A quick note I've removed all of the short film titles from this release. As you know I have nothing against shorts, rather it was a huge list of just titles and there is no way to know what the films are.(I would not have cut them if there was descriptions). If you want more details please go to the festival website at www.indiememphis.com
I will have a curtain raiser with links to all the films we covered closer to time.
Prichard Smith’s THE INVADERS is the Opening Night selection, and Stephen John Ross’s KALLEN ESPERIAN: VISSI D’ARTE is the Closing Night title
World Premieres include Mike McCarthy’s DESTROY MEMPHIS, Kathy Lofton’s I AM A CAREGIVER, Madsen Minax’s KAIROS DIRT & THE ERRANT VACUUM, Flo Gibb’s MENTALITY: GIRLS LIKE US, and Lakethen Mason’s VERGE, with Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott’s THE ACT OF BECOMING making its U.S. Premiere
Festival favorites include Sophia Takal’s ALWAYS SHINE, Kirsten Johnson’s CAMERAPERSON, Kelly Reichardt’s CERTAIN WOMEN, Zach Clark’s LITTLE SISTER, KENNETH Lonergan’s MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, Jim Jarmusch’s PATERSON, and Keith Maitland’s TOWER
Memphis, TN (September 26, 2016) – The Indie Memphis Film Festival presented by Duncan-Williams, Inc., (November 1-7) has announced its full slate of films for the 19th edition of the annual festival this year. Prichard Smith’s documentary THE INVADERS, executive produced by Craig Brewer opens the festival, while Stephen John Ross’s documentary KALLEN ESPERIAN: VISSI D’ARTE bookends an impressive slate of 185 films (51 features, 93 shorts and 41 music videos), including 5 world premieres and 1 U.S. Premiere.
According to Indie Memphis executive director Ryan Watt, “This year’s lineup of films offers about as much variety and scope as one could hope for in a single film program. Festival programmer Brandon Harris has been fortunate to secure many of our favorite films we have seen throughout the year as well as discoveries for our feature's competition. Shorts programmer Brighid Wheeler has curated an excellent program of narrative, documentary, experimental, animation and music videos. Those films, along with our previously announced classic films, and the best work from our talented local filmmakers look to make this event a real treat for all of the film fans that attend Indie Memphis this year.”
Prichard Smith uncovers the history and significance of the often-overlooked group that radicalized generations of civil rights activists in his documentary THE INVADERS, detailing their surprising behind- the-scenes involvement with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the pivotal days leading up to his assassination. This special event features appearances by the original members of The Invaders and executive producer Craig Brewer for two festival screenings of a film that could not be timelier considering current events in the country. Stephen John Ross’s KALLEN ESPERIAN: VISSI D’ARTE will close out the film festival in style. The title translated as “I Lived for Art” details the famed Memphis opera singer’s struggles and comeback. In a special treat for the Indie Memphis audience, Esperian will perform with Gary Beard following the screening of the film.
The Narrative and Documentary Spotlight sections read like a “must-see” list of 2016 film festival cinema. On the narrative side, titles include Sophia Takal’s drama, ALWAYS SHINE, about a personality struggle to the breaking point between two actress friends in Big Sur; Kelly Reichardt’s latest, CERTAIN WOMEN, about three strong-willed women (Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Michelle Williams) striving to forge their own paths amidst the wide-open plains of the American Northwest; Zach Clark’s LITTLE SISTER, about a Goth-loving nun coming home to visit her brother who has shut off after returning from the Iraq war with disfiguring burns; Kenneth Lonergan’s MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, about a man (Casey Affleck) still recovering from a personal tragedy and forced to care for his young nephew; and Jim Jarmusch’s PATERSON, about a New Jersey bus driver (Adam Driver) with a gift for poetry.
Documentary Spotlight features include Kirsten Johnson’s sublime CAMERAPERSON, which investigates what it means to film and be filmed; Rita Coburn Whack and Bob Hercules’s MAYA ANGELOU: AND STILL I RISE, about Angelou’s life and how she helped shape our own worldview through her autobiographical literature and activism; David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s TICKLED, about Farrier’s investigation into the bizarre world of “competitive endurance tickling”; and Keith Maitland’s TOWER, about the 1966 sniper shooting at the University of Texas.
Indie Memphis’s Hometowner Competition features five films making world premieres, including Mike McCarthy’s DESTROY MEMPHIS, the story of the grassroots organization “Save Libertyland” that gathered in a Midtown Memphis dining room in 2005 to fight then-Mayor Willie Herenton’s efforts to close the amusement park due to an operating deficit; Kathy Lofton’s I AM A CAREGIVER, which looks at the day-to-day challenges faced by family caregivers; Madsen Minax’s KAIROS DIRT & THE ERRANT VACUUM, about a gay middle school lunch woman and a gender ambiguous student who have an unclear intergenerational relationship; Flo Gibbs’s MENTALITY: GIRLS LIKE US, which follows the stories of three lesbian students and one transgender student; and Lakethen Mason’s VERGE, which focuses on the young careers of seven indie artists pursuing their dreams in Memphis.
Making its U.S. premiere will be Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott’s THE ACT OF BECOMING, which looks at the surprising success of John Williams’s 1965 novel Stoner that sold fewer than 2,000 copies and was quickly out-of-print before becoming a worldwide bestseller.
Films selected for the Narrative Competition, include Musa Syeed’s A STRAY, Joshua H. Miller and Miles B. Miller’s ALL THE BIRDS HAVE FLOWN SOUTH, Xander Robin’s ARE WE NOT CATS, Deb Shoval’s AWOL, Tim Sutton’s DARK NIGHT, and Ryon Baxter’s GREEN/IS/GOLD.
Documentary Competition selections include Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott’s THE ACT OF BECOMING, Billy Woodberry’s AND WHEN I DIE, I WON’T STAY DEAD, Kathlyn Horan’s THE IF PROJECT, Maisie Crow’s JACKSON, Cecilia Aldarondo’s MEMORIES OF A PENITENT HEART, and David Shapiro’s MISSING PEOPLE.
Venues span from primary sites in Midtown and Downtown Memphis to new satellite venues in East Memphis and Collierville. With the support of Marquee Sponsors Amazon Studios, AutoZone, and Malco Theatres, Indie Memphis will once again present its unique and diverse slate of programming throughout the weeklong format that was successful last year, contributing to the largest film attendance in the history of the festival.
Passes are now on sale and information on the film festival can be found at IndieMemphis.com.
The 2016 Indie Memphis Film Festival official selections include:
OPENING NIGHT SELECTION
THE INVADERS Regional Premiere
Director: Prichard Smith
Country: USA, Running Time: 76min
Inspired by militant black leaders like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, a new, radicalized generation of civil rights activists made up of young college students, Vietnam vets, musicians, and intellectuals emerged in Memphis in 1967. The Invaders espoused Black Power and, when pushed, did not limit themselves to non-violence. Prichard Smith uncovers the history and significance of the often- overlooked group, detailing their surprising behind-the-scenes involvement with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the pivotal days leading up to his assassination.
CLOSING NIGHT SELECTION
KALLEN ESPERIAN: VISSI D’ARTE
Director: Steven John Ross
Country: USA, Running Time: 64min
KALLEN ESPERIAN: VISSI D’ARTE profiles the famed Memphis soprano, chronicling her struggles and successes as she worked to reignite her career following a dark and difficult period in her life and career. Overcoming a divorce, depression, extreme weight fluctuations, physical injury and even, brain surgery were among the challenges that stood before Esperian as she made her way back.
NARRATIVE SPOTLIGHT
ALWAYS SHINE Regional Premiere
Director: Sophia Takal
Country: USA, Running Time: 85min
Two women (Caitlin FitzGerald and Mackenzie Smith), both actresses with differing degrees of success, travel north from Los Angeles to Big Sur for a weekend vacation in ALWAYS SHINE, Sophia Takal’s terse psycho drama. Reconnecting in the wake of years of competition has driven them apart, upon arrival to their isolated, forest retreat, the pair discovers that their friendship has devolved into belittlements both real and imagined, a deep mutual revulsion that threatens to slide into mania as identities become fluid and hard to discern. An Oscilloscope Laboratories release.
CERTAIN WOMEN
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Country: USA, Running Time: 107min
Director Kelly Reichardt introduces us to a bevy of remarkable characters in her newest effort, a triptych of dovetailing stories: a lawyer (Laura Dern), who finds herself juggling office mansplaining and a hostage crisis; a young married woman (Michelle Williams), whose desire to build a home puts her in conflict with the men in her world; and a law student (Kristin Stewart), who begins an ambiguous emotional bond with a lonely young rancher (Lily Gladstone). An IFC Films Release.
DONALD CRIED
Director: Khristopher Avedisian
Country: USA, Running Time: 85min
Peter Latang left his working class Rhode Island town to reinvent himself as a slick, Wall Street character. Fifteen years later, when he's forced to return home to bury his Grandmother, he loses his wallet on the trip. Stuck, the only person who comes to his aid is his next door neighbor and former childhood friend, Donald Treebeck, played with aplomb by director Avedisian. What begins as a small favor turns into a long, dark ride into their shared past. Released by The Orchard.
LITTLE MEN
Director: Ira Sachs
Country: USA, Running Time: 90min
LITTLE MEN explores the deepening friendship between two artistic boys whose families enter into a heated and escalating battle over the rent of their shared brownstone in a quickly gentrifying Brooklyn. Jake (Theo Taplitz) is the son of Brian (Greg Kinnear) and Kathy (Jennifer Ehle), who move into the upstairs of a brownstone they inherit; Tony (Michael Barbieri) is the son of immigrant seamstress Leonor (Paulina García), who’s been renting the store on the ground floor for several years. When a battle over rent sharpens, the boys—rather than splitting along lines of family loyalty—give the adults the silent treatment and continue to forge their own bond. A Magnolia Pictures release.
LITTLE SISTER Tennessee Premiere
Director: Zack Clark
Country: USA, Running Time: 91min
In Zach Clark’s fifth feature Colleen (Addison Timlin) is a young nun in Brooklyn who returns to her North Carolina hometown in the wake of her brother’s return from the ongoing Iraq War. Reconnecting with her Goth past and struggling to be of much help to her zany, war scarred family, the film is marked by wonderful performances from Timlin, Ally Sheedy as her mother and Keith Paulson as her disfigured brother. Set in October 2008, just on the brink of President Obama’s inauguration, LITTLE SISTER is a sad comedy about a recovering family in a recovering country that is marked by Clark’s characteristic brand of heightened, distorted realism. A Forager Films release.
Preceded by:
DOGSBODY
Director: Josh Crockett
Country: USA, Running Time: 7:16min
The job hunt takes a strange turn for Renée when she visits the home of a wealthy potential employer.
THE LOVE WITCH Tennessee Premiere
Director: Anna Billar
Country: USA, Running Time: 120min
A modern-day witch uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her, in a tribute to 1960s pulp novels and Technicolor melodramas. Elaine, a beautiful young witch, is determined to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment, she makes spells and potions, and then picks up men and seduces them. However, her spells work too well, and she ends up with a string of hapless victims. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved drives her to the brink of insanity and murder. An Oscilloscope Laboratories release.
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Tennessee Premiere
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Country: USA, Running Time: 135min
Kenneth Lonergan’s nuanced and involving third feature MANCHESTER BY THE SEA probes into the life of Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck), a haunted, nearly mute janitor who following his more stable older brother’s sudden death must confront a terrible corner of his past in their small New England hometown. An Amazon Studios Release.
PATERSON
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Country: USA, Running Time: 115min
Long standing indie stalwart Jarmusch’s PATERSON is a drolly humorous drama about a week in the life of a New Jersey bus driver, played by Adam Driver, who is also a very serious poet working toward his first book, a quietly committed husband, and a technological philistine. He writes all of his poems longhand, in a small notebook, in the context that so many of the great poets have forged their art: while working at a day job. An Amazon Studios Release.
DOCUMENTARY SPOTLIGHT
CAMERAPERSON
Director: Kirsten Johnson
Country: USA, Running Time: 103min
A boxing match at Barclays Center; Bosnia and Herzegovina in its post war malaise; the daily comings and goings of a Nigerian midwife; the meanderings of a family member with ravaged with Alzheimer's: these scenes and others are woven into CAMERAPERSON, a tapestry of footage captured over the twenty-five-year career of documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. Through a series of episodic juxtapositions, Johnson explores the relationships between image makers and their subjects, the tension between the objectivity and intervention of the camera, and the complex interaction of unfiltered reality and crafted narrative. A Janus Films Release.
CHICKEN PEOPLE
Director: Nicole Lucas Haimes
Country: USA, Running Time: 83min
CHICKEN PEOPLE follows the trials and tribulations of those who breed exotic birds in the world of competitive poultry. In the tradition of Spellbound comes a feature documentary about three remarkably rich and diverse personalities who come together to compete in their shared passion to raise the perfect chicken. The film will follow the struggles and triumphs of these characters, along with a wide array of competitors-both human and chicken-from the Ohio National Poultry Show, considered the Westminster of Chickens, to the Dixie Classic in Tennessee. A Samuel Goldwyn Pictures release.
Preceded by
PICKLE
Director: Amy Nicholson
Country: USA, Running Time: 16min
A couple recounts the various animals they have adopted as pets over the course of their marriage, including a paraplegic possum and a fish that couldn’t swim. PICKLE explores the human capacity to care for all creatures throughout their sometimes greatly protracted lives until their occasionally sudden and unfortunate deaths. An Oscilloscope Laboratories Release.
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO Regional Premiere
Director: Raoul Peck
Country: USA, Running Time: 96min
In 1979, James Baldwin wrote his literary agent describing what turned out to be his last unrealized book, Remember This House. The book would be an account of the lives and murders of three of his friends — Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and Malcolm X. Baldwin only produced 30 pages before dying in 1987. Haitian director Raoul Peck reclaims James Baldwin’s quest, using Baldwin’s own words from the existing manuscript to engage with the deeper connections between the lives and assassinations of these three men and America’s irrational relationship with race. A Magnolia Pictures Release
MAYA ANGELOU: AND STILL I RISE
Directors: Rita Coburn Whack, Bob Hercules
Country: USA, Running Time: 114min
In MAYA ANGELOU: AND STILL I RISE, entertainers, politicians, journalists, and editors speak to the legacy of Dr. Angelou as an author and thinker, teacher and friend, mentor and activist. Mixing archival footage and interviews with a star studded cast including Bill & Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and Guy Johnson, the film explores Angelou’s childhood in Stamps, Alabama, her varied literary accomplishments. Meditating on her relationships with slain civil rights leaders such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King as well as her importance to the feminist movement, MAYA ANGELOU: AND STILL I RISE is a stirring portrait of an essential American artist. An American Masters PBS release.
MIDSUMMER IN NEWTON Regional Premiere
Director: Lloyd Kramer
Country: USA, Running Time: 81min
After the Sandy Hook tragedy, a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream comes to Newtown, Connecticut in hopes of providing some solace to the community following the school shooting. In auditions and read-throughs and dress rehearsals, Kramer glimpses the children finding catharsis through performance, while also visiting a family who has used their grief to record a jazz album in their dead daughter’s honor. A meditation on the healing force of artistry in the face of unspeakable trauma, MIDSUMMER IN NEWTON looks at the aftermath of the tragedy visited upon this community in a hopeful, previously unforeseen light.
TICKLED
Directors: David Farrier, Dylan Reeve
Country: USA, Running Time: 92min
Young men are paid to be tied up and tickled in “competitive endurance tickling” online events. After seeing a video of this oddball phenomena, reporter David Farrier tries to write a story about the company and discovers, after significant harassment, uncovers a vast empire of hidden Los Angeles tickling facilities. In this increasingly strange tale, the ominous threats begin to pile up as Farrier and co-director Dylan Reeve discover the dark rabbit hole of interlocking, increasingly sinister tickling organizations. A Magnolia Pictures release.
TOWER
Director: Keith Maitland
Country: USA, Running Time: 96min
On August 1st, 1966, a sniper climbed to the top floor of the University of Texas at Austin’s Tower and began firing, holding the entire area hostage for 96 terse minutes in what was, at the time, a completely unprecedented event. TOWER uses rotoscopic animation to recreate the events of the horrific day, based on haunting first person testimonies from those who lived through it in a gripping and aesthetically masterful evocation of the confusion and terror that descended on the Texas capital that fateful day. A Kino Lorber Release
NARRATIVE COMPETITION
ALL THE BIRDS HAVE FLOWN SOUTH Tennessee Premiere
Directors: Joshua H. Miller, Miles B. Miller
Country: USA, Running Time: 98min
In this subtly off-kilter and eventually terrifying thriller, Stephen (Paul Sparks) spends the fortnight after his mother’s death obsessively collecting dolls, taking care of his pet bird, insinuating himself into the life of a chain-smoking, down-on-her-luck waitress (Joey Lauren Adams) and her abusive, bed-ridden husband.
ARE WE NOT CATS Tennessee Premiere
Director: Xander Robin
Country: USA, Running Time: 77min
New Yorker Eli (Michael Patrick Nicholson) loses his girlfriend, home, and job in less than 24 hours. After landing a job transporting car parts upstate to make some quick cash, he meets Anya (Chelsea Lopez), a young woman who shares his fetish for eating hair. In this gorgeously lensed oddball debut of Xander Robin, expanded from his celebrated short film, a slow building, nerve-racking body horror plot is rapped in the concerns of indie rom coms, with potentially grotesque situations giving way to oddly heartwarming moments of mutual appreciation among these two subterranean New York outliers.
Preceded by:
THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG
Director: Ursula Ellis
Country: USA, Running Time: 10:06min
In this expressionistic coming-of-age film, two self-alienated teenage girls with a Wikipedia-based understanding of punk rock music attend their first live show with some unexpected and potentially long-lasting consequences.
A STRAY Regional Premiere
Director: Musa Syeed
Country: USA, Running Time: 82min
Accused of stealing and kicked out of his home by his mother, Adan (Barkhad Abdirahman), a young Somali refugee in Minneapolis, goes to his Mosque to find an answer. He prays for a good friend to be there for him and soon he finds his companion in a stray dog he hits with his car. Desperately searching for a new place to call home, Adan soon begins to understand the limits of ethnic and religious solidarity in Musa Saeed’s unforgettably moving odyssey.
AWOL Tennessee Premiere
Director: Deb Shoval
Country: USA, Running Time: 85min
Wanting to afford college and finally get out of her Pennsylvania rustbelt town, recent high school grad Joey (Lola Kirke) enlists in the US Army. Her path seems set in stone until she meets Rayna (Breda Wool), a married mother of two. Their love is immediate and too intense to ignore. As economic and social realities bear down on them, Joey sees only one dangerous option: she and Rayna must go AWOL.
DARK NIGHT Regional Premiere
Director: Tim Sutton
Country: USA, Running Time: 85min
Loosely based on the Aurora, Colorado theater shootings of 2012, in which a gunman killed 12 and wounded 70 moviegoers attending a screening of Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, Tim Sutton’s DARK NIGHT oscillates between the lives and perspectives of several people whose fates will collide in tragic fashion, elliptically circling the unspeakable event and in the process forcing the viewer to ruminate upon violence and spectatorship.
GREEN/IS/GOLD Regional Premiere
Director: Ryon Baxter
Country: USA, Running Time: 85min
In Northern California, thirteen-year old Mason (Jimmy Baxter) is forced to leave his home when his father goes to prison, and to go live with his older brother Cameron (Ryon Baxter), a marijuana farmer. Having been estranged from Cameron for quite some time, Mason must learn how to adjust to his new living situation and surroundings while Cameron attempts to balance making his illegal living with the newfound responsibility of taking care of his little brother. Ryon Baxter writes, directs, edits, and co-stars in this engaging, modern spin on a coming-of-age tale for the medical marijuana generation. A Samuel Goldwyn Films release.
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
THE ACT OF BECOMING U.S. Premiere
Directors: Jennifer Anderson, Vernon Lott
Country: USA, Running Time: 61min
Upon its initial publication, John Williams’ 1965 novel Stoner sold fewer than 2,000 copies. Just one year later, it was out of print and soon all but forgotten. Remarkably, fifty years later, Stoner has gone on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide. THE ACT OF BECOMING seeks to uncover the reasons behind its newfound success as it explores how the novel has moved so many people.
Preceded by
BRILLO BOX (3¢ OFF)
Director: Lisanne Skyler
Country: USA, Running Time: 44min
In 1969, Lisanne Skyler’s parents bought a Warhol Brillo Box for $1,000. In 2010, it fetched 3,000,000. BRILLO BOX (3¢ OFF) is the story of what happened in between.
AND WHEN I DIE, I WON’T STAY DEAD Regional Premiere
Director: Billy Woodberry
Country: USA, Running Time: 89min
A surrealist who drew comparisons to Arthur Rimbaud, Bob Kaufman was the most prominent African-American amongst the beat poets, a writer who’s jazz inflected work found legend in San Francisco and fame in France. An impressionistic portrait of the under heralded writer that weaves his tale through testimonials from those who knew him and recitations of his landmark poetry, AND WHEN I DIE, I WON’T STAY DEAD marks the triumphant cinematic return of Billy Woodberry, one of the LA Rebellion’s foundational figures, after three decades away from the director’s chair.
THE IF PROJECT Tennessee Premiere
Director: Kathlyn Horan
Country: USA, Running Time: 88min
In 2008, 28 year police veteran, Kim Bogucki, visited the prison to bridge the gap between mothers in prison and their daughters living on the outside. She posed the question, “If there was something someone could have said or done to change the path that led you here what would it have been?” Through various writing exercises, the women were challenged to open up about their past, take accountability for their actions, grow together and most of all, forgive themselves.
JACKSON Tennessee Premiere
Director: Maisie Crow
Country: USA, Running Time: 90min
Set against the backdrop of the fight over the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, this film is an intimate, first-of-its-kind look inside the issues surrounding abortion through three women who stand on all sides of this debate and live at a turning point for reproductive healthcare in America. As it follows Shannon Brewer, the director of Jackson Women's Health Organization, Barbara Beavers, the leader of the anti-abortion movement in Mississippi and April Jackson, a young mother of four children faced with another unplanned pregnancy, the complexity of this always hot button issue comes to the fore in compelling and unexpected ways.
MEMORIES OF A PENITENT HEART Tennessee Premiere
Director: Cecilia Aldarondo
Country: USA, Running Time: 77min
Twenty-five years after her uncle died of AIDS, filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo, attempts to uncover the unresolved family skeletons surrounding his death. Despite an ostensibly rewarding career and love life, in his final days he struggled to reconcile his homosexuality with his Puerto Rican Catholic upbringing. Now, two dozen years later, Cecilia finds her uncle’s Caucasian lover, who has been ignored and demeaned by the family, and begins to question what actually happened to her uncle in the 1980s.
MISSING PEOPLE Tennessee Premiere
Director: David Shapiro
Country: USA, Running Time: 76min
Gripping and multi-layered, David Shapiro’s MISSING PEOPLE is a nonfiction mystery about Martina Batan, former director of the Ronald Feldman gallery, who investigates her brother's long unsolved murder, while obsessively collecting and researching the violent work and life of an outsider artist from New Orleans. As these parallel narratives intertwine, unforeseen events unfold, shedding new light on the nature of obsession and the difficulty of letting go.
SOUNDS COMPETITION
CONTEMPORARY COLOR Tennessee Premiere
Directors: Bill Ross, Turner Ross
Country: USA, Running Time: 107min
The newest film from the Ross Brothers, CONTEMPORARY COLOR chronicles the one night only concert event of the same name held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York in 2015 which paired popular alternative artists with the twirling flags of ten high school color guard troupes. Featuring performances by artists such as David Byrne, St. Vincent, Lucius and Nelly Furtado, who all wrote new songs exclusively for this event, the film oscillates between onstage and offstage action while providing ample time for the tightly choreographed, expressive dance routines that accompany the musicians to shine. An Oscilloscope Laboratories release.
GIP Tennessee Premiere
Director: Patrick Sheehan
Country: USA, Running Time: 73min
"Henry "Gip " Gipson lives an interesting life. Gravedigger, railroad worker, passionate blues player and owner of "Gip's Place"; an authentic, old fashioned juke joint he's been running out of his home for 60 years. At 92 years old, Gip is not just reveling in the past, but actively keeping a culture alive; GIP is preserving the spirit of blues and roots music, and keeping it tied to his heritage, as it is one of the few surviving authentic juke joints around. For Gip, and the community around him, it's not just music, but a veritable institution of black history, while also drawing diverse crowds and providing raucous entertainment for the community surrounding it. After Gip's Place is shut down for noise complaints, Gip fights to keep his establishment open and the community rallies behind him in a valiant effort to keep the music, and history, alive. Patrick Sheehan's GIP not only provides an incredible look into a both a man dedicated to his roots, but also of the community that embraces him, and refuses to let their culture be silenced.
Preceded by:
THE ARKANSAS WILD MAN
Director: Nathan Willis
Country: USA, Running Time: 18:38min
An 87-year-old rock and roll pioneer who lives a life of obscurity in his small Arkansas hometown travels overseas to England to play one final concert for his passionate and loyal fan base there.
GOODNIGHT BROOKLYN: THE STORY OF DEATH BY AUDIO Tennessee Premiere
Director: Matthew Conboy
Country: USA, Running Time: 82min
GOODNIGHT BROOKLYN: THE STORY OF DEATH BY AUDIO brings viewers inside the last underground venue for music and art in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a neighborhood once defined by its cultural contributions to the city of New York. The feature length film chronicles the origins, community-building, influence and ultimate closure of one of Brooklyn's best DIY venues, ironically at the hands of a former champion of their efforts.
Preceded by
GOOD WHITE PEOPLE
Directors: Erick Stoll, Jared Welling-Cann
Country: USA, Running Time: 15:40min
GOOD WHITE PEOPLE follows Reginald Stroud Sr. as he and his family are forced from their home in Cincinnati, Ohio to make way for luxury condos, high end bars, and art galleries.
I AM THE BLUES Tennessee Premiere
Director: Daniel Cross
Country: USA, Running Time: 107min
I AM THE BLUES takes the audience on a musical journey through the swamps of the Louisiana Bayou, the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta and Moonshine soaked BBQs in the North Mississippi Hill Country. Visiting the last original blues devils, many in their 80’s, still living in the deep south, working without management and touring the Chitlin’ Circuit. Let Bobby Rush, Barbara Lynn, Henry Gray, Carol Fran, Lazy Lester, Bilbo Walker, RL Boyce, Jimmy ’Duck’ Holmes, Lil Buck Sinegal, LC Ulmer and their friends awaken the blues in all of us.
DEPARTURES COMPETITION
JACQUELINE (ARGENTINE) Regional Premiere
Director: Bernardo Britto
Country: USA, Running Time: 89min
At once a low-fi travelogue and a sendup of the Edward Snowden affair, the first feature from celebrated young animator and director Bernardo Britto stars the comedian Wyatt Cenac (The Daily Show, MEDICINE FOR MELACHOLY), follows an experimental filmmaker of some note who hopes to cross over with a more commercially minded feature. When a strange woman from Argentina begins to contact him claiming to have potentially world altering information she would like to use him as a conduit for releasing, the movie takes a formally adventurous turn, increasingly blending documentary aesthetics and spy movie clichés in a way that proves playful and philosophically probing.
LOVETRUE Regional Premiere
Director: Alma Har’el
Country: USA, Running Time: 82min
Seeking to deconstruct the myth of true love, filmmaker Alma Har’el glimpses with her inimitable lyricism three relationships in disparate parts of the country and at different point in life. Scored by the remarkable Flying Lotus, LOVETRUE creates a phantasmagorical blend of intimate verite and staged scenes reflecting on the past, present, and future of her characters. From Hawaii and New York City Har’el captures intimate moments that point toward the ways in which notions of love define and disappoint us.
Preceded by:
COUNT
Director: Jason Evans
Country: USA, Running Time: 13min
In the casino resort town of Atlantic City, a troubled, out-of-work performer obsessively delves into his onstage persona, at the risk of his sanity.
MA Tennessee Premiere
Director: Celia Rowlson-Hall
Country: USA, Running Time: 80min
In this modern-day vision of Mother Mary's pilgrimage, a woman crosses the scorched landscape of the American Southwest. Reinvented and told entirely through movement, the film playfully deconstructs the role of this woman, who encounters a world full of bold characters that are alternately terrifying and sublime. MA is a journey into the visceral and the surreal, interweaving ritual, performance, and the body as sculpture. The absence of dialogue stirs the senses, and leads us to imagine a new ending to this familiar journey. The virgin mother gives birth to our savior, but is also challenged to save herself. A Factory 25 Release.
Preceded by
GOSPEL MIME
Director: Whitney Mallett
Country: USA, Running Time: 5:45min
The lyrical short, which features cinematography by Jason Harvey and a score by Philip Karneef, takes a look at the religious subculture of miming for Jesus.
SLACKJAW Regional Premiere
Director: Zach Weintraub
Country: USA, Running Time: 70min
A pair of pacific northwestern hipsters, Rob (Robert Malone) and Austyn (Weintraub) in the midst of a broader altercation between their tight knit slacker community and a powerful Orwellian corporation called EvCorp. The two of them, against the wishes of their friends who are expressed aligned against this mysterious new entity in town, apply to take part in EvCorp’s ongoing medical experiments for a quick $10,000. What follows is not just a stylized, quirky comedy but a madcap, genre-bending satire of our increasingly paranoid times.
HOMETOWNER COMPETITION
BAD, BAD MEN Regional Premiere
Directors: Brad Ellis, Allen C. Gardner
Country: USA, Running Time: 83min
After being taunted at a coffee shop, a timid young man enlists his two best friends to help him track his newfound bully down and put him in his place. They do just that, but misguided machismo then fuels an ensuing battle of wills. From the filmmakers of BEING AWESOME, and DAYLIGHT FADES.
DESTROY MEMPHIS World Premiere
Director: Mike McCarthy
Country: USA, Running Time: 120min
DESTROY MEMPHIS is the story of the grassroots organization calling itself “Save Libertyland” who gathered in a Midtown Memphis dining room in 2005 in order to fight then-Mayor Willie Herenton’s efforts to close the amusement park due to an operating deficit. The core members consisted of musicians in the all-girl punk band, The Zippin Pippins, who took their name from Elvis’s favorite ride at Libertyland. Ten years in the making, DESTROY MEMPHIS showcases citizen coalition movements which almost certainly put the brakes on Mayor A. C. Wharton’s plan to turn the Memphis Fairgrounds into a Tourist Development Zone devoted to mostly private retail and private ballparks.
Preceded by:
TAV FALCO: MAKE ME KNOW YOU’RE MINE
Directors: JP Olsen, Kristen Nutile
Country: USA, Running time: 13min
Musician, writer and filmmaker, Tav Falco, started his life of art and discovery as the assistant to acclaimed photographer William Eggleston and then went on to found transgressive rock and roll bands with the likes of Alex Chilton. For over 30 years, Falco has toured the world as a free-wheelin' entertainer and art provocateur who, at the age of 72, shows no signs of letting up. Filmmakers JP Olsen and Kristen Nutile follow Falco as he kicks off his 2015 North American tour, supported by punk rock icon Mike Watt on bass and Iggy Pop's drummer, Toby Dammit.
I AM A CAREGIVER World Premiere
Director: Kathy Lofton
Country: USA, Running Time: 59min
I AM A CAREGIVER focuses on the nuances and challenges faced by family caregivers. An under explored and vitally crucial part of our health care delivery system, the film explores the experiences of those who directly care for our sickest, most disabled citizens, showcasing the difficulty of their works from a variety of different vantage points.
KAIROS DIRT & THE ERRANT VACUUM World Premiere
Director: Madsen Minax
Country: USA, Running Time: 97min
A queer middle school lunch lady and a gender ambiguous student have an unclear intergenerational relationship. Through strangely erotic and mystically profound dreams, she personifies the student as a genderless apparition from an alternate space-time.
MENTALITY: GIRLS LIKE US World Premiere
Director: Flo Gibbs
Country: USA, Running Time: 99min
The stories of three lesbian studs and one “FTM” who is going through gender transition. They are each coming to terms with sexual orientation and gender identity in a world where discrimination is prevalent against women who don’t fit into a mold of femininity. The participants in this documentary live a life that is subjected to judgment, bias and an abundance of scrutiny for being who they are. Although there have been many changes in laws for the LGBTQ community, they are still met with partiality.
VERGE World Premiere
Director: Lakethen Mason
Country: USA, Running Time: 62min
The young careers of 7 indie artists pursuing their dreams in the most famous music city in the world: Memphis. Nick, Faith, Marco, Brennan, Kyndle, Black Rock Revival, and Keia will take us on their own personal journey of discovery, dedication, and determination to achieve success in music. This documentary further witnesses the day-to-day challenges that artists, musicians, and producers face in remaining steadfast in the pursuit of their dream. Yet there is a realization among each of them that there is no other vocation in life that can genuinely satisfy their emotional and physical need than to be on stage, or write that timeless composition that changes the universe, and provides that raw emotion that keeps them on the VERGE, On The Brink, On The Cusp of...
Preceded by:
JIMBO MATHUS: FINDING YOUR ROOTS
Director: Geoffrey Shrewsbury
Country: USA, Running Time: 13:50min
Film is a brief glimpse into the life of Mississippi musician, Jimbo Mathus. Hang out with Jimbo as he takes the stage at the Hill Country Picnic and talks about his musical background: from picking guitar on camping trips with his family, through appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman with his former band, The Squirrel Nut Zippers.
PIONEERS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CINEMA
THE BLOOD OF JESUS (1941)
Director: Spencer Williams
Country: USA, Running Time: 58min
Small-town residents pray for a miracle after a newly baptized woman is accidentally shot by her sinful husband.
BODY & SOUL (1925)
Director: Oscar Micheaux
Country: USA, Running Time: 102min
Directed by the legendary African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, BODY & SOUL is a direct critique of the power of the cloth, casting Robeson in dual roles as a jackleg preacher and a well-meaning inventor.
HELLBOUND TRAIN (1930)
Director: James Gist
Country: USA, Running Time: 60min
HELLBOUND TRAIN comprises a series of vignettes of “sinful” acts, any of which could book you a spot on that locomotive to perdition: Women deceiving their husbands; gamblers and tipplers; crooked men conducting illicit business; and insolent children disrespecting their parents make up the passenger list. At the end of each scene a character dies, and a round man in a form-fitting devil suit hops off a train and does a little jig as he accepts a new passenger.
SYMBOL OF THE UNCONQUERED (1920)
Director: Oscar Micheaux
Country: USA, Running Time: 54min
In this silent film, Eve Mason (Iris Hall) learns of her grandfather's death, leaves her small Southern town and travels west to inspect her newly-inherited land. With help from her neighbor, Hugh Van Allen (Walker Thompson), she arrives at her grandfather's homestead. When the self-loathing Jefferson Driscoll (Lawrence Chenault) learns that Van Allen's property sits atop a vast oil reserve, he teams up with a group of unsavory criminals to threaten Mason and force Van Allen off his land.
SPECIAL PRESENTATION
THE DELTA (1996)
Director: Ira Sachs
Country: USA, Running Time: 85min
THE DELTA follows Lincoln, a 17-year old boy leads a straight life most of the time: he has a girlfriend, goes to dances, jokes with guys. But he also has a secret life, in which he's drawn to men he doesn't know. One night, while visiting a gay video arcade, he connects with John, a Vietnamese-born gay man, in his 20s probably, whose father was an African-American US soldier. John invites Lincoln to spend some carefree time with him, which leads the two to take Lincoln’s father’s boat into the Mississippi delta, where setting off some fireworks out of season precipitates betrayal and revenge.
MAN ON THE MOON (1999)
Director: Miloš Forman
Country: USA, Running Time:119min
Jim Carrey stars as the late Andy Kaufman, who was considered one of the most innovative, eccentric and enigmatic performers of his time. A master at manipulating audiences, Kaufman could generate belly laughs, stony silence, tears or brawls. Whether inviting the audience out for milk and cookies or challenging women to inter-gender wrestling matches, he specialized in creating performances so real that even his close friends were never sure where the truth lay.
THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT (1996)
Director: Miloš Forman
Country: USA, Running Time: 129min
Pursued by opponents who say his "Hustler" magazine breaks decency laws, pornographer Larry Flynt (Woody Harrelson) hires lawyer Alan Isaacman (Edward Norton) to help fight his legal battles. A zealot shoots the men near a Georgia courthouse, and though Flynt discovers he'll never walk again, his fighting spirit -- like his love for stripper Althea Leasure (Courtney Love) -- stays strong. Ultimately, the unlikely free speech warrior takes his biggest case to a showdown at the Supreme Court.
HOMETOWNER SPECIAL PRESENTATION
FREE IN DEED
Director: Jake Mahaffy
Country: USA, Running Time 100min
Set in the distinctive world of storefront churches, and based on actual events, FREE IN DEED depicts one man's attempts to perform a miracle for a young mother and her son battling a seemingly incurable illness. However, for the lonely Pentecostal minister confronting his own demons as well, it seems the more he prays, the more things seem to spiral out of his control.
OPENING NIGHT SELECTION
THE INVADERS Regional Premiere
Director: Prichard Smith
CLOSING NIGHT SELECTION
KALLEN ESPERIAN: VISSI D’ARTE
Director: Steven John Ross
[I have removed the list of short titles because it was a long list of just the titles. please check www.indiememphis.com for details]
ABOUT INDIE MEMPHIS
Through diverse year-round programming, a world-class annual festival, and on-going efforts to include new voices, new media, and new audiences, Indie Memphis is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization which enriches, inspires, and connects the Memphis community while cultivating interest in, and development of, independent film. For additional information, or for details about membership, visit www.indiememphis.com or call (901) 214-5171.
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