Friday, March 30, 2012
Foreign / Film Watching the Detective with Chicago Cinema Society
Posted by Ben Sachs on 03.30.12 at 10:21 AM
Saturday at midnight, Facets will screen the Chicago premiere of Philip Cox’s 2011 documentary The Bengali Detective. The film concerns Rajesh Ji, a Calcutta private detective and family man who dreams of becoming a professional dancer. This was such a hit on last year’s festival circuit that Fox Searchlight Pictures bought the rights to the film and is currently developing a fictionalized remake: it sounds like it'll make for fun midnight viewing. The screening is presented by the Chicago Cinema Society, the local group that hosted the local premiere of Alex de la Iglesia’s The Last Circus in December. Cinema Society organizer Neil Calderone will introduce the film and field questions afterward.
According to Calderone, the Chicago Cinema Society has two chief goals: to screen acclaimed recent films that lack U.S. distribution and to showcase movies that straddle the categories of world cinema and genre cinema. The Bengali Detective marks their second endeavor; the next will be a double feature of the kung fu classics Master of the Flying Guillotine and Fist of the White Lotus, slated for June 1 at the Portage Theater.
