Day 3 of Indie Memphis 2021 begins noon on Friday with the first film of the narrative competition, I Want To Talk About Duras by French filmmaker Claire Simon, screening at Circuit Playhouse. The film is based on the relationship between French novelist and filmmaker Marguerite Duras and Yann Andréa, who was thirty years her junior. The dialog is largely based on transcripts of interviews Andréa (Swann Arlaud) did with a journalist (Emmanuelle Devos) after Duras’ death.
Melvin Van Peebles, the polymath who paved the way for contemporary Black cinema, passed away in September at age 89. Indie Memphis is paying tribute to the writer/director/actor with two of his films. The first screens at 3 p.m. at Playhouse on the Square. Don’t Play Us Cheap is an adaptation of Van Peebles’ Broadway musical (I told you he was a polymath—he was also an astronomer) about a pair of demons who try to infiltrate a Harlem house party.
7 p.m. at Playhouse on the Square is a Halloween-y treat: Juju Stories is a horror anthology from the Nigerian collective Surreal16. Its three stories, each by different directors, are all based on African folklore and urban legends involving supernatural occurrences.
At the drive-in, the horror theme continues with the Hometowner After Dark Shorts, a collection of horror, sci-fi, and genre films by Memphis directors. With “Office 86” by fight choreographer turned director Jyo Carolino and “Shaolin Blues” by Ryan McCrory, you know there’s going to be kung fu happening in this bloc.
The second film at the drive-in (yes, I love typing that) is Alien on Stage. Director Lucy Harvey says her career as a filmmaker began rather serendipitously. “I moved to London when I was 23 and fell in with a group of friends — a group of jazz musicians, actually, which is pretty cool for me. One of them got a new girlfriend who lived in Dorset, and he came back one day with a photograph of this poster that he’d taken while he was shopping in a supermarket.”
The poster was for a local theater production of Alien — yes, that Alien, the 1979 space horror that put Ridley Scott on the map — done in the pantomime tradition. “Every small town across [England] has a pantomime, and it has a very particular formula, and you’re taken there from a very young age.”
Normally, pantos, as they’re called, stick to time-tested formulas, like the story of Robin Hood, performed by amateur actors from the community — in this case, a group of bus drivers armed with homemade props and questionable acting skills. Harvey says she and her friends were so intrigued that no-budget amateurs would attempt to do something so ambitious that they made the two-hour trek to the Dorset community center where the panto group was putting on the show to a sparse crowd. “It was a mixture of absolutely terrible, but somehow brilliant and genius. And you watch it going, ‘How is this so good? What is the magic ingredient here?’ You have to sort of take it all in and realize that there’s a level of excellence going on amongst all of the amateur ingenuity of it. It’s just brave and tenacious, and it lacks a self-consciousness that would have prevented other people from doing it. And it ended up being so funny as well.”
The Londoners were so enamored with the play that they managed to get it booked in Leicester Square Theatre in the West End theater district. Harvey enlisted Danielle Kummer, who had some practical filmmaking experience, to document the group’s preparations to take their show on the road, and their triumphant, sold-out debut on one of London’s most prestigious stages. The filmmakers are thoroughly charmed by the cast and crew, all ordinary people who are a bit baffled by all the attention. “I think that’s why it’s so beautiful, because it’s such an unexpected combination of things that you couldn’t contrive. It’s just a rare, rare collection of people.”
Alien on Stage has been a huge hit on the festival circuit, playing in 18 countries. Like her friends from Dorset, Harvey says she has been taken aback by the reaction to her work. “We’ve had a lot of really amazing reviews where people feel quite touched by the film, and there’s been one cynical review. Just one. And I always wonder about that person.”
For scheduling, tickets, and more information about Indie Memphis 2021, visit the Indie Memphis website.