The 16th Chicago Underground Film Festival runs Thursday, September 10, through Thursday, September 17, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312-846-2800. Tickets are $10, $7 for students, and $5 for Film Center members. Following are selected programs; for a full schedule see siskelfilmcenter.org.
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American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein A harsh critic and prominent target of the Israel lobby, Norman G. Finkelstein became a local cause celebre in 2007 when he was denied tenure by DePaul University, which argued that his attacks on such figures as Alan Dershowitz, Elie Wiesel, and Jerzy Kosinski violated the school’s “Vincentian” values. This documentary by David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier doesn’t venture far into the substance of Finkelstein’s controversial books (The Holocaust Industry, Beyond Chutzpah), but it does present an engaging portait of an academic whose work is both fueled and undermined by his vitriolic personality. As Finkelstein points out, his outrage over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians springs directly from his parents’ sufferings in the Warsaw ghetto and Nazi concentration camps, a legacy that’s hardened him against people who play “the Holocaust card” in their defense of Israel. A guaranteed argument starter, the documentary plunges viewers into an academic terrain that’s thoroughly, and perhaps hopelessly, colored by politics. 89 min. —J.R. Jones Sun 9/13, 5 PM, and Wed 9/16, 8 PM. Ridgen and Rossier will attend the Sunday screening.
Cellar Three loners in Hell’s Kitchen find community in and around various basement apartments. A Colombian manicurist who aspires to be a writer (Daisy Payero) is wooed by a short-order cook who left his family in Beirut (Wael Noureddine). Their rocky courtship is more intriguing than the other story, about a black lesbian (Courtney Webster) who’s returned from combat in Iraq; neither Webster nor the actors playing her support group are skilled enough to overcome the screenplay’s more banal stretches. Noureddine and Danny Foxx’s grainy cinematography conveys the rawness of life on the margins, though some of their visual touches, like intermittent scratches and light streaks, are merely decorative. Steve Stasso directed. In English and subtitled French, Arabic, and Spanish. 87 min. —Andrea Gronvall Sat 9/12, 7 PM. Stasso will attend the screening.
