my mspiff picks: week of apr 25

•Monday
Top Pick -- If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle; Mon 9:30 and Sat Apr 30 5:30

I haven't watched enough Romanian new wave films to talk about them at length, but this one seems to have come out right at the end of the genre's main creative outburst.  Nonetheless, this film is an intriguing and perplexing one about a young prisoner concerned for the fate of his younger brother.  It's hard to understand what motivates this young man, but it only helps in maintaining audience interest in the story.

Also, if you haven't seen them already, check out Le Quattro Volte (5:00) Exporting Raymond (7:00) or The Interrupters (7:30), which will feature a Q&A with director Steve James (that's where I'll be).

•Tuesday
Top Pick -- MN Shorts: Docs and Animation; 7:00

There are a lot of great filmmakers in the state here working in animation and documentary work, and this is the best of the best.  This program usually sells out pretty fast, so you should probably pick up your ticket today.

And don't forget that the final showing of Bill Cunningham New York is screening at 9:45.

•Wednesday
Top Pick -- A Screaming Man; 4:45

This is the second screening of this film, but I didn't write about it first time around and I need to get the word out.  This Chadian film essentially won third place at last year's Cannes film festival, and it's one I've been looking forward to most.  It's the story of a man who loses his job to his son, and, in an effort to get that job back, enlists his son in the war.  Of the film, Roger Ebert said, "In a way, it was Murnau's "The Last Laugh" transplanted to an African nation in recent times, torn by civil war. I respond warmly to films that closely observe a few people and how they work and live, and this one supplied a human context for year after year of news about war and unease in remote places."

•Thursday
I don't have a top pick for this day, so I'll just point out a few that look interesting.  There's a film on the illegal falcon trade in the Persian Gulf (Feathered Cocaine @ 5:00), A new film from Catherine Breillat about the fairy tales The Snow Queen and Sleeping Beauty (Sleeping Beauty @ 9:45), and a documentary on the capture of a Nazi living in 1950's Argentina (Eichmann's End @ 5:15).