Below is the press release in full. For more information, including tickets and showtimes, click here.
Chicago, Illinois (September 18, 2023) – The Chicago International Film Festival today announced the full lineup of films and programs included in this year’s 59th edition of North America’s longest-running competitive film festival, running October 11 – 22, 2023. This year’s Festival unspools films across the city, with screenings at AMC NEWCITY 14, the Music Box Theatre, the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Chicago History Museum, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and pop-up screenings at the Hamilton Park Cultural Center in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood and Harrison Park in Pilsen, as well as a curated selection of films available virtually via the Festival’s streaming platform. The program includes 99 feature films and 58 shorts, three World Premieres, an International Premiere, 19 North American Premieres, and 19 U.S. Premieres, and showcases cinema from countries around the world including Ukraine, South Korea, Spain, Georgia, China, France, Mexico, Japan, Iran, Argentina, and more.
The 59th Chicago International Film Festival opens October 11, 2023 with celebrated Chicago filmmaker Minhail Baig’s WE GROWN NOW, the heartfelt story of two ten-year-old boys as they revel in the freedoms of boyhood and the joys of friendship growing up in Cabrini-Green in 1992 Chicago. Closing Night on October 22 sees writer-director Jeff Nichols receiving the Festival’s Artistic Achievement Award with his THE BIKERIDERS, a furious drama following the rise of a fictional 1960s Midwestern motorcycle club through the lives of its members. The Festival’s Centerpiece presentation is SALTBURN, in which Academy Award-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell brings us a beautifully wicked tale of privilege and desire screening October 19 with Fennell in attendance to receive the Festival’s Visionary Award.
Special Presentations include THE BOY AND THE HERON from animation maestro Hayao Miyazaki; Wim Wenders’ 3-D documentary ANSELM; Andrew Haigh’s mysterious drama ALL OF US STRANGERS; MAY DECEMBER from Todd Haynes; David Fincher’s highly anticipated THE KILLER; THE HOLDOVERS from Alexander Payne, seeing Paul Giamatti’s curmudgeonly instructor babysitting a handful of prep school students over Christmas break; and Michael Shannon’s directorial debut ERIC LARUE and Christos Nikou’s offbeat romance FINGERNAILS, with both directors attending the Festival.