Tuesday, October 9

UWM Union Theater / Experimental Tuesdays
7pm *FREE*
A Darkness Swallowed
(Betzy Bromberg, US, 78 min., 16mm, 2005)

A personal investigation of cellular memory, a bio-metaphysical musical.
“Los Angeles-based experimental filmmaker Betzy Bromberg returns to the screen with her latest gem, a Darkness Swallowed , a 78-minute meditation on the evanescent traces of memory and loss. At once her most elliptical and also her most overt work in a career that spans nearly 30 years and more than a dozen dazzling films, a Darkness Swallowed opens on a pair of faded photographs showing an old dented car, one with a child standing beside it and the other without. Speaking in voice-over, Bromberg references a past event, one that will forever haunt her although it occurred before her birth. The film then sinks downward, dipping below the surface of the rational world to mine the seemingly infinite layers of the past stored within the fleshy entrails, chalky bones, sinewy spider webs and gnarled ligaments of both the body and the Earth… Dedicated to the filmmaker's mother, the film is also a gift to us, a reminder of cinema's organic basis in chemistry and light, and of its ability to take us deep inside.” - Holly Willis, LA WEEKLY

Wednesday, October 10

DocUquarium Series – every Wednesday September 5-December 5
“Dive deep” into the newest independent documentaries this fall as filmmaker/professor Brad Lichtenstein opens up his film 301 class to the public. Nine premieres, guests every month and deep exploration guaranteed. A few highlights include Banished, King Korn, Miss Navajo, and Revolution 67. Check the complete schedule at http://www4.uwm.edu/docuwm/ and the blog at http://docuquarium.groups.vox.com/.

This Week’s DocUquarium:

UWM Union Theater
7h30pm *FREE*
Miss Navajo
(Billy Luther, USA, 2007)
Director Billy Luther present!

Miss Navajo is a documentary that looks at Navajo culture, tradition and language through the eyes of several women competing in the Miss Navajo contest. It's a perfect storm of humor, serous engagement in issues, and delightful characters.

Miss Navajo will also be screened at Discovery World on Thursday, again with director Billy Luther present (details bellow).

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Basement Cinema
Mitchell Hall - Room B91

Basement Cinema is a student-run series of B and unusual commercial movies.
More information at http://basementcinema.wordpress.com

This week: Something to Crow About
Scarecrows, the true children of the corn, frighten off more than blackbirds. This week we pay tribute to a bountiful harvest of horror sprouting up from the heartlands.

8pm FREE
Scarecrows

(William Wesley, 1988, 83 minutes)

A big money heist goes wrong when one of the robbers double crosses his partners. Parachuting with the loot into a spooky cornfield, the pack of thieves soon find themselves fighting not just for the money, but for their lives. Mysterious and truly horrifying scarecrows who surround the land care little for the loot. What they want is blood and this spooky, gory film certainly delivers in those departments.

10pm FREE
Dark Night of the Scarecrow

(Frank DeFelitta, 1981, 81 minutes)

A small town mob tracks down Bubba, a retarded man accused of hurting a little girl. When they find him in a cornfield, disguised as a scarecrow they murder him. Later, Bubba is found innocent. As members of the mob start to die mysterious deaths people begin to wonder if Bubba hascome back from the grave to get his revenge. Or, do the murders have something to do with the mysterious scarecrow still standing in the field? Larry Drake (Darkman) plays Bubba and Charles Durning puts in a psychotic performance as the mob leading mailman.

Thursday, October 11

Noon at Alterra
Coffee with DocUquarium guest filmmaker Billy Luther (Miss Navajo)
Alterra Coffee Roasters – 2211 N. Prospect Ave.
Join us for an intimate chat with the filmmaker.

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Discovery World
7pm
Miss Navajo (Billy Luther, USA, 2007)
Director Billy Luther present!
Discovery World is located at 500 N Harbor Dr

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UWM Union Theater
7pm *FREE*
Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa
(Seiji Mizushima, Japan, in Japanese w/ Eng. St., 105 min., video, 2005)

2005 feature-length animated film based on the long running anime series. Two brothers divided between two different worlds, seek a way to reunite. One is sent to Munich 1923, where a war is beginning. After losing his alchemic powers, he attempts unsuccessfully to return home, until a troubled gypsy woman reveals a path back to his homeworld along with a conspiracy that threatens both worlds. Tonight's screening is presented and sponsored by the UWM Japanese Animation Association, along with FUNimation and Child's Play, a charity, which donates toys and games to children in hospitals.

Friday, October 12

UWM Union Theater
7pm *FREE*
Picture of Light
(Peter Mettler, Canada, 83 min., 35mm, 1994)

Picture of Light is a hallucinatory documentary tale which chronicles a filmmaker's journey to Canada 's arctic in search of the Northern Lights. While combining glimpses of the characters that live in this remote environment and the crew's both comic and absurd attempts to deal with extremes, the film reflects upon the paradoxes involved in trying to capture the natural wonder of the Aurora Borealis on celluloid. "The film is an existential meditation on snow and space and cold, undercut by an absurdist wit... Mettler goes to a world where cameras freeze and tries to film nothingness, unbroken patterns of land and sky. He achieves amazing results. In the context of Canadian cinema, where characters often live in uneasy tension with their environment, for once there is no contest: the weather wins, hands down.” - Brian D. Johnson, MACLEAN'S MAGAZINE

9pm
Manufactured Landscapes
(Jennifer Baichwal, Canada , 90 min., 35mm, 2006)
Milwaukee premiere!
Winner – Best Canadian Feature – Toronto Film Festival – 2006

Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes” – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams – Edward Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization's materials and debris. The film follows him through China , as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country's massive industrial revolution. With breathtaking sequences, the filmmakers also extend the narratives of Burtynsky's photographs, allowing us to meditate on our impact on the planet and witness both the epicenters of industrial endeavor and the dumping grounds of its waste. Manufactured Landscapes features the cinematography of acclaimed filmmaker Peter Mettler.

Saturday, October 13

UWM Union Theater
5pm *FREE*
Picture of Light
(Peter Mettler, Canada, 83 min., 35mm, 1994)

7pm
Manufactured Landscapes
(Jennifer Baichwal, Canada , 90 min., 35mm, 2006)

9pm *FREE*
Gambling, Gods, and LSD
(Peter Mettler, Switzerland/Canada, 180 min., 35mm, 2003)

A filmmaker's inquiry into transcendence becomes a three-hour trip across countries and cultures, interconnecting people, places and times. From Toronto, Peter Mettler sets out on a journey that includes evangelism at the airport strip, demolition in Las Vegas, tracings in the Nevada desert, chemistry and street life in Switzerland, and the coexistence of technology and divinity in contemporary India. Everywhere along the way, the same themes are to be found: thrill-seeking, luck, destiny, belief, expanding perception, the craving for security in an uncertain world. Fact joins with fantasy; the search for meaning and the search for ecstasy begin to merge. Blending documentary observation with lyrical camerawork, location sound with aural sculpture, the result is a mosaic of moments where the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

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Residency Event featuring artist and writer Antonio Rocha
7h30pm – reading by the artist at 8h30pm
At Brewing Grounds for Change (2008 N. Farwell Avenue)
Hosted by the Cultural Crisis Residency Program

The cafe, a cooperative space, co-owned by Matt Nelson, will continue its interactive promotions on Remembrance with an emphasis for that day on Antonio and Matt's "Long Relationship." Antonio and Matt encourage you to participate in the space by sharing objects or words that speak to Remembrance. There will also be goodies from Bombay Sweets.

PARTY following at 3433 N. Pierce Street (north of Townsend, just south of Keefe), starting at 10:30pm.

Sunday, October 14

UWM Union Theater
5pm
Manufactured Landscapes
(Jennifer Baichwal, Canada , 90 min., 35mm, 2006)

7pm *FREE*
Gambling, Gods, and LSD
(Peter Mettler, Switzerland/Canada, 180 min., 35mm, 2003)