The Chicago Underground Film Festival has come a long way since Bryan Wendorf and Jay Bliznick, both video store managers, dreamed up the idea six years ago. The first edition attracted about 200 entries and was held at the old Bismarck Theater in the Loop; according to Wendorf its entire budget came from entry fees and program ads. This year nearly 1,000 films and shorts from around the world competed for 165 slots on the program, and with generous backing from Camel cigarettes and Stolichnaya vodka the sixth annual festival will be held at the Village Theater at Clark and North from August 13 to 19. For the first time, a five-member panel of CUFF staffers has awarded cash grants of $750 and $1,000 to six independent films it considers worthy of recognition. Among the filmmakers singled out are Chicagoans Ben Redgrave and Ben Berkowitz, whose first feature, Straightman, deals with the sexual awakening of two young men and the effect it has on their friendship. “The grants are intended to encourage the kind of work the festival wants to see done,” says Wendorf, who finds Redgrave and Berkowitz’s film a refreshing change of pace. “Most of the work tends to be heavily political, and there isn’t a lot of straightforward narrative like Straightman.”
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Both filmmakers are happy to be honored by CUFF, but Redgrave admits that they have their sights set on Hollywood, and Wendorf confirms that recognition at an underground festival–even one that describes itself in a recent press release as “subversive,” “anarchic,” and “radical”–can help lure Hollywood studios looking for fresh talent with tangible accomplishments. Few budding filmmakers are lucky enough to find a major distributor for their work, and without festival exposure, the only way they can find a wide audience is to set up the distribution themselves.
Just two months after Phil Kohlmetz resigned as managing director, Roadworks Productions faces another significant personnel change: artistic director Debbie Bisno announced late last week that she’s leaving the company to join James D. Stern Productions, Inc., a local theater and film production outfit. Bisno has clocked seven years at Roadworks, where she was instrumental in developing a five-year business plan that was implemented last year. Over the past 12 months the company has introduced a new logo, moved into a spacious new office and rehearsal facility in the Randolph Street market district, and expanded its funding base and board of directors. Bisno will stay on as a board member, but effective immediately she is director of creative development for Jim Stern, who’s produced a variety of independent film and theater projects in recent years; his film adaptation of Keith Reddin’s play All the Rage, starring Gary Sinise, Joan Allen, Andre Braugher, and David Schwimmer, is set for release in early 2000.
