Synopsis

After commercial Foley artist Zara is hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, her introverted sister Eva is thrust into her demanding job and becomes obsessed with creating the perfect sound effects for a spot featuring a horse. As Eva immerses herself more deeply into the craft, her body transforms in fantastical and unexpected ways. Invigorated and empowered by the changes to her physical form, she begins to explore newly awakened desires. Shot on stunningly vivid 16mm and featuring a hypnotic sound design, director Ann Oren describes her fiction debut best: “A love letter to the less recognized magicians of cinema and a playful celebration of otherness, Piaffe is an opportunity for viewers to see with their bodies and touch with their eyes.”

Winner

58th Chicago International Film Festival Silver Hugo. Learn more…

Synopsis

In childhood, mischievous twin brothers Kolya and Vasily were inseparable. They lived with the assurance that, whenever they got into hot water, their well-connected petty gangster father would bail them out. As adults, things couldn’t be more different. Straight-laced Vasily is a  police officer, while mercurial Kolya makes ends meet as a bus driver and pot pusher. Their divergent paths merge when they receive an out-of-the-blue phone call notifying them that their father, who abandoned the family long ago, has been found dead in Luxembourg. Inspired by true events from the director’s own life, the film finds warmth and humor in the brothers’ journey as together they must find a way to come to terms with their complicated legacy.

Synopsis

In a quaint peaceful European town, horse-drawn carriages clip-clop along the cobblestone streets, while children enjoy snacks by a Gothic fountain, and an old man plays a folk song on a clarinet. Only later does it become clear that the picturesque scene is one from Nazi Germany—and soon bombs begin raining down, their explosions a flurry of flashes against the night sky. Inspired by W.G. Sebald’s treatise and created entirely from archival footage, The Natural History of Destruction mounts a harrowing critique of the killing of civilian populations during war-time—as seen in the devastation unleashed across both England and Germany during WWII. Ukrainian-raised Cannes-winning filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa (Maidan, Donbass) returns to the Festival after last year’s winner Babi Yar. Context with another brilliantly edited, immaculately restored, and exquisitely sound-designed clarion call, as tragically urgent today as the missiles continue to fall.

Winner

58th Chicago International Film Festival Silver Hugo. Learn more…

Synopsis

Award-winning actress Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) delivers a tour-de-force performance as Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known to many as Sissi, in a witty, unconventional costume drama that sees the frustrated royal yearning to break free from both the constraints of her courtly obligations and her reputation as a fashionable beauty. Having turned 40, the Empress begins lacing her corsets ever tighter to maintain her public image even as she grows ever more resentful of her declining political influence. Departing 1877 Vienna, she embarks on a tour of England and Bavaria visiting former lovers, in hopes of reclaiming some of the vitality of her youth and hatching a plan to protect her legacy. A bold departure from earlier films about one of Austria’s most famous figures, Corsage is a timely reflection on a woman’s perceived social worth and struggle for agency and autonomy.

Winner

58th Chicago International Film Festival Silver Hugo: Best Performance, Vicky Krieps. Learn more…

Synopsis

In this sensitive adaptation of Judith Kerr’s internationally acclaimed autobiographical classic, nine-year-old Anna finds the world shift dramatically around her in 1933 Berlin. When her father, a high-profile Jewish theater critic, abruptly flees to Zurich to escape the Nazis, the family scrambles to follow, leaving everything and everyone behind⁠—from a beloved nanny and friends to cherished toys. A new life filled with challenges and privations, met with persistence and triumphs, lies ahead.