Chicago International Children’s Film Festival
The best shorts on this international animation program are the ones that don’t spell everything out, leaving a little room for our imagination. In Susan Kim’s Australian Shadowplay objects come to life through their shadows, which seem more powerful than the objects that cast them. Sungyeon Joh’s puppet animation Grandma alludes to her Korean grandmother’s mistreatment by the Japanese in World War II; one memorable image conveys the grandmother’s isolation by placing her between cutout waves that bob back and forth. The computer-animated kitchen fixtures that come to life in Marc Stanyk’s Fixture Fixation suggest that everyday things have spirits too, and Christopher Brady-Slue’s A Day in the Life of a Student reminds us that simple line drawings, used here to convey a boy’s discomfort, can be highly suggestive. Myra Margolin’s adaptation of an E.E. Cummings poem, Maggie and Millie and Molly and May, may be overly literal, with drawings illustrating each line, but the allusive poem generates a sense of mystery anyway. The 20-minute Falldown Brown in Smokey Lies, directed by Monica Wilkins, is irritating, high-volume antismoking propaganda, with a moose using deceit and lies to make Moose Tobacco “the most powerful corporation in . . . the world”; unfortunately, the true story is way more chilling. 83 min. (FC) (Facets Multimedia Center, 9:45 am)
Finding Buck McHenry
Senegalese master Djibril Diop Mambety, one of the greatest of all African filmmakers, made this 45-minute film as part of a triptych called “Tales of Little People” but died of cancer before he could complete it. Described by Mambety as “a hymn to the courage of street children,” it’s a fable about a crippled 12-year-old who sells newspapers in Dakar despite her male competitors’ cruel efforts to discourage her. (The title is a pun on the newspaper she sells, Le soleil.) This 1999 release is closer to neorealism and less intellectually complex and ambitious than Mambety’s remarkable features Touki Bouki and Hyenas, but it’s still pungent, buoyant, and funny, with wonderful performances by nonprofessionals. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, this may whet your appetite for his stunning features. (JR) On the same program, My African Diary, a 41-minute film from Denmark. (City North 14, 11:15 am)
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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21
Spooky House
