Premiere Status Archives: Chicago Premiere

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A man in a tuxedo is seated at a mirrored table. His face is reflected up at him between the table settings.

Saltburn

  Emerald Fennell

  United Kingdom     127 minutes

Synopsis

Scholarship student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) struggles to find his place as a new student at Oxford. On a chance meeting, he befriends Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), the most popular, charming, and handsome student in school. When Oliver tells Felix that he has no home to return to for the summer, Felix invites him to his aristocratic family’s country estate, Saltburn. As an outsider drawn into the shimmering world of the eccentric Cattons and their life of excess, Oliver begins to feel at home in this lifestyle, drawing closer to each member of the family. But when his fascination starts to verge on obsession, buried truths are unearthed, and this summer will become one he will never forget.

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) and an exceptional star-studded cast bring us a beautifully wicked and subversive tale of privilege and desire.

 English 

Filmmaker Emerald Fennell, a white woman with long hair wearing a pair of large headphones around her neck,, laughs while on set.Tribute to Emerald Fennell

This screening includes an in-person tribute to director Emerald Fennell and presentation of the Chicago International Film Festival’s Visionary Award.

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Screenings & Events

Media

Film Credits

  •   Emerald Fennell, p.g.a; Margot Robbie, p.g.a; Josey McNamara, p.g.a
  •   Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Carey Mulligan

Sponsors

Comedy Program Sponsor

Logo: The Second City 329x75

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A dark haired woman and child share a warm smile as the girl rests her hand on the womans.

Shayda

  Noora Niasari

  Australia     117 minutes

Synopsis

Shayda, a brave Iranian mother, has fled her husband, finding refuge in an Australian women’s shelter with her six-year-old daughter. Over the Persian New Year, they struggle to find normalcy in Nowruz rituals and new beginnings. But when her estranged husband re-enters their lives, Shayda’s path to freedom is jeopardized.

Drawn from personal experiences, Iranian-Australian filmmaker Noora Niasari’s powerful debut feature is a poetic, beautifully crafted vérité portrayal of courage and compassion, anchored by a heart-rending performance by Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider). Ebrahimi captures the vulnerability and conflict, but also the radiant soul, of an Iranian woman who boldly reclaims her human rights: to divorce her husband, dress as she chooses, and keep her child no matter the cost.

 English, Persian with subtitles

Screenings & Events

Media

Film Credits

  •   Vincent Sheehan, Noora Niasari
  •   Noora Niasari
  •   Elika Rezaee
  •   Sherwin Akbarzadeh
  •   Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Osamah Sami, Leah Purcell, Jillian Nguyen, Mojean Aria, Rina Mousavi, Selina Zahednia
  •   Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton, Coco Francini, Caitlin Gold, Lindsay Lanzillotta, Lois Scott, Naomi McDougall Jones, Nivedita Kulkarni
  •   Origma 45, Dirty Films, The 51 Fund

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A black family of six poses together in front of their home.

Silver Dollar Road

  Raoul Peck

  United States     100 minutes

Synopsis

In the Spring of 2011, brothers Melvin Davis, 64, and Licurtis Reels, 53, stood in a North Carolina court and vowed never to leave their great-grandfather’s land. But their coastal patch of property along Silver Dollar Road had been sold to developers years before without their knowledge. So the two men were put in jail… for eight years.

Oscar-nominated director Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) chronicles the shocking story of one family’s fight, and the lasting impact of slavery and the Jim Crow South that contributed to their ongoing plight. Mixing lyrical passages of life along the waterfront with home movies from their community that capture both good times and bad as their frustration boils over into confrontation, Silver Dollar Road is a profound look at injustice and racism across the decades and into the present.

 English 

Screenings & Events

Media

Film Credits

  •   Blair Foster, Remi Grellety, Hebert Peck, Raoul Peck
  •   Raoul Peck
  •   Alexandra Strauss
  •   Henry Adebonojo, Antonio Rossi
  •   ALEXEI Aigui
  •   Lizzie Presser, Stephen Engleberg, Almundena Toral, Robin Sparkman, Viola Davis, Julius Tennon, Rob Williams
  •   Velvet Film, Amazon Studios

Sponsors

Documentary Program Sponsors

Logo: WTTW (2019)Cynthia Stone Raskin

Black Perspectives Program Sponsors

logo: Allstate 199x50

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Stamped from the Beginning

  Roger Ross Williams

  United States     94 minutes

Synopsis

Inspired by the book of the same name and narrated by its bestselling author Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (How to Be An Antiracist), Stamped from the Beginning explores the roots of anti-Black racist beliefs and practices and how they’ve become enshrined in American culture. The film brings history to life through vivid animated sequences recounting the often little-known achievements of Black women thinkers such as 18th C. poet Phillis Wheatley, memoirist Harriet Jacobs, and journalist Ida B. Wells, while also exposing the whitewashed legacies of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

Directed by Oscar winner Roger Ross Williams (The Apollo) and featuring such leading activists as Dr. Angela Davis, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, and Brittany Packnett Cunningham, the film is a bold and searing account of how past and present are entwined in an insidious mix of white supremacist and anti-Black ideologies.

 English 

[spoiler title="Content Considerations"]Racial violence[/spoiler]Learn about Festival content considerations...

Screenings & Events

Film Credits

  •   Alisa Payne, Roger Ross Williams, David Teague
  •   David Teague
  •   John Fisher, Francesca Sharper
  •   Wolfgang Held
  •   Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Dr. Angela Davis, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Brittany Packnett Cunningham
  •   Nate Wonder, Roman GianArthur
  •   Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Geoff Martz, Mara Brock Akil, Susie Fitzgerald
  •   One Story Up Productions, Story27

Sponsors

Documentary Program Sponsors

Logo: WTTW (2019)Cynthia Stone Raskin

Black Perspectives Program Sponsors

logo: Allstate 199x50

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A bearded man seated before a desk holds up his fist to show a tattoo on his forearm.

Terrestrial Verses

  Ali Asgari, Alireza Khatami

  Iran     77 minutes

Synopsis

A series of incisive, often darkly comic vignettes, Terrestrial Verses offers a glimpse into the lives of average Iranians as they grapple with the social, cultural, and religious bureaucracies imposed upon them by their government. A static camera chronicles an array of struggles—a woman searching for her lost dog, a filmmaker clashing with national censorship, a parent attempting to name his newborn son David, and many others—as the film ponders the absurd, draconian structures that subtly dictate life in Iran. The accumulation of these striking short fictions paints a powerfully human picture of a population fed up with the constraining politics of everyday life.

 Persian with subtitles

Screenings & Events

Media

Film Credits

  •   Ali Asgari, Milad Khosravi
  •   Alireza Khatami, Ali Asgari
  •   Ehsan Vaseghi
  •   Adib Sobhani
  •   Majid Salehi, Gouhar Kheir Andish, Sadaf Asgari
  •   Masoud Fayaz Zadeh
  •   Taat Films Iran, Seven Springs Pictures Iran, Cynefilms
  •   https://filmsboutique.com/film/terrestrial-verses/