Paper Planes

Michael Glover Smith wrote and directed the feature films COOL APOCALYPSE (2015), MERCURY IN RETROGRADE (2017), RENDEZVOUS IN CHICAGO (2018), and RELATIVE (2022), all of which won awards at festivals across the U.S. and were the subject of rave reviews. The Chicago Sun-Times' Richard Roeper wrote that "Smith has a deft touch for creating characters who look and sound like people we know" and RogerEbert.com’s Matt Fagerholm has called him “one of the Windy City’s finest filmmakers.” His films have screened at the American Cinematheque and Rooftop Cinema Club in Los Angeles, Spectacle Theater and the Regal UA Midway in NYC and the Gene Siskel Film Center and Music Box Theater in Chicago. He was a recipient of the Siskel Center's Star Filmmaker award in 2017 and made Newcity Chicago's "Film 50" list in 2018 and 2020 for being one of fifty individuals who "shape Chicago's film scene." He teaches film history at several colleges and is the author of FLICKERING EMPIRE (Columbia University Press, 2015), an acclaimed nonfiction book about film production in Chicago during the silent era.

Alyssa Thordarson is an actor and filmmaker whose screenwriting debut, the short film AFTER (A LOVE STORY), played over twenty festivals including Academy Award qualifiers Cleveland International Film Festival and LA Shorts. The film received nearly twenty nominations and nine wins, including Best Drama (Short) at North Hollywood Cinefest and Sherman Oaks Film Festival, as well as Best Screenplay at Sherman Oaks. As an actor she has worked in commercials and on TV shows including CHICAGO MED, EMPIRE, and THE CHI. Alyssa is represented by DDO Artists Agency in Chicago and Los Angeles.