A few years ago, the Chicago Whiz Kids nixed "double features" and made every single film a separate paid admission. The Noir City programmers used to package "double features" for a single ticket which seemed to be a good idea marketing wise and the pairing of an "A" title with a "B" film for an affordable price seemed traditional.

That policy kind of flies in the face of what this festival is about, doesn't it--colliding two films that are supposed to demonstrate contrast and/or continuity between national cinemas exploring similar plots/themes/settings. But the Music Box brain trust rates at or near the top of "squirrelly" programming entities, so a heightened level of disconnect/cognitive dissonance is not all that surprising.

But the wording at the Music Box site specifically mentions double features even as they implement one ticket purchase per film:

Under the thematic banner, "Darkness Has No Borders" this year’s NOIR CITY festival features thematically linked double bills pairing foreign language films with movies made in the United States and United Kingdom.

So much of it seems to fall away from the original boilerplate blueprint for the series, which also doesn't follow through with more than a pale patina of "thematic linkage."

It will be interesting to see what they are charging per film to see how much it will cost to get the not-quite-linked "double feature experience"...