If moviegoing habits have diminished in recent years thanks to streaming, with an extra wallop due to COVID-19, that hasn’t adversely affected the Chicago International Film Festival.
According to the festival’s artistic director, Mimi Plauché, “Our audience attendance exceeds pre-pandemic levels. And a big change for us is that our audience is quite a bit younger than it was. I’ve been with the festival for 19 years, and last year I think 42% of our audience was under 35, which is a big flip from where we were when I started.”
With a lineup that spans the gamut — from documentaries to work from filmmakers outside the U.S. to higher profile movies that are possible Oscar contenders — the festival takes place Oct. 15-26 with AMC Newcity 14 serving as the event’s hub, with other screenings taking place at the Music Box Theatre, the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Chicago History Museum and the University of Chicago.
The fest opens this year with a Chicago story. “One Golden Summer,” from director Kevin Shaw, is a documentary about the controversy that overtook the Jackie Robinson West Little League baseball team, which made headlines when it won the national championship of the 2014 Little League World Series. Not long after, the team from Morgan Park was accused of using ineligible players and stripped of its title. With its mix of archival footage and contemporary interviews with the players (who are now young adults), “you get up close and personal with the story,” Plauché says.
One of the more anticipated titles is the Brendan Fraser film “Rental Family,” which has been making the festival rounds and garnering positive reviews for its story of an out-of-work American actor in Tokyo who begrudgingly accepts a job from an agency that provides “rental” family members to clientele in need. His biggest assignment is playing the long-absent father to an 11-year-old girl.
“I lived in Japan for about nine years, so it was something that struck a chord with me.” Plauché says. “Hikari, the director, had a great breakout film called ‘37 Seconds’ (from 2019), which got picked up by Netflix, and she’s gone on to have an amazing career directing some series since then, including ‘Beef’ and ‘Tokyo Vice,’ but I just love seeing her return to the big screen.”
The closing night film is David Freyne’s comedy “Eternity,” starring Elizabeth Olsen as a woman who has recently died and must choose with whom she wants to spend her afterlife — her first love (Callum Turner) or the man she was with for the bulk of life (Miles Teller). “It’s high concept, really colorful, some funny, great moments,” says Plauché.
“Candyman” director Nia DaCosta brings her costume drama “Hedda” to the fest (a zesty reimagining of the Henrik Ibsen play “Hedda Gabler,” shifted from the 19th Century to the 1950s and starring Tessa Thompson in the title role) that Plauché calls funny and dark. DaCosta will also pick up the fest’s Artistic Achievement Award.
Also receiving the fest’s Visionary Award is Gus Van Sant (“Good Will Hunting”), who is screening his new film “Dead Man’s Wire,” a thriller set in 1977 and based on a true story about a man (Bill Skarsgård) who kidnaps a mortgage broker (Dacre Montgomery) and demands that his debt be erased. The movie also stars Colman Domingo and Al Pacino.
The CIFF lineup features films that are timely in their depiction of the ongoing crisis in Gaza, including “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” about a little girl in Gaza — Hind Rajab, a real person — who pleads for help by phone to rescue workers after the car she is in is attacked. It won the jury prize at the Venice International Film Festival.
“Director Kaouther Ben Hania was shortlisted for an Academy Award for a documentary called ‘Four Daughters’ a couple of years ago,” says Plauché. “One of the things that makes her work so interesting is that she combines fiction and documentary, making these hybrid films. Sometimes it’s difficult to classify them, but creatively, because of the way she uses the two forms together, she is able to create something that is high impact.”
There’s also a documentary called “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” from Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi. “She wanted to go in and document what was happening in Gaza, but couldn’t get direct access on the ground,” Plauché says, “so she meets a young Palestinian photojournalist online (named Fatma Hassouna) and she records their conversations, checking in with her and capturing this photojournalist’s experience over a period that’s just under a year.”
Additionally, there’s a documentary from American filmmaker Brandon Kramer called “Holding Liat,” about Israeli American Liat Atzili and her husband, who were kidnapped on Oct. 7. “The film is the story of the family’s efforts to secure their release. But we also see the conflicts that arise within the family,” who have differing viewpoints about the larger Israel-Palestinian divide.
Also on tap at the festival, a Kelly Reichardt retrospective featuring 2006’s “Old Joy,” 2019’s “First Cow,” 2022’s “Showing Up” and her newest release, “The Mastermind,” about an unemployed carpenter-turned-art thief played by Josh O’Connor.
The retrospectives are a recent addition to the fest. “Last year we did a retrospective of the Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu and they were some of the first films to sell out,” says Plauché. “So I think this is a shift in filmgoing habits, or just maybe interest from our audience to see films they either haven’t seen before, or haven’t seen on the big screen, and to see them with the director in attendance.
“So after that success, we put together a list of directors whose work we wanted to showcase in the same way, and Kelly was at the top of the list. We knew that she had ‘The Mastermind’ coming up, so serendipitously it worked out.”
With so many films on the festival’s lineup, smaller titles are at risk of being overlooked and Plauché mentioned one in particular that she hopes audiences seek out: “Franz,” from Polish director Agnieszka Holland.
“It’s a pretty unconventional biopic about the author Franz Kafka. He had a very short life (dying a month before his 41st birthday), so it’s a reflection of him and of the context of his life, but also a look at contemporary Prague and the way he has become part of the popular consciousness there and how that drives tourism.” Or as a review that ran last month in The Observer put it: “Holland all but stops short of invoking mass-produced Che Guevara t-shirts to make her point about the vulturous ways Kafka’s work and life have been canonized a century following his death — a process in which, she seems to posit, she is hardly innocent either.”
Kafka’s absurdist bent spawned its own phrase — Kafka-eseque — and Holland’s film embodies some of that, Plauché says. “She’s leaning into the absurdism of how he’s been commercialized and commodified.”
The Criterion Mobile Closet comes to CIFF: Cinephiles will be familiar with Criterion, the home video distribution company that frequently invites actors and directors to browse the now-famed Criterion Closet in its New York offices and fill a tote bag with Criterion DVDs while they are filmed talking about their picks. These clips abound online and have become an excellent branding device for the company, which recently decided to make the experience available to the average viewer with the Criterion Mobile Closet, which will also be part of this year’s CIFF.
“When you go to the Criterion Mobile Closet, do you have to buy stuff?” someone asked on social media. “Is it just … a store?” A legitimate question. When famous people make their selections, the assumption is that they’re getting those DVDs for free.
That will not be the case here; yes, it is a store. Prices start at $19.99 and individuals will be limited to just three picks, but they do come with a 40% off coupon code.
One more note: Last year, Los Angeles-based critic Kristen Lopez, who is a wheelchair user, pointed out that the mobile closet is not wheelchair accessible. According to a festival rep, that does not appear to have changed.
The Chicago International Film Festival runs Oct. 15-26 at multiple locations throughout the city; more at chicagofilmfestival.com
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