The 60th Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago’s best and biggest cinema showcase, begins Wednesday and offers 107 new features and 69 shorts for its 12-day run. The big-screen experience is enhanced by 101— and counting— filmmakers attending screenings for Q&A’s.
Local connections are made in Rana Segal’s documentary about sculptor Richard Hunt and civil rights heroine Ida B. Wells. Getting a revival is “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” scripted by Chicago novelist Sam Greenlee. The 1973 drama of the same name imagines the CIA’s first African American agent coming home to Chicago and organizing nationwide guerrilla warfare.
Among auteurs with new narratives: Pedro Almodóvar, Leos Carax, Aki Kaurismäki, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Pablo Larraín, Steve McQueen and Raoul Peck. Actors in the lineup include Amy Adams, Ralph Fiennes, Angelina Jolie and Cillian Murphy. Inspired pairings include Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, and John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush.
Opening night features “The Piano Lesson” by Malcolm Washington. Starring John David Washington and Samuel L. Jackson, it’s adapted from August Wilson’s 1987 play.
The closing night screening is “Here.” Director Robert Zemeckis will get the Founder’s Legacy Award.
The non-profit Cinema/Chicago, founded by Michael Kutza, presents the festival, continuing through Oct. 27.
Here are 10 recommended films picked from the 30 I previewed by press time.
Dramas
“Ghost Trail” (France/ Germany/ Belgium) Syrian exiles in Europe organize underground DIY research operations against ex-torturers of political prisoners. Set in Strasbourg and Beirut, Jonathan Millet’s insightful, moving drama is never cheaply suspenseful. I thought of “Munich” (2005) by Steven Spielberg. RUSH tickets only (Oct. 18, 5:15 p.m. AMC; Oct. 19, 8 p.m. Siskel)
“La Cocina” (U.S./ Mexico) Alonso Ruizpalacios adapts Arnold Wesker’s 1957 play “The Kitchen” for a timely international labor drama set in a Times Square restaurant. A mental health crisis by one cook without papers manages to “stop the world” for the owner. It’s a powerful microcosm of the global economy. (Oct. 19, 8 p.m. AMC; Oct. 20, 7:15 p.m. AMC; Oct. 21, 6:30 p.m. National Museum of Mexican, a free Community Cinema screening)
“The Sparrow in the Chimney” (Switzerland) Oh dear, what a delicious mess of issues upset siblings gathering for a birthday at the lovely country house of their late unloved mother. Ramon Zürcher crafts an oddly tender portrait of trauma, with occasional horrifying hallucinations. (Oct. 23, 5:45 p.m. AMC; Oct. 24, 7:45 p.m. AMC)
“Nickel Boys” (U.S.) RaMell Ross, winner of the fest’s Vanguard Award, interprets the 2019 novel by Colson Whitehead about an infamous 111-year-old Florida reformatory. This highly original work incorporates experimental art in an indelible narrative about two black youths surviving racist incarcerations. (Oct. 23, 6:15 p.m. Music Box)
The fictional documentary crew of “Alberta Number One” takes a lunch break.
Chicago International Film Festival
“Alberta Number One” (Canada) Alexander Carson offers an ensemble take on a making-of chronicle about a documentary crew on the road. Workplace frictions ensue. My fave takeaway is how it mocks a kind of made-by-academics documentary that’s fortunately not in this year’s fest. (Oct. 25, 5:30 p.m. AMC; Oct. 26, 11 a.m. AMC)
Documentaries
“The Last Republican” (U.S.) Rep. Adam Kinzinger voted to impeach President Trump and then landed on Jan. 6 Committee. Steve Pink acquired access to the Illinois Republican’s life and career and made a true profile in courage. Happy to report there’s humor here too. One of the fest entries that really puts the upcoming election in perspective. (Oct. 18, 5 p.m. AMC; Oct. 19, 12 p.m. AMC)
“Life and Other Problems” (Denmark/ U.K./ Sweden) After the Copenhagen Zoo put down a young giraffe, Max Kestner talked to biologists around our planet and asked: Why are we here anyway? A very good-natured humanist seminar of all things natural, thermodynamic and spiritual. Laced with great visuals. (Oct. 20, 4:45 p.m. AMC; Oct. 21, 1:30 p.m. Siskel)
“My Stolen Planet” (Germany/ Iran) Farahnaz Sharifi relates the repression of women since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Drawing on home movies from the Shah’s era, and home videos and phone videos shot since then, she finds imagery of girls and women dancing channels resistance and maybe emancipation. (Oct. 19, 2:30 p.m. Siskel; Oct. 24, 3:30 p.m. Siskel)
“A Photographic Memory” (U.S.) In this beautiful biography/ autobiography, Chicago native and photographer Rachel Elizabeth Seed portrays her photographer mother in re-enactments. This expertly edited exercise of inquisitive memorializing draws on home movies and interviews. The filmmaker’s mother died when when she was only 18 months old. (Oct. 23, 2:30 p.m. Siskel; Oct. 24, 8:30 p.m. Siskel)
“Separated” (U.S.) Errol Morris’ latest film feels more like the journalism of understated outrage than his more stylized pieces. Maybe because it comes from NBC News Studios. This necessary lesson on recent history investigates the 2018 child/parent separation policy at the Mexico-U.S. border, per the Office for Refugee Resettlement. Apt counterpoint to current rhetoric. (Oct. 26, 7 p.m. AMC; Oct. 27, 5 p.m. AMC)