Refocus Film Festvial 2024
Refocus Film Festvial 2024
October 17 - October 20
$48 – $225
The 3rd annual Refocus Film Festival will take place October 17-20, 2024. Building on the success of the inaugural year, this year’s festival will again include dozens of films, conversations, performances, and art inspired by the work of adaptation, transforming one art form into another.
The festival will take place primarily in FilmScene’s five theaters at the Chauncey and on the Ped Mall, with Opening Night at The Englert Theatre and additional programming in the downtown district.
Movie lovers will rejoice at the opportunity to take in multiple films each day, with screenings preceded by performances by local musical and visual artists to form a kaleidoscopic impression of the artistic disciplines that inform our big screen experience. In addition, a series of curated dialogues, in collaboration with Iowa City Book Festival will take us deeper into conversation about how ideas journey from page to screen. And yes, of course, there will be special guests, parties, and celebration!
A FIDAI FILM
Reclaiming a collection of still and moving images taken by the IDF from the archive collection of the Palestine Research Center in Beirut in the summer of 1982, this poignant exploration of identity, memory, and resistance, uses a unique blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques to create a counter-narrative to loss—a cinematic sabotage to restore looted memories.
A REAL YOUNG GIRL
Fourteen-year-old Alice Bonnard as she returns home from boarding school on summer vacation. Burdened by boredom and her own burgeoning sexuality, Alice’s adolescent desires latch onto Jim, a surly young worker employed at her father’s sawmill.
AELITA: QUEEN OF MARS
Marc Ribot will perform a live score for Yakov Protazanov’s pioneering 1924 sci-fi film adapted from Alexei Tolstoy’s 1923 novella that follows an engineer who hears travels to Mars, leading a popular uprising against the Elders with the help of Queen Aelita (Yuliya Solntsevaz).
ALL THE KING’S MEN
Willie Stark is a dynamic backwoods personality who rides a wave of populist fervor straight into the governor’s mansion, only to fall prey to the corruption he pledged to fight. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, this dynamic political noir took home the Academy Award for Best Picture.
AN EVENING SONG (FOR THREE VOICES)
In an old house in an unnamed Midwest town, former child-prodigy writer Barbara Fowler and her sci-fi author husband Richard are entwined in a love triangle with their pious maid.
CINEMATIC POETICS
Poets Hannah Bonner, Julia Anna Morrison, and Perry Janes read from their work and discuss the intersections of film and poetry.
COMIC BOOK READING WITH EZRA CLAYTAN DANIELS
Ezra Claytan Daniels reads a short selection of comics. Followed by a Q&A and signing.
EPIGRAPH COFFEE SESSION
EVERY LITTLE THING
Inspired by Terry Masear’s book, Fastest Things on Wings: Rescuing Hummingbirds in Hollywood, this joyous documentary offers profound truths and moments of wonder in a deceptively simple story. In tending to fragile yet resilient hummingbirds, Masear finds a sense of healing from her own past.
FILMSPOTTING LIVE
The #1 podcast for the movie buff according to The New York Times, Chicago’s Filmspotting has provided in-depth movie discussions, interviews, and Top 5 lists since 2005. Join co-host Adam Kempenaar (UI professor) and special guest host Marya Gates as they record a live episode.
GHOST CAT ANZU
This manga adaptation follows 11-year-old Karin who finds herself abandoned by her father in a small Japanese town. Her grandfather asks his jovial but rather capricious ghost cat, Anzu, to look after her, and their spirited personalities collide.
LA COCINA
Based on the 1957 play of the same name by Arnold Wesker, this comedic drama follows a melting pot of restaurant workers at a Times Square restaurant. When money goes missing, all the undocumented cooks are being investigated, and Pedro (Raúl Briones) is the prime suspect. Amidst the pandemonium of the kitchen, he falls for American waitress Julia (Rooney Mara) who coolly keeps their affair hidden until a shocking revelation pushes Pedro to the edge.
LÁZARO AT NIGHT
A trio of fortysomething actors who happen to be in a mundane love triangle navigate unorthodox auditions for the same film. In discussions they begin to reminisce on an acting workshop that leads into a unique retelling of Aladdin.
MONOGRAPH SHORTS PROGRAM
A Refocus Film Festival Short Film Block featuring personal works from up and coming directors and anchored by the latest a piece by Leos Carax the reflects on his 40 year career while paying homage to Jean-Luc Godard.
MOVING
When her parents split, Renko, a bright and energetic 6th grader, is left alone with her mother, Nazuna, in Kyoto. As Nazuna sets out new rules for their life together, Renko makes plans of her own, seeing to it that any changes happen on her terms. Adapted from Hiko Tanaka’s novel, this gem of a film is a breathtaking masterpiece begging for rediscovery.
NICKEL BOYS
Based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Nickel Boys tracks the experiences of two young Black men who meet at a brutal Florida reform school in the 1960s. After being sent to Nickel Academy as punishment for a crime he didn’t commit, Elwood Curtis meets Turner, a kindred spirit who becomes his closest ally.
NIGHTBITCH
Adapted from the celebrated novel by Iowa City author Rachel Yoder, director Marielle Heller tells the story of a small city artist-turned-stay-at-home-mom (Amy Adams), trapped by her domestic duties and the weight of motherhood.
PAVEMENTS
In this unconventional take on the rock-doc, Alex Ross Perry blends performance footage and interviews with a biopic, a staged jukebox musical, and a gallery exhibit to tell the story of the iconic ‘90s rock group Pavement.
PLASTIC
Jun and Ibuki meet as seniors in high school, drawn to each other by their shared love of 70s glam-rock band Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists. As the demands of adulthood loom, the young couple drifts apart. Years later, the band reunites. Will Jun and Ibuki reunite as well? Inspired by songwriter Kensuke Ide’s 2021 concept album Strolling Planet ’74.
POSTSCRIPT OPENING NIGHT AFTER PARTY
RACIALISM IN THE MEDIA
A screening of the hour-long film and a post-screening Q&A with Venise Berry and S. Toriano Berry.
SAMBIZANGA
Pioneering director Sarah Maldoror presents a revolutionary bombshell–an electrifying chronicle of Angola’s awakening independence movement. Based on the novella The Real Life of Domingos Xavier by José Luandino Vieira
SAVANNA AND THE MOUNTAIN
When the community of Covas do Barroso, Portugal discovers that the British company Savannah Resources plans to build the largest open-pit lithium mine in Europe just a few meters from their homes, they decide to organize and expel them from their lands. Using the people as actors, incorporating footage from their protests, and playing their protest songs, director Paulo Carneiro worked with the villagers to document their resistance as a tool for intervention.
SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE
Bill Furlong discovers shocking secrets kept by the convent in his sleepy Irish town that threaten to disrupt his perception of the past and the peace of his community. Adapted from Claire Keegan’s award-winning historical fiction novel of the same name by acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh, this powerful drama examines the personal and historical truths that shaped a people.
SUBTEXT
THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
The target of a sinister plot, young Edmond Dantès is arrested at the altar for a crime he did not commit. After 14 years in an island prison, he manages a daring escape. Now rich beyond his dreams, he assumes the identity of the Count of Monte Cristo to exact his revenge in this thrilling adaptation that is Alexandre Dumas by way of Mission: Impossible.
THE FALLING SKY
In collaboration with Brazil’s indigenous Yanomami people, this documentary follows leader and shaman Davi Kopenawa as he fights to return the world to balance in closely observed rituals and trenchant comments on the ruthless logic of a materialistic outside culture. Based on the shaman’s book of the same name, the film holds up a mirror to capitalist societies that threaten the survival of humanity as a whole.
THE STORM
A young boy dodges monsters, warriors, and natural forces on a rescue mission to save his surrogate father, who has fallen under a mysterious spell while searching for a legendary textile. In this latest film from China’s indie animation auteur, Busifan, traditional ink wash paintings become a vivid landscape for a colorful and fantastical adventure.
THE TRIAL
After being accused of an unspecified crime, Josef K. (Anthony Perkins) must wade through an increasingly obscure and hostile bureaucratic maze to receive answers and clear his name in this Orson Welles adaptation of Franz Kafka’s classic novel.
THREE PROMISES
Armed only with the family video camera, Suha captures the Second Intifada from within the West Bank at the start of the 2000s. Woven into her images of family life under occupation, Suha makes promises to God to spare her family. Seventeen years later, her filmmaker son Yousef finds the footage and assembles it, excavating his own forgotten childhood in the process.
TWST – THINGS WE SAID TODAY
Repurposing archival footage from personal recordings and news reports and incorporating diary entries of the time as voiceover, this city symphony starts with the arrival of the Beatles in New York for their August 1965 concert at Shea Stadium. But as the frame of reference steadily broadens, adjacent realities of 1965 are juxtaposed—the New York World’s Fair, the Watts riots filtering through from the East Coast on television.
UBU
Spurred by the encouragement of his wife, oafish Ubu murders King Wenceslau and takes Poland as his own, sending the country into chaos.
UNEXPLAINED PRESENCE
Tisa Bryant reads from her collection of essays, accompanied by remixed film clips.
UNFOCUS AFTER PARTY AT THE GREEN HOUSE
Go wind down at the Green House with drinks, desserts, and music provided by Blake Shaw with Chris Navarrete.
WHISKEY TANGO FILMSCENE
Join us for a night of storytelling with these guests of Refocus Film Festival and Iowa City Book Festival to hear their war stories about creating art and getting it out into the world while sipping some whiskey!
WINNER
Emilia Jones stars as the titular translator who leaked classified documents leading to a 63 month prison sentence in this humorous and heartfelt inside look into a public figure known for one courageous act and a funny name. Susanna Fogel (Cat Person) directs this adaptation of Kerry Howley’s 2017 profile for New York Magazine.
WRITING ON FILM
An hour-long conversation between film writers Jonathan Rosenbaum and Marya E. Gates moderated by Ariana Martinez of Little Village.
YOU BURN ME + DILDOTECTÓNICA
Adapting a chapter of Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues With Leucò, Matías Piñeiro explores a conversation on heartbreak between Sappho and the goddess Britomartis. Paired with Tomás Paula Marques’ short DILDOTECTÓNICA.