Monsters, villains, and dinosaurs plan to invade the old building on the corner of Broadway and Elm in Urbana this week. Not to worry, though, they’re not trespassing or celebrating Halloween a little early — they’re all contained on film.
Starting Thursday night and continuing through Saturday evening, the Independent Media Center (IMC) will host their third annual IMC Film Festival, showcasing films from the Champaign-Urbana area and around the state. Don’t let the fact that the films are local lull you into thinking they’re lower quality than a professional film, though. Several of the films by aspiring local filmmakers have also been selected for other film festivals around Illinois and nationwide.
Chris Lukeman, coordinator of this year’s festival, reminds people that because of the current state of technology, “it’s possible from a technical standpoint for someone to get a $300 camera and…produce a film that’s almost indistinguishable from national films.” One of the related highlights of the festival is a hands-on Beginner’s Filmmaking Panel and Workshop (2-3 p.m. Saturday), where students from upper-level elementary school through high school, or even adults, can learn the basics of making films and using cameras and video equipment.
The thirty-five films range in length from one minute to eighty-one, but the majority are ten minutes or less in length. Lukeman encourages people to stop by, even if only for a few minutes to view the work of local directors.
Thursday, the films are mostly productions from Eastern Illinois University students and faculty, followed by the feature presentation, Revolting. Revolting’s co-producer and co-writer, Mike Boedicker shot several scenes of the film at some Champaign locations, including the HighDive and Isotech Laboratories. Revolting recently won the Best Illinois Feature Award for the Route 66 International Film Festival, also to be screened this weekend, and Best Comedy Feature of the Illinois International Film Festival last year.
On Friday, the festival focuses on the IMC’s mission of promoting social and economic justice with two documentaries made by the group All of Us or None, a group that fights discrimination against formerly incarcerated people.
After the completion of the all-ages filmmaking workshop on Saturday afternoon, the program transitions to a series of family-friendly comedy and drama short films from 3-5 p.m.
Director Kate Brickman’s film, This is My Journey, begins the Saturday evening program at 6 p.m. with a story about three transitioning transgendered people in Central Illinois. In the film, also her final project for her master’s in journalism, she explores very human, emotional issues, rather than the medical issues normally covered in other journalistic pieces about the topic. Her subjects, Dana, Shayla, and Cris, volunteered for the film in hopes of educating others about transitioning.
Because the nature of the filming was very personal, she said, “I didn’t want to exploit them…Anything they showed me, in terms of getting dressed, injecting hormones, etc….was all suggested by them. I let them dictate the [parameters] of the process.” Brickman’s film will also show at Your Normal LGBT Film Festival in Bloomington-Normal in October and the Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival in November.
Some of the festival programming from 8-9 p.m. will follow the same theme, and the late-night program at 9 p.m. will transition to comedy, science fiction, and horror.
Lukeman’s short film, Once Upon a Time in 1972, billed as a “transistorpunk-science fiction-action-adventure-period piece,” was filmed in midtown Champaign with the help of local crews and businesses, as well as a large team of puppeteers.
Thomas Nicol, a local software developer with a master’s degree in electrical engineering, will present two short films during the late-night Saturday program, his live action The Window Into Time that contains stop motion effects, and his Claymation short Bedtime for Timmy. He collaborated with friend, Ryan Collins, on The Window Into Time, and they have been making films off and on together for the last thirteen years.
Nicols collaborated with girlfriend Becky Griesheimer on the Claymation short. He shot Bedtime for Timmy at the standard 1:6 scale and says it “took about 6 full days of animating to get the 2.5 minutes of footage. The planning and construction of sets and puppets before the shoot took a few months.”
The Window Into Time has made the rounds to several film festivals already and will screen at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Fest in Portland later this month. Bedtime for Timmy won Best Animated Comedy at the Dragon Con Independent Film Festival and is also making appearances at other festivals, including Fantastic Fest in Austin at the end of September.
The full schedule and descriptions of some of the films can be found on the IMC website at:
http://www.ucimc.org/content/imc-film-festival-weekend
The IMC Film Festival is free to attend and made possible by the Urbana Public Arts Program. The IMC is located at 202 South Broadway in Urbana.