The eighth annual edition of the Chicago Lesbian and Gay Film Festival runs October 7 through 13 at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport; then continues October 14 through 16 at Chicago Filmmakers, 1229 W. Belmont. Tickets for the ten-day event cost $4-$5.50 per show (except for the opening night reception and film, which costs $8), with series tickets available at $50 for the whole package or $25 for six screenings. For program information and updates, call Chicago Filmmakers at 281-8788.
CROWS Ayelet Menahemi’s new Israeli featurette, receiving its Chicago premiere, follows the communal life of a group of homeless youngsters in Tel-Aviv as seen through the eyes of a teenage girl who leaves her country home for the city and is taken in by a group of young homosexuals. On the same program, Patrick Mimouni’s short French feature Bertrand Is Missing, another Chicago premiere, charts the relationship between a 12-year-old boy who runs away from home and the eccentric man who takes him in. (Tuesday, October 11, 7:00)
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EMPIRE STATE Ron Peck’s second feature (Nighthawks was his first) is set in the night world of London’s East End, and develops several different plots, Altman-style, which converge at the chic Empire State nightclub. Described as “a political satire in the style of a gangster thriller,” the film has a cast of characters including a pimp-hustler-drug dealer, an old-style gangster, a young punk, and an American businessman (played by Martin Landau) with a taste for semi-rough trade. (Saturday, October 8, 5:00)
IN A GLASS CAGE This first feature by Catalan director Agustin Villaronga, which made the top of Village Voice critic Elliott Stein’s ten-best list last year, may not be for everyone, but it is certainly disturbing, powerful, and accomplished in what it sets out to do. The plot focuses on the sadomasochistic relationship between a former concentration camp doctor, who has retired to Spain in an iron lung, and the obsessive and ultimately murderous male nurse who takes care of him. A somber mixture of suspense, grim humor, and baroque perversity, it builds to a frightening conclusion. (Thursday, October 13, 9:00)
NINETEEN NINETEEN A former Russian aristocrat and a transplanted European Jewish woman become emotionally entangled as they relive their psychoanalytic pasts in the Viennese apartment of their onetime analyst, the legendary Dr. Freud. With Paul Scofield and Maria Schell; Hugh Brody directed (1985). (PG) (Monday, October 10, 7:00)
THE VIRGIN MACHINE Monika Treut, the West German filmmaker who directed, with Elfi Mikesch, the 1984 Seduction: The Cruel Woman, follows the progress of a young feminist journalist (Ina Blum), involved with several men (including her brother), who eventually leaves for San Francisco and becomes involved in the city’s lesbian community. The black-and-white cinematography is by Mikesch. (Saturday, October 8, 7:00)
