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AEC Independent Film Series
About
the Independent Film Series
Twice a year, the Arts & Education Council offers
a series of twelve independent films to the Chattanooga community, films
that would otherwise be unavailable on the city's big screen. Shown
each fall and spring at the downtown Bijou Theatre, the films are chosen
carefully to create a diverse series of thought-provoking and award-winning
independent films.
A discount card may be purchased for this fall series for $5 and will
entitle cardholders to discounted prices on evening shows. All proceeds
from discount cards benefit the Arts & Education Council. Cards
will be sold at the Bijou Theatre or by calling 267-1218.
The following films will be shown for one week each starting
August 29, 2003. Call the Bijou Theatre at 423-265-5220 for times.
The
Bijou 7's Web Site
Click below for more info on the Spring Series
films
Spellbound
August 29 - September 4
Director: Jeffrey Blitz, USA
Rated G
This documentary follows eight children of various ages
and backgrounds as they compete their ways through regional
finals, with their eyes on going to the 1999 Scripps Howard
National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., and hopefully, winning.
Nine million kids try each year, but only 250 make it to the
Nationals. This award-winning film proves why the National Spelling
Bee is one of the highest rated specials on ESPN -- a nail-biting
face-off among hundreds of teens who train as rigorously as
any Olympic athlete on their heroic quest for glory.
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| Swimming
Pool
September 5 - September 11
Director: Francois Ozon (8 Women), FRANCE
In English, Rated R
Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) is a famous British mystery
author. Tired of London and seeking inspiration for her new
novel, she accepts an offer from her publisher John Bosload
(Charles Dance) to stay at his home in the South of France.
It is the off-season, and Sarah finds that the beautiful country
locale and unhurried pace is just the tonic for her -
until late one night, when John’s indolent and insouciant
French daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) unexpectedly arrives.
Sarah’s prim and steely English reserve is jarred by Julie’s
reckless, sexually charged lifestyle. Their interactions set
off increasingly unsettling dynamics and begin to unduly influence
Sarah’s creative process, as Sarah finds herself drawn
into a real-life mystery that Julie embodies.
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| Russian Ark
September 12 - September 18
Director: Aleksandr Sokurov, RUSSIAN with English subtitles
Unrated
This unique panorama of the most famous palace in Russia proves
that the Hermitage is a living entity, a fabric that breathes
Russian history and culture. Shot in a single 96-minute take
on High Definition digtal video, this film weaves through 33
rooms and past 2,000+ actors and extras, following a disembodied
voice (our narrator) as he's given a tour by a 19th century
French diplomat (Sergei Dontsov) through both the Hermitage
and the Russian history of the past 300 year. Shifting back
and forth through time, the film shows us historical figures
like Catherine the Great, Nicholas I, Nicholas II, Peter the
Great and others.
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| The
Secret Lives of Dentists
September 19 - September 25
Director: Alan Rudolph, USA, Rated R
In Alan Rudolph's marital drama, a suburban dentist (Campbell
Scott) who shares his practice with his wife (Hope Davis) suspects
her of having an affair. Scott's character is a model of repression
-- he doesn't want to know anything about his wife's infidelity
that would cause him to act -- and the film plays out as a maddening
rush of imaginary fantasies. Steeped in a queasy emotional containment,
this film nails the experience of true domestic dread.
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| Marooned
in Iraq
September 26 - October 2
Director: Bahman Ghobadi, in Farsi with English subtitles
First Kurdish film ever to screen in Baghdad,
May 17, 2021
Set during the final days of the war between Iran and Iraq,
this is the story of an elderly Iranian Kurd, Mirza (Shahab
Ebrahimi) who ventures off with his two sons into the dangerous
territory of Kurdish Iraq in search of his ex-wife, Hanareh,
fearing she may be in danger there after she ran away with the
old man's best friend. Saddam Hussein turns his wrath and his
air force loose against the Iraqi Kurds, who are victimized
by repeated bombings and extensive use of chemical weapons.
Mirza and his sons embark on a journey through refugee camps,
encountering robbers, local militia, and mourners of mass graves.
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| Mondays
in the Sun
October 3 - October 9
Director: Fernando Leon de Aranoa, Spanish with English
subtitles, Rated R
Javier Bardem stars in this film about a group of recently unemployed
dock workers and the laconic lives they lead in gritty northern
Spain. The longtime friends end up spending their days with
little to do but drink and talk, and maybe pick up women, as
they also search for something new in their lives to help them
retain a sense of personal dignity. The director Fernando Leon
de Aranoa conveys the texture of slow-motion existence, and
the cast around Bardem inhabit their idle fates with an affecting
ease. In Spanish.
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| The Housekeeper
October 10 - October 16
Director: Claude Berri, French with English subtitles
Rated R
In this romantic comedy based on the novel by Christian Oster,
a lonely sound engineer, Jacques (Jean-Pierre Bacri), hires
a housekeeper, Laura (Emilie Dequenne), to take care of his
Paris apartment after his wife leaves him, even though she's
never done a day of housework in her life. As the two spend
more time together (as he is there while she's cleaning), they
become close, and so Laura turns to him when she needs a place
to stay.
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| Masked
& Anonymous
October 17 - October 23
Director: Larry Charles, USA
Set in a fictional America torn by civil war with unclear battle
lines, impresario Uncle Sweetheart is scheming to find a headliner
for a benefit concert. The purpose of the concert is unclear
and the charity that the profits go to is its promoter's pockets.
The stage is set for tumult when Uncle Sweetheart manages to
get the iconic cult star Jack Fate (Bob Dylan) released from
prison to perform. Directed with the black humor Larry Charles
brought to Seinfeld, the film also stars John Goodman, Jessica
Lange, Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke, Luke Wilson, Penelope Cruz,
Angela Basette, Giovanni Ribisi, Val Kilmer, Cheech Marin, Ed
Harris and Bruce Dern.
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| Northfork
October 24 - October 30
Director: Michael Polish, USA
Rated PG-13
The final film in a trilogy of movies named after towns in the
western half of the United States by the Polish Brothers, including
Twin Falls Idaho and Jackpot. In the next
two days the city of Northfork will cease to exist. The year
is 1955 and Northfork, Montatna is literally about to be "dammed,"
flooded to make way for a new hydroelectric project. Most citizens
are headed for higher ground, but the exceptional few resistors
must face the Evacuation Committee, a team of six trench-coated
men charged with removing the last few stragglers before it's
too late. Blending surreality and history, this beguiling story
of loss and resurrection is spun in the manner of a true American
fairytale. Starring Nick Nolte, Anthony Edwards, Daryl Hannah.
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| L'Auberge
Espanole
October 31 - November 6
Rated R
In French slang, the title means "free-for-all," and
that's exactly what Xavier (Romain Duris) finds during while
living with a polyglot mix of students during an exchange program
in Spain. The 25-year old French graduate student finds all
seven of his fellow apartment dwellers are in suspension, studying
and dawdling in delicious bohemian squalor before taking the
government and corporate jobs that will, as the movie suggests,
bring the bourgeois prison walls down around them. The playful
use of digital graphics and sound punch up the subject of youthful
indeterminacy —a quick glance at the young people of the
new, unified Europe as they noodle their way to adulthood.
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September
11
November 7 - November 13
Directors include Sean Penn, Amos Gitai, Samira Makhmalbuf,
Claude Lelouch, Ken Loach, Danis Tanovic, Mira Nair, Idrissa
Ouedraogo, Shohei Imamura, Youssef Chahine
A reaction piece to the United States' terrorist attack on September
11 2001, this controversial film calls upon 11 directors from
various countries to contribute an 11-minute 9-second film about
the event. One short is composed entirely of sounds; another
is seen through the eyes of Iranian children. Variously political,
violent, disturbing, abstract, opinionated, angered, or forgiving,
each film is drastically different from the next.
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Sweet Sixteen
November 13 - November 20
Director: Ken Loach, UK, (English with English subtitles
due to thick Scottish/Glasweigan accents)
Rated R
This film-within-a-film follows the production of a historical
epic about the holocaust (1915-1923) of 1.5 million Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire, focusing on how it changes the life
of a young man (David Alpay) working as a driver on the set.
The estranged members of a contemporary Armenia family are
faced both with Turkey's denial of their catastrophic past
and with their own complicated present: a mother who only
wants peace, a young woman who wants nothing but retribution,
and a young man whose journey to uncover his roots is jeopardizing
his future. Told in Egoyan's trademark elliptical style, Ararat
is at once a mysterious and powerful story about demanding
truth, and may be his most provocative film yet.
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Additional
AEC Independent Film Series
sponsors include
ddN Group
Marquee
Movies
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