RENTAL FAMILY SCREENING AND AWARDS EVENT
DIRECTED BY HIKARI
COUNTRIES U.S., Japan RUN TIME 103 minutes
SYNOPSIS
Set in modern-day Tokyo, Rental Family follows an American actor (Brendan Fraser) who struggles to find purpose until he lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese “rental family” agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality. Confronting the moral complexities of his work, he rediscovers purpose, belonging, and the quiet beauty of human connection.
GENRES Comedy, Drama, Family Affairs
LANGUAGE English, Japanese
*Open Captions For Spoken Elements of the Program (Intro/Q&A/Award/Etc.)
AWARDS EVENT
At this screening, director HIKARI will receive the Festival’s Spotlight Award.
HIKARI is an award-winning writer, director, and producer whose debut feature, 37 Seconds, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and won accolades globally. She’s directed episodes of the Emmy-winning series Beef, as well as Tokyo Vice and acclaimed shorts like Tsuyako.
Daniel’s Music Foundation proudly presents the 6th Annual Danny Awards, an annual, global award show that recognizes the incredible contributions of artists with disabilities to the world of music.
Enjoy powerful performances by the top ten award recipients, selected by a panel of judges comprised of musicians and industry professionals. Talented vocalists, instrumentalists, bands and solo artists from across the country and around the globe will take the stage to share their musical gifts and extraordinary stories with the world. For those unable to attend in person, the event will also be live streamed on October 25th, from 4-6 PM ET. We hope to see you there!
Live stream registration available here.
Accessibility: ASL Interpreted, live captioning, Braille programs, audio description, wheelchair accessible
Integrated dance for people with and without disabilities, led by renowned educator Douglas Scott (Atlanta, GA).
Friday, July 25 – $30: check-in 3:30, 4:00 – 6:30 pm Community Workshop on Integrated Dance at the University of Illinois Chicago (1640 Roosevelt Rd, Chicago, IL) A workshop introducing Integrated Dance fundamentals for dancers, choreographers, and teachers. ASL and CART are provided.
Saturday, July 26 through Tuesday, July 29 – $120-300: Integrated Dance Intensive at Loyola Park (1230 W Greenleaf Ave, Chicago, IL). Teaching the Full Radius method of Integrated dance for performers and directors.
*Saturday, July 26: check-in 11:30 am, 12:00 – 4:30 pm.
*Sunday, July 27: 11:30 am – 4:30 pm.
*Monday, July 28 & Tuesday, July 29: 4:30 – 8:30 pm.
Wednesday, July 30 – $100: check-in 8:30 am, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm Teacher Training on Integrated Dance at The Dance Center of Columbia College (1306 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL). An accredited teacher training for Integrated Dance education techniques. CPDUs: Educators can register for 6 continuing education credits for the teacher training at the event.
Co-presented by Unfolding Disability Futures and Synapse Arts.
Additional accommodations, including ASL and Captioning, can be requested by contacting info@synapsearts.com.
Accessibility: ASL interpreting and live captioning with CART
https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/full-radius-midwest-dance-training-series
Chicago Industry Exchange / Workshop
Join Lucas Joaquin, a producer on the recent A24 release Death Of a Unicorn, for an illuminating conversation about producing independent films.
Event will take place in the Claudia Cassidy Theater.
About Lucas Joaquin
headshot: Lucas JoaquinLucas Joaquin is a creative producer in New York City and a founding member, with producer Drew Houpt and writer/director/producer Alex Scharfman, of the production company Secret Engine.
Recent films include Death Of a Unicorn written and directed by Scharfman, starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega, with A24, Ley Line, and Square Peg (SXSW 2025); Hold Your Breath directed by Karrie Crouse and Will Joines, starring Sarah Paulson released by Searchlight (TIFF 2024); House of Spoils directed by Bridget Savage-Cole & Danielle Krudy, starring Oscar winner Ariana DeBose, released by Amazon MGM Studios; and Andrew Semans’ Resurrection (Sundance 2022) starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth released by IFC Films and Shudder.
He was Executive Producer of Ira Sachs’s Peter Hujar’s Day, starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall (Sundance, 2025); Blow the Man Down, directed by Bridget Savage-Cole & Danielle Krudy (TIFF, 2019), released by Amazon Studios; and Ira Sachs’s Frankie, starring Isabelle Huppert and Marisa Tomei, (Cannes 2019) released by Sony Pictures Classics.
Before co-founding Secret Engine, Joaquin produced several acclaimed features, including Ira Sachs’s Keep the Lights On, Love Is Strange, and Little Men. He was a Sundance Creative Producing Lab Fellow, a member of AMPAS, has taught at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and worked for several years with the prolific production company Parts & Labor (The Witch, Beginners).
Join award-winning screenwriter and playwright Virgil Williams (The Piano Lesson, Mudbound) in a Master Class on writing for film and television. Moderated by screenwriter Tracey Scott Wilson (The Americans, Respect). Networking event to follow (with cash bar).
A veteran television writer and producer, Williams’ extensive credits include last year’s critically acclaimed adaptation of The Piano Lesson. Other credits include ground-breaking dramas ER and 24, as well as six seasons of CBS’s long-running procedural drama Criminal Minds. In November of 2017, Williams celebrated the release of his feature film debut, Mudbound. He also served as Executive Producer and originally adapted the script from the novel by Hilary Jordan. The critically acclaimed film was named the ‘Best Film of 2017’ by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post and has earned numerous awards and accolades, including an Academy Award Nomination for Williams and cowriter/director Dee Rees for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also adapted Pulitzer Prize-winner Dana Canedy’s bestselling memoir A Journal for Jordan for director Denzel Washington and starring Michael B. Jordan. Williams was born and raised in Chicago, and his scripts often draw from his experiences growing up as a bi-racial kid in a city with a long history of racial tension.
Moderator
headshot: Tracey Scott WilsonTracey Scott Wilson wrote the teleplay for MGM’s film Respect; served as a co-executive producer and writer on Fosse/Verdon; and was a co-executive producer on FX’s award-winning series The Americans, where she wrote for five seasons and received two WGAE awards, two Peabody awards, and a Golden Globe. Tracey is also a renowned playwright (Buzzer, The Good Negro, The Story), and has received several distinctions, including the 2003 AT&T Onstage Award, the 2007 Weissberger Playwriting Award as well as the 2007 Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship. Currently, she is the Barbara Berlanti Professor in LGBTQ Writing for the Stage and Screen in the Department of Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University.
Please note the film following the talk will not feature captions.
Accessibility: captions for the discussion only
https://www.chicagofilmfestival.com/event/cixlab-virgilwilliams/
On Friday, February 7, Full Spectrum Features presents a selection of contemporary trans short films from Ireland presented in person by Dublin-based curator James Hudson: from an artist’s self-destructive spiral to giallo-inspired rape revenge by way of a surreal techno-horror, to a multidimensional dramedy starring an up-and-coming stand-up comedian and more.
James Hudson is a Dublin-based programmer at the forefront of trans Irish cinema, both showcasing international trans filmmaking in Ireland and bringing Irish-made trans films to the world stage. He is traveling to Chicago specifically for this one-night-only event, part one of a trans cinema cultural exchange between Chicago and Dublin.
The shorts program will be followed by a post-screening discussion with curator James Hudson, moderated by Henry Hanson.
Accessibility: All films will be presented with open captions. The post-screening Q&A will have live CART captioning.
Note on wheelchair accessibility: The building and theater are accessible via ramps. The bathrooms are accessible via a heavy door, have a larger stall with grab bars, but are not fully wheelchair accessible.
https://facets.org/programs/hard-done-by-contemporary-irish-trans-films/
KLII exorcizes the ghost of King Leopold II, the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, in a mytho-biographical performance by theater-maker Kaneza Schaal. By exploring the invisible historic roots of society’s demons—racism, misogyny, and misinformation—Schaal searches for ways of handling these everyday threats in the present.
Designed and co-directed by Christopher Myers, KLII draws on Mark Twain’s King Leopold’s Soliloquy published in 1905, a fictional monologue written after Twain’s visit to Congo Free State, and Patrice Lumumba’s 1960 independence speech in Congo. Working with East African musicians and African American opera singers, the hybrid, operatic, and intensifying sound design takes inspiration from La Muette de Portici, the opera that played a role in Belgium’s 1830 revolution. Together, both the visual and sound design combine to consider the residue of colonialism in our everyday lives.
A reclamation of history and canon, Schaal and Myers propose an exorcism in theater, starring one of the villains of the 19th century whose actions resonate through the present day. KLII explores the nature of evil and what is required to unroot legacies of catastrophic events.