FACETS CINÉMATHÈQUE
September 2011
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 Premiere
RESURRECT DEAD:
THE MYSTERY OF THE TOYNBEE TILES
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WINNER
Documentary Directing Award Sundance Film Fest |
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"Compelling"
-New York Times
"Appropriately DIY, remarkably sincere...
Resurrect Dead works splendidly as a threadbare urban mystery"
-Village Voice
"You couldn't write a better mystery story than life did in this documentary"
-Film Threat
"An engaging film"
-Onion AV Club
-Roger Ebert
Recommended! "Strange and compelling"
-NewCity Chicago
Toynbee Idea in Movie 2001. Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter. Beginning in the early 1980s, hundreds of tiles carrying this cryptic message were found embedded in the asphalt of city streets as far apart as New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Santiago, and Buenos Aires. Street art? A prank? A message from space?
Filmmaker Jon Foy recounts how young artist Justin Duerr became fascinated with the strange plaques and, with two other "Toynbee tile" enthusiasts, Steve Weinik and Colin Smith, spent years trying to discover what they meant and who made them. The unlikely investigators uncovered increasingly bizarre clues: a newspaper article, a David Mamet play, a Jupiter colonization organization, and a Toynbee message that "hijacked" local news broadcasts.
That the origins of a street tile can be so captivating is testament to both Duerr's passion and Foy's filmmaking. Artfully constructed,
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles thrusts us into the black hole of this fantastic mystery but also reflects on Duerr himself, and the personal connection he develops with finding an answer. (Sundance Film Festival)
Directed by Jon Foy, U.S.A., 2010, 85 mins.
Official site
Wired
AV Club: director interview
New York Times
Village Voice
indieWIRE
Roger Ebert
NewCity Chicago
Showtimes:
Fri.,. Sept. 23 at 7 & 9 pm
Sat.-Sun., Sept. 24-25 at 3, 5, 7 & 9 pm
Mon.-Thurs., Sept. 26-29 at 7 & 9 pm
Tickets: