Cinema Chicago

We are incredibly excited to be hosting Finnish filmmaker and poet Mikko Myllylahti at the festival this year. His film The Woodcutter Story, also shown at Cannes this year, is set in an unnamed Finnish timber village in the far north during the pervasively dark winter. Deadline calls the film “deeply melancholy, strange, and surreal.” Myllylahti is both a director and writer and has received prizes for the 2016 film he wrote, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki. […]

As usual, there are several films that are the official submissions for their country in the Best International Feature Oscar category at this year’s Festival, hoping to make the Academy Awards shortlist and eventual select list of five nominees. To even be selected as the submission and placed in contention for nomination is a significant honor for these films and their filmmakers. The process involves an Academy-approved committee or jury (which must include film industry artists and craftspeople) who select the film for their country.[…]

Showing her vibrant documentary, Band, we are so thrilled to host Icelandic filmmaker and band member Alfrun Ornolfsdottir at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival. The wonderfully heartfelt documentary follows her own band, an all-female, electro-punk Icelandic group, called Post Performance Blues Band through all their adventures and misadventures as they attempt to become avant-garde pop stars. It is a spunky and delightful ode to dreams and friendship. 

What prompted the decision to make this documentary about your personal history?[…]

This article originally appeared on Better.net

This year, the Chicago International Film Festival will be celebrating its 58th consecutive, enriching year. The fest, which doubles as North America’s longest-running competitive film festival, will begin its showcase October 12 and run until the 23. During that time, audiences will come from far and wide to take in the fest’s lineup — which includes work from a variety of international filmmakers as well as a range of genres from lighthearted to complex. What’s more, the festival will also feature competitive categories and programs, each that reflect and speak to Chicago’s multicultural communities in contexts that foster discussion.[…]

We are delighted to host Irish filmmaker and journalist Sinead O’Shea along with her film Pray For Our Sinners. The documentary mixes personal storytelling with political exposé, where O’Shea returns to her small hometown to confront historical abuse and neglect in the Catholic Church. More specifically, she delves into the harm caused to women and children in “mother and baby” homes (where unwed mothers were sent to deliver their newborns) and the corresponding resistance against it.  

The documentary covers a fairly intense subject, was creating it an emotional process for you given how close it is to your home and history?[…]