Sweet Home Illinois, the Illinois Film Office party slated for June 19 in Hollywood for former Illini in the film industry, has been pushed back to September to give the organizers breathing space to pull the event together.
“There were simply too many details involved to launch a party of this size in a matter of weeks,” said producer Ginny Weissman, a volunteer planning the party with comedian Tom Dreesen. They began working on Sweet Home several weeks ago after the June 19 date was announced. They soon realized a June date was too tight and a fall date would be more practical.
The idea behind Sweet Home Illinois is to encourage former Chicagoans to bring their film projects back to Chicago for production.
When Weissman lived in L.A., she and two associates for 10 years staged the wildly successful annual Windy City West party, on which Sweet Home Illinois is based. Dreesen, also living in L.A. back then, was the MC.
PR firm Jasculca-Terman was hired by the IFO as the official event planner.
