Past seven days

The Chicago International Film Festival winds down this week.  It closes with the award winner The Artist, a French film that sounds like A Star is Born mashed up with Singin' in the Rain.  A silent film star in 1927 mentors a beautiful new actress just when sound film comes into vogue.  It stars Jean Dujardin, who was hilarious in the James Bond spoofs OSS 117 and its sequel.

A final highlight for me was last night's special program An Evening with David Robinson.  Mr. Robinson is the director of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto aka Pordenone Silent Film Festival, in Pordenone, Italy.  It is in its 30th year and he came with some selected silent film shorts to show us.  He told us of the establishment of the film festival:  many years ago, after an earthquake devastated the area, some local citizens saw that people now living in tents and shacks needed some distraction in their long, dark nights.  They went around to the various temporary camps and showed films to help people escape their lives for a short time.  This evolved into the film festival.  The films Mr. Robinson selected were funny, creative and imaginative, none of which I have seen or heard of before.

I even managed to squeeze in a few feature films that are not part of the fest, such as The Ides of March and Margaret.

Here is my list from this past week.  Suffice it to say there were some long days of film watching.

A Lonely Place to Die
Almanya
Blackthorn
Cairo 678
Chico & Rita
Chronicle of My Mother
CineYouth Winners-Shorts Program
City & State-Shorts Program
The Clown
Don't Go Breaking My Heart
An Evening with David Robinson-Silent Films Shorts Program
Fireflies in the Garden
Goodbye
The Ides of March
The Kid Who Lies
King of Devil's Island
Margaret
Midnight Mayhem-Shorts Program
My Best Enemy
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Snowtown
The Thing
Top Floor Left Wing
Volcano
The Whisperer in Darkness