Persistent Visionaries

Filmmakers from Kansas City and around the world contribute their work to the 2008 Kansas City Jubilee Film Festival today through April 20. The event screens independent films at Tivoli Cinemas (4050 Pennsylvania, 816-561-5222) and the Westport Coffee House (4010 Pennsylvania, 816-756-3222). Among the 100-odd films on view this year, Adam Brumback's 18th and Vine spotlights Kansas City's historic and storied Jazz District, tracking its peaks and valleys across a century of change. Acade­my Award nominee Hubert Davis directs the 2006 Aruba, a film about an inner-city boy who uses nonviolent means and his imagination to escape from a home life of violence and drug abuse. Nanobah Becker's Conversion is a short film about a group of Christian missionaries who make a catastrophic visit to a Navajo family. The festival also screens High School Confidential, the eight-episode series created by Sharon Liese that documents the lives of 12 girls through four years at Blue Valley Northwest. Single tickets cost $8; festival passes are $50. For a complete schedule of screenings, see kcjubilee.org.
April 13-20, 2008