Chicago film fest to present 3 Italian entries

Italian cinema will be well represented at the 56th Chicago International Film Festival with the presentation from Oct. 14-25 of three award-winning, critically acclaimed films straight out of the Venice Film Festival

Most Festival virtual screenings will be accessible to national audiences via the Festival’s streaming platform. For more information, click here.

The following information was provided by the festival:

“Notturno”
Italy, France, Germany • Director: Gianfranco Rosi • 100 minutes • Arabic, Kurdish with subtitles

From the Oscar-nominated director of Fire at Sea, this lyrical tour-de-force captures the peoples and places ravaged along the borders between Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lebanon. The mournful dirges of mothers, plaintive patients enacting a play in a psychiatric hospital, the grace of female Peshmerga warriors, a lone boatman navigating waters against the backdrop of the blood-red dawn—the film’s beautifully composed vignettes capture the signs of violence and war, all the while celebrating the perseverance of its survivors. Notturno is both a vivid snapshot of the Middle East and humanity as it struggles to come out of the darkness.

Available: Across the US | 10/19-10/25
Livestream Q&A: Tribute to director Gianfranco Rosi – Saturday, October 24 at 2 p.m. CT

“Padrenostro”
Italy • Director: Claudio Noce  • 122 minutes • Italian with subtitles

Rome, 1976. Timid and eager-to-please 10-year-old Valerio witnesses the attempted assassination of his father Alfonso by a terrorist commando. Fear, anxiety, and vulnerability overwhelm the family, as they struggle to regain a sense of security and restore normalcy to their lives. When Christian, a slightly older and bolder rebellious boy appears almost out of nowhere and befriends Valerio, his outlook starts to shift. Their meeting will change his life forever, as the two seem to exist in a chimerical world outside of everyday reality. Loosely based on the director’s own childhood experience, filmmaker Claudio Noce deploys magical realist elements to both wondrous and nightmarish effect, creating an intimate and stirring rendering of trauma and its enduring aftermath.

Available: Across the US | 10/14-10/25

“The Ties”
France, Italy • Director: Daniele Luchetti • 100 minutes • Italian with subtitles

In early 1980s Naples, husband Aldo (Luigi Lo Cascio) confesses to wife Vanda (Alba Rohrwacher) that he’s been unfaithful, causing a rupture in their once-happy union. Their two young children, stuck firmly in the middle, bear the emotional fallout. But the ties that bind can be inescapable, even without love. Now, 30 years later, Aldo and Vanda are still together, but their relationship with one other and with their now-adult children continues to be shaped by heartbreak and resentment. In his affecting portrait of a marriage in crisis, acclaimed filmmaker Daniele Luchetti crafts a stirring domestic drama that shifts back and forth through the years—time, it seems, doesn’t heal every wound.

Available: Across the US | 10/14-10/25
Livestream Q&A: Saturday, October 17 at 2 p.m. CT with director Danielle Luchetti.