44th Chicago International Film Festival features local director Joe Swanberg, a Wesley Willis documentary, and more

[Above: Still from Nights and Weekends, directed by Chicago's own Joe Swanberg]

The promise of "appearances by Darren Aronofsky, Danny Boyle and Charlie Kaufman” is enough to make any film aficionado salivate, but you don’t have to be a cinema buff to enjoy this year's 44th Chicago International Film Festival. Featuring more than 170 films from 47 countries, this year's film festival, which runs Oct. 16-29, offers sneak peaks and inside looks with its screenings and panel discussions featuring directors and actors.

Among the Chicago-centric fare offered this year are local director Joe Swanberg's latest offering, Nights and Weekends, and a documentary about the late, great Wesley Willis. Wesley Willis's Joyrides celebrates the life and music of the locally born-and-bred musician. Co-directors Chris Bagley and Kim Shively spent more than three years filming the underground rock icon, artist and schizophrenic Willis, who produced 50-plus albums and thousands of drawings before his death in 2003.

Swanberg, whose Nights and Weekends documents the pitfalls of a Chicago-to-NYC long-distance romance, has been attending Chicago’s International Film Fest since his sophomore year of high school. “A lot of times in Chicago we are waiting for films to open and are usually a few weeks behind New York and Los Angeles,” he recently told Paste:Local. “It's nice to have this festival in the fall because we get a sneak preview of movies that either won't come to Chicago or won't come here for another few months.”

This will be his film’s first showing in the Midwest. “I'm excited about this festival because it will be the first chance to show my film to a lot of my friends and people who've been waiting to see it,” Swanberg says. “We made this film on a really small budget [...] with mostly people who aren't professional actors. I hope [potential filmmakers] who are interested in seeing what they could definitely make come to see the movie.”

This year all, screening and panel locations will be held in “Festival Village” within the Streeterville and River North areas. “In the past we received complaints from customers who wanted to see two films in a short time period that would be miles apart,” the festival's managing director Ryan Jewell told us. “Now everything is walkable, including theaters, hotels and restaurants that will offer discounts to film festival patrons.”

As always, Chicago's Film Festival is targeted towards audiences and not celebrities or industry execs. “[The festival's] reputation has always been audience-based. This is not an industry festival like the Sundance Film Festival or that type,” Jewell says. “This is more for people who really just love film.”

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