The Gene Siskel Film Center has released the schedule for the 11th European Union Film Festival, which runs March 7 through April 13. Though many Chicago film festivals have been contracting, the EU Fest just keeps getting bigger: this year’s edition offers a whopping 61 features, almost all of them screening in the Chicago area for the first time. Among the highlights:
• From Austria, Ulrich Seidl’s Import Export (3/8, 3/11).
• From Denmark, Peter Schonau Fog’s The Art of Crying (3/9, 3/13) and Pernille Rose Gronkjaer’s The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun (3/7, 3/11).
• From Finland, Aku Louhimies’s Frozen Land (3/23, 3/24).
• From France, Olivier Assayas’s Boarding Gate (pictured, 3/8, 3/12), Claude Chabrol’s A Girl Cut in Two (3/23, 3/25), Claude Lelouch’s Roman de Gare (3/16), and Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One (3/15, 3/18).
• From Germany, Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven (3/21, 3/22) and Stefan Krohmer’s Summer ’04 (3/16, 3/17).
• From Hungary, Robert Koltai’s Train Keeps a Rollin’ (3/29, 3/31).
• From Ireland, Tom Collins’s Kings (4/3) and John Boorman’s The Tiger’s Tail (3/22, 3/26).
• From Italy, Gianni Amelio’s The Missing Star (3/29, 3/31) and Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Unknown (3/30, 4/1).
• From the Netherlands, Albert ter Heerdt’s Kicks.
• From Portugal, Paul Auster’s The Inner Life of Martin Frost (3/15, 3/18).
• From Romania, Nae Caranfil’s The Rest Is Silence (3/15, 3/20) and Catalin Mitulescu’s The Way I Spent the End of the World (3/8, 3/13).
• From Spain, Jose Luis Guerin’s In the City of Sylvia (3/28, 3/29), Mercedes Alvarez’s The Sky Turns (3/16, 3/18), and Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes (3/22, 3/26).
• From Sweden, Johan Kling’s Darling (3/14, 3/19) and Klaus Haro’s The New Man (3/30, 4/1).
• From the United Kingdom, Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha (3/8, 3/10) and Ken Loach’s It’s a Free World . . . (3/15, 3/20).