On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Synopsis
On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across her uncle’s dead body. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family in filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s surreal and vibrant reckoning with the lies we tell ourselves.
Blending dark comedy with poetic realism, Nyoni critiques the traditional expectation to bury pain with the dead as a family of women refuses to feign grief. Featuring a striking visual style and haunting sound design, the film culminates in a defiant protest against silence and denial, suggesting that memory and truth will always endure.
Screenings & Events
Screening
Sun, Oct 20 @ 2:15pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 06
Screening
Fri, Oct 25 @ 5:15pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 04
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Film Credits
- Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Tim Cole
- Rungano Nyoni
- Nathan Nugent
- David Gallego ADFC
- Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Henry B.J. Phiri
- Lucrecia Dalt
- Element Pictures, BBC Film, Fremantle, A24
Sponsors
Black Perspectives Program Sponsor
International Competition Program Patron
Jacolyn and John Bucksbaum Family Foundation
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Life and Other Problems Livet og andre problemer
Synopsis
When a juvenile giraffe named Marius was euthanized by the Copenhagen Zoo a decade ago, the decision sparked an international outcry. But filmmaker Max Kestner was more intrigued than flabbergasted, and uses the provocative incident as a launching pad for this wry and provocative essay film about life, death, biology, genetics, human and animal consciousness, and, well, just about everything else.
Jumping around the planet for a plethora of fascinating interviews — including Italian microbiologist Donato Giovannelli and Oxford veterinarian Charles Foster, who lives as a wolf to better understand them — the film explores the nature of life at a brisk pace, mixing the massive and the microscopic with the existential and the scientific using the lightest of touches. (The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize?” makes for a memorable framing device.) Fascinating and funny, Life and Other Problems delves into the quandaries of existence while offering no single solution.
Screenings & Events
Screening
Sun, Oct 20 @ 4:45pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 01
Director Max Kestner
Screening
Mon, Oct 21 @ 1:30pm CDT
at Gene Siskel Film Center, screen 1
Director Max Kestner
Assistive Listening Devices available
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Media
Film Credits
- Vibeke Vogel
- Max Kestner
- Michael Aaglund
- Maria Von Hauswolff, Sturla Brandt Grøvlen, Max Kestner
- Karen Lloyd, Bengt Holst, Charles Foster, Sheldrake Brothers, Sam Watts, Michael Levin
- Maxwell Sterling
- Bullitt Film
- https://www.bullittfilm.dk
Sponsors
Documentary Program Partner
Documentary Program Patron
Cynthia Stone Raskin
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Harvest
Synopsis
The earthy tones of untamed nature, shot with stunning vibrancy by filmmaker Sean Price Williams, color a nameless medieval village somewhere in England that seems to exist out of time. A tight-knit community of villagers is suspicious of outsiders, and spend their days laboring for the generally affable landowner Charles Kent. Things begin to change when Kent’s nefarious cousin claims ownership over the land and installs plans for massive change. A cartographer is hired, maps are drawn, and the architecture of profit-driven, capitalistic agriculture begins to manifest.
Rich, textured visuals and impeccable performances create a lived-in universe that feels uncannily adjacent to our own. Unfolding over the course of a single hallucinatory week, the English-language debut of “Greek Weird Wave” godmother Athina Rachel Tsangari (Attenberg, 2010) is a breathtaking, atmospheric fable that satirizes modernity and its chaotic fallout.
Screenings & Events
Screening
Mon, Oct 21 @ 7:45pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 04
Screening
Tue, Oct 22 @ 8:30pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 04
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Media
Film Credits
- Rebecca O’Brien, Joslyn Barnes, Michael Weber, Viola Fügen, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Marie-Elena Dyche
- Joslyn Barnes, Athina Rachel Tsangari
- Matt Johnson, Nico Leunen
- Sean Price-Williams
- Caleb Landry Jones, Harry Melling, Rosy McEwen, Arinzé Kene, Thalissa Teixeira
- Nicolas Becker, Ian Hassett, Caleb Landry Jones, Lexx
- Harvest Film Limited
- https://www.the-match-factory.com/catalogue/films/harvest.html
Sponsors
International Competition Program Patron
Jacolyn and John Bucksbaum Family Foundation
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Hard Truths
Synopsis
For his 23rd film, legendary British filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to the stark domestic dramas he’s known for, like his 1971 feature debut Bleak Moments (a ChicagoIFF Gold Hugo winner) and his blistering, Cannes-winning 1993 breakthrough Naked. Reunited with Leigh for the first time since his 1996 multiple Oscar nominee Secrets and Lies, the astonishing Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way. In stark contrast, Pansy’s easygoing younger sister Michele is a single mother whose family life and hair salon are brimming with warmth.
Fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous, Hard Truths takes us into the intensities of kinship, duty, and the most enduring of human mysteries: that even through lifetimes of hurt and hardship, we still find ways to love those we call family.
Screenings & Events
Screening
Thu, Oct 24 @ 5:00pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 06
Screening
Sun, Oct 27 @ 12:00pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 06
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Media
Film Credits
- Georgina Lowe
- Mike Leigh
- Tania Reddin
- Dick Pope BSC
- Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett, Ani Nelson, Sophia Brown, Jonathan Livingstone
- Gary Yershon
- Richard Kondal, Jennifer Eriksson, Alison Thompson, Mark Gooder, Andrew Karpen, Kent Sanderson, Javier Méndez, Javier Pons, Ollie Madden, Daniel Battsek, Gail Egan
- Cornerstone, Film4, Mediapro, Thin Man Films, Creativity Media
- https://bleeckerstreetmedia.com/hard-truths
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The End
Synopsis
From Oscar-nominated director Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence) comes a poignant and deeply human musical about a family that survived the end of the world. Twenty-five years after environmental collapse left the Earth uninhabitable, Mother (Tilda Swinton), Father (Michael Shannon) and Son (George McKay) are confined to their palatial bunker, where they struggle to maintain hope and a sense of normalcy by clinging to the rituals of daily life — until the arrival of a stranger, Girl, upends their happy routine.
As tensions rise, their seemingly idyllic existence starts to crumble, with long-repressed feelings of remorse and resentment threatening to destroy the family’s delicate balance. But their reckoning with difficult truths also points to a different way forward, one based on acceptance, love, and a capacity for change. An urgent and unforgettable cautionary tale.
Screenings & Events
Screening
Fri, Oct 18 @ 8:30pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 05
Screening
Sat, Oct 19 @ 9:00pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 01
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Media
Film Credits
- Signe Byrge Sørensen, Joshua Oppenheimer, Tilda Swinton
- Rasmus Heisterberg, Joshua Oppenheimer
- Tilda Swinton, George Mackay, Moses Ingram, Michael Shannon, Bronagh Gallagher, Tim McInnerny, Lennie James, Danielle Ryan, Naomi O'Garro
- Jeff Deutchman, Tom Quinn, Emily Thomas, Elissa Federoff, Efe Çakarel, Michael Weber, Jason Ropell, John Keville, Macdara Kelleher, Andrea Romeo, Alberto Fanni, Joakim Rang Strand, Marcus Clausen, Waël Kabbani, Greg Moga, David Unger, Sandra Whipham, Charlotte Cook, Jens von Bahr, Sam Mendes, Ramin Bahrani, James Marsh, Werner Herzog, Raffaele Fabrizio, Caterina Fabrizio, Alessandro Del Vigna, Dana Høegh, Christian Bruun, Melinda Quintin, Michael Quintin, Spencer Myers, Amy Gardner, Jean Doumanian, Ilya Katsnelson, Kaarle Aho, Celine Haddad, Greg Martin
Sponsors
International Competition Program Patron
Jacolyn and John Bucksbaum Family Foundation
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