait Mifune: The Last Samurai; Rashomon; the film that opened
Western eyes to Asian cinema; and Throne of Blood, in which Shakespeare’s
Macbeth is ingeniously adapted and is
one of the most celebrated cultural crossovers in cinema history. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/mifune
Runs
Back by popular
demand! Ixcanul
(January 6-12) is a powerfully
visualized drama set in a traditional indigenous community of coffee farmers,
and Guatemala’s first-ever Oscar submission; The Love Witch (January 6-12), a throwback to campy exploitation films concerning a
newly arrived witchy temptress who hilariously has her fatal way with a
succession of hunks in a quiet Northern California town. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/ixcanul
The Eagle Huntress
(January 6-12) is a documentary which looks at Kazakh nomads and their favored
sport of eagle hunting, a skill handed down through the generations by men
only, and how a 13-year-old girl seeks to defy tradition and earn the title of
eagle huntress. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/eaglehuntress
U.S. premiere! Me and the Alien (January 13-19) is a
crowd-pleasing comedy/loves story from Mexico concerning a struggling punk band
whose members get more than they bargained for when they hire Pepe, a
keyboardist with Down syndrome. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/meandthealien
First Chicago run! Ocean Waves (January 13-19) is the
last remaining film from Japanese anime giant Studio Ghibli that has not yet
had a U.S. release, and concerns twenty-something Taku—en route to his class
reunion—who muses on the love triangle that introduced him to adolescent
heartbreak when he vied with his best friend for the elusive affections of the
school’s pretty but heartlessly manipulative new girl. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/oceanwaves
Back by popular
demand! Maya Angelou: And
Still I Rise (January 13-19) is an in-depth portrait of
the poet, writer, and activist. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/mayaangelou
Chicago premiere! Peter and the Farm (January 20-26) is a
documentary that concerns a self-taught farmer who has poured his blood, sweat,
and tears into the land at the expense of spouses and children, and how the
changing seasons and the farm’s pitiless cycles of birth, death, and
regeneration have made this remarkable figure of raging Shakespearean
proportions the star of his own story. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/peterandthefarm
First Chicago run! King Cobra (January 20-26) looks at
two rival entrepreneurs vying for boyish hot property in this fact-based chronicle
that delivers pathos, pratfalls, and arch comedy. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/kingcobra
A Street Cat Named
Bob (January 20-26) is an adaptation of James Bowen’s best-selling memoir
about his time on the London streets as a musician and heroin addict and how
his life—and the one of one hungry, injured tomcat—is turned around. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/streetcat
Chicago premiere! Evolution (January 27-February 2) is a
seductively beautiful, suggestively disturbing chiller set on a desolate island
inhabited entirely by prepubescent boys and the pale, passionless women who
subject them to a regimen of mysterious medical procedures, and the eventual
uncovering of the island’s elusive but devastating secrets. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/evolution
Chicago premiere! Antarctica: Ice & Sky (January
27-February 2), by the director of March of the Penguins, returns to the
South Pole to follow 83-year-old glaciologist Claude Lorius, whose studies have
accurately predicted global warming, and draws from a treasure trove of 50-year
film footage in which towering glaciers have given way to valleys filled with
rocky rubble and filthy snow. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/antarctica
Special events and limited engagements
New restoration! Cult classic The Wanderers (January 7
and 11) is a highly stylized, mythic approach to novelist Richard Price’s tale
of teenage life and love in the Bronx circa 1963. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/thewanderers
Gene Siskel Film Center Movie Club looks at Ixcanul
(January 11)—enjoy a complimentary beverage and a discussion with
Camille Roussel, Ph.D. student in Human Development at the University of
Chicago. Sponsored by HBO http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/movieclub
Director Michele Mitchell and special guests appear with the final
version of The Uncondemned (January 28 and 30), a documentary
looking at a pivotal human rights trial centering
on rape as a genocidal crime in Rwanda. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/theuncondemned
National Theatre Live’s No Man’s Land (January 29) stars Ian McKellen and Patrick
Stewart in Harold Pinter’s comic classic in which two aging writers, on a
summer’s evening, become increasingly inebriated as the conversation turns into
a revealing power game (note: tickets to No Man’s Land are
$14/general admission; $8/Film Center members and students with current I.D.). http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/nomansland
Awards season is underway!
Free admission! Oscar Nominations Panel (January 24 at
4:30 pm) features local critics as they weigh in on the nominees for the 89th
Annual Academy Awards, with a reception to follow. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/oscarnoms2017
Hollywood on State:
Where You’re the Star (February 26) the Film Center’s annual Oscar
benefit which includes on fashion, food, fun, and a live presentation of the Academy
Awards on the big screen (tickets start at $100—call 312-846-2072 to
purchase and for more information). http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/hollywoodonstate2017
* * *
All screenings and events are at the Gene Siskel Film Center of
the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, located at 164 N. State St.
Tickets to each screening--unless stated otherwise—are $11/general
admission, $7/students, $6/Film Center members, and $5/Art Institute of Chicago
(AIC) staff and School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) faculty, staff,
and students. Friday 2:00 pm matinee tickets are $8/general admission and
$5/Film Center members and students. All tickets may be purchased at the Film
Center Box Office. Both general admission and Film Center member tickets are
available through the Gene Siskel Film Center’s website www.siskelfilmcenter.org/content/tickets or through the individual films’
weblinks or visit www.siskelfilmcenter.org of $1.50 per ticket. The Film Center and
its box office are open 5:00 to 8:30 pm, Monday through Thursday; 1:00 to 8:30
pm, Friday; 2:00 to 8:30 pm, Saturday; and 2:00 to 5:30 pm, Sunday.
The Magnificent Mifune Saturday
Double-Bill Discount: Buy a ticket
at the regular price for the first Mifune film on any applicable Saturday in
January, and get a ticket for the second Mifune film that day at the discounted
rate with proof of original purchase: $7/general admission; $5/students;
$4/Film Center members. (This discount rate applies to the second feature only.
Discount available in person at the box office only.)
Admission
to January 29’s National Theatre Live’s No Man’s Land is $14/general admission and
$8/students and Film Center members.
* * *
A Gene Siskel Film Center membership is a year-round ticket to
great movies for only $6 per screening! Memberships are $50 (Individual) and
$80 (Dual). For more information, call 312-846-2600 or visit http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/membership.
Discounted parking is available for $18 for 10 hours at the InterPark
SELF-PARK at 20 E. Randolph St. A rebate ticket can be obtained from the Film
Center Box Office.
The Film Center is located near CTA trains and buses. Nearest
CTA L stations are Lake (Red line); State/Lake (Brown, Green, Orange, Pink,
Purple lines); and Washington (Blue line). CTA bus lines serving State St.: 2,
6, 10, 29, 36, 62, 144, and 146.
For more information about the Film Center, call 312-846-2800
(24-hour movie hotline) or 312-846-2600 (general information, 9:00 am-5:00
p.m., Monday-Friday), or visit www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
* * *
About the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago Since
1972, the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
has presented cutting edge cinema to an annual audience of 80,000. The Film
Center’s programming includes annual film festivals that celebrate diverse
voices and international cultures, premieres of trailblazing work by today’s
independent filmmakers, restorations and revivals of essential films from
cinema history, and insightful provocative discussions with filmmakers and
media artists. Altogether, the Film Center hosts over 1,500 screenings and 100
filmmaker appearances every year. The Film Center was renamed the Gene Siskel
Film Center in 2000 after the late, nationally celebrated film critic, Gene
Siskel. Visit www.siskelfilmcenter.org to learn more and find out what’s
playing today.
About the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago
For more than 150
years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has been a leader in
educating the world’s most influential artists, designers and scholars. Located
in downtown Chicago with a fine arts graduate program consistently ranking
among the top programs in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, SAIC
provides an interdisciplinary approach to art and design as well as world-class
resources, including the Art Institute of Chicago museum, on-campus galleries
and state-of-the-art facilities. SAIC’s undergraduate, graduate and
post-baccalaureate students have the freedom to take risks and create the bold
ideas that transform Chicago and the world—as seen through notable alumni and
faculty such as Michelle Grabner, David Sedaris, Elizabeth Murray, Richard
Hunt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cynthia Rowley, Nick Cave, Jeff Koons and LeRoy Neiman.
www.saic.edu
Twitter: @filmcenter
