Institut Ramon LLull

Catalan Films at The 58th Chicago International Film Festival 2022

Cinema.  Chicago, 12/10/2022

Chicago International Film Festival is the North America’s longest-running competitive film festival. This year's program brings more than 90 features and 60 shorts films from around the world, ranging from moving, life-affirming dramas to eye-opening documentaries to midnight shockers.




INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION:

THE BEASTS, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen

Antoine and Olga are a French couple who settled long ago in a village in the interior of Galicia. They live quietly, although their coexistence with the locals is not as idyllic as they would like. A conflict with their neighbors, the Anta brothers, will cause tension in the village that will rise to a point of no return.

THE SUBSTITUTE, by Diego Lerman

A substitute teacher in Buenos Aires must step out of his professional duties when one of his students is threatened by a local drug kingpin, in this remarkable reflection on the social tensions many students and teachers deal with every day in different corners of the Americas.

NEW DIRECTORS COMPETITION:

LA MATERNAL, by Pilar Palomero

Carla, a young girl at risk of exclusion, arrives pregnant at the centre La Maternal, where she has to learn to coexist with her fellow teenagers and to prepare herself to become a mother. A vital challenge that involves getting to know herself better and understanding the world around her, including the unstable and destructive relationship with her mother.

SPOTLIGHT:

ALCARRÀS, by Carla Simón

After eighty years cultivating the same land, the Solé family gathers to make their last harvest together.

SNAPSHOTS:

PACIFICTION, by Albert Serra

Based on the island of Tahiti, in French Polynesia, De Roller, the High Commissioner of the Republic, and representative of the French State, is a cunning man with perfect manners. Whether at official receptions or in underworld establishments, he is constantly gaging the temperature among a local population that might break out in anger at any given moment. Especially since a rumour has become increasingly persistent: there have been sightings of a submarine whose ghostly presence could indicate that French nuclear tests are resuming.

Spoilers provided by Catalan Fims!