We always like to keep our readers aware of indie films of note currently in production; here's another one for you: It's entitled Hogtown by Chicago area writer/director Daniel Nearing, who previously made the 2009 critically acclaimed drama Chicago Heights.

Currently halfway through production, the film, which is being shot in black and white with Herman Wilkins and Diandra Lyle playing the leads in a mutli-racial cast of more than 70, is as Nearing calls it, a period experimental drama set during the backdop of the notorious 1919 Chicago race riots; he further says that its "plot relates to the investigation into the disappearance of a multi-millionaire theatre owner during a snowstorm. While it is on the one hand a murder mystery and a love story, it is intended as a celebration of the city while exploring the isolation and emotions of many of its inhabitants."

The film even incorporates several famous or soon to be famous real people, including a 19 year-old, unpublished Ernest Hemingway; and though it is a period film, Nearing says that his film will be "period-less," shot in undisguised contemporary Chicago locations.

The film is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year, for a 2013 release, and several original gospel songs by Minister Raymond Dunlap, who did the soundtrack for Chicago Heights, have already been recorded; and a full orchestral score for Hogtown is being planned.

We'll keep you up to date with further news and maybe hopefully see a trailer soon.