With a number of exciting films on the docket already, the Webster University Film Series is kicking off its 2023 slate this week with one of the most acclaimed international films of 2022, Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO. The film chronicles the journey of a donkey and the people he meets while traveling across Europe, offering an impressionistic view of the modern world through the animal’s eyes.
It’s possible you’ve seen EO topping 2022 year end film lists from critics like Manohla Darghis and Amy Taubin, or filmmakers like John Waters, or you’ve heard about it winning the Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. But up until now, the film had not made it to St. Louis. Alongside the buzz from critics and filmmakers, EO recently made the Oscars’ Best International Film shortlist as the submission from Poland.
Pete Timmermann, director of the Webster University Film Series, notes that the film’s journey from Cannes darling to critic favorite to Oscar shortlist is very similar to that of another big recent international film: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car. “We have [EO] programmed in the same slot where we programmed Drive My Car last year, but they are very different films,” Timmermann says. “EO is only 89 minutes long and sort of a riff on Au hasard Balthazar, the Robert Bresson film.”
In addition to EO, the Webster University Film Series also has a pair of Joe Dante films on the docket later in January. The first, Matinee—a 1993 film that stars St. Louis’ own John Goodman as a kitschy film promoter releasing a movie during the Cuban Missile Crisis—screens on January 22. The second is a new restoration of The Movie Orgy, a hard-to-find, four-hour film composed of clips from other 16-millimeter films that Dante supposedly assembled while in film school. Catch it in the Winifred Moore Auditorium at Webster on January 29.
Timmermann notes that The Movie Orgy previously played locally at SLIFF in 2012, with Dante in attendance, but he jumped at the chance to program it again, as it isn’t available to borrow or stream. “It’s a four-hour-long film, which I realize can be tough to fit into your schedule, unfortunately, so it’s good to give people more than one opportunity to see it,” Timmermann says. “Once every 10 years, I think, is about right.”
Other interesting programming from this year’s film series includes reviving the screening series that accompanies professor Aaron AuBuchon’s “Grave Tales” class with Tod Browning’s Dracula from 1931 on January 26; a 4K restoration of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 2001 masterpiece, Millennium Mambo, from February 10–12; and a Valentine’s Day 35mm screening of Nagisa Oshima’s provocative erotic art film from 1976 In the Realm of the Senses.
EO runs January 5–8 and 12–14. For more information on the Webster University Film Series, visit webster.edu/film-series/.
