The Facets Cinémathèque is located at 1517 W. Fullerton Ave. in Chicago. For more information on films playing in the Cinémathèque, please call 773-281-4114. To order advance tickets online, visit the TicketWeb website by clicking here.
Chicago Theatrical Premiere
PRODIGAL SONS
WINNER
FIPRESCI Prize Thessaloniki Doc Film Fest
Critics' Pick! "Kimberly Reed's compelling documentary...is filled with revelations" -New York Times
"Reed's own first effort mines similarly fraught emotional territory, hitting gut punching highs that move past even Tarnation's eye-opening exposures" -Slant
"Well-crafted and intense" -Onion AV Club
"Captivating" -Chicago Sun-Times
Recommended! "A wondrous documentary that's ten times as complex emotionally as Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation -NewCity Chicago
Recommended! "A painful and compelling story of three people grappling with the most profound questions of selfhood" -Chicago Reader
"Stirring and provocative... this is a film not easily forgotten" -Chicago Tribune
Debut filmmaker Kimberly Reed dives headfirst into an unflinching portrait of her family that is absolutely engrossing and marks her coming-out, in more ways than one. Returning home to a small town in Montana for her high school reunion, Reed hopes for reconciliation with her long-estranged adopted brother. But along the way Prodigal Sons uncovers stunning revelations, including a blood relationship with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, intense sibling rivalries and unforeseeable twists of plot and gender. Reed's rare access delicately reveals not only the family's most private moments, but also an epic scope as the film travels from Montana to Croatia and Kim Reed's compassionate vérité style of filmmaking captures the lives of her family in such an organic way that their exceptional and challenging stories puncture the surface of our expectations. Questions of sexual orientation, identity, severe trauma and family love are effortlessly explored as the subjects freely open up their lives to the camera. Raw, emotional and provocative, Prodigal Sons offers a moving, illuminating examination of one family's struggle to come to terms with its past and present.