Chicago International Film Festival

Location	212 W Van Buren St., Suite 400, Chicago, Illinois, United States
Founded	1964
Hosted by	Cinema/Chicago
Language	International
Website	http://www.chicagofilmfestival.com

The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the composite eyes of early film actresses Theda Bara, Pola Negri and Mae Murray, set as repeated frames in a strip of film.^[1]

In 2010, the 46th Chicago International Film Festival presented 150 films from more than 50 countries. The Festival's program is composed of many different sections, including the International Competition, New Directors Competition, Docufest, Black Perspectives, Cinema of the Americas, and Reel Women.

Its main venue is the AMC River East 21 Theatre in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, although it has dropped that venue during the most recent festival as of 2023 (59th), instead using the AMC Newcity 14.

International Connections Program

The International Connections Program was created in 2003 in order to raise awareness of the international film culture and diversity of Chicago, and to make the festival more appealing to audience and staff of various ethnicities. Foreign films are screened for free throughout the city weekly from July through September.

Awards

Winners are awarded Hugo Awards in eight different competition categories.^[2]

• International Feature Film Competition
  • Gold Hugo
  • Silver Hugo: Jury Prize
  • Silver Hugo: Best Director
  • Silver Hugo: Best Actor (until 2019)
  • Silver Hugo: Best Actress (until 2019)
  • Silver Hugo: Best Performance (from 2020)
  • Silver Hugo: Best Ensemble Performance
  • Silver Hugo: Best Cinematography
  • Silver Hugo: Best Screenplay
  • Silver Hugo: Best Sound
  • Silver Hugo: Best Art Direction
• New Directors Competition

Gold Hugo

Year	Winning film	Director(s)	Country	Source
1965	The Lollipop Cover	Everett Chambers	United States	[3]
1966	Bushido (Bushidō zankoku monogatari)	Tadashi Imai	Japan	[4]
1967	Here's Your Life (Här har du ditt liv)	Jan Troell	Sweden	[5]
1968	Innocence Unprotected (Nevinost bez zastite)	Dušan Makavejev	Yugoslavia	[6]
1969	Eeny Meeny Miny Moe (Ole dole doff)	Jan Troell	Sweden	[7]
1970	The Green Wall (La muralla verde)	Armando Robles Godoy	Peru	[6]
1971	Mon oncle Antoine	Claude Jutra	Canada	[6]
1972	Bleak Moments	Mike Leigh	United Kingdom	[6]
1973	Mirage (Espejismo)	Armando Robles Godoy	Peru	[8]
	Morgiana	Juraj Herz	Czechoslovakia	[9]
1974	Pirosmani	Georgy Shengalaya	Soviet Union	[6]
1975	Land of Promise (Ziemia obiecana)	Andrzej Wajda	Poland	[6]
1976	Kings of the Road (Im Lauf der Zeit)	Wim Wenders	West Germany	[6]
1977	The Huntsmen (Oi kynigoi)	Theo Angelopoulos	Greece	[10]
1978	To an Unknown God (A un dios desconocido)	Jaime Chávarri	Spain	[11]
1979	Angi Vera	Pál Gábor	Hungary	[6]
1980	Camera Buff (Amator)	Krzysztof Kieślowski	Poland	[6]
1981	The German Sisters (Die bleierne Zeit)	Margarethe von Trotta	West Germany	[6]
1982	Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean	Robert Altman	United States	[6]
1983	The South (El Sur)	Victor Erice	Spain  France	[6]
1984	Khandhar (The Ruins)	Mrinal Sen	India	[6]
1985	The Official Story (La historia oficial)	Luis Puenzo	Argentina	[12]
1986	Welcome in Vienna (Wohin und zurück)	Axel Corti	Austria  West Germany   Switzerland	[13]
1987	Whooping Cough (Szamárköhögés)	Péter Gárdos [hu]	Hungary	[6]
1988	Little Vera (Malenkaya Vera)	Vasili Pichul	Soviet Union	[14]
1989	Zerograd (Gorod Zero)	Karen Chakhnazarov	Soviet Union	[6]
1990	Ju Dou	Zhang Yimou	China  Japan	[6]
1991	Delicatessen	Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro	France	[6]
1992	Dream of Light (El sol del membrillo)	Victor Erice	Spain	[15]
1993	Twinkle (Kira kira hikaru)	Joji Matsuoka	Japan	[16]
1994	71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls)	Michael Haneke	Austria  Germany	[17]
1995	Maborosi (Maboroshi no Hikari)	Hirokazu Koreeda	Japan	[18]
1996	Ridicule	Patrice Leconte	France	[19]
1997	The Winter Guest	Alan Rickman	United Kingdom	[20]
1998	The Hole (Dong)	Tsai Ming-liang	Taiwan	[21]
1999	Sachs' Disease (La maladie de Sachs)	Michel Deville	France	[22]
2000	Amores perros	Alejandro González Iñárritu	Mexico	[23]
2001	Fat Girl (À ma soeur!)	Catherine Breillat	France	[24]
2002	Madame Satã	Karim Aïnouz	Brazil	[25]
2003	Crimson Gold (Talaye Sorkh)	Jafar Panahi	Iran	[26]
2004	Kontroll	Nimród Antal	Hungary	[27]
2005	My Nikifor (Mój Nikifor)	Krzysztof Krauze	Poland	[28]
2006	Fireworks Wednesday (Chaharshanbe Suri)	Asghar Farhadi	Iran	[29]
2007	Silent Light (Stellet Lijcht)	Carlos Reygadas	Mexico	[30]
2008	Hunger	Steve McQueen	Ireland	[31]
2009	Mississippi Damned	Tina Mabry	United States	[32]
2010	How I Ended This Summer (Kak ya provyol etim letom)	Alexei Popogrebski	Russia	[33]
2011	Le Havre	Aki Kaurismäki	Finland	[34]
2012	Holy Motors	Leos Carax	France
2013	My Sweet Pepper Land	Huner Saleem	Iraq
2014	The President	Mohsen Makhmalbaf	Georgia  France  United Kingdom  Germany	[35]
2015	A Childhood	Philippe Claudel	France	[36]
2016	Sieranevada	Cristi Puiu	Romania	[37]
2017	A Sort of Family	Diego Lerman	Argentina	[38]
2018	Happy as Lazzaro	Alice Rohrwacher	Italy   Switzerland  Germany  France	[39]
2019	Portrait of a Lady on Fire	Céline Sciamma	France	[40]
2020	Sweat	Magnus von Horn	Sweden	[2]
2021	Memoria	Apichatpong Weerasethakul	Thailand  Colombia  Germany  France  Mexico  China
2022	Godland	Hlynur Pálmason	Iceland  Denmark  France  Sweden	[41]
2023	Explanation for Everything	Gábor Reisz	Hungary  Slovakia	[42]

Silver Hugo

Jury Award

• 2023 - The Delinquents, dir. Rodrigo Moreno (Argentina)
• 2022 – Close, dir. Lukas Dhont (Belgium)
• 2021 – Drive My Car, dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Japan)
• 2020 – Careless Crime, dir. Shahram Mokri (Iran)
• 2019 – Vitalina Varela, dir. Pedro Costa (Portugal)

Best Director

• 2023 - Aki Kaurismäki (Finland) for Fallen Leaves
• 2022 – Maryam Touzani (Morocco) for The Blue Caftan
• 2021 – Peter Kerekes (Slovakia) for 107 Mothers
• 2020 – Andrei Konchalovsky (Russia) for Dear Comrades!
• 2019 – Maya Da-Rin (Brazil) for The Fever

Best Actor

• 2021 – Bouli Lanners (Belgium) for Nobody Has to Know
• 2019 – Bartosz Bielenia (Poland) for Corpus Christi^[40]
• 2018 – Jesper Christensen (Denmark) for Before the Frost^[39]
• 2017 – Aleksandr Yatsenko (Russia) for Arrhythmia^[38]
• 2016 – Adrian Titieni (Romania) for Graduation^[37]
• 2015 – Alexi Mathieu and Jules Gauzelin (France) for A Childhood^[36]
• 2014 – Anton Yelchin (USA) for Rudderless^[35]
• 2013 – Robert Wieckiewicz (Poland) for Walesa: Man of Hope
• 2012 – Denis Lavant (France) for Holy Motors
• 2011 – Maged El Kedwany (Egypt) for 678
• 2010 – Youssouf Djaoro (Chad) for A Screaming Man
• 2009 – Filippo Timi (Italy) for Vincere
• 2008 – Michael Fassbender (Ireland) for Hunger
• 2007 – Sam Riley (United Kingdom) for Control
• 2006 – Jürgen Vogel (Germany) for The Free Will
• 1989 – Jörg Gudzuhn (GDR) for Fallada, letztes Kapitel
• 1987 – Avtandil Makharadze (Georgia) for Monanieba
• 1971 – Ezzatollah Entezami (Iran) for The Cow

Best Actress

• 2021 – Michelle Fairley (Ireland) for Nobody Has to Know
• 2019 – Debbie Honeywood (UK) for Sorry We Missed You^[40]
• 2018 – Zhao Tao (China) for Ash Is Purest White^[39]
• 2017 – Jowita Budnik (Poland) and Eliane Umuhire (Rwanda) for Birds Are Singing in Kigali^[38]
• 2016 – Rebecca Hall (UK) for Christine^[37]
• 2015 – Lizzie Brocheré (France) for Full Contact^[36]
• 2014 – Geraldine Chaplin (United States) for Sand Dollars^[35]
• 2013 – Nadeshda Brennicke (Germany) for Banklady [de]
• 2012 – Ulla Skoog (Sweden) for The Last Sentence
• 2011 – Olivia Colman (UK) for Tyrannosaur
• 2010 – Liana Liberato (USA) for Trust
• 2009 – Giovanna Mezzogiorno (Italy) for Vincere
• 2008 – Preity Zinta (India) for Heaven on Earth
• 2007 – Yu Nan (China) for Tuya's Marriage
• 2006 – Viktoriya Isakova, Darya Moroz, Anna Ukolova (Russia) for The Spot
• 2005 – Inka Friedrich, Nadja Uhl (Germany) for Summer in Berlin
• 2003 – Ludivine Sagnier (France) for Little Lili

Best Performance

• 2023 - Ilinca Manolache (Romania) for Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
• 2022 – Vicky Krieps (Luxembourg) for Corsage
• 2020 – Yakusho Koji (Japan) for Under the Open Sky

Best Cinematography

• 2023 - Hélène Louvart (France) for La Chimera
• 2022 – Maria von Hausswolff (Iceland) for Godland
• 2021 – Kasper Tuxen (Denmark) for The Worst Person in the World
• 2020 – Tobie Marier Robitaille (Canada) for Night of the Kings
• 2019 – Vladimír Smutný (Czech Republic) for The Painted Bird

Best Screenplay

• 2023 - Gábor Reisz and Éva Schulze (Hungary) for Explanation for Everything
• 2022 – Alice Diop, Amrita David, and Marie NDiaye (France) for Saint Omer
• 2021 – Alexandre Koberidze (Georgia) for What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
• 2020 – Christos Nikou and Stavros Raptis (Greece) for Apples
• 2019 – Pema Tseden (China) for Balloon

Best Art Direction

• 2022 – Marcela Gómez and Daniel Rincon (Colombia) for The Kings of the World
• 2021 – Sergey Fevralev (Russia) for Captain Volkonogov Escaped
• 2020 – Jagna Dobesz (Poland) for Sweat

Best New Director

• 2023 – Ena Sendijarević (Netherlands) for Sweet Dreams
• 2022 – Ann Oren (Germany) for Piaffe

Lifetime Achievement Awards

Winners of the festival's Lifetime Achievement Award include Steven Spielberg, Helen Hunt, Dustin Hoffman, Martin Landau, Shirley MacLaine, Lord Richard Attenborough, François Truffaut, Jodie Foster, Sigourney Weaver, Robin Williams, Manoel de Oliveira, and Clint Eastwood.^{[citation needed]}

Career Achievement Awards

• Bruce Dern (2013)^[43]
• Terrence Howard (2005)
• Susan Sarandon (2005)
• Shirley MacLaine (2005)
• Robert Zemeckis (2004)
• Irma P. Hall, Robert Townsend and Harry J. Lennix (2004)
• Annette Bening (2004)
• Robin Williams (2004)
• Nicolas Cage (2003)

Television awards

The Television Awards started with the idea of honoring television commercials in a special event of the film festival, but over time evolved and grew into a bigger event, comprising not only commercials but also television productions, series, and online television. In 2003 a separate ceremony was launched for the TV awards, and in 2017, the event became a separate event, named the Chicago International Television Festival. Winners and runners-up for the various categories, which include Gold and Silver Hugos, are listed on the film festival website.^[44][45]