September 6-16
UWM Union Theater
5pm
Oh Happy Day (Ian Poitier, UK, video, 96 min., 2007)
A touching—and genuinely romantic—romantic comedy about the complications of sex and work and family and the possibility of ecstasy (pharmaceutical and otherwise).
The morning after lands a bit hard for Jonathan, an ambitious ad man who hooks up with David, an American he meets at a work-related awards show. The next day he discovers that David is one of his ad firm's new clients—David's company produces an Ecstasy-type pill for everyday use. Trouble is, his new amorous situation is a little harder to swallow: Jonathan works in a firm where sleeping with a client is decidedly verboten, and Jonathan must put David on hold to put work first. A new relationship that's all sparky gets a little snarky. A very funny workplace comedy, nicely textured with no-big-deal representations of race and alternative families, “Oh Happy Day” is also very sweet in its recommended prescriptions for life and love.
7pm
Four Minutes (Veir Minuten, Ian Poitier, Chris Kraus, Germany, in German with English subtitles, 35mm, 112 min., 2006)
Co-Sponsor: Wolfe Releasing
Community Co-Presenters: Lesbian Alliance & SAGE-Milwaukee
Winner - Audience Award & Best Feature - San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival
Winner - Best Actress & Best Young Actress - 2007 Bavarian Film Awards
A beautiful and powerful tale of two women who unleash the power of music against the barbarity of history, personal and political.
Frau Krüger teaches music in a women's prison, only caring, she insists, about music. But her rigid facade barely contains feelings of grief and remorse: she feels responsible for the death of her lover, a dissident, at the hands of the Nazis decades earlier. Jenny von Loeben, in prison for a ghastly crime, is an unlikely pupil for the orderly Frau Krüger. She was once a piano prodigy who now, on the brink of adulthood, is openly anarchic in her ferocious piano banging (à la musique concrète and/or Jerry Lee Lewis) and in her brutal reflex to violence (she nearly kills the guard supervising her piano lessons). But both women have had to endure enormous cruelty and atrocity in their lives and, however they disagree about matters of form, they both find in music the only possible, only available liberation from the past. The two forge a turbulent partnership as they prepare, in fits and starts, surmounting obstacles personal and institutionally imposed, for a prestigious piano competition, the finale of which will allow Jenny the chance to deliver, in the mere four minutes of the title, a declaration that expresses the rage, defiance, endurance and beauty of her life, and that of her mentor.
Four Minutes will also screen at the 5 th Annual Milwaukee International Film Festival which runs September 20 – 30. See http://www.milwaukeefilmfest.org for show times.
9pm
Shelter (Jonah Markowitz, USA, video, 88 min., 2007)
Community Co-Sponsor: Milwaukee GAMMA
Winner - Audience Award & First Dramatic Feature - Outfest 2007
A touching, surfside family drama about a most responsible young man's coming out, and coming into his own.
Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach spends his days working a dead end job and helping his dependent sister care for her son. In hisfree time he surfs, draws—frequently with spray paint on the walls of public buildings—and hangs out with his best friend Gabe, who lives on the wealthy side of town. When Gabe's older brother Shaun returns home, he is drawn to Zach's selflessness and talent. Zach, in turn, falls in love with Shaun while struggling to reconcile his own desires with the needs of his family. This award-winning first feature maintains an appealing, low-key SoCal vibe as it profiles a young man whose issues around coming out are entwined with his larger negotiations with the world and those he loves. Another attraction is star Brad Rowe (Shaun)—from both Wauwatosa and “Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss”.
