The more uncertainty the business of film must weather, the more necessary a city’s film festivals become.
To me, anyway. Maybe not to you, at least not yet, or not anymore.
You may have eased out of the habit of moviegoing sometime around March 2020 and made your peace and your pandemic adjustment with streaming. You may have eased out of multiplexes years ago, because you weren’t invested in how the universe might go flooey one more time inside the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
But we’re lucky here in Chicago. Our cinematic luck has been sustained, in large part, because the appetite isn’t a matter of luck at all. It’s devotion, and love, plus money, and it takes all three, on both sides of the exhibitor-and-audience equation.
When I go to a nicely packed, in-person film festival, I get back what I came close to forgetting amid COVID and the fallout that fell out differently in different households. The variety. The size, screen-wise and crowd-wise. The buzz and din, not in the marketing sense — criminally few films, especially smaller ones, get the ad spend and marketing push they need anymore — but in the literal bzzzZZZwhat’dyouthinkreallyhuhnokidding sense. That’s the sound of people debating what they just saw, while doing the festival stumble-walk — head down, feet following the general direction of other feet, eyes scanning the screening calendar in their hands — on the way to another screening.
I love that sound.
The Chicago International Film Festival’s 60th edition opens Oct. 17 and continues through Oct. 27. It’s the oldest continuous juried film festival in North America, now in its seventh year with artistic director Mimi Plauché as head of programming.
Last year, the festival moved its anchor venue from the AMC River East 21 in Streeterville to the AMC NewCity 14 in Lincoln Park. Verdict: a good move.
“Very positively received,” Plauché says. “A lot of it comes down to transportation and location. It’s easy to get to, one block off the Red Line ‘L’ stop (at North and Clybourn), and it’s also just off the Kennedy for people coming from further away. Also, the quality of the projection’s really good at NewCity. And there’s a lot of dining options in that area. And the seats are comfortable.”
Under Plauché and managing director Vivian Teng and a sharp programming team of multidirectional interests in global cinema, CIFF has fanned out geographically and this year includes familiar partners and newer venues. Later this month, for example, you might catch the film version of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning drama “The Piano Lesson” at 2 p.m. Oct. 18 at AMC NewCity. And then stay for one or two more there.
Next day, 5 p.m. Oct. 19 at the Gene Siskel Film Center on State Street, you might catch the Australian animated charmer “Memoir of a Snail.” At the Music Box Theatre, on 35mm film, you might score a ticket to the Chicago premiere of “The Brutalist,” a widely admired hit in its Venice film festival world premiere last month. That one, scheduled for a Dec. 20 commercial premiere in Chicago theaters (earlier in New York and Los Angeles) will likely sell out its 5 p.m. Oct. 24 festival screening.
The festival’s also returning to the Chicago History Museum in Lincoln Park, the Hamilton Park Cultural Center in Englewood and the Logan Center for the Performing Arts in Hyde Park. Also, this year, to the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen for a screening of “La Cocina,” a pressure-cooker scenario set in a Times Square diner fraught with sexual, immigration and class tensions.
Plauché sees a heartening shift in the makeup of the CIFF audiences. In 2019, the last pre-COVID year, the largest audience segment remained the 65-and-older festivalgoers (at 28% based on surveys) and the 25-34 age group accounted for 16%.
Five years later it’s essentially flipped. The largest age group attending the 2023 festival was the 25-34 year olds, at 27% of the audience. The 65-and-up crowd remained strong, at second place with 18%.
“That’s a big shift,” CIFF’s artistic director says. “And while I can’t speak to what’s happening in other cities, there’s wonderful growth here, happening in all directions. All of us in Chicago are working together. And when we work together, we actually build audiences.”
Take a look at the 2024 calendar. See what catches your eye, whether it’s an early look at a commercial title backed by traditional studio money, or a film from a country (more than 60 nations are represented this year) whose movies remain for now, well, foreign to you. Unless your politics tend toward isolationism, and your cultural tastes do likewise, a festival immersion can open your eyes to what’s on the minds and in the artistic hearts of a world of filmmaking talent.
Wherever you’re coming from, you won’t be alone. As Plauché notes, a little surprised herself: “Last year we had people come from all 50 states! If we’re doing our job, people come; they feel represented in some way in what they see; they see themselves on screen. They have conversations with other people, including the filmmakers in attendance. We’re an ambassador for Chicago in the eyes of the people who come to the festival, wherever they come from.”
And with Chicago audiences of an increasingly wide age range, she says, “we’ve built up what we needed most: loyalty and trust.”
There are 112 more feature-length titles beyond the following 10, plus 70 short films, and tributes to actors ranging from John David Washington to Mike Myers and André Holland and directors Marielle Heller (who’s here picking up a Visionary Award, for her latest: “Nightbitch” starring Amy Adams) and Chicago’s own Robert Zemeckis, here for the closing-night slot with his latest, “Here.” I’m leaving plenty off the list.
10 films to get you started:
“The Piano Lesson”: August Wilson’s play, revived recently on Broadway, retains most of its Broadway revival cast including Samuel L. Jackson and, as Boy Willie, John David Washington. The film’s directed by his brother, Malcolm Washington; Danielle Deadwyler plays Berniece, the Pittsburgh sibling at odds with her brother’s wishes to sell the haunted family heirloom of the title. Opening night at the Music Box, director and co-adapter Washington is receiving CIFF’s Breakthrough Award while John David Washington receives the Spotlight Award. 6:30 p.m. Oct. 16 at Music Box Theatre, then 2 p.m. Oct. 17 at AMC NewCity.
“Conclave”: Opening commercially Oct. 25, this pristinely pot-boiling adaptation of Robert Harris’ novel (“Silence of the Lambs”) is what used to be known as a prestige audience picture, middlebrow division. Ralph Fiennes plays the sleuth-like Cardinal Lawrence overseeing the selection of a new pope, amid icy glares, hidden agendas and multifarious intrigue. 6:15 p.m. Oct. 18 at AMC NewCity.
“Nickel Boys”: A peak 2024 achievement, director RaMell Ross’s striking adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel is both a visual experiment in perspective, fully realized, and an emotionally powerful experience. It blends fictional characters — two teenagers who meet within the brutal confines of an all-Black Florida reform school in the 1960s —with the horrors and legacy of the real-life Dozier School for Boys, also known as Nickel Academy. The film’s commercial release won’t come until early 2025 in Chicago. 6:15 p.m. Oct. 23 at the Music Box.
“Save the Children: A Concert for the Ages”: This world premiere restoration is pure satisfaction, and if you can’t find music and artists you love in this lineup, I feel for ya, pal. In October 1972, the Black Exposition backed by Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH presented a spectacular string of musical acts and legends, captured by director Stan Lathan. The Jackson 5, the Staple Singers, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Marvin Gaye, the Ramsey Lewis Trio. This lovely digital restoration recaptures some beautiful sights of early ’70s Chicago, whether in a montage of neon signage (Al’s Action Lounge! Hamp’s Hut!) to public park picnics, where you can practically smell what’s on the grill. 3 p.m. Oct. 20 at Logan Center for the Arts.
“The Room Next Door”: Pedro Almodovar’s first feature in English stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as old friends, reunited in a time of crisis. It won the Golden Lion at Venice last month, and even if it’s relatively minor Almodovar, it’s polished (what a shock) and worth seeing. 8:30 p.m. Oct. 24 and 3:15 p.m. Oct. 26 at AMC NewCity.
“Zurawski v Texas”: In post-Roe-v-Wade Texas, one anguished mother’s experience leads to a legal challenge involving many women, many scenarios amid a stark governmental takeover and a return to an era millions are fighting to leave in the past. An absorbing documentary from director Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault that does far more than make Texas look like the wrong side of very recent history. 2:30 p.m. Oct. 26 and 2 p.m. Oct. 27 at AMC NewCity.
“The Brutalist”: On a modest budget, director and co-writer Brady Corbet makes some miracles in a sweeping drama about a post-World War II Hungarian immigrant (Adrien Brody) whose career in America as a star architect runs afoul of the plutocrat (Guy Pearce) financing his magnum opus. Three and a half hours long, with an intermission, laced with many reasons (flaws and all) to relish the ambition, and Corbet’s ardent embrace of tortured-genius epics gone by. 5 p.m. Oct. 24 at the Music Box Theatre.
“All We Imagine As Light”: After her remarkable, elliptical feature debut with my favorite film of 2021 (“A Night of Knowing Nothing”), Payal Kapadia modifies her technique to tell the story of three Mumbai nurses, their friendship and conflicts and the collision of love and propriety. The good news: The poetry’s still there. 5 p.m. Oct. 22 and 5:30 p.m. Oct. 24 at AMC NewCity.
“The Last Republican”: The director of “Hot Tub Time Machine,” Chicago native Steve Pink, would appear to be an unlikely filmmaker to tell the story of former Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger’s quick rise and quicker cancellation (for now), after the downstate Republican had the nerve to call out his party’s complicity following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Pink goes for the wisecracking aside a little often, but it’s still alarming stuff since we’re dealing with a wider circle of 2020 election deniers than ever. 5 p.m. Oct. 18 and noon Oct. 19 at AMC NewCity.
Kore-eda Hirokazu Tribute and Retrospective: The Japanese filmmaker, much beloved in America and one of this festival’s favorites, returns to Chicago for a six-film retrospective of his work, including his fourth feature, “Nobody Knows.” Kore-eda receives the Career Achievement Award prior to the “Nobody Knows” screening. 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18 at Gene Siskel Film Center.
Chicago International Film Festival, Oct. 16-27. Screenings held at AMC NewCity 14, the Music Box Theatre, the Gene Siskel Filmm Center, the Chicago History Museum, the Logan Center for the Arts at UChicago, the Hamilton Park Cultural Center and the National Museum of Mexican Art. Ticket and schedule information at chicagofilmfestival.com.
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
