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Good films are an
endangered species. Unless a movie opens on 3,000 screens
with a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign, it may not be Of course the definition "overlooked" can be defined in many ways. After I selected "Children of Heaven," Miramax's Cynthia Swartz reminded me it was an Oscar nominee and did well at the box office. Yes, I replied, but subtitled films themselves are overlooked--and Iranian films--and serious films by and for families. We are scheduling "Children of Heaven" as the free family screening because I believe kids who can read are old enough for subtitles; it's never too early to introduce them to the best of world cinema. "Oklahoma!"
too is hardly overlooked--not when the whole audience knows
most of the score by heart. But its format is overlooked; we will be
presenting it in 30 frame-per-second
Todd
AO Vision. "The Last Laugh" and "Un Chien Andalou" are two of the most famous films ever made, in some circles. But a silent film and a Surrealist film are not ordinary fare, and we will also present live musical scores by Concrete, the band from St. Joe-Benton Harbor, Mich., who had such a triumph last year with "Potemkin." This year we also present a modern silent film, Charles Lane's enchanting and moving "Sidewalk Stories," made with great courage in 1990, which was well into the talkie era. Lane will be here in person. "Dark City" did get a national roll-out, but not the kind of marketing I thought it deserved. I picked it as the best film of the year, and thought it was superior to the more successful "The Matrix," which had a similar buried theme. Science fiction and special effects pictures are themselves overlooked by people who don't, or think they don't, like the genre. This film may surprise them. We'll talk with its director, Alex Proyas, by telephone from Australia.
Animation is not overlooked if it is from Disney, DreamWorks or Warner Brothers. But in Japan, anime is a major art form; it hardly ever plays on big screens in America. We will present "Grave of the Fireflies," which has been called the most emotionally powerful animated film ever made. From Australia, two very different films. I first saw Paul Cox's "A Woman's Tale" in 1992, and have been haunted by it ever since. Sheila Florance, who won the Australian Oscar for her work, is brave and true, and her performance is a fitting successor to the powerful work of Heather Rose in last year's "Dance Me to My Song." Cox himself is one of the most original and gifted of all directors, and this screening will inspire you, I hope, to see out some of his other films. I have had good times with Cox in Cannes, Montreal, Toronto, Honolulu, Chicago and Calcutta, and now at last in Urbana-Champaign.
"The Terrorist" is exactly the kind of film you should hear about, but don't. John Malkovich saw it when he was on the jury of the Cairo Film Festival, and was so impressed he set up a screening in Chicago, and arranged to present it in America. It is currently in release, although unless you care about good films and are paying attention, you might not realize that. When I saw it, I was stunned. "The Terrorist" provides a portrait of a young woman who volunteers to become a human bomb, following her for the last few days before the planned assassination. It is from India, where I saw "Malli," the new work by the same director, Santosh Sivan, when I was at the Calcutta and Hyderabad film festivals in November. I am pleased its star, Ayesha Dharkar, will be with us, along with producer Mark Burton.
It is hard to choose the films for the Overlooked every year; there are so many deserving candidates. Movie critics despair sometimes because they know of so many good films that are overlooked, and so many bad ones that are not. For a few days in April, at the Virginia Theater, the balance tilts the other way. Welcome! Roger Ebert |
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able to attract the attention of its
potential audience. Moviegoers have to be
attentive and curious to know that a small film in a perhaps obscure
venue may be the best film playing
in town. Too often they cave in to the publicity
and go to the latest Hollywood no-brainer. The purpose of the Overlooked
Film Festival is to provide a second chance for wonderful but overlooked
films and genres, and to bring to Urbana-Champaign and downstate Illinois
some of the most creative artists in the world of cinema.
