UPTOWN — After 24 years of working corporate jobs, Ed Pionke made a bold career move.
Over the course of the last six years, the now 50-year-old Uptown resident gradually quit his day job and became a full-time filmmaker. In that time, he's written, directed and produced two independent films and is currently working on completing a third.
"Partly what motivated me was the fear of being the 70-year-old retired dude and thinking back about why I didn't try that when I was younger or why didn't I give it a go," Pionke said. "I still have energy left. I thought: 'Now's the time to do it.'"
A premiere for Pionke's second film, "Residuum," will be held at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., on June 22 — and he's doing online fundraising to help pay for the cost. The film revolves around an artist who struggles to find a balance between his art and relationships, and was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's letters to his brother.
Growing up in suburban Norridge, Pionke was "always into art house films," he said. But he ended up studying actuarial science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and going on to become an actuary in Chicago.
In 2008, when work at the actuary firm was slow due to the economic collapse, he started reading screenplays to kill time, he said. That led him to enroll in classes at Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St., and eventually start making movies of his own.
Pionke made his first film, "Mother's Milk," in 2011. It tells the story of a professor who, after losing his own mother, kidnaps a woman so she can play that role in his life.
In 2013, the film was shown at festivals around the country, including New York Independent Film Festival and Northwest Ohio Film Festival, and in Berlin. He nabbed a distribution deal with Monarch Home Entertainment and the film won a handful of awards like best lead actor and best screenplay at various fests.
Independent filmmaking in Chicago isn't always easy, he said, but it's something he loves to do.
"You have to figure out ways to solve problems other than throwing money at them and find creative ways to tell the story without compromising," said Pionke, who has lived in Uptown since 1991.
But ultimately, it's worth it.
"I feel really alive on set. It's all consuming," he said.
As for his corporate jobs, "they were intellectually challenging, but I didn't think I was putting anything of myself in them."
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