Film Countries Archives: France

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Photographer Ernest Cole stares straight into the camera lens.

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

  Raoul Peck

  France     105 minutes

Synopsis

South African photographer Ernest Cole was one of the first photographers to expose the horrors of apartheid to a global audience. But after Cole published his 1967 book House of Bondage, he was forced into exile in New York and Europe for the rest of his life. In this powerful tribute to Cole and the necessity of bearing witness, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) recounts Cole’s wanderings and eventual descent into anonymity. Along the way, he rediscovers and reclaims Cole’s astute, vivid portraits and bracing observations of discrimination, both in his homeland and in the United States.

As with Samuel Jackson’s narration in I Am Not Your Negro, here actor LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah) gives powerful voice to Cole’s sharp, defiant words: “I am collecting evidence,” he memorably says at one point, speaking about those who perpetuate injustice. “And sometimes the monster looks back at me.”

 English with subtitles

Screenings & Events

Film Credits

  •   Tamara Rosenberg, Raoul Peck
  •   Ernest Cole, Raoul Peck
  •   Alexandra Strauss
  •   Wolfgang Held, Moses Tau, Raoul Peck
  •   Lakeith Stanfield, Leslie Matlaisane
  •   Alexeï Aïgui
  •   Laurence Lascary
  •   VELVET FILM, VELVET FILM INC., Arte France Cinéma
  •   https://www.magnoliapictures.com/home

Sponsors

Black Perspectives Program Sponsor

Logo: AllState

Documentary Program Partner

Logo: WTTW (2019)

Documentary Program Patron

Cynthia Stone Raskin

With Support From

logo: French Embassy in the United States 156x125Logo: Villa Albertine 203x60

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An older man wearing goggles and blue swimtrunks floats on his back in crystal blue water.

Faruk

  Aslı Özge

  Germany, Turkey, France     97 minutes

Synopsis

Faruk, a widower in his nineties, is fighting to save his Istanbul condo building, which is slated for total reconstruction amidst an earthquake crisis in Turkey. Stubborn and resistant to change, he clashes with contractors and the building’s board. Meanwhile, Faruk’s documentarian daughter, who’s making a film about her father, is pressuring him for power of attorney so that she can take control of the situation — and, ultimately, the apartment. These pressures quietly build as the demolition date encroaches. Is Faruk’s way of life slipping away?

Director Aslı Özge blends fiction and reality as she trains her camera on a fictionalized version of her father, lending an intimate touch to this tender exploration of family, aging, and modernization in the 21st century.

 Turkish with subtitles

In Focus: Germany on Screen

the flag of GermanyThis film is part of the 60th Chicago International Film Festival’s In Focus: Germany on Screen collection highlighting the work of Germany’s most gifted auteur filmmakers.

Learn more about this collection

Screenings & Events

Media

Film Credits

  •   Asli Özge
  •   Asli Özge
  •   Andreas Samland, Aslı Özge
  •   Emre Erkmen
  •   Faruk Özge, Derya Erkenci, Nurdan Çakmak, Gönül Gezer, Semih Arslanoğlu
  •   Karim Sebastian Elias
  •   EEE Films, FC Istanbul, Parallel 45, The Post Republic

Sponsors

With Support From

Logo: German Film Office 141x125Logo: German Films - 315x100Logo: Goethe Institut 62x100

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A man with dark hear, wearing headphones, looks back over his shoulder

Ghost Trail Les Fantômes

  Jonathan Millet

  France, Germany, Belgium     106 minutes

Synopsis

For Hamid, the past is never far behind. A former literature professor from Aleppo now working undercover in Europe, the Syrian exile spends his days trying to track down the  guard responsible for torturing him — and countless other political prisoners — at the infamous Sednaya prison. In weekly phone calls with his mom, who’s now living in a refugee camp in Beirut, Hamid tries to pretend like everything is fine. But a promising new lead has emerged at a university in Strasbourg, and every cell in Hamid’s body is screaming that this is the man. Will he be able to keep his cool long enough to get proof?

Director Jonatham Millet displays a remarkable command of tone in Ghost Trail, which engages with recent history in a tastefully controlled manner while still giving audiences the tension they crave. Star Adam Bessa is magnetic as the haunted Hamid, and his scenes with Tawfeek Barhom — who co-stars as suspected war criminal Harfaz — crackle with suspense. But the most skillful and subtle shift here is from the excitement of a political thriller to something much sadder, as Ghost Trail mourns the losses that have brought Hamid to this point in his life.

 French, Arabic, English with subtitles

Screenings & Events

Media

Film Credits

  •   Pauline Seigland
  •   Jonathan Millet, Florence Rochat
  •   Laurent Sénéchal
  •   Olivier Boonjing
  •   Adam Bessa, Tawfeek Barhom, Julia Franz Richter, Hala Rajab
  •   Yuksek
  •   Films Grand Huit

Sponsors

New Directors Program Patron

Robert and Penelope Steiner Family Foundation

With Support From

logo: French Embassy in the United States 156x125Logo: Villa Albertine 203x60

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A group of girls dressed in pink sit on a riverbank looking out.

The Brink of Dreams Rafaat einy ll sama

  Nada Riyadh & Ayman El Amir

  Egypt, France, Denmark, Qatar, Saudi Arabia     101 minutes

Synopsis

In a small village in southern Egypt, a group of girls form a street theater troupe as both a creative outlet and a fearless act of defiance. Challenging the patriarchal norms of their conservative Coptic Christian community, the girls dream of becoming actresses, dancers, and singers. They take to the dusty roads of their town to enact short plays that offer provocative challenges to passersby, asking questions like why a girl cannot marry the boy she loves.

Shot over four years with extraordinary access to its subjects, Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir’s film follows these brave girls from adolescence to adulthood, charting the complex and myriad ways in which each must navigate growing up as they form romantic partnerships and  face the social demands of womanhood. As feminist empowerment and aspirational dreams collide with the sobering realities of life, The Brink of Dreams offers a poignant and absorbing coming-of-age story of female solidarity and youthful rebellion. Winner of the top documentary prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

 Arabic with subtitles

Screenings & Events

Media

Film Credits

  •   Ayman El Amir, Nada Riyadh, Marc Irmer, Claire Chassagne
  •   Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir
  •   Véronique Lagoarde-Ségot, Ahmed Magdy Morsy, Ayman El Amir, Nada Riyadh
  •   Dina El Zeneiny, Ahmed Ismail, Ayman El Amir
  •   Majda Masoud, Haidi Sameh, Monika Youssef, Marina Samir, Myriam Nassar, Lydia Haroun, Youstina Samir
  •   Ahmad El Sawy
  •   Felucca Films, Dolce Vita Films, Magma Films
  •   https://www.thepartysales.com/movie/the-brink-of-dreams/

Sponsors

Documentary Program Partner

Logo: WTTW (2019)

Documentary Program Patron

Cynthia Stone Raskin

Film Patron

Cynthia Stone Raskin

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A woman looks over another womans shoulder, the second woman looks into a bucket.

All We Imagine As Light

  Payal Kapadia

  France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg     118 minutes

Synopsis

The light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated by writer/director Payal Kapadia, who won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her revelatory fiction feature debut.

Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital—head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)—plus their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia’s film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment.

Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquility of a seaside village with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actresses and by the camera with a lyrical naturalism that occasionally drifts into dreamlike incandescence. All We Imagine as Light is a soulful study of the transformative power of friendship and sisterhood, in all its complexities and richness.

 Malayalam, Hindi with subtitles

Screenings & Events

Media

Film Credits

  •   Thomas Hakim, Julien Graff
  •   Payal Kapadia
  •   Clément Pinteaux
  •   Ranabir Das
  •   Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon, Azees Nedumangad
  •   Petit Chaos, Chalk and Cheese, Arte France Cinéma, Baldr Film, Another Birth, Les Films Fauves, Pulpa Film

Sponsors

International Competition Program Patron

Jacolyn and John Bucksbaum Family Foundation