Don Shanahan
This past fall, the eclectic western Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois put on their inaugural film festival. The Oak Park Illinois Film Festival. Divided into five thematic programming blocks, the festival organizers and leading board members curated a total of 17 films. Three of them were feature-length, and two of those were documentaries. Holding firm to local roots, each film entry had to have an Oak Park connect in front of or behind the camera to be eligible. By day, Film Obsessive Editor in Chief Don Shanahan is a proud elementary school teacher in the village of Oak Park and secured credentials to promote and cover the festival and its award winners. With this third article, he collects the capsule reviews of the 17 films. Enjoy these buried treasures!
Program Block 1: “Falling Apart”
BREAKUP SEASON
Perfect for this recently concluding holiday portion of the calendar and the festival’s winner for Best Feature, Breakup Season mixes the Christmas trappings of laughs and charm with the emotional pitfalls of faltering romantic relationships. Written and directed by H. Nelson Tracy in his feature-length debut, the film stars Chandler Riggs (The Walking Dead) and Samatha Isler (Captain Fantastic) as the steady couple Ben and Cassie. They are traveling from their comfortable urban lifestyle to spend the week of Christmas with Ben’s family at their snowy, rustic homestead in La Grande, Oregon. When a giggle turns to a shiver within Cassie, we can already see this is not going to start on the right foot, especially when the dreaded “We need to talk” plea is made.
As the title suggests, Breakup Season quickly has Ben and Cassie split up in a rough argument. To spare his and her embarrassment, she’s willing to leave and travel to her family. The trouble is the inclement weather has grounded travel, trapping Cassie with Ben’s family. The awkwardness of this predicament from H. Nelson Tracy turns out to be frostier than the climate, making for a dramedy that could have easily drifted to the low-hanging fruit of cringe comedy or the overwrought fringes of melodrama. Instead, Breakup Season doesn’t shy away from baring difficult feelings from several extremely relatable angles. No one is really right or wrong, yet the jadedness is palpable.
Through it all, there’s a keep-your-chin-up vigor from everyone involved, including Ben’s parents (veteran character actor James Urbaniak of Oppenheimer and newcomer Brook Hogan) and quirky siblings (Unfriended’s Jacob Wysocki and newcomer Carly Stewart). Acting between the same rock-and-a-hard-place as her character, Samatha Isler greatly impresses with the wringer she’s taken through, as does the necessary maturation required for Chandler Riggs and his character. Isler handily won the Best Actress trophy of the Oak Park Illinois Film Festival.
The implosion is hard to watch, but the silver linings and rich coffee shop song soundtrack lift spirits to balance the feels of this offbeat romantic comedy. Including Oak Park, Breakup Season has won 28 awards from 14 different film festivals in 2024. This one deserves to ping on larger radars and is available to rent on Amazon Prime.
WINDY & WARM
Windy & Warm is a tender balm of a musical interlude. The short film features a guitarist (local filmmaker Eric Henry’s own father) meditating on a dynamic moment in Cook County’s Miller Meadows Forest Preserve in suburban Forest Park, Illinois. The sun is low and the air is quiet when the man begins to play a tune.
What unfurls in Windy & Warm is an outdoor performance of John Loudermilk’s “Windy and Warm” made famous by Chet Atkins. Shot and edited by Henry to include smooth dissolves and position changes, the flavor of the Atkins song creates the vision of a cowboy resting and enjoying the flora. The camera has close-ups of the strumming fingers while the sun absorbs the chords. The man and the song are living and breathing that perfect weather.
With the same inhaling and exhaling, Eric Henry’s short epitomizes stepping outside and feeling a vibe. Shot during the pandemic, Windy & Warm is a lovely video that can match that longing and spirit. The shift of seasons from Breakup Season to this afterwards in the first program block made for a nice stirring lift. Henry would go on to win the Best Music Video award of the OPILFF.
Program Block 2: “Overcoming Challenges”
GET AWAY DRIVER’S ED
Created as a student project and inspired by a real-life experience, filmmaker and Oak Park graduate Ali Weber created the chipper and devious animated short film Get Away Driver’s Ed. The episode features a nervous 16-year-old driving student named Madison. Like many fellow teens, Madison will do anything to get her license. When she steps into the car with her strict instructor for her big test, that very threshold of “anything” and classic dynamic between teacher-and-student are humorously tested.
Get Away Driver’s Ed has fun with the notion of breaking rules to break other rules, as Madison’s instructor turns out to be more than she seems. In a fun turn of events, the instructor is a bank robber and is using her student to be, as the title suggests, her getaway driver. Once the aiding and abetting sugar-honey-iced tea hits the fan, Weber’s animated film switches to a widescreen aspect ratio signifying that it’s go time.
Needless to say, hijinks ensure. The result is a quick little hit of breathless fun, done with a savvy and accessible animation style. Weber’s short film feels like the kind of idea that would be advantageously and successfully stretched into a longer adventure and feature if given the chance to spread its wings. As a short, it still winningly succeeds.
LUNCHBOX ARMAGEDDON
The next animated short film, Lunchbox Armageddon, gets its name from the fictional school garage band trying to find a vacancy. The metal-minded group was all set to thrash at the middle school talent show before tonsillectomy surgery sidelines the pipes of the lead singer. Without a proper frontman, the remaining members scramble to recruit untapped talent. Sure enough, they find a replacement from a meek and unlikely place.
Directed by the trio of Adam Tock, Kevin O’Rourke, and Joe Gustav, the visual style of Lunchbox Armageddon evokes the old-school speckled printing of classic comic books. The characters are cleverly proportioned, slanted, and curved to fit that exaggerated look. Likewise, the flow of the narrative moves in similarly invisibly-paneled fashion. Lunchbox Armageddon may crescendo to jam to its own music, but it’s the expectation-changing catalyst of new friendship that give viewers the widest smile. Both Lunchbox Armageddon and Get Away Driver’s Ed filmmakers were awarded Animation commendations by the OPILFF Board and represent a bright future of local artists.
INFERNO
Impressing many Oak Park Illinois Film Festival viewers smack dab in the middle of the second program block was the 2020 TV pilot-turned-short-film Inferno, written and directed by Oak Park native Wendy Roderweiss. Shot in Oak Park disguising itself as an unnamed California town, Inferno throws audiences into one of the most toxic job interviews they may ever see in any setting.
We know the proverbial good buy right off the bat in Inferno. It’s Tommy Laudadio, played by steady TV actor Josh Bywater. He’s a considerate and noble law school graduate—which may already feel like an oxymoron—who desperately needs a job. Against his better judgement, Tommy takes a friend’s referral for an interview with a firm of divorce lawyers, a field he is simultaneously overqualified and ill-matched for in the decency department. Smartly, he’s interviewing them as much as they are interviewing him.
Quite quickly in Inferno, Tommy discovers he’s roaming and being courted to join a troupe of morally depraved attorneys all about the stacked dollars of billable hours. Shocked and appalled, Tommy goes through an odyssey of hand-wringing and wild encounters trying to determine if he’s willing to compromised his ethics enough for a regular paycheck. Poking the bear, the infiltrating Tommy sees places he can write a few wrongs and unswallow a few poison pills, much to the boss’s (David Pasquesi of Veep and The Book of Boba Fett) chagrin.
Inferno zips through this hornet’s nest with breathless comedic pacing. The quips and comebacks between Bywater and his prodding screen partners falls like leaves in October. Winner of the Best Actor trophy for that linguistic charisma, Bywater makes for a perfect character to root for in dishing out sly comeuppance. Man, this really would have been a stellar jumping off point for a workplace comedy series. Roderweiss’s Inferno deserved better, but did succeed at earning the OPILFF’s prize for Best Narrative Short.
BATH SALT
Following the crowdpleasing success of Inferno in the “Overcoming Challenges” program was the 15-minute 2017 short film Bath Salt. Cancer most certainly counted as a startling switch of tastes from the topical comedy. However, director Nadyja von Ebers’s work took its fifteen minutes as a short and hit some of the strongest emotional notes of the entire festival.
Bath Salt introduces Maura, played by the short’s writer Grace Melon of Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party and Death to Metal. She is an actress rehearsing on the night before a big play’s opening. Her line readings with Jill (Divergent cast member Janet Ulrich Brooks) are not going well, to the point where the instructor advises the younger woman to use and borrow from your life experiences as an actress. Reflecting later, that note uncoils history within Maura.
From there, Bath Salt poignantly wanders Maura’s stream of memories involving her friendship with Laney (Melanie Neilan, seen in Princess Cyd). At this undetermined time in the past, the two women are going through cancer treatments and find themselves sharing a bath with wine and laughter. Seeing this beautiful remembered moment transpire begins to inform on the fragile and nervous Maura of the present. It would be easy for Bath Salt, to pound an armrest on that thought and declare “now, it all makes sense,” but it doesn’t because the reverberating wake of that platonic bond shows itself to have greater meaning. For a short film to pull that level of relatable vulnerability is a powerful thing.
WONDERLOST
Seguing from one type of young artist to another, the short film Wonderlost made by White Noise actor Michael William Chopra switches from a theater stage to an art studio. Actress Ellie Duffey plays a young lady looking at a personal and career crossroads. While working within a school’s studio on her art of choice, she is facing the graduation step of entering the workforce. She’s a candidate for an entry-level graphic designer position and cannot decide whether to pursue it further.
Chopra’s Wonderlost may occupy the life goal space of a stereotypical “starving artist,” but it glides into its chosen tipping point rather than stomping into it. The overwhelming urge to spread wings and break out is front-and-center. However, a chance encounter with a church organist spins a new wheel within her our lead protagonist’s head by making the comparison of her inquiry of “why do you play” with his counter reply of “the same reason” she does her art.
Gradually, the challenge and confusion is assuaged in Wonderlost. Shot entirely in black and white with a handheld camera grabbing great light all over the college campus of Loyola University, this branching point of Wonderlost between a personal path and a career path is keenly juxtaposed to that monochromatic visual palette. With the same cinematic touch from Chopra, the artist’s soulful spirit is lifted by Duffey and shines through the grays.
THAT THING WE ALL SHARE
Directed by artist and actress Michele Jedlicka, That thing we all share breaks its 8-minute short film running time into three distinct chapters. Its summary centers on a woman confronting difficult memories when responding to a call from home. In “The Letter,” there is a voice-over and storytelling set to imagery. The visuals seem random and disconnected, yet are insightful as they progress.
Following that first segment is “The Journey.” It steps further out to chronicle a rural small-town experience with the biography of a woman and her family history. This ambled life takes place after the COVID-19 pandemic. That thing we all share crescendos with “The Answer,” which boasts representative casting of neuroexceptional individuals filled against a white background with more of that ever-present narration.
That thing we all share presents itself very much with the slant of visual performance poetry. Filmed with a mix of color and black-and-white inter-titles, Jedlicka’s narrative of memory may wander through its transitions, but the imagery still has heartwarming quality that cannot be discounted. The film went on to win the Best Visual Elements award at this inaugural Oak Park Illinois Film Festival for its costumes, special effects, and set design.
Program Block 3: “Reclaiming Pride”
HILLBILLY
Connected to the town of Oak Park by its composer John Fee (the Wizards TV series), the 2018 documentary Hillbilly was selected to headline the “Reclaiming Pride” programming block. Playing at the Oak Park Illinois Film Festival during the hotly contested 2024 election season and arriving with the pedigree as a Best Documentary feature winner of the Los Angeles Film Festival and Nashville Film Festival, the documentary directed by Ashley York and Sally Rubin resonated well with festival attendees, even with its six years of shelf life. Repeating its previous success, Hillbilly went on to win the Best Documentary category with the OPILFF.
Filmed during the 2016 Presidential Election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Hillbilly was a piece of self-discovery for its director and narrator Ashley York. She grew up in the Appalachia country of rural Kentucky in Meathouse Hollow as a bit of a liberal unicorn before leaving the area for college and eventually Los Angeles to be a filmmaker. Putting York on camera as the central subject, Hillbilly follows her return to her hometown area to understand through interviews—including a series with her own family—the appeal then-candidate Donald Trump to that proudly unique and economically beleaguered subsection of voting citizens.
York’s personal story expands to examine the corporate and cultural exploitation of hillbilly culture by many forms of media and entertainment, where imagery from historical cornerstones like Deliverance to souped-up reality TV today turns manipulated stereotypes into misinformed identity. Throughout Hillbilly, Ashley finds fellow progressive islands of leaders and artists like author and activist Silas House that find empowerment and voices without shame. The resulting findings and statements of Hillbilly are an equation of depiction multiplied by dignity. Seeing how things have turned out in the eight years since 2016, a follow-up “sequel” would be incredible. In any case, see the festival winner Hillbilly yourself with a rental on Amazon or Apple.
GUARANTEED IN GARY
Paired with Hillbilly to close the third OPILFF block was the hyper-local documentary short Guaranteed in Gary. Filmmaker Darryl Parham tracked the recipients of an unprecedented guaranteed income experiment happening in Gary, Indiana, just outside of Chicago. For additional background, a selected group of Gary residents were set to receive $500 per month for an entire year. The goal of the program was to test both civil choice and financial decision options.
To see the ongoing results, the program recipients welcomed Guaranteed in Gary’s cameras before, during, and after this year-long time to follow their hopeful improvement. As fate would have it, what a difference consistent money can make. Each of the documentary subjects found enhanced their standard of living, elevated out of poverty, and set courses to stay out of it. If there’s a shortcoming for Guaranteed in Gary, it’s that ten minutes—even well-edited for construction and concise messaging—was not a deep enough dive into more informative recipients and the possible variety of peaks, valleys, and decision points possible for viewers to see for their betterment. Nonetheless, seeing ordinary citizens and non-actors taking literal ownership of their future was empowering to witness.
Program Block 4: “Fighting Back”
FIRE DEPARTMENT, INC
Without a doubt, the most hearty and vocal the inaugural Oak Park Illinois Film Festival crowd got was during the local-produced documentary feature Fire Department, Inc. That’s because many of the brave firefighters and their families shown in the film live nearby and came to be in attendance. Can you blame the excitement for anyone for seeing their names or themselves in a movie? Not at all, especially in a documentary this honorable and important.
Directed by Colin C. Hughes, Fire Department, Inc. delves into the decade-plus struggle of the union members—led by Chris Kribales—of the North Riverside Fire Department of North Riverside, Illinois working without a viable and fair contract. When a dearth of manpower caused overtime struggles and budget issues, a clash ensued between the local government and the firefighters union over securing proper and professional fire and EMT services to their community and surrounding area. For a time, the combative mayor, Herman Urbanek Jr., sought to privatize fire services with outside providers over using union individuals. The strife started a lengthy and ugly legal battle and court-of-public-opinion war of words that elevated to the state level and drew national support.
The thoroughness of Fire Department, Inc. is the quality that is most striking about the documentary. In lesser hands, this kind of documentary would skimp on facts, figures, and evidence and merely fluff itself with hero worship. In a very professional fashion, Colin C. Hughes was able to secure and film multiple testimonials from both sides of the affair—including the petulant Urbanek—and also the local journalists who covered the long struggle as primary sources. As a whole, Fire Department, Inc. is a boat without holes or leaks. Every possible angle was given its due diligence while still making the appropriate room to celebrate the liberating eventual real-life results. Those attending heroes were allowed to cheer and earned ours in return.
KICKSTAND
While difficult to come down from the semi-patriotic high of Fire Department, Inc., the cute-as-button 2013 short film Kickstand from local filmmaker Thomas Schultz made for a fitting digestif and exclamation point to the “Fighting Back” program block theme. No one likes bullies and the fights they start. Comeuppance to bullies can often involve the bravery to bring the fight back to them. That’s the gleeful edge of Kickstand.
Schultz’s film—shot right in Oak Park back then with local school students—shows two local high school-ish aged meanies who strut the sidewalks tormenting the younger kids. When the number of teasing and minor assault victims multiplies, the pained sympathy spread. The last straw comes when the bicycle of one kid is forcefully “confiscated” by the bullies. As a group, they throw down to not take the badgering anymore. Armed with squirt guns and water balloons, the new warriors make an alley battlefield stand. Featuring a western-tinged score by Allen Pierre Cotton, Kickstand is an fun homage translating old showdowns and evolving tumbleweeds and thoroughbreds into trash cans and bikes. The spunky heroism here was a blast!
Program Block 5: “Something’s Amiss”
ADA
The final program from the Oak Park Illinois Film Festival was a free late-night selection of short films that allowed to festival to let its freak flag fly for a time. Up to this point, the programs maintained an upstanding properness, even when things got comedic. The filters, so to speak, were fiendishly removed, starting with ADA from director Geno DiMaria.
ADA sharpens an edge immediately introducing a solitary thirtysomething man named Jamie Carter (Jeremy Pfaff) living well-appointed apartment in the not-too-distant future. He’s recently been fired from his job over Zoom by a restructuring company, and the clues are everywhere from his disheveled appearance and the tailspin of laundry, dishes, and dead houseplants piling up in his living space. He’s been summoned to his computer to discuss his severance package.
In order for the benefits to process, Jamie must demonstrate his mental well-being, which puts him in an A.I. chat with the titular ADA. Jamie is passing the introductory questions until ADA drops the first hammer of “Are you experiencing any thoughts of self-harm?” Jamie’s wavering reply, escalates the programming of ADA to probe painfully further until lines are crossed.
ADA is a marvel of short film suspense. The bright computer screen light pierces the murky low light of the apartment to create an alluring and eerie atmosphere. The suspense is audibly scoreless and dominated by the actor’s bodily sounds and the clicks and beeps coming from the formidable A.I.. Pfaff ties it all together with a convincingly uncomfortable performance that creates several palpable breaking points in a short 15 minutes of time. DiMaria paces and times this roller coaster of a thriller perfectly.
STAIRS
Continuing in the suspenseful and warped reality department was the 2019 short Stairs, produced and directed by Jeph Porter. The setup seems simple enough where an elderly woman (Oak Park resident Joyce Porter of Better Call Saul and Itchy Fingers) with a cane arrives at the bottom floor of her walkup apartment building. Her titular opponent and obstacle lies before her as the camera tilts to show the enveloping height of the corridor.
Quite fittingly difficult for a woman this age, each section of stairs is a slog for the old lady. We feel the strain for her and carry the hope that she doesn’t have much farther to go. However, in a perplexing fashion, the woman’s journey takes a surprising turn. Tinges of terror set in for Stairs and we, the viewers, are pulled into this miniature personal hell. Porter and Porter certainly grab hold of your attention for the short, where, if there’s one quibble, four minutes isn’t nearly enough to wrap our heads around this swerve and any conclusion. With understanding to the nature of get-in-and-get-out short films, we still long for more. See the short fillm here on YouTube.
THE HIVE
Made with DIY love is the student short film The Hive. Directed by the then-13-year-old Marco Esteban Delgado, this science fiction thriller was entered into the Young Filmmaker category of the OPILFF. The plot involves two orphaned teenage sisters who infiltrate a large building in the effort of trying to take down the popular virtual reality platform that has come to control a large majority of the general population.
While society at large can’t get enough of “The Hive,” these two girls know the evil truth behind-the-scenes. Their goal is to somehow take the system down and free their own mother linked to the system. Wasting no time with its nine minutes of running time, The Hive jumps right into the edgy future and ramps up the stakes for the girls to overcome. The Delgado siblings in front of and behind the camera stay on the accelerator with heady themes and adventurous moments. While the underdeveloped crudeness is easy to see and the audio is roughly edited, the zest, creativity, and commitment is entirely present from all involved. There will be no shame looking back at this rookie effort and seeing the eager talent for the future. You love to see that passion come through and it does in The Hive.
FAMILY FOR CHRISTMAS
In our second “meet the family for Christmas” narrative of the Oak Park Illinois Film Festival after Breakup Season, it is very safe to call the brand new 2024 short Family for Christmas entirely different, even though they share the catalyst where the big meal is when everything goes wrong. Written and directed by the debuting Nick Pospisil, the short opens brightly on a nicely decorated Cape Cod-style home. Eric and Marshall (Andy Hart and Tyler Lubinus) arrive from home with a relationship that is going great. They are psyching themselves up for the possible family maelstrom on the other side of the front door.
With a reassuring “They’re going to love you,” they walk in and meet the stern elders, including Grandpa (Ron Beecher) and Mona (prolific Chicago actress Sandy Gulliver). Pleasantries are shared and then the probing questions and compliments gradually get weirder, right as the buzz gets to the new guy. In essence, just a taste of something occurs and it all goes downhill with a fisheye lens switch that ramps up the growing disorientation.
Family for Christmas becomes a clinic in a how long a script can beat around the bush with double-meaning lines and double entendres. It’s cleverly hiding something and we have our suspicions in the audience, yet it’s not a full view of dramatic irony. We’re going through the same headspin as the visiting newbie. The big choice for a short film like Family for Christmas is whether to leave an audience hanging on suggestion or fulfilling the shocking possibility of what’s been guessing to arrive the whole time. Pleasantly and filled with dark comedy hilarity, Family for Christmas takes the second road and pays off its jolly fun.
FAVOR
The final short of the late-night “Something’s Amiss” block and closing film of the first Oak Park Illinois Film Festival was Dan Aho’s 15-minute film Favor. Playing in the 1990s-esque sandbox of murder and intrigue, Favor presents a test of trust between best friends. Most good friends say with reassuring emphasis that they have no limits or boundaries when it comes to the help they would offer one of this inner circle brothers. Well, would you help a friend get rid of a dead body in the middle of the night?
That’s the WTF problem dropped on the front door of Barry when his n’er-do-well buddy Dermot comes to him in the middle of a Los Angeles night with a body in his trunk. While roped into this bloody pickle of a situation, all of the rants, ravings, and questions come out between Dermot and Barry of who, what, and why permeate Favor. That feeling you’re watching something you’re not supposed to see becomes the can’t-look-away appear of Favor. Your gaze matches that of the cinematographer switching from being up in the problem or watching from across the street with the omniscient eye. The previously committed mistakes are clear, but it’s how they can be reckoned and ultimately covered up that gets rapidly interesting in this seedy potboiler.
