“BLUEGRASS RUN,” the Trinity Angels Production of a comedy adventure feature set in Chicago and the horse country of Kentucky, recently shot key Chicago scenes at Loop locations and at a dance club, notes producer/actor Chuck Wagner.
Kendal Miller directed and DP Chris Gearhart of Lakeview Productions shot with the Red camera.
Based on a true story, “Bluegrass Run” is about a Chicago mobster running away from possible indictments. He meets a female Derby horse owner online and travels to Kentucky to meet her and lay low.
It stars Wagner (“Chicago Overcoat,” “Prison Break”) as the mobster, Carmine Perrelli, a theatre actor, as his accomplice and Anna Hagopian (“Nightmare on Elm Street”) as his love interest.
Production will return to Chicago in mid-October. The feature has a budget of $5 million.
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SOME 335 GUESTS attended IFP's 3rd annual Filmmakers Gala at the theWit luxury boutique hotel last Friday, and IFP director Ryan Jewell reported raising approximately $70,000 to help fund IFP programs throughout the year.
High point of the evening, Jewell said, was guest of honor Effie T. Brown's stirring speech about how her career as an independent producer ("Real Women have Curves") was launched thanks to the help she received serving an IFP/Los Angeles internship.
Brown was producer on writer/director's Ben Berkowitz's indie feature, "Polish Bar, which shot here early this year.
"HEART OF HOPE," a 55-minute doc about a dedicated children's heart surgeon, produced by Mercedes Kane, will premiere at the 4th Illinois International Film Festival in St. Charles, Oct. 23-25.
It centers on Dr. Michael Ilbawi, head surgeon of the pediatric surgical heart unit at Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn, who has performed 20,000 heart surgeries in his 25 year career.
Producer/director Kane, a recent MFA graduate of Governors State film/digital imaging program, had a crew of 24, including fellow student and DP Dirk Fletcher; co-editor was recent GSU graduate Elizabeth Fruth.
"Heart of Hope" is one of 50 films selected for showing at the Festival, which also will screen the highly acclaimed feature length doc, "The Providence Effect," produced by former Chicago agency owner and Renaissance Man Rollin Binzer.
It screens Oct. 25 at 12:10 p.m., followed by a post-screening party to benefit the Pediatric Surgical Heart Unit at Hope Children's Hospital. The $25 ticket includes food, drinks, and live music.
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INDIE FILMMAKER JOE SWANBERG is currently working in Memphis, not as a director but as DP on a micro-budget feature, "Open Five," produced and starring writer/producer Kentucker Audley.
"Open Five" is "a semi-autobiographical love letter to Memphis" by Audley, about two New York girls who are squired around Memphis for an ill-fated weekend by a former boyfriend and his buddy (Audley).