News
February 15, 2026: The Wisconsin premiere of HEKLA will occur at the Beloit International Film Festival on Saturday, March 28 at noon. I will be present for a Q&A following the screening with cast members Elizabeth Stam, Mary Tilden and Conor Foley, and producer Aaron Wertheimer. Tickets will go on sale later this month here.
February 9, 2026: There will be a book-release party for Bob Dylan as Filmmaker: No Time to Think at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago on Tuesday, March 3 at 6:30pm. I will introduce a rare 35mm screening of the Bob Dylan/Larry Charles film MASKED AND ANONYMOUS, then sign and sell copies of my book in the lounge afterwards. You can purchase tickets for the screening here.
February 2, 2026: HEKLA will have its world premiere at the George Lindsey UNA Film Festival in Florence, Alabama, next month. It is one of only three titles selected for the festival’s “Professional Narrative Features” competition. The screening, which is free and open to the public, will take place at the Mane Room on Friday, March 6 at 8:30pm. It will be followed by a Q&A with me, actors Elizabeth Stam, Mary Tilden and Brookelyn Hebert, producer Aaron Wertheimer and editor Eric Marsh. Read more about it in SCREEN magazine here. More screenings will be announced soon.
December 17, 2025: The new book Julie Dash Interviews, edited by Kameelah Martin and published by the University of Mississippi Press, features an interview I conducted with Julie in 2016 on the occasion of the rerelease of her 1991 masterpiece DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST. You can order it from the University of Mississippi Press website here.
October 13, 2025: Although we are now at the sound mixing stage of post-production on HEKLA, I have prepared the following “director’s statement” for our press kit and film festival submission purposes:
HEKLA Director’s Statement: HEKLA is the fulfillment of a dream born in my head in 2016. While holding auditions for my second feature, the Roxane Mesquida-starring MERCURY IN RETROGRADE (2017), I conceived the idea of creating a project about a day in the life of an actor. I wanted to make a movie that would simultaneously be a love letter to Chicago’s theater and film communities as well as an exploration of the inner world of a single artist: going inside their brain, showing their “process,” and the difficulty they have in achieving a balance between their personal and professional lives. After making my fourth feature, RELATIVE (2022), with the brilliant young thespian Elizabeth Stam, I decided to refashion this script as a vehicle for her, inviting her to board the project not only as lead performer but also co-writer and co-producer. The result is the deepest collaboration I’ve ever had with an actor, yielding the kind of intense, Gena Rowlands-esque performance that every director dreams of eliciting. Because the title character has a larger-than-life comedic persona, I also decided that the film’s visual style would need to take its cues directly from the flamboyant Hekla, intermixing different aesthetics in a wild and unpredictable yet always purposeful manner. HEKLA was self-financed primarily through the sale of my condo. As a filmmaker, I’ve never had more skin in the game.
— Michael Glover Smith, Chicago, 2025
September 26, 2025: My fifth feature film, HEKLA, wrapped shooting in August. We anticipate a world premiere in the first quarter of 2026. In the meantime, you can read an article about the making of the film in SCREEN Magazine here .
My second book, BOB DYLAN AS FILMMAKER: NO TIME TO THINK, will be published by McNidder & Grace on March 2, 2026. Pre-order information available here.
