Tag: Liz Brasher

Indie Memphis Day 3: Legends, Queens, and Sorcerer

Post author By Chris McCoy
Post date November 1, 2019

Varda by Agnes

Indie Memphis 2019 kicks into high gear on Friday with its first full day of films and events. The first screening of the day comes at 10:40 AM with the music documentary The Unicorn, director Tim Geraghty’s portrait of gay psychedelic country musician Peter Grudzien.

Indie Memphis Day 3: Legends, Queens, and Sorcerer

3:30 at Playhouse on the Square is the second annual Black Creators Forum Pitch Rally. Eight filmmakers will present their projects they want to film in Memphis on stage, and a jury will decide which one will receive the $10,000 prize, presented by Epicenter Memphis. The inaugural event was very exciting last year, and with this year’s line up of talent (which you can see over on the Indie Memphis website), it promises to be another great event.

Over at Studio on the Square at 3:40 p.m. is the final work by a giant of filmmaking. Varda by Agnes is a kind of cinematic memoir by the mother of French New Wave, Agnes Varda. It’s a look back at the director’s hugely influential career, made when she was 90 and completed shortly before her death last March. Here’s a clip:

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Part 2 of the unprecedentedly strong Hometowner Narrative Shorts competition field screens at Ballet Memphis at 6:15 p.m. “Shadow in the Room” is an impressionistic short by director Christian Walker. Based on a Memphis Dawls song, and featuring exquisite cinematography by Jared B. Callen, it stars Liz Brasher, Cody Landers, and the increasingly ubiquitous Syderek Watson, who had a standout role on this week’s Bluff City Law.

Waheed AlQawasmi produced “Shadow In The Room” and directed the next short in the bloc, “Swings.” Based on the memoir by ballerina Camilia Del, who also stars in the film, it deftly combines music from Max Richter with Del’s words and movement.

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“A Night Out” is Kevin Brooks and Abby Myers’ short film which took this year’s Memphis Film Prize. It’s a technical tour de force—done entirely in a single, 13-minute tracking shot through Molly Fontaine’s by cinematographer Andrew Trent Fleming. But it also carries an emotional punch, thanks to a bravado performance by Rosalyn R. Ross.

In “Greed” by writer/director A.D. Smith, a severely autistic man, played by G. Reed, works as a human calculator for a drug lord. But while he is dismissed by the gun-toting gangsters around him, he might not be as harmless as he seems.

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Andre Jackson’s tense and chilling “Stop” finds two men, one a cop and the other a mysterious stranger from his past, reunited by a chance encounter on the road.

STOP Teaser Trailer from Andre Jackson on Vimeo.

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Kyle Taubkin’s “Soul Man” earned big applause at the Memphis Film Prize, thanks to a heartfelt performance by Curtis C. Jackson as a washed-up Stax performer trying to come to grips with his past.

Soul Man – Teaser #1 (2019) from Kyle Taubken on Vimeo.

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Director Morgan Jon Fox, whose documentary This Is What Love In Action Looks Like is one of the best-loved films ever to screen at Indie Memphis, returns to the festival with his latest short “The One You Never Forget.” A touching story with incredible performances by two teenage actors, this film has had a killer run on the festival circuit that climaxes with this screening.

At Ballet Memphis at 9:00 p.m. is the Hometowner Documentary Short Competition bloc, featuring new work by a number of Memphis documentarians. Matthew Lee’s “9.28.18” is a wonderfully shot, verité portrait of a very eventful day in the Bluff City. Indie Memphis veteran Donald Myers returns with heartfelt memories of his grandfather, Daniel Sokolowski, and his deep connection with his hometown of Chicago in “Sundays With Gramps.” Shot in the burned-out ruins of Elvis Presley’s first house, “Return to Audubon” by director Emily Burkhead and students at the Curb Institute at Rhodes College presents an incredible performance by Susan Marshall of Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel. Shot in the churches of Memphis and rural Mississippi, “Soulfed” by Zaire Love will tempt your appetite with an examination of the intimate connection between religion and cuisine. “That First Breath,” a collaboration between Danielle Hurst, Madeline Quasebarth, and Kamaria Thomas, interviews Mid-South doulas and advocates for a more humane and natural childbirth experience. “How We Fall Short” by Brody Kuhar and Julie White is a six-minute dive into the Tennessee criminal justice system. “Floating Pilgrims” by David Goodman is a portrait of the vanishing culture of people who live on boats in the Wolf River Harbor. “St. Nick” is Lauren Ready’s story of a high school athlete fighting debilitating disease. “Fund Our Transit” by Synthia Hogan turns its focus on activist Justin Davis’ fight for better transportation options in Memphis. And finally, Zaire Love’s second entry, “Ponzel,” is one black woman’s search for meaning in an uncertain world.

The competition feature Jezebel (9:30 p.m., Hattiloo Theatre) by director Numa Perrier focuses on the story of a young black woman in Las Vegas who is forced to take a job as a cam girl when the death of her mother threatens to leave her homeless. The emotional heart of the film is the conflict that arises when the protagonist discovers that she kind of likes being naughty with strangers on the internet, and the dangers that arise when one of her clients gets too close.

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Outdoors in the big tent block party, the premiere musical event of the festival happens at 8:30 p.m. Unapologetic Records will celebrate the release of its new compilation album Stuntarious IV with a show featuring performances by A Weirdo From Memphis, IMAKEMADBEATS, C Major, Kid Maestro, She’Chinah, Aaron James, and Cameron Bethany. Expect surprises and, well, lots of mad beats!

Finally, at midnight, a pair of screenings of classic films—for various definitions of the word “classic”— at Studio on the Square. Queen of the Damned is Michael Rymer’s adaptation of the third novel in Anne Rice’s vampire trilogy. Pop star Aaliyah starred as vampire queen Akasha, and had just finished the film when she died in a plane crash in the Bahamas. The film has become something of a camp classic, and is probably most notable today for inspiring a ton of great Halloween costumes.

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The other screening is Exorcist director William Friedkin’s masterpiece Sorcerer. Starring Roy Scheider as an anti-hero in charge of a ragtag group of desperados trying to move a truckload of nitroglycerin through the Amazon jungle, it’s a gripping ride through human greed.

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Come back tomorrow for another daily update on Indie Memphis 2019.

Music Music Features

DittyTV: A Global Music Network on South Main

Post author By Alex Greene
Post date February 14, 2019

I want my MTV! The sentiment may seem dated, but many of us feel the same tug: to regain that sense of discovery we had when new music cascaded out of the screen, all day. Yet the network’s concept, which seemed so revolutionary at lift-off in the 1980s, had difficulty profiting from its innovation, and phased out most of its music-only content more than a decade ago. And honestly, by then we were tired of all the hair metal anyway.

Still, the desire for that viewing-as-discovery experience has remained, and that’s what the Memphis-based DittyTV network is targeting. Since 2014, the storefront studio on South Main has been plying the web-waves with new music, slowly amassing a global reach that most Memphians are oblivious to. And to top it all off, there’s not a trace of hair metal.

Cameraman Jake Hopkins films Liz Brasher and Steve Selvidge for DittyTV

I first met Ronnie and Amy Wright soon after they relocated here from Washington, D.C., in 2010, looking for something beyond the Beltway life. Within a couple of years, they had fashioned the studio space that’s still their headquarters, and were shooting professional live performance videos of bands. And they let bands keep the footage and the multitrack audio masters to use however they saw fit. It seemed too good to be true.

But their labor of love, DittyTV, had legs, especially when they refined their operation with a stronger identity. Being roots music buffs, framing DittyTV as an Americana network was a natural fit. For one thing, the term is increasingly inclusive. “Americana is a wide net, but you’re not going to extremes like EDM or metal,” Ronnie says. “It’s not really a genre, it’s a collection of genres that people seem to love from their 20s into their 60s and 70s. And our viewership bears that out. People write in and say, ‘I put it on for hours and hours.’ That’s what I did in the MTV days. You just let it roll and use it as a soundtrack.”

A major turning point was being invited to broadcast the last Folk Alliance conference held in Memphis before that organization’s move to Kansas City. Ronnie recalls, “The first Folk Alliance we did was in 2012. We slowly grew, and now we’re up to more than five million viewers every month.”

“One of the things we’re trying to do is expand onto other platforms,” Amy adds. “Like streaming apps with their own channel lineups, or ‘skinny bundles.’ We’re at an advantage, because we’re already a digital network. A lot of the traditional channels have to convert their signal to a digital stream, and that’s caused problems. But we’re already digital.”

And they’ve smoothed out the wrinkles of their operation into 12 programs of music videos, ranging from the earthy R&B of Soul Side to the solo songwriters of Campfire. Their 12-hour cycle is further peppered with music news and interviews, and at the heart of it are the live in-studio concerts that DittyTV started with. The live coverage of music festivals has only grown, now including Nashville’s Americana Fest and Memphis’ own Ameripolitan Music Awards, coming up next week.

Soon they’ll be opening the space next door as a retail shop, Vibe and Dime, featuring LPs, musical instruments, and Ditty bling. “We’ll have live music on the weekends,” says Ronnie. “It’s sort of a Swiss Army Knife. We can shoot interviews in the window.” The Wrights hope the shop raises their local profile, which has not matched their exponential growth in other markets.

“Thirty percent of our audience watches from outside the United States. The network definitely has an international feel to it, but most people love the fact that it’s in Memphis, including artists that aren’t from here.” And DittyTV has emulated the same independent spirit that animated other Memphis operations like Sun or Stax. “We can change and adapt,” says Ronnie.” Our programming is more fresh and organic. We’re open to anybody that wants to submit a video.”

Tags Americana, Amy Wright, DittyTV, Liz Brasher, Ronnie Wright, Steve Selvidge, Vibe and Dime

Music Music Blog

Pure Memphis Music Series Announces Fall Lineup

Post author By Alex Greene
Post date August 10, 2018

Harlan T. Bobo

Ask anyone who attended a concert in the last Pure Memphis Music Series at Old Dominick Distillery, and you’ll surely hear what a singular experience it was. The casual vibe and attention to acoustics lends performances a living room-like intimacy, except that this living room has a bar. Seeing Jim Lauderdale there in February was gripping and a little hallucinatory, as when he emerged from behind the curtain in his purple yin/yang jumpsuit. Though he was scant feet away, he so inhabited the songs, and caught the light so perfectly that he glowed like some portal to another dimension.

So it’s good to discover the series’ new lineup for this fall. With the success of the first season, the series is introducing two season ticket options this fall. A standard season ticket – $100 – gets you into all six shows (discount of $20 off single ticket), while a VIP season ticket – $125 – gets you into all six shows with reserved seating and one cocktail included per show. Single tickets are $20 for every show.

Perhaps the most laudable new development is the introduction of a nonprofit co-host for each show, who’ll receive $5 from every ticket sold and a percentage of cocktail sales for the night.