The Summer Gala pays tribute to Quentin Tarantino, with a special screening of Inglourious Basterds. In the Fall, the Festival includes Lee Daniels’ Precious and tributes to Uma Thurman, Gabourey Sidibe, Willem Dafoe, Patrice Chéreau, and Martin Landau, who accepts his Lifetime Achievement Award at the same Chicago hotel he stayed at while filming Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest in 1959. Tina Mabry’s Mississippi Damned wins top honors, while other festival favorites that year include Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere and Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, starring Michael Fassbender, winner of a Special Jury Award for acting, his second prize in as many years.
Categories Archives: CCTimeline
All timeline stories.
2008
Cinema/Chicago rebrands the yearly Future Filmmakers Festival as CineYouth, continuing the tradition of uplifting the work of filmmakers age 22 or younger each Spring. In October, film legend Sidney Poitier is celebrated for his contributions to the art of film, as are Christopher Nolan, Mike Leigh, Viggo Mortensen, and Jennifer Hudson. The Festival premieres Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, and Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. Brazilian actor-cum-auteur Matheus Nachtergaete wins Best New Director for his A Dead Girl’s Feast. The Gold Hugo for Best Feature goes to Steve McQueen’s Hunger, which also wins a Best Actor award for Michael Fassbender.
2007
The 43rd Chicago International Film Festival is dedicated to Roger Ebert, and opens with Marc Forster’s The Kite Runner. Tony Gilroy’s debut feature Michael Clayton screens, as does Anthony Hopkins’ directorial debut, Slipstream. The Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips hosts an evening honoring 100 years of filmmaking of Chicago’s Essanay Film Manufacturing Company at the Music Box Theatre.
2006
Tom Cruise makes a surprise appearance at the Summer Gala, during which a Career Achievement Award is presented to Steven Spielberg. That Fall, the Festival honors Dustin Hoffman, Liza Minnelli, and Ruby Dee, and high-profile directors such as Stephen Fears, Darren Aronofsky, and Marc Foster are present to unveil their new films, respectively, The Queen, The Fountain, and Stranger Than Fiction. Asghar Farhadi’s Fireworks Wednesday is awarded the Gold Hugo for Best Feature, while James Longley’s Iran In Fragments wins Best Documentary
2005
Shirley MacLaine receives a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Summer Gala, and the Chicago Youth Media Festival becomes the Future Filmmakers Festival, screening more than 50 shorts. In October, the Festival opens with Susan Sarandon greeting fans for the debut of Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown. The program includes Anand Tucker’s Shopgirl, Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, and Stephen Frears’ Mrs. Henderosn Presents, and Terrence Howard and Nicolas Cage make appearances.
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