Film production company MUBI brought its film festival, MUBI Fest, to Chicago for the second consecutive year this weekend. Founded in 2023, the festival took place at the Music Box Theatre and The Salt Shed.
This year, the festival is visiting 11 cities worldwide — Chicago being the only U.S. city and the festival’s first stop. Dylan Polacek, head of strategic partnerships at MUBI, said the company’s decision to return to Chicago was because of how beloved film is in the city.
“Chicago has always been a market for us because we think there’s a really strong film community here and the people here come out, maybe not in as many numbers as New York or L.A., but with a passion for cinema that we find to be really exciting,” Polacek said.
Over two days, seven films were screened. Each year, the festival chooses films that fall under a certain theme — this year’s being “Lost in Translation.”
“All these films, in their own way, are stories or worlds about miscommunication,” Polacek said. “It’s all meant to throw you into a world of confusion, but in a good way.”
The films shown included five older films, such as Brian de Palma’s “Blow Out,” Michael Schultz’s “Cooley High,” Elaine May’s “Ishtar,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice” and Tarsem Singh’s “The Fall.” Two film debuts, Alex Ross Perry’s “Pavements” and Amalia Ulman’s “Magic Farm” were also shown.
The festival hosted a Q&A with Perry after his film’s screening.
Perry’s film centered around rock band Pavement, exploring their career through multiple different mediums, including a jukebox musical, Hollywood biopic and museum. The film featured footage spanning from the band’s original performances throughout the 1990s to their reunion in 2022.
Perry, a fan of the band himself, said he made the film to represent the cultural significance of bands like Pavement during the ’90s.
“To me, making this movie was an ode to this era that I loved and lived through most of,” Perry said. “This era to me is so gone and is so lost.”
While the festival predominantly focused on film, on its second day, The Salt Shed hosted a MUBI Market that featured local businesses and vendors ranging from record shops to thrift stores.
One of the vendors, Aidee San Miguel, said she heard about the festival when someone from MUBI reached out to her. San Miguel is the co-founder of VOLVERde, a sustainable lifestyle brand that uplifts female and BIPOC-owned businesses. San Miguel said she appreciated the festival because it had similar goals to her brand.
“(Both MUBI Fest and VOLVERde are) trying to help and foster creative work through our art, whether that’s filmmaking or this artisan work,” San Miguel said.
The festival’s message was not only appreciated by its vendors but also by its patrons. Kayleigh Jensen, a substitute teacher who studied film in college, said it was a no-brainer to attend the festival once it was announced.
“I think the arts are just so important,” Jensen said. “I feel like everything kind of took a hit with COVID-19, so it’s really cool to see films that people might not be going to see in the theater be brought together by a festival like this.”
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