Indie Memphis Sunday is full of local treasures, fascinating new movies, and some stone cold classics.
James Gray, director of The Lost City of Z and Ad Astra, is back with an autobiographical film about growing up on the cusp of the Reagan era. Armageddon Time (named for a classic reggae track by Willie Williams) stars Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, and Jeremy Strong as a Jewish family struggling against prejudice in Queens, New York.
Melissa Sweazy, a Memphis director whose 2017 documentary Good Grief swept the Indie Memphis awards, returns with Ready! Fire! Aim! The new doc is a biography of Kemmons Wilson, the Memphis entrepreneur who founded Holiday Inn, and changed the way the world travels.
Director Bart Shannon is another Indie Memphis veteran. His new film Show Business Is My Life—But I Can’t Prove It is the story of Gary Mule Deer, a comedian whose 50 year career has touched the lives of millions. Among the friends of the comedian who appear in the film are David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Steve Martin, and Alice Cooper. The film also features recreations of incidents from Gary’s life starring a host of Memphis actors.
Director Chuck O’Bannon is a Memphis video production legend. You might not have heard his name, but if you’re of a certain age, you’ve seen the commercial he produced for Brother James Salton’s Up From The World ministries hundreds of times. You know the one.
O’Bannon’s latest film is United Front—The People’s Convention 1991 Memphis. “I got a phone call from Annie Robinson,” he says, “who was one of the original community activist people involved with creating the People’s Convention back in 1991. They were getting ready to do their 30th anniversary, and she realized that the story had never been documented. When I read the script she sent to me, I was really excited about the idea of documenting one of the most historical events in Memphis history.”
The 1991 People’s Convention brought together the fractured Black community in Memphis to choose a consensus candidate for mayor. Their choice was Dr. Willie Herenton, a former school superintendent who would go on to become the first Black mayor in Memphis history. “Getting everybody to agree on one of anything in Memphis is always the problem,” says O’Bannon. “This is the one time that the community came together on one accord and promoted one candidate—and it was successful! From that position, you were able to create other consensus candidates, consensus movements throughout Memphis, that allowed for what was at that time, the minority numbers to have a chance. And to show that, yes, this can be done. There were other communities in other cities that saw what Memphis had done and decided, if they can do it, we can do it too. So it’s sort of set a precedent around the idea of consensus-ism in political elections and probably in other parts of life as well.”
At 6 p.m. is one of this year’s best revival screenings. Daisies was banned in Czechoslovakia upon its 1966 release for being too subversive. Věra Chytilová’s feminist classic takes on authority of all kinds, with a cinematic freedom rarely seen today. Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová as Marie I and Marie II provided the template for anarchist flamethrowers like Pussy Riot, who are still fighting authoritarianism in Eurasia today.
For full information about everything playing today at Indie Memphis, check the festival website.
