Odds and ends
Kenneth Branagh, Rebecca Hall and their movies coming to this year’s Chicago International Film Festival
CHICAGO — Accompanied by their respective films “Belfast” and “Passing,” Sir Kenneth Branagh and Rebecca Hall are scheduled to visit the 57th Chicago International Film Festival.
This year’s edition, Oct. 13-24, also features a clutch of buzzy titles from the recent Venice and Telluride, Colorado, festivals. Among them: the road movie “C’mon C’mon,” from writer-director Mike Mills (”20th Century Women”) and headliner Joaquin Phoenix; writer-director Jane Campion’s warmly received Western “The Power of the Dog,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst; and director Todd Haynes’ music documentary “The Velvet Underground,” which opens the festival Oct. 13 at the Pilsen Chitownmovies drive-in. “Velvet Underground” is essentially a sneak preview, it streams on Apple TV+ Oct. 15, two days after fest opening.
The documentary “Citizen Ashe,” about the tennis champion and civil rights activist Arthur Ashe, is also on the slate. More titles and confirmed guests — as confirmed as anyone can confirm in a pandemic — will roll out next week, festival officials said.
In addition to the customary downtown AMC River East location, along with the popular Pilsen drive-in used by the festival last year, this year’s venues have expanded to include the downtown Gene Siskel Film Center; Lakeview’s Music Box Theatre; and a fifth screening site located on Chicago’s South Side.
“It’s a different model,” artistic director Mimi Plauche said Tuesday. “But with COVID, when you’re thinking about what’s safe while connecting more broadly with the city of Chicago, this year was an opportunity to try it.”
Much of the festival’s lineup will also be available for home streaming, as it was last year, in the first year of the pandemic.
In-person screenings, said managing director Vivian Teng, will require proof of full vaccination (increasingly the global festival norm) or a negative
COVID PCR test taken up to 72 hours before entry. Seating capacity at the festival venues is likely to hold at 80%, Teng said.