CIFF 2021: Spencer, Acts of Love, House of Snails, and More

Page 1

CIFF 2021: Spencer, Acts of Love, House of Snails, and More thespool.net/festivals/ciff-2021-spencer-acts-of-love-house-of-snails B.L. Panther

October 26, 2021

Five of the Chicago International Film Festival’s fiction narrative features find truth through craft and performance. The CIFF films considered here disavow any easy distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. All five of these films reach profound emotional, spiritual, and/or systemic truths by adding performance and cinematic layers. The House of Snails begins to unwind the line by playing with fiction, folklore, and reality. Spencer builds on this by making a folkloric fiction about a true subject. The Tsugua Diaries challenges the boundaries between fiction and documentary. Acts of Love goes further and collapses them altogether. Finally, A Cop Movie politicizes these strategies and shows how they can expose ugly systemic truths. The House of Snails When Antonio (Javier Rey), a writer, arrives in a nowhere ghost town outside of Madrid, he immediately feels all eyes on him. Under this intense surveillance of scrutiny and superstition, Antonio’s paranoia begins to rise. Nothing about the town seems real. And the longer he stays, the closer he can feel the wolves circling.

1/4


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.