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Chicago – It’s time to get some “Wizdom”! In the World Premiere at the same Chicago studio (CineCity) where it was filmed, the completed short will premiere on Friday, September 20th (6pm), and that screening will be facilitated by Producer/Co-Writer/Lead Actor Ashton Swinford and Producer/Director Layne Marie Williams.

Ashton Swinford is Eos, a futuristic thief and outlier living in a dystopian time to come. She lives with her sibling Vayle (Simone Brazzini) and seeks to disrupt the controlling power of “Wizdom,” a corporation who has blotted the world in permanent darkness and uses brain-attached devices to assure the population that all is well. When Eos steals a powerful hallucinatory drug, what she experiences on that drug’s trip is a threat to the power, represented and discovered by Carbon (Elizabeth Laidlaw).

Wizdom

Photo credit: Poster by Jillian Adel, Studio of Earthly Delights for Paragram Productions

Actor/Producer...

Chicago – The Midwest Film Festival is celebrating the season with their upcoming “Summer Bash & Comedy Screening” on July 28th, 2021 (7pm), at the Chi-Town Drive In. The event will feature a meet-and-greet and an evening of funny-bone short films, including “Open House,” a directorial debut by Mikaela McParlan. For more info, tickets and the film line-up, click here.

“Open House” is a flat out hilarious film, directed and co-written (with Troy Sugrue) by Mikaela McParlan in her director debut. A murderer (Mark E. Penzien) takes his still-alive victim (Tony Belsito) to an empty neighborhood house. Meanwhile, a real estate agent (Ruth Kaufman) is determined to sell the same house. When the two purposes come together, pitch black wackiness ensues.

Midwest Film Festival, July 28th, 2021, Featuring ‘Open House’

Photo credit: MidwestFilm.com

The Midwest Film Festival has been a staple in Chicago’s film community for 16 years. At the beginning of 2020, it...

Chicago – In this new golden age of animation, the ability to create mood and setting is more accessible than ever. For creator and writer Ron Falzone (with director Julian Grant), a notable death in the 1920s and the movie business associated with it is in their film “Coriander and a Penny’s Worth of Lonesome.”

Now available on most major streaming platforms, “Coriander and a Penny’s Worth of Lonesome” is an animated film with a unique artistic design that evokes both the era and the narrative. The story is about a seminal event in movie and American history … the death of silent film era matinee idol Rudolph Valentino in 1926. A woman named Coriander becomes involved in the circumstance of Valentino’s passing, and brings along her past and present situations to the funeral.

Available on Most Major Streaming Services

Photo credit: Grant Guignol & Squeakin’ Yojimbo Pictures

Creator and writer...

Chicago – What is one of the greatest survival instincts of the pandemic? Creativity. The Zoom web series “What Did Clyde Hide?” is the result of a creative effort from Executive Producer/Show Runner Ruth Kaufman, Producer Sandy Gulliver and Director Sean Patrick Leonard. Kaufman and Leonard talk about the series, naturally, via Zoom.

“What did Clyde Hide?” a Show Girls Production, is a six-part web series that takes place after the mysterious death of a famous film director. Seventeen unconventional women, who loved, hated and/or were wronged by him, seek atonement at his Zoom funeral. It can be seen by clicking here.

What Did Clyde Hide

Photo credit: ChicagoShowGirls.us

The actors, who originally organized on Facebook as a networking group, wrote and produced the series, and recruited independent actor/director Sean Patrick Leonard to direct. Each of the women in the cast of 17 developed her own character, backstory and monologue,...