BY KAREN BOSSICK
Take a road trip through the heart of Lakota Country, during the Magic Lantern Cinema’s 31st Annual Fall Film Festival.
“Neither Wolf Nor Dog,” is one of a myriad of diverse films being offered from now through the entire month of October. Films will be booked for full week runs so there will be ample opportunity to see them.
Offerings include:
- “The Dark Divide,” stars David Cross in the true story of a conservationist’s life-changing expedition across Washington State’s Gifford Pinchot National Forest, one of America’s largest undeveloped wild lands. A beautiful, quiet, lyrical funny wilderness trip based on the book “Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide,” it’s a meditation on loss and picking up the pieces staring David Cross and Debra Messing.
- “The Burnt Orange Heresy” is an erotic thriller set in the high end art world with Italy’s Lake Como serving as a lavish backdrop. Revolving around a man who hired to steal a rare painting, it’s loaded with plot twists.
- “Network,” the 1976 Oscar-winning satire on the television news business, is frighteningly prescient of the television news of today. It stars Faye Dunaway as a TV executive who boosts her ratings with a mad anchorman played by Peter Finch who thinks he speaks for God.
- “Ski Bum” is the bio-epic of Warren Miller, the legendary filmmaker who lived off rabbit stew and Ketchup packets, sleeping in a teardrop trailer in his endless pursuit of the perfect ski run.
- “Sometime Always Never” is a quirky British mystery/comedy revolving around a man who turns his family upside down as he searches for the missing son he hasn’t seen in years.
- “Neither Wolf Nor Dog," subtitled “On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder” as it is a film about Native American culture. It stars Christopher Sweeney as an author recounting his travels with Dave Bald Eagle, who was 95 years old at the time of the filming in 1995.
It’s notable for its scene at Wounded Knee where filmmakers threw away the script, allowing Dave Bald Eagle to tell his family’s story of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 from his heart. At the end, Wikipedia says, he turned to Sweeney and said, “I’ve been holding that in for 95 years.”
- “Tesla” is a bio-drama starring Ethan Hawke as the iconic inventor Nikola Tesla who fought an uphill battle to bring his revolutionary electrical system to fruition. Included: his interactions with Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan’s daughter Anne, as well as George Westinghouse, who bought the patents for Tesla’s inventions.
Other films will be added through the month—keep checking www.mlcinemas.com to stay abreast.
The Magic Lantern has reduced seating capacity to accommodate social distancing. Moviegoers will be required to wear a mask as they enter the theater and make their way to their sets; they may lower their masks once seated.