CHICAGO — Last year, the opening night of the Chicago International Film Festival told it like it was. One film (Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch”) played indoors, at the Music Box Theatre. That same night, across town, another film (Todd Haynes’ “The Velvet Underground”) played outdoors at the Pilsen drive-in known as ChiTown Movies, also known as the parking lot outside ChiTown Futbol, also known as the city’s standout boutique outdoor screening venue.
That was 19 months into the pandemic. Audience surveys taken during the 2021 festival, recalls CIFF artistic director Mimi Plauche, indicated that for “over 40% of ticket holders attending an in-person screening that year, it was their first time inside a theater — any theater — since March 2020.”
But, she notes, “they came back. For the festival.”
Last year CIFF operated on what Plauche calls a “true hybrid” of a festival model. Two-thirds of the films screening in the festival’s indoor venues were also available to stream online.
This year, her sixth year at the helm, things feel different, and the numbers are different. “It feels like we’re ready to put our focus on being back together in theaters.” A much smaller number of this year’s 96 features and 56 short films, roughly 25%, will stream online as well as indoors, in person.
The 58th edition of the Chicago International Film Festival opens with a block party along Southport Avenue, with food trucks and food stands, outside the Music Box Theatre, once again the site of several of the festival’s key screenings. These include the new Steve James documentary ”A Compassionate Spy” on Oct. 12, and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” on Oct. 18, which co-star Kathryn Hahn will attend to pick up a Career Achievement Award.
Who else is coming to town for CIFF? It’s an impressive guest list, that’s who. Just this week Katie Couric, executive producer of the new documentary “No Ordinary Campaign” (Oct. 13), confirmed her Oct. 22 appearance. The film is about Barack Obama’s former political director Brian Wallach and his diagnosis, at age 37, with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Couric will moderate a post-screening discussion at this world premiere’s encore screening, held at a first-ever CIFF venue: the Chicago History Museum.
Anna Diop, who is superb in the crafty and elegant psychological thriller “Nanny” (Oct. 21), comes to town to receive a Rising Star Award. And this year’s Artistic Achievement Award goes to Jonathan Majors of “Lovecraft Country,” “Da 5 Bloods,” “The Harder They Fall” and others. In between a hectic shooting schedule for a slew of upcoming Marvel movies — he’s Kang the Conqueror, and will be for a while — Majors co-stars in the Korean War-era drama “Devotion,” about Jesse Brown, a pioneering Black U.S. Navy aviator. “Devotion” director J.D. Dillard will also attend the Oct. 22 screening.
That screening is part of CIFF’s Black Perspectives slate, programmed again this year by filmmaker/programmer Amir George. “We’re just so honored to honor them both,” he says of Majors and Diop.
Festival circuit titles making their Chicago premiere range from “The Whale” (Brendan Fraser as a morbidly obese recluse, Oct. 15) to the top prize winner at this year’s Venice festival (the nonfiction feature “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” about photographer Nan Goldin’s fight against Big Pharma). Both made their premieres at Venice a month ago.
This year’s Black Perspectives titles include the world premiere of “King of Kings: Chasing Edward Jones.” It promises a fascinating local crime story: that of the men, including the Jones brothers led by Edward “Big Ed” Jones, who squared off against the underworld syndicate known as the Outfit for control of a hugely lucrative numbers racket. The documentary, seeking a distributor, is the work of Jones’ granddaughter, Harriet Marin Jones.
The two “King of Kings” screening locations reflect the expanding geographical ideals of CIFF. It plays on Oct. 19 at the History Museum and, two nights later, at another venue new to the festival: the Hamilton Park Cultural Center in Englewood.
Last year, says festival programmer George, just getting a screening or two away from downtown sent a long-overdue message to communities who heretofore had no immediate reason to wonder what was up with the city’s largest film festival. The 2021 CIFF screenings included an outdoor patio shorts program, curated by George, at Bronzeville’s Parkway Ballroom.
The response, he says, was unanimous: gratitude, mixed with it’s about time.
“People were just happy to have these films on the South Side,” he says. “It allowed the festival to widen its reach to local neighborhoods and to involve people who hadn’t attended the festival before.”
What we’ve covered so far represents a sliver of the 2022 lineup, which includes a wealth of Industry Days events and master classes. The “Sound on Screen” sessions feature Mychael Danna (Oct. 15), composer of “Life of Pi,” “Monsoon Wedding” and “Little Miss Sunshine;” followed on Oct. 22 by composer Kris Bowers (”The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” “King Richard,” “Bridgerton”). The remarkable director and actor Sarah Polley comes Oct. 20 with her latest, “Women Talking.”
There is so much to see. And, this year, more places to see it. Plauche told me she sometimes thinks about 2020, before vaccinations, when doing an all-virtual festival felt like “a huge experiment.” Well, not all virtual: That year CIFF took a shot at the Pilsen drive-in for the world premiere of the John Belushi doc “Belushi,” and presented a closing-night “Nomadland” screening a few, suddenly chilly days later.
That year, the drive-in felt like “such a relief from sitting at home. The screenings there felt … renewing. And joyful.”
This year? Plauche senses some sort of critical audience mass taking shape, ready to commit to a variety of indoor venues. Just like old times, with a few asterisks — and, with luck, some bracing and memorable work from all over the world.
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The Chicago International Film Festival is Oct. 12-23; some titles are available for online viewing. Tickets and the full schedule at chicagofilmfestival.com
Venues include:
—AMC River East, 322 E. Illinois St.
—Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave.
—Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St.
—Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St.
—Austin Town Hall, 5610 W. Lake St.
—Hamilton Park Cultural Center, 513 W. 72nd St.
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