Category Archives: Film Festivals

March 18, 2023

The World Premiere of PAPER PLANES at the AfterImage Film Festival

By michaelgloversmith

In January, it was my great pleasure to co-direct the short film PAPER PLANES with Alyssa Thordarson (who also wrote and co-stars). We had an amazing cast and crew, headlined by Shaina Schrooten in the lead role, and I am very proud of the end result. The film will have its World Premiere at the AfterImage Film Festival in Saint Charles, IL on Saturday, April 15 with an encore screening on Sunday, April 16. I will be present for a Q&A following both shows along with Alyssa and Shaina. You can watch the trailer for PAPER PLANES (as well as purchase tickets) on AfterImage’s official website. I will also be announcing the film’s International Premiere (at an LGBTQ festival of great renown) and New York Premiere very soon so stay tuned.

RELATIVE will also continue its nationwide theatrical run in April with screenings planned in New York City, Albuquerque, Memphis and Chicago. Ticket info will be added to the RELATIVE site for those shows as soon as it is available.

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January 6, 2023

RELATIVE Screenings: January-March 2023

By michaelgloversmith

There will be many screenings of RELATIVE across the U.S. between now and mid-March — at least 14 screenings in 8 different states. I’m including a list of these screenings below and will be providing showtime and ticket info as soon as it’s available (which you can access by clicking on the links below the poster). This list will be continually updated:


Minneapolis, MN (The Parkway Theater): January 20 (Q&A w/ Michael Glover Smith)

Wichita, KS (Tallgrass Film Center): January 20-22

Chicago, IL (Facets Multimedia): January 27 (Q&A w/ Michael Glover Smith & editor Eric Marsh, moderated by Lori Felker)

Seattle, WA (Grand Illusion Cinema): January 30

Santa Fe, NM (Jean Cocteau Cinema): February 4 (Q&A w/ Michael Glover Smith & actor Cameron Scott Roberts)

Asbury Park, NJ (The ShowRoom Cinema): February 4 (2 screenings)

Fort Collins, CO (The Lyric): February 10 (Q&A w/ Michael Glover Smith)

Chicago, IL (The New 400): February 19 (Q&A w/ Michael Glover Smith & actress Elizabeth Stam)

Beloit, WI (Beloit International Film Festival): March 3-4 (2 screenings followed by Q&As w/ Michael Glover Smith + actress Cheryl Hamada & producer Aaron Wertheimer)

Lake Forest, IL (Gorton Center): March 18 (Q&A w/ Michael Glover Smith & actress Sandy Gulliver)

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February 25, 2022

RELATIVE World Premiere at Gasparilla

By michaelgloversmith

My new film RELATIVE will have its World Premiere at the 15th annual Gasparilla International Film Festival in Tampa, Florida on Saturday, March 12 at 7:30pm (EST). Joining me on the red carpet will be many members of the cast and crew. The screening will be held at the AMC Westshore and tickets are on sale NOW. The venue holds approximately 100 people and the screening is expected to sell out so if you would like to attend please get your tix in advance here.

Also, this Sunday, 2/27 at 1:30pm (CST), Rebecca Martin, film critic and publisher of Cinema Femme Magazine, will host a live video round-table Q&A with five of the actresses from RELATIVE (Wendy Robie, Clare Cooney, Emily Lape, Melissa DuPrey and Elizabeth Stam) plus cinematographer Olivia Aquilina. You can watch that 30-minute conversation on YouTube here.

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February 19, 2021

ROY’S WORLD at the 2021 Beloit International Film Festival

By michaelgloversmith

The virtual edition of the great Beloit International Film Festival is now live. That means that Wisconsin and Illinois residents have between now and February 28 to stream ROY’S WORLD: BARRY GIFFORD’S CHICAGO, a documentary produced by yours truly, directed by Rob Christopher and narrated by Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon and Lili Taylor. I was last at BIFF with RENDEZVOUS IN CHICAGO in 2019 and it is one of my favorite regional film fests. Please visit the BIFF website for info regarding tickets for a film rental and the Zoom Q&A!

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February 21, 2020

Chicago Shorts at the Beloit International Film Festival

By michaelgloversmith

I wrote the following capsule review of the Beloit International Film Fest’s “WI / IL TWO” shorts program for Time Out Chicago.

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A Missed Connection. Photo courtesy of Third Wheel Entertainment.

Chicago Shorts Shine at This Year’s Beloit International Film Festival

Located in a picturesque small town in Wisconsin just north of the Illinois border, the Beloit International Film Festival is a gem of a regional fest that has long featured an impressive roster of Midwestern filmmaking talent, and this year’s lineup is no exception. Any Chicagoans planning on attending the 2020 edition of BIFF, which kicks off tonight, Friday, February 21, and runs through Sunday, March 1, would do well to check out the “WI / IL TWO”shorts program: It features a contingent of unusually strong Chicago-made short films. Among the works screening in this program (and thus vying for the fest’s highly competitive “Best Illinois Short” award) are Matthew Weinstein’s A Missed Connection, Layne Marie Williams’ Golden Voices and Eve Rydberg’s Home. This program screens at Bagels & More on Friday, February 21 at 7:30pm and again at the same location on Saturday, February 22 at 7:30pm. Filmmakers and cast members from all three short films will be present for a Q&A session following both screenings.

A Missed Connection is an emotionally resonant study of two college friends, Jacob (Tyler Pistorius) and Lauren (Kimberly Michelle Williams), reconnecting in a coffee shop by chance on a wintry night. That writer/director Matthew Weinstein packs a bit too much “character arc” into the brief run time is a welcome problem in an age of films of too little ambition, and one that is compensated for by spectacularly subtle lead performances and gorgeous Rembrandt-esque visuals. Golden Voices is a poetic horror film about a ghost-chasing podcaster (Kalika Rose) who stumbles upon sleepwalking children whispering of “gold” in rural Indiana. Director Layne Marie Williams, aided by cinematographer Grace Pisula (whose Gold Point Studio produced), packs a wealth of haunting atmosphere into a fleet 14 minutes that will likely leave viewers wanting more; this could easily be the pilot for a web series. Home, a pungent dramedy about the reunion between a father/daughter duo, both on the verge of homelessness, serves as a terrific showcase for two of Chicago’s finest theater actors (Francis Guinan and Carolyn Hoerdemann, who also co-wrote); when actors can cause your heart to lurch by interacting with a tomato—you know you’re in the presence of art.

For more information about this year’s Beloit International Film Festival, including ticket info and showtimes,visit the BIFF website here.

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February 3, 2020

ROY’S WORLD at the Glasgow Film Festival

By michaelgloversmith

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ROY’S WORLD, the documentary film I produced about the childhood of the great writer Barry Gifford (WILD AT HEART) in Chicago during the mid-20th century, will have its World Premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival at the end of this month. I will be in attendance for a Q&A following both festival screenings (on 2/28 and 2/29) along with the film’s director, Rob Christopher. Any UK friends interested in attending either screening, please check out our film’s page on the #GFF20 website here.

American friends: Penguin/Random House books will be publishing a new collection of Barry’s “Roy” stories (1973-2000) as a tie-in to our documentary this September. It is available to pre-order now here.

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April 10, 2019

RENDEZVOUS IN CHICAGO Wins Audience Choice in Tallahassee!

By michaelgloversmith

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I am pleased to announce that RENDEZVOUS IN CHICAGO has won the Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Tallahassee Film Festival! This was our fourth award in eight festival screenings and I couldn’t have been happier about the response at this superbly programmed fest that is so close to my heart!

Our next screening will be at Chicago Filmmakers on Saturday, May 4 at 7:00 PM, which will be followed by a Q&A with yours truly moderated by critic David J. Fowlie. I will also be dropping announcements soon about our Michigan and New York City premieres – so stay tuned!

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April 4, 2019

HAIL SATAN? and MIDNIGHT FAMILY at Doc10

By michaelgloversmith

My latest post for Time Out Chicago concerns my best bets for the Doc10 Film Festival.

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Entering its fourth year, the Chicago Media Project’s Doc10 Film Festival has established itself as an annual highlight for fans of cinema. Focusing on vital new non-fiction features from around the globe, the festival kicks off at the Davis Theater in Lincoln Square on Thursday, April 11 with the much-anticipated local premiere of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez documentary Knock Down the House, and concludes on Sunday, April 15 with the sustainable-farm portrait The Biggest Little Farm. The rest of the lineup features a diverse array of movies, almost all of which will be followed by Q&A sessions with the filmmakers. Most impressively, 60% of the films in this year’s lineup—programmed by Chicago International Film Festival doc programmer Anthony Kaufman—were directed or co-directed by women.

One of the most interesting films you can catch at this year’s Doc10 Film Festival is Hail Satan?, a witty and informative look at the meteoric rise in popularity of the non-theistic religious group known as the “Satanic Temple.” With unfettered access to the leaders of the group’s various nationwide chapters, including charismatic church founder Lucien Greaves, director Penny Lane crafts a deceptively simple work of political commentary that ultimately sympathizes with the “Satanists” as a group of merry pranksters who see their movement as a counterbalance to the repressiveness of other organized religions.

For those looking for something more aesthetically daring, Lukas Lorentzen’s Midnight Family offers an eye-opening expose of Mexico City’s private ambulance system through the lens of one particular family-owned company, which competes with other for-profit EMTs to provide urgent care. Director Lorentzen uses a combination of handheld and dashboard-mounted cameras to put viewers in the middle of the action in the exciting ambulance-run scenes, lending his film the feeling of a thriller. The unconventional approach earned Midnight Family the award for Best Cinematography at this year’s Sundance Film Festival—an eccentric but deserving choice.

For more information on this year’s Doc10 Film Festival, including the full lineup, ticket info and showtimes, visit the festival’s official website.

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March 3, 2019

RENDEZVOUS IN CHICAGO Wins Best Comedy at the Lindsey Film Fest

By michaelgloversmith

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I am so honored that RENDEZVOUS IN CHICAGO won the Best Film Comedy award at the George Lindsey UNA Film Festival in Florence, Alabama last night! This was a great festival and it was a privilege just to screen alongside so many accomplished short and feature-length films. The award (our second Best Comedy award after Strasburg last fall) belongs to our entire cast and crew.

The next RENDEZVOUS IN CHICAGO screening will take place at the Beverly Arts Center on Wednesday, March 13 at 7:30pm and be followed by a Q&A with me conducted by critic Daniel Nava. Our next festival screening will take place at the Women’s Film Festival in Philadelphia on the evening of Sunday, March 17 and be followed by a Q&A with me and producer Layne Marie Williams. For more info, visit the “Screenings” page.

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February 21, 2019

MAGNOLIA & CLEMENTINE at the Beloit International Film Festival

By michaelgloversmith

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There is a long tradition of American actresses becoming directors (including figures as disparate as Ida Lupino, Elaine May and Barbara Loden), often in order to give themselves better roles than what they’ve typically been offered by their male filmmaking counterparts. This trend has gratifyingly ramped up with a renewed urgency in the “Me Too” era: Among the very best short films to play Chicago cinema screens over the past year are urgent, female-centric works like Clare Cooney’s Runner and Maggie Scrantom’s Atoms of Ashes, both locally made. Magnolia & Clementine, a 16-minute short by Tennessee-based actress-turned-filmmaker Ashley Shelton, offers welcome proof that this is a nationwide trend. It’s a potent dramedy about an aspiring writer (Shelton) who throws a short story in the trash but is later mortified to learn that her live-in boyfriend (Linds Edwards) has stolen the concept when his own “original” story is published to acclaim. Anyone planning on attending the Beloit International Film Festival this weekend — where Shelton’s movie will screen on Friday, February 22 and Sunday, February 24 — would do well to check it out.

Magnolia & Clementine is, as one would expect, a great showcase for Shelton’s talents as an actress. A veteran of film and television in front of the camera, she does a lot here in a short span of time (plays a dual role, cries real tears, plays drunk, etc.) but the film ultimately delights because of her very real skills as a writer and director. Shelton understands the importance of pacing in film comedy: Many of the biggest laughs result from her cinematography and editing choices — whether it’s an eyeline match between the protagonist and an image of Jesus, or ending a scene with the “punchline” of a close-up of an empty roll of toilet paper. More importantly, Magnolia & Clementine starts off as a comedy but unexpectedly morphs into a poignant tale of self-discovery, a Chaplin-esque tonal balancing act that Shelton pulls off with admirable precision. What begins as a story about a relationship between a woman and a man ends up being about a woman’s relationship with herself as she learns to overcome her insecurities and fully declare herself an artist. There could be no more fitting subject for a filmmaking debut as auspicious as this one.

To learn more about this weekend’s screenings of Magnolia & Clementine, including ticket info and showtimes, visit the Beloit International Film Festival’s website.

 

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