Tag: Indie Memphis

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Sundance in Memphis: A Memorable Night Under the Stars

Niamh Algar as Enid in Censor.

I’ll have to admit, I didn’t expect to have my first Sundance screening at the Malco Summer Drive-In. But the pandemic makes for strange situations, and from my point of view, this is one of the better ones. As a filmmaker, none of my works have ever been accepted to Sundance, and as a journalist, no outlet has ever offered to pay my way to Park City, so I’ve never been to the mecca of American indie film in person.

When Indie Memphis adopted the hybrid online and in-person model last November, an unexpected thing happened: It turned into an opportunity to expand the reach of the festival. In the case of screenwriting award winner Executive Order, the Bluff City’s homegrown regional festival was suddenly attracting audiences from Brazil.
In the opening press conference on Thursday, Sundance Institute CEO Keri Putnam recognized the upside of Sundance’s move into the virtual world. “We think this will be the largest audience that we have ever had,” Putnam said.

Festival Director Tabitha Jackson was on the job less than a month when the novel coronavirus essentially shut down the film industry. She explained that the festival’s unofficial theme was the Japanese art of knitsugi, the practice of repairing broken pottery in a way that make the cracks visible and beautiful. “You see all those little fragments and shards, and that came from the sense that what the pandemic had done was to kind of explode our present reality, and we were left with the pieces. The festival actually is coming from a place of needing to completely reimagine and take the pieces that we know are part of our essence and build them into something different to meet the moment.”

While juggling other work assignments, I tried to get a full taste of the pandemic Sundance paradigm on the first day. I made a point of seeing Kentucker Audley’s new film Strawberry Mansion at the drive-in, then scooting home to watch Censor online. I’ve become quite the drive-in habituate during the pandemic, so I knew what to expect, but this experience was truly something special. Just as the opening credits were rolling on a hometown filmmaker’s Sundance opening night debut, a shooting star whizzed above Summer Drive-In screen 3. Crowding into a theater in Park City for the premiere would have been great, but it couldn’t beat being in Memphis in that moment.

Back at home, I nestled into a cozy robe for the world premiere of Censor. Welsh director Prano Bailey-Bond’s feature debut was an amazing revelation. Set in the dreary London of the Thatcher ’80s, it stars Niamh Algar as Enid, a censor who watches VHS-era violence all day long. Enid has a secret: Her sister disappeared under mysterious circumstances when they were young, but while Enid was the last person to see her, she has no memory of what happened. When she sees an actress in a particularly violent film who kind of maybe looks like a grown-up version of her sister, she becomes obsessed with making contact. Enid’s reality starts to implode around her, mixing up the gonzo images of slasher flicks with her lonely London existence.

Bailey-Bond is clearly a student of ’80s horror, and judging from the Videodrome influences, something of a Cronenberg cultist. In at least one way, she exceeded her influences. Where Videodrome’s characters are Ballardian blank slates, Censor is focused intently on Enid’s inner life. Algar gives the kind of remarkably subtle and finely observed performance rarely seen in the genre. Bailey-Bond’s arthouse meets meta-horror vision pushed all the right buttons for me.

Cryptozoo

Tonight, Sundance screenings continue at the Malco Summer Drive-In with I Was A Simple Man. Christopher Makoto Yogi’s August at Akkiko’s was a highlight of Indie Memphis 2018, and last year he had an experimental video installation at the festival. In his new film, he returns to his favorite subject, his native Hawaii, and the experience of the ignored people who have made the islands their home for thousands of years. The second screening couldn’t be more different. Cryptozoo is an animated feature by Virginia director Dash Shaw about a couple who stumble into a fantasy world where unicorns and yeti rule.

Sundance in Memphis: A Memorable Night Under the Stars

The Sundance Film Festival in Memphis begins at 6 p.m. at the Malco Summer Drive-In. You can buy tickets at the Indie Memphis website.  

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Sundance Film Festival Sets Lineup for Memphis Screenings

Kentucker Audley in Strawberry Mansion

With the COVID pandemic still paralyzing the film world, the Sundance Film Festival is partnering with Indie Memphis to bring cutting-edge cinema offerings to the Bluff City. In an ordinary January, filmmakers and execs from all over the world would gather in Park City, Utah, for America’s premiere independent film festival. But this year, the “festival flu” can kill you, so Sundance is learning from other festivals, such as Oxford and Indie Memphis, and putting on an online and in-person festival. Expanding their reach coast to coast, Sundance is hosting film screenings at socially distanced venues January 28th-February 2nd.

In all, more than 70 feature films will play Sundance either virtually or at in-person screenings around the country. Ten of them will screen at the Malco Summer Drive-In. Memphis’ opening night film features a former filmmaker who got his start at Indie Memphis. Kentucker Audley’s most recent win at Indie Memphis was 2012’s Open Five 2. Now based in Brooklyn, he teamed up with Albert Birney in 2017 to direct and star in Sylvio, a comedy about a “small town gorilla” who becomes an unlikely reality TV star. Audley and Birney’s follow-up is the romantic sci-fi fantasy Strawberry Mansion, which will premiere on January 28th. Audley stars as James Preble, a “dream auditor” in a future world where people must pay royalties if intellectual property appears in their subconscious minds. James meets an artist, played by Penny Fuller, who makes him question everything he thought he knew.

Friday, January 29th, features two films. I Was A Simple Man by Hawaiian director Christopher Makoto Yogi, whose 2018 film August at Akiko’s won an Honorable Mention at Indie Memphis, is the portrait of a dying man who remembers his less-than-idyllic life in Oahu. The second film of the evening is Cryptozoo, an animated film about a couple who stumble onto a supernatural zoo for Bigfoots and Mothmen.

Cryptozoo

Saturday and Sunday will also have double features, including Rebecca Hall’s Passing, which stars Tessa Thompson as a Black woman trying to appear white in 1920s America, and All Light, Everywhere, a “essay film” by Theo Anthony, the documentary director behind 2016’s enlightening urban eco-saga Rat Film. Another promising documentary in the lineup is Ailey, director Jamila Wignot’s portrait of the modern dance pioneer Alvin Ailey.

Ailey

Stay tuned for more coverage of Sundance in Memphis. Tickets and passes are available at the Indie Memphis website. 

Categories
Cover Feature News

2021: Here’s Looking at You

If 2020 was the year of despair, 2021 appears to be the year of hope.

Wanna see what that could look like? Cast your gaze to Wuhan, China, birthplace of COVID-19.

News footage from Business Insider shows hundreds of carefree young people gathered in a massive swimming pool, dancing and splashing at a rock concert. They are effortlessly close together and there’s not a mask in sight. Bars and restaurants are packed with maskless revelers. Night markets are jammed. Business owners smile, remember the bleak times, and say the worst is behind them. How far behind? There’s already a COVID-19 museum in Wuhan.

That could be Memphis (once again) one day. But that day is still likely months off. Vaccines arrived here in mid-December. Early doses rightfully went to frontline healthcare workers. Doses for the masses won’t likely come until April or May, according to health experts.

While we still cannot predict exactly “what” Memphians will be (can be?) doing next year, we can tell you “where” they might be doing it. New places will open their doors next year, and Memphis is set for some pretty big upgrades.

But it doesn’t stop there. “Memphis has momentum” was Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s catchphrase as he won a second term for the office last October. It did. New building projects bloomed like the Agricenter’s sunflowers. And it still does. Believe it or not, not even COVID-19 could douse developers’ multi-million-dollar optimism on the city.

Here are few big projects slated to open in 2021:

Renasant Convention Center

Throughout 2020, crews have been hard at work inside and outside the building once called the Cook Convention Center.

City officials and Memphis Tourism broke ground on a $200-million renovation project for the building in January 2020. The project will bring natural light and color to the once dark and drab convention center built in 1974. The first events are planned for the Renasant Convention Center in the new year.

Memphis International Airport

Memphis International Airport

Expect the ribbon to be cut on Memphis International Airport’s $245-million concourse modernization project in 2021. The project was launched in 2014 in an effort to upgrade the airport’s concourse to modern standards and to right-size the space after Delta de-hubbed the airport.

Once finished, all gates, restaurants, shops, and more will be located in a single concourse. The space will have higher ceilings, more natural light, wider corridors, moving walkways, children’s play areas, a stage for live music, and more.

Collage Dance Collective

The beautiful new building on the corner of Tillman and Sam Cooper is set to open next year in an $11-million move for the Collage Dance Collective.

The 22,000-square-foot performing arts school will feature five studios, office space, a dressing room, a study lounge, 70 parking spaces, and a physical therapy area.

The Memphian Hotel

The Memphian Hotel

A Facebook post by The Memphian Hotel reads, “Who is ready for 2021?” The hotel is, apparently. Developers told the Daily Memphian recently that the 106-room, $24-million hotel is slated to open in April.

“Walking the line between offbeat and elevated, The Memphian will give guests a genuine taste of Midtown’s unconventional personality, truly capturing the free spirit of the storied art district in which the property sits,” reads a news release.

Watch for work to begin next year on big projects in Cooper-Young, the Snuff District, Liberty Park, Tom Lee Park, and The Walk. — Toby Sells

Book ‘Em

After the Spanish flu epidemic and World War I came a flood of convention-defying fiction as authors wrestled with the trauma they had lived through. E.M. Forster confronted colonialism and rigid gender norms in A Passage to India. Virginia Woolf published Mrs. Dalloway. James Joyce gave readers Ulysses. Langston Hughes’ first collection, The Weary Blues, was released.

It’s too early to tell what authors and poets will make of 2020, a year in which America failed to contain the coronavirus. This reader, though, is eager to see what comes.

Though I’ve been a bit too nervous to look very far into 2021 (I don’t want to jinx it, you know?), there are a few books already on my to-read list. First up, I’m excited for MLK50 founding managing editor Deborah Douglas’ U.S. Civil Rights Trail, due in January. Douglas lives in Chicago now, but there’s sure to be some Memphis in that tome.

Next, Ed Tarkington’s The Fortunate Ones, also due in January, examines privilege and corruption on Nashville’s Capitol Hill. Early reviews have compared Tarkington to a young Pat Conroy. For anyone disappointed in Tennessee’s response to any of this year’s crises, The Fortunate Ones is not to be missed.

Most exciting, perhaps, is the forthcoming Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda prose anthology, expected February 2nd. The anthology is edited by Memphis-born journalist Jesse J. Holland, and also features a story by him, as well as Memphians Sheree Renée Thomas, Troy L. Wiggins, and Danian Darrell Jerry.

“To be in pages with so many Memphis writers just feels wonderful,” Thomas told me when I called her to chat about the good news. “It’s a little surreal, but it’s fun,” Jerry adds, explaining that he’s been a Marvel comics fan since childhood. “I get to mix some of those childhood imaginings with some of the skills I’ve worked to acquire over the years.”

Though these books give just a glimpse at the literary landscape of the coming year, if they’re any indication of what’s to come, then, if nothing else, Memphians will have more great stories to look forward to. — Jesse Davis

Courtesy Memphis Redbirds

AutoZone Park

Take Me Out With the Crowd

Near the end of my father’s life, we attended a Redbirds game together at AutoZone Park. A few innings into the game, Dad turned to me and said, “I like seeing you at a ballpark. I can tell your worries ease.”

Then along came 2020, the first year in at least four decades that I didn’t either play in a baseball game or watch one live, at a ballpark, peanuts and Cracker Jack a soft toss away. The pandemic damaged most sports over the last 12 months, but it all but killed minor-league baseball, the small-business version of our national pastime, one that can’t lean on television and sponsorship revenue to offset the loss of ticket-buying fans on game day. AutoZone Park going a year without baseball is the saddest absence I’ve felt in Memphis culture since moving to this remarkable town in 1991. And I’m hoping today — still 2020, dammit — that 2021 marks a revival, even if it’s gradual. In baseball terms, we fans will take a base on balls to get things going before we again swing for the fences.

All indications are that vaccines will make 2021 a better year for gathering, be it at your favorite watering hole or your favorite ballpark. Indications also suggest that restrictions will remain in place well into the spring and summer (baseball season). How many fans can a ballpark host and remain safe? How many fans will enjoy the “extras” of an evening at AutoZone Park — that sunset over the Peabody, that last beer in the seventh inning — if a mask must be worn as part of the experience? And what kind of operation will we see when the gates again open? Remember, these are small businesses. Redbirds president Craig Unger can be seen helping roll out the tarp when a July thunderstorm interrupts the Redbirds and Iowa Cubs. What will “business as usual” mean for Triple-A baseball as we emerge from the pandemic?

I wrote down three words and taped them up on my home-office wall last March: patience, determination, and empathy. With a few more doses of each — and yes, millions of doses of one vaccine or another — the sports world will regain crowd-thrilling normalcy. For me, it will start when I take a seat again in my happy place. It’s been a long, long time, Dad, since my worries properly eased.— Frank Murtaugh

Film in 2021: Don’t Give up Hope

“Nobody knows anything.” Never has William Goldman’s immortal statement about Hollywood been more true. Simply put, 2020 was a disaster for the industry. The pandemic closed theaters and called Hollywood’s entire business model into question. Warner Brothers’ announcement that it would stream all of its 2021 offerings on HBO Max sent shock waves through the industry. Some said it was the death knell for theaters.

I don’t buy it. Warner Brothers, owned by AT&T and locked in a streaming war with Netflix and Disney, are chasing the favor of Wall Street investors, who love the rent-seeking streaming model. But there’s just too much money on the table to abandon theaters. 2019 was a record year at the box office, with $42 billion in worldwide take, $11.4 billion of which was from North America. Theatrical distribution is a proven business model that has worked for 120 years. Netflix, on the other hand, is $12 billion in debt.

Will audiences return to theaters once we’ve vaccinated our way out of the coronavirus-shaped hole we’re in? Prediction at this point is a mug’s game, but signs point to yes. Tenet, which will be the year’s biggest film, grossed $303 million in overseas markets where the virus was reasonably under control. In China, where the pandemic started, a film called My People, My Homeland has brought in $422 million since October 1st. I don’t know about y’all, but once I get my jab, they’re going to have to drag me out of the movie theater.

There will be quite a bit to watch. With the exception of Wonder Woman 1984, the 2020 blockbusters were pushed to 2021, including Dune, Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, the latest James Bond installment No Time to Die, Marvel’s much-anticipated Black Widow, Top Gun: Maverick, and Godzilla vs. Kong. Memphis director Craig Brewer’s second film with Eddie Murphy, the long-awaited Coming 2 America, will bow on Amazon March 5th, with the possibility of a theatrical run still in the cards.

There’s no shortage of smaller, excellent films on tap. Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami, about a meeting between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown, premieres January 15th. Minari, the stunning story of Korean immigrants in rural Arkansas, which was Indie Memphis 2020’s centerpiece film, lands February 12th. The Bob’s Burgers movie starts cooking April 9th. And coolest of all, next month Indie Memphis will partner with Sundance to bring the latest in cutting-edge cinema to the Malco Summer Drive-In. There’s plenty to be hopeful for in the new year. — Chris McCoy

Looking Ahead: Music

We usually highlight the upcoming hot concerts in this space, but those are still on the back burner. Instead, get a load of these stacks of hot wax (and streams) dropping next year. Remember, the artists get a better share when you purchase rather than stream, especially physical product like vinyl.

Alysse Gafkjen

Julien Baker

One of the biggest-profile releases will be Julien Baker’s Little Oblivians, due out on Matador in February. Her single “Faith Healer” gives us a taste of what to expect. Watch the Flyer for more on that soon. As for other drops from larger indie labels, Merge will offer up A Little More Time with Reigning Sound in May (full disclosure: this all-Memphis version of the band includes yours truly).

Closer to home, John Paul Keith’s The Rhythm of the City also drops in February, co-released by hometown label Madjack and Italian imprint Wild Honey. Madjack will also offer up albums by Mark Edgar Stuart and Jed Zimmerman, the latter having been produced by Stuart. Matt Ross-Spang is mixing Zimmerman’s record, and there’s much buzz surrounding it (but don’t worry, it’s properly grounded).

Jeremy Stanfill mines similar Americana territory, and he’ll release new work on the Blue Barrel imprint. Meanwhile, look for more off-kilter sounds from Los Psychosis and Alicja Trout’s Alicja-Pop project, both on Black & Wyatt. That label will also be honored with a compilation of their best releases so far, by Head Perfume out of Dresden. On the quieter side of off-kilter, look for Aquarian Blood’s Sending the Golden Hour on Goner in May.

Bruce Watson’s Delta-Sonic Sound studio has been busy, and affiliated label Bible & Tire Recording Co. will release a big haul of old-school gospel, some new, some archival, including artists Elizabeth King and Pastor Jack Ward, and compilations from the old J.C.R. and D-Vine Spiritual labels. Meanwhile, Big Legal Mess will drop new work from singer/songwriter Alexa Rose and, in March, Luna 68 — the first new album from the City Champs in 10 years. Expect more groovy organ and guitar boogaloo jazz from the trio, with a heaping spoonful of science-fiction exotica to boot.

Many more artists will surely be releasing Bandcamp singles, EPs, and more, but for web-based content that’s thinking outside of the stream, look for the January premiere of Unapologetic’s UNDRGRNDAF RADIO, to be unveiled on weareunapologetic.com and their dedicated app. — Alex Greene

Chewing Over a Tough Year

Beware the biohazard.

Samuel X. Cicci

The Beauty Shop

Perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but the image that pops into my head when thinking about restaurants in 2020 are the contagion-esque geo-domes that Karen Carrier set up on the back patio of the Beauty Shop. A clever conceit, but also a necessary one — a move designed to keep diners safe and separated when going out to eat. If it all seems a little bizarre, well, that’s what 2020 was thanks to COVID-19.

We saw openings, closings, restrictions, restrictions lifted, restrictions then put back in place; the Memphis Restaurant Association and Shelby County Health Department arguing back and forth over COVID guidelines, with both safety and survival at stake; and establishments scrambling to find creative ways to drum up business. The Beauty Shop domes were one such example. The Reilly’s Downtown Majestic Grille, on the other hand, transformed into Cocozza, an Italian ghost concept restaurant put into place until it was safe to reopen Majestic in its entirety. Other places, like Global Café, put efforts in place to help provide meals to healthcare professionals or those who had fallen into financial hardship during the pandemic.

Unfortunately, not every restaurant was able to survive the pandemic. The popular Lucky Cat Ramen on Broad Ave. closed its doors, as did places like Puck Food Hall, 3rd & Court, Avenue Coffee, Midtown Crossing Grill, and many others.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Working in the hospitality business requires a certain kind of resilience, and that showed up in spades. Many restaurants adapted to new regulations quickly, and with aplomb, doing their best to create a safe environment for hungry Memphians all while churning out takeout and delivery orders.

And even amid a pandemic backdrop, many aspiring restaurateurs tried their hand at opening their own places. Chip and Amanda Dunham branched out from the now-closed Grove Grill to open Magnolia & May, a country brasserie in East Memphis. Just a few blocks away, a new breakfast joint popped up in Southall Café. Downtown, the Memphis Chess Club opened its doors, complete with a full-service café and restaurant. Down in Whitehaven, Ken and Mary Olds created Muggin Coffeehouse, the first locally owned coffee shop in the neighborhood. And entrepreneurial-minded folks started up their own delivery-only ventures, like Brittney Adu’s Furloaved Breads + Bakery.

So what will next year bring? With everything thrown out of whack, I’m loath to make predictions, but with a vaccine on the horizon, I’m hoping (fingers crossed) that it becomes safer to eat out soon, and the restaurant industry can begin a long-overdue recovery. And to leave you with what will hopefully be a metaphor for restaurants in 2021: By next summer, Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman’s Hog & Hominy will complete its Phoenician rebirth from the ashes of a disastrous fire and open its doors once again.

In the meantime, keep supporting your local restaurants! — Samuel X. Cicci

“Your Tickets Will be at Will Call”

Oh, to hear those words again, and plenty of arts organizations are eager to say them. The pandemic wrecked the seasons for performing arts groups and did plenty of damage to museums and galleries.

Not that they haven’t made valiant and innovative efforts to entertain from afar with virtual programming.

But they’re all hoping to mount physical, not virtual, seasons in the coming year.

Playhouse on the Square suspended scheduled in-person stage productions until June 2021. This includes the 52nd season lineup of performances that were to be on the stages of Playhouse on the Square, The Circuit Playhouse, and TheatreWorks at the Square. It continues to offer the Playhouse at Home Series, digital content via its website and social media.

Theatre Memphis celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2021 and is eager to show off its new facility, a major renovation that was going to shut it down most of 2020 anyway while it expanded common spaces and added restrooms and production space while updating dressing rooms and administrative offices. But the hoped-for August opening was pushed back, and it plans to reschedule the programming for this season to next.

Hattiloo Theatre will continue to offer free online programming in youth acting and technical theater, and it has brought a five-week playwright’s workshop and free Zoom panel discussions with national figures in Black theater. Like the other institutions, it is eager to get back to the performing stage when conditions allow.

Ballet Memphis has relied on media and platforms that don’t require contact, either among audience members or dancers. But if there are fewer partnerings among dancers, there are more solos, and group movement is well-distanced. The organization has put several short pieces on video, releasing some and holding the rest for early next year. It typically doesn’t start a season until late summer or early fall, so the hope is to get back into it without missing a step.

Opera Memphis is active with its live Sing2Me program of mobile opera concerts and programming on social media. Its typical season starts with 30 Days of Opera in August that usually leads to its first big production of the season, so, COVID willing, that may emerge.

Courtesy Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Dana Claxton, Headdress at the Brooks earlier this year.

Museums and galleries, such as the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, National Civil Rights Museum, and the Metal Museum are functioning at limited capacity, but people can go and enjoy the offerings. The scope of the shows is limited, as coronavirus has put the kibosh on blockbuster shows for now. Look for easing of protocols as the situation allows in the coming year. — Jon W. Sparks

Politics

Oyez. Oyez. Oh yes, there is one year out of every four in which regularly scheduled elections are not held in Shelby County, and 2021 is such a year. But decisions will be made during the year by the Republican super-majority of the state legislature in Nashville that will have a significant bearing on the elections that will occur in the three-year cycle of 2022-2024 and, in fact, on those occurring through 2030.

This would be in the course of the constitutionally required ritual during which district lines are redefined every 10 years for the decade to come, in the case of legislative seats and Congressional districts. The U.S. Congress, on the basis of population figures provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, will have allocated to each state its appropriate share of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. And the state legislature will determine how that number is apportioned statewide. The current number of Tennessee’s Congressional seats is nine. The state’s legislative ratio is fixed at 99 state House members and 33 members of the state Senate.

Tennessee is one of 37 states in which, as indicated, the state legislature calls the shots for both Congressional and state redistricting. The resultant redistricting undergoes an approval process like any other measure, requiring a positive vote in both the state Senate and the state House, with the Governor empowered to consent or veto.

No one anticipates any disagreements between any branches of government. Any friction in the redistricting process will likely involve arguments over turf between neighboring GOP legislators. Disputes emanating from the minority Democrats will no doubt be at the mercy of the courts.

The forthcoming legislative session is expected to be lively, including holdover issues relating to constitutional carry (the scrapping of permits for firearms), private school vouchers (currently awaiting a verdict by the state Supreme Court), and, as always, abortion. Measures relating to the ongoing COVID crisis and vaccine distribution are expected, as is a proposal to give elected county executives primacy over health departments in counties where the latter exist.

There is no discernible disharmony between those two entities in Shelby County, whose government has devoted considerable attention over the last year to efforts to control the pandemic and offset its effects. Those will continue, as well as efforts to broaden the general inclusiveness of county government vis-à-vis ethnic and gender groups.

It is still a bit premature to speculate on future shifts of political ambition, except to say that numerous personalities, in both city and county government, are eyeing the prospects of succeeding Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland in 2023. And several Democrats are looking at a potential race against District Attorney General Amy Weirich in 2022.

There are strong rumors that, after a false start or two, Memphis will follow the lead of several East Tennessee co-ops and finally depart from TVA.

And meanwhile, in March, the aforesaid Tennessee Democrats will select a new chair from numerous applicants. — Jackson Baker

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis Partnering with Sundance to Bring Prestigious Film Fest to Memphis

The global pandemic has upended the film world in many ways, and film festivals were among the first to feel the heat. Held in late January, Sundance, North America’s most prestigious festival, just barely escaped the fate of festivals like the local Oxford Film Festival, which had to cancel their March screenings and scramble to mount an online presence as the economy collapsed around them. But Sundance will have no such luck in January 2021, when the epidemiological conditions will be worse than they were in the spring.

Like Indie Memphis, which had a very successful “online and outdoors” festival in October, Sundance has had time to observe and adapt to the new pandemic normal. In response, the festival is moving beyond its traditional Park City, Utah, home and taking its cutting-edge film slate to where people live.

“Even under these impossible circumstances, artists are still finding paths to make bold and vital work in whatever ways they can,” says Sundance festival director Tabitha Jackson. “So Sundance, as a festival of discovery, will bring that work to its first audiences in whatever ways we can. The core of our festival in the form of an online platform and socially distanced cinematic experiences is responsive to the pandemic and gives us the opportunity to reach new audiences, safely, where they are. And thanks to a constellation of independent cinema communities across the U.S., we are not putting on our festival alone. At the heart of all this is a belief in the power of coming together, and the desire to preserve what makes a festival unique — a collaborative spirit, a collective energy, and a celebration of the art, artists, and ideas that leave us changed.”

Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson

Indie Memphis is partnering with Sundance to bring festival screenings to the Malco Summer Drive-In, where the homegrown film arts organization anchored its 2020 festival. It’s not the first collaboration between the two festivals. Jackson gave the closing remarks at Indie Memphis’ 2020 Black Creators Forum.

“We are thrilled to be selected as a satellite partner for the Sundance Film Festival!” says Indie Memphis executive director Ryan Watt. “This is a special opportunity for the city of Memphis to take part in the most significant filmmaker-launching platform in the country. Our audience loved the Summer Drive-In during our recent film festival, and we are so grateful to Malco for making it available again for this special occasion.”

Sundance screenings will take place at the drive-in January 28th to Feb 3rd, with the exact lineup to be announced in the coming weeks. The Malco Summer Drive-In will join the ranks of venues across the country, including the Pasadena Rose Bowl, the Sidewalk Film Festival cinema in Birmingham, Alabama, and the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, that will host films. All 70 Sundance feature films will be streaming on their online platform, festival.sundance.org.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis Announces 2020 Audience Award Winners

Coming to Africa

It’s election day in America, so get out there and vote! While you’re waiting for those results, the Indie Memphis Film Festival has announced the results of their own polls for the best films of the 2020 festival. Everyone who purchased a pass or ticket for the online and outdoor screenings was given a ballot to rate the films on a scale of 1-5.

The big winners were director Emma Seligman’s comedy Shiva Baby, which took home the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature, and director Tali Yankelevich’s experimental film My Darling Supermarket, which took home the Audience Award for Best Departures Feature. Both Shiva Baby and My Darling Supermarket had previously won the Jury Awards in their respective categories at the awards ceremony last Wednesday night. Camrus Johnson and Pedro Piccinini’s animated short “Grab My Hand: A Letter To My Dad” also won both Jury and Audience awards in its category. Director Zaire Love scored a rare split two-fer by winning the Audience Award for Best Hometowner Documentary Short for “The Black Men I Know” after winning the Jury Award for Best Hometowner Short for her film “Road To Step.”

The Audience Award for Best Hometowner Feature went to Anwar Jamison’s bi-continental romantic comedy Coming to Africa. Jamison’s film prevailed despite having its original premiere screening, which was scheduled for the riverfront, postponed due to stormy weather.

The audience ballots chose What Do You Have To Lose? for Best Documentary Feature, directed by Dr. Trimiko Melancon. What Do You Have to Lose? is the Rhodes College professor’s first feature film.

The Audience Award for Best Hometowner Narrative Short went to the “The Little Death,” a personal drama about miscarriage written and directed by husband and wife team Justin and Ariel Harrison. 

For the Best Sounds Feature, awarded for the always-crowded category of music films, the audience chose Andy Black’s documentary Shoe: A Memphis Musical Legacy.

The Audience Award for Best Documentary Short went to “Still Processing,” a moving experimental documentary by Sophy Romvari in which she filmed her real-time reaction to finding lost pictures of her two brothers, who had recently passed away. The voters awarded Best Departures Short to Amin Mahe’s “Letter To My Mother.”

For the music video categories, Lewis Del Mar’s song “The Ceiling,” directed by rubberband, won the National Audience award. The Hometowner Audience Award went to Louise Page’s “Paw In The Honey,” directed by Laura Jean Hocking.

The audience voters chose Hisonni Johnson’s “Take Out Girl” for Best Poster Design.

The winners were informed of their awards via a surprise Zoom call. You can watch their reactions, which range from the funny to the tearful, in this video.
 

Indie Memphis Announces 2020 Audience Award Winners

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis 2020: Q&A With Executive Director Ryan Watt

Ryan Watt, Executive Director of Indie Memphis

Tonight at Indie Memphis, Coming to Africa, the feature film by Anwar Jamison, which was rained out last Friday night, will screen at the Malco Summer Drive-In, along with the Hometowner Music Video Showcase, rain or shine. You can read about Jamison’s bi-continental production in my Indie Memphis cover story.

Last month, Ryan Watt, Indie Memphis’ executive director, announced he was leaving his post at the end of the year, setting off a national search for his replacement. Watt has presided over a major expansion of Indie Memphis from a cozy, fall festival into a national example for regional film organizations. While preparing my cover story about Indie Memphis 2020, I spoke at length with Watt, but I didn’t have room in that story to fit everything in. What follows is a Q&A with him taken from that interview, in which we spoke about the past, present, and future of the arts organization. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What can you say about your time at Indie Memphis?

I’ve loved working for a nonprofit. It’s not something I ever expected I would do. It just kind of happened. I joined the board of Indie Memphis in 2014, and then in 2015, we were looking for a new exec director, and I was asked to become the interim. I just kind of fell in love with the job during that time period. And so, over the last six years, I’ve just tried to keep building the organization one step at a time and grow new programs. Now, after six years, I feel like we’re in a really good place, and I think it’s time to find the next leader to take us forward.

What have you learned during the last five years?

I’ve learned there’s a huge amount of amazing creativity in Memphis and throughout the country. Our submissions and the work just keeps growing in number and quality every year. From my perspective, it’s no question that the Memphis film community, over the last six years that I’ve been watching every hometowner film, the quality just continues to get better. I feel really good about the work we’ve put in through our artist development programs, Indie Grants, and the youth program. Now a lot of these students are in college, and pretty soon some of the students who started in the youth program will be out of college. And so it’d be exciting to see what they create.

Why do you think artist development is an important part of Indie Memphis’ mission?

Perhaps in like a New York or Chicago or somewhere else, a film festival might be able to say that there’s plenty of other resources for filmmakers. In Memphis and other cities our size, I think there’s very few resources. That’s why we felt it was important to be proactive about finding support for filmmakers. We just keep growing it every year, but then you always feel like we wish we could do more. We always wish we could do more, or we wish we had more cash to give out as grants, and we had larger programs.

Especially when everyone’s been stuck in their homes, I think it’s clear that the arts are super important to our lives and well-being, and the enjoyment of our city and surroundings, and as communal experiences. But beyond that, if you want to look at it just from sort of an economic development perspective, you learn all these skills through filmmaking. It’s the most collaborative art there is. It involves a lot of teamwork, collaboration, and communication skills and meeting deadlines, and all of these things that translate into so many other jobs, whether you’re going into communications, to work for FedEx, or you’re working in media or all sorts of things.

One of the big accomplishments of your tenure has been a major push to diversify the festival, in terms of audience, filmmakers, and staff. How, and why, did you go about spearheading that? What have you learned from that experience?

I learned a lot. I can remember a few specific moments. I think it was the very first year when we did the narrative shorts screening, and I think there was only one Black filmmaker. A Black attendee raised his hand during the Q&A and asked, “Why is this mostly white filmmakers?” And my answer, which was technically true, was that these are the films that were submitted, you know? We were just picking the best of the films that were submitted. But what I learned over the years that I did not realize at all going into the job was that, even though I think Indie Memphis is very much like many other film festivals across the country that might try to put a spotlight on Black stories, Black communities, and Black artists, the audience and filmmakers in the city still saw essentially a white organization. There were filmmakers who didn’t even bother to submit because they didn’t think Indie Memphis was for them.

So that led to the hiring of Brandon Harris. who had a really strong programming vision to bring to the festival. That was how we wound up with The Invaders premiere and some other films my second year. But I continued to learn a lot, I’d say, over the years by having very blunt, frank conversations with Black artists in Memphis. There was one conversation in particular with The Collective when we reached out to partner with them. They really challenged me. They’ve spoken about this many times, that they had felt with some other white-led organizations that, especially during Black History Month and when MLK50 was going on, that they’re being asked to come in to fulfill this sudden need to make sure organizations are highlighting Black artists. Then they’re not feeling the partnership feels with these organizations at other times of the year.

And so, when I reached out to them, they thought of us in that same bucket. My immediate reaction was to be defensive. But I learned just so much from, I’ll just mention again, Victoria Jones and The Collective, and other people about what experiences they’ve had that they bring with them.

So, having said all of that, I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is just to put your defenses down and be willing to just sit back and listen and understand the needs of Black artists and the Black community. And then, bringing on Miriam Bale as artistic director and watching the Black Creators Forum get off the ground, I tried to just step away and allow other people to lead those initiatives. It’s been something I’m really glad we were able to put in place, and I think it has huge potential to keep growing in the future.

You’ve been in the unenviable position of trying to put together a film festival during a pandemic. How did that go?

We were lucky we were a fall festival. For the spring festivals like Oxford, I mean, the train had already left the station! The whole event was planned, and then they can’t do it. They had to, within weeks, throw together a virtual festival with no time to plan it. So we’re very lucky that was not the case. We had sort of the opposite, where we had all year to think about ideas. You can get to the point where there’s so many ideas that it’s hard to make the final decisions and narrow down what the event should be. Eventually, we keep saying online and outdoors. It’s just kind of the right balance of just enough stuff for Memphians to do, to get out of the house, to be outdoors in the hopefully nice October weather. Then also being online for anyone who understandably wants to stay at home. Also, there’s a huge opportunity now for people all over the country and all over the world to log in and be part of the festival.

Do you think these online innovations will last after the pandemic is over and we can have in-person festivals again?

I think there’s a great way those things can work together. It doesn’t have to be all one or the other. Clearly, the whole industry is going to shift a few steps in this direction, because now everyone’s had to put this whole format together. So I don’t think it all just gets thrown away and disappears overnight. Some of these virtual elements are going to remain even when the more traditional, in-person structure of the festival comes back.

What do you see as the future for Indie Memphis?

The important part is finding a new leader who also has a vision for what the future is, and that doesn’t need to be my vision. I feel like my vision has been for getting us to this point. And so now, I think finding the right leader who sees the path forward is what needs to happen.

What comes next for you?

In the near future, I’ll be announcing a business venture I’m going to be getting into. As I had mentioned in my announcement, I’m just returning to my entrepreneurial roots.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis 2020: What Do You Have To Lose? and Reunion

Brittany Cooper in What Do You Have To Lose?

The Indie Memphis Film Festival returns tonight to the Levitt Shell and the Malco Summer Drive-In. At the Shell is the world premiere of What Do You Have To Lose?, directed by Dr. Trimiko Melancon, Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies at Rhodes College. The feature documentary combines a history of race relations in America with a look at the contemporary politics of race, beginning with the backlash against the election of Barack Obama. The title is taken from a question Donald Trump asked of black voters during the 2016 presidential campaign. In light of the rise of the alt-right and increasingly brazen racism in the way Trump governs and in the actions of his supporters, the answer turned out to be, quite a lot.

What Do You Have To Lose? is competing in the documentary category. It begins at 6:30 PM at the Levitt Shell, and premieres online at the same time.

Jake Mahaffy filmed his feature Free In Deed in Memphis in 2014, and premiered it at the Venice Film Festival, one of the most prestigious stages in the film world, the next year. His new film Reunion was filmed in New Zealand, where he teaches film at the University of Auckland, but Reunion it still has a Memphis connection in the person of producer Adam Hohenberg.

Reunion is larger in scale and more ambitious than Free In Deed. Set in a dark, vaguely gothic house it stars Emma Draper as Ellie, a woman who returns to her grandparent’s home to complete a difficult pregnancy. Unexpectedly, her mother, played by Julia Ormond, is waiting for her. What follows is a tense spiral into anxiety and family secrets with a side order of body horror.

Mahaffy says he started writing Reunion while he was editing Free In Deed, and evolved considerably over the course of five major rewrites and a short version he shot in Colorado in 2016. “The characters and story considerably changed. It was originally written for a New England-type setting … It’s definitely got unsettling and sort of dreadful elements, and there’s horror elements to it, for sure. But it’s something that’s a bit hard for me to describe in general terms. It’s definitely a film with horror elements in it and psychological thriller momentum. But it’s got comedy, dark humor, too. Originally it started off with stories from people talking about their parents, mainly their mothers and sort of the crazy things they do — passive aggressive, manipulative type behaviors. Most of them are pretty bizarre and not kind, but also kind of funny, in a dark way.”

Filled with affecting performances, Reunion is all about the psychological made visceral. “There’s some people that have the benefits of some really great, well-adjusted, parents. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone has the same start. I think that that dynamic, the difficulty of individuating, growing up, and becoming your own person, and then trying to return back to a relationship that doesn’t acknowledge that, which can’t encompass that personhood that you’ve developed as an individual. People end up falling back into those childish or childlike relational dynamics, and it is a problem. So people find different ways of dealing with it. I think it’s pretty common for a lot of people that recognize what it is, but some people don’t even recognize it. They just go along and are unaware. But I think even people who are aware, they find themselves falling into those sort of behaviors and modes of being that aren’t based on any sort of conscious awareness. They just ended up playing that role of the parent’s child, and it’s not necessarily healthy.”

Indie Memphis 2020: What Do You Have To Lose? and Reunion

Reunion plays at 9:30 PM Sunday, October 25 at the Malco Summer Drive-In, and debuts online at the same time.

Categories
Music Music Blog

The Story of Shoe Productions’ Many Hits, Brought to Life on Film

CREDIT: courtesy Andy Black

courtesy Andy Black

Bobby Manuel, Rick Dees, Wareen Wagner, and a Disco Duck.

Memphis is one of the greatest studio towns of all time. Sun, Phillips, Stax, American, and Ardent are just a few of the more well-known names, but a plethora of others helped capture the amazing music being made here over the years. One of them, Shoe Productions, was especially shy of the limelight in its heyday of the ’70s and ’80s, but cut some of the most memorable records of that era.

The studio was started by Wayne Crook and Warren Wagner in 1971, and Andy Black joined soon after. In 1977, Jim Stewart (the co-founder of Stax) and Bobby Manuel set up their Daily Planet Productions in the same building. Many decades later, Black went looking for whatever history of his old business might exist, and came up with nothing. So he and his son Nathan, already with years of experience in audio/visual production, set about making the documentary: Shoe: A Memphis Music Legacy. It screens Monday, October 26th, 6:30 p.m. at the Malco Summer Drive-In as part of the Indie Memphis Film Festival.

A quick chat with Andy and Nathan Black revealed that their documentary is just the tip of the iceberg. Shoe was buzzing with activity for over a decade, and the stories and recorded tracks are impressive.

Memphis Flyer: Memphis was really hopping as a recording city back in the ’70s.

Andy Black: Well it was. And I think part of that was, our undoing was because, we had the studio over there, and we were a bunch of kids trying to build things, and do everything ourselves with very little money. And Jim Stewart and Bobby Manuel came down. Stax had just folded and they needed to cut some stuff. And they were looking for a place to do it. So they cut there and loved the place. It was similar to Stax in the way it felt. They called their company the Daily Planet, right across the hall from Shoe. And we wound up building a second studio.

Jim used his connections with Atlantic and they bought part of the equipment. We got a brand new console, an MCI. And it worked out real well. On the Shoe side, we were doing everything ourselves. We built a console from the ground up. I mean, we etched the circuit boards and put every little component in every board in that console and soldered it together. There were about five or six of us working on it. It became such a unique sounding board, especially on the low end.

Then it got to where Jim and Bobby would come over to our studio and cut basic tracks, because they loved the way the bass and bass drum sounded. And we would go over to their side, ’cause that’s the side you wanna put the horns and the vocals on, ’cause it’s cleaner. So it became a back and forth thing. We were more or less rock and roll and pop, and when Jim and Bobby came in, a lot of people started coming over because of them, like Steve Cropper, or other people from Stax, or from Isaac Hayes’ band. So all the pop guys were going, “Wow, that’s really good. They’re good!” So we all learned from each other. Shoe was about the people and it became a learning place. We taught each other by bouncing ideas off each other.

And we kept a real low profile. Jim asked us to do that, because he didn’t want to deal with the media. Stax had just folded. He didn’t want to be bothered. And everyone thought he went “into hiding,” so to speak, and got out of the business, when really he was over there at our studio, and we were cutting every day. It turned into a real good working relationship. We kept it low-key. In this process, Nathan and I did “Take Me to the River,” and I had done a Stax documentary, just the audio. So Nathan shot everything.
courtesy Andy Black

The control room at Shoe Productions

I was over at Sun Studios, and killing time with the kid that was running it. And we got to talking about Shoe, and I told him all about it, and he said, ‘Man, I thought I knew everything about Memphis music back in the ’70s and ’80s, but I have not heard these stories.’ Well it turned out that that kid was [Grammy Award-winning producer and engineer] Matt Ross-Spang.

I went home and Googled “Shoe” and got nothing. It was just like we didn’t exist. I said, ‘Damn, we kept such a low profile, we’re getting left out of history.’ So I talked to Nathan and said, what do you think about us going in on this project together? Nathan was practically raised there. I used to take him to the studio with me all the time, as a young child. So he’s well aware of the story.

Nathan Black: It was interesting for me because one of the first things we did was get the old group back together. There’s a recording session in it. So that was the first time a lot of those guys had been there in 30 years, and going back into the space, and it was the first time I’d been in there in 30 years too. And the Daily Planet side is exactly the same way it was back then. It’s still a working studio, and everything’s the same, down to the carpet. It was like walking back in a time warp. I spent a lot of time there, but I was young, probably 8 or 10 years old. So I knew all the people, but I didn’t really know the stories. So it was interesting to me, hearing all those stories from people I knew and had been around all the time. I was just a kid going to work with my dad. I remember making little forts up under the grand piano, playing with my GI Joes.

AB: Jimmy Griffin was co-founder of Bread with David Gates. And he’s a Memphis boy. He was from Memphis and went out to L.A. and they formed Bread. And had many, many hits. And he came back and we became friends. He was out jogging one day, and came in and introduced himself. He and I and two other guys had a writing group. We wrote songs all the time. And we wound up cutting an album with Terry Sylvester of the Hollies.

Was that one of the first things you did there?

AB: It was an early thing. Actually, one of the first things we did was Jimmy himself, because Jimmy was such a good singer. And we had some writers, so we decided that Shoe needed to start a label, and we used Jimmy as our first artist on Shoe Records. It’s funny because the records have turned up a couple times on eBay, and they’re selling for between $50-$100 a piece — for a ’45! And I’m like, ‘Damn, I’ve got probably 75 of these things.’

There’s a whole section on “Disco Duck” and how that came to be. It was originally on Estelle Axton’s label, Fretone Records. [Celebrity DJ] Rick Dees had gone to her with the idea of doing a disco song. She connected him with Bobby Manuel and they finished it, and Bobby cut it, and RSO Records bought it. And they wanted an album right away. So we cut an album in two weeks. Every day, all day long.

NB: There is a whole section of the film about the Dog Police. I remember my dad taking me to the studio where they were shooting it. I even brought home some of the dog masks.

AB: They were doing jingles, because they were three of the finest jazz musicians in town. They’d go over the Media General and crank out those jingles like crazy. Shoe also did jingles, but so we could support our creativity in songs and records. So Tony [Thomas] and them came over and I wound up cutting two jazz albums with them, and both of them got shot down. They didn’t get a deal and they were so bummed out. So they said, We’re gonna do something REAL different. Whatever you want to do, Andy, it’s total freedom. And we didn’t have a lot of electronic gear back then, so I took a microphone and stuck it in the end of a vacuum cleaner hose and gave Tom Lonardo the other end and said ‘Here, sing into this.’

I remember when I was young and used to sing through the vacuum hose and it sounded so cool! So we did all kind of crazy things. And Wayne and Warren heard all this going on through the walls, and they became really interested in it. Wayne was getting into video at that time. MTV was starting to get pretty big. So it just married together. We actually did a whole album. 

Still from ‘Dog Police’ video


NB: The video won MTV’s Basement Tapes, hosted by Weird Al Yankovic. I think it was NBC that picked it up and did an actual pilot, they were planning on making it a show. You can see it on YouTube. The pilot has Adam Sandler in it, and Jeremy Piven.

It seems like there was a cool experimental environment at Shoe. I noticed the Scruffs cut their debut there.

AB: Yeah! They used to come in and pull the night shift after everybody else had gone home to bed. The Scruffs would come in and cut til the wee hours of the morning. And then other people would show up in the morning and they would leave. We had two studios that were just pumping out projects all the time. I produced Joyce Cobb. We had a hit song with her, “Dig the Gold,” that went up to #42 in the nation on Billboard. And we had Rick Christian, who got a deal with Mercury records, and one of his songs got picked up by Kenny Rogers and he had a #1 hit with it. And we had Shirley Brown coming over there. We had Levon Helm coming over there. It became a very active place. And that’s why it puzzled me that no one knew anything about it. Then it dawned on me why.

That low profile.

AB: Yeah, it’ll get ya every time!

The first time I heard about Shoe was reading that Chris Bell cut some of “I Am the Cosmos” there. Were you in on that?

AB: I wasn’t in on that session. Warren did. They were friends, so Warren invited him and Ken Woodley to come down and Richard Rosebrough down to Shoe, and they came in late, ’cause that was the only time slot they could fit in there. They cut “I Am the Cosmos” and one or two others. And people are still interested in Big Star and Chris Bell. One day on Facebook, I saw where people were taking pictures through the windows and saying, “Look, I think this is the room where ‘I Am the Cosmos’ was cut.” And I looked at it and went, ‘No, that’s the bathroom!’

That track was actually cut on the other side of the building. We occupied both sides of this really great building. It was supposed to be a basement for a church. So the bottom floor was 16″-18″ of packed concrete and partly underground. So it was super quiet.

NB: Apparently the pastor of the church ran off with the money, so they only built the basement. That’s all that exists! You walk through the front door and you immediately have to go downstairs. So everything was underground. No ground floor, no windows.

AB: It’s really bizarre. We only had one little sign by the front door and that was it. It was just kinda word of mouth. Elvin Bishop came over. Dr. John. I could go on and on. We had to leave out a lot. In fact, there’s enough stories for us to do a Shoe 2!

The Story of Shoe Productions’ Many Hits, Brought to Life on Film

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis 2020: A Rain Delay, Laura Dern, and Shiva Baby

Shiva Baby

Day three of the outdoors segment of Indie Memphis hits a weather-related snag. Memphis director Anwar Jamison’s feature Coming to Africa and the Hometowner Music Video Showcase, scheduled to roll on the riverfront tonight, have been postponed due to a forecast of rain. The film and video block have been rescheduled for Wednesday, October 28 at the Malco Summer Drive-In. The film will still premiere online tonight. You can read my interview with Jamison about his bi-continental film in last week’s Memphis Flyer cover feature on the festival.

The drive-in program for tonight is rain or shine. It kicks off with Shiva Baby, director Emma Seligman’s comedy about a struggling college student named Danielle (Rachel Sennott) who takes on a phone sex side hustle with sugar daddy Max (Danny Deferrari) to help make ends meet. But when he unexpectedly shows up at a family shiva with his wife Kim (Dianna Agron) and their colicky baby, her life is about to get a whole lot more complicated. 

Indie Memphis 2020: A Rain Delay, Laura Dern, and Shiva Baby

The second show at the drive-in is a retro screening of Smooth Talk. Based on a Joyce Carole Oates short story, it features a killer early performance by Laura Dern as Connie, a teenager being stalked by sexual predator Arnold, played by the great Treat Williams. Look for a rare acting appearance by The Band’s legendary drummer Levon Helm. The classic indie pic won the Jury Award at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival.

Indie Memphis 2020: A Rain Delay, Laura Dern, and Shiva Baby (2)

Indie Memphis continues through Thursday, October 29. For full information on the online and in-person offerings, visit the Indie Memphis website. 

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis 2020: Bluff City Filmmakers Document Their Hometown

CREDIT: Courtesy of Last Bite Films.

Courtesy of Last Bite Films.

Suhair Lauck at her post behind the cash register in the documentary The Little Tea Shop.

As director of operations for Indie Memphis, Brighid Wheeler has had a crazy year. She and her organization have been charged with trying to figure out how to throw a film festival amid a worldwide pandemic. “I think the biggest challenge — I don’t necessarily want to speak for the whole team, but I think it would resonate with each team member — has been reminding yourself that every situation needs to be rethought. The moment you find yourself approaching something in the same way you would have pre-pandemic, you need to start over.”

The 2020 festival, which began on Wednesday night, is taking place online and outdoors. Indie Memphis has already moved their weekly programming online with the help of Memphis-based cinema services company Eventive. The staff, who specialize in in-person events, have had to learn to become broadcasters on the fly. There’s been a lot of time spent teleconferencing, says Wheeler. “Suddenly, you become an expert in a very specific sense on Zoom, like for our Tuesday nights, when we’re doing our weekly screenings and, [artistic director] Miriam [Bale] was hosting various industry people and having conversations about films with a filmmaker or a critic.”

But the new challenges have brought new opportunities. Wheeler says this has been driven home for her as the team records filmmaker interviews for the festival. “I’m reminded sitting through these Q&As that this is such a unique opportunity. Of course, I would prefer to have these filmmakers physically in Memphis. We are Indie Memphis. That’s our brand. But I’m able to have the majority of the filmmakers for each short film block in attendance for the Q&As. That is just something that is not always afforded to us at the in-person festival.”

Wheeler is in charge of programming the short films for the festival. This year, there are almost 200 of them, organized in themed blocks, all of which are available online. “In my time programming Indie Memphis, I’ve never been as proud of a shorts program as I am about this one,” she says. “I think that speaks to a number of different things, but I want to highlight first and foremost Kayla Myers, who has been a great addition to our programming team.”

On Thursday night, Indie Memphis takes over all four screens at the Malco Summer Drive-In. The Hometowner Documentary Shorts program, which begins at 6:30 PM, features both Memphis filmmakers and newcomers. It begins with “American Dream Safari,” G.B. Shrewsbury’s portrait of Tad Pierson, the Bluff City tour guide operator whose expertise in local music sites is unrivaled. Zaire Love, a graduate of the Crosstown Arts residency program, takes audiences on the “Road to Step,” which examines Black fraternity culture’s step show competition at Ole Miss. Artistic polymath Donald Meyers’ “The Lonely” is an intimate portrait of elderly isolation, and a plea for compassion. Bailey Smith’s “Holding On” is a chronicle of Memphis musician Don Lifted’s first U.S. tour. Matthew Lee urges the audience with “Remembering Veteran’s Day.” Emily Burkhead gets experimental with the hybrid doc “She Is More,” featuring musician Jordan Occasionally. Tyler Pilkington’s “Teched Out” explores the frontier of transhumanism, where the line between human and machine is blurred. Kierra Turner chronicles NBA player Jonathan Stark’s recovery from a potentially career-ending injury in “Wake ‘Em Up.” Josh Cooper’s “Loose Leaves” brings the story of a group of Black women entrepreneurs in Orange Mound. And finally, Matteo Servante and Molly Wexler’s “Little Tea Shop” gives you the background on the famous Downtown restaurant where you can find power players seated next to a person experiencing homelessness, and the immigrant restauranteur Suhair Lauck who brings them together.

“It’s an introduction to Memphis,—a taste of different areas and people within our city,” says Wheeler. “We know how hardworking our filmmakers are, but to see, even through the pandemic, the resilience they continue to display as they make their work is nothing short of amazing.”

Indie Memphis 2020 continues through Thursday, October 29. You can buy online and in-person passes at indiememphis,org.