MFAH Film – Passion for Cinema: Northwest Chicago Film Society Presents: Sweetie

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Passion for Cinema: Northwest Chicago Film Society Presents.

Formed in 2011 by a group of film projectionists and programmers, this dedicated organization presents a year-round selection of 35mm and 16mm films from studio vaults, film archives, and private collections.

One of the founders, Kyle Westphal, has accepted the invitation to escape the Chicago winter and present two films at the Museum.

Each screening will be accompanied by customized pre-show trailers.

Sweetie

Director Jane Campion
Released 1989
Country Australia
Running Time 97 minutes
Format 35mm, Color

Presented by Kyle Westphal, Northwest Chicago Film Society.

The first feature film by director Jane Campion, Sweetie screens at the Museum in a 35mm collector’s print.

On the advice of a psychic, Kay (Karen Colston) steals her presumed soul mate from the arms of a coworker. Soon Kay and Louis (Tom Lycos) are living the suburban dream outside Sydney, Australia, working nameless jobs while the honeymoon phase draws to a close.

Enter Dawn, a.k.a. Sweetie (Geneviève Lemon), Kay’s feral, sexually charged sister.

Sweetie is a fever dream occupied by needy, selfish children being literally and figuratively backed into corners. Released four years before Campion became the first (and only, as of 2016) female filmmaker to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes (for The Piano), it contains both the poetry and depravity that can be traced throughout her later work.

Kyle Westphal spent his adolescence in Sacramento, California and learned about movies at the Crest and Tower Theatres. For four years Kyle served variously as treasurer, projectionist, historian, and ultimately programming chair for Doc Films at the University of Chicago.

He has also interned or worked at the Bank of America Cinema, the University of Chicago Film Studies Center, the Little Theatre, Monaco Digital Film Lab, UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Pacific Film Archive, and the George Eastman House. His program notes are featured on Kino’s “Avant-Garde 3” DVD box set, which recently won a Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics.

He is a 2009 graduate of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation.

At the Northwest Chicago Film Society, Kyle serves as co-programmer and writes the organization’s blog. He is interested in avant-garde cinema, early talkies, the history of non-theatrical distribution and exhibition, and everything else. He is working on a book or two.

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/nwcfs