Radiant Shadows: The Films of Pedro Costa

WHERE DOES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE LIE? (PEDRO COSTA, 2001, 104 MIN, DIGITAL, FRANCE)

SICILIA! (JEAN-MARIE STRAUB AND DANIÈLE HUILLET, 1999, 66 MIN, 35MM, ITALY/FRANCE)

With filmmaker in person!

“The best film ever made about editing and cinema.” – Jean-Luc Godard

“A revelatory study of the moviemaking process, an artistic manifesto on the wing, and a touching glimpse of an exceptional love story.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

A candid portrait of the working relationship between German filmmaking duo Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, WHERE DOES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE LIE? is both a revelatory film about the process of film editing and an unexpected romantic comedy anchored on arguments about the ethical and aesthetic implications of a cut in filmmaking. A deep influence of Pedro Costa, his still digital camera set up silently observes and pays tribute to Straub and Huillet as they re-edit their 1999 film SICILIA! at the French art school Le Fresnoy. An observational and tender portrait of the division of labor in the editing room, WHERE DOES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE LIE? captures long-winded, impassioned, and ruminating philosophical soliloquies about the filmmaking process by Straub and a patient and practical, frame-by-frame working hand on the editing table by Huillet.

Costa’s reverential documentary will be paired with a special 35mm presentation of Straub and Huillet’s SICILIA!, per the filmmaker’s request. An hour-long adaptation of Ellio Vittorini’s anti-fascist novel “Conversations in Sicily,” the film follows the homecoming of a Sicilian man returning from life in New York City. Straub and Huillet’s interwoven portrait of unforgettable characters and stunning black & white vignettes include an orange peddler curious about life in America, a mother announcing her separation from a philandering husband while cooking traditional dishes and reflecting on socialism and labor, and a traveling knife-sharpener rattling off the joys and insults of life. “Something as simple as a herring roasting on a hearth, or a meal of bread, wine and winter melon, takes on the humble aura of a Caravaggio painting” in Straub Huillet’s operatic assertion of Sicilian life.

SICILIA! 35mm print courtesy of Miguel Abreu Gallery and BELVA.

Following the screening, Pedro Costa will appear in person for a conversation with the audience.

The Block Museum is proud to partner with the MFA in Documentary Media, the Department of Radio, Television, and Film, and the School of Communications at Northwestern to welcome Pedro Costa as a 2024 Hoffman Visiting Artist for Documentary Media.

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Tags: Block Museum, Evanston, Northwestern University, Pedro Costa, Radiant Shadows: The Films of Pedro Costa, SICILIA!, WHERE DOES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE LIE?