This weekend IFP/Chicago hosts its signature event, the
Midwest Filmmaker's Summit which, like last month's
IFP Market & Market Conference in New York City, hosts a series of panels with industry experts, technology workshops and networking opportunies for nascent filmmakers. The relatively low key event is held on the eighth floor of Columbia College's film and video building near Grant Park, which gives one a generous view of Lake Michigan and a serene, if flourscent tinged environment in which to engage with fellow cineastes.
Last night the Summit hosted a screening of Milwaukee native
Chris Smith's terrific Sundance 07' favorite,
The Pool. Smith, who speaks very little Hindi, shot the picture himself with a cast of largely non-professional actors, in India. The film, which is still without distribution, is a naturalistic look at Venkatesh, a rural teenager, working in a Panjim hotel to support his family, who becomes obsessed with a swimming pool in the opulent Goan hills, and the mysterious family who owns it. As he's pulled into their lives, marked by a repressed tragedy from the past, Smith investigates their malaise and Venkatesh's subtle awakening in long, unadorned takes with a sensitivity to issues of class and race within Indian life that is refreshing and provocative. Any narcissistic impulse on the part of this soul seeking westerner is put aside;
The Darjeeling Limited this is not.
Tonight the Summit will feature a number of short films by Midwestern filmmakers in the
IFP/Chicago Fly Over Zone Short Film Festival which, despite its unfortunate moniker, is a wonderful opportunity to see brand new work by a number of terrific filmmakers from the area.
Within the panels, one senses the desire among many of the filmmakers and panelists for a more developed indie film scene in this and other midwestern centers. As states like Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Illnois adopt larger tax incentives for film productions in hopes of luring films to their state, more coastal film producers are finding the middle of the country an attractive place to shoot films that could have been shot in any number of places, but what of "regional filmmakers" attempting to bring a a sensibility to the screen that is directly tied to their communities? Perhaps, beyond your local film commission, theater company or equipment rental house, the Midwest Filmmaker's Summit is a place to start.
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posted by Brandon Harris @ 10/20/2007 12:59:00 PM
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