View full list of events here.

Tuesday, February 18th

Schumann Quartet Concert — 1:00 PM

In collaboration with the University of Iowa’s String Quartet Residency Program, The Schumann Quartet will be performing at the University’s Dey House on 507 N. Clinton Street. Hailing all the way from Köln, Germany, the acclaimed string quartet will be playing selections from their Beethoven cycle, and will be holding a Q&A session following the performance.

Free Showings at FilmScene — 3:00 PM – 8:00 PM

As part of Free Week, Iowa City’s own non-profit cinema will be screening every film on Tuesday, February 18th with free admission. What’s being shown? 

At the Chauncey, 404 E. College St., families will be able to see Paddington In Peru at 4:00 PM and 6:45 PM. Oscar buffs will have the chance to see this year’s nominated live action and animated short films being shown at 3:00 PM and 6:30 PM respectively. The documentary From Ground Zero will be screened at 3:45 PM, showing 22 stories from Palestinian filmmakers living through war. In conjunction with Iowa City Pride, The People’s Joker will be shown for free and in 35mm film! RSVP to see The People’s Joker here.

In the Ped Mall location at 118 E. College St. Walter Salles’ 2024 drama based on a real story I’m Still Here will be screened at 3:30 PM and 6:30 PM. No Other Land, the award winning documentary made by Palestinian and Israeli activists documenting the region’s conflict, will also be at the Ped Mall.

Open Mic Comedy — 9:00 PM 

Held at the Alleycat nightclub at 13 S. Linn Street, come see local comedians take the stage! The Alleycat will also be open until 2:00 AM.

Wednesday, February 19th

First Round: Jan Weissmiller, Rachel Yoder, and Nina Loman — 5:00 PM

Award winning poet Jan Weismiller, author Rachel Yoder (Nightbitch), and author Nina Loman (The Body Alone) are coming together at the Prairie Lights Cafe on 15 S. Dubuque St. to host a conversation about authorship and literary happenings around Iowa City. Come to this panel to learn and socialize in the same space that once served as a gathering place for literary legends like Robert Frost and E.E. Cummings. 

A Year with Frog and Toad — Doors 6:00 PM, Show 7:00 PM

The Notle Academy and Iowa Conservatory are putting on A Year with Frog and Toad at The Englert located at 221 E. Washington St. featuring everyone’s favorite cottagecore icons. Watch Frog and Toad participate in all four seasons of the year, and celebrate the differences that make them unique. The original show was boundary pushing as it brought professional children’s theatre to Broadway, and now you can see it for free here in Iowa City. 

Good Habits, New Neighbors, Slow Retreat, and Gunk Lung at Gabe’s — 8:00 PM

Iowa City based punk and alt-rock bands Good Habits, New Neighbors, Slow Retreat, and Gunk Lung are uniting to create one rocking evening at Gabe’s at 330 E Washington St. Doors will open at 8:00 PM with the show starting at 8:30 PM. The last band is scheduled to take the stage at around 10:45 PM. 

Thursday, February 20th

SCW Pro Wrestling — 5:30 PM

Do you like to see mostly naked men beat each other up? Me too. Come to The Englert for a high energy muscle fest put on by the local underground DIY wrestling organization SCW. Doors at 5:30 PM, fighters at 6:30 PM. KA-POW.

Fishbait, KL!NG, Second Half, and Anti-Cash at Gabe’s — 8:00 PM

Prog band Fishbait, garage band KL!NG, along with rock bands Second Half and Anti-Cash will be at Gabe’s to entertain your Thursday night. Doors will open at 8:00 PM, and the show starts at 8:30 PM, with the last band set to take the stage at 10:45 PM.

28 Days Later — 9:00 PM

Norwalk indie rockers 28 Days Later take the stage at Elray’s Live and Dive at 221 Iowa Ave. in yet another Iowa City appearance. Consisting of four friends from high school, the band released their debut LP last year and maintains a headlining role in each bill they perform on. After the show, Elray’s will keep going with DJs spinning records on their two other stages. This show unfortunately is 21+ to enter.

Friday, February 21st

The Englert and KRUI’s Local Showcase: The Uniphonics, Sun Centauri, and Ahzia — 6:30 PM

Local rapper Ahzia, R&B group Sun Centauri, and funk band The Uniphonics will be performing at The Englert. Doors open at 6:30 PM, with the show starting at 7:30 PM. Ahzia may be a familiar face, but his sharp lyricism never loses its punch. Sun Centauri, a joint effort from the smooth Iowa City darlings Alyx Rush and Jim Swim, are transcendent. The Uniphonics bring nothing short of the quintessential groove. Come enjoy this genre spanning showcase for free!

Grimmtooth Zine Release Show (feat. Anglegrinder, ghOstMiSt, Chemosh, & Ill Omen) — 7:30 PM

Public Space One’s Close House on 538 S. Gilbert St. will be hosting Grimmtooth’s zine release show. Perzines, or personal zines, will be featured, as well as story anthologies, poetry, and comics. Many of the zines present are produced by Iowa City and Midwest based artists. Along with this, industrial drone project Anglegrinder, experimental folk artist ghOstMiSt, Wisconsin death metal group Chemosh, and Cedar Rapids thrash band Ill Omen will be performing live music!

Eva Maeve — 8:00 – 11:00 PM

At the Vue Rooftop located on 328 S. Clinton St. local artist Eva Maeve will perform over the backdrop of downtown Iowa City at night. The Earlham, Iowa singer/songwriter blends pop, folk, and country sensibilities with her original songs and powerful, expressive singing. The 22-year-old artist has been releasing music since 2020 and is involved with Iowa City’s community of gigging singer/songwriters.

Saturday, February 22nd

The Englert’s Local Showcase: Stnic, Lex Leto, and Makebelief — 6:30pm

We at KRUI are partnering with The Englert Theater for a show on Saturday night of Free Week, with local acts Stnic, Lex Leto and Makebelief, and the Iowa City Video Zine. Stnic is an electronic and acoustic improv band who thrive in exploring the eclectic and unknown. Lex Leto and Makebelief are an experimental pop duo who combine moments of ambient recluse, and more bumping danceable beats.  

These two acts will be performing in front of the visual backdrop generated by the Iowa City Video Zine. The open platform and experimental video collective will have projections across the surface of the walls of the inside of the theater itself, enhancing the vibe of the space. The show will be a complete auditory and visual experience to lull souls into a trance.  More info at the Englert’s website here.

Dance Party with DJ Anthony Worden — 10:00 PM

Anthony Worden, songwriter, guitarist, and head honcho of Iowa City’s Illiterati Records, is no stranger to Gabe’s. After releasing his latest record, Plain Angels, and conducting the third annual Illiterati Fest in August, Worden’s coming to Gabe’s once again to spin records. He’ll be taking the reins as their house DJ for the night. A dance party until close to bookend the first annual Free Week.

Drag Shows at Studio 13 — 10:30 PM

In spite of the Iowa legislature’s recent proposal of House Study Bill 158 that would criminalize public displays of drag or queerness in general, Iowa City’s Studio 13 will be hosting drag shows almost every night during Free Week. This includes an open stage act Wednesday, and drag shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, all starting at 10:30 PM. Come spend your nights at Studio 13 on 13 S. Linn Street with no cover! The dance floor will also be open after each show.

Written with help from Amanda Moy

The post Iowa City Free Week 2025 Preview appeared first on KRUI Radio.

I have not read the book, nor do I know Yoder herself, so I was truly watching the film with fresh, unbiased eyes. I remember watching a sneak preview of the film a few months back, with it having a large focus on what the title implies, a mother turning into a dog, the beastliness surrounding motherhood, and a lot of imagery of raw meat. What I was actually met with when watching the film was more of a banal stream of thought, with dog imagery intermittently sprinkled in. There are a few shots of something close to body horror: Amy Adams growing fur, a tail, fangs – but rarely does the film actually delve into the idea or character of Nightbitch.

Instead, the movie is dragged along by monologues about motherhood, more so about how a capitalist society treats mothers as a whole or comparing them to goddesses than truly delving into any ideas of motherhood being animalistic. The film also introduced characters that never fully develop, such as a group of young moms who turn from stereotypes used for satire to Mother’s best friends. Father, Mother’s husband, is disdained by Mother for most of the film for his unequal role in parenting and lack of support he shows Mother, only to have a sudden realization at the end of the film that he needs to be a better parent and partner, where then Mother and Father act like nothing ever happened.

Overall, the film gives us a little bit of everything, and a whole lot of nothing. It lightly taps into the dog and goddess metaphors, marriage dynamics, the idea that raising a child takes a village, and the importance of art, but never sticks to a plot point long enough to be meaningful. It is tonally a mess. You’re never going to replicate an entire book in a 1 hour and 38 minute film, so the filmmakers should have either gravitated to a singular plot idea and produced a film around that, or leaned more into adopting abstraction and made this an art film, rather than trying to be Hollywood friendly.

Embracing the idea that motherhood is a violently transformative experience requires more than a few brief moments of body horror and a handful of dialogue lines, constantly interrupted with platitudes on feminism and quips taken right from a late night sitcom. All of the pieces were there, Yoder is a great storyteller and Amy Adams is a fantastic actress, but when put together, there is no bark and no bite.

The post “Nightbitch” Belongs in the Doghouse appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The winner of the 2024 Refocus Film Festival Audience Award was The Count of Monte-Cristo (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo), a new film out of France based on Alexandre Dumas’ literary classic. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t actually read The Count of Monte-Cristo, but this film made me want to read the book. Pierre Niney does an amazing job embodying Edmond Dantès and the sets of the film are breathtakingly gorgeous.

The Storm is a 2024 release out of China by highly acclaimed animator Busifan. The film uses 2D animation to mimic traditional Chinese ink paintings, resulting in gorgeous pastel backgrounds which make the film worth a watch all on their own. It follows Mantou (translated as Bun in English) and his father Daguzi (Grain) as they search for magical silk in a haunted ship which Daguzi believes will free them from poverty.

Along the way, Mantou and Daguzi find themselves in the center of a longstanding feud between Lumin guardians trying to preserve nature, and members of an opera troupe haunting the ship. Both groups are united in that they blame the greed of humanity for their fates. The film explores themes of change, grief, and letting go, and is appropriate for all ages, but is better suited for older children or young adults who have a solid understanding of death and grief.

The Falling Sky (A Queda do Céu) is a film about Brazil’s indigenous Yanomami people, loosely based on Davi Kopenawa’s book The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. Though classified as a documentary, the film is moreso a video essay, and features a combination of artistic shots of the sky and trees, a black screen with narration, and documentation of Yanomami rituals and daily life. The film is heavy and thought provoking, focusing on environmental destruction and the disturbance of indigenous daily life by capitalist society.

Ghost Cat Anzu is an adorable rotoscoped Japanese film focusing on a schoolgirl named Karin, her grandfather, and a giant ghost cat named Anzu, as they navigate life together after Karin’s father abruptly leaves her at her grandfather’s temple, trying to escape debt collectors. Karin, with the help of Anzu and other local forest spirits, processes her grief surrounding her mother’s death and father’s disappearance. The film does have a lot of cheap and childish humor like bad puns, but when I saw the film, the theater contained only young adults. There were multiple times where they all erupted in laughter. I think the film can be enjoyable for all audiences, but it is definitely a children’s film. Ghost Cat Anzu has a theatrical release starting November 15th.

I had the privilege of seeing the U.S. premier of Savanna and the Mountain (A Savana e a Montanha), a film focused on Covas do Barroso, Portugal and the towns prolonged battle with a British mining firm. The film has quite a surprise at the end, or at least it was a surprise to me, and includes fantastic original music composed by a member of the town. I loved the filmmaking and musical score of Savanna, and the film had me thinking about the impact my personal consumerism has on towns like Covas do Barroso long after the film was over. If I had to recommend seeing just one film that was played at Refocus, it would be this.

The post Refocus Roundup appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The film is led by the delightfully strange Bella Baxter (played by Emma Stone), who under the wing of Dr. Godwin Baxter (played by Willem Dafoe), who she refers to as “God”, was brought back to life after she had attempted suicide after finding out she was pregnant. Godwin switches out her brain with the brain of her unborn-child, which results in Bella having an infant-like mind. With themes of experimentation, the film easily positions itself as something that reminds us of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but instead if under the mold of Barbie. This is as we follow a resurrected woman in desire and curiosity to explore the world in the hopes of finding and reuniting with herself through the discovery of life and existence’s means.

Image via The Los Angeles Times

Liberated and free, Bella goes on an expedition through Lisbon, Alexandria, Marseille, and later on Paris alongside Duncan Wedderburn (played by Mark Ruffalo), who is one of her suitors next to Max McCandles (played by Ramy Youssef). In Bella’s ventures, she learns about such concepts like socialism, in which she grasps a new approach toward living, unfettered and unconfined by the various areas of the societal hierarchy. While being away, Godwin takes on Felicity (played by Margaret Qualley), who is under similar circumstances to Bella.

However, Bella’s crusade soon comes to an end as she needs to return home after being alerted that Godwin is apparently dying. She goes back home, and plans to marry McCandles. This plan is interrupted by the abrupt entrance of her former husband from her past life, General Alfie Blessington (played by Christopher Abbott) who entraps her in his mansion and demands her to subject and submit herself to his powers. Bella finds a way to escape him and afterward returns to Godwin who passes away while in the support of Bella and McCandles. 

The film is tenderly poetic as it humors its ever-profuse introductions to metaphors and symbolic allegories to the idea of living life within one’s rules, choices, and control. Bella Baxter re-enters life in the ways she wishes and wants. In Bella’s words, “It is the goal to improve, advance, progress, grow.” Madame Swiney (played by Kathryn Hunter) in an earlier scene describes Bella as “a woman plotting her course to freedom.” 

“Poor Things” is currently playing at FilmScene in Iowa City, as of January 1st, 2024.

The 500 Club seeks to provide concise film reviews and criticism at around a cool 500 words for your viewing pleasure.

The post The 500 Club: Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The film is a book-to-screen adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel of the same title. The book was met with praise upon its publication in 2015 under Penguin Press and received the PEN award. This was alongside other short-listings that had lauded the work for its Alfred Hitchcock like approach in style and form. In Oldroyd’s movie adaptation, he is able to capture this essence of being unsettling and eerie as the film utilizes the thriller genre in ways that are magnetically stirring.

The film follows the main protagonist Eileen Dunlop (played by Thomasin Mckenzie), a 24-year-old who works as a secretary at a male juvenile correctional facility in a mysterious town in Massachusetts. She gets to know Rebecca Saint John (played by Anne Hathaway), a Harvard derived psychologist who enters the staff of Eileen’s workplace. From the very start of their first encounter, Eileen finds herself to be completely fascinated and transfixed by Rebecca’s presence, in which later on, they grow and develop a fondness for each other.

Image via KQED

The foundation of their relationship ends up centering itself around the puzzling case of one of the inmates at the prison, Lee Polk (played by Sam Nivola), who both Eileen and Rebecca are convinced had killed his father in much more profound circumstances than what had been formerly established. Alongside this conflict, Eileen also confronts internal battles with her father Jim (played by Shea Whigham) who struggles with an addiction to alcohol as a result of her mother’s death, and his failed career as a policeman. Early on, the unstable, flimsy dynamic that poses itself between Eileen and her father is conveyed on screen, which later on, leads Eileen to using him as a last resort.

Throughout the film, it contains imaginary shots of Eileen utilizing a gun to her own content. Within these sequences, we eventually land upon scenarios in which she ends up actually pulling the trigger, under heightened conditions. Rebecca involves her into a messy situation with Lee Polk’s mother (played by Marin Ireland), one that she had no choice in but to handle and manage herself.

The main premise of the plot finds itself to revolve around Eileen’s want of running away to New York with Rebecca, in which she feels she needs to go through these measures in order to be able to do this. What is most engaging in this film is the unnerving, though enigmatic bond that forms between Eileen and Rebecca, to the degree that both start to mesh and meld into becoming the other.

The 500 Club seeks to provide concise film reviews and criticism at around a cool 500 words for your viewing pleasure.

The post The 500 Club: William Oldroyd’s “Eileen”  appeared first on KRUI Radio.

At the beginning of 2022, Schwarz was a sophomore studying cinema and screenwriting at the university, but he was detached from his peers and the filmmaking community. It wasn’t for a lack of passion. Schwarz has been making films since he was 12, shooting stop-motion videos on a Nintendo DSi. But COVID-19 presented a huge challenge to his social life and health. He had his grandparents at home to think about, and an immunocompromised father.

Before returning home for spring break, he decided he wanted to submit something to Open Screen in April. Open Screen is a bi-annual event hosted by Bijou Film Board, a student organization at the University of Iowa. The competition is free and open to all university students and local filmmakers. Bijou screens the chosen submissions in front of an audience and a committee of judges at FilmScene, a local non-profit movie theater and a highlight of Iowa City’s arts community.

The Open Screen deadline came at a convenient time; he needed to shoot a documentary for one of his classes anyway. Why not just film both projects in the same week?

“Equinox” was filmed inside and inspired by Schwarz’ family home, a home whose history is almost impossible to believe. Schwarz describes it as a “weird, 19^th century building” rather than a “house.” The building originally functioned as a nursing home. Then, Schwarz said, roughly 60 to 70 years later, his grandparents bought the nursing home and turned it into an art school. Finally, Schwarz’ dad bought the building, making it a family home for Schwarz, his sisters, his parents, and his grandparents.

“We all have… strange, spiritual experiences being there,” Schwarz said. “Because, like, probably more than a hundred people have died there.”

One strange experience is a dream that Schwarz claims to share with his twin sister Sophie (21) and older sister Maggie (23). The dream, he says, involves a door appearing in a hallway inside their home.

Schwarz, with the help of his sisters, translated this dream into a nine-minute psychedelic and spooky short film. A red door materializes out of an empty space. Maggie emerges from the doorway, but the footage reverses and she walks right back in, seemingly into a black hole. Cut to two dark figures walking outside at night, an orange moon glowing in the distance. Cut to Maggie and an unnamed character dancing in a room splashed in red and purple light, with haunting vocalizations looping in the background. It’s no surprise that Schwarz lists David Lynch as one of his biggest inspirations.

Besides the mysterious visuals, one of the film’s most striking aspects is the music. This music is a product of Wave Guide, a band formed, once again, between Schwarz and his sisters.

“My sisters are everything in the world to me,” Schwarz said. “They’re such incredible artists and performers that I feel like I have to fit them in my films somehow, just because they bring so much to the table that I don’t personally have.”

Sophie worked as a private chef for a few years before taking on her current managerial position at a restaurant in Decorah, Iowa, Schwarz’ hometown. Maggie currently works for the Winneshiek County Conservation Board (also in Decorah), and is an independent artist, selling pieces at art shows and by commission. Maggie’s conservation work reflects the siblings’ childhood spent in nature, something that inspired Schwarz’ second film, “Spring Awakes.”

For his class documentary, Schwarz wanted to explore the transition between winter and spring. “Spring Awakes” combines footage from Decorah and Iowa City. There is no dialogue, save for audio from a pedestrian crossing (“Walk sign is on across Washington”). Snow falls across downtown Iowa City. Water flows over a rocky stream. Birds fly and dwell on tree branches. The film captures the sights and sounds of nature’s simple beauty, set to Schwarz’ self-composed calming synth score. Schwarz considers “Spring Awakes” his best work to date, and appreciates that it can exist as a piece of art without being tied to a narrative.

“Equinox” went on to win the judges’ Grand Prize and the Audience’s Choice award in the April 2022 Open Screen. Schwarz describes feeling shock, elation, and a sense that he shouldn’t have won. Prior to the competition, he didn’t think his work was on the same level as his peers.

Perhaps it was this sense of doubt, or the fact that he had just won a few months ago, that led Schwarz to believe there was no way that “Spring Awakes” would win the Grand Prize at the November 2022 Open Screen. He was just submitting it for fun. He thought it was his best work, but at the same time, he figured a quaint short film about “birds and stuff” would be less exciting than other submissions. And yet he won, again. And he still had trouble feeling good about his victory.

“I already had that moment, and other people deserve to have their moment in the spotlight too. So I probably won’t be submitting again,” Schwarz said. “But I’m very happy that I had that opportunity.”

Besides the material prizes he won from Open Screen (a projector and a GoPro that he is very thankful for and uses all the time), Schwarz gained community and new friendships, things he lacked since starting college. Even though he doesn’t plan on submitting, Schwarz will likely attend Open Screen again just to experience the exchange of art and ideas in a lively environment. 

“It’s incredible to be in a place that values art so highly,” Schwarz said of Iowa City. “Everybody is an artist here… you can talk to anybody on the street, and you can ask them about what they do, and they’ll tell you about what projects they’re working on.”

Speaking of projects, Schwarz has a new one up his sleeve. Aiming at a 30 or 40-minute runtime, the film features a main character that has lost his sense of self and starts seeing aliens in the sky. Schwarz said the film is inspired by his own growth. Forging strong friendships has allowed Schwarz to embrace himself in new ways, and he’s ready to take a step back and reflect on that journey.

“I’ve been so lucky,” Schwarz said. “My life has changed forever.”

You can watch both films on Schwarz’ YouTube channel.

The post Will Schwarz and the Tale of Two Open Screens appeared first on KRUI Radio.

These movements echoed throughout Iowa City on Jan. 20, when over 900 women and men marched downtown.

A participant and Women in Business Member, Abby Gainer, said the Women’s March brought solidarity and comfort to her state of mind, saying too many times women get in this mindset that they are in the struggle and fight for equality alone.

“The march was great for solidarity and bringing light to the movement, but the most important thing women can do each and every day is to hold people accountable for saying something negative about a woman that has nothing to do with her personality, but her appearance and body,” Gainer said.

The Women’s March may have been a one-day event, but its ideas and aspirations are coming back to Iowa City- this time on screen.

Throughout the entirety of March, FilmScene will only be screening films made solely by women. On the arthouse theater’s website, it states this about the upcoming event:

“In order to celebrate talented local, national and international female artists, FilmScene proudly presents Women’s March. Showcasing films made exclusively by women throughout the entire month of March 2018, featuring new releases alongside classic cinema, films with local roots, and dialogues about the female perspective in the industry.”

The program director at FilmScene, Rebecca Fons, said female filmmakers should be spotlighted and showcased because of their lack of exposure in cinema. She said this idea hit center-stage when the Weinstein allegations came out on Oct. 5, causing FilmScene to discuss internally what its responsibility is as an exhibitor of film.

“We hope to achieve edu-tainment, in that we’ll be showing people films, so you’re going to be entertained, but there’s a little bit of eat your vegetables too,” Fons said. “I think people will come away with a better understanding of female voices in the industry today, yesterday, and tomorrow.”

Part of understanding the #timesup and #metoo movements is becoming familiar with gender roles in the history of film.

With that knowledge Hanna Bonner, Executive Director of Bijou in Iowa City, said the movements have brought to life a history of gender discrimination in film, but one aspect of the movement that’s puzzling to her and many people is what to do with movie classics that currently appear as sexist, or misogynistic towards women; but in their release the subject matter was the status quo.

“I think it’s a complicated thing to reconcile your politics with things you take pleasure in viewing,” Bonner said. “Some of my favorite movies, maybe the gender politics don’t match my own politics, but the visual language and grammar is something I enjoy regardless.”

Since the Weinstein allegations came out, the entertainment world has been in a conundrum on what to do with problematic subject matter in films. For example, last Christmas CNN’s Carol Costello ran an opinion piece about the sexist nature of the Holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and if the movie should be retired.

She’s not alone on this idea, as throughout history people have sought to ban or censor art because of its offensive material. Just this past Monday, Feb. 12, a Minnesota school district banned Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” from the school’s curriculum because of their racist language.

Bonner said offensive material can be viewed if audiences are active spectators by critically engaging with what’s problematic in the content. The controversial subject matter is how people living today learn from the past. Rather than reading about it in a textbook, actually feeling characters’ emotions from specific moments in time is a fundamental way of learning about history.

“We can educate ourselves on what the tone and temperature was then,” Fons said. “In doing that, we can compare films from now and say ten years ago, and look at what’s changed and stayed the same.”

Understanding the patriarchal frame of cinema is only one aspect of being a better voyeur, the next step is exposure and highlighting the incredible work done by females in film over the course of history

FilmScene plans on doing exactly that this March with some events already planned, such as “Pioneer Wednesday” where the arthouse will screen movies done by women who worked to break the glass ceilings in film. Mondays are designated for contemporary movies directed by women, with most of the women being out of the mainstream spotlight. Saturday’s will be for local films directed by women and FilmScene will also be hosting an animation camp for young girls.

“It comes down to having options for representation, being able to see more of a spectrum of behavior instead of one type of way of portraying gender,” Bonner said.

The post Breaking the Fourth Wall: Iowa City’s FilmScene will continue marching for women appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Rhymes with Opera is a New York-based group consisting of three opera singers and two composers. Through smaller, more intimate performance settings and innovative experimentation, they bring opera as an art form to a new level.

I had no idea what to expect from this screening, other than the fact that it involved opera. Since I tend to space out during ordinary movies, I had grave doubts about my ability to stay awake in something that involved opera, the ultimate boring experience, according to some.

Adam’s Run actually made opera an enjoyable experience. It’s a dystopian comedy and tragedy, set in around 2020, an unnervingly imminent time frame. After a trippy title sequence of neon laser beams and television static, the film opens with a television producer narrating the fatal

feud between a nihilistic weathercaster and overly religious televangelist amidst an apocalypse.

In “The Existentialist Weatherwoman,” a meteorologist, with a perpetual smirk on her face and martini in her hand, apathetically comments on how the mid and southwest are still burning up and the east coast is being drowned in torrential rains. Casually sitting up on the upper right corner of the screen is a countdown to the end of the world.

Meanwhile, an environmental televangelist urges viewers to repent of their sins and help him build giant ark, in anticipation of another great flood.

Naturally, these two personalities butt heads over their slightly different attitudes about the apocalypse. But once they meet at the ark construction site at Adam’s Run, their plans and feelings go awry.

Apart from the engaging plot, the structure of Adam’s Run itself is fascinating. The entire film consists of “footage” from television shows, cameras left on, and the narrator’s own show– “400 Hours from the End, with Dana Daring.”

Thus everything we see is literally through some lens: at one point in the film, the first encounter between the meteorologist and the minister is filmed through two cameras, one from each of their shows.

Each camera presents a different visual perspective of the situation, particularly through color. The evangelist’s camera casts a dismal blue hue, while the meteorologist’s has a more flippantly orange cast.

I thought that these simultaneously portrayed perspectives spoke to the pliability of the worlds presented to us through various media–an issue especially pertinent in our day.

Of course, Adam’s Run is still entirely an opera–except for one part, which resembled a grunge music video. Though it is very much NOT your average movie in this sense, the dystopian plot, the nifty editing, the shifts in perspective and commentaries on our relationship with television and the weather, all combine to make you forget that this is an opera.

Even more impressive, during the Q and A session, the director mentioned that they completed this movie within a few months, and the filming within a few days.

This clash between old and modern art forms redefines two different art forms, and brings a new (and fresh) twist on the dystopian narrative.

This was just the first of several events showing how art is being pushed beyond its limits; check out what else is happening in Witching Hour here.

The post Witching Hour Festival: Adam’s Run- A Video Opera by Rhymes with Opera @FilmScene 10/20/2017 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The most enthralling part of this experience was his medium. The entire soundtrack was just a guy playing drums really really well. My father had been a part of a heavy metal cover band when I was a child, so I have a pretty good amount of nostalgia attached to a drumkit.

When I walked into the Englert, I noticed that there were a lot of people waiting in line to buy tickets, as though they’d decided to attend last minute. A lot of people were standing around and talking as well, most of them middle-aged or older. The theater itself was comfortably vacant in the sense that it wasn’t crowded, but there were enough people there that it was still busy.

When the event started, Sanchez came onto the stage and was greeted with applause. He began by telling us he wanted to explain his history as a drummer and how he came up with the Birdman soundtrack.

He tells the audience about growing up in Mexico City and that he’d been drumming since he was five years old. He pursued drumming as he moved to the United States and that he became a US citizen two months ago. “The timing on that couldn’t have been better,” he proclaims with the loudest laughter that would take place that night.

He discusses that the director, producer, and writer of Birdman, Alejandro González Iñárritu, was particular about how he wanted the soundtrack to sound.

They would sit in a studio and work through each and every scene to make sure that it was how Iñárritu liked it but was also improvised to Sanchez’s liking. He then told us that he improvised all the time during these live performances and that we would be hearing things no one else had. A performance that was completely unique.

As the movie begins, it’s easy to tell how tied the drums are to the film. The first seconds of the movie reveal a quote, the letters revealed a bit at a time. With every beat Sanchez made, a new set of letters were revealed. There was such a clear amount of precision involved with the soundtrack, that it was easy to forget that it was being performed in front of us.

As the scenes of the movie continued, the percussion created the largest intensity in a way that none of the actors could’ve. Sanchez knew the movie forward and backward and was able to use his drums to elaborate on the film. They drew out movement in the scene, literally as the characters made gestures and slammed doors, and figuratively with their emotion.

The beginning of the credits was very similar to the intro when it came to the letters appearing with the beat of the drums. I thought about how it would be such an honor to know how my name sounded to Antonio Sanchez.

As the credits kept coming, Sanchez kept playing and created the most influential and intense part of the performance. At this point, I think he was improvising since there was nothing going on in terms of plot anymore. He was moving so fast and making such detailed rhythms that would change every two seconds. He was playing like nobody could tell him what to do, like his kit shared some kind of extension cord that connected to his mind. He just knew what he was doing, but gave off the impression that he was just experimenting with sound at the same time.

The only word that I can come up with to describe the performance is “phenomenal.” The movie itself was captivating, naturally, since it won Best Picture at the Oscars in 2015 along with three other awards. I left not understanding it, and I found it enthralling but obscure and fascinating but also really bizarre. The cinematography was beautiful, and probably the most appealing part of viewing it.

However, Sachez put his entire soul into playing his set and made a specific effort to put on a spectacular show. I can tell that he could have sat there after the credits had rolled past and drummed for us forever. Going to the Englert last night wasn’t about watching a movie, it was about listening to the music that was designed with it. I wish it could’ve gone longer.

Listen to the Birdman soundtrack here or on Spotify below.

The post Show Review: BiRDMAN LiVE with Antonio Sanchez @ The Englert Theatre appeared first on KRUI Radio.

If you want it plain and simple, Peter and the Farm has been by far one of the best films I’ve seen this year, and definitely the best documentary I’ve seen this year.

But if you’re anything like me, you might want to know a little bit more about the film before you actually go and see it, and with director and co-producer Tony Stone’s latest feature-length, I’d say it’s definitely a good idea to know what you’re getting yourself into, especially for all my vegan and vegetarian friends out there.

Peter and the Farm opens with a camera on the dashboard of a car, looking out into the idyllic countryside of Vermont. We then are introduced to the protagonist, a rough-talking, sixty-eight-year-old, rugged individualist and the man who has been behind Mile Hill Farm for 38 years, Peter Dunning.

By all accounts, Peter seems like your average farmer just doing his thing. In an early scene, he demonstrates how he calls for his sheep compared to how he calls for his cows. He wears the same ratty wool sweater, grass stained denim, and worker boots every day. He chops wood, rides around on his tractor, and brews his own beer in his basement.

He seems to have grown accustomed to the daily chores of running a small, organic farm, so much so that in another early scene, he is visibly unfazed as he shoots one of his sheep, fails to actually kill it, shoots it again, this time killing it, and then proceeds to–in an extremely graphic matter that I actually had to cover my eyes from because it was a little too much–dismember the sheep; head, intestines, and all.

Nothing is left up to the imagination here, and Peter’s nonchalant commentary while, for example, pulling the stomach out of the sheep caracas, appears to become this early symbol for his apparent disconnect from the rest of the world, including with his now-estranged family.

Something I appreciated about Peter and the Farm is the way it addresses Peter’s back story. You never get the whole story at once, rather in pieces as it naturally comes to the surface. And it comes to the surface often, as it’s evident that Peter’s past directly impacts his present more than it probably should.

A byproduct of the 1960s counterculture, Peter was once an aspiring artist, who, pretty immediately after receiving his BA in sculpture seeks out work on a saw mill, only to severely injure and disfigure his hand to the point where he can no longer make art the way he once could. He and his first wife, enamored by the notion of organic farming, create a once prosperous business that Peter acknowledges has only been declining since the late 1990s, coinciding with the deterioration of his second marriage and the eventual abandonment by not only both of his wives, but by his four children as well. This leaves Peter where he is today– living alone on and independently tending to his 187 acres of picturesque, New England farmland.

Peter doesn’t specifically point out what was the exact breaking point for his family, but it’s safe for the audience to assume excessive drinking and his lack of exhibited emotion was probably at the root of it. The thing is that despite the unflattering way Peter, more or less, paints himself as, I didn’t really buy that he is just some stoic, apathetic jerk– and that didn’t seem to be what Stone wanted you to take away from it either.

Voiceovers throughout the film divulge incredible poetry written by Peter, elaborating on the guilt he feels for his actions, and at one point, while tossing hay down from the hayloft, and after acknowledging his discontentment over his own childhood, delivers a remarkable insight, stating, “I wish the affection for people had been received as I didn’t give it, but meant it.” That statement has been stuck in my head since I saw the film, and I think it’s because of how relatable it is, not to mention how eloquently it was put. I’d totally be lying if I said I had never felt that same exact way regarding my closest relationships–although I can’t imagine it would’ve been that nicely articulated had I verbally expressed it.

What I think is so special about Peter and the Farm is not only it’s breathtaking cinematography, but also the fact that even in the darkest moments of the film–like when sadly but not too surprisingly Peter semi-jokes that his farmhand has to hide his rifle because he speaks of suicide so often– the viewer feels, in one way or another, compassion for Peter. And this is not to be confused with pity– it’s actually nowhere near pity, and I think it’s because Peter never seems to pity himself. He carries on with his daily routine, his chores, and he never once blames anyone for what has happened, but rather, accepts it as an unfortunate aspect of his life. And in some way, Mile Hill Farm with its mesmerizing beauty and at the same time, isolated existence, seems to mirror Peter’s own existence– what was once full of plentiful opportunity and aspiration has now been eclipsed by years of adversity that I think, only someone of Peter’s age would be able to fully recognize.

Despite this bleak assertion and the fact that Stone’s documentary never really depicts Peter reaching a point of self-redemption at the end, I still wasn’t convinced that the overarching theme of the movie was to point out how much life can suck and simply leave it at that. I mean, hey, even Peter recalls that “…there have been good times. Lots of good times…” and much later on in the film declares, “Life announces itself in force– death slinks off,” suggesting, in my opinion, a more balanced conception of the reality in which we live.

At length, Peter and the Farm is a beautifully observed character study and a one of a kind film that highlights the tragedy of our past seeping into our present, what it means to be human and make mistakes, and at the very least, will definitely put some things into perspective for the viewer.

The post Fresh Bread Film Review: Peter and the Farm appeared first on KRUI Radio.