My most startling find at this year’s Chicago International Film Festival is “Deerskin,” about an absurdist snuff auteur on an anti-coat crusade.
In a wicked bit of casting, director Quentin Dupieux picks Jean Dujardin, who won the best actor Oscar in 2012 for playing a Hollywood leading man in the “The Artist.” Responding to an internet ad, his character Georges drives to an out-of-the-way French town to buy a deerskin jacket. He goes on a quest to make his coat the only one in the world.
Since the jacket-seller threw in a camcorder, Georges teams up with a cinema-savvy barkeep and aspiring producer. A murder spree movie ensues. Quite a treat for films-about-film buffs.
“Deerskin” screens at 10:45 p.m. Friday and 12:30 p.m. Sunday at AMC River East, 322 E. Illinois. Also at the fest on Friday:
• ‘The Fever’ (Brazil/France/Germany) Maya Da-Rin sensitively observes the quandary of indigenous people leaving Amazon forests to make livings among Portuguese-speaking whites in urban Brazil. Regis Myrupu — whose shaman grandfather taught him myths and cures — plays Justino, a resident in the river port city of Manaus. Issued a gun and a walkie-talkie, he patrols a container shipping facility. He says he’s a hunter with no prey. Something in the night is scaring locals. He hears branches crack. Fevers are reported. After 20 years of too many “white” things — food, language, medicine — and a new co-worker who sees him as one of the “tame” Indians, it could be time to get out of town.
3 p.m. Oct. 25
‘And Then We Danced’ (Georgia/Sweden/France) Artist-coming-out storylines offer a lens on homophobia in any country. Writer-director Levan Akin chooses Georgia and its proud dance tradition, one as masculinist as it is nationalist. “When I witnessed some brave kids trying to have a pride parade in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2013 be attacked by a mob of thousands organized by the Orthodox church I felt I needed to address this issue,” states the onetime dancer. The courageous hero makes a grand exit: a dance soloist goes from aggressive boot-stomper to sinuous hand-voguer. A Music Box Films release, this entry is part of the Outlook competition for an LGBTQ+ theme award. 5:30 p.m. Oct. 25
