The Chicago International Film Festival unveiled the slate for its International Competition on Tuesday, assembling a lineup that leans heavily on three of East Asia's most celebrated auteurs. New features from Japan's Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Hirokazu Kore-eda and South Korea's Lee Chang-dong will anchor the section, positioning the festival as an early awards-season showcase for filmmakers whose work has circled the globe many times over.
The announcement gives Chicago a trio of premieres that programmers elsewhere will be watching closely. All three directors have been fixtures on the international festival circuit for years, and each arrives with a distinct reputation: Hamaguchi as the cerebral chronicler of contemporary Japanese life, Kore-eda as a master of intimate family drama, and Lee as a novelist-turned-director whose films double as moral inquiries.
Three Directors, Three Distinct Traditions
Hamaguchi broke through to global audiences with "Drive My Car," which swept critics' prizes and won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Since then, his profile has only grown, with "Evil Does Not Exist" confirming his appetite for slow-burning, environmentally minded storytelling. His new film arrives at a moment when art-house audiences treat his name as a guarantee of serious, patient cinema.
Kore-eda, meanwhile, has long been a favorite of the festival circuit, having won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for "Shoplifters." He has also worked in South Korea with "Broker," a project that deepened his ties to the region's filmmaking community. His presence in the Chicago competition underscores the festival's willingness to program established names alongside emerging voices.
Lee Chang-dong occupies a different space altogether. A former novelist and one-time South Korean culture minister, he makes films at a deliberate pace, and each one tends to arrive as an event. "Burning" became a critical sensation and a touchstone for conversations about class and rage. His new work will be among the most anticipated titles on the fall calendar.
A Global Mix Beyond the Headliners
Festival organizers have stressed that the International Competition is not simply a showcase for marquee names. The section traditionally mixes veteran directors with first- and second-time filmmakers from across Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, and this year's edition follows that pattern. The result is a lineup designed to put established auteurs in conversation with newer voices rather than treating them as separate tiers.
That approach has become a hallmark of Chicago's programming. The festival, one of the longest-running in North America, has built its identity around a blend of prestige titles and discoveries, and the competition's mix of known and unknown filmmakers reflects that philosophy.
For the three Asian directors, the Chicago stop adds another entry to a busy fall. Festival slots often function as launchpads for distribution deals and awards campaigns, and a strong reception in Chicago can shape how a film travels through the rest of the season. None of the three needs the exposure, but the convergence of their new work in a single section gives critics and industry observers a rare chance to compare them side by side.
What the Lineup Signals
Taken together, the choices point to a festival leaning into auteur-driven cinema at a time when the international marketplace is crowded and noisy. Hamaguchi, Kore-eda and Lee each make films that resist easy categorization - they are not franchise builders or streaming content, but works that ask audiences to sit with ambiguity and discomfort.
That sensibility fits Chicago's audience, which has historically embraced subtitled, director-driven filmmaking. It also fits the moment: as awards bodies and distributors look increasingly outside the English-speaking world for prestige titles, a competition stacked with three major Asian filmmakers reads as quietly strategic.
The festival is expected to announce further programming in the coming weeks, including its main slate, special presentations and retrospective offerings. For now, the International Competition has its spine: three directors whose names carry weight from Cannes to Tokyo to Chicago, arriving with new work at the same moment. Whether the films live up to their makers' reputations is a question only the fall screenings will answer.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter