A photo of 2023’s three Golden Badger Jurors (L to R: Abigail Kruger, Grant Phipps, and Kate Balsley) taken during the Wisconsin Film Festival's Opening Night Reception on April 13. Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Film Festival.

Movie notes and open-hearted discourse

By Grant Phipps ● Microtones ● May 5, 2023 May 7, 2023

From the desk of a juror: reflecting on past and present moviegoing ethos after this year’s Wisconsin Film Festival.

Latest in Wisconsin Film Festival

Writer-Director Chandler Levack is pictured holding her left hand up to her face, smiling.

Chandler Levack’s “I Like Movies” reaches through personal history to find reconciliation

By Steven Spoerl ● Film ● April 17, 2023 April 12, 2023

The Toronto-based writer-director discusses her debut feature, which screens at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 20.

Chop (Joe Pickett) lifts his foot while Steele (Nick Prueher) holds a wicker basket on the ground to be stomped in a local news morning show studio. Two news anchors to their right watch their activity. A sign reading “Chop & Steele Give Thank’s 4 Strength’s” Pickett rests against a wall displaying the TV station behind them.

Nick Prueher of Found Footage Festival stomps baskets and lawsuits in “Chop & Steele”

By Lewis Peterson ● Film ● April 14, 2023 April 14, 2023

The archivist comedian shares his insights on his career beginnings with Joe Pickett and new documentary premiering at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 18.

An image collage of the five 2023 Wisconsin Film Festival selections. Clockwise from top left: Disaffected 16-year-old Eva (Daniela Marín Navarro) and her unstable father, Martín (Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez) stare one another in the face while riding an elevator in "I Have Electric Dreams." Adam (Tawfeek Barhom) places his hand on the shoulder of an unseen man in a black shirt; both stand in the courtyard of Al-Azhar University in Cairo in "Cairo Conspiracy." A group of pink flamingos take refuge inside an enclosure during a spring rainstorm in "Zoo Lock Down." Mukunda Angulo from "The Wolf Pack" sports a pair of dark sunglasses as he leans back with his arms behind his head in "Subject." Taeko (Kimura Fumino) and Park (Sunada Atom) reconnect after a tragic accident forces them to examine their failed marriage and relationship in "Love Life."

Searing themes and fleeting presences in five 2023 Wisconsin Film Festival selections

By Jason Fuhrman, Hanna Kohn, Alisyn Amant & Lewis Peterson ● Film ● April 13, 2023 April 12, 2023

As the festival gets underway, a quick look at a quintet of compelling international documentaries and narrative features.

Ralph Arlyck's friend discusses his wife's declining health and battle with memory issues as the two get ready to ski together.

The flourishingly bittersweet “I Like It Here” captures the golden essence of humanity

By Alisyn Amant ● Film ● April 12, 2023 April 12, 2023

Documentarian Ralph Arlyck’s latest autobiographical feature premieres locally at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 16 and 17.

A simple collage that features images from the two documentaries. The top shows a shot of seaweed pressed on celluloid in "Geographies Of Solitude." The bottom displays a verdant landscape outside Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, NY, the site of a reenacted 1952 performance of John Cage’s 4’33" in "The Tuba Thieves."

Form follows function in “Geographies Of Solitude” and “The Tuba Thieves” and their sensory studies of the natural world

By Maxwell Courtright ● Film ● April 12, 2023 April 14, 2023

The experimental documentaries by Jacquelyn Mills and Alison O’Daniel make their local premieres at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 14, 15, and 16.

A simple image collage of the three grindhouse films at this year's Wisconsin Film Festival. Clockwise from top left: Looking debonair, Matt Stone (William Shatner) smokes a cigarette in "Impulse." Mark (Christopher Augustine) stares intensely at the camera in "Hollywood 90028." Vincenzo Moretto (Tomas Milian), in a grey cabbie cap, points a gun off-screen in "The Tough Ones."

The 2023 Wisconsin Film Festival goes grindhouse galore

By Ian Adcock ● Film ● April 11, 2023 April 12, 2023

Grindhouse Releasing’s co-founder Bob Murawski presents three obscure, unflinching genre gems—”The Tough Ones,” “Hollywood 90028,” and “Impulse”—on April 15, 17, and 18.

A simple image collage of two Young French Cinema selections at this year's Wisconsin Film Festival. On the left, Rose (Annabelle Lengronne) and her young son Ernest (Milan Doucansi) walk through the low-income banlieue district on the outskirts of Paris in "Mother And Son." On the right, Mériem (Judith Chemla) holds one of her five children on the vacant lot where they live in a mobile home on the outskirts of Paris in "The Sixth Child."

Young French Cinema illuminates modern familial complexities

By Jason Fuhrman ● Film ● April 11, 2023 April 12, 2023

Dual dramas “Mother And Son” and “The Sixth Child” premiere locally at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 14, 15, and 18.

A theoretical scenario involving Tom Monfils is animated by Dano Johnson of Collection Agency Films. Still courtesy of Monfilm, LLC.

Trying to reconcile the irreconcilable in “Beyond Human Nature”

By Edwanike Harbour ● Film ● April 10, 2023 April 12, 2023

Michael Neelsen, co-founder of StoryFirst Media, talks with us about his new true-crime documentary, which premieres at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 15.

After introducing herself to the casting director, actor Yuying Tang, dressed in a white button-down shirt, "screams" the part of a humanoid robotic servant.

The dead ends of language in the open-ended short film, “Noise”

By Grant Phipps ● Film ● April 7, 2023 April 12, 2023

Julian Castronovo shares the particulars behind his latest microbudget project, which sees its world premiere at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 14.