54th Chicago International Film Festival (UNITED SKATES, NAPLES IN VEILS, CORE OF THE WORLD, ASH IS PUREST WHITE)

My friends and I over at Cine-File put together a grab bag of coverage of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival. Check it out at CINE-FILE. Here's a taste:

Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown's UNITED SKATES (US)
"The stakes are high in Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown's UNITED SKATES, a valuable, exuberant, and unexpectedly moving documentary, which celebrates the endangered African-American subculture of roller skate dancing, from the segregated rinks of the '50s, through the hip-hop heyday of the '80s/'90s, until today, when big-box stores push family-owned rinks out of business."

Ferzan Ozpetek's NAPLES IN VEILS (Italy)
"Dedicated to its titular city, Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek's NAPLES IN VEILS is an explicit, enigmatic, highly entertaining erotic thriller about a lovelorn, middle-aged autopsy doctor (a moving Giovanna Mezzogiorno) whose one-night stand gets her mixed up with murder."

Natalia Meshchaninova's CORE OF THE WORLD (Russia/Lithuania) 
"If you like the suspenseful, contemporary working-class realism practiced by the Dardenne brothers, you will likely enjoy CORE OF THE WORLD, a solid, naturally-acted character study."

I also had a chance to look at Jia Zhangke's ASH IS PUREST WHITE (China). Taking a sometimes violent, sometimes comic, always surprising spin through the flux of modern China, the great Jia directs Zhao Tao in an engaging performance as a gangster's resilient girlfriend inventively seizing back her life after a 5-year prison stint.