With the Milwaukee Film Festival making its debut this Thursday, there's no doubt Milwaukeeans have movies on their minds. The film festival is sure to be 11 days of cinematic intrigue, but if you just can't stand to wait until Thursday to get into a dark theater, consider UWM's free screenings at its Union Theatre, which begin Wednesday, Sept. 23 and continue through Saturday, Sept. 26.
Here is a preview of UWM's free featured screenings:
Pripyat
Wednesday, Sept. 23 and Thursday, Sept. 24
7 p.m., 100 mins.
In 1970, the city of Pripyat, Ukraine, was created as a home for the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and its employees. It grew to a population of 50,000 before the unthinkable happened on April 26, 1986 at 1:23 a.m.: the plant experienced a nuclear reactor accident considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.
Director Nikolaus Geryhalter goes to the nearly-deserted disaster site to capture the mood and morale of Pripyat's 700 residents, some of whom are elderly farmers not wanting to leave their lifelong home, others are paid security guarding the boarders to the "restricted zone." We hear their stories and witness their lives among the devastation.
Rosemary's Baby
Friday, Sept. 25 and Saturday, Sept. 26
11 p.m., 136 mins.
Just in time for fall, this Roman Polanski classic from 1968 stars a young Mia Farrow as Rosemary, an expecting mother who gets the unexpected. A horror film adapted from Ira Levin's novel, the eerie movie creates a visual representation to Levin's response to the popularization of the Church of Satan during the early '60s.
What makes this film work is its plausibility; the viewer gets a glimpse of a very realistic scenario involving the occult, mistrust and paranoia. That realism, as opposed to over-the-top special effects, what makes it a scary film and a good, timeless film.
Treeless Mountain
Friday, Sept. 25 and Saturday, Sept. 26
7 p.m., 89 mins.
When their mothers need to leave in order to find their estranged father, seven-year-old Jin and her younger sister, Bin, are left to live with their aunt for the summer. With only a small piggy bank and their mother's promise to return when it's full, the two girls are forced to acclimate to changes in their family life. Counting the days, and the coins, the two bright-eyed girls eagerly anticipate their mother's homecoming.
But when the bank fills up and their mother is still not there, their aunt decided that she can no longer tend to the children. Taken to live on their grandparents' farm, it is here that Jin come to learn the importance of family bonds in this beautiful, meditative and thought-provoking feature from director So Yong Kim.
Lion's Den
Friday, Sept. 25, 9 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 26, 4:30 and 9 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 27 at 4:30 p.m.
113 mins.
Martina Guzman stars as Julia, a young, pregnant woman sent to the penitentiary for the murder of her lover. In prison, she gives birth to a son and comes to accept that there is no life for her beyond that of her child. She finds an ally in her fellow inmate Marta and an opponent in her mother Sofia.
Marta attempts to teach her how to be a mother to her child, while Sofia wishes to take over rearing the child so that he can grow up outside the prison in freedom. The duel between Julia and her mother expresses the dilemma of what is better for the child -- to be brought up next to his mother in prison or without her, but in freedom.
