Here is a quick cheat sheet of all the CREECA-region-related films that will be shown at the upcoming Wisconsin Film Festival.
This year’s festival runs from April 9 to April 16.
- My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow [Russia] – Experience the frontlines of Russian journalism with this invaluable documentary epic, which has been hailed as one of the year’s best films in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and many other publications. In 2021, the Russian government began branding journalists as “foreign agents,” and required them to run disclaimers before their reporting. Undeterred, the inspiring young women behind the country’s last remaining independent news channel soldier on, in the face of tremendous personal risk. After the invasion of Ukraine, they must choose whether to remain or flee to exile.
- Friday, April 10, 11 a.m. @ Bartell Theater
- Thursday, April 16, 1:30 p.m. @ Flix Brewhouse, Cinema 7
- Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel [USSR] – High in a snow-choked mountain pass, the isolated Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel becomes the setting for an investigation that Inspector Glebsky will never shake. Summoned by an anonymous call, Glebsky arrives expecting routine police work but instead finds a neon-lit shrine to a fallen climber, a St. Bernard that seems to guard old secrets, and a gallery of unnervingly eccentric guests whose identities never quite add up. This genuinely odd and mesmerizing Soviet-Estonian production was filmed in Kazakhstan and features a screenplay by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky.
- Friday, April 10, 4 p.m. @ UW Cinematheque
- Monday, April 13, 6:15 p.m. @ Flix Brewhouse, Cinema 2
- A Serious Thought [Estonia] – One night, a little boy goes to bed but can’t sleep. Instead, he thinks. And a very serious thought strikes him: his relative insignificance in the expanse of the cosmos. Rendered in stunning stop-motion animation, this visually striking film is a bedtime story for the modern age.
- Sunday, April 12, 11:00 a.m. @ The Marquee at Union South
- Erupcja [USA, Poland] – Displaying a sly, natural screen presence in her dramatic movie debut, Charli xcx sheds her pop persona to inhabit Bethany, a restless British traveler unraveling in Europe under the pressure of impending domesticity. A story that treats desire not as gossipy scandal but as seismic destiny, Erupcja is “a work of novelistic amplitude.”
- Friday, April 10, 8:45 p.m. @ The Marquee at Union South
- Wednesday, April 15, 9 p.m. @ Flix Brewhouse, Cinema 2
- Zastava Brothers [USA] – Ever heard of the Yugo, the infamous Yugoslavian car made by Zastava Automobiles? While some have called the Yugo the worst car ever made, this short doc follows a group of immigrant men in the Midwest who meet and form a bond over their love for these much-maligned machines.
- Saturday, April 11, 4 p.m. @ Music Hall
- I Accidently Wrote a Book [Hungary] – Nina loves to make up stories. She wants to be a writer. Her bohemian neighbor,Lidia, an experienced author and her mentor, explains, “In novels, people arecharacters who come to life.” Nina’s mother, who died when Nina was very young,was camera shy. There are no photos of her. Nina doesn’t remember much abouther and longs to know more. “If I learn about my mom,” reasons Nina, “she willcome to life!” Nina’s mission is complicated when a new love comes into herfather’s life and Nina struggles with her first relationship with a boy. Suddenly,her life seems full of new experiences and confusing emotions. Recommended age 10+.
- Saturday, April 11, 7 p.m. @ The Marquee at Union South
- Kontinental ’25 [Romania, Brazil, Switzerland, UK, Luxembourg] – In the Romanian city of Cluj, Orsolya (Eszter Tompa), a bailiff of Hungarian descent, supervises the eviction of a homeless man who has been squatting in an abandoned basement. When he commits suicide, Orsolya spirals into a guilt-filled existential crisis. As she recounts her story again and again in a series of encounters with family, friends, an ex-student and a priest, writer-director Radu Jude (Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, WFF ‘24) crafts a singular portrait of the state of things in today’s “civilized” society.
- Friday, April 10, 6 p.m. @ Bartell Theater
- Tuesday, April 14, 2:30 p.m. @ Flix Brewhouse, Cinema 1
- Short Summer [Germany, France, Serbia] – Nastia Korkia’s astonishing fiction feature debut has a deceptively simple narrative setup: Katya, an independent eight-year-old, spends a summer with her grandparents in the Russian countryside. Time stands still and the “short” summer feels endless in the way that only childhood summers can. But there is tension between Katya’s grandparents, and in the background, there is a war being fought. Shot in ravishingly beautiful 16mm, Short Summer is a memory-piece that will be burned in yours for the foreseeable future.
- Friday, April 10, 9 p.m. @ Chazen Museum of Art
- Saturday, April 11, 1:30 p.m. @ Music Hall
- Nosferatu [Germany] – Horror cinema’s foundational text, this iconic classic of silent-era expressionism will be taken to a new, otherworldly realm with a hypnotic and haunting original live score by acclaimed musician Circuit des Yeux, accompanied by Alan Sparhawk of Duluth indie legends Low. F.W. Murnau’s infamously unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula stars an unforgettable Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a ghoulish vampire who lures his victims to his shadowy Transylvanian castle.
- Wednesday, April 15, 8 p.m. @ UW Cinematheque