The dramedy, “Mercury in Retrograde,” Michael Glover Smith of White City Cinema, filmmaker, author and film studies instructor, starts filming Aug. 4 for 15 days in Chicago and Southwest Michigan.
Smith, the screenwriter, will direct the shoot in Ukranian Village, Rogers Park and Wilmette and then move to 10 days of filming in historic Fennville, near Saugatuck.
The story is about three couples from Chicago vacationing for a weekend at a Michigan lakeside cabin. Over the course of three days, the hidden tensions that exist between various members of the group slowly come to the surface.
In “Mercury in Retrograde,” one couple has been happily married for 10 years. Another couple has been together for five years and are miserable. The third and youngest couple has just gotten together and their relationship is as yet undefined.
The impressive ensemble cast includes Steppenwolf member Alana Arenas; French actress/model and Sundance alum Roxane Mesquida (“Gossip Girl”); Sundance alum Najarra Townsend (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”); Jack Newell, actor and program Director of the Harold Ramis Film School at Second City (“Open Tables”); actor/producer Shane Simmons (“Party Time Party Time”) and Kevin Wehby, who was the lead in Smith’s first 2015 feature, “Cool Apocalyse.”
Producers are filmmaker / editor Shane Simmons and Clare Kosinski (“Cool Apocalypse”). DP is Jason Chiu (“Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party”).
Smith’s festival award-winning 2015 couples dramedy, “Cool Apocalypse,” will screen at “Movies in the Parks” Aug. 31 at Palmer Square and Sept. 2 at Pulaski Park. On Aug. 30, it will be released after on DVD by Emphasis Entertainment Group of Naperville.
Smith’s book “Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the Film Industry,” was published by Columbia University Press in 2015.
