On Friday March 23 and Saturday March 24 “Messi and Maud” will be screened at the 21st Chicago European Union Film Festival
On Friday March 23 and Saturday March 24 Messi and Maud will be screened at the European Union Film Festival. This 21st edition takes place at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from March 9 to April 5, and also features the Dutch films Miss Kiet’s Children and A Real Vermeer.
Marleen Jonkman | 92 min.
A road movie set against the ever-changing landscape of Chile, this story of a forty-something Dutch woman’s attempt to kick over the traces of her former life in a foreign country follows an impulsive journey that produces psychic fallout when cultures collide. Maud (Lodeizen), the childless survivor of one too many miscarriages, ditches her husband on their Andes ski vacation and takes off alone in the night, a hitchhiking backpacker with a series of made-up identities.
A ride with an abusive truck driver ends with Maud escaping with his little boy, who calls himself Messi after his favorite soccer star. Less a surrogate mother than a free-spirited playmate, Maud finds fun times wearing thin in the face of the child’s expectations, and searches her soul for an endgame.
The film marks the first feature-length work by director Marleen Jonkman and writer Daan Gielis, and stars Dutch actors Rifka Lodeizen (Tonio, Publieke Werken) and Guido Pollemans (Overspel).
In Dutch and Spanish with English subtitles. Courtesy of Visit Films. DCP digital. (BS)