Six more highlights of the Chicago International Film Festival.
Shorts Program 8: Meditations
Experimental works, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Blue,” drifting deeper into the Thai master’s customary realms of sleep and landscape; Isabelle Tollenaere’s “The Remembered Film” tracks the hallucinations of past and present (or future?) of young soldiers lost in a wood; Deborah Stratman (2018 Film 50) presents “Optimism,” a refraction of the dense history of Dawson City, Yukon; and “Creature Companion,” by Melika Bass (2018 Film 50), which abstracts (but with great specificity) torsions of the female body. An extended discussion with Bass and Stratman follows. Monday, October 15, 8:30pm.
“Diane”
New York Film Festival topper and estimable documentarian and critic Kent Jones presents his fiction writing-directing feature debut, with a powerhouse Mary Kay Place at the heart of his small-town drama. ““It’s semi-autobiographical,” Jones told Variety. “It’s not just about the atmosphere of small-town living. It’s about the configurations it takes. How people are always lending each other casserole dishes or cooking for each other when they get sick. It’s about capturing the way people speak and what they say.” Monday, October 15, 9pm; Tuesday, October 16, 6pm.
“They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead”
An irreverent, oft-pyrotechnic look at the decades of Orson Welles’ “The Other Side of the Wind,” in production, post-production, in vaults, and soon in theaters and streaming on Netflix. From director Morgan Neville (“Won’t You Be My Neighbor”) and co-edited by Aaron Wickenden (2018 Film 50). Wickenden will appear, with a Welles scholar to be announced. Saturday, October 20, 2:30pm
“Roma”
Alfonso Cuarón wrote, directed, edited and photographed his deeply emotional black-and-white memory piece about a middle-class childhood in 1970s Mexico City; at once dreamlike and a concrete recreation of his upbringing, it may well be a masterpiece. There are tentative plans for a brief 70mm release to accompany its Netflix debut in December. Tuesday, October 16, 8:15pm.
Shorts Program 1: Around the Corner (City & State)
Seven bites from local filmmakers. “Accident, MD,” by Dan Rybicky (2016 Film 50) looks at America’s healthcare crisis via the small town of Accident, Maryland. Felix Piñeiro’s “I Am Not Broken” is described as “a time-bending journey of psychological self-discovery.” “Commodity/Fetish,” by Spencer Parsons (2018 Film 50) is a dense, dark, relentlessly berserk comedy about consumer culture. Thursday, October 18, 3:30pm.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Talking Screens, October 15-21, 2021: The Best of the Chicago International Film Fest The fifty-seventh Chicago International Film Festival runs through Sunday, October 24. And, Michael Caplan's "Algren" has its Chicago theatrical run beginning this week via Music Box virtual cinema. Several movies open Friday, including David Gordon Green's "Halloween Kills," Ridley Scott's "The Last Duel," Mia Hansen-Løve's "Bergman Island" and Todd Haynes' "Velvet Underground."
Talking Screens: A Week In Chicago Film, March 12-18, 2021 OPENERS How condensed do you want your Almodóvar? In thirty taut minutes, the Spanish writer-director burrows inside Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play, “The Human Voice,” with Tilda Swinton as his physical and psychological blade. Studio-confined during pandemic days, it’s brightly, boldly interior in every way. Music Box Theatre; shown with Almodóvar’s 1988 breakthrough, “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”…
