Tag: Amy Seimetz

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Indie Memphis and U of M Present The Debuts: Three of the Best First Films of the Last 15 Years

Tracey Higgins and Wyatt Cenac in Barry Jenkins' debut film, Medicine for Melancholy.

Film festivals are where most filmmakers get their start. Indeed, finding fresh new voices and seeing radical new visions in a too-often bland and homogeneous filmscape is a big draw for festivals like Indie Memphis. Now, the fest is teaming up with the University of Memphis to bring three first films from directors who went on to do big things. 

The Debuts screenings, May 5-6 at the Malco Summer Drive-In, are curated by University of Memphis Department of Communication and Film professor Marty Lang. The first film in the series (May 5th) is one of the most consequential first films of the 21st century. Barry Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy screened at Indie Memphis in 2008. Set in the booming San Francisco of the Aughts, the film stars Wyatt Cenac, who went on The Daily Show fame, and Tracey Higgins, who would later appear in The Twilight Saga, as two young lovers who try to come to terms with their place in the racial and economic hierarchy of their allegedly free and egalitarian city. Jenkins went on to win Best Picture in 2016 for Moonlight; his new historical fantasy project, The Underground Railroad, drops on Amazon Prime on May 14th. The screening will be followed by a discussion led by members of the Memphis Black arts organization The Collective. 

Then, on May 6th, a double feature kicks off with the debut film by Jeff Nichols. The Little Rock, Arkansas native is the brother of Lucero’s frontman Ben Nichols. His first film was Shotgun Stories, starring Michael Shannon. The 2007 film is the story of a feud between two sets of Arkansan half-brothers who find themselves in radically different circumstances, despite their blood connection. After the screening, Nichols will speak with Lang about the making of the film, and his subsequent career, which includes the Matthew McConaughey drama Mud and Loving, the story of the Virginia couple whose relationship led to the Supreme Court legalizing interracial marriage. 

The second film on May 6th is Sun Don’t Shine by Amy Seimetz. The 2012 film stars Memphis filmmaker and NoBudge founder Kentucker Audley and Kate Lyn Sheil (who later went on to roles in House of Cards and High Maintenance) as a couple on a tense road trip along the Florida Gulf Coast. Seimetz went on to a prodigious acting career, as well as leading the TV series adaptation of Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience and directing one of 2020’s most paranoid films, She Dies Tomorrow. Lang will also interview Seimetz about beginning her career with Sun Don’t Shine. 

Tickets to the screenings are available on the Indie Memphis website.

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She Dies Tomorrow

Kate Lyn Sheil as Amy in She Dies Tomorrow

Wystan Hugh Auden won the Pulitzer Prize for his book-length poem “The Age of Anxiety” in 1948. To which I say, 1948? Whatever. Auden knew nothing of anxiety.

Fear? Certainly. Uncertainty? Probably. But when it comes to anxiety, the world of 1948 ain’t got nothing on 2020. There’s the slow creep of climate change, and the possibility of nuclear war never went away. Economic anxiety is real, even though it’s no excuse for racism. And if you’re a person of color, there’s the background hum of racism. Then there’s social media, which increasingly feels like a gun blasting weaponized anxiety directly into your face. We swim in anxiety to an extent Auden never thought possible.

That pervasive, contagious anxiety is what She Dies Tomorrow is all about. Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil) is a recovering alcoholic in the throes of a recent trauma, the details of which become clearer as the film progresses. Alone in her newly-purchased, almost empty house, she has an unexplained psychedelic experience and promptly falls off the wagon. She calls her friend Jane (Jane Adams) for comfort, and puts on her sparkliest dress. When Jane arrives, Amy tells her the secret: She has an overwhelming sense that death is coming for her when the next sun rises.

Jane, a biologist, has a skeptical view of Amy’s Thanatos ideation. Sure, we’re all going to die at some point. But tomorrow? Judging from the way her alcoholic friend is sucking down white wine, she’s in danger of a massive hangover tomorrow, but probably not death. But Amy is insistent. She’s going to die tomorrow, and her final wish is for her skin to be used to make a cool leather jacket.

Jane Adams comforts her doctor in She Dies Tomorrow

Jane chalks it up to the babbling of a drunk, tells Amy to get some rest, and plans on checking up on her tomorrow. Relapses happen. But when she gets home, she has a psychedelic experience of her own. Jane is seized with a sudden fear that she is going to die tomorrow. Not even a fear, really—more like a resigned certainty.

Jane was trying to avoid her sister-in-law Susan’s (Katie Aselton) birthday party, but alarmed by her new knowledge of imminent demise, she shows up in her pajamas. Soon, her brother Jason (Chris Messina) and party guests Brian (Tunde Adebimpe) and Tilly (Jennifer Kim) are also convinced they’re about to kick the bucket. What you would do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow is a perennial party game question, and the victims of Amy’s fearful contagion all have different ideas for terminal activities. A surprisingly large number of them involve doing some killing of their own.

Writer/producer/director Amy Seimetz is, like Greta Gerwig and Josephine Decker, a product of the indie underground. She was a producer on Barry Jenkins’ first film Medicine for Melancholy and acted in Gaby on the Roof in July and Tiny Furniture. She has a Memphis connection, having starred in Kentucker Audley’s Open Five as an out-of-towner being introduced to the joys of the Bluff City. Audley, whom she directed with Sheil in Sun Don’t Shine, stars in flashbacks as Amy’s boyfriend Craig, whose fate goes a long way toward explaining the origin of this plague of fear.

Or maybe not. She Dies Tomorrow may sound like a great grindhouse horror title, but this film is indie to its core. Seimetz is unconcerned with slashing, splattering, or answering questions, only conjuring a mood of pervasive anxiety. After all, if your questions about the future had answers, you wouldn’t have anxiety, would you? With some beautiful imagery, natural acting, and a dash of gallows humor, Seimetz channels the unquiet spirit of the age. Call it Panic Attack: The Motion Picture.

She Dies Tomorrow

She Dies Tomorrow is playing at the Malco Summer Quartet Drive-In.

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She Dies Tomorrow Leads Packed Weekend at the Drive-In

Kate Lyn Sheil freaks out in She Dies Tomorrow

The Malco Summer Drive-In is the place to see movies with an audience right now, and this week’s lineup features some cutting-edge new releases and bona fide classics.

She Dies Tomorrow is a new arthouse suspense horror from actor-turned-director Amy Seimetz. It follows Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil), a depressed young woman who, after a traumatic breakup, becomes convinced she’s going to die. Her Thanatos anxiety spreads to those around her. The film, which co-stars Jane Adams, is presented with Indie Memphis as the organization’s first in-person screening since the pandemic started. Seimetz will join Indie Memphis artistic director Miriam Bale for an online discussion of her new film and notable career on Tuesday, August 11 at 8:30 p.m. You can sign up to participate at the Indie Memphis website.

She Dies Tomorrow Leads Packed Weekend at the Drive-In

Over on Screen 3, will be an all-time summer movie classic. The blockbuster era may have started in 1975 with Jaws, but for my money, the first truly “modern” summer movie was The Empire Strikes Back. It was a sequel, for one thing, to a proven franchise. It set the now-familiar pattern of stretching out the characters and situations introduced in the first film, freed from the necessity of an origin story. And while 1977’s Star Wars was an unexpected hit, Empire arrived with an unprecedented marketing and merchandising juggernaut.

It is also, arguably, the greatest independent movie ever made: It was distributed by 20th Century Fox, but George Lucas created his production company Lucasfilm and took out a bank loan against the box office returns and the ranch that later became the Marin County HQ of Lucasfilm and Skywalker Sound to finance the $33 million production. Directed by Lucas’ USC film professor Irving Kirshner, it remains the best of the Star Wars films, and an example all modern blockbusters aspire to. Check out the uncharacteristically enthusiastic Harrison Ford voiceover on this 1979 trailer.

She Dies Tomorrow Leads Packed Weekend at the Drive-In (2)

All tickets at the drive-in are double features right now, and screen 2 has the strongest pair of films. 2018’s Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler and starring the dynamic duo of Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa and Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger, is the best of the Marvel films, and #13 on my 25 Best Films of the 2010s.

She Dies Tomorrow Leads Packed Weekend at the Drive-In (3)

Black Panther is paired with a genre-defining classic. Enter The Dragon was Bruce Lee’s final film, released weeks after his untimely death in July 1973. Made in Hong Kong for less than $1 million, it grossed a whopping $350 million during periodic re-releases over the next decade, and was almost single-handedly responsible for the explosive popularity of martial arts films in the West. Just check out this scene, the most basic fight in the film, in which Bruce Lee makes his kung fu debut on the secret island of Han (Shih Kien). I defy any modern action picture to match this primal artistry. 

She Dies Tomorrow Leads Packed Weekend at the Drive-In (4)

Showtime at the drive-in is 8:30 p.m. Tickets are available at the Malco website. 

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Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk Anchors Huge Indie Memphis Lineup

Kiki Lane and Stephan James in If Beale Street Could Talk

Director Barry Jenkins’ highly anticipated followup to his 2016 Best Picture Academy Award winner Moonlight will have its Mid South premiere at Indie Memphis 2018.

If Beale Street Could Talk (which is named after a W.C. Handy song, but not set in Memphis) is based on a 1974 novel by James Baldwin in which a woman, played by Kiki Lane, seeks to clear the name of her wrongly convicted husband, played by Stephan James. Jenkins made his Indie Memphis debut in 2008 with his first feature Medicine For Melancholy.

Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk Anchors Huge Indie Memphis Lineup (2)

Jenkins’ film is one of more than 40 features which will screen during the festival, which will take place November 1st-5th, with encore screenings November 7th-8th. The opening night feature is Mr. Soul, a documentary by directors Melissa Haizlip and Samuel D. Pollard, about Ellis Haizlip, the first black talk show host who regularly featured musicians like Stevie Wonder and Patti LaBelle on his program. Closing night is director Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls, about a day in the life of the employees of a sports bar. Bujalski previously appeared at Indie Memphis in 2013 with his groundbreaking feature Computer Chess.

Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk Anchors Huge Indie Memphis Lineup (3)


Boots Riley, the director of this year’s sleeper hit Sorry To Bother You, will be the keynote speaker at the Black Creatives Forum, a new program debuting at this year’s festival. Riley will also present a screening of Terry Gilliam’s 1985 surrealist masterpiece Brazil.

Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk Anchors Huge Indie Memphis Lineup (4)


Amy Seimetz, director of The Girlfriend Experience series and star of Upstream Color, will be on hand to present Barbara Loden’s Wanda, a rarely seen 1970 film that has been called a founding document of feminist cinema.

WANDA Trailer from Janus Films on Vimeo.

Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk Anchors Huge Indie Memphis Lineup (5)

On a lighter note, comedy legend Chris Elliott will be honored with a screening of his so-bad-its-good cult film Cabin Boy. No word on whether Elliott, who was a writer and performer on the original Late Night With David Letterman, will hide under the seats.

Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk Anchors Huge Indie Memphis Lineup (6)

A record 112 Memphis directors will have films in the festival this year, including Brett Hanover’s Rukus, a documentary/narrative hybrid years in the making which won the Grand Jury award at this year’s Nashville Film Festival.

Rukus (2018) – Trailer from Brett Hanover on Vimeo.

Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk Anchors Huge Indie Memphis Lineup

Indie Memphis will take place at the Orpheum Theatre’s Halloran Centre and at Playhouse On The Square, Studio On The Square, Theaterworks, and the Hattiloo Theatre. By popular demand, the block party will return, with the Cooper street blocked off during the weekend of the festival, and music and panels hosted in a giant tent. Festival passes are currently available on the Indie Memphis website. The Memphis Flyer will have continuing coverage of the festival throughout October and November. 

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2018 Outflix Film Festival

Outflix is more than a film festival: It is a celebration of community, says festival co-director Matt Barrett. “Here’s what it’s all about: Whoever you are, we want you to be able to see yourself onscreen. That’s my life. That’s me. I can relate to that.”

Barrett and co-director Kat King took over running the festival from Will Batts, the longtime director who moved to Houston last year. Under Batts’ leadership, the festival, which began as a fund-raiser for OUT Memphis (formerly known as the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center), grew in prestige and size. Now, it is OUT Memphis’ primary outreach event. “When I came here, I was looking for community,” says King. “I found the center. I’d always been a big movie buff, and Outflix was the first program I found. That was my introduction to Will … Then, after a year of watching films, rating films, and helping put this whole thing together, Will looked at Matt and me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to run it next year?'”

Wild Nights With Emily, starring Molly Shannon (left) and Amy Seimetz, plays opening night at Outflix.

Of course, running a film festival that receives more than 350 entries a year is not as easy as it sounds. “To narrow it down to a week’s worth of films is nearly impossible. There are a ton of great films we didn’t use, just based on time and space available,” says Barrett.

King and Barrett found that it took the two of them, along with help from Out Memphis’ Director of Development Stephanie Reyes, to replace the work Batts was doing every year. “It is a part time job that we don’t get paid for,” says Barrett.

To give the festival a fresh start, King and Barrett said they put everything on the table. The restarted Outflix’s dormant Summer Series, showing LBGTQ films that were hits at past festivals, such as the groundbreaking comedy from the dawn of the digital era, Sordid Lives. “Especially for a gay Southern person, you look at this movie and say, ‘This is my life!'” says Barrett.

On August 21st, the traditional preview party was spiced up with Outflix’s first local shorts competition, which was won by writer Skyy Blair’s comedic directorial debut “Motions.”

On Friday, September 7th, the main festival will open as it traditionally does with a documentary and narrative feature. The 34th, directed by Linda Cullen and Vanessa Gildea, is a documentary 12 years in the making. It tells the story of Marriage Equality in Ireland, a group that fought to extend civil marriage rights to LBGTQ people, beginning in 2005 when plaintiffs Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan sued to get their Canadian union recognized in the Emerald Isle.

The opening night narrative is Wild Nights With Emily, a historical dramedy in which director Madeleine Olnek tells the secret history of poet Emily Dickinson (Molly Shannon). Though people like Mabel Todd (Amy Seimetz), her sister-in-law who published her poems posthumously, called Dickinson a prudish spinster, Olnek reframes her heroine as a closeted lesbian doing her best to live a fulfilling life in stifling Victorian society. Shannon’s performance as the would-be libertine poet forced to wear a mask of chastity drew raves upon the film’s premiere at this year’s South By Southwest film festival.

The festival runs through the weekend and into the next week with 13 narrative features, five feature documentaries, and 32 shorts. King says its an exciting time for LBGTQ film. “People are starting to tell different stories in the community. There will always be space for a coming-out story or the teen story. But this year there are more unique storylines, and some that kept that thread, but told it differently.”

One such film is Saturday afternoon’s offering, Freelancers Anonymous, a comedy about balancing work and personal lives. “It’s a super cute movie about a lesbian couple who are taking the next steps in their life,” says King. “They’re planning for a wedding. At the same time, one of them quits their job and starts a freelancer’s group with a ragtag group of people who are all out of a job.”

On Tuesday, September 11th, Outflix will have its first all-Spanish-language Latinx night, beginning with a block of short films from as far away as Brazil and Costa Rica, and then Columbian director Ruth Caudeli’s Eve & Candela. “We’re trying to engage different parts of our community, especially since we just started a Latinx group at the center,” says Reyes.

King says it’s OUT Memphis’ goal to expand their community to all underrepresented LBGTQ groups, and the festival’s films reflect that push toward ever increasing diversity. “We’re showing a lot of diverse transgender movies and shorts. Moreso this year, I think we tried to connect the programming at Outflix with the programs at the center.”

Outflix 2018 runs from Friday, September 7th to Thursday, September 13th at the Malco Ridgeway Cinema Grille. For a full schedule, tickets, and passes, visit outflixfestival.org.