Director

CHICAGO – Predicting the Oscars is like going on a blind date. You really don’t know what’s going to happen, and often you’re humiliated to boot. But here goes Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com, along with one million other online prognosticators. The 93rd Academy Awards are Sunday, April 25th, 2021, in Hollywood.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on February 4th, 2021, reviewing the new film “Malcolm & Marie,” streaming on Netflix beginning February 5th, 2021.

CHICAGO – Sam Pollard has been a behind-the-scenes film editor/producer for most of his career, best known for his work with Spike Lee. But recently, after sporadic director assignments over the years, he has broken out with two major profile documentaries, one on Sammy Davis Jr. in 2017, and his most recent “MLK/FBI.”

CHICAGO – Getting through Year 2020 intact would prove to be a major accomplishment for any monthly film festival, but the Midwest Film Festival (MFF) did it with both style and their trademark sense of a film community during a year where that was missing for so many. The Fest is going virtual and online for their BEST OF THE MIDWEST AWARDS on January 14th, 2021. 7-9pm. You’ll need a ticket for this spectacular event, click here for all the particulars, including General Admission and VIP levels.

CHICAGO – What is one of the greatest survival instincts of the pandemic? Creativity. The Zoom web series “What Did Clyde Hide?” is the result of a creative effort from Executive Producer/Show Runner Ruth Kaufman, Producer Sandy Gulliver and Director Sean Patrick Leonard. Kaufman and Leonard talk about the series, naturally, via Zoom.

CHICAGO – The 26th edition of Chicago’s Black Harvest Film Festival (BHFF) continues with online and virtual access. One of the short films, in the program “Voices of Our Time,” is writer/director Okema “Seven” Gunn’s “Black Mama Sable.”

CHICAGO – On Friday, November 6th, 2020, the 26th edition of Chicago’s Black Harvest Film Festival (BHFF) opened for online and virtual access. The BHFF is one of the country’s most prestigious black-oriented film celebrations in the country, and will run throughout the month of November until Monday the 30th.

CHICAGO – America is at a boiling point. The pandemic, the election, the divisiveness and general atmosphere has reformulated us in many profound ways. Director Derrick Borte explores those themes in the new release “Unhinged,” which also has the distinction of being the first film to be distributed to all open nationwide theaters on Friday, August 21st.

CHICAGO – In the post World War II art scene, when New York City took over the cutting edge while Europe lay in tatters, there emerged a dance creator who influenced the avant garde like no other. Merce Cunningham lived until age 90, and from the time he began in dance to the end of his life, the legacy was his impactful contribution.

CHICAGO – Theater art is collaborative, and it’s often the design of a stage that sets the tone for the play that unfolds. The Curious Theatre Branch presents an original holiday play called “Xmas in Lost Pines,” opening Friday, December 6th, 2019 at the Prop Thtr (theatre) on Chicago’s Northwest side, with four performances through December 13th (all 8pm).