When travelling to a library conference I always try to make time to see a movie at the local arthouse theater. Upon looking up my options during ACRL 2025, I was delighted to discover that the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival was opening the same day as my arrival! Despite the best efforts of United Airlines (5/6 flights I took on this trip were delayed) to derail my plans, I was able to see three movies at The Main Cinema, which has a pretty amazing Midwest industrial (neon signs advertise Gold Medal Flour and Grain Belt Beer) riverfront view of downtown Minneapolis. I actually want to begin this dispatch with a meal, though, because it was the best part of my experience.
Despite the fact that Owamni has been hailed by both the James Beard Foundation and the New Yorker as one of the best restaurants in the country, I was easily able to grab a seat at the bar as a walk-in by arriving between the lunch and dinner rushes. When Sean Sherman, aka The Sioux Chef, appeared on Top Chef last year as a guest judge, I noted that “if I could conjure up a Michelin-starred restaurant in Ithaca, it would serve food like what we saw on this episode,” which was devoted to indigenous American foodways. Owamni is even more impressive than what I imagined because it doesn’t just serve delicious, innovative food in a beautiful airy lightbox setting, it’s also approachable. Although the wait staff was still clearly getting to know the new spring menu, all of their recommendations were spot-on and they cheerfully tracked down the answers to all of my questions about unfamiliar preparations like ashela (a savory porridge) and ingredients. I started with “their version of bar nuts,” crickets and popcorn, and a pint of Lake Monster Brewing Company‘s Last Fathom Wild Rice Lager, which “came out like a stout” like my server said it would and went great with the sweet (from candied seeds) and savory (toasty dried insects flavored with, I believe, sumac) snack. I also loved the jammy blackberry mignonette that came with my oysters (from Washington) on the half-shell and the micro-carrot tops that garnished that dish and my vegetarian tartare, which also featured dried huckleberries, pickled juniper shallots, and fresh raspberries that brought everything together. The star of my meal was definitely the duck papusa, though, which sat atop an incredible red pepián mole that I couldn’t get enough of and which paired exceptionally well with a glass of Bruma Ocho Rosé from Mexico’s Valle de Guadalupe.
I don’t fault Quisling: The Final Days, the movie I saw after walking across the Mississippi via the Stone Arch Bridge, for failing to live up to this memorable repast, but I do object to its weak tea version of The Zone of Interest‘s fascination with the inner lives of demonstrably evil individuals in denial. It’s a thoroughly professional production anchored by strong performances by Gard B. Eidsvold in the title role and Joachim Trier’s muse Anders Danielsen Lie as the priest assigned to show him the error of his ways, which if successful would somehow benefit the church and Norway. The most interesting thing about it for me, however, was the palpably approving reaction of the (fairly large) audience I saw it with to a scene in the final reel immediately after director Erik Poppe’s own The Act of Killing reference, which served as a visceral reminder of how much pleasure people take in seeing the mighty humbled. I worry that it’s this more than the healthy fear that something rotten inside ourselves explains the sorry state that the world is in which accounts for its The Zone of Interest‘s success, but that may just be me being cynical.
Sister Midnight, a bizarro companion piece to fellow Cannes 2024 alum All We Imagine as Light (one of my favorite films of Movie Year 2024), was much more my speed. Both are about Indian women trapped in unfulfilling arranged marriages, but where Kani Kusruti’s Prabha adopts an alternative family of female friends in the latter, Sister Midnight‘s Uma (Radhika Apte) literally creates a pack of stop-motion vampire goats to run with. The late night double feature picture show vibe is further reenforced by an entertainingly eclectic international pop music soundtrack and a kitchen sink approach to horror comedy tropes, but what I enjoyed most were the Jarmusch-like rhythms of Uma’s game if resentful initial attempts to adapt to the tedium of her new life as a Mumbai housewife. Director-writer Karan Kandhari is very deserving of his BAFTA Film Award nominee for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer for this movie and is definitely someone to keep an eye on.
The MSPIFF selection I enjoyed most was the first one I saw, The Things You Kill, which the programmer who introduced it explicitly identified as being indebted to the late great David Lynch by way of preparing us for a mid-film narrative logic curveball, but an even more salient influence is Asghar Farhadi, who numerous internet sources state that director Alireza Khatami worked under as AD (although none seem to indicate on which productions), specifically his magnum opus The Salesman. The Things You Kill is every bit as interested in how much an American text can teach us about another society and the people who belong to it, only here the object of scrutiny is a comparative literature professor who lived abroad for 14 years instead of a play. It also features breathtaking Anatolian landscapes and a short-tempered teacher that serves as a bridge between Khatami’s country of birth Iran (see Universal Language for a recent example) and Turkey (About Dry Grasses, another movie on my 2024 top ten list) where this film is set. I wish it delved a bit deeper into how frustrating and emotionally exhausting infertility issues can be for couples who want to have children, and I’m not sure how believable some of the actions of the protagonist played by both Ekin Koç and Ercan Kesal are if you’ve never known anyone who has struggled against them, but The Things You Kill is a first-rate psychological drama which is right up there with Eephus and The Woman in the Yard as one of the best movies I’ve seen so far this year.
All in all I was pretty impressed by MSPIFF’s lineup, venue and setting! I love a city that makes it cheap and easy to get from the airport to downtown via light rail, and the stadiums of a number of professional sports teams are all located within walking distance of the festival, so I could definitely see my my family returning as part of a vacation that also includes watching the Knicks play the Timberwolves or the Mets play the Twins, or maybe even a Minnesota Lynx game if the festival or the WNBA changes its schedule. I just might be more selective about who I choose to fly with, is all.
Previous posts about film festivals can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 