Today at the Chicago International Film Festival: ‘Scary Mother’

Manana (Nato Murvanidze) is a 50-year-old first-time novelist seeking a publisher for her idiosyncratic 150-page manuscript. It needs an ending too. One of her muses is Manananggal, a mythic female monster with a vampiric thirst for fetal blood. “Your mother has scared me to death,” her husband tells their daughter. Writer-director Ana Urushadze’s own debut is a domestic thriller with darkly comic streaks. Increasingly nervous loved ones quash Manana’s creative urges. They dwell in a Tbilisi apartment bloc with a Soviet-era sci-fi design. Does the concrete emit strange clicking sounds, or is that only inside Manana’s head? This gem is Georgia’s entry for the best foreign language film at this year’s Academy Awards. Her father’s film “Tangerines” was nominated for a 2014 Oscar in that category. 5:45 p.m. Oct. 16; 3:15 p.m. Oct. 20.

The Chicago International Film Festival continues through Oct. 26 at AMC River East 21, 322 E. Illinois.