Twenty years ago, I founded the Lake County Film Festival, an hour north of Chicago. Last year, I moved three hours south of there, to the Champaign-Urbana area in central Illinois.

This year, I decided I wanted to start a second film festival here in my new hometown. I started in March with a series of monthly screenings, and I've found an exciting level of interest from filmmakers, filmgoers, the press, and government agencies.

I'm looking at having our first full festival from Thursday, May 29 - Tuesday, June 2nd. We have a wonderful venue, at the Savoy 16 + IMAX, where we've been holding our monthly screenings, but I also hope to make the festival county-wide, and use screening facilities in Champaign & Urbana as well.

The C-U area has numerous small film events year round, but the only large event in the area is the largely repertory Ebertfest, which does not accept submissions from filmmakers. Hopefully our new festival will bring fresh films from new filmmakers to the area.

I picture a simple festival for our first year, with 2 screens throughout the weekend + an opening and closing night, with about 20 screenings. Something like 8 narrative features, 8 documentary features, and 4 programs of short films.

We have a wonderful after-festival spot for drinks and BBQ, just a few doors down from the theater where filmmakers and festival goers can mingle into the evening.

Awards & Prizes

We will award both jury and audience awards for favorite features & short films.

Rules & Terms

• 40 minutes is our cut off point between shorts and features.

• We do not have screening premiere requirements at this time. We do greatly prefer to show films not available for free streaming, but occasionally makes exceptions, usually for short films. Please let us know via cover letter, or when accepted, if your film will be available at the time of the festival.

• When you submit a film, you should be authorized to submit this film for screening at the 2025 Chambana Film Festival You grant the Chambana Film Festival the nonexclusive right to use submitted materials in connection with any and all publicity and promotional materials regarding the festival. They warrant that the submitted film does not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of any person or entity and agree to hold harmless and fully indemnify and defend the Chambana Film Festival and its representatives against any and all claims made for such infringement or any other violations of law. They also acknowledge that the film submission fee does not guarantee acceptance and no refund will be provided if your film is not selected.