May 18, 2011 | Arts

June 2011 Film Calendar

Block Cinema to screen “Comrades in Dreams” and “Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow”

By Judy Moore

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Two foreign documentaries will conclude the spring film season at Northwestern University’s Block Cinema. One focuses on film lovers from different parts of the world. The other follows the transformation of an abandoned industrial complex in France into one German artist’s personal universe.

Films are screened in the James B. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati Auditorium at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston campus. Free parking is available in the lot directly south of the museum.

Unless otherwise noted, general admission to Block Cinema screenings is $6 for the general public or $4 for Block Museum members, Northwestern faculty, staff and students, students from other schools with valid IDs, and individuals aged 65 and older. Quarterly passes are $20. Tickets are available one hour before show time. For more information, call the Block Cinema Hotline at (847) 491-4000 or visit the Block Cinema website at www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/block-cinema.

SPRING 2011 FILM SERIES

The Useful Lives Film Series celebrates all those who work with and dream about moving images -- film programmers, theater employees and cinephiles. Global in scope, the series looks at the lives and fantasies of film enthusiasts across five continents.

The continuing Art on Screen series features documentaries on important 20th century American and international art and artists.

JUNE 2011 FILMS

Useful Lives series, “Comrades in Dreams,” 7 p.m. Thursday, June 2 (Uli Gaulke, 2006, Germany, DigiBeta, 100 minutes). Filmmaker Uli Gaulke crossed continents to capture the passion and dedication that unites film professionals and filmgoers of many cultures. In India, a film fanatic screens Bollywood fantasias inside a circus tent. In Burkina Faso -- a poor country in West Africa -- three friends transform an abandoned outdoor theater into the village cinema. An old barn serves as a theater and community center for the residents of a small Wyoming town, while in North Korea, a cheery film programmer entertains workers with chaste romances and uplifting morality plays.

Art on Screen series, “Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow,” 7 p.m. Friday, June 3 (Sophie Fiennes, 2010, United Kingdom, France and The Netherlands, DigiBeta, 105 minutes). During the course of the last decade, German artist Anselm Kiefer transformed La Ribaute, a formerly derelict silk factory in southern France, into a massive installation that blurs the line between artwork and exhibition space. It is now a sprawling network of galleries, breathtaking sculptures and dramatic manmade landscapes, often assembled from unorthodox materials, including soil, lead and sand. Fiennes’ film observes these artistic practices while making its own contributions to the documentary genre, including its use of widescreen cinematography and long takes.