CHICAGO PREMIERE  System Ali, a hip hop group from Jaffa, bridge religious and cultural divides through their music in a part of Israel where racial prejudice and political assimilation reign.

In less than four minutes we share the ups and downs of a couple getting ready for a big date at a surprising location.

Donations are tax-deductible, and they help cover costs that ticket sales don't.

CHICAGO PREMIERE  A Russian and a German soldier temporarily escape the hell of war by bonding over a discarded piano during the Battle of Stalingrad.

CHICAGO PREMIERE A comedy troupe composed of second-generation
immigrants takes on cultural stereotypes with their irreverent, and sometimes scandalous, rap spoofs.

CHICAGO PREMIERE A wannabe beatnik opens an art gallery to attract girls, but when painter's block hits, he builds a robot to help him out of his jam.

CHICAGO PREMIERE A young American jazz violinist traces the legacy of
legendary Polish musician Zbigniew Seifert.

US PREMIERE At an Australian festival, experimental musicians from
around the globe gather to redefine what is meant by the word "music."

US PREMIERE A struggling composer fantasizes his way through difficult
decisions about the choice between his art and the hard facts of life.

CHICAGO PREMIERE  Through dance, this film tells the story of a young woman who becomes possessed by spirits and, through this experience, finds her history, her 'self' and her power.

It is unfortunate that with the exception of a few sunflowers hardly anybody knows this old man with his conspicuous hearing aide. Because when 'City Wasp' roams the streets of Chicago at night, cars fall from the sky and unite as a hooting, tooting city orchestra.

CHICAGO PREMIERE  This film explores how a seventeen-year-old developed from a National Science Foundation award-winning "science geek" to an internationally acclaimed musician and composer.

WORLD PREMIERE  People's obsessions dictate their actions and their actions reinforce their obsessions in a never-ending cycle. Three people with no cause to feel unease behave in peculiar ways in order to escape their misgivings.

WORLD PREMIERE  Documentation of hardcore punk in Adelaide, South Australia. Kids start bands and play loud music in places they shouldn’t. The need to create and the need to destroy against a backdrop of urban decay. This is happening in your city and you’ll never know it. What we do is secret.

WORLD PREMIERE After a discussion of “requests”, Jay plays a spritely classical piece. During this ANIMATED segment we realize it’s all a darkly comic ritual that the broken, non-functioning brothers perform in an attempt to get at their pain...

US PREMIERE Conductor Jean-Claude Casadesus, known for his dedication
to taking music to new audiences such as prisons and hospitals, conducts the French Young People's Orchestra and shares his outspoken zeal for classical music.

US PREMIERE The kids at Project Moonshine (see feature listing for SLEEPING NIGHTS AWAKE) capture Chicago's underground blues-rock quartet in concert in Reno.