Schedule of Events:

Thursday, April 11, 2024

5:30 - 9pm: Ghostlight

Celebrate Opening Night of the fourth annual AfterImage Film Festival at the Charlestowne Cinema! We will be presenting the Illinois premiere(!) of the 2024 Sundance film 'Ghostlight' from writers/directors Alex Thompson and Kelly O'Sullivan.

Starting at 5:30pm, guests will be treated to an open bar and selection of heavy hor d'oeuvres courtesy of a top local chef. The film screening will begin at 7:00pm. Following the screening, we'll be joined by stars Keith Kupferer, Tara Mallen and Katherine Mallen-Kupferer for a post-screening Q&A with the audience.

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Friday, April 12, 2024

5:00pm: The Arc of Oblivion

The Arc of Oblivion explores a quirk of humankind: in a universe that erases its tracks, we humans are hellbent on leaving a trace. Set against the backdrop of the filmmaker's quixotic quest to build an ark in a field in Maine, the film heads far afield – to salt mines in the Alps, fjords in the Arctic, and ancient libraries in the Sahara – to illuminate the strange world of archives, record-keeping, and memory. Playfully weaving stop-motion animation, spellbinding cinematography and fascinating interviews from the director's inner circle and experts in the fields of science, culture and art – including documentarians Werner Herzog and Kirsten Johnson – THE ARC OF OBLIVION reveals how nature inspires the human drive behind filmmaking

5:30pm: The Gullspang Miracle

A seemingly divine premonition leads Norwegian sisters Kari and May to buy an apartment in the small Swedish town of Gullspång. To their surprise, the seller looks surprisingly similar to their older sister Astrid, who committed suicide thirty years earlier. What’s even more odd is that this doppelgänger used to go by “Lita,” the same nickname as their deceased sister.

What begins as an eerie story of destiny, faith and improbable coincidence soon becomes a Pandora’s Box of stranger-than-fiction revelations and awkwardly comical mishaps in this “riveting” and “one-of-a-kind” documentary that is “complete with Lynchian echoes of Twin Peaks” (The Hollywood Reporter).

6:00pm: The Crime Is Mine

Paris in the 1930s — a playground for industrial heirs and debonair architects, but the City of Lights does not shine evenly for all. Struggling actress Madeleine (Nadia Terezkiewicz) and her best friend Pauline (Rebecca Marder), an unemployed lawyer, live in a cramped flat and owe five months’ rent. Opportunity knocks after a lascivious theatrical producer who made an inappropriate advance towards Madeleine turns up dead. Madeleine stands trial for murder and ascends to decadent stardom, with Pauline serving as defense counsel and media circus ringmaster. A new life of fame, wealth, and tabloid celebrity awaits — until the truth comes out. Adapted from a 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil and featuring a murder’s row of a supporting cast including Isabelle Huppert, Dany Boon, and Fabrice Luchini, The Crime Is Mine is a rollicking farce and scabrous satire with a wily feminist edge from one of French cinema’s most chameleonic stylists, François Ozon.

7:30pm: All Happy Families

Chicago native Haroula Rose (Once Upon a River) directs this delightful dysfunctional family comedy about Graham Landry (Josh Radnor), an eternally aspiring actor in Chicago who’s stuck in a funk and living in his family’s crumbling two-flat. When an old college crush (Chandra Russel) comes looking to rent the first floor apartment at the same time as his TV star brother Will’s (Rob Huebel) return home, Graham must finally grow up — if he can get out of his own way.

With a stellar cast of comic talents led by the lovable Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) and the love-to-hate Huebel (Childrens Hospital) and David Pasquesi playing a sleazy family friend, All Happy Families wrings humor and pathos from its flawed, yet sympathetic cast of characters as they try to overcome bad choices, entrenched sexism, and their own human foibles.

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Saturday, April 13, 2024

1:30pm: The Crime Is Mine

“The epitome of a comfort film, decked out in old-Hollywood nostalgia and unfolding at an auctioneer’s clip.”  - The New York Times

2:00pm: The Gullspång Miracle

A seemingly divine premonition leads Norwegian sisters Kari and May to buy an apartment in the small Swedish town of Gullspång. To their surprise, the seller looks surprisingly similar to their older sister Astrid, who committed suicide thirty years earlier. What’s even more odd is that this doppelgänger used to go by “Lita,” the same nickname as their deceased sister.

What begins as an eerie story of destiny, faith and improbable coincidence soon becomes a Pandora’s Box of stranger-than-fiction revelations and awkwardly comical mishaps in this “riveting” and “one-of-a-kind” documentary that is “complete with Lynchian echoes of Twin Peaks” (The Hollywood Reporter).

3:45pm: Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All

With forty years of making music as the iconic folk-rock band Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have made their mark as musicians, songwriters, and dedicated activists. They have represented radical self-acceptance to many, leading multiple generations of fans to say, “the Indigo Girls saved my life.” Still, Amy and Emily battled misogyny, homophobia, and a harsh cultural climate chastising them for not fitting into a female pop star mold. With joy, humor, and heart-warming earnestness, Sundance award-winning director Alexandria Bombach brings us into a contemporary conversation with Amy and Emily—alongside decades of the band's home movies and intimate present-day verité.

5:00pm: All Happy Families

Chicago native Haroula Rose (Once Upon a River) directs this delightful dysfunctional family comedy about Graham Landry (Josh Radnor), an eternally aspiring actor in Chicago who’s stuck in a funk and living in his family’s crumbling two-flat. When an old college crush (Chandra Russel) comes looking to rent the first floor apartment at the same time as his TV star brother Will’s (Rob Huebel) return home, Graham must finally grow up — if he can get out of his own way.

With a stellar cast of comic talents led by the lovable Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) and the love-to-hate Huebel (Childrens Hospital) and David Pasquesi playing a sleazy family friend, All Happy Families wrings humor and pathos from its flawed, yet sympathetic cast of characters as they try to overcome bad choices, entrenched sexism, and their own human foibles.

5:30pm: Wildcat

Directed and co-written by four-time Academy Award® nominee Ethan Hawke, WILDCAT invites the audience to weave in and out of celebrated Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor's mind as she ponders the great questions of her writing: Can scandalous art still serve God? Does suffering precede all greatness? Can illness be a blessing? In 1950, Flannery (Maya Hawke) visits her mother Regina (Laura Linney) in Georgia when she is diagnosed with lupus at twenty-four years old. Struggling with the same disease that took her father’s life when she was a child and desperate to make her mark as a great writer, this crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief. As she dives deeper into her craft, the lines between reality, imagination, and faith begin to blur, allowing Flannery to ultimately come to peace with her situation and heal a strained relationship with her mother.

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Sunday, April 14, 2024

1:00pm: Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere

Steve Schapiro is perhaps the most important photographer of the mid-20th century that you've never heard of. Over his six-decade career, Steve bore witness to some of the most significant social and cultural moments in modern American history, from the Civil Rights movement to Hollywood's golden era of the 1970s. Steve counts among his myriad subjects Martin Luther King, Jr., Barbara Streisand, James Baldwin, Robert Redford, Steven Spielberg, Samuel Beckett, Andy Warhol and David Bowie.

Shot shortly before his passing in 2022, Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere is a loving tribute to a man who was the quintessential "fly on the wall," waiting for moments to unfold and capturing them with a naturalism and skill that's nothing short of dazzling.

2:00pm: The Arc of Oblivion

The Arc of Oblivion explores a quirk of humankind: in a universe that erases its tracks, we humans are hellbent on leaving a trace. Set against the backdrop of the filmmaker's quixotic quest to build an ark in a field in Maine, the film heads far afield – to salt mines in the Alps, fjords in the Arctic, and ancient libraries in the Sahara – to illuminate the strange world of archives, record-keeping, and memory. Playfully weaving stop-motion animation, spellbinding cinematography and fascinating interviews from the director's inner circle and experts in the fields of science, culture and art – including documentarians Werner Herzog and Kirsten Johnson – THE ARC OF OBLIVION reveals how nature inspires the human drive behind filmmaking

2:30pm: Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All

With forty years of making music as the iconic folk-rock band Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have made their mark as musicians, songwriters, and dedicated activists. They have represented radical self-acceptance to many, leading multiple generations of fans to say, “the Indigo Girls saved my life.” Still, Amy and Emily battled misogyny, homophobia, and a harsh cultural climate chastising them for not fitting into a female pop star mold. With joy, humor, and heart-warming earnestness, Sundance award-winning director Alexandria Bombach brings us into a contemporary conversation with Amy and Emily—alongside decades of the band's home movies and intimate present-day verité.

Buy Tickets

Date: April 11-14, 2024

Location: Classic Cinemas Charlestowne 18 Theatre - 3740 E Main St, St. Charles, IL 60174

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