CHICAGO FILM FESTIVAL: QUIET FILMS ORCHESTRATE A CACOPHONY OF QUESTIONS AND REFLECTIONS

CHASING FIREFLIES (COLOMBIA:ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

A film that unveils the fine line between being alone and loneliness. In a desolate Colombian salt mine, “Manrique” , a simple man, cares for the property; his sole companion, a dog “chasing fireflies”, defines his comfortable isolation until a young, sprite “Valeria” trespasses on his turf and irrevocably, magnificently changes his existence. Director Roberto Flores Prieto, wordlessly conveys the vast emotional warehouse the mind and heart harbors.

THREE & 1/2 STARS!!!

WITH YOU, WITHOUT YOU (SRI LANKA: ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

A marriage of polar opposites; love capable of surmounting dreadful vicissitudes: beautiful, whimsical, enigmatic “Selvi”, a Tamil refugee marries, and with a joyous aura, chisels, melts the taciturn, hardened spirit of Buddhist pawnbroker, “Sarathsiri”; heartbreakingly, achingly wondrous, director Prasanna Vithanage depicts one of the most memorable “couples” of the fest.

FOUR STARS!!!!

WOLFSCHILDREN (GERMANY: ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Director Rick Osterman focuses on the minimally noted phenomena of German children orphaned, abandoned, wandering, savaging, fleeing Russian soldiers after WWII; it is a stunning example of Darwin’s survival of the fittest; first time actors capture the torment, angst of perpetual, gnawing hunger and fear, without the total annihilation of childhood naivety and happiness.

FOUR STARS!!!!

YEMA (ALGERIA/FRANCE: ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Director and star Djamila Sahraoui, creates a masterpiece of fortitude and resolve, a portrait of overwhelming agony in a strife ravaged mountainside of Algeria; a mother buries one son and cauterizes her relationship with a second son. In ninety minutes religion, loyalty, enormous, intransigent dominance of one’s will is piercingly, poignantly painted on the screen.

FOUR STARS!!!!

For  Now…………..Peneflix