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CIMMFest marries music and movies

This Thursday, the seventh Chicago International Movies and Music Festival begins making a racket and throwing images on screens for four days of narrative features, music documentaries and live performances. The action is concentrated in the Wicker Park and Logan Square neighborhoods along a two-mile stretch of Milwaukee Avenue.

It’s big, and getting bigger each year. The website — cimmfest.org — makes for a fine orientation session. First-time CIMMfest director of programming Adam Montgomery, who is based in Los Angeles and holds a similar and higher-profile position at the venerable Sundance Film Festival located in Park City, Utah, says that each year CIMMfest “gets a little closer to something that’s on the radar of festivalgoers around the world. When I see what happens in Austin with South by Southwest, I think: What if we could achieve that? That’s an event.“

This year’s festival features movies about all kinds of music, from the Kinks to Muddy Waters to the Residents to the Mekons, plus dozens of local and visiting musicians in concert. Here’s what caught my eye: For those coming at CIMMfest through the door marked “movies,” there’s a particular grouping of films showcasing live musical accompaniment. Three of the four films are silents, though they’ll hardly be quiet; all hold serious promise for sonic and visual pleasure, not to mention at least one tantalizing cross-cultural provocation.

On April 17 at 1st Ward, near the intersection of North and Milwaukee avenues, the 1925 Buster Keaton comedy “Seven Chances” will be screened with a Bollywood-tinged live score performed by Dominic Johnson of New Millennium Orchestra and veena artist Saraswathi Ranganathan. Plus: the three-person Kalapriya Dancers troupe. Plus plus: video samplings interpolated by Davis McCarty.

That sounds ambitious as well as potentially…busy. But “what’s really beautiful,” Ranganthan asserts, “is the classic chase scene, epic, really, in ‘Seven Chances’ combined with the lush beauty of the music.” The score, largely improvised, will feature viola, veena, tabla and trance.

April 18 brings Sergei Eisenstein’s unfinished 1932 documentary “Que Viva Mexico!” to the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen, as scored by Sones de Mexico with all their 30-plus instruments at the ready. Zacbe Pichardo acts as music director for the six-musician ensemble on this film project. Juan Dies is another member of the sextet, which has been rehearsing for the Eisenstein showcase at a studio in Humboldt Park.

“This is something new for us,” Dies acknowledges, adding that Facebook-stoked interest has been strong enough to add a second screening. “Our band’s been around 21 years, we’ve been through ups and downs, burnout periods, and this is our third project in a row, with only a month to prepare. But everyone’s rising to the occasion. The band is truly excited.” The music, he says, is being tailored for regional specificity and flavor, as “Que Viva Mexico!” travels to Oaxaca and beyond. Edited down from dozens of hours of silent footage, Eisenstein’s aborted tribute to Mexico typically circulates in versions featuring recorded narration (and subtitles) added after filming. For the CIMMfest screenings, Chicago film location scout Stefan Nikolov — “a Bulgarian who grew up in Mexico,” says Dies — will narrate the film in Spanish while English subtitles appear on screen.

A true paragon of the late silent era, Josef von Sternberg’s gorgeous 1928 waterfront romance “The Docks of New York” evokes a vanished grunge ideal of downtown Manhattan as seen through the eyes of a true visual poet. This “downtown” aesthetic appeals strongly to guitarist Marc Ribot, who’s creating an original score for the CIMMfest screening April 19 at 1st Ward.

“I’m still working it out,” Ribot says of the assignment, “but the atmosphere of the film seems to call for reverb and electric sounds. This won’t be a period piece, in other words.” Ribot has worked on various film soundtrack recording sessions, and live-scored Chaplin’s “The Kid.” He considers film music “the closest thing we have to a universal language.” He’s aware of the cliches while reveling in the ones that work. “Show a mountain on screen, and if you give ’em an ascending fifth on the horns, it musically signifies that mountain. With violins, everybody cries. That’s the language we all know.”

Also at 1st Ward on April 19, Chicago’s avant-pop trio Chandeliers will back the 1981 animated Hungarian feature “Feherlofia.” This will be a partly composed, partly improvised score, like Ribot’s “Docks” score, Sones de Mexico’s “Que Viva Mexico!” score and New Millennium’s Bollywood treatment of “Seven Chances.”

“If it’s for a film,” says Chris Kalis of Chandeliers, “we’re trying to create a mood, an atmosphere, rather than just making cool music. It’s great, because we don’t have a client — we can do anything we want. No one’s, like, ‘Change this,’ or ‘I don’t like that.’ Other than ourselves.”

At the same time, Kalis says, “we’re cognizant of not overshadowing the film in any way. You have to compose and perform selflessly.” Speaking for the entirety of CIMMfest, he adds: “It’s about what’s happening on screen.”

“Seven Chances” accompanied by Dominic Johnson of the New Millennium Orchestra and Saraswathi Ranganathan, 7 p.m. April 17, 1st Ward at Chop Shop, 2033 W. North Ave. Free.

“Que Viva Mexico!” accompanied by Sones de Mexico, 7 and 9:30 p.m. April 18, National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Free.

“The Docks of New York” accompanied by Marc Ribot, 5 p.m. April 19, 1st Ward at Chop Shop, 2033 W. North Ave. Tickets $18.

“Feherlofia” accompanied by Chandeliers, 8:30 p.m. April 19, 1st Ward at Chop Shop, 2033 W. North Ave. Tickets $10.

For more information on CIMMfest, go to cimmfest.org.

mjphillips@tribpub.com

Twitter @phillipstribune