Indiefest Film Festival and Market, kicks off on July 29th and runs through August 7th. Screenings will take place at the exquisite Landmark Century Centre Cinema (2828 N. Clark St.) and the special “Screening Room” at Le Meridien Chicago (521 N. Rush St. (@ Michigan Ave)) in Chicago.

Indiefest 2005 opens on July 29th with the world premiere of “Blood Deep”, a thriller directed by Todd Kniss. Lead actress Jordan Belfi (HBO’s “Entourage”) will attend the festivities with the director and other cast members. Other highlights of the festival include Independent Feature Channel’s “Punk: Attitude”, the world premiere of “Debating Robert Lee”, starring Dale Midkiff (“The Crow”), Kaley Cuoco (“8 Simple Rules…”), and Beau Bridges (“Jerry Maguire”). Also the world premiere of “Paranoia Recurrent Dreams”, a Mexican film by Jose Allende, and “Catching Kringle”, an animated short film starring Danny DeVito (“Be Cool”) and John Rhys-Davies (“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”).

This year’s Indiefest features fifty independent films, including: seventeen world premieres, four U.S. premieres, and forty-nine Chicago premieres. The film selected as the recipient of the Audience Choice Award, given at Indiefest 2005’s Awards Ceremony, will be presented as a special screening immediately following the awards ceremony, which takes place at 8pm on August 7th.

Indiefest has many other special events including ten nights of parties and a Film and Script Market. The Market, which is an industry networking event, held August 6th and 7th, will give distribution executives, producers, investors, and the general public a first look at hundreds of film projects. The Market will be held at Le Meridien Hotel (The Official Hotel Sponsor of Indiefest 2005) on Michigan Avenue. Each evening of the festival will conclude with an after-party at a Chicago “hot spot”, see the program or website for party schedule.

For more Indiefest information, go to the festival’s website at www.indiefestchicago.com.