Alphabet – Memphis Flyer

Here’s a universal truth about film festivals: If you’re looking at a big schedule of films, but you’re uncertain as to what you want to see, you should choose a block of short films.

Memphis music legend Jimmy Crosswaith in ‘Time Will Tell’

The reason why is simple. If you choose a feature film, and it turns out you don’t like, you’re stuck with it for the duration. But if you choose a shorts block, and you don’t like one of the films, just wait a few minutes and you’ll get something else that you do like.

The second night of Indie Memphis features a killer line up of short films from Memphians. The 6:00 PM Hometowner Narrative Shorts Block includes films from both accomplished Memphis directors and newcomers.

“The Department of Signs and Magical Interventions” by Melissa Anderson Sweazy is a mini epic of one man’s journey through the veil of life and death, and the deadpan humor of finding that the afterworld is just as bureaucratic as the moral coil. “Alphabet” is the latest editing tour de force from Memphis filmmaker and occasional Flyer contributor Ben Siler. You can read more about those two films in Eileen Townsend’s column in this week’s issue.

Also in the block is “Time Will Tell” directed by Mud Boy and the Neutrons percussionist Jimmy Crosswaith along with Theo Patt. Prolific Memphis actor Drew Smith branches out into directing with two short films, “Missed Connection” and “Snow Day”. “Glitching” directors Emily Herene and Lara Johnson led an all-female cast and crew in what they describe as a cross between “Broad City” and “The Twilight Zone.”

Part of the all female cast and crew of ‘Glitching’

The second show at the Halloran Centre features two very different Memphis-centric documentaries. The contemplative documentary Barge by director Ben Powell has won awards at both the Dallas International and Crossroads Film Festival in Jackson. It depicts modern working life on the Mississippi river 150 years after Mark Twain first examined the subject. It is proceeded by “All Day, All Night”, the first film by acclaimed Memphis director Robert Gordon. The film about Beale Street features such remarkable scenes as a meeting of the minds between Rufus Thomas, Evelyn Young, Sunbeam Mitchell, and Earnestine of Ernestine and Hazel’s fame. Gordon, who will speak at a panel on documentary filmmaking at 6 PM, is the co-director of Best Of Enemies, which was a documentary hit this year and is currently gathering buzz for an Academy Award nomination. (As a side note, Memphis musician Jonathan Kirkscey just won an award from the International Documentary Association for the soundtrack of Best Of Enemies.) You can read more about Robert Gordon in this Flyer cover feature from August.

B. B. King in ‘All Day, All Night’

One of the best things about Indie Memphis is the festival’s schedule of shorts from local, national, and international filmmakers. This year, the entries range from documentary shorts about young dancers in Memphis (Suzannah Herbert’s “What’s Inside the Cage”) to narrative works about living with an autoimmune disorder (Stacey Ashworth’s “No Breath Play”). Over 70 submissions, all under 25 minutes, will play throughout the week. We picked out a few of our favorites.

“The Department of Signs and Magical Intervention”

“The Department of Signs and Magical Intervention” – Melissa Anderson Sweazy

When Aidan (Sean McBride) gets hit by a fast-moving bus while skateboarding, he finds himself in the afterlife, a realm that — according to Memphis filmmaker Melissa Anderson Sweazy — looks a whole lot like the most boring parts of corporeal existence. Specifically, it looks like a bank. Except instead of dealing in dollars, this ethereal vault and its matter-of-fact employees dole out “signs and magical intervention” to unsuspecting humans.

“The Department of Signs and Magical Intervention,” shot in Downtown Memphis with a cast of familiar local faces, is perhaps this year’s most charming contender: lighthearted, very funny, and smartly framed by Sweazy. The lesson, as Aidan navigates an undead bureaucracy, is that magic, and second chances, just might exist.

“Alphabet” – Ben Siler

“Alphabet,” the latest from Memphis underground filmmaker Ben Siler, opens with a blonde woman wielding an axe in a suburban kitchen. Blood spatters on her shirt as she hacks at someone out-of-frame. You see her digging a hole in her garden and then shoving potato chips into her mouth and examining her nails. Later, she cries to a neighbor, who comforts her unsentimentally.

In two minutes and 37 seconds, we see two murders, an affair, and the long legacy of a secret. It’s funny and brilliant in Siler’s usual muted, dark way. Siler’s dialogue-less, low-definition shorts are as sharply edited as they are pointedly mundane. Despite frequently macabre and over-the-top plots, the filmmaker’s lens is always focused on unremarkable details, such as the glass of seltzer water on the table, or an unplugged power strip in the corner.

“To Cross”

“To Cross” – Suzannah Herbert

This documentary short from the Brooklyn-based and Memphis-born filmmaker Suzannah Herbert follows a high school student named Jared on his daily commute. At 3:30 a.m., Jared wakes up on the Mexican side of Tijuana, early enough that he is able to cross the border and attend high school in America. Twelve arduous hours later, he returns home to Mexico. “At the end of the day, we are really tired,” says Jared, who, we learn, is the only member of his family able to attend school in the U.S. After graduation, he hopes to be able to support his siblings by finding work in the States.

Herbert’s short shines light on the lengths Jared and his peers go to in order to obtain an education, despite the fact that their schooling is considered illegal since the students are not United States residents. “To Cross” gives viewers a sense of its subjects not only as young people, tasked with the care of their families, but as regular high school students. Herbert, who has worked for Martin Scorsese and Michael Moore in addition to making her own films, tells Jared’s story with a light touch and characteristic skill.

“One Hitta Quitta”

“One Hitta Quitta” – Ya’Ke Smith

“One Hitta Quitta” is a genre-bending narrative entry from newcomer Ya’Ke Smith, a Texas-based filmmaker. The film melds real footage of fights, shot on phones and posted online, with the story of a young man whose obsession with watching violent footage leads him to act out. We see Jason (Dariel Embry) challenge his algebra teacher, Mr. Kelly (Shelton Jolivette), while other students in the class surround with phones primed.

Smith shot entirely on mobile devices, which contributes to the film’s fast pace and realistic feel. In the height of the short’s drama, when Mr. Kelly returns Jason’s punch, the frame shifts from horizontal to vertical to horizontal again, referencing the crowd-sourced depictions of similar real events. Smith’s handling is seamless, and makes what might otherwise be a run-of-the-mill story into something new and on point.