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.
Indie Memphis began in 1998 when University of Memphis film student Kelly Chandler wanted to create a space where her fellow students could showcase their work. As the festival grew into a major Memphis cultural event, artist development remained a major part of the mission. In 2016, the Indie Memphis Youth Film Fest was launched to help give middle- and high-schoolers a taste of the highs and lows of filmmaking.
“We’re giving these students an opportunity to really explore it before they say, ‘This is definitely what I wanna do,’” says Joseph Carr, Indie Memphis’ managing director.
Students in the CrewUp program are partnered with adult mentors, experienced filmmakers who will guide them through the process of writing, planning, and producing a short film. Carr says that even those who discover filmmaking is not for them get valuable experience in creative collaboration. “It can apply to every part of your life. If you can’t collaborate, you’re not gonna be successful in any field you work in.”
Memphis Youth Showcase feature Blood and Roots
One Youth Film Fest participant who did decide it was for her is Vivian Gray, who won awards at the 2017 and 2018 festival. Gray says she entered her work “on a whim,” but found “it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It shaped so much of my future, just by being able to participate, period. I met other peers who made films, I met the folks at Indie Memphis who are so supportive, and just to show my work for the first time publicly was really special, and I’m very grateful for it.”
Carr acted as her mentor when she won a production grant as a prize in 2017. (The grant program is now awarded by application, separate from the main student competition.) “When you’re young, you don’t have any concept of how much work it’s going to be,” says Carr. “You just have great ideas and you want your ideas to come to life. Vivian was just so game to jump in and just run with her idea. You could tell very early just how comfortable she was on set, and just how comfortable she was in her voice. When you’re in the presence of a true artist, you can tell very quickly that they have a lot to say.”
Gray went on to earn a degree from the acclaimed University of Southern California film program. Her short film, “Tape 23,” debuted at Indie Memphis ’22 and has spent the last year on the festival circuit with “Providence,” a television pilot she directed. She will return to Youth Fest as a juror this year. “I feel like it’s grown even more, and continues to do what it did for me and so many other young filmmakers and artists. It is near and dear to my heart.”
Another artist coming full circle this year is Vivie Myrick. The actor made her screen debut at the Youth Festival and recently appeared on the Showtime TV series, George & Tammy. “She directed a film last year as her last output for her age group in the Youth Film Fest,” says Carr. “Now she’s now back to host an acting workshop.”
The festival will kick off on Saturday, August 26th, with a keynote address by screenwriter Hennah Sekander. The recent Memphis transplant has written for the Apple TV+ series Hello Tomorrow! and the Amazon Prime Video Chris Pratt vehicle The Terminal List. “I’m gonna talk about ‘The Slingshot Effect,’ which is something that I coined under pressure on a phone call with Joseph Carr because he said we needed a title, and it just felt like the most potent symbol for how you marry character and plot to tell a good story.”
When Craig Brewer introduced Sekander to Carr, she immediately asked how to get involved with Indie Memphis’ youth program. “I think a big reason why this writer strike is happening right now is there’s this feeling of resistance from the studio side to invest in new talent and kind of support younger voices as they try to make their way up the ladder,” Sekander says. “So I think that means it’s all the more important for writers to do that work that probably wasn’t done for them.”
The festival is free for students who sign up for passes and pay-what-you-can for adults. The short films which premiere this Saturday at the Halloran Centre will represent the culmination of a year of work by the young filmmakers. “I’m always just beside-myself thrilled when these students finish their movies,” says Carr. “Some teams will drop out, or something will come up, and they can’t finish. But seeing these completed films on the big screen, all the problems we have leading up to it are just melted away.”
The 2023 Indie Memphis Youth Film Fest is Saturday, August 26th, at the Halloran Centre. For the schedule, visit indiememphis.org.
Optimus Prime (voiced by 81-year-old legend of the VO game Peter Cullen) is back for yet another sequel of questionable necessity, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. This one has O.P. leading his robots in disguise in defense of the Maxmials, who are robots disguised as animals, against the Terrorcons, who are also robots in disguise, only bad. Good news: Michael Bay isn’t directing!
Adapted from one of the early 1970s Stephen King short stories that earned him the reputation as a master of horror, The Boogeyman stars Sophie Thatcher (of Yellowjackets fame) as a teenager whose home is invaded by a creature who hides under the bed, comes out at night, and feeds on fear. If you’re afraid of the dark, this is not the film for you. If you’re into classic horror, turn me on!
If you’re looking for an escape from summer blockbusters, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ new comedy with director Nicole Holofcener You Hurt My Feelings is here for you. Beth’s (Louis-Dreyfus) husband Don (Tobias Menzies) is a therapist, so you’d think he would know better than to admit he doesn’t like the new book she’s been writing. Guess not. Surely, that one little slip up can’t have life-altering consequences? Oops again!
John Waters’ transgressive, but radically inclusive, cinema increasingly looks ahead of its time. With 1988’s Hairspray, he came the closest to the mainstream he ever would. Future talk show host Ricki Lake stars as Tracy Turnblad, a typical ’50s teenager who loves to dance. She wants to be a regular on local a local TV teen show, but first she must overcome her arch rival, Amber (Colleen Ann Fitzpatrick), and the close-minded, racist establishment. Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono, Jerry Stiller, and of course, drag legend Divine round out the cast of this fever dream of rock and roll and racial integration. On Sunday, June 11, it’s coming back for a 35th anniversary screening at several Malco theaters.
On Tuesaday at Crosstown Theater, Indie Memphis’ Microcinema series presents A Tribute to Barbara Hammer. The avant-garde filmmaker who died in 2019 was a pioneer of queer cinema, creating more than 80 films in the course of her career. The 1982 short film “Audience” shows the dynamic interaction between the artist and the viewer that was at the core of her cinema. Nitrate Kisses from 1992 was her first feature-length work, a experimental documentary about the lives of queer people living on the margins of social acceptability. Microcinema begins at 7:00 p.m.
Lilly Sullivan cuts to the chase in Evil Dead Rise.
I know I say this a lot, but this time I really mean it: It’s a big weekend at the movies. While The Super Mario Bros. Movie continues to stack coins, there’s a whole slew of new releases, and a bunch of them look good.
First up is Evil Dead Rise. Sam Raimi’s 1983 horror film The Evil Dead slowly revolutionized the genre as its cult spread via VHS. In the 2000’s, the director would revolutionize the superhero genre with his still-undefeated Spider-Man trilogy. Now, Raimi has passed the reins to Irish director Lee Cronin for Evil Dead Rise, which has caught a lot of buzz in horror circles. In true Evil Dead fashion, it’s cheap ($15 million) and nasty. This is the Flyer, so I’m linking to the Red Band trailer.
Coming off an Indie Memphis preview screening, How To Blow Up A Pipeline is only playing on one screen in Cordova, but it may be the most consequential movie of the year. Director Daniel Goldhaber and actor Ariela Barer adapted author Andreas Malm’s 2021 nonfiction book about radical eco-activists. A diverse group of people, radicalized by different things, band together to destroy an oil pipeline in West Texas.
Ari Aster is nothing if not divisive, and his latest is no different. Hereditary was a startling adrenaline rush with an all-time great performance from Toni Collette. Midsomer was a super creepy folk horror riff that helped make Florence Pugh an A-list actor. With Beau Is Afraid, Aster is again teaming up with an actor willing to do anything: Joaquin Phoenix plays Beau, who exists in a constant state of low- to medium-level panic attack. Co-starring as people causing Beau discomfort are Patti Lupone, Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, and Parker Posey.
Chevalier de Saint-Georges was a French musician widely regarded as the first African-descended person to achieve musical success in Europe. He fought racism in the aristocratic circles where he played, then put down his violin and picked up a sword to fight in the French Revolution. Kevin Harrison, Jr. stars as Chevalier and Lucy Boynton as Marie Antoinette.
On Wednesday, April 26th, at Studio on the Square, Indie Memphis is throwing a benefit for OUTMemphis. Dressed In Blue is a groundbreaking 1983 film from Spain about six trans women who were feeling out the new world after the country had just emerged from decades of fascism under Franco. Vestida de Azul, as it is known in Spain, was directed by Antonio Giménez-Rico, and was unseen in the English speaking world for decades.
The Invaders gained prominence during the 1968 sanitation workers strike
In the summer of 2020, as protests against police violence spread in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, many Americans got a glimpse of what it was like during the height of the Civil Rights era. There was righteous anger, a sense of purpose, and a shared commitment to justice — but there were also bitter disagreements over which tactics were most effective, and a tug-of-war between those who believed state violence must be met with citizen violence, and those who believed nonviolent resistance was the only way. The newfound camaraderie of the street protests came with a frisson of suspicion — is one of us a Fed, reporting our plans and movements to the same law enforcement agencies whose methods and priorities we’re protesting?
All of this will sound familiar to anyone who saw The Invaders when it debuted at Indie Memphis in 2016. The film that director Prichard Smith and writer/producer JB Horrell made, tells the inside story of the Bluff City’s own homegrown Black Power group. Vietnam veteran John B. Smith founded The Invaders when he left the army after his tours of duty. The group aligned themselves with the militant rhetoric of groups like the Black Panthers. The Invaders first gained prominence during the sanitation workers strike of 1968, and then infamy when they were blamed for the riot which overtook Dr. Martin Luther King’s final march in Memphis. Later, the group’s claims that they had been the targets of a spying and smear campaign by the FBI’s COINTELPRO unit were confirmed.
Juanita Thornton
(In the spirit of full disclosure, this columnist worked briefly as a writing consultant on the film, but has no financial stake in the project’s success.)
“I don’t think there are enough stories looking at some of the inner pockets of the Civil Rights movement,” says Smith. “There are the main stories that you hear about the ministers and Dr. King and whatnot. But I would venture to guess that there are many, many more stories like The Invaders that should be told just to give a wider understanding of the whole situation. I think it will continue to be relevant. I think you could argue that if it came out in the middle of the George Floyd protests, that would have been the most relevant time it could have come out. But that’s not how it panned out.”
During the film’s 2016 festival run, which featured a stop at Doc NYC, The Invaders producers, including Memphis filmmaker Craig Brewer, made a deal with a distribution company to help get the film out. But later, Smith says, they asked, “When you say ‘Help,’ does that mean you’ll help us pay for these licenses for all the different archival stuff that we had to license?’ And they basically came back and said, ‘No, we can’t help you with that.’ So from there we were kind of treading water, spinning our wheels.”
With The Invaders in limbo, Smith got a job with New York filmmaker Sacha Jenkins, whose documentary Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues played at Indie Memphis 2022. “I happened to be on the subway train with him, on our ways away from work, and he was like, ‘Hey what’s up with that Invaders thing?’”
Jenkins showed the film to rapper Nas, who signed on to do a new voice-over for the film. “He actually showed up in my office and was like, ‘I’ve never heard of this story! It’s so great! I can’t wait to get this out!’” recalls Smith. “He actually said — and this just threw me — ‘I was having dinner with Colin Kaepernick last night and all I could talk about was The Invaders.’”
Memphis hip-hop superstar Yo Gotti came on board as executive producer to help get the project over the finish line. Now, The Invaders is set for release via video on demand (VOD), which means you can buy or rent it on streaming services or storefronts such as Apple TV, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video. Smith says a wider release may be in the offing next year. For Smith, the release is the final milestone on a long journey. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he says. “I guess it teaches you patience. There’s the things that you can control, and the things you can’t. Try not to sweat too hard the things you can’t because they will eat you up.”
Sam Now won the Audience Award for Best Poster at the 2022 Indie Memphis Film Festival.
The 25th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival wrapped on Monday night with Shaft. The juries’ decisions were announced at a raucous awards ceremony on Saturday night, but it’s taken until now to tabulate the results for the Audience Awards, which are determined by votes from ticket buyers, who are asked to assign each film a letter grade of A through F.
Audience and jury opinions lined up this year for three films which swept both awards. Our Father, The Devil by director Ellie Fombi won both of the Narrative Feature awards, and currently holds the coveted 100 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Here’s a sample:
Kumina Queen by director Nyasha Laing similarly repeated its jury win in the Sounds category.
In the Hometowner categories, director Lauren Ready repeated in Documentary Shorts with “What We Will Never Know.” This is Ready’s fourth Indie Memphis trophy for documentaries, making her one of the most decorated filmmakers in the festival’s 25-year history.
The National Documentary Feature Audience Award went to Butterfly In The Sky, the story of the beloved PBS show Reading Rainbow by directors Brett Whitcomb and Bradford Thomason.
From the exceptionally crowded nine-film field of Hometowner features, audiences voted for Show Business is My Life — But I Can’t Prove It, director G.B. Shannon’s biography of legendary comedian Gary Mule Deer. The crowd-pleasing film about the crowd-pleasing funny man features appearances from comedy luminaries such as David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, and Steve Martin, and dramatic recreations of some of Gary Mule Deer’s jokes and stories starring a who’s who of Memphis-based actors.
The audience’s favorite Hometowner Music Video of 2022 was “Imagine That” by Tailbah Safiyah, directed by Zaire Love. Check it out:
The Departures Audience Award, which includes experimental and generally “out there” works honored Maria Judice’s Elephant.
“Stress Dreams” by Greensky Bluegrass, directed by Grant Knolton, won the National Music Video Audience Award.
In the Short film categories, “F*** ‘Em R!ght B@cK” by Harris Doran won the National Narrative category, and “Call Me Anytime, I’m Not Leaving The House” by Sanjna Selva won the National Documentary category. Caleb Suggs’ “Homeboys Haunted 2” took home audience gold in the Hometowner Narrative Shorts. Audiences also chose Reed Harkness’ Sam Now, which won the jury award for Best Documentary, in the poster category.
Percy Norris and
“Big” Robert Stewart in The ’Vous
The 25th Indie Memphis Film Festival concluded last Monday with a film that made a case for the importance of the 1970 Blaxploitation wave, and a film that proved its point. Is That Black Enough For You? is the first movie by Elvis Mitchell, a former New York Times film critic and cinema scholar turned documentary director. Mitchell traced the history of Black representation in film from the era of silent “race” pictures and D.W. Griffith’s pro-KKK, proto-blockbuster Birth of a Nation through the foreshortened careers of Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge to the wave of low-budget, Black-led gangster, adventure, and fantasy films which started in the late 1960s and crested with The Wiz. Films like Superfly and Coffy, Mitchell argues in his voluminous voice-over narration, presented the kinds of rousing heroes that attracted film-goers while the New Hollywood movement presented visions of angst-filled antiheroes.
Blaxploitation films also introduced a new kind of music to films and the concept of the soundtrack album, which was often released before the movie itself in order to drum up interest. The prime example was Shaft, which featured an Academy Award-winning soundtrack by Isaac Hayes. Mitchell introduced the classic with Willie Hall, the Memphis drummer who recorded the immortal hi-hat rhythm that kicks off Hayes’ theme song. Mitchell revealed in Is That Black Enough For You? that Hayes had been inspired by Sergio Leone’s score for Once Upon a Time in the West, and the score he penned for Shaft still holds up, providing much of the detective film’s throbbing propulsion.
The winners of the competitive portion of the 2022 film festival were announced at a hilariously irreverent awards ceremony Saturday evening at Playhouse on the Square. After a two-year hiatus, Savannah Bearden returned to produce the awards, which were “hosted” by Birdy, the tiny red metal mockingbird which has served as the film festival’s mascot for years. But amidst the nonstop jokes and spoof videos, there were genuinely touching moments, such as when Craig Brewer surprised art director and cameraperson Sallie Sabbatini with the Indie Award, which is given to outstanding Memphis film artisans, and when former Executive Director Ryan Watt was ambushed with the Vision Award.
The Best Narrative Feature award went to Our Father, the Devil, an African immigrant story directed by Ellie Foumbi. Kit Zauhar’s Actual People won the Duncan Williams Best Screenplay Award. The Documentary Feature award went to Reed Harkness for Sam Now, a portrait of the director’s brother that has been in production for the entire 25 years that Indie Memphis has been in existence.
The Best Hometowner Feature award, which honors films made in Memphis, went to Jack Lofton’s The ’Vous, a moving portrait of the people who make The Rendezvous a world-famous icon of Memphis barbecue. (“We voted with our stomachs,” said jury member Larry Karaszewski.) The Best Hometowner Narrative Short went to “Nordo” by Kyle Taubken, about a wife anxiously waiting for her husband to return from Afghanistan. Lauren Ready earned her second Indie Memphis Hometowner Documentary award for her short film “What We’ll Never Know.”
In the Departures category, which includes experimental, genre, and out-of-the-box creations, This House by Miryam Charles won Best Feature. (This House also won the poster design contest.) “Maya at 24” by legendary Memphis doc director Lynne Sachs won the Shorts competition, and “Civic” by Dwayne LeBlanc took home the first trophy in a new Mid-Length subcategory.
Sounds, the festival’s long-running music film series, awarded Best Feature to Kumina Queen by Nyasha Laing. The music video awards were won by the stop-motion animated “Vacant Spaces” by Joe Baughman; “Don’t Come Home” by Emily Rooker triumphed in the crowded Hometowner category.
Best Narrative Short went to “Sugar Glass Bottle” by Neo Sora, and Best Documentary Short went to “The Body Is a House of Familiar Rooms” by Eloise Sherrid and Lauryn Welch.
Some of the Special Awards date back to the origin of the festival in 1998, such as the Soul of Southern Film Award, which was taken by Ira McKinley and Bhawin Suchak’s documentary Outta The Muck. The Ron Tibbett Excellence in Filmmaking Award went to Me Little Me by Elizabeth Ayiku. The Craig Brewer Emerging Filmmaker Award went to Eric Younger’s Very Rare.
The IndieGrants program, which awards $15,000 in cash and donations to create short films, picked Anna Cai’s “Bluff City Chinese” and A.D. Smith’s “R.E.G.G.I.N.” out of 46 proposals submitted by Memphis filmmakers.
Today on Music Video Monday, we’re celebrating the winners of the music video competitions at the 25th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival. Two music video blocs screened during the six-day festival: The National competition, which actually included videos from all over the world, and the Hometowner competition for made-in-Memphis music videos.
The winner of the National award for Best Music Video was “Vacant Spaces” by Joe Baughman and the Righteous Few. Baughman is an Indiana-based singer songwriter who also directed the visually stunning stop-motion video. “Vacant Spaces” isn’t available on YouTube or Vimeo yet, but you can see it with an Indie Memphis virtual pass.
[Update: “Vacant Spaces” just went public on YouTube! Aaron Charles of The Righteous Few says “Joe worked for 3 years on this video, and it is so exciting to see that work rewarded.”]
The Best Hometowner Music Video was awarded to Emily Rooker’s “Don’t Come Home,” co-directed by Rooker and Mitchell Carter. As seen previously on Music Video Monday, “Don’t Come Home” was filmed at the Bartlett Performing Arts Center, and features the singer and some friends celebrating themselves after a bad breakup. Check it out!
Indie Memphis Sunday is full of local treasures, fascinating new movies, and some stone cold classics.
James Gray, director of The Lost City of Z and Ad Astra, is back with an autobiographical film about growing up on the cusp of the Reagan era. Armageddon Time (named for a classic reggae track by Willie Williams) stars Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, and Jeremy Strong as a Jewish family struggling against prejudice in Queens, New York.
Melissa Sweazy, a Memphis director whose 2017 documentary Good Grief swept the Indie Memphis awards, returns with Ready! Fire! Aim! The new doc is a biography of Kemmons Wilson, the Memphis entrepreneur who founded Holiday Inn, and changed the way the world travels.
Director Bart Shannon is another Indie Memphis veteran. His new film Show Business Is My Life—But I Can’t Prove It is the story of Gary Mule Deer, a comedian whose 50 year career has touched the lives of millions. Among the friends of the comedian who appear in the film are David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Steve Martin, and Alice Cooper. The film also features recreations of incidents from Gary’s life starring a host of Memphis actors.
Director Chuck O’Bannon is a Memphis video production legend. You might not have heard his name, but if you’re of a certain age, you’ve seen the commercial he produced for Brother James Salton’s Up From The World ministries hundreds of times. You know the one.
O’Bannon’s latest film is United Front—The People’s Convention 1991 Memphis. “I got a phone call from Annie Robinson,” he says, “who was one of the original community activist people involved with creating the People’s Convention back in 1991. They were getting ready to do their 30th anniversary, and she realized that the story had never been documented. When I read the script she sent to me, I was really excited about the idea of documenting one of the most historical events in Memphis history.”
The 1991 People’s Convention brought together the fractured Black community in Memphis to choose a consensus candidate for mayor. Their choice was Dr. Willie Herenton, a former school superintendent who would go on to become the first Black mayor in Memphis history. “Getting everybody to agree on one of anything in Memphis is always the problem,” says O’Bannon. “This is the one time that the community came together on one accord and promoted one candidate—and it was successful! From that position, you were able to create other consensus candidates, consensus movements throughout Memphis, that allowed for what was at that time, the minority numbers to have a chance. And to show that, yes, this can be done. There were other communities in other cities that saw what Memphis had done and decided, if they can do it, we can do it too. So it’s sort of set a precedent around the idea of consensus-ism in political elections and probably in other parts of life as well.”
At 6 p.m. is one of this year’s best revival screenings. Daisies was banned in Czechoslovakia upon its 1966 release for being too subversive. Věra Chytilová’s feminist classic takes on authority of all kinds, with a cinematic freedom rarely seen today. Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová as Marie I and Marie II provided the template for anarchist flamethrowers like Pussy Riot, who are still fighting authoritarianism in Eurasia today.
