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Banner: the 59th Chicago International Film Festival

Genre: Thriller


In-Person
A woman stares out a dirty window, the paint on the exterior is old and cracked.

Black Box

Aslı Özge  |   Germany, Belgium
Andi, Arabic, English, French, German, Russian, Turkish  
Architecture, Drama, Social Commentary, Thriller

A Berlin apartment building is placed under lockdown, igniting social, cultural, and familial tensions in this intoxicating potboiler.

In-Person
A young girl wearing a blue puffer coat and yellow gloves, looks straight ahead as she blocks her face from the sun.

Evil Does Not Exist (Aku Wa Sonzai Shinai)

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi  |   Japan
Japanese  
Drama, Environmental, Social Commentary, Thriller

In this captivating eco-thriller, life in the tranquil village of Harasawa is threatened when a Tokyo company announces plans for a glamping site for urbanites.

In-Person
A dirty, bloodied man holds a baby close to him, his other hand flung behind him off camera.

Joram

Devashish Makhija  |   India
Hindi  
Action, Drama, Social Commentary, Thriller

A cat-and-mouse styled thriller finds Dasru on the run with baby in tow after he is framed for the murder of his wife by insidious political forces.

In-Person
A man watches in front of him as a light shines from the projector beside him.

Only the River Flows (He Bian De Cuo Wu)

Wei Shujun  |   China
Mandarin  
Drama, Mystery, Noir, Thriller

A body washes up in a river in rural China. A hasty arrest is made, but the mystery lingers in the police chief’s mind. What kind of darkness is truly at play here?

In-Person
A close up of actor Mads Mikkelsen.

The Promised Land (Bastarden)

Nikolaj Arcel  |   Denmark, Germany, Sweden
Danish  
Biopic, Drama, Historical, Thriller

A retired soldier (Mads Mikkelsen) embarks on a quest to tame the unforgiving Danish Jutland, where he violently clashes with a local landowner.

In-Person
Black and white image of men at table, cigarette smoke curling around them. An older man stands behind the table, watching.

The Universal Theory (Die Theorie Von Allem)

Timm Kröger  |   Germany, Austria, Switzerland
French, German, Swiss-German  
Environmental, Historical, Noir, Thriller

1962. A PhD student investigates a dark secret in the Swiss Alps after a scientist goes missing and bizarre cloud formations appear in the sky.