The Circuit

by Lisa Nesselson
The Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum rephrases his bizarre animosity toward the fest every October, blaming the event for not having the alleged programming vision of celluloid shindigs in Toronto, Berlin, Venice and Cannes.  The charge is, for the most part, ludicrous.

Sometimes never having heard of a film or its maker IS a warning sign but it can also be a harbinger of authentic discovery.  The fest reinforces this with its New Directors competition.  In addition, there were 17 first features in the non-competitive World Cinema section.

Ebert, who says "It was at the Chicago International Film Festival that I first saw films by Scorsese, Fassbinder, Nava and other future giants," posited some years back that, had the city cared more, Chicago should have grown to hold the slot that the much younger Toronto now enjoys.

The fest's board dreams of a permanent year-'round home, which shouldn't be a problem -- but apparently is -- in a city that can't tear down its remaining movie palaces fast enough and whose rabid construction of luxury condos has peppered the landscape with more cranes than a Japanese print.

The educational outreach division of Cinema/Chicago does an outstanding job of sensitizing Chicago area students to films they would not otherwise see.

"Chicago 10" stirred up lively discussion since many audience members had lived through the period so vividly depicted by proudly protective scripter, helmer and co-producer Brett Morgen, who acted out most of the courtroom reenactments for the film's motion-capture based animation segments. Morgen, who was born in the year of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, said that comments at screenings for high school audiences proved the hybrid doc's revisiting of anti-war activism is relevant for contemporary audiences of all ages.