Newcity Film recently named Raising Bertie director Margaret Byrne as one of their “Film 50 2014: Chicago Screen Gems”. Unlike last year’s inaugural list, this year’s list is all about “focusing just on artists.” Those included were selected for being “…part of the larger weave of how films get made…exemplars of the multi-hypehenate talents who seem to be around every corner, protean prodigies who aren’t juggling multiple careers, but living them as full, admirable, even enviable creative lives.”

Regarding Byrne, Newcity writes:

Documentarian Margaret Byrne’s “Raising Bertie” elapses across five years in the largely African-American North Carolina farming community of Bertie County, following the lives of three young men growing into adulthood. A short preview shown in spring 2014 demonstrated a vibrant visual style, capturing events with vivid immediacy. Fundraising continues for post-production and outreach as a rough cut is assembled, and one of the first filmmaking grants from the Southern Documentary Fund was awarded at the end of September. Byrne’s a Chicago native who moved back to the city three years ago after a decade in New York. “I knew I could give my daughter a better life, but I thought I would be sacrificing the career I had worked so hard for. What I discovered was that Chicago was exactly where I wanted to be and exactly where I wanted to make films. New York taught me to be a bad-ass, and walk fast, but the Chicago film community has embraced me, supported me and given me a place to make the films I’ve been determined to create.” Byrne plans to shoot her first fiction feature, “The Pharmacist,” in Chicago in fall 2015. “I’m committed to working exclusively with Chicago talent, crew and vendors,” she says. “For the unforeseeable future, I plan to make all my films in Chicago.”

You can read the rest of the article here.

Newcity Film | Film 50 2014: Chicago’s Screen Gems