Announcing The College Of Lake County Fall 2023 Screening Series
The Lake County Film Festival is thrilled to be bringing back our Independent Film Screening Series for the first time since the cancellation of our Spring 2020 series due to covid. We will again be running alongside the International Film Screening Series.
All films in the Independent Film Screening Series will ALSO be screening at the 2023 Lake County Film Festival in November.
All screenings are free and are held at the Grayslake Campus of The College Of Lake County. All screenings are at 7:00pm
You can also stay up to date on film events in Lake County at our Lake County Film Calendar.
Friday, September 8
Room C105
PAIN AND GLORY (Spain, 2019)
directed by Pedro Almodovar
Legendary Art-House icon Pedro Almodovar (The Skin I Live In) has another triumph in this semi-autobiographical story of a filmmaker (Antonio Banderas) revisiting his body of work while confronting his literal body’s decline. Pain and Glory was instantly celebrated as a masterwork: Oscar-nominated for Best Actor and Best International Feature; Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival; and both Time and the NY Times named it the best film of the year. “A tragicomic swirl of heartbreak and joy, slipping dexterously between riotous laughter and piercing sadness. At its heart is Banderas giving the performance of a lifetime.” (The Observer)
Friday, September 22
Room A011
Join Or Die (USA, 2023)
directed by Rebecca Davis & Pete Davis
Join or Die is a film about why you should join a club—and why the fate of America may depend on it. Follow the story of America’s civic unraveling through the journey of legendary social scientist Robert Putnam, whose viral Bowling Alone research into the decline in American community lights a path out of our democracy’s present crisis. Flanked by influential fans and scholars—from Hillary Clinton and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to Eddie Glaude Jr. and Pete Buttigieg—as well as inspiring groups building community across America, join Bob as he explores three urgent civic questions: What makes democracy work? Why is our democracy in crisis? And, most importantly: What can we do about it?
This screening will be followed by a remote Q&A with the directors.
Friday, October 6
Room C105
THE PASSENGER (Italy/Spain/France/USA, 1975)
directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Amid the swirling sands of the Sahara, an American journalist (Jack Nicholson) seizes an unlikely opportunity – swapping identities with a corpse in the next hotel room. Soon, he discovers the dead man was an arms dealer complicit in the civil war he was himself reporting on. Meanwhile, his wife and colleagues aren’t prepared to let his ‘death’ go uninvestigated. The details reflect a conventional political thriller, but director Michelangelo Antonioni (Blow-Up) has more philosophical goals, starting with the reporter’s enigmatic identity crisis. “A masterpiece of visual beauty and rigorous artistry that is as tantalizing as it is hypnotic.” (LA Times)
Friday, October 20
Room A011
Good Guy With A Gun (USA, 2022)
Directed by John Mossman
Will Greenwood, a Chicago teenager forced to come to terms with his father’s violent death, visits a small town and finds solace in a group of local kids. When the town bully threatens Will’s new friend, how far will he go to protect him…especially with a gun? It is a coming of age drama where young men and guns come crashing together…
This screening is expected to be followed by an in-person Q&A with the director.
Friday, November 3
Room A011
Fantastic Negrito: Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? (USA, 2022)
directed by Francisco Núñez Capriles & Yvan Iturriaga
Iconoclastic bluesman Fantastic Negrito faces his demons as he records his third Grammy-winning album. Digging deep into his turbulent past, he searches to answer the question: in a sick society, how do you keep from going crazy?
Saturday, November 11
Room C105
SOBIBOR, OCTOBER 14, 1943, 4 p.m. (France, 2001)
directed by Claude Lanzmann
Having spent eleven years making the Holocaust documentary Shoah, director Claude Lanzmann spent much of his subsequent career working with additional interview footage that he felt deserved to stand alone. Case in point: a unique story related to Lanzmann by Yehuda Lerner, survivor of a successful uprising against the Nazis within the Sobibor concentration camp in 1943. “As gripping as the greatest thrillers and as gratifying as any story of brave and cunning virtue confronting mighty evil.” (The New Yorker)
Followed by a zoom discussion with Holocaust and Media scholar Dr. Noah Shenker, author of Reframing Holocaust Testimony.
Friday, December 1
Room C105
SAINT OMER (France, 2022)
directed by Alice Diop
In 2016, documentary filmmaker Alice Diop became transfixed by a shocking murder trial, in which a Mother sat accused of murdering her infant child. Both Diop and the accused were French-
