Saturday, October 18, at the Chicago International Film Festival is a busy day filled with some of the best arthouse cinema of the year; here are the highlights our film critics recommend. Follow along for all our latest coverage of the festival, which runs through October 26.
Dead Man’s Wire
Although director Gus Van Sant hasn’t made a feature film since 2018’s strange but endearing Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (he also directed six of the eight episodes of the second season of Feud), he hasn’t gotten any less curious about the best way to tell a story that feels weirdly timely, despite it being set in 1977.
On a cold winter’s day in Indianapolis, a would-be entrepreneur named Tony Kiritsis (a remarkable, unhinged performance by Bill Skarsgård) walks into the office of his mortgage company and takes Dick Hall (Dacre Montgomery), the son of the manager M.L. Hall (Al Pacino), hostage by running a wire from the man’s neck to the trigger of a sawed-off shotgun. If the man tries to run or Tony is killed, the shotgun goes off and takes Hall’s head with it. With police surrounding them but helpless to do anything, they take the short journey to Tony’s apartment complex and hole up there while negotiations begin. What Dead Man’s Wire does so beautifully is show how the mortgage company’s greed and bad-faith practices made Tony feel like he had no other choice but to go to such extremes to get his money back and, most importantly, an apology from M.L. Hall.
Tony enlists members of the police force whom he knows from a local bar, as well as a popular local DJ, Fred Temple (Colman Domingo), to get his message out to the people about why he’s doing this. There’s also Linda Page (Myha’la), a young Black television reporter getting her first real news story to cover. The film’s strength is that we feel deeply for what Tony is going though even as we disagree with his methods and the way he soaks in the attention. He was absolutely cheated by this mortgage company (although not by Dick specifically), and Van Sant captures the way many members of the public sided with his actions and demands. Leaning heavily into the 1970s of it all, Van Sant clearly uses Dog Day Afternoon as an inspiration, but makes this story his own with Skarsgård absolutely dominating the landscape, as he often does, by being a master of mimicry and character details. (Steve Prokopy)
The film screens at AMC NewCity on Saturday, Oct. 18, at 5:15pm, and at Gene Siskel Film Center on Sunday, Oct. 19, at 8:15pm. At the Oct. 18 screening, director Gus Van Sant will receive the festival’s Visionary Award, recognizing his auspicious body of work.
Franz
The great Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland (Oscar nominee for Europa, Europa and a slew of dramatic television series) strikes the perfect balance of historical context and creativity in Franz, an inventive and moving chronicle of the life of Czech author Franz Kafka. Working from a script she also wrote, Franz is a sweeping historical journey through Kafka’s life and work that isn’t afraid to take narrative risks in an effort to draw timely connections between modern life and Kafka’s legacy. The approach is a welcome breath of fresh air in a genre that can otherwise be quite stuffy and overly serious, and although Holland has by no means delivered a comedy here, she’s nonetheless found a way to infuse a thread of originality into the proceedings.
It helps that the actor playing Kafka in young adulthood and beyond, newcomer Idan Weiss, is a dead-ringer for the writer and absolutely captivating in his portrayal of a man who never quite fit in with his big, traditional family and whose legacy far outweighs the amount of work he actually produced. Holland effortlessly moves us through a chaotic homelife where a young and timid Kafka struggles to find a moment of peace and quiet to write among the bustling of his overbearing father Hermann (Peter Kurth), his well-meaning mother Julie (Sandra Korzeniak) and his younger sisters, including Ottla (Katharina Stark), with whom he’s closest.
Admittedly, Kafka and his works never crossed my literary path in my studies or since, so I’m one of the blank slate who entered the film without much background on the author. Holland’s approach pays its due to his history, life and work while making smart use of modern commentary with regard to his legacy; she highlights several scenes of contemporary capitalism in Kafka’s name (say that ten times fast) that present a stark contrast to the period piece surrounding them. Combined with Weiss’s strong performance, Franz becomes a worthy and interesting entry in a genre that all too often fails to do its subjects justice. (Lisa Trifone)
Franz screens Sat, Oct 18, at 2pm and Sunday, Oct. 19, at 11am at AMC Newcity. Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland is scheduled to attend both screenings for post-film Q&As.
It Was Just An Accident
Winner of the 2025 Palm d’Or, Cannes Film Festival’s top honor, It Was Just an Accident is the latest from Iranian writer/director Jafar Panahi (who previously won the award for 2018’s 3 Faces), a filmmaker known for his deeply humanistic and unflinching takes on life in his home country. Working under a repressive regime, he’s been the subject of as many headlines as his films have, from being detained at airports during routine film festival travel to his activism at home and on festival juries. He’s technically still currently under a ban from working in his chosen field, meaning his latest, the story of a ragtag group of survivors unexpectedly confronted by their traumatic shared past, was produced in secret and without film permits.
The story begins at night, as a couple and their young daughter drive home on a dark, secluded road; after hitting a dog, the car’s engine is damaged badly enough that they’re forced to stop at a nearby garage for repairs. One of the mechanics believes he recognizes Eghbal as one of his torturers during an earlier imprisonment. As Vahid attempts to enact revenge, he begins to second guess himself about Eghbal’s identity, having been blindfolded during his imprisonment. With Eghbal restrained in his van’s cargo hold, he soon enlists other past victims, including photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari), the bride of the couple she’s photographing, Goli (Hadis Pakbaten)—who’s marrying Ali (Majid Panahi)—and Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr), yet another victim and generally an unpredictable hothead all around.
There’s an unexpected comic relief to the proceedings, from the visuals of a couple in their wedding garb to the random pickles they all find themselves in along the way. But the comedic moments never take away from the heft of what Panahi is exploring here. The question of whether Eghbal is who they think he is is at the center of everything, alongside complicated and intense questions that Panahi and his talented cast grapple with in nuanced, authentic ways. Yet again, the Iranian filmmaker puts a mirror to modern society and asks us to investigate how we treat each other, what impact our collective choices have on each other and how we are meant to live together in the wake of it all.
It Was Just an Accident screens Saturday, Oct 18, at 3pm at AMC Newcity and Sunday, Oct 19, at 5pm at Gene Siskel Film Center.
A Poet
Director Simón Mesa Soto returns to the festival (his feature debut, Amparo, received its North American Premiere at the 57th edition) with this at times farcical sophomore effort about a sad sack who can’t get his act together.
Oscar Restrepo (Ubelmar Ríos) was once a promising poet with two books and a major national award under his belt. Today, he is a washed-out wannabe, whose daughter no longer wants to speak to him, who gets bamboozled by his drunk friends into nefarious moneymaking schemes, and who ends up every morning drunk on a sidewalk right outside his mother’s and sister’s apartment. He reluctantly takes a job as a teacher in a high school where he discovers that one of his students, Yurlady (Rebeca Andrade) who lives in an overcrowded apartment with her grandmother, siblings and their children, has a talent for poetry. Oscar takes her on as her mentor and even encourages her to participate in a poetry contest that offers a cash scholarship. What starts as an act full of good intentions, and the possibility of redemption, turns into a nightmare for Oscar.
Mesa Soto takes no prisoners in his satirical dissection of Colombia’s class divide. He pokes fun at a type of Latin American intellectual who carry themselves as the saviors of the lower classes and their own culture with their platitudes about art and poetry. The opportunism here is not one-sided; Yurlady’s family and Yurlady herself take full advantage of Oscar’s naïveté.
A teacher who founded a poetry competition and a musician for a heavy metal band in real life, Ríos’ performance is reason enough to see A Poet. His body language speaks of both indifference and defeat. But there is also a melancholy in his buck-toothed smile, in the way his mouth curves downward, in the way the camera isolates him. Ríos understands him but, most importantly, makes us care about Oscar in spite of his blunders. Winner of the Un Certain Regard’s Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes, A Poet consolidates Mesa Soto’s position as one of the most daring, uncompromising voices emerging out of Colombia’s film scene.
A Poet is screening on Saturday, Oct. 18, at 2:30pm and Sunday, Oct. 19, at 11:15am at AMC Newcity. Director Simón Mesa Soto is scheduled to attend both screenings.
Primavera
If your thing is lush, period Italian cinema, have I got a movie for you. The feature film debut of theater and opera director Damiano Michieletto, Primavera is a lyrical and music-filled biopic about baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi (Michele Riondino), best known for his Four Seasons violin concertos ("primavera" means Spring in Italian). Set in the roaring 1700s Venetian society, the film is all great white wigs and ruffled pantaloons contrasted against the modesty of the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for girls surrendered by mothers who couldn't raise them for one reason or another. Vivaldi, an ordained priest, worked at the orphanage for 40 years where he composed his works for the all-female orchestra populated by the charges at the school. It's a win-win arrangement for the time, really, as Vivialdi earns a respectable living doing what he loves and the young women at the orphanage learn skills and talents that will help them be married off to wealthy men looking for companionship.
Based on the novel Stabat Mater by Tiziano Scarpa, the film is based on actual events in Vivaldi's tenure at the orphanage. Here, he is drawn to a talented young violinist named Cecilia (Tecla Insolia); he plucks her from the back of the orchestra to make her first chair, and soon they're working closely together as he discovers inspiration in her and she uncovers the possibility of a life centered around music rather than a man. Though promised in marriage to an Army officer, Cecilia begins dreaming of a reality where she is in control of her own life; though Vivaldi's work and creative journey is interesting, it's Cecilia's story that brings drama to the film. She's struggling to emerge from under the thumb of the prioress at the orphanage, the men who want to tell her what to do, even her fellow orphans who can't see for her the same possible future she can see for herself.
Though it was never a sure bet in cinemas, international cinema has taken a beating with American audiences since the pandemic, as fewer and fewer films with subtitles are finding their way into the local cinema. On the off chance that this one doesn't come back around, make a point to support it while it's in town at the festival. (Lisa Trifone)
Primavera screens Saturday, Oct 18, at 5pm at AMC Newcity and Sunday, Oct 19, at 2:45pm at Gene Siskel Film Center. Filmmaker Damiano Michieletto is scheduled to attend both screenings for post-film Q&As.
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