Hindsight : November 2008

Suburban filmmakers have an indie hit

Director Michael P. Noens, left, with Austin Griffith, director of photography, on the set of "Sleep to Dream"

By Eileen O. Daday Daily Herald CorrespondentContact writer
Published: 11/4/2008 10:57

A feature film made by a group of up and coming filmmakers with CNGM Pictures, based in Palatine, has captured its second award at a national film festival.

"Sleep to Dream," was named "best college film," at the Flint Film Festival earlier this month. In 2004, the film's original 10-minute short version, won "best horror film" at the International Microcinema Film Festival in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Now, the 60-minute thriller awaits it next test: commercial distribution.

With both awards under its belt, the young filmmakers are in the process of getting a DVD of the movie ready to market. It will be available sometime after Nov. 11 on their Web site (CNGMPictures.com) and toward the end of the month on Amazon.com.

"Sleep to Dream" also made it to the Internet Movie Data Base, or IMDb.com, one of the largest movie sites on the web.

"It's kind of a new thing for us, but we're excited about the whole thing," says Palatine native Michael Noens, director. "We've just finished submitting the DVD design for the jacket."

The plot centers around Rachel, played by Barrington native, Angela Wascher, who awakens from a dream to find herself smothering her boyfriend to death. By the time she realizes what she has done, it's too late.

The film also stars Jonathan Legat of Park Ridge, Amy Sutton of Cary, Stephan Pratt and Haley Nichol of Palatine, Tony Calzaretta of Schaumburg and Melanie Stanton of Mount Prospect.

Noens worked with his former Fremd High School classmate, Marc Muszynski, to write and direct the film.

"It's not really a horror film as much as it is a suspense thriller, with a Hitchcock-psychological-thriller feel to it," Noens says.

In its feature length version, Noens and Muszynski had a chance to explore Rachel's character more, and layer the film between realms of a dreamlike state, and reality, leaving the audience trying to figure out which is real.

"The whole movie is done like a puzzle, with a lot of flashbacks," Noens adds. "The audience is left trying to figure out what's happening."

J. Spencer Greene, the company's managing director and former Fremd teacher, says the latest awards are only the tip of the iceberg for this prolific group of filmmakers. They recently had a short film accepted into the Cannes Film Festival, in France.

"They are an extremely talented group," Greene says. "Every so often you have a group of students like this, who are talented - and dedicated enough to the art to pursue it as a career."