Michael Glover Smith Wins in LA with ‘Handle with Care,’ Reveals Feature Film Project for 2025

2024 has been an exciting year for Michael Glover Smith, and 2025 is shaping up to be his busiest yet. The latest film from the Chicago filmmaker – the eight-minute short HANDLE WITH CARE – recently concluded its festival run with a win at the Sherman Oaks Film Festival in Los Angeles. There, Smith and his team received the Programmer’s Award for Exceptional Filmmaking, which Smith accepted alongside producer John Otterbacher and cinematographer Pouya Shahbazi. Looking ahead to 2025, Michael is exclusively sharing details of his next project with SCREEN today, a comedy feature film tentatively entitled HEKLA. Let’s dive in…

Smith’s short film HANDLE WITH CARE is a strikingly shot black-and-white dramedy that details an awkward first date between an unnamed man, played by Mickey O’Sullivan (CHICAGO P.D.), and an unnamed woman, played by Alyssa Thordarson (CHICAGO MED), neither of whom have been on a date in years.

The Sherman Oaks win caps a successful year-long festival run for HANDLE WITH CARE, which was shot in January and premiered the following month at the George Lindsey Film Festival in Florence, Alabama. It screened at fifteen competitive festivals in all, winning awards at four including Best of Show at George Lindsey and Audience Choice prizes at the Tallahassee Film Festival and the Soo Film Festival in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. The film’s streaming run began shortly after the Sherman Oaks screening by premiering on the Split Tooth Media website on December 16. A new interview with Smith, conducted by Split Tooth founders Brett and Craig Wright, accompanied the online premiere.

Stream HANDLE WITH CARE free via Split Tooth Media by clicking right here.

Next Up for Smith: Comedy Feature Film in the New Year

The prolific Smith isn’t about to slow down though. He is exclusively sharing news of his next project with SCREEN today: “I’m going to make a comedy feature about a day in the life of a Chicago actress. It’ll star Elizabeth Stam who I had such a blast working with on RELATIVE and who I think is just an incredibly talented and watchable person. It can actually be seen as a spinoff of RELATIVE because she’s essentially playing the same character but, stylistically, it will be very different. I’m going to use this opportunity to try a bunch of new things, including shooting in a more freewheeling, almost documentary style. The tentative title is HEKLA.”

Keep up with Smith’s future projects via his Instagram and be sure to check back here at SCREEN for all the latest news in Chicago and Illinois independent film production. You can also click right here to subscribe to our weekly email newsletter.