Synopsis

A multi-layered love story, this lyrical portrait follows 22-year-old Finnish climate activist Ida and her friends, all passionately devoted to preserving the forest. While they relish swimming in the crystalline lakes and embracing the ancient trees of their native woods, they are also unafraid to infiltrate corporate offices, shut down paper factories, and put their bodies in front of bulldozers. On their journey, they also find each other.

With stunning cinematography of Finland’s beautiful landscapes — think vast coniferous woods and magical snow forests — and an empathetic look at her young protagonists, director Virpi Suutari (Entrepreneur, ChicagoIFF 2019) steeps the viewer in the idealistic perspective of her subjects. And it’s impossible not to get swept up in their fervent mission. Immersive, engaging, and inspiring, Once Upon a Time in a Forest is a bittersweet ode to youthful dreams and our natural world, more under threat than ever before.

Synopsis

After 15 years together, Ale and Alex decide it’s time to peacefully part ways. Inspired by Ale’s father’s philosophy that separations, not unions, should be celebrated, they decide to throw a party to commemorate their breakup. When they start to tell close friends and family about their plan, they are met with worry and skepticism at the seemingly absurd idea. The two continue to insist that this is a happy affair, but as the preparations advance and the party nears, they too begin to question if their breakup is sound enough to celebrate. Is this idea something that could only ever happen in the movies? Festival alum Jonás Trueba (The August Virgin) crafts a playfully woven narrative in this earnest and utterly charming look at the trials of modern love.

Synopsis

Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones star in this densely plotted, Chicago-set thriller about an army veteran who becomes a pawn in a sprawling conspiracy.

Synopsis

Salvador and his younger brothers Oliver and Benjamin live in an isolated house in the woods. Together in a post-apocalyptic landscape, they’ve established grim routines of survival, including hunting in the forest to feed something sinister and ravenously hungry that’s hiding in their basement. As the many dangers of their dystopian world begin to close in around them, the young brothers must fight to protect the only thing they have left: their family.

Párvulos is not your typical post-apocalyptic epic, but an absolute roller coaster of genre — a dark, gruesome, yet surprisingly sincere coming-of-age tale set in a world devoid of childhood innocence where family is the only hope for the future.

Synopsis

The iconic, ironic ‘90s slacker-rock band Pavement gets its own appropriately wry and subversive music doc in the latest from indie-film iconoclast Alex Ross Perry (Listen Up Philip, Her Smell). Famous for their 1994 hit “Cut Your Hair” (“songs mean a lot / when songs are bought”), the band, known for its lo-fi sound and ingenious lyrics, was heralded by critics and sparked a cult following. But the mainstream always remained elusive.

In Pavements, Perry envisions an alternative reality where mercurial frontman Stephen Malkmus and the other members of the band are the subjects of a hot Hollywood biopic, an off-Broadway jukebox musical, and a pop-up museum exhibition, which all seem to be actually happening. Or are they? With hilarious making-of scenes featuring Jason Schwartzman and Tim Heidecker as record executives and Joe Keery as Malkmus, Pavements manages to be both a heartfelt tribute to the band and an absurdist deconstruction. It’s the ultimate movie adaptation of the sequel to their lives.