Movie Filmed In Lemont Sets Illinois Premiere Date

LEMONT, IL — Writer-director Jennifer Reeder filmed portions of her horror movie “Knives and Skin” in Lemont last summer. Though it had its U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, it will screen in Illinois for the first time Oct. 18 at the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF).

“I’m a filmmaker who is living here in Chicago and have been for a long time, so this invitation to this festival...I’m not taking it for granted at all. It’s actually so nice to bring this film back to Chicago,” Reeder said at a CIFF event Sept. 18. “It had its world premiere in February at the Berlin Film Festival, and it’s kind of traveled the world. But this feels really special to bring it back here.”

Reeder shot scenes from the regionally-produced film at Lemont High School, the Heritage Quarries and in surrounding wooded areas. The entire cast and crew is made up of local actors and workers.

“We cast this entire film out of Chicago, which at some point our LA-based casting director said was impossible to do,” Reeder said. “I’m a very contrary person, maybe because I’m a Gemini, and I was like, we’re gonna cast this thing out of Chicago. Even though it doesn’t identify itself as Chicago necessarily - it’s a more rural story - its heart is like a real love letter to film production and acting in Chicago.”

The film is described by CIFF programmers as a “mystical Twin Peaks-ian teen noir” about the disappearance of a high school student in a sleepy Illinois town. It will screen as part of the After Dark program, which features boundary-pushing horror and fringe films.

“The trauma of this girl’s disappearance really has this psychotic sort of ripple through the town,” said Reeder, who won the best director award at the London Frightfest Film Festival. “I hope you all come and see it. Not only because you can sort of see what talent there is in Chicago both in front of and behind the camera, but it’s exactly the film that I set out to make. And honestly, when I’ve said that out loud to some other filmmakers, they’re like, ‘What?’ But it’s also the case that every time that I’m travelling with this film they say, ‘Are you in New York or LA?’ And I say ‘Oh, I’m in Chicago.’ And they’re kind of like, ‘What is this exotic nirvana I’m hearing so much about?’”

Reeder is one of many local voices featured at the festival this year. "Once Upon a River" was filmed in Antioch and"Hala" director Minhal Baig is a Chicago native who filmed in Rogers Park.

CIFF tickets go on sale Sept. 27. Distributor IFC Midnight will officially release “Knives and Skin” in December.