The Wisconsin Film Festival came and went last weekend. It's an interesting event every year-to see the new directions this young festival goes. It's hard to believe how quickly the festival has exploded.
Considering it began in 1999, showing approximately 30 films for free, the exponential growth that has brought it to the massive event it is now is a credit to all those involved. Last year, Roger Ebert introduced \A Hard Day's Night"" and also presented a question and answer session with Justin Lin, director of gem ""Better Luck Tomorrow.""
This year, the festival screened over 140 diverse films. In response to the incredible demand of the last couple years, the festival management also instituted standby tickets, cramming as many people into these theaters as possible, all to see films that would never make it to the Midwest-let alone Madison-if it weren't for such an event.
Thanks to a voucher obtained from some friends volunteering at the festival, I managed to make my way into ""Forget Baghdad,"" an interesting documentary examining the lives of four exiled Iraqi Jews, all of whom were part of the Communist party for a lengthy time. The director, noted only as Samir, allows the documentary to ramble from point to point in order to provide a larger picture of the situation these men endured in Iraq and Israel, rather than implementing a structure that moves toward a specific point. His visual style is full of archival footage and photos superimposed over the interviews with these men. Samir overdoes it to the point of distracting from his subject at times, but it's certainly a daring and inspired approach.
These men, worn and wise from years of struggle, speak at length-and I found what they had to say fascinating. They all examine the experience of Iraqi Jews from their own angles, with a central theme. Each man seemed to independently get around to saying, ""In the Arab world, I was outcast because I am Jewish. In the Jewish world, I was outcast because I'm an Arab."" It was a fascinating study of this Middle Eastern phenomenon-one that I hadn't heard about before. One of the Iraqi men asks to conduct the interview in Arabic, saying ""Arabic is like my suitcase I carry with me in the world."" The movie really nails home the creation of identity, and how integral language, location and religion can be to that identity.
This is the kind of film that most people would never even hear about if not for the Wisconsin Film Festival. I strongly recommend getting tickets to next year's event. It is a UW event not to be missed, just as unique as game days at Camp Randall and State Street on Halloween weekend. I can't guarantee you'll get to meet anyone famous, but I can guarantee you'll get a memorable movie-going experience.
