Synopsis

Dark comedy meets despair in Park Chan-wook’s latest thriller satirizing the social pressure and shrinking industries facing today’s workers in South Korea and beyond. Squid Game’s Lee Byung-hun stars as Man-soo, a long-time Solar Paper employee whose sense of self is imperiled after he abruptly loses his job.

Terrified that the trappings of success—professional recognition, handsome home, loving family—will slip from his grasp, he searches for a new role as bills begin piling up. At his wit’s end, he hatches a scheme to identify, then eliminate, his competition for the last remaining position in specialty papers. With mounting absurdity and desperation, Man-soo lures his rivals into his deadly trap using the empty promise of employment in their all-but-obsolete industry, convincing himself at every turn of the truth behind the film’s title: that he has no other choice.

Brought to life by Park’s singular talent for masterfully depicting the bleakest situations, the director’s latest is further animated by a compelling turn from his leading man that is equal parts heartbreaking and unhinged.

Synopsis

Nouvelle Vague is Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater’s love letter to the spellbinding magic of French cinema, reimagining the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s revolutionary Breathless, which ultimately cemented Godard as a pioneer of the French New Wave. As critic-turned-director Godard makes and breaks the rules, as a mix of fresh faces and daring talents—including Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg, Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Guillaume Marbeck as Godard himself—bring his spontaneous, electric film to life. Capturing the youthful dynamism and creative chaos at the heart of one of the world’s most beloved and influential movies, Nouvelle Vague transports us to the streets of 1959 Paris for an ode to the power of cinema to transform our lives.

Screening in 35mm.

Synopsis

From acclaimed Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel, known for her poetic and dreamy class-conscious dramas (La Cienaga, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman) comes a very different, but no less compelling, portrait of inequality. Martel chronicles the trial of three men who entered the Indigenous community of Chuschagasta in northern Argentina to take ownership of the land and then killed the community’s leader, Javier Chocobar. Drawing on vivid archival video of the incident, caught on cellphone cameras, Martel closely follows the story of the crime, its punishment, and its far-reaching consequences.

Part courtroom drama and part lyrical look at the past, present, and future of the Chuschagasta people, Nuestra Tierra provides a broader context for the murderous act and offers a space for members of the community to reclaim their lives from a government that has long tried to deny not only their rights to the land but even their very existence. With a keen eye for symbolic details and for the tensions between tradition and modernity, nature and technology, Martel also tells a larger tale about the perennial struggles and injustices embedded in contemporary society.

Synopsis

In a remote, crumbling convent, young nun Rafaela has recurring, seemingly prophetic dreams. When rumor of a new archbishop in a nearby town reaches the small congregation, Rafaela is sent to find him with the mission of securing funds to save the convent and to ask for guidance regarding one particular mysterious dream that haunts her. Her journey finds her lost in a beautiful and perplexing landscape, guided only by her wavering faith. It is on this road, seemingly to nowhere, that her path intersects with other pilgrims and wayward souls who all seek the archbishop—and whose often questionable motivations unwittingly shape the course of Rafaela’s journey.

Director Karla Badillo’s home region—the sweeping, sparse landscape of San Luis Potosí—is a labyrinth for the spiritually adrift in their surreal, fraught pilgrimages. Oca, named for an ancient board game inspired by the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, is a contemplation on one’s journey through faith and its many detours on the shifting winds of destiny.

Synopsis

Two old friends reunite for a quietly revelatory overnight camping trip in this breakout feature from Kelly Reichardt, a microbudget study of companionship and vanishing ideals that introduced many viewers to one of contemporary American cinema’s most fiercely independent artists. As expectant father Mark (Daniel London) and nomadic Kurt (Will Oldham) travel by car and foot into the woods in search of some secluded hot springs, their fumbling attempts to reconnect keep butting up against the limits of their friendship and the reality of how much their paths have diverged since their shared youth.

Adapted from a short story by Jonathan Raymond and accompanied by an atmospheric Yo La Tengo score, Old Joy is a contemplative, wryly observed triumph whose modest scale belies the richness of its insight.

Screening in 35mm with print from the Chicago Film Society.