Festival screenings are held at AMC River East 21 (AMC), 322 Illinois St.; Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema (LM), 2828 N. Clark St.; and Thorne Auditorium, on Northwestern University’s Chicago campus (THN), 375 E. Chicago Ave. For more Tribune coverage of the fest, visit www.chicagotribune.com/filmfest. For ticket information, contact Ticketmaster at 312-902-1500 or the Festival hotline at 312-332-FILM. For a complete schedule, visit www.chicagofilmfestival.com.
Pick of the Day
“Days of Glory” (star)(star)(star)
(Rachid Bouchareb; France/Algeria; 2:00)
The leading male actors in this French-Algerian co-production (“Indigenes” was its original title) took home a collective best-actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The film itself is a solid, suspenseful World War II story, in which four North Africans fight on behalf of their colonizers, the French, against the Germans. For these men proving their mettle in battle is one thing; getting the respect they deserve — and, postwar, the pensions — proves quite another. 7 p.m. Sun., THN; 4 p.m. Mon., LM.
— Michael Phillips
Other choices
“Slumming” (star)(star)1/2
(Michael Glawogger; Austria/Switzerland; 1:40)
This contemporary fable set in Vienna traces the paths of nasty prankster Sebastian, who lives slickly off his father’s money, and street poet Kallmann, who drinks and lives a harmless yet disheveled existence. Sebastian’s revolting jokes begin with surreptitious photos of women and elevate to his meeting with Kallmann, whom he finds passed out on a park bench. With his roommate, Sebastian loads Kallmann into the trunk of his luxury car and drives across a border, leaving Kallmann on another park bench. Their separate journeys home lead them down vastly different paths. As Kallmann, Paulus Manker supplies just the right mix of rage and intelligence, without which this engaging movie would completely fall apart. 8:30 p.m. Sun., AMC; 6 p.m. Mon., LM; 6:30 p.m. Wed., LM.
— Scott L. Powers
Summercamp!’ (star)(star)(star)
(Bradley Beesley and Sarah Price, U.S.; 1:25)
More Top Picks Electric Grills
Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes sweet and always engaging, this documentary about a summer at the Swift Nature Camp in Minong, Wis., is a rustic gem. Apart from kids enjoying summer camp standards (canoeing, crafts, archery, fishing, etc.), the filmmakers get the inside scoop on what the campers and counselors are really thinking. From “who likes whom” tales of burgeoning love to to counselors concerned by the numbers of campers on meds for ADD, ADHD or depression, the young people really strike a chord. Noon Sun., AMC.
— Michael Esposito
“Shoot the Messenger” (star)(star)(star)
(Ngozi Onwurah, U.K.; 1:40)
A provocative look at race, identity and forgiveness, “Shoot the Messenger” has at its center a prickly yet sympathetic narrator in Joe (David Oyelowo), who gives up a successful career in computers to assist young black men by becoming a teacher. His good intentions go awry when he has a run-in with recalcitrant student Jamal, who charges Joe with assault, sending him down the economic and social ladder. As his journey wends through a mental hospital, homelessness and janitorial work, he decides his problem is other black people, his curse his black skin. But two black women (Jay Byrd as mothering angel Mabel, Nikki Amuka Bird as his grounded girlfriend, Heather) help him find a path to redemption and reconciliation. 2 p.m. Sat., AMC; 4 p.m. Sun, AMC; 6:30 p.m. Tue., AMC.
— Maureen M. Hart
“Son of Man” (star)(star)(star)
(Mark Dornford-May, South Africa; 1:26)
Take the story of Jesus and set it in the present-day (fictional) war-torn African Kingdom of Judea, and you have the clever idea behind “Son of Man.” After eluding soldiers by playing dead beside people executed in a school, a woman flees to give birth in a shantytown to a baby named Jesus. She saves him from the death squads of the ruler Herode, and he grows up to preach peace and pacifism, and perform the occasional miracle, while traveling the poverty-racked nation. His popularity worries the Democratic Coalition and The Elders, who seized power after Herode’s death, and soon Jesus is “disappeared,” but his death serves to rally the people against oppression. (In Xhosa and English, with English subtitles.) 6:15 p.m. Sun., AMC; 4 p.m. Mon., AMC; 4:15 p.m. Wed., AMC.
— Michael Esposito