Belgium | 2004 | 92min | Directors: Benoît Delépine, Gustave Kervern
In French with English subtitles
An inventive and witty black comedy, Aaltra is a terrifically deadpan, understated marvel of black-and-white CinemaScope . Codirectors Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern star as Ben and Gus, adversarial Belgian neighbors whose picky dislike of each other results in a tractor accident that leaves both men paralyzed from the waist down. Seeking revenge and compensation from the Finnish tractor manufacturer, they roll their wheelchairs into one of the weirdest road movies ever.
Sat | 11:30am |
Hilldale Theatres 2
Sun | 5:00pm |
Club Majestic
Adams Æbler. Denmark | 2005 | 94min | Director: Anders Thomas Jensen
In Danish with English subtitles. Wisconsin Premiere
A darkly funny fable about good and evil. Ivan the minister runs a vicarage where oddball cons are sent for community service. The new arrival is Adam, a neo-Nazi who is given the task of guarding the apple tree outside the church. As the struggle to protect the apples against pests gets more difficult, Ivan and Adam enter into their own slapstick struggle with belief and God and right and wrong .
Sun | 3:30pm |
Orpheum Main Theatre
Netherlands | 2004 | 79min | Director: Mijke de Jong
In Dutch with English subtitles. Midwest Premiere
Thirteen-year old Merel appears to lead a normal, well-adjusted life. Soon and unexpectedly, however, she finds herself the target of some brutal, unprovoked bullying by her classmates. Before long, she must decide whether or not to put an end to her seemingly endless downward spiral. Mijke de Jong’s tender, though never sentimental or didactic, coming-of-age story masterfully depicts the difficult decisions our young heroine is forced to make on the cusp of adulthood.
Fri | 5:30pm |
Orpheum Main Theatre
Voksne Mennesker. Denmark | 2005 | 106min | Director: Dagur Kári
In Danish with English subtitles
The new film from Icelandic director Dagur Kári is a quirky portrait of yet another charmingly irresponsible young man. Eccentric characters criss-cross in Copenhagen through this loose plot about Daniel’s meandering road to adult responsibility, including his best friend “Grandpa” who is, hilariously, obsessed with qualifying as a soccer referee. Love finds Daniel when Grandpa chickens out courting the local bakery girl, Franc, whose delightfully flaky weirdness brings some substance to Daniel’s slacker life.
Fri | 10:00pm |
Hilldale Theatres 1
Sat | 1:00pm |
University Square
Moartea Domnului Lazarescu. Romania | 2005 | 153min | Director: Cristi Puiu
In Romanian with English subtitles
On a Saturday evening in a ratty Bucharest apartment, Mr. Lazarescu, a 63-year-old alcoholic widower, nurses a terrible headache. When he can no longer stand the pain he calls an ambulance. And so begins Mr. Lazarescu’s night-long odyssey through Bucharest, as a sympathetic but powerless ambulance driver takes him from hospital to hospital trying to find one that will accept him.
Sun | 1:30pm |
Orpheum - Stage Door Theatre
Der Wald vor Lauter Bäumen. Germany | 2005 | 81min | Director: Maren Ade
In German with English subtitles
Melanie, a young and newly trained teacher of biology and German, moves to the city to start a new life and her first job at high school. Straightforward and deliberate in its presentation, The Forest for the Trees leads us unflinchingly through the slow and often painful unraveling of Melanie’s life, to an ending that is both unnerving and surreally hopeful.
Fri | 7:00pm |
Orpheum - Stage Door Theatre
Sun | 3:30pm | 81min Hilldale Theatres 1
Belgium, France | 2004 | 115min | Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic
In French with English subtitles
Hidden amidst a lush forest outside of a distinct time and place lies a mysterious all-girls boarding school where the students dress exclusively in white. The girls, sheltered from the outside world by both a wall around the premises and deadly threats forbidding escape attempts, spend their days studying dance and biology and learn that “obedience is the only path to happiness.” A mesmerizing coming-of-age story that is at once an ominous fairy-tale and a taut psychological thriller.
Sun | 8:00pm |
Orpheum - Stage Door Theatre
United Kingdom | 2005 | 94min | Director: Billy O'Brien
A horror film. About cows. Mad cows. Genetic engineering goes hideously awry on a remote Irish farm in this dark chiller that fills the screen with farm machinery, blood, and muck.
Thur | 11:15pm |
Orpheum Main Theatre
Denmark | 2005 | 88min | Director: Henrik Ruben Genz
In Danish with English subtitles
Dumpy Danish plumber Keld is is alone. His wife has left him because he’s in a rut, and his grown son is surly. He starts getting his meals at the family-run Chinese take-out across the street. He helps fix their plumbing and then is asked to help fix another problem: the owner's sister needs a marriage of conven-ience to stay in Denmark. Enter Ling, hesitant to enter into the “strictly pro-forma” marriage with Keld.
Fri | 5:00pm |
Hilldale Theatres 1
Sat | 7:30pm |
Club Majestic
Die Nacht der lebenden Loser. Germany | 2004 | 88 min | Director: Mathias Dinter
In German with English subtitles. Madison Premiere
When a trio of high-school losers take part in a makeshift voodoo ceremony and then die in a car accident, they wake up the next morning to find they have become zombies. But being a zombie has its perks, esp-ecially in high school, where newfound strength and smarts equal popularity, status, and even sex appeal.
Fri | 11:30pm |
University Square
Sat | 10:30pm |
University Square
Germany, France, United Kingdom | 2005 | 98min | Director: The Brothers Quay
On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful opera singer Malvina is abducted by a malevolent Dr. Droz. Felis-berto, an innocent piano tuner, is summoned to Droz’s secluded villa to service his strange musical auto-matons. Little by little Felisberto learns of the doctor’s plans to stage a ‘‘diabolical opera’’ and of Malvina’s fate. He conspires to rescue her, only to become trapped himself in the web of Droz’s perverse universe.
Sat | 2:00pm |
Hilldale Theatres 2
Sun | 7:30pm | Club Majestic
USA | 2005 | 77min | Director: Aleksandar Manic
In Serbian, Macedonian with English subtitles. Midwest Premiere
On the outskirts of Skopje, Macedonia, lies the Shuto Orizari Municipality, known as Shutka. The name means either “Happy Valley” or “trash,” depending on who’s doing the defining. Either way, the town is home to one of Europe’s largest populations of Roma, or gypsies. Life here is hard, with poverty, illiteracy, and drug addiction lurking everywhere.
Sat | 1:30pm |
Orpheum - Stage Door Theatre
Sun | 5:30 pm |
Hilldale Theatres 1
United Kingdom | 2006 | 75min | Director: Craig Strachan
Scottish teen Kelly Ann is recovering from the trauma of giving up her newborn for adoption after the child’s father, Lee, abandoned her. Reunited for an overnight hiking trip with a group of friends, relations between Kelly Ann and Lee are already strained when the group happens upon a baby in an abandoned castle — and a pile of human remains nearby. Clearly, something is lurking out there in the darkness.
Sat | 11:00pm |
Orpheum - Stage Door Theatre