from December 22, 2009

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JOE LYONS’ dramatic short script, “Salvaging,” won the 2010 IFP/Production Fund Grant out of “an unprecedented number of finalists,” said Production Fund co-chair Laurel Ward.

Lyons, a Local 476 lighting technician who has worked on major movies for A-list directors since 1999, will receive $100,000 in goods and services from local vendors to direct “Salvaging” next years.

Ward, a producer for Harold Ramis’ Ocean Pictures, also declared Lyons’s script was “one of the best portrayals of a certain kind of Chicago life.” She announced the award at IFP’s Dec. 17 holiday party.

Lyons said the script is based on a personal story from his childhood, when he and his stepfather forged a relationship while dealing with an old car. “I’ve been writing for 20 years, all shorts, and co-wrote two features,” he said.

He plans to start work on “Salvaging” next summer and said he will pursue some grants or other means of raising the additional $10-$20,000 needed to complete the film.

Lyons worked as a P.A. in 1995 and joined 476 in 1998. His first movie was 1999’s “Love and Action in Chicago.” Since then he has worked on 18 major studio movies, including three directed by Clint Eastwood, Harold Ramis’ “Ice Harvest” and “Year One” and Sam Mendes’ “Road to Perdition.”

See ifpchicago.org.

Rachel Cook

RACHEL COOK is in preproduction on “Capitalism and Charity,” a documentary about the growing (and recently controversial) practice of microlending as an alternative to traditional aid models as a development tool.

“We’re interested in painting a comprehensive picture of both the positive and negative effects of the microlending system on poor women in developing nations,” Cook says.

A futures trader, Cook plans to shoot in Paraguay, Cambodia, an “an African country yet to be determined,” from winter through fall 2010.

“We will also incorporate talking head interviews with experts in the field of microlending, and with government officials and economic experts in the countries we’ll be focusing upon,” Cook says.

Executive producer is Lou Karson of Swim Pony Films (“Renaissance Village”). DP is Steve Hiller (“Grace is Gone”). See microlendingfilm.com.

Sister Bea Attitude of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

RICK HEINTZ is in postproduction on a documentary about the 30-year-old San Francisco activist drag troupe, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. He’s followed the sisters across the country for four years and interviewed the founders, “one of which lives on a sanctuary in the hollers of Tennessee,” he says.

“This kind of fell into my lap while I was working for TV Guide Network in L.A.” Feldo Narpatura is producing. Heintz is looking for an unpaid editor. Email rick.heintz@gmail.com.

TRAVIS LEGGE is in pre-production on a slasher film that he describes as “‘Halloween’ meets ‘Sling Blade,’” about a retarded man exacting revenge on the people who framed him for his brother’s murder. “Most of my work up to this point has been comedy,” Legge says. “I am very excited to be doing a horror film, because horror is my first love.” He plans to shoot in Rockford next June.

Legge screens his short comedy “Jimmy’s Basement,” about a high school graduate who refuses to get off his couch, Wednesday, Dec. 30 at Kryptonite Bar, 308 W. State St. in Rockford. See filmnet.com/films/travislegge.

LARRY GREEN’S debut feature, the supernatural thriller “Rise of Revelation,” premieres Saturday, Dec. 26 at the Portage Theater at 2 and 8 p.m.

“Rise of Revelation” stars Charles Adames, Karen Franco, Dagoberto Zolio Soto, Ehab Shannat, Michelle Shelton-Huff, Brian S. Stanley, and George Christopher.

See indeptpictures.com. —Ed M. Koziarski

Ed M. Koziarski is co-director of the feature film “The First Breath of Tengan Rei”. Email:

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