SINCE: 1964
WHERE: Chicago, Illinois, USA
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
The Chicago International Film Festival is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. The Festival was started in 1964 by filmmaker and graphic artist Michael Kutza to provide an alternative to the commercial Hollywood movies that dominated the city’s theaters. The Festival opened in 1965 at the Carnegie Theater, where King Vidor, Bette Davis, and Stanley Kramer were honored for their contributions to American cinema. Since then, the Festival has grown to become a world-renowned annual event. The Festival is dedicated to fostering better understanding between cultures and to making a positive contribution to the art form of the moving image.
Chicago International Film Festival
Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio won the Gold Hugo for International Feature Competition at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival. Set in the final days of WWII, the period drama chronicles a harrowing year in the life of three sisters, the daughters of a schoolteacher in a remote mountain village.
Thesis on a Domestication (Tesis sobre una domesticación) by award-winning writer-director Javier Van de Couter and based on the homonymous novel written and adapted by the film’s lead, acclaimed Argentine trans author Camila Sosa Villada, will world premiere at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival.
The 60th Chicago International Film Festival unveiled the full program lineup including 122 feature films and 71 shorts from more than 60 countries around the world.
At the 57th Chicago International Film Festival, the Gold Hugo in the International Competition went to Memoria, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s beguiling, beautiful film following a Scotswoman (Tilda Swinton) living in Bogotá haunted by a noise that only she seems to hear. Along with a young sound engineer, her search for the origin of the mysterious sound takes her to the interior of the lush Colombian jungle where past, present, and future blur.
The 57th Chicago International Film Festival running October 13 – 24, 2021 announced the new directors and international feature competitions lineup showcasing films from countries around the world, including Colombia, Jordan, France, South Africa, Cambodia, the Faroe Islands, Germany, and more. This year’s competitions will include the World Premiere of Babushkas of Chernobyl director Holly Morris’ documentary Exposure and the International Premiere of Franziska Stünkel’s The Last Execution.
The 2021 Chicago International Film Festival’s Opening Night film will be Wes Anderson’s widely embraced and critically-acclaimed Cannes premiere The French Dispatch, a love letter to journalists with an all-star cast, including Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Stephen Park, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Elisabeth Moss.
Chicago International Film Festival returns to theatrical, outdoor, and virtual screens for its 57th edition running October 13 – 24, 2021.
Festival-goers of the 56th Chicago International Film Festival voted Nomadland the third feature film from director Chloé Zhao, the winner of the Audience Choice Award for Feature Film. The film stars Frances McDormand as Fern who, after the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad. Nomadland features real nomads Linda May, Swankie, and Bob Wells as Fern’s mentors and comrades in her exploration through the vast landscape of the American West.
The Polish film Sweat directed by Magnus von Horn won the Gold Hugo for Best International Feature Film at the 56th Chicago International Film Festival. The film also won the Silver Hugo for Best Art Direction for Jagna Dobesz. The insightful drama about loneliness and insecurity in the digital age chronicles three days in the candy-colored life of social media celebrity Sylwia Zajac played by stage actress Magdalena Kolésnik.
Things We Dare Not Do (Cosas que no hacemos), the second feature film by Mexican director and cinematographer Bruno Santamaría has its U.S. premiere in the Documentary and Out-look competitions at the 56th Chicago International Film Festival, followed by its participation at the 11th edition of DOC NYC.
The Iranian film Careless Crime (Jenayat-e bi deghat) by Shahram Mokri will have its North American Premiere at the 56th Chicago International Film Festival in the International Feature Film competition after its World Premiere in the Orizzonti competition in Venice, where it was awarded the Bisato d’Oro award.
Chicago International Film Festival today unveiled the full lineup for the 56th edition, screening both virtually and at the drive-in from Wednesday, October 14 – Sunday, October 25, 2020.