Chicago Film Fest: Film Lover's Kind of Town

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Saturday, 01 October 2011 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

The 46th annual Chicago International Film Festival takes place October 6 - 20, 2011 at the AMC River East 21 Theatres in Chicago, Illinois.

This is North America's oldest competitive international film festival. Founded in 1964 by award winning filmmaker and graphic designer Michael Kutza, the first Festival opened in 1965. Since then, the Festival has grown to become a world-renowned annual event.

This year more than 180 films from 50 countries are on view, including over 45 films by first-time directors. "The languages may be different," says Kutza, "but the emotions are the same. Film unites us like no other art form can."

The Festival's goals have always been to discover and present new filmmakers to Chicago, and to acknowledge and award these filmmakers for their artistry.

The Festival Spotlight is on a diverse group of actors and filmmakers with Illinois and Chicago connections.

The Opening Night Presentation is the Festival‛s celebration of two giant Chicago institutions -- longtime actor Dennis Farina and the Steppenwolf Theater Company -- with the screening of The Last Rites of Joe May, directed by Joe Maggio and starring Dennis Farina with members of the Steppenwolf ensemble.

Other Chicago-connected films are:

Andrew Bird: Fever Year
dir. Xan Aranda
A profile of the classically trained yet utterly unconventional musician Andrew Bird, the film follows Bird in the final months of the artist’s last tour.

Joint Body
dir. Brian Jun
starring Mark Pellegrino, Alicia Witt
A recent parolee comes to the aid of an exotic dancer living in a mysterious self-imposed exile in downstate Illinois. "When they’re forced to team up and go on the lam, the two wonder whether they can even trust each other."

Patang (India)
dir. Prashant Bhargava
"Can you ever really go home again? In Chicago-born Bhargava’s feature debut, a successful Delhi businessman returns to his familial home, urban-bred daughter in tow, for a surprise visit during India’s largest kite festival."

The Return of Joe Rich
dir. Sam Auster
starring Sam Witwer, Armand Assante, Talia Shire
"When Joe returns to Chicago he looks up his aging but still dangerous Uncle Dom in the hopes of getting "connected" and living the life of a made man. When Uncle Dom resists, Joe makes him an offer he can’t refuse."

Sadermania: From Fanship to Friendship
dir. Adam Gacka
Chris Sader has been a lifelong Hulkamaniac. "Chris and Hulk Hoganrelate how they met and developed a bond through mutual struggles and personal loss that each would have faced alone if not for the unlikely bond that develops between them." World Premiere.

The 15-year anniversary of the Black Perspectives Program is celebrated with a special presentation of the groundbreaking 1960s Chicago-set classic from 1975, Cooley High, directed by Michael Schultz, and starring Glynn Turman, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and Garrett Morris.

The film revisits a crucial period in the history of local black cinema and captures the mood, tone and music of the era preceding hip-hop. "Best friends Leroy "Preach" Jackson and Richard "Cochise" Morris are high school seniors at Cooley Vocational School on Chicago’s Near North Side. As they begin to consider their future, the two contend with girl trouble, difficult teachers, an ordeal with a couple of thugs, and the police."

Shorts 1: City & State
A mixture of narrative, documentary and animated short films shining the light on talented local filmmakers.

Chicago Connection: A series of Conversations with Chicago notables:

• John C. Reilly – From Chicago’s  Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the Organic Theatre to Hollywood’s A-list, the Oscar® and Tony® nominated actor talks about his life and work.
• Haskell Wexler – One of the most influential cinematographers the cinema has ever known, Chicago-born Academy Award®-winning Wexler’s expertise behind the camera has given the world such classics as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, In the Heat of the Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Thomas Crown Affair. In addition he’s directed some extremely important films such as Medium Cool and Latino.
• Joe Swanberg – Whether it‛s called DIY, Mumblecore, Slackavettes, Chicago’s Swanberg defines the movement with his independent films: Kissing on the Mouth, LOL and Hannah Takes the Stairs.
• Ken Nordine – Voice-over and radio legend Nordine has recorded hundreds of radio and TV spots and movie trailers over the past seven decades. Ken is currently developing a series of multimedia projects called Image Jazz that will combine words with computer-generated [graphics].
• Braden King – Filmmaker, photographer and visual artist, King‛s most recent feature film, Here, is "a love story within a road movie".

Some of the films shown in competition are:

Chronicle of my Mother / Waga haha no ki
dir. Masato Harada (Japan)
A successful novelist has made a career out of basing his work on his family. Then his mother is diagnosed with dementia and he must reassess his feelings and his relationship to his family.

Goodbye / Bé omid é didar
dir. Mohammad Rasoulof (Iran)
"In this gripping film shot semi-clandestinely, a young disbarred female lawyer with an exiled husband and an unwanted pregnancy tries to secure a visa to leave the country.... This powerful portrait of one woman's struggle against the system in modern-day Iran won a best director award at this year's Cannes Film Festival."

Return Ticket / Dao Fu Yang Liu Bai Li
dir. Teng Yung-Shing (China/Taiwan)
Migrant worker Cao Li returns to Shanghai after two years of working at a clothing enterprise that failed. She gets drawn into a scheme, illegally chartering a bus to take fellow Fuyang natives home for the New Year holiday.

Love Always, Carolyn
dir. Malin Korkeasalo, Maria Ramström (Sweden)
This portrait of an overlooked Muse, Carolyn Cassady, reveals the great woman of "wit, beauty, grace, and normalcy" behind two of the Beat Generation's greatest men: Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac.

The Jewel / Il gioiellino
dir. Andrea Molaioli (Italy)
"When multi-nationals threaten the existence of a family-owned dairy business, the company patriarch and his loyal financial advisor must find a way, any way, to keep the company going."

The Good Doctor
dir. Lance Daly
starring Orlando Bloom
First-year resident Dr. Martin Blake strives to be a "good doctor", willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. When a young beautiful patient is assigned to his care, the doctor finds himself so attracted that he must choose between hypocrisy and the Hippocratic Oath.

The Three Musketeers
dir. Paul W.S. Anderson
starring Logan Lerman, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Christoph Waltz
The Musketeers stride again as they embark on a dangerous mission to foil the plot that not only threatens the Crown, but the future of Europe itself. This latest version is for the 21st century: it‛s in state-of-the-art 3D.

Panels presented are:

• Black Perspectives: Building a Community
• Art as Activism
• Spotlight South Asia: Beyond Bollywood
• New Directors: Camera Ready?
• Animation: Blurring the Lines
• Documentary Currents
• New Models of Distribution
• Social Media: Spreading the Word

These are only a few titles out of the exhaustive supply of quality films being presented at this Festival. Between them and the panels, it‛s a safe bet that no attendee will be disappointed.

For more information, go to www.chicagofilmfestival.com.

Chicago International Film Festival
October 6 - 20, 2011

AMC River East 21
322 E Illinois St.
Chicago, IL 60610

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