36TH MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL-ASH IS THE PUREST WHITE, A MASTERPIECE FROM CHINESE DIRECTOR JIA ZHANG-KE NOW IN THEATRES

ASH IS PUREST WHITE IN FLORIDA PREMIERE AT MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL-KNIGHT MARIMBA AWARD CONTENDER

By Dwight Casimere

ASH IS PUREST WHITE is Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-Ke's latest masterpiece. Often referred to as the Chinese Scorcese, the director's  film is now on screen's everywhere. 

For those who follow the autiere, the film represents a compilation of his work, borrowing liberally from  two decades of films (Mountains May Depart, A Touch of Sin)  that have garnered awards and nominations everywhere from Cannes to Chicago.  As in so many of his past films, it stars his real-life leading lady, the luminous Zhao Tao.

Ash is a complicated film that masquerades as a Chinese gangster movie encased in an exploration of shadow boxing interpersonal relations. Stereotypes of women and the complexities of male/female relations are juxtaposed against an equally complex pandora's box of commentary and cliches on modern Chinese life.

Enough with the socio-psycho babble. Ash Is The Purest White is simply an absorbing, beautiful constructed (thanks to the writing and direction of Zhang-Ke and a killer soundtrack with atmospheric music by  Lim Giong, a Taiwanese experimental electronic musician) and artfully filmed tone poem from multiple BAFTA nominee and Cannes Film Festival and Lumier eAward winner, French cinematographer Eric Gautier.

Qiao (Zhao Tao) starts the film as arm candy to local crime boss Guo

Bin (a searing performance by top-notch award-winning Chinese cinema star Liao Fan) who has ambitions of moving up the food chain to become a kingpin. When Bin takes her up in the mountains to show off his illegally gotten gun, you can hear the wheels of the film's plot machine start to turn. Bin reluctantly gets her to take a few target practice shots. Qiao then questions the ethics of it all. She references something she read about dormant volcano like the one off in the distance. She muses that the fiery lava  creates a white ash that is the purest of all things. It is  capable of purifying anything in its path. Even  (by unspoken implication)  their twisted, convoluted lives. Thus the title of the film, and now you already know where this is all going.

Bin and Qiao head into town where they cross paths with a rival gang of young toughs who are hell bent on unseating Bin. (This scene is telegraphed early in the film when a group of young toughs attacks Bin as he's leaving the club. He has them captured by his henchmen, but instead of exacting punishment, shows mercy. The ensuing events give credence to the adage that no good deed goes unpunished!)  

Qiao chases them off with the illegal gun, but is quickly arrested.  She takes the rap for her man, telling the cops the gun was actually hers, and goes to jail for five years.

This is where the film takes on legs. Qiao comes out of jail to a world vastly different than it was when she entered. None of the old rules apply. Capitalism has begun to sink its hooked tentacles into everything. The honor code of the old gangs is a thing of the past. It's every man and woman for themselves in a free-floating sea of uncertainty. But Qiao catches on quickly and manages to navigate her way through the maze toward survival with a blend of flattery, chicanery, cajoling and just plain old lying. 

Bin is not so fortunate. He's  inflexible, wanting to maintain his swagger, even as his life begins to fall apart. It's fascinating to watch Bin's character deconstruct right before your eyes. It is a master class in fine acting. 

The nightclub scene at the start of the film is set in the dawning days of the new millennium. It  is a vivid portrait of the gaudy, overblown past,  Good Fellas camaraderie and excess was at the center of that heady world which Bin strove to dominate. 

A Flash Dance scene at the club is later echoed in a street scene upon Qiao's return to civilian life. Only this time, its performed in a decaying public square. No disco lights. No booming karaoke music. My, how things have changed.

There are flashes of violence and long, melancholy scenes in which the characters barely interact. That's part of the beauty of this film. Some of its most resonating moments happen in absolute silence. Such is the power and majesty of Jia Zhang-Ke's Ash Is The Purest White.

From MK Productions

In Mandarin with English subtitles

2 hours 16 minutes

GLORY: A LIFE AMONG LEGENDS, A MEMOIR BY DR. GLORY VAN SCOTT

GLORY: A LIFE AMONG LEGENDS CELEBRATES THE HEROES AND EVENTS OF BLACK HISTORY THROUGH THE EYES OF A GREAT DANCE ARTIST, PLAYWRIGHT  AND EDUCATOR

 WITH PRINCIPAL DANCER PHILIP STAMPS  LANGSTON HUGHES' PRODIGAL SON 1965

KATHERINE DUNHAMS  QUEEN DIVINE DRUMBEATS CARNEGIE HALL CBS TV 1980

 AS MISS TRUTH IN SOJOURNER TRUTH CBS TELEVISION MOVIE IN 1966

WITH NAACP PRESIDENT ROY WILKINS AT HIS RETIREMENT BANQUET 1977


by Dwight Casimere

Glory: A Life Among Legends, a Memoir by Dr. Glory Van Scott is a breezily written account of a life that  witnessed some of the great moments of the recent past. It is also a deeply personal account of an unusual life, someone who was born to a very normal, middle class life in one of the nation's great cities, who went on to not only rub shoulders with the guiding lights of her day, but to make her own mark, in her own unique way. It particularly bears witness to those heroes and heroines who shaped the black cultural and political dynamic of the formative middle years of the past century. Born and raised on Chicago's south side, Dr. Glory Van Scott went on to mingle among a heady milieux of trailblazers who created events and institutions that  became the bedrock of the Black cultural ethos. 

Raised by a father who was a prominent doctor and a mother who was a socialite as one of six children, she was exposed early on to the arts. Studying at the Abraham Lincoln Center on Oakwood Boulevard, which remains today a foundation for many aspiring young artists,  she was exposed to drama, speech, creative writing, classical music, and, what would become her lifelong passion, dance. The book recounts how her music teacher, John Green,  instilled in her and her fellow students a love of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach and Chopin. One day, Mr. Green brought his good friend, Mr. Paul Robeson, the towering singing,stage and film star and political activist to Abraham Lincoln Center. Imagine the impact of being serenaded by the great Paul Robeson at just six years old!

Dr. Van Scott's activism  was further shaped by the horrifying genocide of Emmett Till, who was her cousin. His brutal murder not only rocked the world and galvanized the Civil Rights Movement,  but it  forged a fire within her soul.  A revealing  family portrait of Till, never before seen, says everything there is to say about this heart rending tragedy.  It is Dr. Van Scott's own poetic words  that immortalize his young spirit and give voice to her resolve:

"I want Jesus, to turn His face to the sun, where beauty and love and humanity abound, so that He can see I did not succumb to the depths of despair and hatred because of Emmett's death....my success in life is my refusal to spew hatred, and that my challenge continues to be to eradicate racial and religious prejudice."

Dr. Van Scott is one of those rare personages who, although not so well known, was a  witness to history. She truly walked among King's, yet kept the common touch, paraphrasing Kipling. The book is filled with rare and never before seen photos of the author with the likes of the great writer Langston Hughes (whose singular musical, Prodigal Son, she premiered in Europe after a calamitously aborted Paris opening, worthy of its own movie), Dr. Ralph Bunche (the first African American awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 and co-founder of the United Nations), Julia Belafonte (then wife of you-know-who), a young Ben Vereen, William Warfield, the great operatic baritone who starred in the film version of Showboat,  and, of course, her mentor and lifelong muse Katherine Dunham. Dr. Van Scott gives credit to those who helped in guiding her journey in the opening pages of the book. Some, like impresario George Wein, founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, singer and actor Robert Guillame (TVs Benson and the first black Phantom of the Opera onstage!)  are well known, others, such as producer and director Vinnette Carroll, Dunham Principal Dancer Vanoye Aikens, Dunham company director Lenwood Morris, choreographer Tally Beatty,  soprano Mary Louise and Rev. Melony McGant, who encouraged her completion of the book,  have all passed into the firmament of history. Fortunately, they are all given their due in the pages of this lovingly written memoir. 

It is Ms. Dunham who had the greatest impact on Dr. Van Scott's early artistic life, and to whom a great deal of the book is referenced. It was with the Katherine Dunham Company that she had her earliest and greatest triumphs. It was also through Dunham and her efforts to produce the Katherine Dunham Gala at Carnegie Hall in January, 1979, with the help of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the able assistance of her beloved friend and mentor George Wein, Founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, that she honed her skills as a producer, subsequently giving a lasting stage presence to the greats of her art form.( Ms. Dunham also received the Albert Schweitzer Music Award that night)  

Some of the most touching photographs in the book are of the preparations and rehearsals for the gala, with some of the greatest black dancers of all time performing some of Dunham's signature routines.

(Katherine Dunham's life and career is a book unto itself. She was a product of Chicago, and subsequently Glen Ellyn and Joliet, where she attended Joliet Central High School and formed her first dance company and dance school for young black girls.She was one of the first African American woman to attend the University of Chicago, and began her exploration of Caribbean and African dance as  the basis for a Masters Degree thesis, for a never-completed degree. She became, however, one of the early exponents of a field hat came to be known as social anthroplogy. In 1937, she left the world of academia to pursue what became a meteoric career on the stage and screen on Broadway, in Hollywood and the world. The Library of Congress credits her with creating "the first African American Concert Dance Technique" known as the Katherine Dunham Method, one of the most challenging in all modern dance.

 Particularly touching are photos of the great Katherine Dunham preparing Dr. Van Scott to play the part of the Queen in a 1980 CBS Television special entitled Divine Drumbeats. Rites des Passage for Dance In America. "I am the only person aside from Katherine Dunham to dance this part," Dr. Van Scott writes.  Ms. Dunham insisted on personally preparing her protege for the part. A photo of Katherine Dunham gently helping to apply her makeup almost bring tears to your eyes. "She insisted on dressing me. She didn't want anyone else doing that because no one else had ever worn that costume but her. Only her hands had been on it. She painted my face the way she wanted it. It was a moving experience. I cherish it."

Another landmark moment was The Great Gathering Photo taken in the Alvin Ailey Dance Studio in January, 2001, which featured all of the dancers, choreographers, educators, scholars and historians aged 50 and older who were the guiding lights of modern dance. "I would have to say that this was truly the greatest day of my life," according to its producers, Aziza. 

You too will cherish every moment that you spend with Glory: A Life Among Legends. It  illuminates a crucial time in Black history from the perspective of someone who witnessed it first hand. This is a rare opportunity to see the seismic cultural changes that occurred from the 1950's, the turbulent '60s and the black identity movement of the 70s and beyond, through the prism of art. It is a powerful testimony that both illuminates and inspires.

GLORY: A Life Among Legends

A Memoir by Dr. Glory Van Scott

Copywright 2018

Water Street Press 

36TH MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS NIGHT

MIAMI-BASED FILMS AMONG BIG WINNERS ON MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS NITE

Audience Award (Feature) winner, director  Billy Corben (l)  holds the trophy on Awards Night with Festival Director Jaie Laplante (c) and producer Alfred Spellman

Theatrical post (above) and Jeffry Batista as Reinaldo Cruz

The inaugural edition of Knight Heroes;  Oscar winner director Barry Jenkins (center-Mcoonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), award-winning filmmaker Boots Riley (right-Sorry to Bother You) and Aaron Stewart-Ahn,left- co-writer of Sundance favorite Mandy on the Red Carpet (above) and (below) at CINEDWNTWN MASTERCLASS

Dwight Casimere at the EPIC filmmakers reception and (below) on the Red Carpet Awards Night

by Dwight Casimere

Winner of the $40,000 Knight Marimbas Award, the 36th Miami Film Festival's Grand Jury prize was Columbia's Birds of Passage, now on selected screens nationwide, directed by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra. The film made the short list for Best Foreign Film nominations at the 91st Oscars, but was nudged out for the final nominations.  

 Billy Corben's Screwball took the festival's Audience Award. the documentary takes the viewer through the labyrinth of the origins of the recent Major League Baseball doping scandal, which had its roots in nefarious south Florida tanning salons. 

There was also a winner among the strong roster of 36 Miami-based films at the festival. Audience Award for Best Short went to Jose Navas, a product of Miami International University School of Art and Design, for his narrative film The Rafter (*El Balsero). The film tells the story of Reinoldo Cruz's bold escape from Cuba in 1964, the first person to escape Castro's regime successfully on a makeshift raft. Visually stunning, with equally effective special effects, the film is given further depth and power by its narration, in the weathered, plaintive voice of Cruz himself.  Following the awards presentation, the festival presented a first time viewing of the first two season opening episodes of the runaway Spanish TV  hit, Gigante, with star "Nene" Librado in person! The well-constructed crime family suspense drama was well constructed and suspenseful, holding the audience in awe throughout. The fast-paced action and tightly woven plot lines are sure to make it a worldwide sensation.  Even with Spanish subtitles, the visceral acting, spectacular on-location scenery and fast-paced editing make it a joy to watch and a hit in any language.

Other festival awards included Best Feature, Pahokee from directors Ivette Lucas and Patrick Bresnan for the Knight Made in MIA Award. This was my personal favorite in the festival. It tells the story of a spunky group of local teens at a predominantly black high school in a small,. southern Florida town, who strive for excellence in academics, sports and school spirit as a way out. Pahokee is a small town, whose only remaining industry is local farming in the sugar cane fields, where workers barely eke out a living. Their one shot at a state basketball title is cruelly ripped away from t hem on a minor technicality, that could easily have been forgiven. The students persevere in spite of it. Film subjects include a heart-tugging profile of the students; a firebrand candidate for Student Body Queen and the lead drummer of the Dru and Bugle Corp, who manages to succeed in spite of being the teen father of a young baby, and many more. The film draws you close to these youngsters and makes the audience truly care for them as if they were their own. And, in many ways, they are.

SCENES FROM 36TH MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS NIGHT 2019

                                           INSIDE THE ORNATE OLYMPIA THEATRE

                                    AWARDS NIGHT PARTY AT THE FREEDOM TOWER

Awards Night Party in the historic  and iconic Freedom Tower. Originally completed in 1925 as the headquarters and printing facility for the newspaper The Miami News,. Designed by Schultz and Weaver, the Freedom Tower is an example of a Mediterranean Revival styled structure with design elements borrowed from the Giralda in Seville, Spain. 

                    Clear the dance floor  for PALO!, the Grammy-nominated Afro-Cuban Funk band!  

Spanish beer giant Estrella Damm of Barcelona and Spanish wine giant Marqués de Riscal of the “City of Wine” in the Basque Country of northern Spain, the libations of this Awards Night Gala 

Here is the complete list of winners:

$5,000 IMDbPro Short Film Award
THE ORPHAN – Directed by Carolina Markowicz

$10,000 HBO Ibero-American Feature Film Award
FIREFLIES – Directed by Bani Khoshnoudi. Lead produced by Pensée Sauvage and Zensky Cine of Mexico.

$5,000 HBO Ibero-American Short Film Award
THIS IS YOUR CUBA – Directed by Brian Robau

$10,000 Jordan Ressler First Feature Award
SOCRATES – Directed by Alexandre Moratto

$10,000 Documentary Achievement Award
MAGIC CITY HUSTLE – Directed by Billy Corben. Produced by Miami-based company Rakontur.

$5,000 Alacran Music in Film AwardBURNING – Original score by Mowg

$5,000 Zeno Mountain Award
MY DAUGHTER YOSHIKO – Directed by Brian Blum

$2,500 Best Trailer
KNIFE + HEART – Trailer by Joe Hackman

$2,500 Best Poster Design
FRAGILE – Poster by Edel Rodriguez

Rene Rodriguez Critics Award
THE NIGHTINGALE –  Directed by Jennifer Kent

Audience Award for Best FeatureSCREWBALL – Directed by Billy Corben. Produced by Miami-based company Rakontur.

Audience Award for Best ShortTHE RAFTER – Directed by Jose Navas

Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation CinemaSlam Competition 2019
Lynn & Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation Best Student Film Using Archival Footage From Wolfson Archives ($5,000 cash prize) – HAPPY TO BE NAPPY, d. Xiao Che

Wolfson Cinemaslam Champion ($500 cash Sara Fuller Scholarship from FilmFlorida) – CHESS, d. Alejandro Gonzalez Valdés

Wolfson Cinemaslam Best Director – Andrew García, THE SKIN OF YESTERDAY

Wolfson Cinemaslam Best Actor – Andrés Nicolás Chavez, THE SKIN OF YESTERDAY

Wolfson Cinemaslam Best Actress – Paulina Gálvez, ESCAPÉ

Wolfson Cinemaslam Best Writing – Alejandro Gonzalez Valdés, CHESS

Wolfson Cinemaslam Best Technical Achievement – THE CHASE, d. Chantal Gabriel

Wolfson Cinemaslam Works-in-Progress Grants for Films That Will Contain Archival Footage From Wolfson Archives: CAN OF BEANS (Miami International University of Art & Design, D. Paul Alvarado, Roberto Tula), IN HUMAN KIND (Miami Dade College, D. Juancho Rodriguez), LONELY IS THE NIGHT(Miami Dade College, D. Gian Luca Laplume), SAL AND VINNY (Florida International University, D. Lucia Plaza), CELESTIAL (New York Film Academy – South Beach, D. Bruklyn Miller), WADE IN THE WATER: DROWNING IN RACISM ( (University of Miami, D. Cathleen Dean).

TONI MORRISON: THE PIECES I AM-36TH MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL MARQUEE PRESENTATION

TONI MORRISON: THE PIECES I AM-36TH MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL MARQUEE PRESENTATION

Florida Premiere of film biography of first Black Female Nobel Prize Winner directed by  Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Dwight Casimere with Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Director-Tony Morrison: The Pieces I Am

                                         The author in a moment of deep reflection

by Dwight Casimere

Celebrated photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders reaches deep into his roots as a cinematographer and his treasure trove of photographs and remembrances assimilated across the landscape of a more than 30 year friendship with the trailblazing author to create a complex, all-encompassing portrait in  the biographical film Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, in its Florida Premiere as a Marquee Presentation of the 36th Miami Film Festival.

Archival footage, artful animation and initimate photographs are interspersed with Morrison's own musings, spoken  directly to the camera, and reflections by the likes of revolutionary Angela Davis, who Morris recruited to write her autobiography at the tender age of 28,  Fran Lebowitz, Walter Mosley, Russell Banks and her longtime editor Robert Gottlieb, Peter Sellars, and others. The celebrated poet Sonia Sanchez offers some particularly illuminating reflections on the great writer, that are as indelible as the words of Morrison herself. Expert cinematography by Graham Willoughby, skillful editing by Johanna Giebelhaus, and a haunting score by Kathryn Bostic, give the film its  lingering impact.

Born Chloe Ardella Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, the 88 year old author grew up in a multi-ethnic working class community that she described in the film as a "true melting pot."  Her parents instilled in her a love of learning and reading, which was also, perhaps, planted in her DNA by a grandfather who said he read the Bible, cover-to-cover five times. The feat is extraordinary, because, at the time, it was considered illegal for a black person to learn to read. The consequence of being caught was death. That declaration in the film is accompanied by one of Greenfield-Sander's  powerful black and white portraits of a pair of work-worn black hands, resting in an artful position on top of a Bible. That image sets the tone for the superb blend of visual images and spoken word that propels this superb biographical documentary.

Morrison's enrollment in Howard University in 1949,  immersed her further into Black culture and identity. It was also where she met her  husband, Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect and faculty member in 1958, after she had returned to teach there.

After a stint as an editor with a publishing company in Syracuse, New York, she became the first black editor at Random House in New York, where she would blaze a trail for not only herself, but a host of other black luminaries, including Angela Davis, Muhammad Ali,  Henry Dumas, Toni Cade Bambara, and Gayl Jones, whose autobiographies she edited and published. 

Morrison's own writing had an opportunity to flourish and gain a worldwide audience at Random House.  Her first novel, the Bluest Eye, took the literary world by storm in 1970. Subsequent efforts, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Jazz, Paradise, and God Help the Child, cemented her name in the pantheon of great African American authors. Eventually, her longtime editor, Robert Gottlieb convinced her to give up her  position to devote full time to her writing. 

The year 1993, Morrison made history as the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. We see her in a regal gown as she accepts the award and gives a landmark speech on the power of language and literature. 

                                           Accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993

                                      As the trailblazing author and editor at Random House

                                  In recent years as Professor Emeritus at Princeton University

In 1998, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for Beloved, which was simultaneously turned into an Academy Award nominated feature (Best Costume Design-Colleen Atwood)  film produced by its director, Jonathan Demme and Oprah Winfrey among others and starring Winfrey and Danny Glover. The film garnered an Oscar nomination and critical acclaim, but registered little at the box office. It was still an important film because of its story, culled from the bloody pages of slavery's history.

                                    Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover in Beloved

Morrison told how the film was based on the true story of a slave woman who chose to murder her own children rather than see them raised in slavery. Only the daughter is actually killed, and the woman is tried for murder. The issue at trial is whether she should be punished for destroying property, (i.e. slaves) or for murder, which would affirm her identity as a full human being, the thought of which was antithetical to the concept of slavery.  Morrison said the story haunted her for years and begged for her to turn it into a novel. The film was a failure, but the concepts it raised are still being grappled with to this day.

In the final minutes of her film, Morrison tells how the concept for Beloved came to her in a vision. She saw an apparition of a fully clothed woman emerge from the waters off the edge of her waterfront home, complete with an  ornate hat on her head. The woman sat briefly on a bench at the end of the pier, then suddenly disappeared. That, Morrison said, was the spirit of Beloved, and the inspiration for her novel.

Morrison remains a formidable voice to this day. At 88, she is professor emeritus at Princeton and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2012. 

              Toni Morrison receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

CREDITS

Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Producer: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Johanna Giebelhaus, Chad Thompson, Tommy Walker
Executive Producer: Michael Kantor
Production Company: Perfect Day Films

Music: Kathryn Bostic
Cinematographer: Graham Willoughby
Editor: Johanna Giebelhaus

Cast: Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Oprah Winfrey, Hilton Als, Walter Mosley, Sonia Sanchez, Robert Gottlieb, Farah Griffin, Russell Banks, David Carrasco, Paula Giddings, Richard Danielpour, Peter Sellar

TRANSIT-A MODERN EXISTENTIAL CLASSIC AT CHICAGO MUSIC BOX THEATRE NOW THRU MARCH 28

GERMAN/AMERICAN FILM BY DIRECTOR CHRISTIAN PETZOLD
RECALLS MASTERPIECE CASABLANCA

 FRANZ ROGOWAKI AND PAULA BEERS STAR IN TRANSIT

FRANZ ROGOWSKI AND PAULA BEER STAR IN CHRISTIAN PETZOLD'S TRANSIT


by Dwight Casimere

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The words are those of  George Santayana  (b. Madrid d. Rome1952), a Spanish American essayist and philosopher who was educated at both Harvard and Cambridge and was a philosophy professor at Harvard before retiring to Italy, where he died.  The words are particularly applicable in the time-shifting suspense drama TRANSIT, written and directed by German filmmaker Christian Petzold. Beautifully filmed by cinematographer  Hans Fromm (Phoenix 2014, Barbara 2012, Dreileben-Beats Being Dead2011, Jerichow2008), with an appropriately haunting film score by Fromm's frequent collaborator and long-time German and American TV film and TV series cinematographer Stefan Will. 

TRANSIT is the Casablanca of our time. A film that already has the earmarks of a cinematic classic, it folds back time in Einstein Emc2 fashion to portray a Kafka-esque world where a mysterious neo-Nazis Facist force occupies France, resulting in a tapestry of interweaving stories of exile, abandonment and escape. German refugee Georg (the superb German actor and dancer Franz Rogowski (Shooting Star German Film Award-Best Leading Actor), suddenly finds himself bereft and alone in Marseille, having assumed the identity of a famous German author, a recent victim of suicide, who has also inadvertently obtained his all important identification papers and vital letters of transit on the next available ship out to Mexico. A healthy cache of money and freedom awaits but, as Georg awaits transit, fate, and his heart tug him in an altogether different direction.

 The tale is full of perils and pitfalls. Along the way, Georg befriends a charming, capricious young Arab boy, Driss ( played with disarming charm by Lilien Batman), and his breathtakingly beautiful mother Melissa (Maryam Zaree), who is also (lets pull the heartstrings as hard as possible), deaf.  Georg sits crying in his beer at the cafe run by a world-weary barkeep , played by veteran German actor Matthias Brandt, who acts as narrator of this depressing tome. Brandt also plays the dual role of Erzahler, a delirious German writer who is doomed to expire at the very moment that he is granted his precious emigration papers. Georg is also haunted by the apparition of a mysterious, beautiful woman, Marie (award-winning German actress Paula Beer-Frantz2016, Bad Banks2018, The Dark Valley2014).

The film unfolds in a dark, suspenseful manner reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock. The director masterfully maintains the film's sense of impending doom. The Sword of Damacles is poised to fall at a moment's notice, threatenng Georg's pursues of freedom. He is torn by the twin demons of of his desire to escape and his longing for personal healing. 

TRANSIT is loosely based on the 1944 novel of the same name by author Anna Seghers, whose own husband was held as a Nazi war prisoner while she lived in Marseille,  among a group of similarly trapped exiles, desperately trying to get out before the Nazis caught up with them. Her story, and its portrayal in her novel TRANSIT was so compelling and multi-faceted that filmmaker Petzold said that virtually all of his films were in one way or another based on  Segher's exIstential political thriller. 

TRANSIT  is a masterpiece of a film that lingers in the heart long after the credits have rolled. You must see it.   

A German/French productions in German and French with English subtitles

101 mins

From Neon Productions and Arte France Cinema

Now playing:

 Music Box Theatre

3733 N. Southport Ave.

Chicago, Il. 60613

In Wrigleyville

musicboxtheatre.com

Reviewers note: An elegant, charming, remembrance of the great movie palaces of the 1920s, with a lovely lounge and garden, great drinks and REAL BUTTER ON THE POPCORN!