Genre: Family Affairs

Visiting Kosovo with her father, a filmmaker reenacts memories from his childhood to help him reconcile youthful traumas in this lyrical documentary.

As a global crisis escalates, a young man in Seoul counts down the hours to his impending military service, reflecting on his choice to enlist.

In this animated docu-fiction hybrid, queer coyote Bouchra sets out to make a film, hoping to make sense of her mother’s struggle to accept her sexuality.

In Tokyo’s dynamic cityscape, two siblings reckon with the absence of their mother and the return of their estranged father, a renowned architect.

In this warmly spirited drama, eighty-year-old María plots to remain in her beloved Tangier home even as her daughter threatens to displace her.

This heartfelt, intimate film follows the emotionally complex journey of a Vietnamese man who ventures to meet his American father for the first time.

When 17-year-old Christy moves in with his older brother as a last resort, he finds unexpected paths forward within a complex and tight-knit community.

In a matriarchal cotton-rich Sudanese village, teenage Nafisa is at the nexus of a power play that will determine the community’s future.

A man traverses Georgia’s vast countryside in search of his missing daughter in this bold, meditative landscape film shot entirely on an outdated cellphone.

At 18, the warm and curious Emi is starting to spread his wings as he sets out in search of his biological parents and puzzle together the pieces of his own story.

In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan is faced with the impossible choice between her husband and her first love.

A feature film in the form of a triptych. The three stories all concern the relationships between adult children, their somewhat distant parent (or parents), and each other.

A Turkish dissident seeking asylum in the U.S. will do whatever it takes to reunite with his family in this tense, expressive drama.

A poignant chronicle of a family caught in a complex web of conflicting politics and emotions in their effort to rescue loved ones kidnapped on October 7.

With her life crashing down, Linda attempts to navigate her child’s mysterious illness, a missing person, and a hostile relationship with her therapist.

When a single mother and her daughters relocate to Taipei to open a night market stall, they encounter challenges and generations of secrets that threaten to upend their unity.

A dreamy, tragicomic chronicle of one year in the life of an Icelandic family of five as the parents navigate their separation.

A reclusive necromancer promises a black magic cure for a young woman’s cancer in the latest folk horror film from the visionary Adams Family.

Nigeria 1993. A father takes his sons on a whirlwind day trip to Lagos as the chaos of a changing world threatens to envelop them.

In a remote mining town, a girl raised by a queer family searches for the truth about a mythical illness said to be spread by a loving gaze.

In 2014, Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West Little League became the first all-Black team to win the Little League U.S. Baseball Championship. Along the way, 13 twelve-year-old athletes from the South Side turned into media superstars.

This edgy Chicago-set drama follows a Kyrgyz family thrown into turmoil when the prodigal son gets in over his head with gambling debt.

A Nigerian shoe salesman in Australia juggles fatherhood, fading traditions, and a changing world when his adolescent son comes to live with him full time.

In 1987 Tokyo, a quirky and sensitive eleven-year-old grapples with the fallout from her father’s illness in this impressionistic portrait of coming-of-age.

This lyrical portrait of legacy Black farmers in the American South celebrates their tenacity and resolve, presenting a timeless vision of a waning way of life.

Two sisters reunited with their estranged filmmaker father must confront their family’s complex past when he returns to direct a very personal film.

Unfulfilled dreams, dark obsessions, and illicit desires take center stage in this program that transports viewers into the bold and blood-curdling world of genre film. From ventriloquist dummies to unrequited love, these shorts expose our darkest fears… and create new ones.

Some worlds can only truly be conjured outside of physical reality. These eight thrilling shorts unfold in an inventive array of visual and narrative styles that come together to form a vibrant snapshot of contemporary animation.

Close ties abound in these short films spanning Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria, and the U.S. These six shorts explore the complicated relationships between parents and children, aunts and nieces, artists and their craft, and even former lovers.

Chicago and Illinois-based filmmakers experiment with genre, topic, and form in this eclectic program by students, upcoming artists, and established directors.

Unique perspectives and fresh stories drive this program of shorts by filmmakers new to the Festival who are reinventing cinema in ways both subtle and overt.

These films showcase the richness of the documentary form. Through observation, testimony, and poetic reimagining, six different complex corners of the world come into view.

In these five shorts, exceptional international filmmakers explore subjects ranging from sex and war to grief and hippos. Whether employing dark humor or grounded realism, these stories speak to the complexities of the human experience.

After a young woman goes missing at a rave, her father and brother brave the arid Moroccan landscape searching for her in a world on the brink of collapse.

This eerie, uncommonly powerful collage explores inherited trauma and patriarchal abuses across four generations of farmworking women.

Inspired by his favorite TV detective Kojak, an eleven-year-old boy in 1980s Dublin is drawn into the city’s underbelly as he investigates his older brother’s disappearance.

On a family bicycle trip along the Danube, young Dídac’s encounters with a mysterious boy awaken new feelings in this lyrical coming-of-age story.

In 1930s French-colonized Martinique, an eleven-year-old boy becomes the hope for his community, and his grandmother will do anything to see his ambitions realized.

From the Oscar-nominated director of Honeyland comes a heartwarming story of family, storks, and sustainability in North Macedonia.

Shot over 10 years, this intimate family story charts the path of an aspiring cowboy’s coming-of-age struggle in the American heartland.

Based on Denis Johnson’s novella, Train Dreams is a moving portrait of a railroad worker, who leads a life of depth and beauty in early 20th century America.

A quixotic poet drives his girlfriend to her parents’ home on the outskirts of Seoul. As a lazy afternoon becomes a drunken evening, his ideals are tested.

Julia and Tobias’ seemingly perfect marriage is threatened when their daughter Marielle develops telepathic powers in this hilarious and offbeat dark comedy.

A filmmaker, enlisting the help of his winsome family, blends fiction and reality to create an intimate, tender monument to his late mother.

Living together in a group home in Belgium, five teenage girls wrestle with the newfound responsibilities of parenthood in this warmly humanist social drama.