BWiFF brings Sundance film to Illinois

The Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival (BWiFF), Chicago Reader's runner-up for Best Film Festival, is proud to announce the Closing Night Special Presentation feature for the 2012 festival will be Todd Louiso‘s "Hello I Must Be Going." The film had its world premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in January

Featuring acclaimed actress Melanie Lynskey ("Win Win," "Up In The Air," "Away We Go") in her breakout role as Amy, a recent divorcée who seeks refuge in the suburban Connecticut home of her parents (played by Blythe Danner and John Rubinstein).

Demoralized and uncertain of her future, Amy begins an affair with a 19-year-old actor (played by Christopher Abbott) that jumpstarts her passion for life and helps her discover an independence and sense of purpose that she has missed for years.

Coupling Danner's subtle, moving performance as a frustrated empty nester with Lynskey's endearing and nuanced depiction of both the comic and tragic coming together at a crossroads, "Hello I Must Be Going" is a modern, unconventional love story infused with sex, humor and emotional honesty – everything Amy will need to get on with her life.

The film is directed by Todd Louiso, who brought us "Love, Liza" with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Kathy Bates, and "The Marc Pease Experience" with Jason Schwartzman and Ben Stiller. His first short, "The Fifteen Minute Hamlet," starring Austin Pendleton, screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997. As an actor, Louiso has appeared in "Scent of a Woman," "Jerry Maguire," "High Fidelity" and "Thank You For Smoking." Sarah Koskoff was a 2009 Sundance Screenwriting Lab Fellow and penned "Hello I Must Be Going," which is also her first screenplay. Koskoff studied literature and anthropology at Sarah Lawrence College. After graduating, she made the “natural transition” to working as an actress in episodic television and later wrote plays for the Los Angeles theater scene where she developed her voice as a writer.

Come out to BWiFF 2012 on Saturday, July 28 for the Illinois premiere of "Hello I Must Be Going"! The festival, which brought other independent films such as "Exploding Girl" and "Henry's Crime" to its screen, will be screening 30 films, features and shorts, July 24-29 at Palatine Park District's Cutting Hall Performing Arts Center, 150 E. Wood St., Palatine.

More details and the full program can be found online at www.bwiff.com.

Session, Saturday and full festival passes are available for purchase at www.cuttinghall.org