The only avuncular advice I shared with my niece when she started college last fall was this: When in doubt, pick your courses based on the professor, not on the subject.
The rationale behind that advice applies to film festivals too. Sometimes a synopsis or a clip won’t sell a movie, but then you see who’s directing it, or who’s in the cast. And sometimes a movie seems right up your alley, but a newbie filmmaker just blows it.
You learn little tricks like this from trial and error, and my job is to save you from repeating my mistakes. This is the fourth year I’ve attempted to whittle the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, which begins tonight and continues through April 13, down to a handy viewer’s guide. And while the task doesn’t get any easier, it doesn’t get any less fun either.
This year, there are over 200 films screening. Once again I searched for whatever information and evaluations I could find about these films online, watched some trailers, weighed what I read against my own taste, and allowed intuition to carry me the rest of the way.
Though centered on the Film Society’s home base at The Main Cinema, the festival also screens films at the Landmark Center in St. Paul, at the North Side’s Capri Theater, and down in Rochester at Pop’s Art Theater. This year, the festival has also expanded to the Edina Theatre, presumably catering to city-phobes fearful of venturing into the terrifying hell that is St. Anthony Main. (Ya gotta go where the money is, I guess.)
As in previous years, the 44th MSPIFF festival mixes indie(ish) films, local efforts, timely (and often depressing) documentaries, and prestige and/or crowd-pleasing foreign films (with some overlap here). There are also short films.
But what am I saying? You don’t need me to explain a film festival to you. You’re here for recommendations—and maybe a few warnings. And you shall have them! But keep in mind, planning ahead only takes you so far. Part of the fun of a film festival is taking a risk and seeing a movie you know nothing about. And for all my prep work, I’ll be doing that once or twice myself.
The Big Guns
MSPIFF is built around its openers, closers, and special events. For me, these tentpole films can be hit or miss—often, like last year’s opening night film, Sing Sing, they’re commendable if a little stuffy. Still, I like to attend opening night, if only because it feels like cheating to just go to the party afterward.
Free Leonard Peltier
The conviction of Indian rights activist Leonard Peltier for the 1975 murder of two FBI agents has been thoroughly discredited for years. But though President Biden commuted Peltier’s sentence earlier this year, releasing him from prison, Peltier’s name has not been cleared. I’m hoping this isn’t just an important topic but a compelling film, since directors Jesse Short Bull and David France both have made strong docs about activism in the past: Lakota Nation vs. United States and the story of ACT UP, How to Survive a Plague, respectively. The festival’s opening night film, Free Leonard Peltier will screen three times on Wednesday. More info here.
Brokeback Mountain/Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ang Lee is this year’s recipient of the Milgrom Tribute, named for the late, irascible MSP Film Society founder Al Milgrom. The director will be on hand for an April 6 discussion at DeLaSalle High School with Deirdre Haj of Art House Convergence. In addition, two of Lee’s films are screening. I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain since its release, though I remember this cowboy-on-cowboy drama as being a fairly sweet romance rather than Important Gay Cinema or a tepid exploitation of gay desire or whatever anyone argued that it was at the time. I have recently rewatched Crouching Tiger, however, and its Hollywood sweep and wuxia swordplay remained fresh, and it’s worth a big-screen revisit now that Michelle Yeoh is back in action. More info here.
Right in the Eye: Live Movie-Concert of Georges Méliès Films
If you only know the French silent film wizard from A Trip to the Moon (or the Smashing Pumpkins video for “Tonight Tonight”), you are in for a damn treat. In this traveling spectacle, 12 fantastical Méliès shorts are set to music and effects by one Jean François Alcoléa—in addition to drums and guitar, the instrumentation includes “string structure,” melodica, and “objects.” I just hope the bells and whistles don’t distract from the films themselves, which remain weird and wonderful. More info here.
The Wedding Banquet
And speaking of Ang Lee: One reason the director might be making the rounds these days is that this English language remake of his 1993 romcom, about a bisexual Taiwanese man who marries a mainland Chinese woman for immigration purposes, is hitting theaters soon. It was Lee’s first film to be theatrically released in the U.S. The new version stars Bowen Yang, who I prefer in much smaller doses, and director Andrew Ahn strikes me as a bit of a lightweight, but Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, and Joan Chen make for a great supporting cast. Fingers crossed, I guess. More info here.
Faves So Far
My regular disclaimer here: Though the lovely folks at MSPIFF (hi Kelly!) do their best to send as many available screeners my way as they can, distributors and publicists can be ridiculously stingy with those advances, especially when it comes to the bigger-name movies. And I can only watch so many anyway. That said, here are my five favorites, ranked in order of preference, all worth watching.
Miserichordia
The most critically acclaimed of this year’s entries is also the best I’ve seen so far. Maybe you know French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie from his 2013 breakthrough Stranger by the Lake, about the goings on at a nude beach that serves as a site for gay cruising. But I think he’s topped himself, if you’ll pardon the phrase, with this nasty, often quite funny little thriller. A young man returns to his village after the death of his mentor. Were they sexually involved? Why does the deceased’s son want him to scram? Why does the deceased’s wife want him to stay? And why does that priest keep hanging around? What’s most wickedly fun about Guiraudie’s films is that you never quite know who wants to fuck who until their pants come off. More info here.
By the Stream
Understated even by director Hong Sang-soo’s unflashy standards, this quiet film might all but drift on past you. But if it happens to catch you in the right mood, its subtle epiphanies may be just what you need to experience. A teacher at a women’s college whose students are performing a semester-end skit contacts her uncle, a famous but disgraced director, to help out. Everyone sits around drinking and talking till you’ve just about lost your patience or drifted into a reverie, and then someone lets loose with a startling revelation. And by the time you finish reading this, Hong may well have yet another film in the same mold in the can. More info here.
Queendom
Jenna Marvin is a statuesque, gender-defiant performance artist raised in the Russian backwater. Persecuted in Putin’s Russia for her appearance and her art, she’s expelled from multiple universities and settles temporarily into a drab working-class life, stripped of her identity, until the invasion of Ukraine inspires Jenna to create her most daring work yet. Agniia Galdanova’s documentary has a participatory quality to it as well: When she films Jenna’s performances, she becomes a collaborator. A testament to how hard it can be to survive in a society that hates nonconformity and art. At least it can’t happen here, right? More info here.
Checkpoint Zoo
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine begins, a dedicated team embarks on a mission to rescue the animals from a Kharkiv zoo amid drone strikes and other mayhem. Though there’s heroism on display here, and some lighthearted moments with the cuter zoo inhabitants, Checkpoint Zoo isn’t exactly a triumphantly uplifting documentary. It’s honest about the stakes when you take necessary but dangerous actions. And it’s also incredibly gripping. Watching these folks transport a drugged lion during a drone raid before he wakes up and chomps ’em? Tense stuff. More info here.
Manas
Driven by family secrets revealed over time, a 13-year-old (Jamilli Correa) growing up in the Amazon rainforest longs for the freedom of the city, though her attempts at liberation lead her only to the barges where workers prey on girls like her. What keeps Manas from becoming a melodramatic morality tale is a sharp performance from Correa as Tielle and director Marianna Brennand Fortes’s almost documentary attention to detail and the way she captures the pleasures as well as the terror of life in the Amazon. More info here.
Locally Angled
The “I” may stand for “international” but there’s plenty of local appeal to MSPIFF as well—you can find MSPIFF’s full “MN Made” program here. Here are the Minnesota-affiliated flicks I’m most curious about, along with a description of their local angles.
The Dance Is Not Over
Local director Mark Wojahn tells the story of dancer/choreographer Patrick Scully, the HIV-positive LGBTQ+ activist who founded Patrick’s Cabaret. And it’s not Wojahn’s first Scully-related film—he previously shot Leaves of Grass: Illuminated, the choreographer’s Guthrie staging of the Walt Whitman tome. More info here.
Local angles?: Just count ’em!
The Flamingo
The advisory for this film warns of “sexual content, mature themes,” which is always a good sign. This doc is about 63-year-old Mary Phillips, who is freed up by her divorce to explore her sexuality, and that means attending dungeon parties and dabbling in BDSM. It’s never too late to get freaky. More info here.
Local angles?: Director Adam Sekuler is a former Film Society programmer and Minnesotan.
Folktales
MSPIFF loves its nordic roots. In this doc, teenagers at a traditional folk high school in the iciest northern reaches of Norway learn to cooperate with each other. Plus sled dogs! More info here.
Local angles?: One of the directors, Rachel Grady, hails from St. Paul. Also, Scandinavians.
Or Something
Comics Kareem Rahma and Mary Neely are two strangers who meet because they’re both owed money by the same person—and they’re determined to get it. The duo will also put on a comedy show at Pracna (just next door to the theater), along with Brian Parise, Gus Constantellis, James Stanley, and Joey Hamburger. More info here.
Local angles?: Rahma, known for his Subway Takes web series, is from here. Here he is talking to Tim Walz.
The People’s Way
This film follows the paths of three activists after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Jeanelle Austin becomes a caretaker at George Floyd Square, Toshira Garraway forms Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence, and Robin Wonsley is elected to Minneapolis City Council. More info here.
Local angles?: You can figure this one out yourself.
Probably Not For Me, But Noteworthy
Look, I understand that my tastes are not universal. So once again I’ve highlighted a few movies to check out if you just want a little something out of the ordinary but not too heavy, or if you’re planning dinner and a movie with your parents. Who knows—I might even like a few of these if I check ’em out. I’ve certainly been wrong before.
The Friend
You can tell a lot about a person by how they respond to this sentence: When Bill Murray dies, Naomi Watts inherits his Great Dane. Now, if I have to watch an actress try not to be upstaged by a huge dog, Naomi Watts is a good pick—she held her own against a giant ape, after all. But I don’t have to watch that, and sorry, this is giving arthouse Beethoven. Apologies to Marmaduke, but I do not expect The Friend to be doggone funny. It’s preceded by a Great Dane meet and greet, if that’s what you’re into. More info here.
The Legend of Ochi
A warlike tribe, led by the fierce and suddenly everywhere Willem Dafoe, have long feared a mysterious forest-dwelling species called the Ochi. But when the chief’s daughter (Helena Zengel) discovers a baby Ochi, which looks like what you’d get if Baby Yoda knocked up a Monchichi, she and Finn Wolfhard fight to protect it, etc. This is the first feature from music video director Isaiah Saxon (you might know him from Björk’s “Wanderlust”) and I’d say take the kids, but this looks too violent for them. More info here.
Lost Ladies
I know this is a me thing, but when I see a movie described as “delightful” I get a little itchy. It’s not as damning as “delicious,” but it still warns me off. That said, maybe this story of two Indian brides who both go home with the wrong grooms after a mixup on a train will indeed bring delight to many. Audiences certainly seem to love it. More info here.
On Swift Horses
With attractive and popular young people Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi (both of whom I like) as its leads, this one will be getting a wider release. Prestige TV director Daniel Minahan’s adaptation of the Shannon Pufahl novel about a couple’s queer exploration in the ’50s is getting Douglas Sirk comparisons, and as intrigued as I am by the notion of Todd Haynes’s Euphoria, I suspect all that people mean is that he’s made a very pretty melodrama. More info here.
Quisling: The Final Days
Having a name that’s fun to say can be a curse. History would surely have forgotten Vidkun Quisling by now if it wasn’t so satisfying to use the Nazi puppet’s surname to put down traitors. Hitler’s notorious Norwegian stooge gets the epic treatment here, and sorry to Norway but 140 minutes seems like a lot of time to spend in the presence of an odious historical figure of secondary importance at best. More info here.
My Most Anticipated
Finally, the fun part. These are the films you’ll definitely see me at. I regret that there’s no stupidly long, glacially paced foreign art film this year—my big indulgence at each MSPIFF—but I’m still plenty excited for what’s on my docket.
Friendship
Tim Robinson is a suburban dad who strikes up a friendship with his new neighbor, Paul Rudd, and the two discover the dangers of midlife male bonding. One review called it “basically a 97-minute I Think You Should Leave sketch,” and they meant that as a compliment. As they should. More info here.
Grand Tour
A British civil servant stationed in 1917 Burma flees his fiancée, travelling throughout southeast Asia and learning a bit about the dark side of colonialism as he goes. An iffy premise, I agree, but as a fan of Miguel Gomes’s three-part, six-hour Arabian Nights and his postcolonial reworking of F.W. Murnau’s Tabu, I’m guessing the Portuguese director can make something compelling and fantastical out of it. More info here.
Predators
There was always something creepy about the true-crime reality show To Catch a Predator. The program’s quest for “justice” seemed driven more by a bloodthirsty fascination with the spectacle of punishment than by the desire to protect young people from danger. In fact, the show made many of the cases it covered unprosecutable, and as documentary director David Osit shows here, that was the least of its problems. More info here.
Seeds
In the early 20th century, Black farmers owned 16 million acres of land in the U.S. Now they own just 1 million. Shot in black and white, Brittany Shyne’s new documentary looks at the farmers who remain, mixing policy and poetry at a reportedly “languid” (complimentary) pace. Seeds was a hit at Sundance, where it won the U.S. documentary prize. More info here.
Viet and Nam
Ah, what would the film festival be without some furtive queer longing? Vietnamese writer/director Minh Quy Truong’s second feature follows two young miners who make love in the shadows. But when one decides to leave the country, they both come to grips with their nation’s history. More info here.
And five more I’m hoping to catch: 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Caught by the Tides, Ghost Trail, The Things You Kill, When Fall Is Coming.
