The 12th Lake County Film Festival 
November 4 – 14, 2022

Founded in 2004, The Lake County Film Festival was a Northern Illinois institution for years. After a hiatus from 2012 – 2018, The Lake County Film Festival excitedly returned in 2019. Planning on expanding to a ten-day program in 2020, we were derailed by the global covid-19 pandemic, but moved into a hybrid festival (with two in-person screenings) with mixed results. In 2021, we returned to a mostly in-person festival (luckily placed between the delta and omicron variants) for ten days, followed by ten days online. We’re thrilled to create more opportunities to screen the work of independent filmmakers, and our diehard fans were thrilled with the wider selection. 

Hosted by the College Of Lake County, the LCFF screens to an audience of more than 700,000 county residents in a community underserved in the area of independent cinema. Patrons of the film festival are engaged, eager, and excited to watch films from independent filmmakers across all different genres and walks of life.

The festival prides itself on providing a platform for a diverse group of filmmakers. From sex to race to genre: the LCFF has stories for everybody. In 2021 we showed 29 feature films, and about 100 short films, we’re looking for a similar number of films for 2022. 

We are proud of our history showing the early work of filmmakers like Mike Flannagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Sleep), Chad Hartigan (Morris From America, This Is Martin Bonner), Alex Karpovsky (Girls), and Leah Meyerhoff (I Believe In Unicorns), but we’re also incredibly proud of all the great films we’ve shown by people that haven’t achieved the same level of recognition.

If nothing else, the Lake County Film Festival is a filmmakers’ film festival. From the number of filmmakers who have attended in years past, the consensus is those who attend the screenings are passionate movie lovers, creating opportunities for filmmakers and audiences to engage with one another on their shared passion.

If you love independent movies as much as we do: we want to screen your film. So submit to us! We are ready to showcase your work to our vibrant audiences.