At a “Peep Show” hosted by filmmaker and longtime festival supporter Craig Brewer Thursday night, Indie Memphis announced the slate for its 15th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival, which will be held at multiple locations in and around Overton Square (with Playhouse on the Square the fest’s home base) from Thursday, November 1st through Sunday, November 4th.
Among the highlights of the festival are, by my count, half a dozen titles that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival early this year and another handful that recently premiered at Toronto, perhaps North America’s highest-profile film festivals.
The festival will also welcome the return of Memphis-bred filmmaker Ira Sachs, who will be on hand for the local premiere of his new film Keep the Lights On, which will screen along with a career retrospective that will include Sachs’ two Memphis-shot features, The Delta (Saturday, Brooks Museum, 2 p.m.) and Forty Shades of Blue (Friday, Studio on the Square, 6:45 p.m.), his star-studded period piece Married Life (Sunday, Studio on the Square, 7:15 p.m.), and a program of his short films.
For a full schedule and ticketing information, check indiememphis.com, where the schedule should be posted, in parts, over the coming days.
Here’s a quick, early look at some of the high profile selections and potential highlights:
Gala Screenings
These are the feature screenings for each night of the festival, which will each be shown in early evening screenings at Playhouse on the Square
Thursday: Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (6:30 p.m.)
This documentary portrait of the legendary Memphis band of the ’70s had a private, work-in-progress screening earlier this summer that I reported on then and will have its official Memphis premiere to open the festival.
