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
Saturday, October 10, 7:00 PM
Chicago Filmmakers (1326 W. Hollywood Ave)
Denis Mueller and Ilko Davidov | 2026 | 86 min | Digital Projection
Directors Denis Mueller and Ilko Davidov in Person!
Russell Banks: I Write in Order to Be a Better Person examines the life and work of the renowned American writer, author of the acclaimed novels Affliction, Continental Drift, Book of Jamaica, The Sweet Hereafter, and Rule of the Bone, focusing on his ability to use fiction to question his own life and to confront the biases and cultural assumptions, thus allowing him to become a better person. This drive to become a better person through literature allowed Banks to develop the empathy and compassion necessary to recognize the full, shared humanity of those with backgrounds and outlooks different from his own.
“A thoughtful, literary look at the works and life of one of the best US storytellers in the last fifty years” - Ron Jacobs, CounterPunch