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CHICAGO FILM TO OPEN 47th CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WITH THE LAST RITES OF JOE MAY

Posted Thursday, September 15th, 2011 - Comments Off on CHICAGO FILM TO OPEN 47th CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WITH THE LAST RITES OF JOE MAY
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 15, 2011  CHICAGO, IL—Cinema/Chicago today announced that the 47th Chicago International Film Festival will officially open with THE LAST RITES OF JOE MAY, showcasing a tour-de-force performance from longtime film and Chicago theater actor Dennis Farina (GET SHORTY, SNATCH, MIDNIGHT RUN). Acclaimed indie director and Festival veteran Joe Maggio will walk the red carpet with Mr. Farina and actors Gary Cole (OFFICE SPACE, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) and Jamie Anne Allman (“THE KILLING”, THE NOTEBOOK) to present the Chicago Premiere of the film at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park (205 E Randolph Street—Chicago) on Thursday, October 6th 2011 at 6pm, with the official presentation to begin at 7pm. Additional surprise guests will be announced.

“THE LAST RITES OF JOE MAY represents the best of Chicago filmmaking, featuring outstanding Chicago actors, led by a commanding, nuanced performance from Dennis Farina, and steeped in colorful characters and the neighborhood flavor of the city,” said Mimi Plauché, the Chicago International Film Festival’s Head of Programming.

Said director, Joe Maggio, “”Before I even made my first film, I remember thinking of all the great filmmakers who had premiered at the Chicago Film Festival, and dreamed of showing a film there. Now to be selected as the opening night film – it’s a tremendous honor. It’s especially gratifying to be returning to Chicago, a city that showed us so much generosity during production and really made the whole film possible.”

“As a major Chicago institution, the 47th Chicago International Film Festival is proud to showcase a production of Steppenwolf Films, which is of course associated with Chicago’s renowned Steppenwolf Theater Company. With this opening night film, we also want to celebrate the vitality of Chicago’s filmmaking community. This year’s Fest will feature a diverse selection of features, shorts and documentaries shot in Chicago as well as conversations with those Chicago artists who have left their mark. We are bringing to Chicago what the world is watching. And the world is going to be watching us for the two weeks of the Festival,” said Michael Kutza, Founder and Artistic Director of the Chicago International Film Festival.

Opening Night of the 47th Chicago International Film Festival is sponsored by presenting partner

Columbia College Chicago and evening partners American Airlines and Lincoln. The full line-up of films programmed to screen at the 47th Chicago International Film Festival will be announced on September 19, 2011.

ABOUT THE LAST RITES OF JOE MAY

Despite all evidence to the contrary, aging short-money hustler Joe May (Dennis Farina) always believed he had a glorious future ahead of him. Now in his sixties, Joe is released from the hospital after a long battle with pneumonia and is forced to confront the harsh reality of his legacy: everyone he knew had assumed he was dead, and life had gone on around him without missing a beat.

Returning to his old neighborhood, he finds his car gone, all his worldly possessions pawned by his landlord, and the apartment he’s lived in his entire adult life rented out to single mother Jenny and her 8-year-old daughter Angelina. Joe reluctantly moves in with the new tenants of his home.

Even as Joe doggedly pursues his comeback, he finds the odds stacked drastically against him. Joe’s one lifeline is his burgeoning friendship with his co-tenants. So when things turn ugly between Jenny and her boyfriend, Joe is determined to take a stand for his unlikely new family, and perhaps take one last shot at redefining his legacy.

THE LAST RITES OF JOE MAY will be released by Tribeca Film.  Written and directed by Joe Maggio the film stars Dennis Farina, Jamie Anne Allman, Meredith Droeger, Ian Barford, Chelcie Ross, and Gary Cole. It is produced by Stephanie Striegel and Bill Straus in association with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Films,

TICKET INFO

Tickets for Opening Night of the 47th Chicago International Film Festival are on sale now and can be purchased online at the Festival Store: http://www.chicagofilmfestival.com/catalog/ or by phone at 312-332-FILM. Film-only tickets are $35/balcony and $40/main floor seats. VIP Ticket packages including a main floor seat and admission to the after party at The Sidney Yates Gallery of The Chicago Cultural Center (77 E. Randolph St., 4th Floor) cost $150/ticket.

FESTIVAL SPONSORS
Led by Presenting Partner, Columbia College Chicago, the 47th Chicago International Film Festival’s sponsors include: Premiere Partners – American Airlines, Lincoln; Producing Partners – DePaul University’s School of Cinema and Interactive Media, AMC Theaters; Major Partners – Allstate, Intersites; Supporting Partners – Applitite, Barefoot Wines, Brugal Rum, Kodak, Louise, Second City Computers, and the Festival’s Headquarters Hotel, JW Marriott Chicago.

ABOUT CINEMA/CHICAGO

Cinema/Chicago is a not-for-profit cultural and educational organization dedicated to encouraging better understanding between cultures and to making a positive contribution to the art form of the moving image. The Chicago International Film Festival is part of the year-round programs presented by Cinema/Chicago, which also include the International Screenings Program (May-September), the Hugo Television Awards (April), CineYouth Festival (May), Intercom Competition (October) and year-round Education Outreach and Member Screenings Program.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon