Synopsis

“There’s Potemkin, Citizen Kane, and this…Godard’s first film,” film critic J. Hoberman once wrote about the French New Wave classic. In his audacious debut feature, the filmmaking infant terrible broke the rules of cinema to create something that remains just as fresh, funny, and innovative today. Influenced by American noir and Hollywood gangster films, the plot goes something like this: Small-time crook Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo, doing his best Bogart) steals a car and murders a policeman. While on the run, he reconnects with old flame newspaper-seller Patricia (Jean Seberg, in classic pixie-girl mode) and tries to convince her to go on the lam with him.

But what is it really about? Truth, lies, love, desire, masculinity, ennui, existentialism. Along with Miles Davis and the Beats, Breathless helped bring about the birth of cool, breaking open film form with its revolutionary use of jump-cuts and improvisational energy and influencing generations of filmmakers from Martin Scorsese to Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater.

Screening in 35mm.

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

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.

Synopsis

Budapest, 1957. In the aftermath of a quelled uprising against the ruling Communist party, a young Jewish boy named Andor and his mother are struggling to make ends meet. Both work at a local general store, living in fear of the regime’s violent reprisals against friends and coworkers involved in the failed revolution. When a menacing, brutish man appears in town, claiming to be Andor’s father, the boy is plunged into personal crisis as he’s forced to come to grips with a new and unwelcome family history.

Director László Nemes (Son of Saul) sets this tender, heartbreaking coming-of-age tale amid a violent historical backdrop, balancing the intimate and internal against the grand sweep of history. The struggles of Andor and his family mirror the tumultuous reckoning of the post-WWII world, as Orphan bears witness to the tyrannies of the period through the eyes of a child.

Screening in 35mm.

Synopsis

Based on the beloved novella by Denis Johnson, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier (Golden Globe nominee Joel Edgerton), whose life unfolds during an era of unprecedented change in early 20th century America. Orphaned at a young age, Robert grows into adulthood among the towering forests of the Pacific Northwest, where he helps expand the nation’s railroad empire alongside men as unforgettable as the landscapes they inhabit. After a tender courtship, he marries Gladys (Academy Award nominee Felicity Jones) and they build a home together, though his work often takes him far from her and their young daughter. When his life takes an unexpected turn, Robert finds beauty, brutality, and newfound meaning for the forests and trees he has felled.

An ode to a vanishing way of life, an ever-evolving world, and to the extraordinary possibilities that exist within even the most simple of existences, Train Dreams captures a time and place that are now long gone, and the people who built a bridge to a future they could only dream of.

Screening in 35mm on Mon, Oct 20.

Awards Event

Mon, Oct 20 @ 6:30pm

At this screening, director and co-writer Clint Bentley will receive the Festival’s Artistic Achievement Award in Directing, and actor Joel Edgerton will receive the Festival’s Artistic Achievement Award in Acting.

Clint Bentley is an Academy Award-nominated writer, director, and producer whose feature directorial debut, Jockey, premiered in competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. With frequent collaborator Greg Kwedar, Bentley co-wrote and produced 2023’s Oscar-nominated drama Sing Sing.

Joel Edgerton is an acclaimed Australian actor, writer, and filmmaker who has starred in films
including The Great Gatsby, Zero Dark Thirty, Warrior, Black Mass, Loving, and The Gift, which also
marked his directorial debut. Most recently, he starred in the series Dark Matter and Charlie Polinger’s The Plague, which premiered at Cannes and is screening at the Festival.