MSPIFF 2023: A sampler platter of films from the festival

Thursday begins the 42nd year of the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival and it remains one of the first and best chances for locals to see the astonishing variety of cinema produced throughout the world.

It returns again to the St. Anthony Main Theatre, right across the river from downtown Minneapolis, but with a slight change: MSPIFF’s parent organization, the MSP Film Society, purchased and renovated the theater last year, renaming it The Main.

But for longtime attendees, there will be a welcome moment of nostalgia. For the duration of the festival, Pracna on Main — a beloved restaurant that suddenly shuttered in 2015 — will reopen.

The festival also brings back one of its best traditions: Minnesota Made, a slate of films by local filmmakers, including “The Harvest” by Doua Moua.

What follows is a list of 11 films previewed and recommended by the MPR News arts team. It’s just a taste of what the festival has to offer, so treat it is an appetizer. The festival itself is the feast.

Alam

A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of Palestinian life, “Alam” is a brutal and striking film. The film follows Tamer, a quiet teenage artist, as he struggles with the usual things a hormone-filled boy might encounter in a movie (vandalism, first love.) But as a Palestinians living under the Israeli government, the film also depicts Tamer and his peer group as they face police brutality and second-class status.

In one scene, nearly his entire school class leaves a history lecture in protest at how their history is being taught. On multiple occasions, Tamer is faced with two choices: 1) fly under the radar and skip out on attending protests to appease his father; or, 2) support his friends in their attempts to stand up to the oppression they face. One challenging scene to watch comes towards the end of the film at a protest that turns violent, so viewer discretion is advised. That being said, “Alam” gives the viewer an “Outsiders”-esque story, while shining a light on the everyday struggles of Palestinians.  

Black Art: In the Absence of Light

Art historian David Driskell is at the heart of this documentary. In 1976, the Black scholar curated a groundbreaking exhibition, “Two Centuries of Black American Art,” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. As the film shows, Driskell was probed by several white journalists (including a shaggy-haired Tom Brokaw) as to why a show dedicated to the influence and legacy of living and dead Black artists was necessary at all. They posited that enlightenment had already come with the Civil Rights movements of the sixties. So everyone is equal, right?

Driskell responds simply, “The American canon is not complete without it.” For the next 75 minutes, viewers will learn exactly how hollow the canon would be without Black artists. From cubist painter Jacob Lawrence to U.S. matriarch of textile art Faith Ringgold, from large-scale conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas to Amy Sherald, painter of the official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama.

Many of the artists featured have art in local institutions. You can find canvases by Joshua Johnson and Kehinde Wiley (who did President Obama’s portrait) in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Kara Walker at the Walker Art Center. Watching the film, it’s hard not to think of Minnesota’s own artists that could easily have been featured: Ta-coumba T. Aiken, Leslie Barlow, Eyenga Bokamba, Chotsani Elaine Dean, Jennifer Newsom, Melvin R. Smith and a canon-full more. 

Cairo Conspiracy

Political intrigue rooted in modern Egyptian issues set the stage for “Cario Conspiracy.” The film follows Adam, a young man training to become an Imam at Egypt's Al-Azhar University. After witnessing a brutal crime, Adam is swept up into clandestine work for the Egyptian government to spy on the process of selecting the next Grand Imam and is asked to assist in propping up the government’s choice for the position versus the will of the other Imams.

Adam infiltrates the Muslim Brotherhood, investigating the wrongdoings of one of the university’s administrators and endures intimidation by his own government handler. With the focus on spycraft and intrigue “Cairo Conspiracy” draws you in with a compelling story rather than relying on blockbuster, show-stopping action scenes.  

Concerned Citizen

The dark Israeli comedy “Concerned Citizen” starts and ends with a feeble little tree. Ben, a white Tel Aviv architect (a hilariously despondent Shlomi Bertonov), has taken it upon himself to plant one on the sidewalk across the street from his apartment — an altruistic act of beautification. He and his white husband Raz are new to the neighborhood, a so-called grittier area of Tel Aviv they relocated to because they value “multiculturalism.” Multiculturalism here is code for people that don’t look or act like them, i.e. folks from east Africa.

While the couple pats themselves on the back for investing in a diverse neighborhood — and basking in a spacious boho apartment for cheap in a gated building — they are quick to assure their social circle that the area is changing; it will really be something in the next five years. Back to the tree: When Ben sees his neighbors leaning on it, he calls municipal services to complain, which sets off a chain of events involving police brutality and a death. Ben, deciding its time to move, shouts at his therapist: “This place gets me into situations I’m not supposed to get involved in!” The film is an exquisite sendup of white liberal guilt, gentrification and xenophobia; the bourgeois version of the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and freshly planted trees. 

Dusty & Stones

Filmmaker Jesse Rudoy offers a documentary about the international popularity of American country music, telling of two aspiring African country singers who travel to Nashville and Texas to record their music and compete in a battle of the bands. The film opens with joyous line dancing in the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly named Swaziland) and ends, equally joyously and 9,000 miles away, at the Texas Sounds International Country Music Awards. “Give me the highway, I want to see Texas now” Lindokuhle Msibi and Gazi Simelane sing in a car staring out at an American highway, and it’s a perfect road trip song for a fascinating road trip movie.

Medusa Deluxe

This one-continuous-shot murder mystery is set at a British hairstyling competition, and the film is appropriately excessive in style — drenched in neon and showcasing some truly astonishing haircuts — and also more than a little camp. The film heaps surprises upon surprises, including an unexpected toddler and a musical number, until you worry it might have gotten a little lost in its own excesses and forgot to solve the murder. It remembers at the last moment, but it’s the excesses that make the film enjoyable.

Minnesota Mean

Women’s roller derby is an infrequent subject for filmmaking, but generally a good one: Both 1972’s “Kansas City Bomber,” starring Raquel Welch, and 2009’s “Whip It,” starring Elliot Page, are terrific, and even the also-rans, like the grindhouse “The Unholy Rollers” from 1972, have their lowbrow pleasures.

Minnesota filmmaker Dawn Mikkelson turns her camera to the RollerGirls with a documentary eye, but one that captures the visual spectacle of the sport. The screen quickly fills with tattoos, knee pads, frenetic motion and colliding bodies. But Mikkelson never loses track of the human element, creating a portrait of a group of aging, injured and exhausted athletes on the verge of giving up, and determined to go out explosively.

Ojibwe Warrior: The Legacy of Dennis Banks

This documentary is about one of the most important, resilient activists of the last century and it should probably be required viewing for all Minnesotans — if not Americans. While the film’s narrative is rather disjointed, it shines with its archival footage and intimate interviews with Nowa Cumig (aka Dennis Banks) of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Cumig co-founded the American Indian Movement in the heady days of 1968 in Minneapolis — where the Native American Cultural Corridor has since been established. It’s a fascinating, heartbreaking and hopeful journey.

Several factors (far too many to name here) created the activist: the government forcibly removing Cumig from his family at age five and placing him in boarding school; the 1950s farmer demonstrations to protect native land in Japan he witnessed while stationed with the U.S. Air Force; watching Minneapolis police profile and brutalize his Native community; a five-year stint in prison for stealing groceries to feed his family of 10.

It was in prison that he watched the Civil Rights movement unfold and felt compelled to create a place for Native Americans in it. That’s exactly what he did, from the “Trail of Broken Treaties” to Wounded Knee. Cumig died in 2017. “The struggle for decency will never end,” he said one of the later interviews in his life. 

Our Father, the Devil

This unusual thriller is the first feature film by New York-based Cameroonian director Ellie Foumbi. You wouldn’t know it, however. Out the gate, Foumbi has grabbed viewers by the throat with her grasp of tension and very gray areas. Set in a small town in the French Pyrenees, the film follows the quiet life of Marie (a riveting Babetida Sadjo), a refugee from West Africa that now works as the head chef of a retirement home. Her life is a sweet and small: her best friend Nadia is a caretaker at the home, and Marie develops a close relationship with an elder woman resident, a former chef herself who is the only one able to truly appreciate Marie’s culinary talents.

The resident is so attached to Marie, that she bequeaths her a rustic mountain cabin, to the very vocal chagrin of her developer son, as it has been in the family for generations. It could be the beginning of a fairytale. Then one day Marie arrives at work and hears a familiar voice speaking to the residents. It stops Marie cold: The voice belongs to “The Oracle,” the Guinea warlord who killed her entire family decades ago. He has reinvented himself as Father Patrick, a beloved priest.

What ensues is a game of cat and mouse, a tale of righteous vengeance. Or is it? “Our Father, The Devil” is a beautiful, brutal and unflinching look at how unaddressed trauma shares Newton’s law of energy: It cannot be lost or destroyed, but merely transferred from one party to the next. Foumbi also dares the viewers to answer some tough questions. Is everyone redeemable? Is it ever too late to do the right thing? 

Sam Now

This film explores intergenerational trauma, transracial adoption and loss. Told through home videos, documentary-style interviews and cinematic action scenes, we enter the life and times of Sam Harkness as he unravels the reason his mother decided to abandon their family and start a new life. But even after he reconnects with his mother, things don’t go back to normal, and we then follow the impact the event has had on the entire family’s dynamic.

“Sam Now” investigates how unresolved issues from your youth can impact not only your adult life, but also the people you care about most. The part-documentary, part-parlor drama was captured masterfully by Sam’s older half-brother, Reed Harkness, giving the film a unique feeling knowing the story was crafted by the subject's family.  

Showing Up

How can you reach great artistic heights when you’ve got a broken water heater, and your slacker landlord pressures you into caring for a mauled pigeon she finds in the yard? And what if said landlord (an amazing Hong Chau) is also a better, more successful, more likable artist than you? That’s the conundrum of the perpetually slouching and irritated sculptor Lizzy (Michelle Williams), who spends hours, days, years pinching clay to form her “girls,” all reminiscent of Roald Dahl’s Matilda.

Here, director Kelly Reichardt pairs up with her muse Williams for the fourth time (“Wendy and Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” “Certain Woman”), taking the “putting on a show trope” and applying it to the low-stakes art scene of Portland, Oregon. The film captures the mundanity of a working artist’s everyday life — there is no romanticism here — and like Reichardt’s other films, “Showing Up” is sparse and quiet. It is also low-key hilarious as Lizzy tries to juggle the health of a bird with getting her “girls” ready for the big show, at a tiny one-room gallery. 

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