Three recommended features will wrap up the 50th Chicago International Film Festival at the AMC River East 21, 322 E. Illinois. More info: chicagofilmfestival.com
“A FEW CUBIC METERS OF LOVE” (Iran/Afghanistan): Drawing upon his upbringing as an Afghan refugee in Iran, director Jamshid Mahmoudi offers a love story set in an off-the-books shantytown. Illegal immigrants work in fear of police raids and deportation. An Iranian boy and an Afghan girl rendezvous in a shipping container that will morph into a cruel metaphor for their impossible love. This neorealist romance is Afghanistan’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film in the Oscars. 8:30 p.m. Monday; 6:15 p.m. Wednesday.
“NABAT” (Azerbaijan): Azerbaijan’s submission for Oscar consideration as the Best Foreign Language Film is a symbol-laden drama by Elcin Musaoglu. The title character is an old woman living outside a mountain village. All the other residents flee from nearby warfare. Failing to recover a photograph of her late son, a soldier who only comes home in her dreams, Nabat instead bonds with a white wolf. Both express a deep loyalty to the land they share. 12:15 p.m. Wednesday.
“THE PRESIDENT” (Georgia/ France/UK/Germany): In the film honored Friday with the Gold Hugo, the festival’s top prize, Iranian auteur Mohsen Makhmalbaf (“The Gardener,” ”Kandahar,” “Gabbeh”) revisits the autobiographical themes of his 1985 drama “Boycott.” After leaders of a military coup put a bounty on their heads, a tyrant on the run and his 5-year-old grandson adopt disguises on backroads. Shot in the Republic of Georgia and set “in an unknown country,” this topical drama is less than subtle at times, but imparts an impassioned lesson. 2 p.m. Wednesday.
