Director’s Cut premieres its 13th season this Friday night at 10 p.m. on PBS Wisconsin, and the feature film Olympia is a great way to kick off the season.

Olympia, with McKenzie Chinn in the title role, is at a crossroads in her life as she is about to turn 30. She is tending to an ailing mother and navigating a career as a struggling artist in Chicago. To complicate matters, her boyfriend, Felix, played by Charles Andrew Gardner, and her best friend might simultaneously leave Chicago for career opportunities.

Director Greg Dixon is our special guest. In fact, he joined me in the studio for our last show shot before COVID-19 turned the world completely sideways. Dixon is a good interview. His direction in Olympia gives the film a nice pace. He also used some fun animation to give it a stylistic twist. The animation highlights the lighthearted tone, making all of Olympia’s turmoil seem like it will work out okay in the end. Yes, there is a reason we don’t see this type of tactic used in films like I Am Legend or The Silence of the Lambs.

When Gregory Dixon, BA’08, came to Niagara University from Oswego, N.Y., he had two years of experience doing sports broadcasting in his high school’s public access TV station and planned to continue on that path to a career. As a communication studies major, Greg interned with the university’s athletics office, shooting promotional videos for the Purple Eagles basketball and hockey teams.

And then he saw the award-winning 1998 German indie film “Run Lola Run” in one of his classes.

Chicago actress and writer, McKenzie Chinn, makes her feature screenwriting debut with “Olympia,” directed by Greg Dixon and distributed by Cow Lamp Films. Chinn, also the lead in the film, creates a relatable character of Olympia, a young woman at the cross roads in life as she must decide whether or not she can stand on her own two feet.

With Chinn’s succinct, humorous, and touching screenwriting paired Dixon’s deft direction, it’s a match made in heaven as the two create a well-balanced and meaningful story. There is a unique creative aspect to this film that makes it even more memorable as the film intertwines graphic artistry, a wonderful soundtrack, and cinematography giving it a sense of whimsy and wonder, capturing the beauty of art and the Second City.

The Bentonville Film Festival announced their lineup of gala selections and competition films which includes the world premieres of Joey Travolta’s Carol of the Bells, Haroula Rose’s Once Upon a River. Co-founded by Geena Davis will kick off with a screening of Tom Donahue’s documentary This Changes Everything and a special presentation of the festival’s signature event, Geena and Friends. The fest takes place May 7-11 in Bentonville, Ark.

Chicago poet, activist, and rapper Mykele Deville has announced his latest album, Maintain. Due out February 22nd via No Trend, the seven-track effort is described in a press release as “a motivational collection dedicated to the complexity of black life.”

The 54th Chicago International Film Festival, just concluded, ran from October 10-21, 2018 at the AMC River East Theatre, 322 N. Illinois St, Chicago. This year’s festival screened 125 films in numerous categories. Olympia, 2018, made in the U.S., was featured in the City and State and World Cinema competitions, and also in the Black Perspectives category.  Running 93 minutes, it was directed by Gregory Dixon, written by and starring McKenzie Chinn; also starring Charles Andrew Gardner and Ericka Ratcliff, distributed by Cow Lamp Films, produced by The Line Film Company, 30 Pictures, and Lucy Lola Manda

Gregory Dixon beautifully directs this film, which also serves to spotlight the Chicago architecture within the beautiful city.  The film boasts a diverse cast  but this film is Chinn’s through and through.  Whether it’s her script or acting, she absolutely crushes it.  There’s a lot to enjoy about this film and the animation truly stands out.  Moreover, this is a film that lets us see a performance from a POC that isn’t a stereotype.  It’s a strong performance to say the least.  Think about it for a moment.  Chinn’s script and performance helps to authenticity to the character.

And now for something a little more life-affirming and vibrant – Gregory Dixon‘s free-wheeling Chicago indie comedy Olympia. In the abstract, it’s the kind of millennial-needs-to-grow-up story that’s been told plenty of times before; however, writer/star McKenzie Chinn infuses the story of a visual artist debating her life options upon turning 30 with a refreshing sense of regionality. The film’s Chicago setting is front and center, from discussions along the Riverwalk to friends breaking out the Malort to out-of-town visitors, to the unending arguments with her significant other (played with sensitivity by Charles Andrew Gardner) about the greater opportunities that lie out on the coasts.  

CHICAGO – As each generation transitions to adulthood, the overwhelming changes that occur in employment, relationships and loss become their drama. Director Gregory Dixon and writer McKenzie Chinn teamed up to create a film that addresses that drama, in the made-in-Chicago “Olympia.” The film is screening at the 54th Chicago International Film Festival on Monday, October 15th, 2018

“Olympia” — about a visual artist with a depressing day job, a mother dying in the hospital and a boyfriend who wants to uproot their lives — stars Chinn as well, who is a longtime Chicago theater actor.

We talked about the locally shot film, which screens Monday, Tuesday and Oct 19. The following is an edited transcript.

One of my favorite programs of the annual Chicago International Film Festival is the City & State program highlighting worthy local and regional film efforts that get their chance to stand marque-to-marque on the same red carpet as the big studio-backed headliners and the esteemed foreign contenders. May Chicago always be a burgeoning home for cinematic artists and opportunity. One debuting filmmaker emerging from the short film world seizing that opportunity with his DePaul MFA thesis feature is Gregory Dixon and his film Olympia.

Olympia, the film and the character, finds growing up is hard to do especially when the world is spinning out of control around you.  The feature film debut of director Gregory Dixon finds grace, uncommon quiet humor and a breadth of emotion in what could have been a standard story of millennial malaise.  Star/Writer/Producer Mckenize Chinn’s script is not just a platform for her dramatic and comedic chops but a writer with the ability to find assured storytelling in the most intimate of moments.

Olympia is having a crisis.  Her mother is ill and dying.  Her boyfriend is moving to Los Angeles.  Her best friend is re-locating to New York and she is having a hard time holding down a job and fulfilling her dream as an artist.  Sounds just like the kind of stuff you went through in your 20’s or 30’s right?

Written, Produced and Starring McKenzie Chinn (Olympia) women everywhere will be reminded that life is only as complicated as we make it out to be.  On the cusp of 30, everything around Olympia is changing. Now she has to decide if she’s going to change with it, or get left behind.

The 2018 Chicago International Film Festival “Sneak Peek” has just been announced and Chicago’s very own filmmaker and actress McKenzie Chinn is making headlines with her writing and feature film debut Olympia at this year’s fest, distributed by Cow Lamp Films.

Chinn partnered with fellow filmmaker and former fellow student Greg Dixon to direct this feature. Chinn takes the acting lead accompanied by Charles Andrew Gardner as her significant other, Felix, in the film.

U.S. Fiction Competition (7)

Banana Split, dir. Benjamin Francis Kasulke, USA, World Premiere
In Reality, dir. Ann Lupo, co-dirs. Esteban Pedraza & Aaron Pryka, USA, California Premiere
Olympia, dir. Gregory Dixon, USA, World Premiere
Simple Wedding, dir. Sara Zandieh, USA, World Premiere|
Softness of Bodies, dir. Jordan Blady, USA/Germany, World Premiere
This Teacher, dir. Mark Jackson, USA, World Premiere
The Wrong Todd, dir. Rob Schulbaum, USA, World Premiere