With the help of Indie Memphis and the Memphis & Shelby County Film/TV Commission, the Memphis Flyer conducted a (very) non-scientific survey to determine the essential independent, no-budget or extremely low-budget films made in Memphis. A few filmmakers got many votes for multiple films, so we’ve consolidated their entries into an oeuvre. (Plus, that let us use the word oeuvre.) But even the combining process is difficult, since so many of these filmmakers worked on each other’s films. A director on one film is a writer on another, a producer on a third, and a crewmember on a fourth.
So, dive in at Black Lodge Video, which carries many of these local films, or poke around online, including Kentucker Audley’s great resource NoBudge.com.
Recommended Oeuvres
* Kentucker Audley: Team Picture, Open Five, Open Five 2, and Holy Land
* Craig Brewer: The Poor & Hungry, Indie Origins, and Clean Up in Booth B
* Corduroy Wednesday (Edward Valibus, Erik Morrison, & Benjamin Rednour): Songs in the Key of Death, The Conversion, Confessions of a Pedalphile, CottonBallLand, and Genesis on Demand
* Brad Ellis: Act One, Daylight Fades, and The Path of Fear
* Fine Grind Films (Michael Cruickshank, Will O’Loughlen, Kaleo Quenzer, & Rick Venable): The Big Muddy, Blown, Blown Again, and Central Garden
* Morgan Jon Fox: Blue Citrus Hearts, OMG/HaHaHa, and This is What Love in Action Looks Like
* Mark Jones: Tennessee Queer, Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island, & Eli Parker is Getting Married? (with Ryan Earl Parker)
* Mike McCarthy: Damselvis, I Was a Teenage Tupelo, Superstarlet A.D., Elvis Meets the Beatles, and Cigarette Girl
* C. Scott McCoy & Laura Jean Hocking: Antenna, Eat, Automusik Can Do No Wrong, and I Wanted To Make a Movie About a Beautiful and Tragic Memphis
* Brian Pera: Woman’s Picture, The Way I See Things, and Rose
* John Pickle: The Importance of Being Russell, Broke on Saturday, and Pickle TV
* Joann Self Selvidge: The Art Academy, The Arts Interviews, The Music Interviews, and Voices of Jericho
* G.B. Shannon & Ryan Earl Parker: Fresh Skweezed, Pretty Monsters, & Woke Up Ugly
* Ben Siler: Classified Ad, Prom Queen, The Year Thousands of Innocents Died I Made Several Avant-Garde Video Projects, & Cats
Narrative Features
One Came Home (Willy Bearden)
Live Animals (Jeremy Benson)
What I Love About Concrete (Katherine Dohan and Alanna Stewart)
Being Awesome (Allen C. Gardner)
The Bridge (Brett Hanover)
The Romance of Loneliness (Sarah Ledbetter and Matteo Servente)
Tricks. (DeAara Lewis)
Just the Two of Us (Keenon Nikita)
I Was a Zombie for the F.B.I. (Marius Penczner)
What Goes Around… (Rod Pitts)
The Old Forest (Steven J. Ross)
The Delta (Ira Sachs)
The Book of Noah (Drew Smith)
Slick Lily vs. the Grand Canyon (Stephen Stanley and Chris Triko)
100 Lives (Phil Darius Wallace)
Documentary Features
Orange Mound Tennessee: America’s Community (Emmanuel Amido)
At the River I Stand (David Appleby, Allison Graham, and Steven J. Ross)
Meanwhile in Memphis: The Sound of a Revolution (Rob Parker & Nan Hackman)
Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin’ (Chad Schaffler)
New Garage Explosion (Prichard Smith)
Narrative Shorts
Eso-Phagus (Brett Cantrell)
Soul (Jerre Dye and Kate Alex)
The Morning Ritual (J. Lazarus Hawk)
Part of Your Heart (Matteo Servente)
17 Inch Cobras (Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury)
John’s Farm (Melissa Anderson Sweazy)
Avarice (Rachel M. Taylor)
Documentary Shorts
Training Wheels (Sarah Fleming)
Bookin’ (John Kirkscey and Billie Worley)
The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306 (Adam Pertofsky)
$200 on eBay (Prichard Smith)
As I Am (Alan Spearman)
