Presented by the Chicago-based documentary production and distribution company Terra Nova Films, the Silver Images Film Festival continues Friday through Thursday, May 16 through 22, at Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson; AARP Information Center, 222 N. LaSalle; Atlas Senior Center, 1767 E. 79th St.; Catholic Health Partners/Columbus Hospital Auditorium, 2520 N. Lakeview; Catholic Health Partners/Saint Joseph’s Hospital, Boikan Conference Center, 2900 N. Lake Shore Dr.; Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington; Copernicus Senior Center, 3160 N. Milwaukee; District 214 Community Education, 2121 S. Goebbert, Arlington Heights; Mayer Kaplan Jewish Community Center, 5050 W. Church, Skokie; Oakton Community College, 7701 N. Lincoln, Skokie; Dominican Univ. Fine Arts Bldg., 7900 W. Division, River Forest; and Saint Anthony Hospital, 2875 W. 19th St. Tickets for Film Center screenings are $6, $4 for those over 62; tickets for Dominican University, District 214 Community Education, and Oakton Community College screenings are $3; all other screenings are free. For more information call 773-881-6940.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
A 1996 documentary by Ellen Spiro (who may attend the screening) about her and her dog’s travels on the road with a group of seniors. (Copernicus Senior Center, 10:00 am)
Short films, program one
The Cherry Pick
Riding the Rails
The title character in Wu Tianming’s 1995 tearjerker is a grandfatherly street performer in rural Szechwan with a cast of colorful masks he puts on and off in a wink. He treasures his independence, rejecting offers to join a traveling opera company, but despairs at not being able to pass his secret art on to a male heir. When he buys what he thinks is a boy at a village market, the boy turns out to be a girl; but after a series of encounters with corrupt cops and devious bureaucrats, the two forge a properly Confucian bond of parental guidance and filial obedience. Wu–who headed the Xian Film Studio, where he was mentor to many Fifth Generation filmmakers, and who fled to California after the Tiananmen massacre–no doubt sees something of himself in this lonesome curmudgeon who fiercely protects his artistry and freedom. Yet Wu offers a hopeful message–that compassion is still kindling in his homeland, challenging oppressive old customs and pointing to a true reconfiguration of the social order. The pathos in his storytelling might be overwrought, but the sincerity is heartfelt and the emotional relationship between the king (a stoic yet empathic performance by Zhu Xu) and his adopted daughter is genuinely affecting. (TS) On the same program, Lance Mungia’s 1996 short film A Garden for Rio. (Film Center, 6:00)
Ward Serrill’s The Bear Stands Up (1994), Ronit Bezalel’s Canadian film When Shirley Met Florence (1994), Mark Hallar-Wade’s Flowers for Charlie (1996), and Betsy Thompson’s Bookends (1994). (Dominican Univ. Fine Arts Bldg., 10:00 am)
