REEL Shorts Festival This Weekend

By Margaret Lyons in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 17, 2004 3:27PM

Didn't make it to Cannes or Telluride this year? Drown your sorrows in a slew of short films headed directly our way this weekend--head over to the 3 Penny Cinema at 2424 North Lincoln for the Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival. The festival starts Friday and runs through Sunday and includes seminars, discussions with the filmmakers, and over 75 independent short films from around the world in the categories of sci-fi, horror, documentary, comedy and animation.

A weekend pass is $25.00, but if you don't want to be cooped up all weekend your best bet is a $6.00 ticket for Sunday which will include a screening of the "Best of the Fest".

The festival was organized by Project Chicago, a group of filmmakers and entertainment professionals from Chicago and Los Angeles, and their mission is to provide an easily-accessible opportunity for film makers around the world to show their films.

To keep it accessible, they make it a point to keep submission fees and ticket prices low. With cheap submission fees there has got to be a couple of young upstarts that will be showing their stuff. And how hip will you be when you discover the next Todd Solodnz or Coen brother before they hit the big time?

Then when they sell out and buckle under pressure from the studios, you also have the even cooler privilege of disparaging the indie film maker you once so passionately loved for their nuance and refusal to compromise. You'll say, "I saw one of their movies at a Chicago film festival in 2004 before they were big. Now they've totally gone Spielberg." You don't want to miss that. Here are Friday's, Saturday's, and Sunday's full schedules.
(Thanks, Sam!)