Getting Ready for CIFF: What's on Our List

The Chicago International Film Festival begins on Thursday with The Kite Runner, a movie you'll be hearing a lot more about after the Oscar noms are announced. That's why we won't be seeing it. You see, we've got a strategy, and after many agonizing days we've got our "to-see" list all drawn up.

The Kite Runner will be opening far and wide in November anyhow, so we'll wait. To us, the festival is a chance every year to see a bunch of stuff that isn't going straight to the multiplex. This definitely includes smaller indie films (like Look and Hallam Foe) and quirky documentaries (such as America the Beautiful and A Walk Into the Sea). There are also the movies that have been generating lots of buzz at other festivals this year. Bela Tarr's languid The Man From London (with Tilda Swinton as a screaming Hungarian!), wicked horror flick Stuck and Chicago 10 all fall into that category.

We also like to choose some movies that we know nothing about but just sound interesting. So The Aerial, Surveillance and Dreams of Dust are on our list. We'll also try to catch one of the programs of short films, a great way to make some new cinematic discoveries. And honestly there are some movies that we know are getting a wide release soon but we just can't wait to see. Control, which charts the history of Joy Division and frontman Ian Curtis, has had us drooling for months so we'll be there Friday night.

160 movies over two weeks. That's an awful lot to see, but we'll be doing our best to keep up, so check back here roughly every other day for festival news and reviews.

Now you tell us: what movies are on your list?