International Film Festival a reason to return to the theater

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Academy Award watchers are used to passionate appeals amid acceptance speeches. But the plea from director Sean Baker, whose “Anora” won best picture, wasn’t about a social but a cinematic issue.

“Watching a film in the theater with an audience is an experience,” Baker said as he received the third of his record-tying four gold statues. “We can laugh together, cry together, and, in a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever. It is a communal experience you don’t get at home. And right now, the theatergoing experience is under threat.”

Lamenting the loss of 1,000 screens during the pandemic, Baker said that “If we don’t reverse this trend, we’ll be losing a vital part of our culture. This is my battle cry.”

It’s a cry already acted upon by patrons of the Main Cinema in Minneapolis, where attendance jumped 20% last year for films from Hollywood to Bollywood and points beyond, like the 70 countries and cultures represented in the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, which begins its 44th annual run on Wednesday.

And it’s a cri de coeur heard in France, the vanguard of the return-to-cinema movement. There the Institut Lumière film society claimed that the theater rebound reflected that “going to the cinema remains unique, singular, precious. Personal, physical, sentimental. It allows for a re-apportion of a way of being in the world that nothing can ever prevent.”

These cinemagoing superlatives were among the themes of 2011’s “Hugo,” which centered on Georges Méliès, the French cinematic pioneer whose most famous film, “A Trip to the Moon,” featured the indelible image of a space capsule landing in the moon’s “eye.”

Fittingly, one of the festival’s special events, Thursday’s live-music performance set to 12 of Méliès’ silent films, is titled “Right in the Eye.” It’s one of many events and panels featured during the festival’s dozen days. Events like the opening-night presentation (sponsored by the Minnesota Star Tribune) of a documentary on a much-more contemporary — and contentious — issue titled “Free Leonard Peltier,” which former President Joe Biden indeed did for the Indian activist at the end of his tenure. Other highlights include an April 6 appearance by legendary director Ang Lee, reflecting on his cinematic career and in particular the 20th anniversary of “Brokeback Mountain,” which was produced in part by Minnesotan Bill Pohlad.

Most of the 200-plus films, however, are brand-new to the Twin Cities and have more modern themes that are often indigenous to that country yet universal to the human experience.

Including a particular focus on films from Scandinavian nations in a collection called “Midnight Sun” that includes “Folktales,” a documentary about a Norwegian folk school located 800 miles north of the Arctic Circle that’s codirected by Minnesota native Rachel Grady.

There are other home-state connections too, including a film called “Brooklyn, Minnesota” that’s part of a collection called “MN Made.” And Minnesota’s African diaspora might see itself reflected in “Images of Africa” while films from Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking countries are collected under “Cine Latino.”

And there’s not just geographic but demographic diversity, including a group of movies under the banner of “LGBTQ+ Currents,” many movies made by women and diverse filmmakers (organized as “Films by Women” and “BIPOC Stories”) as well as categories of comedies (“Laugh Track”), sports films (“The Sporting Life”) and movies about, well, movies and other creative expression (“The Creative Life”).

Whether any of the entries compete for an Academy Award remains to be seen. But if next year’s contenders are anything like this year’s there will be an international tint to them. “Anora,” after all, may have taken place in Brooklyn but was really about Russians. “The Brutalist” was about a post-Holocaust Hungarian immigrant; the cardinals in “Conclave,” set in Rome, were from around the world; the French-produced “Emilia Perez” was centered mostly in Mexico. And the Brazilian-based “I’m Still Here,” the Best International Feature Film winner, was also nominated for overall best picture (and should have won it, too).

Some of this global blur could be because of a more internationally diverse academy, but “maybe there’s this other thing that’s going on,” mused Susan Smoluchowski, the executive director of the MSP Film Society and the MSP International Film Festival. “Which is that as we continue to isolate ourselves politically from one another there is this yearning among a large segment of the population to try and figure out how to bridge the divide. And so I think that seeing films that tell you about the experience of people you may never have met maybe becomes all the more important these days to the viewing public in this country.”

If there “are 195 countries in the world, and 120 of them have really robust film industries,” continued Smoluchowski, “there may be a good reason to look elsewhere for storytelling.”

Elsewhere is everywhere. But it’s all happening at both the Edina Theatre (a new venue this year), the Landmark Center in St. Paul, and in Minneapolis at the Capri Theater and the Main Cinema, where Smoluchowski said patrons not only screen movies but stroll the river, eat at the restaurants and “make it lively down here; this is what our city needs.” This, she added, “is that other aspect of collective gathering and the democratic nature of going to see a film that makes a difference in terms of a city that needs revitalizing.”

Smoluchowski concluded by commenting on the theater and the festival — but could just have well been speaking about internationally minded moviegoing Minnesotans who are part of a global cohort who hear and heed Baker’s “battle cry” — when she said, “We have a gem, and we have a very special thing happening over here.”