My city's film festival

[Midwest88]

I enjoy movies; I consider the medium as entertainment for the most part. In the past few years I’ve attended my city’s film festival since 2011. Depending on what movies are being talked about in the indstry and what movies catches my interest as I quickly run down the contents/index, I usually don’t venture into the “religion” category since I sorta know what the tone and angle will be. This time I’ll take interest.

This is just a first draft of movies that I have written down and, if my bank account allows me to as well as my personal schedule, I’ll see the most I can.

Non-religious
Brooklyn (drama/romance)
Architects on Film (panel)
Open Tables (comedy)
A Light Beneath Their Feet (drama)
Modern Metropolis: Mid-Century [my city] on Film (documentary)

Religion

Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party

Henry’s turning 17, and might be gay. But he’s not telling his pastor father—not during his pool party, where school and church collide in a sunny, hormonal afternoon. This funny, heartbreakingly honest portrait from Chicagoan Stephen Cone finds a home between devout faith and burgeoning sexuality.

Radical Grace

Politically outspoken and unapologetically feminist, the “Nuns on the Bus” protest group rebels against a Vatican-ordered censure by embracing social activism as a form of spiritual practice. An indelible exploration of the evolving views changing the face of Catholicism under the leadership of Pope Francis, Chicago-based filmmaker Rebecca Parrish’s uplifting, humanistic documentary is a call for equality that transcends boundaries.

The Club

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, this unsettling drama from director Pablo Larraín (No) centers on a group of disgraced Catholic priests sequestered in a beach house. The tranquility of their anonymous daily routine is disturbed when a young man materializes with charges of abuse. The priests’ reaction to this unwanted interloper carries echoes of their institution’s shocking past.

I Am Michael

James Franco and Zachary Quinto give powerhouse performances in this complex true-life drama about Michael Glatze, a gay-rights activist who became a conservative Christian pastor and “ex-gay” therapist. Beginning against the backdrop of Matthew Shepard’s murder and unfolding over more than a decade, I Am Michael probingly explores questions about faith, community, identity, and what it means to truly follow your own path.

Mustang

At the start of this stark, meditative drama that recalls The Virgin Suicides, five sisters play in the sea with their male classmates. As punishment for such immoral behavior, the grandmother and uncle raising the girls imprison them at home to maintain their “purity” until marriage. Submission or defiance seem to be the only options, as each sister, one by one, finds her own personal escape route.

Note that this is almost all of the movies under the “religion” genre/theme. The genres/themes that had the most listings were “sex & sexuality” and “women’s issues.”