The Chicago International Film Festival has announced its full 2020 lineup. Growing up in the Chicago Suburbs there is a lot of excitement in my house for the feature film. As previously announced the Opening Night film will be the documentary of John Belushi, Belushi. This will be it’s a world premiere and the film chronicles the career untimely death of Chicago native son and The Second City alumnus and Blues Brother Man John Belushi. The film will premiere on Wednesday, Oct. 14.
What to look forward to
Artistic Director Mimi Plauché announced the lineup for the 56th Chicago International Film Festival, which includes seven World Premieres, 58 feature films, and nine shorts programs screening both virtually and at the drive-in Wednesday, October 14 – Sunday, October 25, 2020.
The Closing Night presentation will be Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand, on Saturday, October 24, showing exclusively at the drive-in. The full schedule is available in the digital Festival Program.
World Premieres
The 56th Festival presents the World Premieres of seven films, including Belushi, the locally made documentaries The Road Up and Mama Gloria; China’s Striding into the Wind; Switzerland’s Of Fish and Men; and Venezuela’s The Special. In addition, the unseen fifth episode of Steve James’ documentary series City So Real will make its World Premiere at the Festival. The Dutch drama Becoming Mona and the Israeli documentary ‘Til Kingdom Come make their International Premieres at the Festival.
Drive-in Screenings
The Festival will show a total of eight films live at ChiTown Movies drive-in theater in Pilsen. These include the World Premiere of Belushi on Opening Night; David Byrne’s American Utopia directed by Spike Lee on Thursday, October 15; The Dark and the Wicked, a new horror film co-presented with Music Box Theatre’s “31 Nights of Terror at the Drive-In” series, showing late-night on Thursday, October 15; Justin Simien’s horror satire Bad Hair, on Friday, October 16; Francis Lee’s passionate period piece Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, on Saturday, October 17; the World Premiere of Chicago-made documentary The Road Up on Sunday, October 18; the Chicago Premiere of Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami on Friday, October 23; and Nomadland on Saturday, October 24. Belushi, The Road Up, and One Night in Miami will also be available for viewing in the virtual cinema in the virtual cinema. For the complete list of drive-in screenings.
Belushi, The Road Up and One Night in Miami will also be available for viewing in the virtual cinema.
Festival Passes – offering access to 10 or 20 virtual screenings – are available now to the general public at chicagofilmfestival.com/festival/tickets. Single tickets go on sale September 23-27 for Cinema/Chicago members and September 28 for the general public.
Mamma, Mimi, Michele, call out any one of those names and I will answer. There are several hats on my shelf. My passions are photography, being outside, movies, tv, pop culture and anything haunted or spooky. People are my other interest, I love meeting new people and socializing. When I lived in Savannah GA I worked as a tour guide both haunted and historical tours. I met people from all over the world, that was the best part of the job. All of this I can write about too, that’s the beauty of being a writer.
