‘Passing’ and Chicago-set ‘Any Given Day’ among our top picks for Chicago Film Fest’s final week

CHICAGO — Quite a week! The Chicago Sky made basketball history, as the weather continues a winning streak of its own. Meantime, the Chicago International Film Festival concludes Sunday with in-person appearances this week by, among others, writers-directors-actors Rebecca Hall and Kenneth Branagh. Hall presents her Netflix production “Passing” Wednesday night at the AMC River East; on Thursday, Branagh brings his autobiographical remembrance “Belfast” to the Music Box Theatre.

Here’s a trio of recommendations from the remaining days of the 57th festival, in all its varieties. There’s much more to see, of course, and we only have the one life to live. But you knew that.

“Any Given Day” (7 p.m. Oct. 20 at Gene Siskel Film Center; noon Oct. 23 at AMC River East): For five years, Chicago documentary filmmaker and educator Margaret Byrne (”Raising Bertie”) filmed three participants in the Cook County Mental Health Court Program, a two-year voluntary commitment, as they worked through every sort of challenge — legal, custodial, financial, psychological. The result is an unnerving account of day-to-day, year-to-year recovery, as lived by the subjects: Angela Roache-Pena, Daniel Brown Jr. and Dimitar Ivanov. Byrne earned their trust, though everyone endured some serious lows en route, and Byrne’s camera is there for everything from court dates to breakdowns to birthday celebrations. “Any Given Day” may provoke debates about how a filmmaker decides what’s off-limits and what isn’t; this is painful, haunting material but also hopeful, and without false reassurance. Byrne began filming not long after roughly half of Chicago’s mental health clinics were shut down; for a time, the Cook County jail was the largest single-site mental health facility in the U.S. Especially after viewing “Any Given Day,” that screams “dereliction of moral duty.” Filmmaker Byrne and others will lead post-screening panel discussions. Also streaming virtually through Oct. 24.

“Passing” (7:30 p.m. Oct. 20 at AMC River East): Rebecca Hall’s supple, precisely acted feature directorial debut has a lot in common with any one of Hall’s excellent on-screen performances to date: It’s observant, free of extraneous frills and elegant in its honest approach. Hall adapted the 1929 novella by Nella Larsen, in which a Harlem resident (Tessa Thompson) chances on a reunion with an old friend (Ruth Negga), now passing for white. Andre Holland co-stars as the Thompson character’s doctor husband. Hall and company shot this black-and-white film in squarish “Academy” ratio, hewing closely to collective memories of both the period and the films of that period. Already, Hall reveals a persuasive eye for spatial depth within a tight frame. Thompson and Negga may be playing figures trapped in another time, another set of racial strictures, yet “Passing” feels distressingly relevant. Given America’s track record, it may always feel that way. The film’s executive producer ranks include Chicago-based publisher, entrepreneur and attorney Chaz Ebert. Netflix premiere Nov. 10.

“The Worst Person in the World” (7:45 p.m. Oct. 21 at AMC River East): Approaching 30, budding Oslo medical student Julie (Renate Reinsve) begins questioning the path laid out before her, and decides it’s time for not one change, but a mission of life-changing decision-making. Even then, she acknowledges, she often feels like a supporting character in her own story. Writer-director Joaquim Trier, who wrote the bittersweetly comic script with Eskil Vogt, completes a thematic trilogy here, following the earlier installments “Reprise” and “Oslo, August 31.” Those films are pungent and terrific; this one’s merely very good, hindered somewhat hypocritically by a narrative that marginalizes Julie’s search for a fuller self in favor of the male characters’ more dramatic situations. Even so, Trier’s touch remains confident, and every performance clicks into place, most of all Reinsve’s.

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Full festival schedule at chicagofilmfestival.org.

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