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Explore Madison’s art-house screenings and the adventurous corners of local cinema.

A low-angled close-up of a Black woman (dancer Bianca Melidor) in a stylized profile in the film "Quiet As It's Kept." She is captured in a color gradient of midnight blue.

Ja’Tovia Gary’s films earnestly confront Black identity in an overly saturated, visually contradictory culture

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May 18, 2024

The multimedia artist's avant-garde essays, "The Giverny Document" and "Quiet As It's Kept," screen at Arts + Literature Laboratory on May 22.

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The author, Sara Batkie, stands with her back of the camera in front of a slate-grey wall. She turns her head to the side, pointing with her thumbs to the green and black floral design on the back of her 2024 Wisconsin Film Festival volunteer tee shirt.
From the lens of a film festival volunteer
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May 7, 2024

Engaging insights at the movies and with audiences during and after the 26th annual Wisconsin Film Festival this past April.

At a close-up, eight-year-old Hana looks out into the distance at something off screen near the woods. She holds her right hand up to her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun. Hana is bundled in winter attire that includes mustard-yellow mittens, a horizontally-striped toque with dark and light blues, tan scarf, and a vivid blue heavy coat.
Oblique journeys in film (and) criticism
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Microtones
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May 3, 2024

Another post-film festival meditation on our current spaces for dialogue.

A woman in a white kimono brandishes a sword. She stands, posed at an angle, with a determined look on her face amid a foggy forest of bamboo reeds behind her.
The painterly and methodical martial arts landscapes of “A Touch Of Zen”
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April 24, 2024

King Hu's epic, influential wuxia masterpiece from 1971 screens on 35mm at UW Cinematheque on April 27.

A blonde woman lays face-up in partial profile. She sheds a tear, and stares upward in a black, blank space. Her body is wrapped in a similarly black-colored substance.
The dense storytelling of “The Beast” connects our parasocial past, present, and future
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April 23, 2024

Bertrand Bonello's latest psychological, postmodernist period drama premieres locally at AMC Fitchburg 18 on April 26.

Three leather-clad men sit on motorcycles under a metal bridge at a medium shot. They look forward off-screen into the city streets in daylight.
The reckless, Springsteen-inspired revelry of “Streets Of Fire”
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April 22, 2024

Walter Hill's wild "rock 'n' roll fable" from 1984 screens on 35mm at UW Cinematheque on April 26.

Poster art for the film "Take Me Somewhere Nice" shows a young woman lounging face-down in her underwear on a towel amid brightly colored pink tiles. While her arms lay flat on the towel, she kicks her legs up in the air.
“Take Me Somewhere Nice” offers a gently absurdist look at the vicissitudes of contemporary Balkan life
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April 4, 2024

Writer-Director Ena Sendijarević visits the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 8 to present her candy-coated existential comedy.

A close-up of double bassist Richard Davis from an archival performance recorded on video. Davis wears a red long-sleeve shirt and smiles widely. Only the neck of his instrument is in view. Stage light streams on him from the top right of the image.
In “String Theory: The Richard Davis Method,” the storied jazz bassist takes the lead
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April 4, 2024

Michael Neelsen's new documentary on the late musician and UW-Madison professor premieres at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 7.

A woman with frizzy long hair wearing floral attire faces away from the camera on the left. She adjusts her fairly large succulent houseplant on a table that is receiving direct sunlight on the right.
“Light Needs” and “Parallel Botany” use the film medium as a means to map plant consciousness
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April 3, 2024

Jesse McLean's feature documentary, Magdalena Bermudez's experimental short, and three other botanical shorts screen in a Wisconsin Film Festival program on April 6.

Aadam Jacobs, the subject of the film "Melomaniac," smiles excitedly in a still from the film. He is to the left of the image in a gray hoodie with white drawstrings. Visible behind him are two fully stocked record shelves, running along two walls. Jacobs' long black hair is pulled back, and he sports a full beard.
“Melomaniac” is a blurry but striking snapshot of an obsessive documentarian
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April 2, 2024

Katlin Schneider's roughshod ode to Chicago indie-rock show taper Aadam Jacobs screens at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 6.