10-12-07
Lennix's Directorial Debut Leads Local Lineup at Chicago Film Fest
Harry J. Lennix’s directorial debut, Fly Like Mercury, is featured in the Chicago International Film Festival’s annual Homegrown Shorts program. Lennix stars with Rusty Schwimmer in the drama about “a world-class sprinter who discovers the difference between a winner and a champion.”
Homegrown shorts also features films by Ai Lene Chor, Maria Gigante, Brian Billow, Sean J.S. Jourdan, and Sean Fahey.
Chor, who won awards at Chicago International, IFP/Chicago Flyover Zone and FestCine for her previous short Mindy, returns with Tiffin, her Columbia MFA thesis film, shot in her native Malaysia. Tiffin follows the decade-spanning friendship between a Chinese grandmother and her Indian servant.
Gigante’s Girls Room, a comedy about the terrors of the school restroom, was a finalist for the MTV Best Filmmaker on Campus and Bior/GenArt competitions.
DDB spot helmer Billow makes his narrative debut with Bodega, a comedy about a convenience store robbery that takes an unexpected turn.
Jourdan and Fahey have documentaries in Homegrown: Jourdan’s about a motorcycle mechanic’s journey into fatherhood, and Fahey’s about his uncle Tom Karl in Peoria, who designed a tractor to operate on his family farm accommodating his muscular dystrophy. Fahey won a Studs Terkel Award from the Community Media Workshop for The Tractor Driver.
Homegrown Shorts plays Oct. 13 at Noon at AMC River East, 322 E. Illinois St., and Oct. 16 at 4 p.m. at Landmark’s Century Centre, 2828 N. Clark St. See chicagofilmfestival.org.
IFP Chicago’s 16th annual Midwest Filmmakers Summit, “The Art and Craft of Filmmaking,” returns Oct. 19-21. Chicago’s premiere independent film networking event, the summit features a who’s who of local players, including directors Paul Leuer, Ruth Leitman, Gary Sherman and Carl Seaton; writers Michelle Amor, Jonathan Eliot, and Ron Lazzeretti; and producers Amy Cargill and Perone Rami.
On Oct. 20, as part of the Summit, IFP/Chicago presents the Flyover Zone Film Festival, culminating in the world premier of Frey Hoffman’s The Untimely Demise of Hollywood Jerome, winner of the 2007 IFP/Chicago Production Fund Grant, valued at $100,000 in in-kind goods and services from local vendors. Hoffman adapted Hollywood Jerome with Malik Yusef from Yusef’s poem. Flyover Zone will also feature the announcement of next year’s grant winner. The Midwest Filmmakers Summit is at Columbia College’s Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave. See chi.ifp.org.
Split Pillow’s feature Petersburg, a political drama based on Andrei Bely’s Russian novel, screens through Oct. 26. Petersburg is the story of an heir to a low-level legislative dynasty who gets embroiled in a revolutionary plot. Written and directed in Split Pillow’s patented round-robin fashion by Dave Belden, Tom Herman, Nick Martin and Jim Vendiola; starring Ross Heran, Peter Calandra, Tony DiGanci, Jason Frederick, Nina Fultz, Adam Ruben, Beth Jacoby and Rachel Slavick. Petersburg plays Fridays at 8:30 p.m. at Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St., 2nd Floor. $8.
Split Pillow just completed a month-long run of the thriller The Disappearance of Daniel Dodger at the Chopin Theatre. On Oct. 25 the nonprofit film incubator hosts a fundraising reception with drinks and appetizers from 7 to 10 p.m. $35. See splitpillow.com.
Nat Dykeman’s new Cinema Obscura DVD label releases its first two titles in stores Oct. 30: Joe Pacheco’s documentary As Smart As They Are, about lit-pop band One Ring Zero, and Lake County filmmaker John Covert’s crime drama Waiting for the Man.
Both titles are available for preorder on www.cinemaobscuradvd.com. Next year Dykeman will release Ruth Leitman’s Southern Gothic family documentary Alma, Bill Sebastian’s romance Midlothia, and Covert’s films The Blind Lead, Shut-Eye, and Girls & Buildings.
Dykeman runs the Lake County Film Festival, which is accepting submissions for its fifth iteration, to be held Feb. 28-March 2 at the College of Lake County. See lakecountyfilmfest.com
Mark Harris standup comedy film Cut’N It Up Chicago will be released in January 2008 by Indican Pictures and Triumphant Pictures. Alex Thomas hosts, with performances by Reggie Reg, Lil Rel, Rodney Perry, Sonja D, Shang, Pierre and Marcus Combs. See cutnitup.com.
Harris has completed post-production on the drama I Used to Love Her, starring Toya Turner, Mel Roberson, Sheree Bynum, Tiffany J. Curtis, Lil Rel and Simeon Henderson.
Rusty Nails’ third annual Movieside Music Box Massacre, a 24-hour horror marathon, welcomes guests Fred Dekker (director of The Monster Squad, Night of the Creeps, RoboCop 3) and Coralina Cataldi Tassoni (star of Demons 2). Nails hosts, with music by the Coffin Banger.
The Massacre will screen The Cat and the Canary, Freaks, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (with Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr.), Roger Corman’s The Raven, Equinox, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, Peeping Tom, Halloween 3, The Shining, Season of the Witch, The Monster Squad and It’s Alive.
The Massacre runs from Noon Oct. 13 to Noon Oct. 14 at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave. $24 presale, $29 at the door. See musicboxtheatre.com.
Nails continues work on his documentary Dead On: The Life and Cinema of George A. Romero, which he plans to release to coincide with the 40th Anniversary of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead next year.
Vance Mellen of Mellenhead Productions is shooting the apocalyptic comedy Revelations, a Sundance Screenwriters Lab finalist about a preacher holed up in an abandoned church at the end of the world. See mellenheadprods.com.
Low Bow Pictures’ 7 Columbian Kings, the story of a brutal double-cross between two friends in the West Side drug trade, premieres Oct. 20 at the Portage Theater. Zeke Gonzalez directed and produced. Featuring Roberto Soto, Joe Caballero and Jaime Santillana. Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. at 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave. See portagetheater.org.
The Princess Grace Foundation is bestowing two of its six Princess Grace Awards in film to Chicagoans this year: Thomas Javier Castillo, a Northwestern grad student whose work focuses on the people, history and politics of the American Southwest; and School of the Art Institute undergrad Gonzalo Escobar for his work in documentary and essay film in Mexico, Ecuador and his native Columbia. See pgfusa.org.
Ed M. Koziarski is in post-production on the feature film The First Breath of Tengan Rei. Email edk@homesickblues.com.