Northwest Illinois indie filmmakers celebrated at Shorts-A-Palooza in Morrison

MORRISON — Eleven independent short films got screen time Wednesday night during the fourth annual Shorts-A-Palooza film festival.

“We do this to help promote these filmmakers, give them a venue to show some of their work, practice their craft and move on to bigger things in the future,” said Gary Camarano, Northwest Illinois Film Office executive director.

Shorts-A-Palooza 2024 was held at Morrison Tech, in Morrison, from 7 to 10:30 p.m. The event was free.

The festival focuses on featuring films by filmmakers with strong connections to, and work done in, northwest Illinois, Camarano said. For those who haven’t filmed in the area, part of what they’re trying to do is entice them to film here next, he said.

“We can pretty much show anything except an ocean or a desert her in northwest Illinois,” Camarano said. “We’ve got small metropolitan areas like Rockford and the Quad-Cities, we’ve got some quaint downtowns, got a lot of rural environments, the state parks, the Mississippi Palisades, the Black Hawk statue just 30 miles to the east of us [in Oregon], the buffalo at the Nachusa Grasslands.”

During the intermission, filmmaker Christina Wollerman said she was amazed by the quality of the films at Shorts-A-Palooza.

“It’s a really good festival,” she said. “It celebrates Illinois that’s not just Chicago. I feel like the Chicago festivals, they have their own agendas sometimes, like either LGBTQ or like diversity or something. I feel like this film festival is just celebrating like a region.”

Films shown were:

• “Innocent Looks,” directed by Matthew Cichella.
• “That’s Not A Tasty Pastry,” directed by TJ Hill.
• “Room Tone,” directed by Michael Gabriele.
• “Moved by Waters,” directed by Kelly and Tammy Rundle.
• “Ladies Book Club,” directed by Christina Wollerman.
• “Candor” and “Hobby Night,” directed by Timothy Troy.
• “Rapunzel,” directed by Daniel James Patton.
• “Unknowing,” directed by Patricia Frontain.
• “Crawdad,” directed by Jess Myers Rigoni.
• “Chucky Chicken,” directed by Michael Cook.