I just received the following statement from Nat Dykeman with the Lake County Film Festival:

Fifth-Annual Lake County Film Festival Arrives From Feb. 28 to March 3, 2008

GRAYSLAKE, Ill. – The Fifth Annual Lake County Film Festival will take place February 28th - March 3rd, featuring the best of independent cinema right here in Lake County. This year’s festival is our biggest yet with seventeen feature length documentaries, seventeen narrative features, and over 100 short films. As with last year, many of the filmmakers will be in attendance to present their films.

Festival highlights include our closing night film, Grace Is Gone, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, and was nominated for two Golden Globes. Grace is Gone stars Chicago native John Cusack as a man whose wife is killed in Iraq and can’t figure out how to tell his two daughters.

There are two other films with impressive film festival pedigrees. The first is Wristcutters: A Love Story, another Sundance Film Festival alum, which won Best Feature at Gen Art Film Festival and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards. Wristcutters stars Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) as a young pizza delivery boy who commits suicide, only to find himself in an alternate and bizarre world.

The other is Last Stop for Paul, a heart-warming comedy/drama about two friends who travel the world spreading a friend’s ashes. Last Stop For Paul has shown at over 100 film festivals, and won over 45 awards.

While not in Chicago proper, there are plenty of Chicago-based films playing, including the World Premieres of An Alternative To Slitting Your Wrist, a feature documenting a mans year-long attempt to find something worth living for after a failed suicide attempt, King In Chicago, a historical documentary about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work in 1966 with the Chicago Freedom Movement and Break-Up Date an in-depth look at the modern dating scene.

Other Chicago based films are Indestructible, Ben Byer’s doc about his own battle with ALS and his search for a cure, romantic comedy The Chemistry of Dating, drama The Half Life Of Mason Lake, and Lake County native John Covert’s film Shut-Eye, which features Stana Katic (24, Heroes, Feast Of Love).

There are several foreign films this year, including the World Premiere of L’estate d’Inverno, an Italian drama, Statyści, a Polish comedy and El Violin, the Cannes and Ariel Award-Winning drama.

While last year’s festival brought in over 3,000 admissions, we are proud to announce this years hosting sponsor, The College Of Lake County. CLC has enabled us to grow to almost 100 screenings. Almost 90 percent of our screenings will be held at the Grayslake, IL campus of the College of Lake County, with additional screenings on Saturday, March 1 at the Lakeshore Campus in Waukegan, IL. Our closing night film will be held at the Landmark Theatre in Highland Park, IL.

For more information, including full descriptions of all films and their showtimes, as well as directions and ticketing information, please visit the Lake County Film Festival Web site at http://www.lakecountyfilmfest.com [1] or contact the festival at 847-362-5666 or lakecountyfilmfest@gmail.com [2].