Chicago International Film Festival

Rebecca Fons, Education Director at the Chicago International Film Festival, previews some of the Chicago movies that will be showing at the festival over the next couple of weeks.

For tickets and more information about screening times, please go to: www.chicagofilmfestival.com

"Breakfast at Ina's"

Director: Mercedes Kane

Famous for its Heavenly Hots (pancakes topped with fruit compote), Ina's was a Chicago breakfast institution. Every customer received a warm welcome from proprietor and chef Ina Pinkney, the "Breakfast Queen." After 33 years in the restaurant business, Pinkney retired in 2013. Following the restaurant's final month, Breakfast at Ina's celebrates a beloved Chicago eatery and a woman who achieved her dream against the odds.

"The Middle Distance"

Director: Patrick Underwood

Womanizing workaholic Neil returns to Michigan to reunite with his brother after their father dies. As they try to sell the family home, their interactions are as chilly as the frost-covered February landscape. But Neil's facade thaws under the glow of his brother's charismatic fiance. Chicago writer-director Patrick Underwood crafts a big-hearted romantic melodrama about rebuilding.

"Open Tables"

Director: Jack C. Newell

Food and conversation abound in this comedy from Chicago writer-director-actor Jack C. Newell. Over dinner, friends trade wild stories about relationships, including a woman who falls in love with an amnesiac and an unforgettably sexy trip to Paris. Filmed locally, with improvisational dialogue and a cast plucked from the city's improv scene, Open Tables is a smorgasbord of fun.

"For Grace"

Director: Kevin Pang

After cooking his way through Chicago's top kitchens, renowned Chef Curtis Duffy is set to design and open his own ambitious restaurant. An in-depth look at what it takes to create and manage one of the world's greatest eateries, For Grace also tells the complex story of a man constantly pushing forward in a quest to overcome his traumatic past and create his own future.

"Henry Gamble's Birthday Party"

Director: Stephen Cone

Henry's turning 17, and might be gay. But he's not telling his pastor father-not during his pool party, where school and church collide in a sunny, hormonal afternoon. This funny, heartbreakingly honest portrait from Chicagoan Stephen Cone finds a home between devout faith and burgeoning sexuality.