Movie Blog: This Week's Best Bets

April is fast approaching, and that means the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival needs to be on every Minnesota cinephile's radar.

The festival runs from April 9-25, and it features, like, a thousand movies across a spectrum of programs, each of which focuses on a different area of world cinema (Nordic, African, Latino, American) or a topic, such as women in film or LGBTQ issues.

The full lineup can be viewed here. I'm looking forward to The End of the Tour and Antarctic Edge. But the best part of the festival -- for me, anyway -- is just happening upon a little drama or documentary that blows you away. It's likely you won't see these mind-expanding works anywhere else. Not in a local theater, or even Netflix.

Tickets for festival can be purchased here. There are also deals for buying tickets in bulk.

Aside from festival stuff, there are some different recommendations in this week's best bets...

Being the diehard Werner Herzog fan that I am, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to tell you guys that some of his greatest works are available to stream online for free. If you've never gotten into his stuff, I'll detail a good beginner pick below.

As for metro screenings, we've got a rad indie movie inspired by a Minnesota urban legend as well as a retrospective on director Abderrahmane Sissako, who'll be in Minneapolis to talk about his impression and acclaimed work.

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Thursday-Saturday, April 2-4: Abderrahmane Sissako Retrospective (Walker Art Center)

This retrospective, entitled "Abderrahmane Sissako: Africa's Visual Poet," is showing five of the filmmaker's works, and the director will be in attendance for a post-screening discussion after all of them. Thursday's double screening of Life of Earth and October will be free. So if you don't have plans...here's an amazing cinematic option.

The other screenings -- which include the acclaimed films Waiting for Happiness, Bamako and Timbuktu -- will set you back $12. In my opinion, just to hear Sissako talk about Timbuktu, which explores nuanced and painful aspects of Islamic extremism in Africa, would be totally worth the cost of admission.

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Tuesday, March 31: Kumiko: The Treasure Hunter (Lagoon Cinema)

For the Minnesota viewer, this film is particularly interesting. Filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner shot much of it in our snowy state, and they portray it as a dangerous, exotic land of trees and ice and highways. They do this because their main character is a young, confused Japanese woman on a crazy treasure hunt for the fictional cash-filled briefcase buried in the Coen brothers classic Fargo.

The filmmakers say they got this idea for an urban legend that circulated around odd newspaper bits and internet message boards a decade ago. The result is a super-stylized, somewhat slow-moving picture poem that can be seen both as a dark comedy ode to adventure and a tragedy concerned with mental health and misunderstanding.

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Free Online: Treasure Trove Of Werner Herzog Movies (Shout! Factory)

Discovering the work of Werner Herzog, for me, was a discovery of where cinema could go and what it could do. Although I was initially put off by his work's strong anti-Hollywood vibe, I also found it irresistible, immediate and undeniably human. Even the stories that swirled around his films -- such as his insane relationship with the manic actor Klaus Kinski -- made me want to explore his work all the more. Early in that exploration, I watched a documentary called Little Dieter Needs To Fly. It moved me greatly, and I've watched it dozens of times since.

Now, that wonderful documentary, as well as several other Herzog films, are available to stream for free over at Shout! Factory. For Herzog beginners, I'd recommend checking out Dieter. It features a flight-obsessed American pilot named Dieter Dengler, and he tells his heartbreaking and remarkable story of escaping a prison camp after being shot down in the Vietnam War. Haunting and unforgettable, the movie is a great introduction to Herzog's fascination with obsession and his unmistakable documentary style.

Also on Shout! are several other Herzog essentials, including Even Dwarfs Started Small, Fata Morgana, Land of Silence and Darkness, and Stroszek.