Venice. Cannes. Toronto. Sundance. Tribeca. South by Southwest.
And — Oak Park?
Major film festivals have long taken center stage as vital cultural and commercial launchpads connecting visionary directors and renowned filmmakers with audiences and critics. But in 2023, a group of Oak Park creatives came together to establish the village’s very own film festival, proving masterful cinema and storytelling doesn’t just happen on global stages.
Now in its third year, the Oak Park – IL Film Festival (OPILFF) has established itself as a celebration of independent cinema right in our own backyard — an annual event honoring filmmakers who share a deep-rooted bond with the community through projects spotlighting Oak Park through content, casting, crew or setting.
This year’s fest kicks off Wednesday, Sept. 16, with a special Opening Night program at the Lake Theatre, 1022 Lake St., featuring a Hollywood film with a special Oak Park connection — 2013’s “Enough Said,” starring the late James Gandolfini, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Oak Park native Tavi Gevinson.
Gevinson, who launched fashion blog, “Style Rookie,” at age 11 founded the iconic “Rookie Magazine” just four years later, quickly becoming a global sensation and one of the most distinctive voices of her generation. Following her 2014 graduation from Oak Park and River Forest High School, Gevinson expanded her reach into acting, landing celebrated roles on both Broadway (“This Is Our Youth,” “The Crucible”) and television (“Scream Queens,” “Gossip Girl”).
Prior to screening Gevinson’s film, the film fest’s Opening Night will feature a special video interview, filmed especially for the event.
The festival continues Saturday, Sept. 19 and Sunday, Sept. 20 at Madison Street Theater, 1010 Madison St., transforming the small stage theater into a cinema venue for a jam-packed weekend of all things movies.
The weekend marks the indie film-portion of the festival, where audiences will have the opportunity to enjoy 31 films from across a variety of genres, including documentaries and shorts — all with an Oak Park connection. The festival will also feature industry professionals sharing insights and experiences with attendees, along with food complimentary from Oak Park restaurants.
Joyce Porter, an Oak Park resident and SAG-AFTRA actress, model and voiceover talent, is the festival’s founder and board president. For over 20 years, she served on the board of Oak Park Festival Theatre, and as someone familiar with the film festival circuit both across the U.S. and abroad, she felt that Oak Park’s reputation as a vibrant, arts-centric community gave the village the perfect potential to host a strong local film festival.
“In 2023, I made a Facebook post to see who would also be interested in helping organize a film festival in Oak Park,” she said. “The right people showed up, and we created a board that was talented to bring it together.”
After one year of planning, the Oak Park – IL Film Festival launched in September 2024.
At first, Porter says, it was a bit of an experiment to see how many films would actually be submitted. Three years in, she says the board gets more film submissions than they can show.
“Oak Park is a unique community,” she said. “There are not many other communities, other than a large city, where you could actually have all the films have connection to that community — and have enough creative people that there would be more than enough films to show.”
This year, 44 films were submitted to the festival, with final selections made by the event’s 13-member board.
Porter says Opening Night sets the stage for a cinema fest with locally-focused glitz and glamour.
“Opening Night is elegant,” she said. “People can have their photos taken by a professional photographer in front of a backdrop, and a lot of people dress up for the evening.”
Oak Park resident Katelyn Capri Zenie, a producer and production designer in Chicago’s indie film scene, is participating in the event for the first time as the festival’s manager.
While she’s worked in the Chicago-area film space for over a decade, Zenie says joining the film fest’s team has shown her even more of the artistic talents that thrive within the Oak Park community.
“Since joining the hyperlocal filmmakers community within Oak Park, I’m learning that there’s more and more creative people within Oak Park,” Zenie said. “It’s been helpful to see that, and I feel like I’ve gained a lot of new friends just this year. It feels really validating and goes to show that we have so much more to offer within Oak Park and how we can contribute to the bigger picture of Chicagoland.”
After the 2024 and 2025 festivals, Porter says feedback from audiences and participants about the fest has been nothing but positive.
“Everyone loves it,” she said. “We do a survey to people who attend the festival asking for their feedback, and one of the questions is, ‘Would you come back next year?’ I’ve never seen anyone say ‘no.’”
Porter adds that the growing success of the film festival proves Oak Park is not just a creative hub, but a community eager to embrace new traditions and celebrate diverse arts.
“The festival shows that there is so much creativity in Oak Park,” she said. “We have excellent films — and an advantage over most film festivals in that a lot of film festivals you go to, people have to fly in, and only sometimes does everyone show up. But in our case, because it is locally oriented, we have almost all the directors there for the Q&A and you get to see them, hear from them and connect with them. That makes it very special.”
Zenie agrees, adding that unlike other film fests, Oak Park’s provides more flexibility for producers and their entries — notably, not having a time limit as to how long ago submitted films were produced.
“A lot of the filmmakers are able to contribute their works they’ve produced over time,” she said. “Films take many years to produce, and this way, they’re still able to show their films to their local community and connect with their neighbors. This year in particular, I feel like we’ve really reached an ever deeper kind of audience within the Oak Park community itself. We’re really excited.”
Zenie hopes locals will attend the fest for its focus as a hyperlocal celebration of storytelling from all walks of life.
“There’s not a specific genre of film — it’s all that’s from Oak Park, and you really get to build up other creatives around you and the community at large,” Zenie said.
Porter adds the fest provides more of an inclusive and immersive experience than most other film festivals.
“It’s an outstanding festival where you get to be involved more than in most festivals and get to see most of the directors and a combination of narrative and documentary films,” she said.
Tickets for the Oak Park – IL Film Festival are available now, with early bird pricing available through Thursday, Sept. 10. For tickets and information about films shown and event schedules, visit opilff.org.