2019 LAKE COUNTY FILM FESTIVAL: SELECTED SHORT FILMS ANNOUNCED
The Lake County Film Festival is proud to announce its program of short films for its 9th festival. The festival runs from September 5 – September 10, 2019, with screenings being held at Grayslake & Waukegan campuses of The College Of Lake County as well as The Gorton Community Center in Lake Forest, IL.
Listed below are 65 short films which will be screening before features, as well as in short film programs.
New this year at the festival, shorts programs all run about 45 minutes in length and cost only $3.
Short Film Programs are as follows:
#dating
Animated Shorts
Docs Around The World
Gender Studies 101
Guns, Guns, Guns
Hitchhiking To The Edge Of Sanity *
Local Shorts
Music Shorts
Science Fiction Shorts
Terrolun & Lunlun *
This Is America
U.S. Docs
We Love Short Shorts
* – These are individual films with an approximate runtime of 45 minutes each, not a program of shorts.
The complete list of selected short films:
Narrative Short Films
Aembras (Director: Chad McClarnon)
Aembras means freedom. Aembras means opportunity. Aembras means dignity. Aembras is feeling better and living well. This is exactly what attracted Trina Kemper-Lomax to the company, but companies like this don’t reward small, quiet people. Sales are slow, inventory is stacking up, and she feels like her moment is slipping away. Her dreams feel like they are right in front of her, should she grab them? Can she?
Aeternitas (Director: Gordie Haakstad) Lead scientist Lauren Wynne has discovered the secrets to human time travel. Now, as the first test pilot risks all to make history, there’s just one problem: they’ve fallen in love.
All The Men You Would Sleep With… (Director: Mac Eldridge & Tom Dean)
Unable to sleep with her boyfriend snoring next to her, a woman fantasizes about the five men she would be with were she not in her current relationship.
And The Earth Will Be Lost To The Flames (Director: Adam Bertocci)
The end is nigh. But until then, there’s work to do.
Bob & Edgar (Director: Bill Redding)
Bob and his dog Edgar go fishing, go for walks, and hang out, until a pair of surprise visitors reveal more about Bob’s identity.
The Bull (Director: Kelsey Egan)
Heavily pregnant on an isolated farm, a young woman faces the strange magic that burdens her reality. This is a fairytale about creatures with bonds more powerful than their shapes and lovers who share the same space but not always the same form.
Cherry (Director: Stacey Davis)
With her father dying of cancer, Helen has high hopes for the family’s last Easter together.
Consent: A Short Comedy About A Serious Subject (Director: Kimmy Gatewood)
A singer ignores her fan’s consent in this romantic comedy gone wrong. An allegory about sexual assault with absolutely no sex.
Desert Rats (Director: Shaz Bennett)
People think nothing survives in the Salt Flats, but Lily did.
Happy Ending (Director: Fernando González Gómez)
Romance was always much simpler in the movies…
Her Mess (Director: Zachary Goodspeed)
Estranged siblings navigate the mess their divorced parents leave behind. Seen through the eyes of younger sister Riley – will she choose to LOVE or run.
Hiding In Daylight (Director: Cheryl Allison)
After a gay purge, four best friends are surviving by living in fake marriages to each other. They secretly meet once a week to see their true spouse and play a “game” where they reminisce about their former openly gay lives. After 3 years of weekly gatherings, they must determine if their clandestine meetings are worth risking their lives. In one night, emotions run high, friendships begin to unravel and everything changes in an instant.
Hook Up 2.0 (Director: Dana Nachman)
A sorority girl figures out a way to eliminate all risk from the late-night ritual that is the college hook up. Now all she needs is to find a guy to test out her idea on… and with.
I Will Not Write Unless I Am Swaddled In Furs (Director: Wade Shotter)
A fussy writer battles his large ego and high expectations to create a work of art.
Illegal (Director: Jesus Nebot)
A traffic stop due to speeding takes a turn for the worse landing a mother and her 6-year-old daughter in jail.
Information Superhighway (Director: Mathew Nelson)
A man participates in an experiment to test artificial intelligence in driverless cars.
Just Give Me A Minute To Change (Director: Michael Pomaro)
Dan comes home from work on a hot summer day. He wants to change out of his suit, but life has other plans.
Kim’s Big Date (Director: Claire McFadden)
It takes a small village to prepare for such a big date.
Lady Parts (Directors: Erin Rye & Jessica Sherif)
Liz, a struggling actor, goes from dancing tampon to her first real break, playing a meaty role in a financial drama by an acclaimed up-and-coming director…only to discover that things aren’t what they seem.
Mary And Margaret (Director: Gregory Caruso)
A young filmmaker, Mary, contemplates different story ideas, resulting in the appearance of her own fictional character, Margaret. Mary’s dialogue with Margaret takes them to a mysterious abyss where she asks and answers philosophical questions about how to navigate the film industry.
Mio Gatto Dante (Director: Will Berry)
A poet reconnects with her dead cat through their mutual love of Italian quatrains.
The Musician (Director: Mark Schimmel)
A famous violinist spends her days dressing up as a busker and believes that sharing her music can transform lives.
Nashedonia (Director: Will Berry)
An uncultured young man honors his late father by taking his guitar to Nashville.
Mushroom Park (Director: Timothy Rauch)
Two friends locked in a love-hate relationship bury a dead frog as rain begins to fall. They make a fateful decision to wait out the storm under a tree and wake up in a world quite unlike the one they left behind.
Negroland (Director: Jewel McPherson)
A young African-American father fights to save the life of his young zombie daughter but before long his valiant attempt to bring her back becomes a torturous journey that makes him question his own very existence.
Passive Aggressive Dads (Jim Picariello)
Two middle-aged dads just want to spend a quiet day with their daughters at the park. But when an obnoxious group of teens drives by, too fast and too loud, it spurs these aging, disgruntled dads into a self-righteous act of passive-aggression.
Peep (Director: Zachary Dehm) A
young woman is harassed by a shadowy figure that lurks outside her new apartment. Is it a disgruntled neighbor? Teens playing pranks? Or something much, much worse? Her peephole may be the key to finding out…
Planet (Director: Bill Sebastian)
A husband buys his wife a planet for their anniversary. Five years later, they find the national space agency at their door.
Pozole (Director: Jessica Siqueiros)
La gringa killed her Nana.
The Replacement (Director: Sean Miller)
On election night, a janitor feels cheated out of a life he might have lived when his own clone becomes the President. He goes on a bender to seek justice, encountering new forms of prejudice, dismissal, and classism. In a society where the morality around cloning is dividing the masses, physically looking like the newly elected President has its own dangers…
Rock Paper Scissors (Director: Brian Lawes)
A boy and girl must exchange numbers at an intersection before the light turns green.
Sac De Merde (Director: Greg Chwerchak)
Based on a true story, “Sac de Merde” tells the tale of Mazel Mankewicz, an unlucky-in-love yet irrationally optimistic New Yorker who thinks her luck has changed when she spends the night with the man of her dreams. As it turns out, he might just be full of shit. Literally.
Step One (Director: Sean Patrick Leonard)
Stuck at a train crossing on the way to his first AA meeting, Jeff finds that getting the words out is harder than he thought.
Sunrise (Director: Sean Patrick Leonard)
Kim and Brendan have just come home from a night out when things get a bit out of hand. Kim is left to pick the pieces and find strength during a very fragile time.
Swipe Right (Director: Corbin Schweitzer)
Overly confident, shallow Andrew is on a trajectory for a major dating crash and burn. Thinking he could out-maneuver and out-swipe the female gender, he sets himself up with back to back dates at his favorite Seattle pub. He soon discovers traffic and karma play a role in his downfall as yet a third prospective date arrives on the scene.
Set in a lively Seattle restaurant and shot in one take, Swipe Right captures the superficiality of today’s online dating scene through comedy and expression, testing the limits of our own ability to live in the world we create.
Terrolun & Lunlun (Director: Hiroyuki Miyagawa)
After a tragic accident, Terrolun becomes a shut-in, living in his parent’s garage, where he fixes mechanical items. When Lunlun, a hearing-impaired high school student brings him something to repair, they strike up a friendship. These two outcasts strengthen their relationship through a garage window.
Troll (Director: Brittani Harris)
Mel is a college student who finds joy in causing misery to others. Envious of how others go about their lives, she loves to berate them in order to feel better about herself. She feels great, hiding under the guise of a fake troll account, but soon finds out that what is done in the dark, someone will eventually bring to the light.
Virtually (Director: P. Patrick Hogan)
A woman struggling to survive alone in a post-apocalyptic wasteland discovers a virtual-reality machine and escapes from her loneliness into a scenic virtual world. When she falls in love with a man inside this virtual world, she must choose between her love and her life in this romantic science fiction short film.
Waldwölfe (Forest Wolves) (Director: Peter W. Allen)
1940s Germany, three Nazi soldiers capture an escaped Jewish woman. But what will they do with her?
White Guys Solve Sexism (Director: Christopher Guerrero)
Because of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, two men realize that all of their favorite movies are now sexist, leading them down a dark path of discovery.
Woman In Stall (Director: Madeleine Sims-Fewer)
A woman finds herself trapped in a bathroom stall by a man whose intentions are not entirely clear.
Wrath (Director: Jen Emma Hertel)
A mass murderer can get an AK-47 in a country grocery easier than a man can get his driver’s license at the DMV.
Documentary Short Films
5 Minutes (Directors: Peter Gilbert, Sandy Dickson, Chris Zaluski)
Through the eyes of a young soldier from Southwest Louisiana, this animated short film tells the story of Baptiste Touissant’s devastating injury and his hope of recovery through regenerative medicine. Regenerative Medicine promises a future where doctors, using a soldier’s own cells, rebuild genitalia and reconstruct arms and legs blown apart by shrapnel.
An Accidental Drowning (Director: Matteo Servente)
On April 28, 1939, Jesse Lee Bond was brutally lynched in Arlington, TN. His official death certificate read: accidentally drowned.
Betty Feeds The Animals (Director: James Gannon)
Betty loves animals, she loves them so much that every day she puts 30 bowls of food outside of her home to feed them. She feeds skunks, raccoons, cats, foxes, and the occasional opossum. This is her story.
Come & Take It (Director: Ellen Spiro & PJ Raval)
This short documentary film captures the transformation of a young woman to the leadership of America’s most irreverent anti-gun violence movement called #CocksNotGlocks. After concealed carry of handguns is legalized on the University of Texas campus, Jessica Jin posts clever humor on social media, and with the help of a tight-knit group of young female students, a movement is born: The Great Texas Dildo Revolt.
Community Patrol (Director: Andrew James)
Shot in vivid black and white, this observational, nonfiction film follows a Detroit minister as he tries to rally his community to shut down a drug operation. The minister and his neighbors act as a kind of moral chorus that symbolizes the activist spirit of Detroit—vociferous and passionate. A glimpse at neighborhood self-policing with a central message of love.
Cuban Canvas (Director: Kavery Kaul)
An intriguing intergenerational story of artists in Havana whose works hang in museums and galleries worldwide. They experiment with form, content, and bold vision. This documentary traces the enduring lines between art and life.
Fraser Syndrome & Me (Director: Kyle Anne Grendys)
Filmmaker Kyle Anne Grendys is only the 75th person to be born with the rare, recessive gene disorder called Fraser Syndrome. Having always felt alone in the world, she sets out on a journey to find her community and finally meets others just like her.
Hitchhiking To The Edge Of Sanity (Director: Scott Peterson)
As the US deals with civil unrest and a toxic political climate in 2017, Hitchhiking to the Edge of Sanity takes a look back to the turbulent social upheaval of the early 1970s and follows an idealistic writer and his soon-to-be-married photographer friend as they set out to find their purpose via a terrifying road trip across the Sahara Desert.
Hoan Alone: Personal Stories From The Bridge (Director: Aaron Johnson)
Milwaukee’s Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge is the crown over Summerfest and has become one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. But it’s also a popular site for suicides. This animated documentary explores the issues of the bridge and suicide through three intimate interviews. Follow animator, Aaron Johnson, as he shares the stories of Dave, John, and Mary.
Memory Video (Director: Roy Power)
An optimistic video store owner tries to keep the experience alive amidst the rising popularity of streaming.
My Immigrant Story (Director: Yuriko Romer)
Director Yuriko Romer narrates over selections from her home movies, reflecting on her family’s journey to the U.S.
My Paintbrush Bites (Director: Joel Pincosy)
A man battling reclusion and a racehorse on the brink of death save each other in unexpected ways.
Noble Sissle’s Syncopated Ragtime (Director: Daniel Bernardi & David de Rozas)
Combining unseen period footage with original scores from that era, ‘Syncopated Ragtime’ tells the story of Noble Sissle incredible life journey that spans “The Harlem Hellfighters” of World War I, Broadway Theatre, the Civil Rights movement, and decades of Black cultural production.
Pie In The Puss: A Brief History Of Pieing In Film (Director: Stacey Davis)
From a pie in the face, to the pie toss, to the ultimate pie fight – the evolution of pieing in film.
R.A.W. Tuba (Directosr: Darren Durlach & David Larson)
This film is about Richard Antoine White (R.A.W.) who, as a child in Baltimore, experienced intermittent homelessness, but went on to become a world-class symphony musician and professor.
The Rage of Evil: Thoughts From A Former School Shooter (Director: Carolyn McCulley)
T.J. Stevens always knew that one day he would need to stop hiding and start talking about his past. After the 2018 Parkland school shooting, T.J. was compelled to finally go public about the day in 1982 when he became a school shooter. His memories of what led to the shooting are woven with news footage of that event, his sentencing, and an unusual appearance in Washington, DC.
As T.J. watches the interrogation of Nikolas Cruz after the Parkland massacre, he highlights the elements they have in common. In this personal meditation on what motivates mass shooters, T.J. asks viewers to consider the reality of evil.
Still Sophie (Director: Caroline Knight)
Four and a half years ago, young talent Sophia Salveson’s life changed forever. Doctors said she may never walk again, may never talk again…may never perform again. They were wrong.
The Streets Are Ours: Two Lives Cross In Karachi (Director: Michelle Fiordaliso)
This short documentary is about two women: Sabeen Mahmud and Fawzia Mirza. When Fawzia Mirza, an American actress meets Sabeen Mahmud, a world-renowned Pakistani activist and founder of a progressive cafe (T2F) in Karachi, Mirza’s life changes forever.
Animated Short Films
5 Minutes (Directors: Peter Gilbert, Sandy Dickson, Chris Zaluski)
Through the eyes of a young soldier from Southwest Louisiana, this animated short film tells the story of Baptiste Touissant’s devastating injury and his hope of recovery through regenerative medicine. Regenerative Medicine promises a future where doctors, using a soldier’s own cells, rebuild genitalia and reconstruct arms and legs blown apart by shrapnel.
Candy Shop (Director: Patrick Smith)
There are 11,926 pharmaceutical drugs available worldwide, this film shows 2863 of them. Pills and capsules are choreographed into a cacophony of shape, color and size, resulting in a satirical commentary about our cultural, recreational, and economic infatuation with prescription drugs.
Gelato – Seven Summers Of Ice Cream Love (Director: Daniela Opp)
The 20th Century was still young when Italian mountaineers conquered Germany with a sensation: gelato! Tiny stalls developed into beautiful ice cream shops. But suddenly sunny days of childhood turned into dark years of wars.
The love story between Rosa and Paolo ended before the seventh summer had even started… Up until little Molly decides to take matters into her own hands almost 60 years later.
Gun Shop (Director: Patrick Smith)
There are currently 393 million firearms in the US. This film shows 2328 of them. “Gun Shop” juxtaposes the frightening visual power of guns with a whimsy of Jazz percussion, and a dose of cultural irony.
Hoan Alone: Personal Stories From The Bridge (Director: Aaron Johnson)
Milwaukee’s Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge is the crown over Summerfest and has become one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. But it’s also a popular site for suicides. This animated documentary explores the issues of the bridge and suicide through three intimate interviews. Follow animator, Aaron Johnson, as he shares the stories of Dave, John, and Mary.
Mushroom Park (Director: Timothy Rauch)
Two friends locked in a love-hate relationship bury a dead frog as rain begins to fall. They make a fateful decision to wait out the storm under a tree and wake up in a world quite unlike the one they left behind.
