AMIHAN: A Review by Sofia Migaly
From AMIHAN by Ji Stribling
In honor of Pride Month, this is the third installment of our weekly Reeling Pride Month Film Showcase presented by MUBI. We are also celebrating the upcoming 41st edition of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival.
Thanks to MUBI we are thrilled to present the universally critically acclaimed MONEYBOYS, accompanied by the short film AMIHAN, by local Kansas-City based filmmaker and previous guest on …Like Clockwork (A Podcast of Chicago Filmmakers), Ji Stribling.
Don’t forget to take advantage of MUBI’s exclusive 30-day free-trial offer at www.mubi.com/reeling
Trailer for AMIHAN edited by Rowan Meskimen.
AMIHAN (2021) is a brief yet powerful collection of abstract scenes and acts which immerse us in conflict of all types. Ji Stribling (they/them) condenses experiences of aggression, violence, catharsis, sorrow, and hope into concentrated moments; Stribling uses analog film as a means of condensing lived space into a material - a flickering artifact of events and emotional explorations, oscillating between an illusory world and a document of “reality.” Grounded by bodily interactions, the work bursts of oblivion as light leaks and shaking cuts push the representations of the human subjects, including the filmmaker themself, into abstractions out of the reaches of the mechanical eye’s attempts at reproducing and reanimating “human experience”.
The analog haze with which everything is rendered juxtaposes often unsettling or outright disturbing portraits into a surreal document of a metaphysical space, confronting gender and identity. The work’s performances capture, through the pure pathos of protruding musculature and rubbery masks, Stribling’s psyche and relationship with gender that is at once anonymous and deeply personal. Confident in its presentation and atmosphere, the film’s open-ended nature allows us to draw our own conclusions from each unsettling scene.
While this work is open to each viewer’s individual interpretation, AMIHAN contains undercurrents of queer eroticism which make it especially moving during Pride Month. Despite the film’s mournful, pensive qualities, it ends on a promising note that gives the viewers a sense of hope.
For tickets: www.chicagofilmmakers.org/upcoming-screenings-and-events/
A review by Sofia Migaly
Friday, October 23, 7:00 PM
Chicago Filmmakers (1326 W. Hollywood Ave)
Vagabond Beaumont | 2026 | 117 min | Digital Projection
Director Vagabond Beaumont and Co-Executive Producer Floyd Webb in Person!
Legally Drugged is the story of a Brooklyn boy who becomes a successful real estate investor but not without some major obstacles along the way. Richard Schneeberg tells his own harrowing yet ultimately triumphant true story. When Schneeberg is hospitalized for depression/insomnia and malaise, he is given antidepressants, which cause him to hallucinate, become manic, and even become suicidal.
He loses his marriage and custody of his child. A former teacher, his hospitalizations also left him jobless and homeless. But through shrewd business investments he becomes a multimillionaire, owning some of the most desirable real estate in the country. It’s a story of one man’s journey “from the nuthouse to the penthouse.”
An outspoken advocate of non-drug therapies for the mentally ill, Schneeberg makes a case that antidepressant medications are overused and points out that they can sometimes cause more problems than they solve.