9th Annual Chicago Comedy Film Festival Brings a Smile to Your Face


From April 5-7, the 9th Annual Chicago Comedy Film Festival (CCFF) debuted over 85 short comedies.  The festival showcases films that range from low budget to studio quality, championing strong voices in comedic storytelling.  CCFF’s mission is to support comedy as a vital and influential art form.  For nearly a decade, CCFF strives to provide a vibrant platform for creatives from around the globe to network, share ideas and inspiration, collaborate and more. Through the years, several films that have played this festival have gone on to distribution, Netflix, or other platforms.

Throughout the festival, venues were packed with filmmakers, friends, fans, and supporters of indie films.  There were Q&A sessions with the filmmakers at the end of each session.  In between showings, viewers discussed their favorites prior to casting their votes for the audience choice awards. 

I came to the festival to see The Great Chicago Fire by student filmmaker, Bethany Berg.  The 12-minute comedy did not disappoint.  I met the filmmaker at the recent Chicago Comic and Entertainment Convention (C2E2) while I was shooting some video coverage of the expo.  Her film follows a young detective as he strives to find the hidden truth behind the biggest catastrophe Chicago has ever experienced.  Berg’s black and white noir film was awarded Best Student Film for this year’s festival.

Another highlight was Myrtle and Willoughby, a comedy mini-series about two Bushwick cops working in Brooklyn’s “Millennial Crimes Unit”.  When a 20-something is found dead in a Bushwick gallery, Detectives Myrtle and Willoughby risk their jobs, their lives, and even their brunch plans to pursue the truth.  This clever mini-series was conceived and shot in Brooklyn by comedy writers Jorja Hudson and Brittany Tomkin.  Winner of Best Web Series at the Orlando Film Festival, the mini-series is scheduled to be released for streaming later this month. (myrtleandwilloughby.com)

Beginning in 2011, CCFF gives an award to the top female filmmaker in the festival.  The award is meant to encourage women to continue creating their own opportunities to write and act in roles that inspire them.  The 2019 Top Female Filmmaker Award went to Shaina Feinberg for her film, Senior Escort Service. Other awards included Audience Choice Award – Best Feature, 5th of July, and Audience Choice Awards – Best Short (shorts, web series, or pilot), The Bettles.

I found CCFF to be fun while providing opportunities for filmmakers to showcase their work.  Submissions for the 10th Annual CCFF opens May 1, 2019.  For more information, including a list of all the festival award winners,  visit www.chicagocomedyfilmfestival.com. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

With The Wrong Kind of Women, Naomi McDougall Jones Makes the Case for Gender Parity in the Film Industry

Image
The day the nominations for the 2020 Academy Awards were announced was a frustrating time for Naomi McDougall Jones.   The actor, screenwriter, and award-winning independent filmmaker (Imagine I’m Beautiful (2014), Bite Me (2019)) has long been an advocate for gender parity in the film industry.   Her TEDTalk, What It’s Like to be a Woman in Hollywood, has been viewed over one million times.   Jones was disappointed, but not surprised, that not one woman was nominated in the Best Director Category.   “The all-male directors nomination knocked the wind out of even me,” Jones says.   “The fact that the top four nominated films are so blatantly, not only by and about white men, but they read like a bad punchline to a joke.   It’s unbelievable.”   In the 92-year history of the Academy Awards, only five women have been nominated for Best Director.   Only one, Kathryn Bigelow has won (Hurt Locker). Despite her frustration, Jones is conti...
Read more

Music, Puppetry, and Self-Help Warm Up Audiences at Davenport's Piano Bar & Cabaret

Image
  The tinkle of ice as bartenders create cocktails while Cole Porter’s music plays over the sound system soon make the snow and cold of another Chicago winter a distant memory as people entered the doors of Davenport’s Piano Bar & Cabaret.   The occasion was the return of singer, actor, comedian, and writer, Jackie Smook, and her pianist, Joey Chimes, for a six-month engagement of The Jackie Smook Program of De-Dumbification .   Drink orders are placed (“a Bombay gin martini, please…shaken hard, not stirred”) as audience members and performers alike look forward to a night of live music, puppetry, and self-help. Smook and Chimes take the audience on a magical, puppet-filled, comedic (yet moving) ride into the Jackie Smook self-help cabaret.   It’s a roller coaster through her personal journey from a “dingy dongy dumb dumb” to the hard-working, go getting, ambitious woman she is today.   Told through four stages and 12 musical acts, audiences will be moved ...
Read more

WHERE WE BELONG at Goodman Theatre Makes Strong Emotional Connection

Image
  The land along the southern shores of Lake Michigan, now known as Chicago , has been a gathering place for Native people for thousands of years.   People travelled long distances to trade, socialize, and share stories.   The latest of these visiting storytellers is Mohegan theater-maker Madeline Sayet.   A member of the Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut, Sayet was raised on a combination of traditional Mohegan stories and Shakespeare, both of which have influenced her work as a stage director, writer, and actor of new plays, classics, and opera.   After a drink of water as she steps on to the stage, Sayet opens with an acknowledgement of the peoples who have historically lived on the lands where the theatre sits and is currently called home by one of the largest urban Indian populations in the country.   As she shares her story with passion, emotion, and humor, this modern Mohegan storyteller is a welcome guest. Madeline Sayet in Where We Belong Photo by Liz L...
Read more