The Chicago International Film Festival’s Black Perspectives program celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Its phenomenal curation is under the new guidance of Chicago-based artist and scholar jada-amina, who selected the feature narrative and documentary films. Through her lens, audiences have the opportunity to explore the breadth and complexity of Black stories across all genres and styles.
“Finding Your Laughter” is a comedic take on a documentary about the loss of a parent and personal growth. From Chicago’s South Side, director and caregiver Arlieta Hall delivers a heartfelt, complex portrait of slowly losing her father, Milton, to Alzheimer’s disease.
As Hall transitioned from her fulltime job to being a fulltime caregiver in partnership with his wife, Charmaine, she shot daily vignettes of everything, which would form her debut film: The happy, the frustrating, the confusing, the concerning, it’s all there. Her patience is boundless; each moment models levels of love that make the movie’s meaning abundantly joyous in the face of grief. Even in his last years of life, Milton’s body remembers how to groove. These little moments are the heart of “Finding Your Laughter,” showing us at a cellular level, despite the cognitive decline, celebration is possible.
As the story transitions and makes subtle time jumps, animations that resemble a comic strip connect missing elements and significant developments. This choice to fill gaps is simultaneously creative and amplifies the concept of play that Hall is seeking to teach her audience about. The score oscillates between jazzy and acoustic instrumental, mirroring the dance the movie does between its emotional highs and lows.
The narrative is well organized as if its another way of compartementalizing, or coping, with the conflicting life events. What’s most impressive is, while Hall has created an intimate story about one’s parent’s end of life, “Finding Your Laughter” leaves its audience inspired to better bear these burdens with a smile.
As a former art student, I find myself a bit biased towards the practice of animation for its boundary-pushing, endless experimentation. “Ana, en passant” is an elemental collage, piecing together many styles and forms of media. This story of grief and memory is contradictorily beautiful; its poetic depth places personal growth as a byproduct of grief.
The film grounds itself in maternal lineage. Ana, a young woman in Paris, is sent on a journey by her grandmother back to her hometown in Brazil, where Ana meets Alice (both voiced by Jéssica Pierina). “I would cross an ocean to find you,” Ana’s grandmother says to her during their last 90 days together, which Ana brings to fruition in her search for solace. There is no map for one’s memories. In touching documentary-like elements, “Ana, en passant” is an attempt to create a recollection guide.
Meandering between present and past, between reality and daydreams, the story ebbs and flows naturally, yet at times it lets ambiguity lingers around its intended effect. Movement manifests in multiple ways to develop and move along the story. Although Ana is a writer, her inclination to move her body is an inherited habit from her dancer grandmother. Freedom to groove and sway is cathartic while also serving as a connection to ancestral energies. The film subtly showcases the duality of the female body, as Ana and Alice experience their respective growth with regard to opposite stages of human life.
“Ana, en passant” is visually surreal. With each new city-scape scene, the built environment unfurls like budding leaves. In doing so, the construction of the setting mirrors the more natural materials it’s made of. The interior production design is stamped with postage and other analog symbols; the stationery-like materiality showcases a love for what familial archives are made of.
In 1996, “Chocolate Babies” was rejected from the Chicago International Film Festival program; 30 years later, Stephen Winter’s radical, queer film is finally screening at his hometown festival. Set in late 1900s New York, “Chocolate Babies” takes its audience on a wild ride of what it means to live as an HIV-positive person and the broader social and political battle that comes with it.
The movie opens with a gaggle of gays accosting their local city councilman, Melvin Freeman (Bryan Webster). Their vulgarity is backed by facts and statistics, making the problems they raise impossible to ignore, but, of course, the media pegs them as “gay terrorists,” which is just as funny as it sounds. Winter, who served as writer and director of the film, is quite strategic in intertwining the queer and political vernacular. In doing so, the comedic language is also truthful and alarming. “We are Black f****** with a political agenda,” Larva (aka Larry) (Dudley Findlay Jr.) shouts during one of their attacks. While “Chocolate Babies” has many messages for its audience, what was most striking is its ability to spotlight how care sits at the center of every interaction, even when it’s sassy.
After its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 1996 and a small festival run thereafter, Winter’s film never received formal distribution. Due to its somewhat inaccessible nature, it’s easy to deem the film a “cult classic.” For its 25th anniversary, “Chocolate Babies” was restored and remastered by the National Film Preservation Foundation, giving the story new legs to be seen by new audiences.
At times, when the characters and city are silent, one can almost hear the running of the film, adding to the overall visual and sonic texture. Bolstered by the costuming and well-accessorized apartments, the colors of each scene are so saturated, but the warmth of the lighting is quite captivating. This warmth shining on each subject’s face is a reminder of their liveliness in spite of the disease they suffer from.
The longlasting technical excellence of “Chocolate Babies” surely surpasses its original reception, but the story itself festers in the hearts of its viewers because of the performances. Never once does Winter sugarcoat the realities faced by the queer community, and what resonates most is the relationships he develops between his characters. Professional, platonic, romantic, and familial dynamics are all on display. When grief comes to visit, the love remains.
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