Tickets for all upcoming events are always available at our store: https://the-chambana-film-society.square.site/
Friday, November 21
The Found Footage Festival – Volume 11
The Found Footage Festivals‘ Joe Pickett (The Onion) and Nick Prueher (Late Show With David Letterman) have over 14,000 VHS tapes in their cluttered office in Brooklyn and will take viewers on a guided tour of their latest/greatest finds in this brand new Volume 11 show for 2025.
Pickett and Prueher began collecting found videotapes in 1991 after stumbling across a training video entitled, “Inside and Outside Custodial Duties,” at a McDonald’s in their home state of Wisconsin. Since then, they have compiled the world’s largest collection of strange, outrageous and profoundly stupid videos.
Highlights for Volume 11 include a psychotic dollar store salesman, a video catalog of frightening porcelain dolls, two wonderfully homemade Bigfoot videos and a new age “miracle” treatment from the 80s called “Psychic Surgery.” (90 mins – contains nudity, language, clowns).
The FFF has been to the CU region a couple of times in the 2010’s, including a reportedly sold out show. The CFS is VERY excited to be bringing them back to town. If you’d like to learn more about Joe & Nick, I highly recommend watching Chop & Steele. Also, you might want to check out Winnebago Man.
Tickets are $10 in advance / $12 after November 14.
Sunday, November 30
The Ladder
We close out November with a science-fiction film the complete opposite of this month’s first film, Weekend At The End Of The World.
Set in a world where a biotechnology company has invented a procedure that allows people to upload their memories into a synthetic clone of their younger selves, The Ladder follows Arthur, an aging fisherman living in Ketchikan, Alaska, who is grieving the loss of his wife. Simultaneously, the widower desperately seeks to maintain a bond with his estranged son, Ryan, who lives across the country but hopes an upcoming visit can bring them closer. A moving piece of speculative fiction, playing out over stunning Alaskan landscapes. When Arthur’s offered a chance at the experimental Fresh Start procedure, he struggles to embrace an uncertain future. As others become young again, Arthur must weigh the pain of holding on against the price of letting go.
The Ladder is a poignant, contemplative tale of grief, love and second chances.
This screening is scheduled to be followed by a remote Q&A with the director Emilio Miguel Torres.
Sunday, December 7
Hundreds Of Beavers
Hundreds Of Beavers is a low budget, wordless, black-and-white slapstick comedy inspired by Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Warner Brothers cartoons and more. Made for $150,000, the film is self-distributed, starting with a roadshow presentation, where the filmmakers went from town to town playing the film to people. It became a smash hit, inspiring Rocky Horror-levels of devotion (people are showing up in beaver costumes), and has grossed over a million dollars, and has been playing theatrical engagements for over two years. The film has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, is the #1 highest rated comedy of 2024 on Letterboxd. Matt Zoller Seitz, writing for RogerEbert.com gave it 4 stars out of 4.
This screening is the second year the filmmakers are doing a Christmas event, and they’ll be promoting the screenings nationally, and are supplying cool giveaways at the screenings, including a new intro to the film by the beavers.
This film has never played in the CU, but has played The Normal Theater several times. You don’t want to miss the first appearance here!
Sunday, December 14
Song Sung Blue: The Original Documentary
”We’re doin’ pretty damn well for two people with a dream, man, I’m telling you.”Last year, for my 50th birthday, I assembled a list of my 50 favorite documentaries of all time, and while the list is alphabetical, I am pretty confident that Song Sung Blue is in actually in the top ten. Many others agree about the quality, including Slamdance Film Festival, where it won BOTH the jury and the audience awards, as well as winning top prizes at half a dozen other festivals.
Roger Ebert agreed, even though he only gave the film three out of four stars. I remember him mentioning that sometimes he felt the star rating wasn’t as important to
him as the review. In his review, where he says the film is “a superb marriage of home movies, TV, clippings and posters, and concert footage.”, compares the film to the beloved Hoop Dreams, and explains that no distributor is picking up the film, and he urges distributors to get a screener and pick it up. No distributor ever did, and it remains an overlooked great. (I just noticed that on Letterboxd it was 17 people who have ever logged having seen it — too few to get a star rating.) Roger chose it as the closing night film of the 2010 Ebertfest.
What’s the film about?
Song Sung Blue follows Mike & Claire Sardina of Milwaukee. Together, they perform as the tribute band Thunder & Lightning. Mike performs as Neil Diamond, and Claire performs mostly Patsy Cline songs in the film, although she also is known to perform ABBA and Blondie songs.
Why are you showing this film now?
Well, something is happening that’s only happened to one other of my favorite documentaries is happening to Song Sung Blue. It is now a narrative feature!
Hugh Jackman plays Mike Sardina, and Kate Hudson is playing Claire Sardina. The film, also called Song Sung Blue, comes out on Christmas Day, as is poised to be an Oscar contender.
Sunday, December 21
Locke
A Sanford Screening
Tom Hardy stars in this psychological drama whose narrative takes place entirely via phone conversations while Hardy is driving. He is the only character seen on screen. He converses with characters portrayed by Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson, Tom Holland and others.
Sunday, December 28
Documentary Shorts
In 2024, we closed out the year with a collection of short documentaries which was well attended and well received, so we’re going to close out 2025 the same way.
So far, it seems like this screening is going to highlight people and their passions, a man devoted to roasting sardines on the beach in Spain, a group of immigrants obsessed with their love of the cars from their home country, and a hometown video store in a rural town in Indiana with a population of 2,500.
The rest of the lineup will be solidified over the coming weeks.
