CIFF 2024: The Light of Truth: Richard Hunt's Monument to Ida B. Wells, Passages of Time, Slice of Life: The American Dream. In former pizza huts

Amid the grim offerings of the Chicago International Film Festival, I was comforted by a trio of documentaries, which are enchanting reminders that hope for renewal and transformation is never far away. A son trying to connect with his mother amid her advanced dementia, the construction of an iconic Chicago landmark, former Pizza Hut restaurants being repurposed into places where people of marginalized identities can gather and find comfort find – these are the narrative gateways to this uplifting story. proclamation. That is not to say that these documentaries do not deal with serious or heavy topics. While they don’t shy away from portraying hardship, they celebrate how hope doesn’t have to be superficial or naive, but can be just as multi-dimensional as grief.

Director Rana Segal “The Light of Truth: Richard Hunt’s Monument to Ida B. Wells” is an eye-opening exercise that highlights the symbiotic relationship between art and activism. It follows the late sculptor Richard Hunt as he built the “Light of Truth” monument in honor of activist and suffragist Ida B. Wells. The 11-meter-high monument is currently located in the Bronzeville neighborhood. As Segal documents Hunt’s building process and sheds light on how he became interested in art and sculpture, she draws interesting parallels between his artistry and Wells’ activism.

It would have been easy for a documentary like this to force a connection between the two artists if there were superficial similarities, but “The Light of Truth” avoids this by showing how inherently Wells and Hunt were fighting the same battle. for racial justice, equality and dignity, simply through separate media. In one scene, Segal explores how Hunt’s work took a distinct turn after seeing Emmet Till’s mutilated body. His art became much more politically charged as he explored the specifics of black suffering through the lens of abstraction. In this way, Hunt was an artist turned activist. Segal also cleverly shows the converse by focusing on how Wells’ writing and authorship was his form of artistry. By bringing Hunt and Wells into conversation, even though they lived in different times, Segal and her team push back against the idea that justice work is ever done in isolation; a common connection in time and space.

Vince Singelton, an assistant professor at the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago who served as the film’s cinematographer, also elevates the film in the way he presents the monument being erected. Incorporating a mix of drone shots and close-ups, the monument feels both larger than life and accessibly intimate; it speaks to the way that Wells and Hunt, for all their groundbreaking work, were ultimately also people who weren’t looking for a platform, but rather wanted to care for the communities in which they found themselves.

A homegrown story from director Kyle Henry, also an associate professor at Northwestern, “Time Passages” is a disarmingly devastating and sweet documentary about what it means to be honest and honorable when telling stories about our family. It serves as a time capsule for Henry as he documents his relationship with his elderly mother, Elaine, who struggles with dementia at the height of his filmmaking. This takes place at the height of lockdown, so a lot of the conversation footage consists of Henry’s video calls with Elaine.

Some of my favorite documentaries experiment with form in ways that don’t compromise their message. Henry’s stories in ‘Time Passages’ are experimental, using unconventional documentary techniques (in one scene he has a conversation with himself playing his mother, wig and all; in another scene he reenacts an argument that his parents, but he uses figurine models and voice-over). It’s a feature, not a bug, though, as his ever-flowing storytelling tells of the strange way time passed during the height of lockdown and how disembodied our interactions were. This is a story specific to him and his mother, but what’s moving is how he uses the particulars of his own experiences to make universal observations about the pain of documenting decline.

Henry has a way of casually asking the most profound questions, questions that stick to your ribs long after the film’s action has passed his investigation (“Are all these stories important to remember?” he muses in one scene) . By the end, “Time Passages” is a film that celebrates life in its multifaceted complexity, reminding us that we can be with someone their entire lives and yet never truly know them. There is sadness here, but also beauty, because that simply means that people have a wealth of personality and identity that overshadows our ability to fully understand it.

I didn’t expect to get emotional watching a documentary about the past, present and future of Pizza Hut. That of director Matthew Salleh “Slice of Life: The American Dream. In former pizza huts.” stood out to me because of the personal approach needed for the compelling story. Although Pizza Hut may still be in business (there Are at least thirteen within Chicago city limits), many of them have had to close their doors in recent years. Salleh describes how a handful of small business owners recreated these shuttered Pizza Hut buildings with their striking trapezoidal windows and unique roof structure in their image. From an LGBTQ+-friendly church in Florida to a cannabis dispensary in Colorado, the film serves as an anthology of resilience and renewal as communities find new homes and a place to gather. The film honors people who no longer have to be alone.

The fun of Salleh’s film is meeting the different personalities who have given the buildings a new purpose. It’s interesting to see how they took the same layout but did something unique based on their business needs; the aforementioned church transformed its trapezoidal windows into stained glass windows, while Jim Hillaker, owner of the Pizza-Hut-turned-cannabis shop, jokes, “Now we have our own salad bar with our own variety of lettuce.” Salleh also weaves in the history of the founding of Pizza Hut and how the chain is unique among other fast food restaurants in the way it employs inventive marketing strategies.

It’s fitting that even as some franchises close, their renovation embodies the metamorphic spirit of Pizza Hut. “If things keep changing, beauty can come out of it,” said Susan Charron, a deacon at the church. It reminded me of a verse in the Bible where God commands God’s people to “beat their swords into plowshares,” indicating how something used for harmful purposes can be turned into something life-giving. “Pizza shacks in cannabis dispensaries” may not sound quite the same, but the sentiment applies there too.