News in the Arts – Summer Festivals Screen Memphis Movie Efforts
By John Beifuss
Works by several Memphis moviemakers are being showcased at film festivals this summer.
After an extremely positive reception June 14 at NewFest, the 20th annual New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Film Festival, the latest movie by Morgan Jon Fox will screen during a prestigious followup program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Titled “omg/HaHaHa” (the title is Internet slang for “Oh my God,” followed by laughter), the movie screens Aug. 23 during the “Best of NewFest@BAM,” a three-day program of “award winners and audience favorites” from the 10-day NewFest event, which showcased hundreds of films.
Like Fox’s previous films, “omg/HaHaHa” is an intimate, earnest, at times poetic and at times essentially documentarian peek into the lives of several troubled, confused, restless and proud Memphians – in this case, members of what Fox calls “the YouTube and MySpace generation.”
Fox screened an early cut of “omg/HaHaHa” – his fourth feature – in November in Memphis. He has since cut the film to 74 minutes. The movie has been picked up for distribution by Water Bearer Films, a theatrical and DVD release company that specializes in gay-themed films, foreign-language movies and “art” films by such acclaimed directors as Mike Leigh and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Fox currently is working as an assistant director with Craig Brewer in the pre- production stage of Brewer’s upcoming MTV online series, “$5 Cover.”
Dubbed “An Adventure of Redneck Proportions,”"The Importance of Being Russell” makes its New York premiere July 26 at the famous Tribeca Cinemas complex.
Directed by Sean Plemmons and starring John Pickle , “Russell” is one of only 21 films selected from among hundreds of competitors for the Independent Features Film Festival, a new festival in which the featured movies were chosen by online voters.
A shotgun mnage trois of bucktoothed backwoods humor, “citified” zombies and brain-molesting science fiction (imagine “Hee Haw” meets “Re-Animator” meets “Forbidden Planet,” if that helps), “Russell” is now in its second successful year on the festival circuit.
“Cold Steele,” the third feature film from University of Memphis business professor Larry Moore , premieres July 20 at the Laemmle Sunset 4 theater on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, as part of a series programmed in partnership with the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
Moore describes “Cold Steele” as a serial-killer thriller directed in the screwball style of Howard Hawks. His previous made- in-Memphis features include “Somerville,” a holiday- season comic crime film, and “General Sessions,” a day-in-the-life-of-a- courtroom comedy/drama.
The much-lauded “Nobody,” a beautifully lensed documentary about a troubled homeless man’s love for the Mississippi River, directed by Commercial Appeal photographers Alan Spearman and Lance Murphey , screened Friday at the San Francisco Frozen Film Festival.
The event is devoted to “razor’s edge independent films” that complement “the Bay Area’s reputation for innovation in the arts,” according to the festival Web site. The festival’s odd title is explained on its site: The Frozen festival “takes place every year in the Dead of Summer, when San Francisco is at its most chill.”
“Nobody” debuted at the 2006 Indie Memphis Film Festival, where it was named Best Documentary. It also was screened at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, N.C. – arguably the country’s top documentary fest.
Speaking of film festivals, entries are now being accepted in seven categories – features, documentaries, experimental films, and so on – for the 40th annual Nashville Film Festival , set for April 16-23, 2009.
The “early bird” deadline is Aug. 1. The regular deadline is Oct. 17. For more information, visit nashvillefilmfestival.org.
– John Beifuss: 529-2394
Originally published by John Beifuss .
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