"After Sherman," directed by Jon Sesrie-Goff. Courtesy of Cinema St. Louis.
The Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival is back for its 31st iteration, kicking off on Thursday, November 3, and running through Sunday, November 13. This year’s SLIFF features both virtual and in-person screenings of 256 films at venues around St. Louis, including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Plaza Frontenac, Galleria 6 Cinema, Webster University, and Washington University. The slate of programming features work from local filmmakers, early favorites for award season, and a tribute to Cliff Froehlich, the recently retired executive director of Cinema St. Louis, to name a few. With that in mind, here's handful of films you should keep on your radar as you build out your schedule for SLIFF 2022:
A standout from the 2022 True/False Film Fest, After Sherman is an expressionistic new documentary from director Jon Sesrie-Goff. In it, he explores the concepts of inheritance and tension as they relate to American history and Black history. Sesrie-Goff follows his father, a minister in Charleston, South Carolina, reflecting on the way faith and Gullah cultural retention are used as a form of survival in the wake of a mass shooting at his church.
The latest from Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda, whose previous film, Shoplifters, played SLIFF back in 2018, follows a laundry shop owner and his buddy who carry off a seemingly abandoned infant, hoping to sell him on the black market to help pay for gambling debts. But when the mother unexpectedly returns, the two confess that their motives were altruistic, and the unlikely trio find themselves working together to find worthy parents for the baby.
This documentary from Bradford Thomason & Brett Whitcomb profiles the beloved children’s program Reading Rainbow, and the equally beloved host, LeVar Burton. The film digs into the ways the series set forth an approach to children’s literary television that didn’t talk down to its audience and ultimately inspired a generation of voracious readers.
The latest from Sam Mendes, director of 2020 Best Picture nominee 1917, and cinematographer Roger Deakins is a love letter to the ways music and film bring us all together in difficult times. Set around an aging cinema in a working class town in the 1980s, Empire of Light brings together a cast that includes Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, and Colin Firth in a story that is full of nostalgia and surprises.
Director Ali Abbasi’s latest follows the true story of the Iranian serial killer known as the “Spider Killer,” a family man and devout Shia Muslim who killed 16 women between 2000 and 2001, believing he was on a mission from God. Abbasi’s film follows Rahimi, a journalist working to uncover the killer’s identity while navigating an increasingly troubling and complicated press narrative.
Danny Tedesco, whose film The Wrecking Crew played SLIFF in 2008, profiles a group of friends who became the studio band for some of the biggest names in music in 1970s, including James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Linda Ronstadt and many more. Tedesco’s documentary charts the journey these musicians took and how they helped usher in a new era of musical history.
In She Said, director Maria Schrader explores the real-life Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, played by Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan, respectively, two New York Times journalists who broke the story that not only launched the #MeToo movement into the public consciousness, but also brought to light stories of sexual assault in Hollywood that had long fallen on deaf ears.
A follow-up and spiritual sequel to his 2020 Oscar-nominated film, The Father, Florian Zeller’s The Son follows Hugh Jackman’s Peter as a father whose already busy life with a newborn and a new wife is thrown for a loop by the arrival of his emotionally troubled teenage son from a previous marriage. Peter struggles to find the balance in his life as he juggles his new family, correcting mistakes made with his son, and the pursuit of his dream job.
Underneath: Children of the Sun
David Kirkman’s feature debut, an Afrofuturist sci-fi epic, gives new meaning to a Missouri-based film. When an alien crash-lands in Little Dixie, Missouri, in 1857, a local enslaved man is unwittingly thrust into the center of a galactic crisis. An epic struggle for power unfolds as an ultra-powerful alien artifact changes hands for generations here on Earth.
Based on the acclaimed novel by Miriam Toews, Sarah Polley’s film centers on a Mennonite colony reeling from multiple instances of sexual abuse, as the women of the community gather to discuss how they should respond, bumping up against questions of faith, agency, and survival. The film’s cast includes Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw, and Frances McDormand.
For tickets and passes, as well as a full schedule of films for the 31st annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival visit cinemastlouis.org.
