$36 per person for a single event, including film, discussion and gourmet lunch, or $130 / series of 4 or 4 guests at one event. To receive the discount on 4 tickets to one event, place 4 tickets in your cart - the discount will be applied automatically at checkout..

Chicago's most prominent film experts host a celebration of seldom-seen cinema gems at WEDNESDAYS AT theWIT, a film, lunch and discussion series premiering Wednesday, June 10 at SCREEN, the high definition multi-media theater at the Loop's newest hotel, theWit, premiering Wednesday, June 10 at SCREEN.

Created in collaboration with Harlan Jacobson, producer of the highly successful TALK CINEMA series, WEDNESDAYS AT theWIT will have a capacity of 40 guests per event to enjoy a feature film selected by a Chicago film notable, who will also host the post film discussion while guests are enjoying a gourmet lunch.

All events begin in SCREEN at 10 am with coffee service, film at 10:30. Gourmet lunch and discussion will follow, concluding around 1 pm.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10
Host: Milos Stehlick, Founder, Facets Multimedia
Film: Another Sky, directed by Gavin Lambert; UK 1954; RT: 86 minutes

The only film directed by film critic and screenwriter Gavin Lambert (I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, Inside Daisy Clover), Another Sky unfolds around a demure and prim governess who arrives in Marrakech, Morocco to begin a new job as a paid companion to a wealthy English expatriate. As she explores her exotic surroundings, she is seduced by the men, music and mystery of her new home. The dreamy black-and-white cinematography of Walter Lassally captures the steamy atmosphere of North Africa in the 1950's.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24
Host: Mark Caro, Entertainment Reporter, Chicago Tribune
Film: The Heartbreak Kid, written by Neil Simon, directed by Elaine May
US: 1972; RT: 106 minutes

Forget about the Ben Stiller/Farrell Brothers' remake, which substituted broad sex farce and obvious dynamics for the original's cultural specificity and smarts. Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid is not only the sharpest film ever made from a Neil Simon screenplay but also a classically painful comedy and sly commentary on Jewish identity struggles. Charles Grodin plays the newlywed who on his honeymoon tries to trade in his voluptuous, messy Jewish bride (Jeanne Berlin, May's daughter) for Cybill Shepherd's WASP ice princess. Eddie Albert may never have topped is portrayal of Shepherd's P.O.'d papa.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8
Host: Michael Phillips, Film Critic, Chicago Tribune
Film: I Know Where I Am Going, written and directed by Michael Powell
US: 1945; RT: 91 minutes

A wonderful WWII-era romance starring Wendy Hiller (Pygmalion) as a delightfully headstrong Englishwoman engaged to marry a rich Scotsman. En route to his seacoast village she meets a military man, played by Roger Livesley, and suddenly, our heroine isn't sure which direction her heart's going after all. Fabulous location work, shot in shimmering black-and-white.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22
Host: Ron Falzone, Columbia College/Talk Cinema host
Film: All That Heaven Allows, directed by Douglas Sirk
US: 1955; RT: 89 minutes

Surfaces can be deceiving. All That Heaven Allows is a study in layers, a Chinese box of precise, deepening commentaries. To the untrained eye, it is a melodrama about the forbidden love between a widow (Jane Wyman) and her much younger gardener (Rock Hudson). A deeper viewing reveals the stifling constraints of postwar suburbia and its notion that true happiness can only be found when people live by the unbending judgments of their neighbors. Community support or emotional imprisonment? Honesty or hypocrisy? Individuality or conformity? Love or submission? Sirk's masterpiece can now be seen as one of the seminal works of the 1950's and a still powerful examination of the relationship between society and self that plagues us to this day.

For more information, contact Karen Vock, Director of Special Events for theWit at (312) 239.9529.


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