Oak Park, Illinois hosts first-ever film festival on Saturday
OAK PARK, Ill. (CBS) — Oak Park will join the likes of Sundance, Cannes, and Toronto film festivals by hosting its own festival this weekend.
The first-ever film festival for the near west suburb will share one thing in common.
"It's a music video of my dad. He's a classical guitarist," filmmaker Eric Henry said. "It's basically a little peaceful meditation, I think. The song "Windy and Warm" kinda evokes a dynamic of highs and lows."
Henry talks about his music video, "Windy and Warm, " which is being shown at the first-ever Oak Park Film Festival. He also owns a multi-media production studio in Oak Park.
"Oak Park is such a creative community, and there are so many people from Oak Park who have a creative background. We have a historical theater, you know, so I think it just made sense to have a film festival here at some point," Henry said.
The idea for the festival came from founder Joyce Porter.
"I have been to loads of film festivals," Porter said. I've been in Oak Park for 42 years, and I found out that it's a really creative community. It's just packed with all sorts of people in the arts and creative people, and I thought we should have it here—we should have a film festival here."
She's not just the founder. Porter will also appear in one of the short movies, "Stairs."
Porter said she was surprised so many filmmakers were interested.
"I remember at a very early meeting, one of the board members asked, "How many submissions do you think we'll get?" I said we're limited because it has to have an Oak Park connection, and we're a new festival, but I'm hoping for 25, I think we can get 25, and we got 60," she said.
All the films submitted had to have some connection to the town. The organizers narrowed the field down to 17 films, which show the creativity and talent of Oak Park.
"Oak Park is a really distinctive and special community. It's not the average suburb," Porter said.
An opening gala was held on Thursday, but the festival itself kicks off on Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Madison Street Theater, 1010 Madison St.
The event took about a year to plan, and Porter said she's already planning next year's film fest.