Over the past two decades the European Union Film Festival, presented by the Gene Siskel Film Center, has become a serious rival to the Chicago International Film Festival and a spring counterweight to CIFF’s annual blowout in October. The EU fest may lack the racial diversity and global reach of CIFF, but its programming is just as ambitious if not more so. The 19th edition of the European Union Film Festival opens Friday and runs for four weeks, with 62 new features and numerous personal appearances. Following are some of the highlights, but there’s much more; for a complete schedule visit siskelfilmcenter.org. —J.R. Jones
Lolo Julie Delpy (Before Sunset) directed and stars in this crass but quick-witted comedy (2015), which might have been titled French Women of a Certain Age. A prickly Parisian (Delpy), vacationing with her outspoken girlfriend (Karin Viard) in a seaside town, gets involved with a local beach bum (Dany Boon). What begins as a typical rom-com takes a left turn, however, with the arrival of Lolo, the Delpy character’s bizarre college-age son, whose attempts to get rid of the suitor grow more elaborate and implausible. Smarter than most Apatow clones, this is an infinitely quotable riot, especially when Delpy and Viard share the screen. In French with subtitles. —Adam Morgan 99 min. Sun 3/13, 3 PM, and Thu 3/17, 6 PM.
Phantom Boy In this moving 2015 animation by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli (A Cat in Paris), a young cancer patient with the power to leave his body helps a cop whose legs have been broken bring down a criminal mastermind holding New York City hostage. Able to fly anywhere invisibly, but unable to touch anything, the boy acts as a spy for the cop, who’s been marginalized by the force for his reckless methods, and as a guide to the enterprising journalist also trying to save the city from the gangster. The noirish plotline is smart and engaging, but this French film is most powerful for its treatment of the young hero’s illness; in one scene he uses his supernatural ability to eavesdrop on his family as they discuss him. In French with subtitles. —Eric Lutz 84 min. Thu 3/31, 6:30 PM.
Viva A young, gay hairdresser (Héctor Medina) who styles wigs for a drag troupe in a Havana nightclub starts supplementing his meager income by taking to the stage himself, but just as he’s discovering the joys of performance, his long-absent father (Jorge Perugorría) is released from prison, moves in, and forbids him to go near the club. Irish director Paddy Breathnach and screenwriter Mark O’Halloran tell a familiar coming-of-age story in an unfamiliar setting—beautiful, crumbling, time-frozen Cuba. The grinding poverty of the characters, who barter, borrow, and steal to make ends meet, becomes a backdrop to the central story of an alienated father and son trying to connect. Sentimentality creeps into the closing scenes, undermining the film’s tough-minded realism, but Breathnach and O’Halloran show a real affinity for life in Cuba, a land, like their own, where people see better opportunities overseas. In Spanish with subtitles. —Marilyn Ferdinand R, 100 min. O’Halloran attends the screenings. Sun 3/13, 5 PM, and Mon 3/14, 6 PM.
Fri 3/4-Thu 3/31 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State 312-846-2800 $11
