Those of us who were at the Indie Memphis Film Festival this weekend were treated to a great bloc of music videos. R.U.D.Y. had two music videos in the mix, including the pleasingly lo-fi “Show Improvement.”
The music video is an homage to one of R.U.D.Y.’s favorite shows. “Home Improvement was one of my favorite shows growing up. It was only right we showed some love. The ’90s babies will understand lol,” he says. “In this world of madness we must always strive to Show Improvement. A lot of time it’s tempting to settle for the bare minimum. It’s not enough to show up. We MUST SHOW IMPROVEMENT.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Director David Goodman (Photo courtesy David Goodman)
Director David Goodman is an associate professor of film and television production at University of Memphis. His new film, Adopting Greyhounds, premieres at Indie Memphis on Sunday, November 17th, at 5 p.m. (Get tickets here.)
I spoke with Goodman about the film, dogs, and editing. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
A still from Adopting Greyhounds (Courtesy David Goodman)
Tell me how this project got started.
I always meant to catch a race over the years. I never got a chance to, and some folks that I knew had come through the area and filmed one of the races on 8mm [film]. I remember seeing that and thinking it looked neat. Then I heard it was closing, and that piqued my interest, because in making the kind of documentary films that I make, it’s hard to find an ending sometimes, to find a way for everything to feel like it comes to a conclusion. The idea of racing ending really got me. I started my whole train of thinking in terms of this being a documentary. So I reached out to some people, and it took quite a number of months to get in touch with some of the folks who ran the adoption center. I really wanted to focus on what happens to the greyhounds after they finish racing. So I wanted to look at racing from across the road, so to speak, because the adoption organization was really across the street from Southland Racing. So I reached out to them and I just started a relationship and began filming. I thought greyhounds were cool dogs. I’ve seen a lot of people with adopted greyhounds in Memphis, and it sparked my interest that this aspect of the Mid-South was going to be gone.
Do you have dogs?
I’m a dog owner. I’ve almost always had a dog, and while filming this documentary, two stray pit bull/boxer mix dogs turned up in our driveway, and we ended up keeping them. I actually was considering adopting a greyhound, but it just so happened that some other dogs showed up that ended up living with me, my wife, and family.
How long did you work on it?
I started filming in February 2022 and filmed throughout the year until January 2023. Racing was set to end in December 2022. Then I stuck around to film a little bit of the final weeks, as well. So, a year of filming, and basically a year of editing the footage down. The way that I approach documentaries, or try to, is from a more observational perspective. I go into a space, and I just film the processes and conversations that people have. I try to avoid sit-down interviews or at least I did in this documentary. What would naturally happen is people would speak to me while I was holding the camera, or they would speak to one another. And in that way, I try to capture more naturalistic scenes that happen in a space, and try to convey the story in that way, rather than creating an interview-driven narrative.
It’s kind of a Les Blank-like technique, it seems.
Oh, yes, that’s right. Les Blank, Frederick Wiseman, and a lot of my mentors, David Appleby, who did plenty of work in interview-based documentaries, but his earlier films followed this more observational approach.
It’s a direct cinema, ’60s kind of vibe.
Yes, it’s definitely an approach that you don’t see as often these days.
Why do you think that is?
I think it takes less time to do that. You can go in and interview someone, and you can really shape a narrative more clearly. With a more observational or direct cinema approach, I think the experience can be that there are more questions for a viewer. A lot of popular modern documentaries are constantly sort of answering questions very explicitly, with people speaking the answers. Whereas, I think it’s more fun to watch a film and kind of try to figure out a world and be dropped into it without exposition and too much set up. It’s just more of a challenge, I would say, to piece together things, and there’s more mystery to it.
Did you edit this yourself?
I did, yes.
That’s where it gets really daunting, in that phase especially, because you end up with this pile of undifferentiated footage, and you’re like, ‘Wow I could continue to put this together in different combinations until the heat death of the universe!’ It’s hard to know when you’ve got it right.
It really is. And with documentaries, the editing becomes the writing of the documentary in a lot of ways. There’s prep, and there’s consideration of structure when filming, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. New things, unexpected things, happen, and as the person out there in the field, filming, I inevitably get attached to stuff. You gotta wrestle with yourself as the editor. Definitely on this project, I felt the need to begin thinking maybe for the next one I’ll get an editor.
Let me ask you about greyhounds. I get the impression that they’re very skittish dogs.
They’re much like any other dog. They have certain different kinds of ailments than other dogs. Their skin is very delicate, and the way they’re built, they’re prone to certain injuries. All of the greyhounds I encountered were very friendly.
What opinion did you come away with about racing?
You know, that’s a good question. It’s one of those questions I avoid. I tried to not have an opinion, and I felt like I had the luxury of not having to form an opinion because I was really focused on the adoptions and where these dogs go from here. I remained as unbiased as I could, and I just wanted depict the things I saw and tried to avoid the politics of the issue and just look at the dogs and all the work that goes into transitioning them to the next phase of their lives.
When he was growing up, Caleb Suggs wanted to be a zoologist. “But when I went to Germantown High School, they have a TV station in their school, so I got involved with that and that kind of set me on my path to major in broadcast journalism and film. When I was at University of Memphis, I got my first film job through the journalism department. My teacher, Roxanne Koch was directing a documentary on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. I got a producing gig, and I edited it and narrated the movie through the film department. I got to do my first film that I directed in 2020, and I have made films every single year since then with my brother. We started the film production company called Studio Suggs in 2021.”
Suggs’ film in Indie Memphis 2024 was the brain child of Debbie Robertson at WKNO-TV. “They came to me, because they knew about what I did in video and film, and pitched to me the idea, because they really wanted um to have something that showed up our local HBCU,” says Suggs. “They saw that other cities had some kind of documentary or program that highlighted their HBCUs, but Memphis didn’t have one. So they wanted them to put LeMoyne-Owen College on the map and raise more awareness.”
Suggs says making The Magic of LOC: LeMoyne-Owen at 160 was as much of a learning experience for him as it will be for the audience.. “I actually didn’t know much of anything about LeMoyne-Owen College at all until we started the project. … I had no idea that it was really the students who spearheaded the desegregation of Memphis, and how they were the main ones doing the sit-ins in town. I learned what the draw was for HBCUs. You know, I’ve never been to an HBCU. I went to the University of Memphis. So I got first-hand experience about the culture. The first thing we shot for the documentary was their homecoming week. It was their 160-year anniversary. Seeing how everybody down there was really a family, and seeing how tight the connections were was something that was just completely new to me.”
Suggs, who had directed indie comedies like “Homeboys Haunted”, was new to documentary helming. “I would say that documentaries are easier than narratives on the front end, but way harder on the back end,” he says. For narrative films “… you plan everything out — the lines, the camera movement, the lighting, everything — all the work at the front end. Then for me, because I typically edit everything, I direct, I know how everything has been shot and pieced together. It’s easier for me to get the skeleton of the film, and then really, editing just becomes putting on the finishing touches. For documentary, you’re showing up and you can’t really set too much stuff up, because you’re just kind of dropping in and following people or setting up interviews. The hard part becomes taking what everyone said and trying to build a skeleton from what you have, rather than from what you’ve planned out. Documentaries just take a lot more time, and a lot of playing around until you kinda get the feeling of the movie and the aesthetic from the words that people give you, not from something that you pre-plan. So especially for something like this, going in where it was my first experience with it. We just had to figure out the vibe of school before we could figure out the real tone and feeling of the movie, and the aesthetic that came with it. The movie is called The Magic of LOC, and it has this magical type of theme to it. We didn’t even know that until we walked in and started interviewing people.”
Suggs says he loves to show his work at Indie Memphis. “I think it’s cool that we have a film fest to go to in town! It gives a lot of people here in town something to do with their movie, once they make it. It gives them something exciting to put it in, instead of just on Youtube. It gives you an audience. It gives you a way to meet other filmmakers. It’s just an overall cool experience. When I was first graduating college, and I had my first movie, that was just like the goal. It is the holy grail of where my movie could end up. Now that I’m a bit older, I’ve gone to other festivals, I realize Indie Memphis is a lot better than a lot of other film festivals around the country.”
The Magic of LOC: LeMoyne-Owen College at 160 screens Saturday, November 16 at 3:15 pm at Studio on the Square. Tickets are available at the Indie Memphis website.
This week on the Memphis Flyer Podcast, we talk about the Indie Memphis Film Festival with Film/TV Editor Chris McCoy. We bring you interviews with Indie Memphis executive director Kimel Fryer, plus Hometowner directors Anwar Jamison (Funeral Arrangements), Thandi Cai (Bluff City Chinese), Michael Blevins (Marc Gasol: Memphis Made), Jaron Lockridge (Cubic Zirconia), John Rash (Our Movement Starts Here), and Jasmine Blue (Big Time). As if that’s not enough, we also get the skinny latte on the Grind City Coffee Xpo from Daniel Lynn.
The mission of the Indie Memphis Film Festival is to bring films to the Bluff City which we could not see otherwise. Some Indie Memphis films return to the big screen the next year, like American Fiction, which screened at last year’s festival and went on to win an Academy Award for writer/director Cord Jefferson. For the last 27 years, it has been an invaluable resource for both beginning and established filmmakers in the Mid-South. Early on, the festival launched the career of Memphis-based director Craig Brewer, whose recent limited series Fight Nightwas a huge hit for the Peacock streaming service. Many others have followed.
This year’s festival brings changes from the norm. First of all, it takes place later than usual, with the opening night film, It Was All a Dream, bowing on Thursday, November 14th, and running through Sunday, November 17th. There will be encore presentations at Malco’s Paradiso on Monday, November 18th, and Tuesday, November 19th. “We are having encores because our biggest complaint is that we have too many films back to back that people want to see. So that was a direct response to our audience,” says Kimel Fryer, executive director of Indie Memphis.
Opening night film It Was All a Dream is a documentary by dream hampton, a longtime music writer and filmmaker (who prefers the lowercase) from Detroit, Michigan. Her 2019 film Surviving R. Kelly earned a Peabody Award and was one of the biggest hits in Netflix history.
“I’m really excited to see how everyone thinks of our opening night film,” says Fryer.
It Was All a Dream is a memoir, of sorts, collecting hampton’s experiences covering the golden era of the hip-hop world in the 1990s. “I really enjoyed watching it, especially seeing footage of Biggie Smalls, Prodigy from Mobb Deep, Method Man, and even Snoop Dogg before they became icons. They’re just hungry artists. Even Q-Tip is in it, and the other night, Q-tip was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. So I was thinking about that as I was watching the awards. He was such a baby in this field, he had no clue 20, 30 years from now he was going to be on this stage,” says Fryer.
The festival is moving in space as well as time. While the festival will return to its longtime venue Malco Studio on the Square, there will be no screenings at Playhouse on the Square this year. The 400-seat Crosstown Theater will screen the opening night film and continue screenings throughout the long weekend. On Saturday at 11 a.m., it will also be the home of the Youth Film Fest. “This is the first year we’re combining the Youth Film Fest with the annual festival,” says Fryer. “That’s really cool, being able to allow the youth filmmakers to still have their own dedicated time, but also to be able to interact and see other films that are outside of their festival. We do have some films that are a little bit more family-friendly than what we have had in the past.”
Flow
Among those family-friendly films are a great crop of animated features, including Flow by Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis. Flow is a near wordless adventure that follows a cat and other animals as they try to escape a catastrophic flood in a leaky boat. The film has garnered wide acclaim in Europe after debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, and will represent Latvia in the International category at the Academy Awards.
“I thought it was interesting because, of course, when Kayla Myers, our director of programming, selected these films, we had no idea some of the more recent impacts from the hurricanes and things of that nature would happen,” says Fryer.
Boys Go to Jupiter
Julian Glander’s Boys Go to Jupiter is a coming-of-age story about Billy 5000, a teenager in Florida who finds himself tasked with caring for an egg from outer space. First-time director Glander is a veteran animator who did the vast majority of the work on the film himself. The Pittsburgh-based auteur told Cartoon Brew that he and executive producer Peisin Yang Lazo “… did the jobs of 100 people. I have no complaints — it’s been a lot of work, but it feels really good to make a movie independently, to not have meetings about everything and really own every creative decision.”
Memoir of a Snail
The festival’s third animated film, Memoir of a Snailby Australian animator Adam Elliot, is the story of Grace (Sarah Snook), a young woman who escapes the tedium of her life in 1970s Melbourne by collecting snails. When her father dies, she is separated from her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and put into an abusive foster home. We follow Grace as she navigates a difficult life, full of twists and turns, with only her snails as a constant comfort. “Memoir of a Snail is an adult animated film,” says Fryer. “Bring the kids at your own risk.”
The spirit of independence is what puts the “indie” in Indie Memphis. The festival has always been devoted to unique visions which question the status quo. Nickel Boys, the centerpiece film which will screen on Sunday night at Crosstown Theater, is by director RaMell Ross. “I’m really excited about that film,” says Fryer. “But also, it uses film as a critique. It’s based on the novel from Colson Whitehead that won a Pulitzer Prize.”
Nickel Boys takes place in 1960s Florida, where a Black teenager, Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp), is committed to a reform school after being falsely accused of attempted car theft. There, he meets Turner (Brandon Wilson), and the two become fast friends. The film is shot by Jomo Fray, who was the cinematographer behind All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, which opened last year’s Indie Memphis festival. It is highly unusual for its first-person perspective, which shifts back and forth between the two protagonists, so that you are put in the perspective of the characters, who are battling to keep their humanity in a deeply inhumane environment.
Fryer says bringing radical artistic works like these to Mid-South audiences is central to the organization’s mission. “I think that’s honestly one reason why people like Indie Memphis. Don’t get me wrong, people do like to see the very well-known films, the more commercial films, the ones that get a lot of press. But I think the people who enjoy coming to Indie Memphis also enjoy seeing things outside of the box, seeing things that push the narrative. And it makes sense when you think about Memphis. Memphis is never going to be this cookie-cutter place, and people who live here love it because it’s not.”
Funeral Arrangements
This year’s festival has a strong local focus, with seven features in the Hometowner category. One of the locals is a 15th anniversary screening of Funeral Arrangements by Anwar Jamison. The writer/director is low-key one of the most successful Memphis filmmakers from recent years, having produced, directed, and starred in Coming to Africa and its sequel, which were both big hits in Ghana and other African countries. Funeral Arrangements was his debut feature.
Funeral Arrangements Anwar Jamison
“Man, talk about a passion project,” Jamison says. “I just think back to being in film school in the graduate program at the University of Memphis, and now, it’s a full-circle moment because I’m teaching at the University of Memphis, and I have grad students and I’m working on these projects. I look back like, ‘Wow! That was me!’ And now I understand why my professors were telling me no, and that I was crazy to try to do a feature film for my final project, when I only needed 15 minutes. But I’m like, ‘No, I have this script!’ We had a bunch of young, hungry crew members. No one had done a feature, whether it was the crew or the actors. We had a lot of theater students in it, and everybody was just like, ‘Wow, this would be cool!’ They all saw my vision. I had the script, being that I come from a writing background, and everybody really jumped on board to make it happen. I feel like it was the perfect storm of young creativity and energy, and it really showed in the final product. I’m proud of it!”
The idea for the film began with an incident at work. “Most of the things I’ve written start out as something that happened in real life, and then I take it and fictionalize it,” Jamison says. “It was based on an experience I had working a job that really was like that. I couldn’t be absent again, so I really lied to the supervisor and told him I had to go to a funeral. And he really said, ‘Bring me the death notice or the obituary.’ In real life, I didn’t do it, and he didn’t bother me. I ended up keeping my job. But as a writer, in my mind it was like, ‘Whoa, that would be funny. What if the guy really went to a funeral, and now he gets caught up in a situation?’ It just came from there.”
It was this idea that got Jamison’s talent noticed. “When I was an undergrad, actually in the very first screenwriting class that I took, my professor called the morning after we had the final project, which was to write the first act of a feature film. I’m like, ‘Why is this professor calling me?’ And she was like, ‘I really enjoyed the script. Could we use it as the example in class to read for the others?’ That let me know I was onto something.”
Jamison says he’s ready to celebrate the past and looking forward to the future. “I have the third Coming to Africa that I’m preparing for, and I hope to do in 2025, if all goes well, and wrap that up as a trilogy. But what I found, once you get there, there’s just so many stories that connect the diaspora and Ghana in so many ways. There’s so many natural stories to tell that I would love to keep telling them.”
Bluff City Chinese
“I actually got into filmmaking through fashion,” says Thandi Cai. “I was working in textile art for a while, and I was making a lot of costumes. A lot of the things that I was making didn’t really make sense in our reality right now, so I was starting to build stories around the costumes I was making. Then I wanted to create films out of those costumes and realized, ‘Oh, this is a potential career that I could follow!’ So then I started doing videography commercially, in addition to all these little small fashion films on the side. Film and video started becoming more of my storytelling practice, and a tool of how I could explain and share what I was learning with the world.”
Bluff City Chinese
They began work on their documentary feature debut Bluff City Chinese in 2020. “It originally started out as an oral history project. And because, like I said, I think film is such a powerful tool, I started recording oral histories visually. But then didn’t know what we were going to do with it.”
Several people suggested Cai apply for an Indie Grant. The Indie Memphis program, originated by Memphis filmmaker Mark Jones, awards two $15,000 grants each year, selected from dozens of applications by local filmmakers. Cai was awarded the grant in 2022. “I really didn’t have very high expectations of getting it, so I was just blown away and really grateful that we did.”
Indie Grants are nominally for short films, but Cai said their project grew to 45 minutes. “It was just a huge, huge help. I think it made a really big difference because prior to getting that money, the vision for the documentary was very DIY, really lo-fi. I was not expecting this to be a full-fledged film, really. It was like, let’s try to get these oral histories out there by whatever we need to do to get it out there. To be able to have that money to really just dive in and see how far we could take the actual production value was just enormous. And yeah, it’s much more beautiful than I ever thought we could make it, and I think that will just help us be able to share these stories with more people.”
Cai grew up in Memphis, but they say it wasn’t until later in their life that they were aware of the long legacy of Chinese immigrants who had made Memphis home. “That’s the crazy part! Growing up as a Chinese American in Memphis, I didn’t learn about any of this until 2020, and it was only because of all the things that were happening in the world, and especially to people who look like me. That’s why I’m pushing this film so hard because this isn’t something that a lot of us get to learn when we’re growing up. There haven’t been a lot of discussions or platforms that are sharing these stories. I consider a lot of the people that we talk about as my ancestors or my elders or my community members, but I didn’t meet a lot of them until very recently. I really hope that no matter how late someone is in their journey, that when they do find this connection to their roots, they feel like they can just jump in and embrace it.”
Marc Gasol: Memphis Made
Director Michael Blevins is the head of video post-production for the Memphis Grizzlies. “Basically, the way I describe it is anything that gets edited, it comes through me and my team,” he says. “So the intro video that gets played before the game, I will edit that, and commercial spots or behind-the-scenes stuff about the current team.”
Marc Gasol: Memphis Made
Before coming to Memphis in 2016, Blevins had previously been with the Chicago Bears, the Houston Astros (“I believe we had one of the worst records in baseball history,” he says), and the San Francisco 49ers. “Then I came here, and I overlapped with the subject of the documentary, Marc Gasol, for his last three seasons in Memphis. So I got to know him and Mike Conley really well.”
Blevins normally works on a very quick turnaround, but the world of documentary films is quite different. It requires patience and flexibility. “In a project like this, the scope becomes bigger. In terms of production, in terms of lining up interviews, shooting, all that stuff, we were able to spend seven months on it. But in the same time, you then have 50 interviews. You got to tell an hour-and-a-half story basically. So a month or two to edit something in a vacuum sounds great compared to the usually quick turnaround of a current NBA team. But then you want to tell a story perfect because it is telling his whole story of his professional basketball career. So it’s not like with current content, when there’s always another game coming up. This is it. It’s a little dramatic, and he has a sense of humor, so we laugh about it. But it’s like writing somebody’s obituary. You’re not going to get another chance to do it. It’s their basketball career.”
It was important to Blevins to go beyond the surface image of the star basketball player and uncover the emotions that drove him. “Marc is a super competitive guy, and the big thing was, as the people that knew him say — and a lot of people didn’t realize this from the outside — is that competitiveness would spill over a lot of times in terms of trying to deal with teammates. That’s one of my favorite segments in the film. It’s like 20 minutes about different stories people were telling about Marc being very competitive and looking back at everything through a different lens of today. And I think he looks at it very differently, where he felt like he could have been better. But he knows in his head, and different players say it in the film, they needed him to be like that. If that was a spillover of him chewing him out during the game and then after the time-out was over, he was going to give it all and make a play on defense to save that guy, or make a play on offense to set that guy up. It was going to be worth it. But I think athletes, and all of us in general, as we get older, sometimes if you reach success or you’re happy with what your career has done, you start to look back and think, ‘What was the cost of that?’”
Cubic Zirconia
Jackson, Tennessee, native Jaron Lockridge’s Cubic Zirconia is the only locally produced narrative feature in a field of thoughtful documentaries. “I’ve been filmmaking now since about 2016, and just self-producing feature films, and going that route now that technology makes it easier. I just decided to jump out there and don’t take no for an answer.”
Cubic Zirconia Jaron Lockridge
Lockridge, who began as a writer, produces, directs, lights, shoots, and edits his films. “When I found quickly that I couldn’t afford to hire people to produce my work, I just became that multi-tool to start producing my own work, and getting to this point now.”
Cubic Zirconia takes place in what Lockridge calls The Stix Universe, which is tied into his self-produced web series. “It’s a good old-fashioned crime mystery, I like to say. It’s similar to something like Prisoners or maybe even a touch of Se7en, for people who like those type of movies. It follows a missing family, and these detectives are trying to find some answers to what happened. When they locate the deceased mother of this missing family, then it’s just an all-out blitz to find the children and figure out the ‘why’ behind it all. You’ve kind of got to pay attention. But when it comes to the end and you realize what’s happened, I believe it’ll be a shocker to a lot of the audience members.”
Keith L. Johnson stars as the police detective on the case. “I’ve worked with him several times before. He’s one of my regulars, so we just have a great chemistry together to the point where I can just give him a script and give him very little direction. He just understands my work.”
Memphians Kate Mobley and Kenon Walker are also veterans of the Stix Universe. Terry Giles is a newcomer. “He was one that I haven’t worked with before, and he was a very pleasant surprise. He only has a small time on the movie, but when you see him, you notice him. He commands the screen, and he’s a talent that I’m looking forward to working with again. I’m very excited about the performances in this movie.”
Passes and individual screening tickets are on sale at imff24.indiememphis.org. There, you can also find a full schedule for this weekend’s screenings and events.
It’s Halloween weekend, so there’s plenty of scary stuff on the big screen this weekend. Let’s get to it!
Venom: The Last Dance
Tom Hardy returns for the third time as Eddie Brock, a former journalist who is the host for an alien symbiote named Venom. After defeating Carnage in the last film, he’s now on the run from the law in Mexico. But the man he’s accused of murdering is still alive, and the folks at Area 51 (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple) are also looking for him, because the creator of the symbiotes, Knull (Andy Serkis), is on his way to Earth.
Your Monster
If you like your monsters a little friendlier, this indie rom com is the movie for you. Melissa Barrera is Laura, a young woman who survived cancer, only to have her boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) break up with her. As she’s trying to deal with all this trauma, a monster (Tommy Dewey) appears in her closet. And you know what? He may be boyfriend material.
I AM
Memphis filmmakers Jessica Chaney and Amanda Willoughby’s film about the mental health struggles of Black women will debut on WKNO on Friday, October 25th. The film, which was a hit at last year’s Indie Memphis Film Festival, is also screening at MoSH on Saturday, October 26th at 4 p.m., accompanied by a panel discussion with the film’s stars, Dr. Crystal DeBerry (Licensed Therapist), Angela Sargent (Educator), Angel Coleman (Hairstylist & Business Owner), and Jacqueline E. Oselen (wellness coach & certified Yoga Instructor), moderated by Indie Memphis programmer Kayla Myers. It’s free, but you’ll need to RSVP here.
Crosstown Fright-Tober
Crosstown Theater concludes their Fright-Tober series with a double feature on Saturday, October 26. First up is an all-time classic from Universal Pictures, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Here’s one of the most famous sequences from the 1954 film, a landmark in underwater photography. That’s actor Ricou Browning holding his breath for 4 minutes per take in the Gill Man suit.
The second film of the double feature is 1981’s Evil Dead. Filmed in Tennessee, it’s a horror classic that launched the careers of director Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and, indirectly, the Coen Bros. Later films in the series, like Army of Darkness, pioneered modern horror comedy, but Evil Dead is legit scary and over-the-top as all hell.
Haxänwith Alex Greene and the Rolling Head Orchestra
One of the most influential horror films ever made is Haxän, director Benjamin Christensen’s hybrid documentary about the witch hunts of Europe in the Middle Ages. The recreations of black sabbath celebrations (with Christensen himself playing Satan) and inquisitions provide indelible images that have resonated through the decades. Wednesday, October 30th at the Crosstown Arts Green Room, Memphis Flyer music editor Alex Greene and his Rolling Head Orchestra with reprise the theremin-heavy live score he composed for the silent film, which was commissioned by Indie Memphis in 2022. I was there the first time, and it was awesome!
“I have a rose on my thumb because I just love love,” he says. “I love the idea of love. I just struggle with it a lot.”
He has a sailboat tattoo on his wrist. That’s a reminder to “remember to just go with the flow. Life will take you this way and that way.”
Since Brooks, 30, began making movies as a child, life has taken him to the Sundance Film Festival as winner of the Sundance Ignite award. He won the $10,000 Memphis Film Prize twice for his movies in 2018 and 2019. And he’s earned several awards for his short films and music videos at the Indie Memphis Film Festival.
His recent movie, “What Were You Meant For?,” which deals with Black male identity, is included in the current Crosstown Arts film exhibition.
Filmmaker Craig Brewer is a Brooks fan. “I remember seeing this short he had made and thinking, ‘I’ve never seen Memphis kids skateboarding look so epic and beautiful,’” Brewer says. “It was cinema. It wasn’t just skateboarding. Ever since then Kevin has been growing as a storyteller, as a director.”
It all began with Power Rangers when Brooks was 5 years old. “I used to have toy Power Rangers as a little kid,” Brooks says. “And I used to mimic their voices and make them do certain things.” He reenacted scenes from the Power Rangers shows. “I guess that was my way of storytelling and making movies.”
When he was 6, Brooks began using a VHS camcorder his dad bought. “I remember him taking it around the house saying, ‘Press this button,’ which was the red button. ‘And you go and record things. Then if you hit the rewind button, you can watch it back.’ I thought that was the most amazing thing ever. He taught me stop-motion animation.”
Brooks began filming his Power Rangers with his dad’s camera. “I’d just pan back and forth, left and right. After I did that first recording, I would go around recording the dog and just anything.”
That same year, his parents took him to see The Matrix. “That movie was more visually appealing than any movie I had ever seen. It just blew me away. For one, I visually remember the infamous Keanu Reeves-dodging-the-bullet scene. And I remember trying to recreate that. Just myself. Just in my room. Trying to bend backwards. Keep falling over and over again.”
After viewing the movie 20 times on a VHS tape, Brooks discovered the movie included a special feature at the end of the credits that showed how the moviemakers created that bullet effect. “I knew movies weren’t real, but seeing what went into it and seeing the directors telling people it would be this and that, I think that is what got me. Just, ‘This is a world I have got to be in.’”
Skating to Sundance
By the time he was 7, Brooks was making short 30-second films. He didn’t think he wanted to make a living as a filmmaker, but, he says, “I knew I wanted to be in the realm of making movies. At the same time, I was playing basketball really heavy.”
Basketball overshadowed moviemaking for a while. But Brooks continued to get blown away by cinema. He loved films by Quentin Tarantino, Terrence Malick, and Steven Spielberg.
Basketball, eventually, took a backseat to filmmaking. “That’s when things started to change. Before that, I was really wanting to go down the path of being a basketball player. Trying hard. My love just wasn’t there for it anymore. Before the games, I dreaded playing. It was a weird feeling.”
Plan B was moviemaking. “It was always around.”
To make a little cash on the side, Brooks made music videos for local artists. Making videos as well as short films in high school helped him as a filmmaker. “It taught me how to record on the fly. How to grab what I need for the edit and think of the edit while I’m recording — that taught me a lot. At the same time, I knew I wanted to tell my own stories and gear more toward narrative and documentary filmmaking.”
Brooks, who majored in film and production at University of Memphis, made a short film, “Keep Pushing,” during his senior year. “That was my first thing I was super proud of.”
His idea was to cast real skateboarders to showcase their expertise. He then met skateboarder Husain Razvi, who told him, “Man, what if you just follow me around?”
“I was like, ‘Follow you around?’ Husain can skate, but he’s not doing tricks. What he’s doing is just kicking the board, going down the ramps, but nothing exciting like I was going to have these guys doing.”
Then, Brooks says, “A light bulb clicked. And I was like, ‘I was trying to tell the story of all these people who are great skaters.’”
Instead, he shot Razvi. “I filmed him every single part of his day.”
The 10-minute film turned into a documentary. “It was great footage. Him interacting with kids. Him talking about life.”
Brooks was looking at his phone one day in geology class when something caught his attention. “I see that Sundance has this program for 18- to 24-year-olds for short films. It has to be 10 minutes long. You have to turn it in within the next two weeks.”
Brooks went to work on his film about Razvi. “For the next two weeks, all I did was edit. I stayed up every night editing it. I put my own music to it.”
Four weeks later, Brooks received an email that read, “You have been selected as one of the top five filmmakers to be part of the Sundance Ignite program. We will fly you out. We will take care of everything.”
Brooks was stunned. “I literally almost started crying.”
He attended the festival in Park City, Utah. People praised the film. “They were saying that it just felt like you were really there in that world. And the camera movement really made you analyze things differently. They were saying they fell in love with Husain as a character because he felt so real.
“They were saying after the film they had this different outlook on what it means to be successful, what it means to go through life, and how it’s not right to always be in competition with one another.
“The film is about Husain. He’s not great at skateboarding, but he loves doing it every single day. No matter what, you’re not going to stop him. I don’t care if you’re the best skateboarder. He’s not going to compare himself to you. That’s just his nature. He’s like, ‘I’m in my own world and I’m going to take my place and I’m going to do what I do and I’m in love with what I’m doing.’ I think that’s remarkable. That story worked out because of Husain being the most honest human being.”
Brooks continued to make movies after Sundance. “Marcus,” which made it in the top 10 for the Memphis Film Prize, is “a short film that examines the retaliatory state of gang violence.”
“Myron,” which stars Lawrence Matthews, is about “a young Black man who embarks on a day full of skateboarding with his friends who are predominantly white.” He returns home “with a different outlook on life, and how he’s truly seen in society.”
“Grace,” which stars Rosalind Ross, is about a prostitute who always dreamed about singing on the big stage. “She gets her chance when she comes across a flier for a karaoke contest,” Brooks says.
His next film, “Bonfire,” is a “meditative piece on the nature of love and heartbreak. I was inspired by a big breakup that took place. I wanted to get my emotions out, and the best way for me to do that was through film.”
“So, I got my friends together and gave them cameras. And we would go out on the weekend and film scenes with different people and ask them, ‘What is love to you?’ It was very cathartic, and the making of it was experimental. It was highly influenced by Terrence Malick films.”
The movie premiered at the Indie Memphis Film Festival, where it won the Hometowner Documentary Short award in 2018.
His narrative film, “Last Day,” is “about a guy’s last day with his family before he’s sent off to prison.” He won his first $10,000 Memphis Film Prize with that film.
Brooks won his second Memphis Film Prize for his movie, “A Night Out.” “After a bad breakup a woman goes out with her friends for a girls’ night out. But the night doesn’t end the way she expects.”
Indie Memphis awarded Brooks and his co-director Abby Meyers $10,000 for their film “A Night Out.” (Photo: Courtesy Kevin Brooks)
He collaborated on “Night Out” with his friend Abby Meyers, who co-directed the film. “That came from hearing so many stories of women being sexually assaulted,” he says.
Brooks continued to make music videos, including one for Talibah Safiya’s “Healing Creek,” which won the Best Hometowner Music Video award in the Video Memphis competition.
In 2020 Brooks was included among the Memphis Flyer’s 20<30 honorees. He then went to work for Kellogg’s, shooting five episodes around the United States for a mini series, Black Girls Run. The series, which was about “promoting health in the Black community,” featured young women training for their first 5K.
Brooks also did a project for McDonald’s, where he traveled to Los Angeles and “highlighted kids in different sectors who were doing amazing things in the Black community,” he says.
One young man was into finance and a young woman was into fashion. But they were all “game changers.”
“I love connecting with people through stories, and opportunities just come about,” Brooks says. “If it’s a story or an opportunity for me to use my voice in that capacity, I’m 100 percent in.”
In 2022, Brooks went to work in his present job as a videographer for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He interviews and films patients telling their stories.
Brooks won the Hometowner Documentary Short for “Bonfire.” (Photo: Courtesy Kevin Brooks)
Enjoy the Journey
In 2023, Brooks got serious about working on his own feature film. “I wanted to do a feature for so long and put so much pressure on it. When I felt every door was closing, I felt jaded. I just wasn’t sure what my next move would be in terms of independent filmmaking.”
But, he says, “Through that period, I also found that inner kid who was in me again, who just wanted to go out and make movies for fun.”
Brooks returned to moviemaking when he made “Embers of Self,” which played opening night at Indie Memphis Film Festival’s Hometowner Shorts Showcase. “That really got me going, just because it was me being free and making things without a result,” Brooks says. “That’s how art should be. I had gotten away from that.”
Brooks felt he had been “focusing on the end result and not the process.”
That’s when he came up with his Crosstown Arts film. The movie is “just about masculinity and the ways that I have maneuvered in this world because of that label.”
He deals with the idea that Black men “always have to be super masculine,” and that it’s okay to be vulnerable.
Brooks currently is knee-deep into preproduction for a feature film. “I’m really 100 percent going headfirst into it. And I’m doing it my way.
“If it touches one person, that means a lot,” he adds.
Says Brewer: “The thing I’m most impressed with him is, he is hungry for knowledge and always looking for a way to improve himself and keep in the game of filmmaking. Some people burn out. Some people get discouraged. And there’s a lot in this craft that can turn you off to it. But he manages to push through and stay positive and stay creative.”
“He’s a rare one,” says filmmaker Tom Shadyac. “Full of passion, commitment, and talent. He doesn’t just make movies to tell stories. It’s not just a means to an end for him. It’s more holistic for Kevin. He cares about his subjects and subject matter. For him, the means are the end.”
Among the tattoos Brooks sports are ones that read, “Keep Pushing” and “Enjoy the Journey.”
“You’ve got to do those two things,” he says. “You just have to keep pushing. You have to enjoy the journey that you’re on and know that things are not going to happen fast. But if you just follow Husain’s route and just wake up every day and do what you love, then things will work out.”
Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks face death in Joe vs. The Volcano.
Saturday morning of Indie Memphis’ busy weekend kicks off with a cartoon. Robot Dreams (Oct. 28, 10:30 a.m.), the first animated film from Spanish polymath director Pablo Berger, tells the story of a Dog and his Robot as they knock around an animal-inhabited Manhattan.
This year’s Hometowner Documentary Shorts Competition (Oct. 28, 12:45 p.m.) is stacked with talent. Lauren Ready, Indie Memphis’ most decorated documentarian, is looking to take home her sixth trophy with “Empty to Enough,” which she co-directed with Nicki Storey. But that’s not going to be easy with a-list Memphis lensers like Zaire Love’s “Slice,” Jordan Danelz “Klondike,” and Aisha Raison’s “The Blues” in the mix.
“Empty to Enough” Courtesy: Forever Ready Productions
Un rêve plus long que la nuit (Oct. 28, 1:45 p.m.) is a recently restored experimental film from 1976 by French artist Niki de Saint Phalle. As the New York Times said, “the sheer diversity of papîer-mache penises is astounding.” The Plot Against Harry (Oct. 28, 3:40 p.m.) by Michael Roemer is another recently-restored cult favorite screening this year.
On what other Saturday night would have a choice of seeing Keenan Ivory Wayans outlandish 2004 comedy White Chicks (Oct. 28, 6 p.m.) or Ira Sach’s twisty erotic drama Passages (Oct. 28, 8:15 p.m.). But you don’t have to choose! “Chick Passages” is like the Barbenhiemer of Indie Memphis.
If you need a little horror in your Halloween weekend, look no further than 1973’s Messiah of Evil by Willard Hyuck and Gloria Katz, who are probably better known for their work with their friend George Lucas. They later went to earn screenplay credits for American Graffitti and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and did uncredited punch ups on Star Wars. The husband/wife team’s debut is raw and terrifying.
On Sunday there’s a pair of high-profile local films, Scent of Linden (Oct. 29, noon) and The Blues Society (Oct. 29, 3 p.m.). A revival screening of Vojtěch Jasný’s The Cassandra Cat (Oct. 29, 11:15 a.m.) is a hot ticket. The trailer speaks for itself.
The Waynans tribute continues with the classic Blacksploitation farce I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (Oct. 29, 4:45 p.m.).
Or, if you’re in a completely different mood, you can watch indie legend Todd Haynes directs Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman in May/December Oct. 29, 6:15 p.m.). (Comparing schedule and run times suggests a “Sucka/December” combo is theoretically possible for the brave/weird.)
You can round out your Indie Memphis weekend and get into the swing of Halloween with horror master Dario Argento’s Italio-disco slasher fest Tenebrae (Oct. 29, 9:15 p.m.)
Or, you can end on a more positive note, with the last-minute addition to the festival Joe vs. The Volcano (Oct. 29, 9:30 p.m.). Artistic Director Miriam Bale’s mother recently passed away, and this was her favorite movie. Featuring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in their prime, and an absurdist plot that touches on issues of life and death, it’s basically the definition of a cult classic — and perfect for Indie Memphis.
Photo: Courtesy True Story Pictures
Shimaine Holley in
Juvenile: 5 Stories
Even before its premiere at Indie Memphis 2023, directors Joann Self Selvidge and Sarah Fleming’s film Juvenile: 5 Stories received Evident Change’s 2023 Distinguished Achievement Award. This is given to pieces of media that offer “profound insight into the realities of our nation’s social system and the way they impact people and communities.”
The award almost seems like it was made for the film, given the journey it takes audiences on through the true stories of five individuals whom the filmmakers describe as “justice involved” as teens.
The film dives into the lives of Shimaine Holley from Georgia; Ja’Vaune Jackson from Illinois; Romeo Gonzalez from Brooklyn, New York; Ariel Cortez from California; and Michael Dammerich from rural Missouri, as they share their stories and reflect on the many factors that contributed to becoming enmeshed in the juvenile justice and foster care system. Each of the subjects comes from different backgrounds, both geographically and demographically. However, as the filmmakers note, “as their individual narratives unfold in the film, a cohesive narrative emerges of the broken promises of our juvenile system across all American communities.”
The project began in 2017 as part of the National Juvenile Defender Center’s Gault at 50 campaign, which celebrated the landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision In re Gault that gave people under the age of 18 the right to due process in the legal system. This was years after it was announced that the Shelby County Public Defender’s office would be required to offer juvenile defender services. Selvidge was inspired to create a series of short films through her production group True Stories Pictures, which shines a spotlight on the experience of juvenile defendants in Shelby County. One of those films, “Viola,” won awards at both the Indie Memphis and Oxford Film Festival.
After completing these shorts, Selvidge and Fleming knew they wanted to expand their project to feature young people from across the country to show where “transformational change was happening.” The initial goal was to expose people in Memphis and elsewhere to new ideas that were being developed in the juvenile justice system.
Selvidge explains that they began developing networks through people on X (formerly Twitter) who were doing work within youth justice. They connected with people across the country including New York, Chicago, and St. Louis through advocacy organizations, youth defender organizations, and more.
One of the most profound components of the film is hearing the stories told by the people who experienced the inequities of the system first-hand. According to Selvidge, this was intentional. During production, the filmmakers conducted on-camera interviews with academics who study the subject and other experts in juvenile justice. But those interviews, while informative, were eventually relegated to appear on the project’s website. The film is filled with stats and facts, but the bulk of the information is imparted by the real experts — those who experienced incarceration and emerged to tell their stories. “We wanted to focus on the young people who’ve had these experiences as the experts on the system, and learn from them the different ways their experiences can teach us how to not make mistakes with current and future generations of young people who are being harmfully treated by the system,” Selvidge says.
Shimaine Holley says sharing her story was not easy, but it’s what she does. And she wanted to tell it as bluntly as possible. “Because this was a film documentary, I did want to be very cutthroat, so they’ll know what actually went on. I feel like it was needed for this specific space because of the audiences we knew that we were probably going to attract.”
When thinking about the intended audience for the film, Selvidge says they wanted it to be seen by people who are ready to take action, to partner with young people to change the system. Even those who feel they are not directly impacted by the juvenile justice system need to take note, Selvidge says, because their tax payments “enable these systems to thrive. … I think about the ways in which people, who aren’t thinking of themselves as being directly impacted, are indirectly impacting the lives of these children by the choices that they make with the ballot box, and the ways that their elected leaders are using their funds to sustain these types of systems that are doing real harm to our young people and their families.”
Juvenile: 5 Stories premieres Friday, October 27th, at Playhouse on the Square as part of the Indie Memphis Film Festival and streams on Eventive, October 24th-29th, as part of the virtual festival.
When the curtain rises on Indie Memphis 2023 at Crosstown Theater on Tuesday, October 24th, it will be into a film world in chaos. For the art of cinema, it’s the best of times. The financial success of films like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Barbie, and Oppenheimer have proven that audiences are hungry for original ideas after decades dominated by corporate blandness. For the film business, it’s the worst of times. Tensions within the increasingly consolidated industry came to a head this year with twin strikes against the studios by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG/AFTRA).
Like the old saying goes, the problem with the art of film is that it’s a business, and the problem with the film business is that it’s an art. In a world where so much film discourse is devoted to the business end, Indie Memphis artistic director Miriam Bale’s job is to foreground the art. “A lot of what we do as programmers is to try to have something for everyone, but also be really selective, so that no matter what you go see, you’re gonna have a good experience,” she says. “We’ve always tried to keep those very DIY, slightly weird, funny, and bizarre films that are so important to our identity. But in the last few years, we’ve expanded to have a lot of bigger titles and more international titles — the whole art house and beyond.”
One of the highest profile films screening at this year’s festival is American Fiction (Oct. 26th, 5:30 p.m.). Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a frustrated novelist who tries to expose the shallow stereotypes embedded in media by writing a satirically bad book that leans heavily on tired Black tropes. But instead of exposing the publishing industry’s hypocrisy, Monk finds himself perpetuating it when the book becomes a bestseller. Cord Jefferson, who won a writing Emmy for HBO’s Watchmen, makes his directorial debut adapting Percival Everett’s novel Erasure. “A piece of art has never resonated with me so deeply,” he says.
He says Network and Hollywood Shuffle were his inspirations as he tried to set the perfect tone for this difficult material. “I don’t want this movie to feel like we’re scolding anybody,” he says. “I wanted to make sure the satire never traveled into farce. I wanted it to feel authentic to real life.”
May December
Among the other hotly anticipated films is Todd Haynes’ May December, starring Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, and Natalie Portman, whose performance is already attracting Oscar buzz. Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera (Oct. 28th, 5:50 p.m.) is a comedy/drama about a hapless English archeologist who falls in with a crew of unscrupulous grave robbers. “Those are two of the best films I’ve seen all year,” says Bale.
One of the festival’s goals, Bale says, is “redefining prestige. We do that with some of the new films we play, but we also do that with some of the older films we play.”
When deciding how to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, Bale says, “I’ve noticed a lot of organizations are showing the classic documentaries on hip-hop. We wanted to find a different way to mark this important anniversary. Two just absolute bangers are Friday and Belly.”
Friday
One of the GOAT stoner comedies, F. Gary Gray’s Friday (Oct. 27th, 6:20 p.m.) launched Ice Cube’s film career. Belly (Oct. 27th, 10:30 p.m.), by music video legend Hype Williams, features Nas, DMX, and Method Man as New York gangbangers expanding their empire. “What’s interesting about those films is that they influenced indie film, but they were both by music video directors before they got big, and they’re starring rappers.”
“We’re always evolving,” says Bale. “I’m always listening to feedback. After the pandemic, we had a lot of heavy films. So this year we’ve leaned more to the comedy.”
The festival is truly redefining prestige with a tribute to the Wayans Brothers, including White Chicks (Oct. 28th, 6:10 p.m.) and Keenen Ivory Wayans’ 1988 Blaxploitation romp I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (Oct. 29th, 4:45 p.m.), which Indie Memphis executive director Kimel Fryer says is her mother’s favorite movie. “I am a huge Wayans fan,” Fryer says. “I don’t know if anyone knows that about me. I have literally seen every Wayans movie, good, bad, or ugly.”
Bale’s mother recently passed away, and in tribute to her on what would have been her birthday, the final film of the festival will be one of her favorites: Joe Versus The Volcano (Oct. 29th, 9:30 p.m.), the 1990 cult surrealist comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (in three roles).
It’s a perfect fit for Indie Memphis’ eclectic spirit. For 26 years, it’s been the only place in Memphis where you can see unique films like Czech director Vojtěch Jasný’s film The Cassandra Cat (Oct. 29th, 11:15 a.m.). “It’s about a cat with sunglasses, who takes off his sunglasses and literally sees people’s true colors,” says Bale. “If that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will.”
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
The opening night film has a special connection to Indie Memphis. Writer/director Raven Jackson was the recipient of Indie Memphis’ 2019 Black Filmmaker Residency for Screenwriting.
Originally from Tennessee, Jackson lived in Memphis for two months while finishing her screenplay, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. Academy Award-winning filmmaker and Indie Memphis alum Barry Jenkins judged the applicants that year, and once Jackson was finished, he took her under the wing of his production company Pastel. “We do a lot of things at Indie Memphis, but to watch a film go from seed to this incredible flower has been just so rewarding,” says Bale.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
“The way that everything came together is really beautiful,” says Fryer, who saw the film at its Park City, Utah, premiere. “I’m at Sundance for the first time ever, and I’m a first-time executive director from Memphis. I’m completely out of my element. I walk in, I watch this film, and I felt like I was back at my grandma’s house. … I have never seen rural America portrayed as beautifully as this, especially with Black people at the helm. It brought tears to my eyes.”
The film tells the life story of Mack, a young Black woman who grows up in 1960s Mississippi. Jackson uses long, meticulously composed shots to take the viewer inside Mack’s memories of love, loss, and connection. “Some films you watch, right? But some films you experience,” says Fryer.
Jackson and her cinematographer Jomo Fray will be in attendance for opening night on Tuesday, Oct. 24th, at 6:30 p.m. Then on Wednesday, the pair will be at Playhouse on the Square for an in-depth discussion about the film and their process. “The [Terrence] Malik comparisons have come up, but really, I feel like it’s doing something different,” says Bale. “People are having such emotional responses. She made something kind of new, and I can’t think of anything more exciting than to witness the birth of it.”
Thank You Very Much
As I watched Alex Braverman’s fantastic new portrait of comedian Andy Kaufman, Thank You Very Much (Oct. 29th, 2 p.m.), the word I kept writing in my notebook was “deconstructed.” Kaufman took apart stand-up comedy, TV variety shows, professional wrestling, and even human behavior itself, and then reconstructed something new (and often disturbing) out of the pieces. It’s a tribute to Kaufman’s commitment to the bit that when he died in 1984 at age 35, many people believed it was yet another put-on. “It is a daunting, overwhelming subject matter to try to tackle,” says Braverman, who self-identifies as a Kaufman superfan. “But what could be more fun?”
Braverman managed to get unparalleled access to Kaufman’s best friend and writing partner Bob Zmuda and his girlfriend Lynn Margulies. “We were lucky enough to catch them at a time when they had spent decades having a lot of fun with the legacy, but now they really just wanted to tell the true story as best they could. … Bob in particular has access to a lot of material, some of which people are familiar with and some of which people haven’t seen before. A lot of that material’s in the movie.”
Thank You Very Much
Kaufman denied he was a comedian (he claimed to be a “song and dance man”), and many have suggested he was a performance artist. This notion is reinforced by some of the rarest film the documentary uncovered: a faked, onstage confrontation between Kaufman and Laurie Anderson. “I think they just saw in each other some sort of connection or kindred spirits,” says Braverman. “I don’t think that term ‘performance artist’ was really in his mind at the time, but he was coming from a discipline that was more about creating an experience for people and getting them to react to what he was doing, more than it was about, ‘How do I be funny?’”
Anderson and Kaufman’s bit presaged Kaufman’s obsession with professional wrestling, which would eventually land him in a ring in Memphis with Jerry Lawler. “There’s some spiritual connection between Andy and Memphis,” says Braverman, pointing out that Kaufman wowed with a dead-on Elvis impression on the first episode of Saturday Night Live. “As far as the wrestling connection goes, he was really ahead of his time, in a way, as far as understanding how we like our entertainment in this country. It’s good-versus-evil, extreme showmanship at all costs.”
I Am
“The quality of the Hometowner Features is growing every year, so the selection process gets harder,” says Bale. “The films this year are very strong, but also so diverse, with documentaries and comedies and horror.”
This year’s Indie Memphis presents eight feature-length films made in Memphis. Princeton James’ psychological thriller, Queen Rising (Oct. 26th, 9 p.m.), and George Tillman’s documentary about Club Paradise, The Birth of Soul Music (Oct. 28th, 10:30 a.m.), are screening out of competition, while six films will compete in the juried Hometowner category: Lee Hirsch’s vérité documentary about Crosstown High, The First Class (Oct. 27th, 7:30 p.m.); Jaron Lockridge’s voodoo horror, The Reaper Man (Oct. 25th, 9 p.m.); Alicia Ester’s historical essay, Spirit of Memphis (Oct. 28th, 3 p.m.); Joann Self Selvidge and Sarah Fleming’s sweeping issue doc, Juvenile: 5 Stories (Oct. 27th, 6 p.m.); Sissy Denkova’s Bulgarian immigrant comedy, Scent of Linden (Oct. 29th, 12 p.m.); and Jessica Chaney’s testimonial mental health documentary, I Am (Oct. 25th, 8:30 p.m.).
I Am
Chaney says I Am began when she was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder just before the 2020 pandemic. Her therapy regimen caused her to “seek community for people who are going through the same thing, and understanding that you’re not alone in your feelings and what you’re experiencing. I think the worst thing for anything that you’re going through — whether it be physical, medical, mental, whatever — is to isolate yourself.”
Chaney enlisted Amanda Willoughby, her co-worker at Cloud901, as producer. Their proposal for a short film won a competitive $15,000 Indie Grant at Indie Memphis 2021. But as they shot, it became clear they had a feature length film. “We were surprised by how good every interview went,” says Chaney. “We got so much more than we anticipated, sat with every woman much longer than we anticipated.”
“Jessica was still gung-ho on this being a short, and I was like, ‘Jessica, I’m the editor. It’s all going to fall on me. We don’t have to pay anybody. We got so much stuff. Let me do this!’” says Willoughby. “It took some arm pulling, but she was like, ‘Okay, I trust you.’ And I’ve lived with that hard drive. It goes everywhere with me because I have constantly put so much work into it.”
Willoughby says collaborations with Crystal DeBerry, life coach Jacqueline Oselen, and composer Ashley K. Davis made the film stronger and reinforced one of its most important messages. “I’ll just say I learned that there are a lot more people that want to help you than you think.”
“We’re presenting these stories from these women, and it’s not all gloom and doom,” says Chaney. “There’s hope. Every last woman gives hope.”
Donna and Ally
Street-level, DIY comedies, made with little more than a camera and determination, have been a staple of Indie Memphis since the very beginning. It’s the perfect festival for the world premiere of Donna and Ally (Oct. 27th, 6 p.m.). The film follows the titular pair of best friends as they try to make their way through the Oakland, California, underworld as sex workers. Donna’s got a legendary bad temper, which is attractive to a certain kind of client. The problem is, Donna’s mean streak is the result of premenstrual dysphoria disorder, which writer/director Cousin Shy describes as “PMS on steroids,” so she’s only good as a dom for a couple of weeks a month.
Shy says the film is inspired by real life. “I spent some time growing up in the [foster care] system, and a lot of those kids were bigger than life, just really fun. They’re geniuses in their own way. I found one of the leads, Ally—her name is Qing Qi online—and she just has this bigger-than-life presence.”
Donna and Ally
Shy is a Bay Area native who has both worked for Apple and as a first responder. “I worked on an ambulance, and that actually was some inspiration for Donna and Ally,” she says.
When we first meet the pair, they run away from a Catholic foster care home to avoid being locked up on a 5150. “Regardless of where they are in life, and what they go through in their trials, they love each other, and they’re on this journey. You really don’t even see how that’s affecting them in the movie because I think it’s just their life, and they’re laser-focused on becoming somebodies and having that happy ending. So, it’s a comedy.”
Donna and Ally’s obsession with social media stardom leads them to ridiculous circumstances. “A lot of kids, especially kids from the underclass, are just like, ‘I feel like I’m somebody, but I was born a nobody, and I want to make it.’ What are the options to make it that are not the traditional routes? For some kids from the underclass, it doesn’t feel like that’s their route, going to university, going through the systems that they felt have failed them before. And so what are the alternatives? It’s social media. You see kids who are getting famous and being seen on social media. And so that was a huge part of the movie — just getting those viewers on Instagram and building an audience that can see you. You have a thousand views and you feel like you’re Beyoncé! … We wanted to take the characters very seriously, just as serious as they took themselves. We wanted it to be really raw. It’s very normal to them. There’s no shame in anything they do.”
The 26th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival runs October 24th through 29th, with films screening at Crosstown Theater, Playhouse on the Square, Circuit Playhouse, and Malco Studio on the Square. The complete schedule, passes, and tickets to individual movies are available at indiememphis.org. For continuing coverage of the festival, go to memphisflyer.com.
