Kansas’ Cannes

Yes, the good folks behind the ninth-annual Kansas International Film Festival have landed Michael Moore’s latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, a full three weeks before its wide release. (You can get your rabble roused when it premieres tonight at 8.) But the event has also booked more than 50 other indie dramas, comedies, docs and curios from the region, the United States and the world at large, all screening in one Friday-to-Thursday marathon burst so intense that the organizers are reminding the filmstruck to take meal breaks. Check out this week’s film page for our recommendations of the newer titles, but keep in mind that the festival’s most ambitious screening is a revival: 1929’s landmark Man With a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov’s modernist collage of Russian industrial life. The Alloy Orchestra provides live musical accompaniment for the 7 p.m. Sunday screening. Tickets for that cost $10 to $12; the other festival movies are $6.50 to $8.50. Everything screens at the Glenwood Arts (9575 Metcalf in Overland Park). Festival passes are available. See kansasfilm.com or call 913-642-4404 for more information.

Sept. 18-24, 2009