Spring is about to sprung. And so is the film festival season. First to peek its head out of the earth is the Wisconsin Film Festival in Madison, which runs April 9 through 16 in Madison.
According to the somewhat fussy online festival guide it will feature 150 films at eight venues.
The festival spotlight will shine on Kenosha native Orson Welles, co-writer-director-star of “Citizen Kane,” to commemorate his 100 year birthday in May.
Welles’ films being presented include his first, a recently rediscovered silent film “Too Much Johnson,” presented with live piano accompaniment.
According to IMDB.com the only copy of was believed destroyed in a fire at Welles’ Spanish villa in 1970 until one turned up in Italy and was restored.
The film was an experiment to be used in a stage production of William Gillette’s farce and was never shown publicly since Paramount owned the movie rights to the play. It marks the screen premiere of Joseph Cotten, who also co-starred in “Kane.”
Other Welles’ works being presented include “Chimes at Midnight” (1965), his film of Shakespeare’s Falstaff; “Crack in the Mirror” (1960) a melodrama starring Welles directed by Richard Fleischer; and the biographical documentary “Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles,” (2014) directed by Chuck Workman. Watch a trailer for “Magician” below.
In May, Kenosha is also holding a monthlong celebration of Welles’ birth.
The festival’s home page refers to “End of the Tour” as its featured film, though it does not appear in the alphabetical listing in the guide. It stars Jason Segel as the writer David Foster Wallace during a promotional tour for his book “Infinite Jest,” with Jesse Eisenberg as a reporter interviewing him. It is by “Smashed” and “The Spectacular Now” director James Ponsoldt.
Other films note being shown at the Wisconsin Film Festival include:
— Foreign language Oscar nominee “Timbuktu” about a cattle herder and his family whose lives are disrupted by jihadists;
–The documentary “Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant, Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon”;
–The documentary “Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Canon Films”:
–David Gordon Green’s “Manglehorn,” with Al Pacino and Holly Hunter;
–The documentary “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” co-produced Cobain’s daughter and featuring interviews with his wife Courtney Love and band members;
Tickets go on sale on-line and by phone Saturday.
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