On this visit to the Film Lounge a sensual dance film set in Eastern Europe, a disabled woman shares her pandemic experi A man searches for his missing s We spotlight a revitalized a morning cinema t An immigrant family shares their harrowing story and a multilayered music video about failing relationship Grab your popcorn.

The curtains about to lift at the Film Lounge Funding for this program was pro by friends, the Iowa PBS Foundat as well as generations of famili and friends who feel passionate about the programs they watch on The Film Lounge is produced in p with the Iowa Arts Council and Produce Iowa.

Hi, I'm Russ Curry.

I'm from Coralville, Iowa, and I'm the owner of Curious Music.

With the film Iesana on the albu Waiting by Mackenzie Stump Iesana the Latvian word for walking, and it is abstract.

It's a dance troupe from Latvia.

It's filmed in Riga, Latvia.

By the choreographer is Lola Escobar.

So her group performs sort of by a river in Latvia and this just fantastic dance.

And I think it is stunning and gorgeous.

Most of the people, not all many of the people that I work with aren't American.

I work with folks from Germany and Iceland and all over the world.

And our project also, and increasingly include, among many other disciplines, film.

When we put releases out, I call them projects, not albums, because there are so many pieces And that's one of the parts that really excites me.

So we're always thinking visually, We're always thinking about sound and the relationships of those things.

So in the case of Mackenzie's album, there's probably five, six, seven artist including what you see in the video involved in the process.

So it's not just he gives me music and we put it out.

It's sort of like a large scale composition, which I think is very beautiful.

My name's Antoinette Lovell, I am from Des Moines and I am the director of Leahs Year.

So Leahs Year is a short documentary.

It features my friend Leah, and it basically is just her reflecting on the past few years during the pandemic.

Yeah, it's just her little reflection of kind of before, during and after kind of what she went through.

The past two years, life looked very different for a lot of different people.

We weren't able to hang out as much really.

We weren't able to see each other at all.

So we kind of had a little reunion outside and just talked about what she had kind of gone through.

I wanted to create something that wasn't my own story and just get an idea or get a different point of view of what was happening these past few years.

So Leahs always been so cool and resilient and I just chose her.

The film was made like within an hour or two we shot some at her apartment.

We shot some here downtown Des Moines.

We really took about an hour or and just kind of knocked it out.

I kind of followed her around documentary style.

There is a moment, your heart just kind of drops into your stomach.

You're just like, you know, this is obviously something that I haven't had to deal with.

And so hearing her perspective on everything It kind of floored me.

And I kind of had a personal dilemma about because I edited it as well.

And I was thinking, how what's the overall tone of t Is this going to be uplifting sort of hopeful sort of tone, or are we because it got pretty dark there in a couple of spots.

And I left some of that out because, in the end I wanted it to be kind of this resiliency of Leah to shine through.

But yeah, it was tough and as her friend you know it makes me even sadder to hear But yeah I think overall we kind of got a nice balance of hopefulness, but then some real, real truth to what she's been experiencing Hello, my name is Michael Minor.

I am from Waterloo, Iowa, and I am the director of From the Void so from the Void is basically it was kind of a way for me to challenge myself up to that point.

I had done kind of your hokey horror movies, hat kind of thing, And a friend of mine and a professional colleague, was like, I've always wanted to do kind of a sci fi related film.

And Dust From the Void was Born From The Void is basically a movie about a father whose son is taken from him and he becomes consumed with trying to get his son back.

This might be one of those short films where I got the idea from listening to like film scores.

Sometimes I'll put on trailer music or film scores in my car and just kind of drive around, whether it be to work to other events and occasionally, sometimes that music will create a little idea in my head.

And then from there, a lot of my short films have been born that way.

And if I remember right, I'm pretty sure From The Void was one of those films that was born from listening to just movie soundtracks in my car.

The way I always write my films is with the first and foremost thing in mind of Can I achieve this?

I never write a film that has like a massive Hollywood budget because I know as an independent filmmaker living in Waterloo, IA that I don't have the funds to do those kinds of films.

So I try to write all of my film based around what I know I can accomplish as the current filmmaker that I that I am, [static] Daddy?

Daddy?

Daddy, come play.

Henry, can you hear me?

I'm here, buddy.

Daddy?

Daddy's here.

Where are you, buddy?

Dad?

No, no, no, no.

Just give me my son.

Just give me my boy.

Henry.

Daddy.

Henry, I'm here.

Just come to me, buddy.

I'm here.

Henry.

I'm coming.

Henry.

Daddy's coming to get you.

I'm coming.

Just.

Just reach for my hand.

That's it.

I'm coming.

I'm here, buddy.

In 1938, the building went through a pretty major renovation to become the Varsity Cinema.

It was the era when what they called the neighborhood or the suburban theaters were being built here.

It was the first theaters that were being built in Des Moines outside of the downtown core.

And The Varsity was one of those So in 1938, it was renovated into a single screen movie theater.

And that's what it remained until it closed in 2018.

So at the end of 2018, when the Man family announced they were no longer going to operate the Varsity Cinema, you know, we stepped up right away, reached out to the family and said, Hey, we have a vision for how to do this.

We have a vision for how to keep this place alive You know, keep it going well into the 21st century.

You know, And I think they really they saw that vision and they understood how we could keep that legacy going.

And that kicked off what's been a four year journey to get us here.

So, you know, we essentially started this project with $0.00, basically.

Right.

We basically went everywhere we could go.

You know, we went to local, state and county government and other, you know, grant organizations.

And we had tremendous success.

Honestly, just about every one of those places we went to said yes to us.

similarly and I think the thing I'm most proud of and we have more than a thousand individuals donate money to us.

when we went out to the public and there's some very large donations, of course, very grateful for the many, many many small donations as well.

It really drove home what an important and beloved place wthis was and is and how lucky we are to be stewards of it going forward.

I think it's a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new.

When you walk into the Varsity.

As you walk through those glass doors, you step on to this really beautiful terrazzo that we were able to, kind of uncover and polish up.

That was part of that 1938 renovation.

So you're going to see some historic elements that really make you feel like you're in a historic movie theater, which you are.

You're in a designated Des Moines historic landmark, you know, but you're also going to see the modern amenities.

You'd expect that modern movie theater.

You're going to have beer, wine and alcohol concessions.

You're going to have, you know, mobile ticketing and a you know, be able to reserve you and all that kind of good stuff.

You know, we're a film arts nonprofit, so we have a mission to grow the film culture in Des Moines.

We have a mission to highlight diverse voices to, you know, seek out community partnerships.

And of course, you're going to see curated, film programing and thought and thoughtful film programing.

And that's not something that a for profit theater is going to d That's something that we're going to do because we're mission based.

And that's, that's part of what we do.

Hello, my name is Matthew Williams.

I'm from Dubuque, Iowa, and I'm one of the producers of the film El Principe Azul My name is Juan Luna from Cali, Colombia, and I'm one of the producers El Princepe Azul this story is of one of our colleagues, students here at Loras College, and he's a person that came from Honduras.

So they definitely him and his family had to jump through a lot of hoops and had a really tough time.

But it's just a little bit story about perseverance and having to overcome difficulties.

And so Diego is on the men's soccer team at Loras, and I'm a member of the soccer team and through a friend of Diego, I kind of heard about this amazing story he had and this crazy background And there had been a couple articles in the local newspaper written about that story and I really just wanted to, you know, kind of dive deeper into that story and tell that story, but tell it responsibly and yeah, just make the campus and the larger community aware of stories like Diego's.

It it was like hard for like to hear those perspectives and understand how some people have to go through so much.

And sometimes it's not because they want to, but it's more like a necessity and it's that they have to.

And that's, that's something that we wanted to put out there in a video format.

We wanted to convey that message We wanted to convey the feelings that they were going through and it gave it a lot of purpose.

We had a lot of responsibility as filmmakers, and yeah, we wanted to take on that responsibiliy and be able to tell that story.

somebody that you really just want to be around honestly, like funny guy, very positive.

And which is really surprising considering all that he's been through in his life.

I was shocked and pulled back that someone had could go through that and still find joy in the little things, he's one of the most mature college freshmen I've ever met.

He's trustworthy, he's honest, He communicates very well.

He was willing to go the extra mile to jump through all the hoops that he needed to jump through.

That just showed us the commitment.

He is so just happy and fortunate to be here at Louras right now.

He's like one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.

He's always willing to help you whether it's like you need help with school, like soccer or anything like that.

Yeah.

I mean, Diego just loves the game, loves to play it and plays it the right way too, which is we love to see it.

he was very excited to be playing.

But once he got the opportunity to play with us, he really showed his qualities and he's someone that we could definitely use in this program.

just really cool to have a player like that of that caliber playing for us.

when he first told me about his background of what brought him here I was I was taken aback that someone who almost came from nothing really kept pushing and saying, you know, I want more.

I want this opportunity.

And that just really stuck with me violence and corruption are some of the main reasons tha continue to make the treacherous trek to our southern border?

But what happens when the root causes of these conditions are?

the work that is required to play professionally has to start like with a passion and a burning desire from within And that's definitely something if Diego's goal is to play professionally, he has the internal drive and passion and work ethic to get better every single day.

Hi, my name's Emile Lacsa.

I'm the director of this music video for Love's Blind Let Down.

I would describe this music video as a film within the film.

Within a film, it's a music video with narrative elements, and it ties really into the lyrics.

I really wanted to make sure that the band was involved with the process, so they pitched this idea of having their friends watch this relationship happen in front of them and the roles that they play.

Like, you know, what happens in a friend group when people date, people get their heart broken.

And it's in this music video.

I had to make a music video on the second day before we could even shoot the main content In the performance sections, there's a projector that plays these memories of the past relationship.

So what that entailed is our our first day we had to go shoot all of this B-roll all of these, like happy, sad, angry moments with the couple.

Brendan, the lead singer, and then Adi was our actress, and I immediately had to pull all of the dailies edit to the song itself and film Burn Start to Happen.

And, you know, that's kind of like the memory degrading of it.

And then blanks within the actual, like projector video.

That's either a memory that the character has chosen, to ignore, has repressed, and those become more frequent in the movie with, you know, in and the lines between which layer of the video were and get blurred as it goes on to kind of represent like all of a sudden are you are participant are you an observer in the event that are happening right now?

And it really makes you question how that interplays with those relationships in your own life.

Funding for this program was provided by friends the Iowa PBS Foundation, as well as generations of famili and friends who feel passionate about the pr they watch on Iowa.

PBS.

The Film Lounge is produced in p with the Iowa Arts Council and produce Iowa.