Nashville Film Festival (NashFilm)

NashFilm Announces 2018 Feature Films Lineup for Narrative, Documentary, New Directors & Graveyard Shift Competitions

[caption id="attachment_25450" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Adventures in Public School[/caption] The Nashville Film Festival continues its lineup for the ten-day festival, running May 10 to 19, 2018, with the announcement of 48 additional feature films in Narrative, Documentary, New Directors and Graveyard Shift competitions. Capturing the essence of today’s most relevant social issues, historical stories and more, these 48 films hail from China, South Africa, Netherlands, Denmark, India, France and more, as well as 31 from the U.S. A jury of industry professionals will select the winning films that will take home up to $20,000 in cash and prizes. “We received over 6,100 film submissions and the process of determining the 48 participants was incredibly challenging as the caliber of submissions continues to astonish us each year,” said Artistic Director, Brian Owens. “We strive to always include a diverse roster of feature films that inspire, move and create meaningful conversations.” Below are the 2018 selections in the categories:
Narrative Competition
1985 (Southeast US Premiere) – A closeted young man goes home for the holidays and struggles to reveal his dire circumstances to his conservative family. Cast: Jamie Chung, Virginia Masden, Michael Chiklis, Director: Yen Tan, Producers: Hutch, Ash Christian (USA) Across the Waters (Southeast US Premiere) – ACROSS THE WATERS is the gripping tale of the Danish Jews’ escape to Sweden in October 1943. Cast: David Dencik, Danica Curcic, Director: Nicolo Donato, Producer: Peter Bech (Denmark) An Act of Defiance (Tennessee Premiere) – A South African lawyer risks his life and career to defend Nelson Mandela and his inner circle. Cast: Peter Paul Muller, Antoinette Louw, Sello Motloung, Sean Venter, Director: Jean van de Velde, Producers: Michael Auret, Richard Claus, Hugh Rogers (South Africa, Netherlands) Adventures In Public School (Southeast US Premiere) – A socially awkward home-schooled kid forces his way into public-school against his suffocating but loving mother’s wishes. Cast: Judy Greer, Daniel Doheny, Russell Peters, Grace Park, Siobhan Williams, Director: Kyle Rideout, Producer: Josh Epstein (Canada) Angels Wear White (Tennessee Premiere) – ANGELS WEAR WHITE is a powerful film noir that exposes the social injustices and difficult issues women face in contemporary China. Cast: Wen Qi, Zhou Meijun, Shi Ke, Geng Le, Liu Weiwei, Peng Jing, Director: Vivian Qu, Producer: Sean Chen (China) Bikini Moon (Tennessee Premiere) – A charismatic homeless woman captures the attention of a documentary film crew who are ready to exploit her story for their own shot at independent movie fame in this very modern, urban fairy tale set amidst a fractured ideal of family. Cast: Condola Rashad, Sarah Goldberg, Will Janowitz, Sathya Sridharan, Director: Milcho Manchevski, Producers: Anja Wedell, Munire Armstrong (USA) Craving (US Premiere) – Coco has no idea what to do with her life until she discovers her mother is terminally ill. Cast: Simone Kleinsma, Elise van ‘t Laar, Director: Saskia Diesing. Producers: Hans de Wolf, Hanneke Niens (Netherlands) Dating My Mother (Southeast US Premiere) – A single mother and her gay son navigate the world of online dating in search of their versions of Mr. Right. Cast: Kathryn Erbe, Patrick Reily, Kathy Najimy, James Le Gros, Paul Iacono, Director: Mike Roma, Producer: Ashley Hills (USA) DriverX (Tennessee Premiere) – Skidding into middle age, a “50-something” stay-at-home dad who recently lost his record store must start driving for a rideshare company to help support his working wife and two young daughters. Cast: Patrick Fabian, Tanya Clarke, Desmin Borges, Travis Schuldt, Melissa Fumero, Oscar Nunez, Director: Henry Barrial, Producers: Mark Stolaroff, Alex Cutler (USA) Fifty Springtimes (Southeast US Premiere) – A woman in her 50s loses her job, finds out she is about to become a grandmother and is given an opportunity to start life over again. Cast: Agnès Jaoui, Director: Blandine Lenoir, Producers: Fabrice Goldstein, Antoine Rein (France) Goliath (Southeast US Premiere) – When a young soon-to-be father is unable to defend in his girldfriend in an attack, he takes steps that may threaten everything he loves. Cast: Sven Schelker, Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Director: Dominik Locher. Producers: Rajko Jazbec, Dario Schoch (Switzerland) Prison Logic (Tennessee Premiere) – PRISON LOGIC is an original comedy that tracks the life of Tijuana Jackson, an ex-convict fresh out of prison, set on becoming a world renowned motivational speaker. Cast: Romany Malco Jr., Regina Hall, Tami Roman, Alkoya Brunson, Director: Romany Malco Jr., Producers: Romany Malco Jr., Josh Etting, Brian Etting (USA) Salvation (Southeast US Premiere) – Cris, a thirteen year old girl, is admitted to a hospital to undergo open heart surgery. There she meets Víctor, a boy her same age who says he’s a vampire and who proposes a different kind of salvation for her heart: immortality. Cast: Marina Botí, Laura Yuste, Alzira Gómez, Carmen Flores, Director: Denise Castro, Producer: Denise Castro (Spain) Shelter (Tennessee Premiere) – A subtle thriller set in Germany involving Mona, a Lebanese woman, and Naomi, an Israeli Mossad agent, sent to protect their informant who is recovering from plastic surgery to conceal her identity. Together for two weeks in a quiet apartment in Hamburg, the two women take us into a complex, multi-dimensional labyrinth of trust and mistrust, of honesty and deception, of loyalty and betrayal. Cast: Neta Riskin, Golshifteh Farahani, Haluk Bilginer, Director: Eran Riklis, Producers: Bettina Brokemper, Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Michael Eckelt, Eran Riklis (USA) When She Runs (Tennessee Premiere) – A young mother of limited means puts everything on the line to pursue her dream of becoming a competitive runner. Cast: Kirstin Anderson, Ivan Gehring, Jonah Graham. Directors: Robert Machoian, Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck, Producer: Laura Heberton (USA)
Documentary Competition
Chef Flynn (Tennessee Premiere) – With access to a trove of personal archival footage and including new, intimate vérité footage, director Cameron Yates creates a collage of Flynn’s singular focus and distinctive path through childhood. CHEF FLYNN shares a rare view of a young man’s successful rise from the inside. Director: Cameron Yates, Producers: Laura Coxson, Cameron Yates, Philipp Engelhorn (USA) Circles (US Premiere) – A Hurricane Katrina survivor who works to keep Black teenagers in school in Oakland, California finds his personal and professional lives colliding when his 15-year-old-son goes to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Cast: Eric Butler, Tre Thomas, Betsye Steele, Mercedes Morgan, Ted Quant, Director: Cassidy Friedman, Producer: Cassidy Friedman (USA) Crime + Punishment (Tennessee Premiere) – Meet the NYPD12: a group of minority whistleblower officers who risk everything to expose racially discriminatory policing practices and smash the blue wall of silence. Director: Stephen Maing. Producer: Stephen Maing, Ross Tuttle, Eric Daniel Metzgar (USA) Crossroads (Tennesee Premiere) – This documentary follows a team of at-risk African-American teenagers and their lacrosse coach on a most improbable and inspiring journey. Director: Ron Yassen, Producers: Lauren Griswold, John Hirsch (USA) Dark Money (Tennessee Premiere) – Kimberly Reed returns to her native state of Montana to expose the insidious reach of corporate interests into politics and to chronicle its grassroots opposition. Director: Kimberly Reed, Producers: Kimberly Reed, Katy Chevigny (USA) Every Act of Life (Southeast Premiere) – The life of Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally: 60 years of groundbreaking plays and musicals, the struggle for LGBT rights, addiction and recovery, finding true love, and the relentless pursuit of inspiration. Cast: Rita Moreno, Meryl Streep, Bryan Cranston, Christine Baranski, Director: Jeff Kaufman, Producers: Jeff Kaufman, Marcia Ross (USA) hillbilly (World Premiere) hillbilly is a documentary film that examines the iconic hillbilly stereotype in film and television. The film explores more than a hundred years of media representation of mountain and rural people, reveals how the hillbilly icon reflects America’s aspirational self-image over the decades, and offers an urgent exploration of how we see and think about poor, white, rural America. Cast: Billy Redden, Ronny Cox, bell hooks, Michael Apted, Silas House, Crystal Good, Frank X Walker. Directors: Sally Rubin, Ashley York. Producers: Sally Rubin, Ashley York. (USA). Minding the Gap (Tennessee Premiere) – Three young men bond together to escape volatile families in their Rust-Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship. Cast: Zack Mulligan, Keire Johnson, Bing Liu, Nina Bowgren, Director: Bing Liu, Producers: Bing Liu, Diane Quon (USA) A Murder in Mansfield (Tennessee Premiere) – In 1990, the testimony of a 12-year-old boy sealed his father’s fate. A jury convicted prominent Ohio doctor John Boyle of murdering Collier’s mother. 26 years later, the son returns determined to get an admission of guilt from his imprisoned father. Cast: Collier Landry, Director: Barbara Kopple, Producers: Barbara Kopple, David Cassidy, Ray Nowosielski (USA) On Her Shoulders (Tennessee Premiere) – Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi, survived genocide and sexual slavery committed by ISIS. Repeating her story to the world, this ordinary girl finds herself thrust onto the international stage as the voice of her people. Away from the podium, she must navigate bureaucracy, fame and people’s good intentions. Cast: Nadia Murad, Directors: Alexandria Bombach, Producers: Hayley Pappas, Brock Williams (USA) Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland (Southeast US Premiere) – In 2015, Sandra Bland, a young black woman, was found hanging in a small-town Texas jail cell days after a traffic violation. Ruled a suicide, her death fueled worldwide allegations of a racially motivated police murder. The filmmakers embedded with Sandra’s family during their two-year battle to uncover the truth. Cast: Sandra Bland, Directors: Kate Davis, David Heilbroner, Producers: Nancy Knox Talcott, David Heilbroner (USA) The World Before Your Feet (Tennessee Premiere) – For over six years, and for reasons he can’t explain, Matt Green has been walking every block of every street in New York City – a journey of more than 8,000 miles. Cast: Matt Green, Director: Jeremy Workman, Producers: Jeremy Workman, Jesse Eisenberg (USA) Zero Weeks (Southeast US Premiere) – Weaving powerful stories together with insightful interviews from leading policy makers, economists, researchers and activists, ZERO WEEKS lays out a compelling argument for guaranteed paid leave for every American worker. Director: Ky Dickens, Producers: Ky Dickens, Alexis Jaworski (USA) Weed the People (Southeast US Premiere) – Cannabis has been off-limits to doctors and researchers in the US for the past 80 years, but recently scientists have discovered its anti-cancer properties. Armed with only these laboratory studies, desperate parents obtain cannabis oil from underground sources to save their children from childhood cancers. Director: Abby Epstein, Producers: Giancarlo Canavesio, Sol Tryon (USA)
New Directors Competition
3/4 (Southeast US Premiere) – Mila is a gifted pianist with a bright future, yet her father pays more attention to the rings of Saturn than to her goals, and her brother tries to distract her with his unwanted talent for the absurd. A portrait of a family, struggling to find meaning during their last summer together. Cast: Mila Mihova, Nikolay Mashalo. Director: Ilian Metev, Producers: Ilian Metev, Ingmar Trost (Bulgaria) After Louie (Tennessee Premiere) – AFTER LOUIE explores the contradictions of modern gay life and history through Sam, a man desperate to understand how he and his community got to where they are today. Cast: Alan Cumming, Zachary Booth, Sarita Choudhury. Director: Vincent Gagliostro. Producers: Lauren Belfer, Alan Cumming, Bryce Renninger (USA) Best of All Worlds (Tennessee Premiere) – The true story of a child and his life in the unusual world of his heroin addict mother and their love for one another. Cast: Verena Altenberger, Jeremy Miliker, Lukas Miko, Michael Pink, Reinhold G. Moritz, Philipp Stix. Director: Adrian Goiginger, Producers: Wolfgang Ritzberger, Nils Dünker (Austria) The Marriage (Southeast US Premiere) – Bekim and Anita are getting married, but she is unaware that he is still in love with his best friend Nol. Cast: Alban Ukah, Adriana Matoshi, Genc Salihu. Director: Blerta Zeqiri, Producer: Kreshnik Keka Berisha (Kosovo) Mountain Rest (World Premiere) – After sequestering herself to a small mountain town, an aging actress calls her estranged daughter and granddaughter home for reconciliation and one final celebration. Cast: Natalia Dyer, Frances Conroy, Kate Lynn Sheil, Shawn Hatosy, Joshua Brady, Karson Kern, Director: Alex O Eaton, Producers: Fernando Loureiro, Roberto Vasconcellos, Renata Nascimento (USA) Never Steady, Never Still (Tennessee Premiere) – A mother struggles to take control of her life in the face of advanced Parkinson’s disease, while her son battles his sexual and emotional identity amongst the violence of Alberta’s oil field work camps. Cast: Shirley Henderson, Théodore Pellerin, Mary Galloway, Nicholas Campbell, Jared Abrahamson, Hugo Ateo, Lorne Cardinal, Director: Kathleen Hepburn. Producers: James Brown, Tyler Hagan (Canada) Noblemen (Tennessee Premiere) – A 15-year-old boy, struggling with his adolescent years, is terrorized by a gang of bullies in a posh boarding school. This sets forth a chain of events that leads to a loss of life and innocence. Cast: Kunal Kapoor, Ali Haji, Director: Vandana Kataria, Producers: Siddharth Anand Kumar, Vikram Mehra (India) Still (Tennessee Premiere) – When Lily loses her way on a hike through the Appalachian wilderness, she finds rescue in the form of a peculiar married couple who have completely isolated themselves from the outside world. Cast: Lydia Wilson, Madeline Brewer, Nick Blood, Mark Ashworth, Kevin Wayne, Diesel Madkins, Director: Takashi Doscher, Producers: Alex P. Creasia, Takashi Doscher, Craig Miller, Gabrielle Pickle (USA) The Swan (Southeast US Premiere) – A wayward nine-year-old girl is sent to the countryside to work and mature, but finds herself instead deeply entangled in a drama she can hardly grasp. Cast: Thor Kristjansson, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Þuríður Blær Jóhannsdóttir, Gríma Valsdóttir, Katla M. Þorgeirsdóttir, Director: Ása Helga Hjörleifsdótirr, Producers: Birgitta Bjornsdottir, Hlín Jóhannesdóttir (Iceland)
Graveyard Shift Competition
Door In the Woods (Tennessee Premiere) – A struggling family installs a vintage door only to find it’s a portal to supernatural danger, leading to a heart wrenching choice. Cast: Jennifer Pierce Mathus, David Snell, C.J. Jones, John-Michael Fisher, Director: Billy Chase Gofort, Producers: Kerri Elder, Blake Elder, Billy Chace Goforth (USA) Found Footage 3D (Tennessee Premiere) – A group of filmmakers set out to make the first 3D found footage horror movie, but find themselves in a found footage horror movie when the evil entity from their film escapes into their behind-the-scenes footage. Cast: Carter Roy, Alena von Stroheim, Chris O’Brien, Director: Steven DeGennaro, Producers: Steven DeGennaro, Kim Henkel, Charles Mulford (USA) Get My Gun (Tennessee Premiere) – After an innocent prank leaves Amanda pregnant and out of a job, she finds herself on the verge of motherhood and the target of a psychotic stalker who will stop at nothing to get her hands on her unborn child. Cast: Kate Hoffman, Christy Casey, Rosanne Rubino, William Jousset, Director: Brian Darwas, Producer: Jennifer Carchietta (USA) Katrina’s Dream (US Premiere) – Katrina wishes to have children but her boyfriend Louis doesn’t. She falls in love with his best friend Ron, who becomes the man of her life. When the two men are involved in a car accident in which Ron loses his head and Louis his body, a drastic surgery helps them survive, but merged into one person. Cast: Dagna Vinet Litzenberger, Manfred Liechti, Adrian Furrer, Simon Esteban, Directors: Mirko Bischofberger, Dario Bischofberger. Producers: Mirko Bischofberger, Dario Bischofberger (Switzerland) The Laplace’s Demon (Nashville Premiere) – Eight people are imprisoned in a secluded mansion on an uninhabited island. After waiting in vain for the host, they find a model with eight self-propelled pawns that reproduces the movements of each group member in real time. Cast: Alessandro Zonfrilli, Carlotta Mazzoncini, Silvano Bertolin, Duccio Giulivi, Walter Smorti, Director: Giordano Giulivi, Producers: Silvano Bertolin, Ferdinando D’Urbano, Duccio Giulivi, Giordano Giulivi (Italy) Mickey Reece’s Alien (Southeast US Premiere) – Elvis Presley struggles with an existential meltdown before his TV comeback special. Spirituality, space, and divine art clash in his marriage to Priscilla and his obligations to those surrounding The King. Cast: Jacob Snovel, Cate Jones, Director: Mickey Reece, Producers: Jacob Snovel, Cate Jones, Mickey Reece. (USA) The Odds (Southeast US Premiere) – A young woman enlists in an underground game of pain endurance in the hope of winning the million dollar prize. She soon learns the real opponent is the man who’s running the game, as he employs horrific methods to manipulate and defeat her. Cast: Abbi Butler, James Fuertes, Sean Ramey, Les Parker, Katie Gunn, Director: Bob Giordano, Producers: Tom Steinmann, Kelly Frey, Alan McKenna (USA) PROTOTYPE (Southeast US Premiere) – As the deadliest natural disaster in US history strikes Galveston, Texas, taking an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 lives, a mysterious televisual device projects images of unknown origin. Director: Blake Williams, Producer: Marco Gualtieri (Canada) Zerzura (Southeast US Premiere) – ZERZURA is a feature-length ethnofiction shot in the Sahara desert. Mixing folktales and documentary, the film follows a young man from Niger who leaves home in search of an enchanted oasis. Cast: Ibrahim Affi, Zara Alhassane, Ahmoudou Madassane, Director: Christopher Kirkley, Producer: Christopher Kirkley, Rhissa Koutata, Ahmoudou Madassane, Guichene Mohamed (Niger|USA)
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Nashville Film Festival Announces 28 Films on 2018 Animated Feature Competition, Special Presentations, Spectrum + Spectrum Q Lineup

[caption id="attachment_27690" align="aligncenter" width="1080"] On Chesil Beach[/caption] Twenty-eight Special Presentations, Animated Feature, Spectrum and Spectrum Q films including the world premiere of BENCHED are set for the 49th Annual Nashville Film Festival. Other films include ON CHESIL BEACH, starring Saoirse Ronan, fresh off her award winning role in Lady Bird, HOT SUMMER NIGHTS, starring Timothée Chalamet, whose role in Call Me By Your Name was critically acclaimed, BRAMPTON’S OWN, starring Rose McIver, Spencer Grammer and Jean Smart, as well as the 50th anniversary screening of ROSEMARY’S BABY, starring Mia Farrow, and a special screening of JURASSIC PARK, starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, BD Wong and Samuel L. Jackson. The 2018 selections in the categories:
Special Presentations
Benched (World Premiere) – Based on the hit play “Rounding Third”, BENCHED is the tumultuous journey of two Little League coaches through an entire season, from their first tentative meeting to the climactic championship game. Cast: Garret Dillahunt, John C. McGinley, Directors: Robert Deaton, George Flanigen, Producers: Lindsey Clark, Brandon Gregory, Fred Roos (USA) Blindspotting (Tennessee Premiere) – Lifelong friends Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal co-wrote and star in this timely and wildly entertaining story about the intersection of race and class, set against the backdrop of a rapidly gentrifying Oakland. Cast: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Director: Carlos López Estrada, Producers: Keith Calder, Jess Calder, Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs (USA) Brampton’s Own (World Premiere) – A struggling minor league baseball player retires and woefully returns to his small hometown, carefully dodging old wounds until confronted with THE ONE that hurts the most – the girl that got away. Cast: Rose McIver, Spencer Grammer, Jean Smart, Scott Porter, Alex Russell, Riley Voelkel, Director: Michael Doneger, Producers: Mark DiCristofaro, Michael Doneger (USA) Breath (Tennessee Premiere) – Based on Tim Winton’s novel and directed by Simon Baker, BREATH is the story of two teenage boys in 1970’s Western Australia who befriend an enigmatic surfer. Cast: Elizabeth Debicki, Simon Baker, Samson Coulter, Brock Fitzgerald, Richard Roxburgh, Rachael Blake. Director: Simon Baker, Producer: Simon Baker, Jamie Hilton, Mark Johnson (USA) Daphne & Velma (Tennessee Premiere) – DAPHNE AND VELMA tells the story of Daphne Blake and Velma Dinkley from the Scooby Doo franchise. The mystery-solving teens are best friends but have only met online – until Daphne transfers to Velma’s school, Ridge Valley High, stocked with high-tech gadgetry by the school’s benefactor, tech billionaire Tobias Bloom. Cast: Sarah Jeffery, Sarah Gilman, Vanessa Marano, Courtney Dietz, Stephen Ruffin, Director: Suzi Yoonessi. Producer: Jaime Burke, Amy S. Kim, Ashley Tisdale, Jennifer Tisdale (USA) Eighth Grade (Tennessee Premiere) – Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school-the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year-before she begins high school. Cast: Emily Robinson, Josh Hamilton, Elsie Fisher, Missy Yager, Deborah Unger, Director: Bo Burnham, Producers: Eli Bush, Scott Rudin, Christopher Storer, Lila Yacoub (USA) First Reformed (Tennessee Premiere) – A pastor of a small church in upstate New York starts to spiral out of control after a soul-shaking encounter with an unstable environmental activist and his pregnant wife. Cast: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Kyles, Michael Gaston, Philip Ettinger, Director: Paul Schrader. Producers: Jack Binder, Greg Clark, Gary Hamilton, Victoria Hill (USA) Harold and Maude – In conjunction with the documentary HAL, we celebrate this cult classic in which a young, rich, and death-obsessed Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral. Cast: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner, Director: Hal Ashby, Producers: Colin Higgins, Charles Mulvehill (USA) Hot Summer Nights (Tennessee Premiere) – A lonely teenage boy is taken under the wing of the town rebel, falls in love with the prettiest girl in town, and gets entangled in a drug ring, all as the deadliest hurricane in New England history barrels towards the coast. Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Maika Monroe, Thomas Jane, William Fichtner, Maia Mitchell, Director: Elijah Bynum. Producers: Dan Friedkin, Ryan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas (USA) Jurassic Park – In director Steven Spielberg’s three-time Academy Award-winning blockbuster JURASSIC PARK paleontologists Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler and mathematician Ian Malcolm are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, BD Wong, Samuel L. Jackson, Director: Steven Spielberg. Producers: Kathleen Kennedy, Gerald R. Molen (USA) Leave No Trace (Tennessee Premiere) – A man and his 13-year-old daughter are living in a park when a small mistake tips them off to authorities and changes their lives forever. Cast: Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie, Dale Dickey, Dana Millican, Jeff Korber, Director: Debra Granik. Producers: Anne Harrison, Linda Reisman, Anne Rosellini (USA) Mississippi Requiem (World Premiere) – A collection of four short films based on stories written by William Faulkner. Cast: James Franco, Topher Grace, Alicia Witt, Amy Smart, Beth Grant, Marianna Palka, Xosha Roquemore, Directors: Arkesh Ajay, Kelly Pike, Jerell Rosales, Marta Savina. Producers: Ariane Ackerberg, Cecilia Albertini, Juanita Cepero, Aaron Edmonds (USA) Never Goin’ Back (Tennessee Premiere) – Jessie and Angela, high school dropouts, are taking a week off to chill at the beach. Too bad their house got robbed, rent’s due, they’re about to get fired, and they’re broke. Cast: Maia Mitchell, Camila Morrone, Kyle Mooney, Aristotle Abraham II, Joel Allen. Director: Augustine Frizzell. Producers: Liz Cardenas, Toby Halbrooks, James M. Johnston, David Lowery. On Chesil Beach (Tennessee Premiere) – In the summer of 1962, a young couple of drastically different backgrounds experience an awkward and fateful wedding night. Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emily Watson, Samuel West, Anne-Marie Duff, Billy Howe, Bebe Cave, Director: Dominic Cooke, Producers: Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley (United Kingdom). Rosemary’s Baby 50th Anniversary – A young wife comes to believe that her offspring is not of this world. Cast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Director: Roman Polanski. Producer: William Castle (USA)
Animated Feature Competition
The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales (Tennessee Premiere) – Whoever thinks that the countryside is calm and peaceful is mistaken. Cast: Kamel Abdessadok, Jules Bienvenu, Guillaum Bouchéde, Directors: Benjamin Renner, Patrick Imbert, Producers: Damien Brunner, Didier Brunner, Vincent Tavier (France) Cocolors (Southeast US Premiere) – There is a world in which ash fills the sky and the earth. Humanity, fearing the ash, had no choice but to cover themselves in protective suits and gigantic masks and live deep within the underground. Cast: Yuuki Takada, Sawako Hata, Mutsuki Iwanaka, Masaki Terasoma, Yoshiko Kamei, Yayoi Nakazawa, Director: Toshihisa Yokoshima, Producers: Jumpei Mizusaki, Ittatsu Shimizu (Japan) Virus Tropical (Tennessee Premiere) – Paola is born in a traditional Colombian family, or at least that is what they try to be. Cast: María Cecilia Sánchez, Alejandra Borrero, Diego Le?n Hoyos, Director: Santiago Caicedo, Producers: Carolina Barrera Quevedo, Santiago Caicedo (Colombia)
Spectrum
Dark River (Tennessee Premiere) – Following the death of her father, Alice returns to her home village for the first time in 15 years, to claim the tenancy to THE FAMILY farm she believes is rightfully hers. Cast: Ruth Wilson, Mark Stanley, Sean Bean, Emse Creed-Miles, Aiden McCullough, Shane Attwooll, Director: Clio Barnard, Producer: Tracy O’Riordan (United Kingdom) Into the Okavango (Tennessee Premiere) – Botswana’s Okavango Delta is one of the planet’s last remaining true wildernesses, but studies have shown it is shrinking. A group of intrepid scientists embark on a four-month, 1500-mile journey upriver to the Okavango’s source to investigate why. Director: Neil Gelinas. Producer: Neil Gelinas (Angola, Botswana, USA) Lost In America (Tennessee Premiere) – LOST IN AMERICA follows director Rotimi Rainwater, a former homeless youth, as he travels the country to shine a light on the epidemic of youth homelessness in America. Cast: Rosario Dawson, Jewel, Halle Berry, Jon Bon Jovi, Senator Patrick Leahy. Director: Rotimi Rainwater, Producers: Brent C. Johnson, Mike C. Manning, Steve Vasquez Jr., Randy Sinquefield (USA) McQueen (Tennessee Premiere) – Alexander McQueen’s rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen’s own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence. Cast: Alexander McQueen, Director: Ian Bonhôte. Producers: Andee Ryder, Nick Taussig, Paul Van Carter (United Kingdom). Nico, 1988 (Tennessee Premiere) – The last year of singer Nico’s life, as she tours and grapples with addiction and personal demons. Cast: Trine Dyrholm, John Gordon Sinclair, Anamarie Marinca, Sandor Funtek, Director: Susanna Nicchiarelli, Producers: Valérie Bournonville, Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Paonessa, Joseph Rouschop (Belgium, Italy) Ryiuchi Sakamoto: Coda (Tennessee Premiere) – RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: CODA is an intimate portrait of the Oscar-winning film composer as both artist and man. Cast: Ryuichi Sakamoto, Director: Stephen Schible, Producers: Eric Nyari, Stephen Schible (Japan, USA) Under the Tree (Tennessee Premiere) – When Baldwin and Inga’s next door neighbours complain that a tree in their backyard casts a shadow over their sundeck, what starts off as a typical spat between neighbours in the suburbs unexpectedly and violently spirals out of control. Cast: Steinþór Hróar Steinþórsson| Edda Björgvinsdóttir, Sigurður Sigurjónsson,Þorsteinn Bachmann. Director: Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, Producers: Grímar Jónsson, Sindri Páll Kjartansson, Thor Sigurjonsson (Iceland)
Spectrum Q
The Gospel of Eureka (Tennessee Premiere) – Love, faith and civil rights collide in a southern town as evangelical Christians and drag queens step into the spotlight to dismantle stereotypes. Cast: Mx Justin Vivian Bond, Directors: Donal Mosher, Michael Palmieri. Producer: Charlotte Cook (USA) Porcupine Lake (Tennessee Premiere) – A story of bravery and the secret world of girls during a fateful summer when adulthood has not yet arrived, but childhood is quickly vanishing. Cast: Charlotte Salisbury, Lucinda Armstrong Hall, Christopher Bolton, Delphine Roussel, Hallie Switzer, Director: Ingrid Veninger. Producers: Ingrid Veninger, Melissa Leo, Randi Kirshenbaum (Canada) Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (Tennessee Premiere) – A deliciously scandalous portrait of UNSUNG HOLLYWOOD legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars. Cast: Scotty Bowers, Peter Bart, Robert Hofler, William Mann, Director: Matt Tyrnauer. Producer: Josh Braun, Corey Reeser (USA) To a More Perfect Union (Tennessee Premiere) – The award-winning documentary that tells the story of civil rights icon Edie Windsor and her landmark case that changed history. Cast: Edie Windsor, Roberta Kaplan, Rosie O’Donnell, Jeff Toobin, Nina Totenberg, Evan Wolfson, Lillian Faderman, Director: Donna Zaccaro. Producers: Paula Heredia, Donna Zaccaro (USA)
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World Premiere of Documentary STEVEN TYLER: OUT ON A LIMB to Kick Off Nashville Film Festival [ Trailer ]

The world premiere of Steven Tyler: Out on a Limb will kick off the opening night of the 49th Annual Nashville Film Festival on May 10, 2018. The Nashville Film Festival, which will take place in Music City on May 10 to 19, 2018, at the Regal Hollywood 27 theaters. “It is an honor to feature Steven’s incredible journey as depicted through his documentary on opening night,” said Ted Crockett, CEO of the Nashville Film Festival. “Steven’s involvement in this year’s Festival is the first announcement of many we will be making as we bring unprecedented star-power and an even greater scope of events to the Festival in May.” “I’m also so touched that the Nashville Film Festival selected Steven Tyler: Out on a Limb to kick off opening night of this year’s event with our world premiere,” added Tyler. Steven Tyler: Out on a Limb is an intimate portrait of rock icon Steven Tyler as he embraces the challenges of shifting gears, both as a solo performer and in a new genre of music. Uncovering a side of Tyler many fans have never seen before, this inspiring story looks at the passion, drive and search for creative fulfillment that keeps artists pushing boundaries throughout their careers. Casey Tebo directed the documentary and also served as producer alongside Steven Tyler, Rebecca Warfield as well as Timmy Thompson and Todd Thompson under their Vermillion Entertainment banner. Momentum Pictures will release the film on VOD and digital HD on May 15, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4j7ozZaUg4
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SOME FREAKS, THE EREMITES, DOG YEARS Win Top Feature Film Prizes at 2017 Nashville Film Festival

SOME FREAKS directed by Ian MacAllister McDonald

Some Freaks, The Eremites, Dog Years, Revengeance, The Nest, A Closer Walk With Thee are the winners of the top prizes in feature filmmaking at the 2017 Nashville Film Festival.

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Nashville Film Festival Announces Competition Feature Films with Bruce Dern, Tom Hanks, Aisha Tyler

[caption id="attachment_20624" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Tom Hanks in CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER[/caption] Following the earlier announcement of the Music Films/Music City selection, Nashville Film Festival announced 48 additional feature films in the Narrative, Documentary, New Directors and Graveyard Shift competitions. The selections include familiar faces such as Bruce Dern, Tom Hanks, Jonathan Pryce, Maggie Grace, Aisha Tyler, Anthony Michael Hall, Katee Sackhoff, Jeremy Sisto and Heather Matarazzo. “The films present a wide view of the world from contemporary issues to historic dramas; from deeply intimate personal dramas to wide open epics,” said Artistic Director, Brian Owens. “Diversity is really on display in these films.” The 48th Annual Nashville Film Festival will open April 20 and conclude April 29.
NARRATIVE COMPETITION
Egon Schiele – Death and The Maiden / Austria | Luxembourg (Director: Dieter Berner) — At the beginning of the 20th Century, Egon Schiele is one of the most provocative artists in Vienna. His life and work are driven by beautiful women and an era that is coming to an end. Two women will have a lasting impact on him – his sister and first muse Gerti, and 17-year-old Wally, arguably Schiele’s one true love, immortalised in his famous painting ‘Death and the Maiden’. Cast: Noah Saavedra | Maresi Riegner | Valerie Pachner. Southeast US Premiere Flowers of Evil / Finland (Director: Antti J. Jokinen) — With unrest long simmering below the surface in a majority immigrant Helsinki suburb, half-brothers Sipe and Juno struggle for a better future, an end to their alienation and to find new opportunities in life. Cast: Viljami Nojonen | Juno | Eero Aho | Mikael Gabriel | Diana Tenkorang. North American Premiere Krotoa / South Africa (Director: Roberta Durrant) — Krotoa, a feisty, bright, young 11-year-old girl is removed from her close-knit Khoi tribe to serve her uncle’s trading partner with the Dutch East India Company in 1652. She grows into a visionary young woman and an influential translator who takes to the Dutch language and culture but is rejected by her own people as she tries to navigate two cultures about to collide. Cast: Crystal-Donna Roberts | Armand Aucamp | Jacques Bessenger | Brendon Daniels | Deon Lotz | Roeline Daneel. US Premiere The Lears / USA (Director: Carl Bessai) — Writer-director Carl Bessai’s modern day homage to Shakespeare’s KING LEAR is a black comedy about a dysfunctional family headed by patriarch Davenport Lear who tests the love and worthiness of his children at a family retreat as he contemplates his death and legacy. Cast: Anthony Michael Hall | Bruce Dern | Sean Astin | Victoria Smurfit | Aly Michalka | Nic Bishop. World Premiere The Migrumpies / Austria (Director: Arman T. Riahi) — For a TV documentary, two unemployed friends, Benny and Marko, pretend to be petty criminals with immigrant background until the coin flips and reality turns against them. Cast: Faris Rahoma | Aleksandar Petrović | Doris Schretzmayer | Zijah A. Sokolović | Daniela Zacherl | Josef Hader. North American Premiere Play the Devil / Trinidad and Tobago (Director: Maria Govan) — Set against the backdrop of Trinidad and Tobago’s mystical Carnival, a gifted and struggling young man becomes the object of intrigue for an older, well-meaning businessman until their worlds collide. Cast: Petrice Jones | Gareth Jenkins | Akil Nicholas | Penelope Spencer. Tennessee Premiere The Relationtrip / USA (Director: Renée Felice Smith, C.A. Gabriel) — At an age when everyone around them is settling down and finding love, Beck and Liam are self proclaimed loners, emotionally hibernating through adulthood. After bonding over their mutual disinterest in relationships, they decide to go away together on a ‘friend’ trip. And that’s when things get weird. Really, really weird. Cast: | Matt Bush | Eric Christian Olsen | Linda Hunt | Nelson Franklin | Brandon Kyle Goodman.Southeast US Premiere The Scent of Rain and Lightning / USA (Director: Blake Robbins) — When Jody Linder learns her parents’ killer has been released from jail, she is forced to revisit old wounds while discovering the destructive power of hate and the true cost of family secrets. Based on the novel THE SCENT OF RAIN & LIGHTNING by Nancy Pickard. Cast: Maika Monroe | Maggie Grace | Mark Webber | Will Patton | Justin Chatwin | Logan Miller. Tennessee Premiere Signature Move / USA (Director: Jennifer Reeder) — A new romance with Alma forces Zaynab to confront her relationship with her recently widowed mother who escapes to TV dramas and finding her daughter a husband. As a result, Zaynab copes by taking up Lucha-style wrestling in this coming-of-age Muslim melodrama. Cast: Fawzia Mirza | Shabana Azmi | Sari Sanchez | Charin Alvarez | Audrey Francis. Southeast US Premiere Some Freaks / USA (Director: Ian MacAllister McDonald) — A charming romance develops between a boy with one eye and an overweight girl, though when she loses her weight after going to college, their relationship is tested in devastating ways they never dreamed would happen. Cast: Lachlan Buchanan | Lily Mae Harrington | Marin Ireland | Thomas Mann | John Thorsen. Tennessee Premiere The Student / Russia (Director: Kirill Serebrennikov) — A high school student becomes convinced that the world has been lost to evil, and begins to challenge the morals and beliefs of the adults around him. Cast: Yuliya Aug | Pyotr Skvortsov | Viktoriya Isakova | Aleksandra Revenko | Svetlana Vragarnik | Aleksandr Gorchilin. Southeast US Premiere Sundowners / Canada (Director: Pavan Moondi) — Filming weddings is a thankless job, so when Alex and Justin get the chance to shoot a destination wedding in Mexico, they take the opportunity to escape their sheltered lives. But, with their boss playing fast and loose with the details, they’ll be lucky to even find it. Cast: Phil Hanley | Luke Lalonde | Tim Heidecker | Nick Thorbun | Nick Flanagan | Cara Gee. World Premiere Tatara Samurai / Japan (Director: Yoshinari Nishikori) — In 16th century Japan, a young man has to choose between becoming a master steel maker like his father and grandfather before him, or becoming a samurai so that he can help protect his village from attacks by the various clans which want the high-quality steel made there. Cast: Sho Aoyagi | Naoki Kobayahsi | Akira | Tomoko Tabata | Anna Ishii | Masahiko Tsugawa. Southeast US Premiere We’ve Forgotten More Than We Ever Knew / USA (Director: Thomas Woodrow) — In the aftermath of an unknown calamity, two survivors travel through a hostile wilderness, guided only by a distant memory of home. When they encounter the ruins of a vanished society, everything they know is called into question, threatening their relationship, their memories and their future. Cast: Louisa Krause | Aaron Stanford | Doug Jones. Tennessee Premiere The White King / UK (Director: Alex Helfrecht | Jorg Tittel) — Djata is a care-free 12-year-old growing up in a brutal dictatorship shut off from the outside world. When the government imprisons his father, Djata and his mother must survive a world of savage lies and abuse as they try to find out what exactly has happened to him. Cast: Lorenzo Allchurch | Jonathan Pryce | Agyness Deyn | Fiona Shaw | Greta Scacchi | Clare Hope Ashitey. Southeast US Premiere
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
44 Pages / USA (Director: Tony Shaff) — Following the creation of HIGHLIGHTS MAGAZINE’S 70th Anniversary issue, from the first editorial meeting to its arrival in homes, this film introduces the people who passionately produce the monthly publication for “the world’s most important people,”…children. Tennessee Premiere Actors of Sound / USA (Director: Lalo Molina) — From footsteps to bone cracks, Foley artists bring films to life with their imaginative sound effects. As digital technology goes full speed ahead in 21st century moviemaking, can Hollywood’s low tech Foley artist survive in this high tech age? Cast: Gregg Barbanell | Marko A. Costanzo | Catherine Harper | John Roesch | Kitty Malone | Charles L. Campbell. Southeast US Premiere Augie / USA (Director: James Keach) — Armed with irreverent humor and the love of his life by his side, paralysis has done little to slow down the beast inside the genius entrepreneur and LifeFitness mogul, Augie Nieto, who continues to work everyday to find the cure for ALS. Backpack Full of Cash / USA (Director: Sarah Mondale) — Filmed in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Nashville and other cities, BACKPACK FULL OF CASH explores the privatization of public education and its devastating impact on the nation’s most vulnerable children. Cast: Matt Damon (Narrator). Southeast US Premiere California Typewriter / USA (Director: Doug Nichol) — CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER shows a portrait of artists, writers, and collectors who remain steadfastly loyal to the typewriter as a tool and muse. The film also movingly documents the struggles of one of the last standing repair shops in America dedicated to keeping the aging machines clicking. Cast: Tom Hanks | John Mayer | Sam Shepard | David McCullough | Mason Williams. Southeast US Premiere Chasing Evel: The Robbie Knievel Story / Canada (Director: Jesse James Miller) — Robbie Knievel, 52 years old and the owner of 20 world records and 350 jumps worldwide, life is uncovered through his personal pursuit of sobriety and the need of continuing his father’s legacy by jumping once again. Tennessee Premiere Finding Kim / USA (Director: Aaron Bear) — 50 year-old Kim has made a decision a lifetime in the making: transitioning to a man. FINDING KIM bears witness to the entire process, both physical and emotional, as he experiences life the way he always felt he should: as a happy and confident human being. Cast: Kim B. | Dan Savage | Buck Angel | Carmen Carerra | Calpernia Addams | Jamison Green |. Southeast US Premiere The Gateway Bug / USA (Director: Johanna B Kelly) — Over 2 billion people on earth eat insects for protein. Following the rise and dramatic fall of edible insect start-ups in America, this inspiring film exposes America’s disconnect with food as climate catastrophe and explores how changing daily eating habits can feed humanity in an uncertain age, one meal at a time. Cast: Andrew Zimmern | Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy | Kevin Bachhuber | Pat Crowley | Tyler Isaac. Southeast US Premiere Quest / USA (Director: Jonathan Olshefski) — QUEST intimately captures ten years in the life of an African-American family living in North Philadelphia. Cast: Christopher Rainey | Christine’a Rainey | Patricia (PJ) Rainey | William Withers | PRICE.Southeast US Premiere The Road Movie / Belarus | Russia | Serbia | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Croatia (Director: Dmitrii Kalashnikov) — Objective dashboard cam videos takes us on a raucous, occasionally hopeful tour of the Russian countryside and national character. Southeast US Premiere Small Talk / Taiwan (Director: Hui-Chen Huang) — A few simple questions spark a series of conversations revealing some things that neither the filmmaker nor her mother are ready to face. Southeast US Premiere Spettacolo / USA (Director: Jeff Malmberg | Chris Shellen) — Once upon a time there was a tiny hill town in Tuscany that found a remarkable way to confront their issues: they turned their lives into a play. Every summer for the past 50 years, their piazza becomes their stage and villagers from 6 to 90 play a part – the role of themselves. Cast: Andrea Cresti | Chiara Del Ciondolo | Alpo Mangiavacchi. Tennessee Premiere Swim Team / USA (Director: Lara Stolman) — SWIM TEAM chronicles the extraordinary rise of the Jersey Hammerheads, a competitive team of diverse teens on the autism spectrum, capturing a moving quest for inclusion, independence and a life that feels winning. Cast: Robert Justino | Michael McQuay, Jr. | Kelvin Truong. Tennessee Premiere Unrest / USA (Director: Jennifer Brea) — When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s “all in her head.” Determined to live, she turns her camera on herself and her community, a hidden world of millions confined to their homes and bedrooms by myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome. Southeast US Premiere
NEW DIRECTORS COMPETITION
Apricot Groves / Armenia (Director: Pouria Heidary Oureh) — Aram, a young Iranian-Armenian man who immigrated to the US as a child, returns to Armenia for the first time to propose to his Armenian-American girlfriend. Cast: Pedram Ansari | Narbe Vartan | Samvel Sarkisyan | Hovhannes Azoyan | Allison Gangi | Araik Sargsyan. Tennessee Premiere AXIS / USA (Director: Aisha Tyler) — On the day he is set to star in a career-changing blockbuster film, an Irish actor with a rocky and self-destructive past confronts a series of devastating events that threaten to disrupt his newfound sobriety and potentially, his life. Cast: Emmett Hughes | Ciarán Hinds | Thomas Gibson | Paula Malcomson | Adam Rodriguez | Bronagh Waugh. Tennessee Premiere Bomb City / USA (Director: Jameson Brooks) — Based on the 1997 true story of Brian Deneke, BOMB CITY is a crime-drama about a group of punk rockers in a conservative Texas town. Their ongoing battle with a rival, more-affluent group of jocks leads to a controversial hate crime that raises questions about the morality of American justice. Cast: Dave Davis | Glenn Morshower | Logan Huffman | Henry Knotts | Lorelei Linklater | Luke Shelton. Southeast US Premiere Boomtown / USA (Director: Sabyn Mayfield) — In an effort to make ends meet, John “JT” Turner leaves his family behind to pursue a grueling, yet highly coveted, job in a now booming oil industry. Along the way, he encounters the trials and tribulations shared by thousands of Americans every year as they stake their claim on the American Dream. Cast: Tyler Riggs | Boyd Holbrook | Rachel Brosnahan | Jocelin Donahue | Dwight Yoakam. World Premiere Easy Living / USA (Director: Adam Keleman) — Sherry, a self-destructive makeup saleswoman, hopes a new man and business venture will provide her a fresh start. After her plans are foiled, she takes control of her life in a dramatic turn of events. Cast: Caroline Dhavernas | McCaleb Burnett | Elizabeth Marvel | Jen Richards | Charlie Hofheimer | C.J. Wilson |.Southeast US Premiere The Eremites / Germany (Director: Ronny Trocker) — Like an abandoned animal that keeps coming back to its territory, an introverted farmer’s son keeps returning to his childhood Alpine home despite his mother’s wishes. Cast: Ingrid Burkhard | Andreas Lust | Orsi Tóth | Hannes Perkmann | Peter Mitterrutzner | Georg Kaser. North American Premiere Girl Flu / USA (Director: Dorie Barton) — Bird, 12, has to become a woman whether she wants to or not when – in the worst week of her life – she gets her first period, is ditched by her impulsive, free spirited mom, and learns that you can never really go back to where you came from. Cast: Katee Sackhoff | Jade Pettyjohn | Jeremy Sisto | Heather Matarazzo | Judy Reyes | Diego Josef. Tennessee Premiere Park / Greece | Poland (Director: Sofia Exarchou) — Athens Olympic Village, ten years after the Games: wilding youths, injured retired athletes and stray dogs among ruins and decaying sports venues. Cast: Dimitris Kitsos | Dimitra Vlagopoulou | Enuki Gvenatadze | Lena Kitsopoulou | Yorgos Pandeleakis | Thomas Bo Larsen. Southeast US Premiere La Soledad / Venezuela (Director: Jorge Thielen Armand) — José, a young father, discovers that the dilapidated mansion he inhabits will soon be demolished. Desperate to save his family from homelessness, he begins a search for a cursed treasure that is said to be buried in the house. Cast: José Dolores López | Jorge Roque Thielen | María Agámez Palomino | Adrializ López | Marley Alvillares. Tennessee Premiere
GRAVEYARD SHIFT COMPETITION
Birdboy: The Forgotten Children / Spain (Director: Pedro Rivero | Alberto Vázquez) — An ecological event has devastated an entire island. Birdboy hides himself away, his inner turmoil gnawing at him while avoiding the island’s scavenging inhabitants and local police, who suspect he is dealing drugs. Cast: Andrea Alzuri | Eva Ojanguren | Josu Cubero.Tennessee Premiere Bloodlands / Albania | Australia (Director: Steven Kastrissios) — A struggling family in Albania, wrestling with tradition, must unite against a mysterious clan’s aggressions, leading to a ‘blood feud’ that is all too familiar in the Balkans. Cast: Gëzim Rudi | Emiljano Palali | Suela Bako | Alesia Xhemalaj. US Premiere A Closer Walk With Thee / USA (Director: John C. Clark | Brie Williams) — An Evangelical boy with homosexual urges agrees to a gay-curing exorcism, performed by the object of his desire, in this queer erotic horror. Cast: Aj Knight | Gregory Shelby | Kelsey Boze | Megan Hensley. Southeast US Premiere Industrial Accident – The Story of Wax Trax! Records / USA (Director: Julia Nash) — The true story of a Chicago record store and label that united punks, queers and criminals and accidentally changed music history along the way. Cast: Al Jourgensen | Dave Grohl | Paul Barker | Groovie Mann | Richard 23 | Jello Biafra. World Premiere Insomnium / USA (Director: Scott Powers) — As George investigates his roommate’s increasingly disturbing nocturnal behavior, he suspects that his friend has become possessed by a dark entity. Cast: Brad Pennington | Clint Browning | Gena Shaw | Larena Reyna | Leon Shparaga | Brian Julian. Tennessee Premiere JackRabbit 29 / USA (Director: Kyle Klubal) — When a young couple goes missing in Texas, a large reward is issued for their return. The reward attracts an eccentric mix of characters to the town including bounty hunters, hit-men, and more. Cast: Jason Johnson | Izzy Pollak. Tennessee Premiere The Night Watchmen / USA (Director: Mitchell Altieri) — A mistaken warehouse delivery unleashes a horde of hungry vampires, and three inept night watchmen, aided by a young rookie and a fearless tabloid journalist, must not only save themselves but also stop the scourge that threatens to take over the city of Baltimore. Cast: Ken Arnold | Kevin Jiggetts | Dan DeLuca | Kara Luiz | Max Gray Wilbur | Matt Servitto. Nashville Premiere Show Yourself / USA (Director: Billy Ray Brewton) — When his friend Paul dies unexpectedly, Travis heads into the woods to say goodbye. As Travis deals with his grief, and the way it has affected the relationships in his life, he starts to realize that he actually might not be alone in the woods. Curiosity turns to horror as Travis comes face-to-face with something both inexplicable and frighteningly familiar. Cast: Ben Hethcoat | Corsica Wilson | Barak Hardley | David McElwee | Stephen Cone | Robert Longstreet. Southeast US Premiere The Void / Canada (Director: Jeremy Gillespie | Steven Kostanski) — A blood-soaked man limping down a deserted road is rushed by Officer Carter to a nearby hospital with a skeleton crew. Trapped inside by hooded figures, Carter discovers that the patients and staff are transforming into something inhuman. Cast: Aaron Poole | Ellen Wong | Kenneth Walsh | Kathleen Munroe. Nashville Premiere Without Name / Ireland (Director: Lorcan Finnegan) — You‘re not alone in the woods. Cast: Alan McKenna | Niamh Algar | James Browne. Tennessee Premiere
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Music Films Featuring Snoop Dogg, Bonnie Raitt Among First 9 Titles Announced for 2017 Nashville Film Festival

Films featuring artists as diverse as Snoop Dogg, John Williams and Bonnie Raitt are among the first nine titles announced for the 2017 Nashville Film Festival taking place April 20 to 29, 2017. These nine titles are part of the Music Films/Music City Competition celebrating films about music, musicians and the impact music has on our lives. Nashville Film Festival Artisict Director Brian Owens said of the selection, “I really love the variety of voices present in this selection – from a rapper working in a nearly extinct language to composers creating some of the most familiart tunes known to us all – there is a little bit of everything in these nine exciting films.” 2017 marks the Nashville Film Festival’s 48th annual event.
2017 Nashville Film Festival Music Films/Music City Competition
Arctic Superstar / Norway (Director: Simen Braathen) — A Sami rapper dreams of becoming world famous. The only problem is that less than 20,000 people speak his endangered language. Cast: Nils Rune Utsi. Southeast US Premiere Bill Frisell: A Portrait / Australia (Director: Emma Franz) — A character portrait of anti-archetype guitar hero, Bill Frisell, and the ideas and processes that shaped his music. Featuring Bonnie Raitt, Hal Willner, Paul Simon, Joey Baron, Jim Hall and Jason Moran. Cast: Bill Frisell | Paul Motian | Jim Hall | Mike Gibbs | Jason Moran | Jim Woodring. Southeast US Premiere Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape / USA (Director: Zack Taylor) — Cassette tape inventor Lou Ottens digs through his past to figure out why his invention won’t die. Rock veterans like Henry Rollins, Thurston Moore, and Ian MacKaye join a new generation of bands releasing music on tape to push Lou along on his journey to remember. Cast: Lou Ottens | Henry Rollins | Thurston Moore | Rob Sheffield | Lily Rothman | Damien Jurado. Tennessee Premiere Davi’s Way / USA (Director: Tom Donahue) — DAVI’S WAY is a character portrait of Robert Davi as he makes a shift from acting to singing professionally and his quest to put on a concert celebrating Sinatra’s 100th Birthday. Cast: Robert Davi.Southeast US Premiere G Funk / USA (Director: Karam Gill) — G FUNK is the untold story of three childhood friends from East Long Beach who helped commercialize hip hop by developing a sophisticated and melodic new approach – merging Gangsta Rap with elements of Motown, Funk, and R&B. Cast: Warren G | Snoop Dogg | Ice Cube | Russell Simmons | Wiz Khalifa | Ice T.Southeast US Premiere The Last Songwriter / USA (Director: Mark Barger Elliott) — Featuring Garth Brooks, Emmylou Harris, and Jason Isbell, THE LAST SONGWRITER spotlights a young writer struggling to make a living in the age of streaming as well as those who have crafted the most influential songs of the past twenty-five years. Cast: Garth Brooks | Emmylou Harris | Jason Isbell.World Premiere Score: A Film Music Documentary / USA (Director: Matt Schrader) — SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY follows the creative struggles of designing a modern soundtrack from scratch, featuring some of cinema’s most recognized names in film music. Cast: Hans Zimmer | Danny Elfman | John Williams | Trent Reznor | Randy Newman | Quincy Jones. Tennessee Premiere Straight Into a Storm / USA (Director: William Miller) — Centered around Deer Tick’s 10th anniversary, STRAIGHT INTO A STORM is a portrait of a hard rocking band known for their substance-fueled live performances on their evolutionary journey to become one of the greatest cult rock bands of our time. Cast: John McCauley | Dennis Ryan | Chris Ryan | Ian O’Neill | Robbie Crowell. World Premiere Tokyo Idols / United Kingdom | Canada (Director: Kyoko Miyake) — This exploration of Japan’s fascination with girl bands and their music follows an aspiring pop singer and her fans, delving into the cultural obsession with young female sexuality and the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies. Southeast US Premiere
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Monument to Michael Jackson, Frame by Frame, Wins Grand Jury Prizes at 2015 Nashville Film Festival
The Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) 2015 announced the 46th Annual Competition Award winners, including Grand Jury Prizes to Monument to Michael Jackson (pictured above), Orion: The Man Who Would Be King and other notable films. Best Original Song went to Brian Wilson for “One Kind of Love” fromLove & Mercy. According to the jury, its palpable portrayal of a child torn between two worlds earned Daytimer the Live Action Short Grand Jury Prize. Bear Storyset itself a very high bar both stylistically and narratively and delivered across the board, which garnered it the Grand Jury Prize for Animated Short. La Vie en rose comme dans les films provided a humble glimpse into the complicated world of memory; the short received the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Short. Each of these three shorts will be automatically qualified for Academy Award® consideration. Bridgestone Narrative Competition Grand Jury Prize – Monument to Michael Jackson, directed by Darko Lungolov Honorable Mention – WildLike, directed by Frank Hall Green
The Bridgestone Narrative Competition Grand Jury Prize went to Monument to Michael Jackson. The film was, “at times a political farce, a relationship drama and an inspiring tale of tenacity in the face of adversity.”The jury also awarded Geraldine Chaplin from Sand Dollars the Best Actress award, while Boris Milivojevic from Monument to Michael Jackson received the Best Actor award. Best Screenplay went to Shonali Bose for Margarita, with a Straw, and the Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund Award for Best Music in a Feature Film went to Ramon Cordero, Benjamin De Menil and Edilio Paredes for Sand Dollars. The Special Jury Prize for Cinematography was awarded to Tony Mirza for Eadweard.

Gibson Music Films/Music City Competition Grand Jury Prize – Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, directed by Jeanie Finlay Honorable Mention – Sweet Micky for President, directed by Ben Patterson

The jury said Orion, “hits every note… and then some. It was a completely unpredictable yet always entertaining and moving documentary.”The jury awarded the Special Jury Prize for Best Import to Tomi Fujiyama in Made in Japan.

Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize – Frame by Frame, directed by Mo Scarpelli and Alexandra Bombach Honorable Mention – Welcome to Leith, directed by Michael Beach and Christopher K. Walker

“Frame by Frame is a fascinating look into life in Afghanistan that celebrates its growing photography culture, with unprecedented access and interviews,” the jury said. “The film is beautifully crafted and we’re so honored to present these first time filmmakers with the Documentary Grand Jury Prize, and hope that they will continue to make inspiring films.”The Special Jury Prize for Direction went to Jimmy Chin and E. Chai Vasahelyi forMeru.

New Directors Competition Grand Jury Prize – Songs She Wrote About People She Knows, directed by Kris Elgstrand Honorable Mention – Naz & Maalik, directed by Jay Dockendorf

Songs She Wrote About People She Knows received the Grand Jury Prize, “for its quirky plot, high production values, and unique yet relatable characters, the New Directors Jury awarded its Grand Jury Prize to Songs She Wrote About People She Knows. Lead actress Arabella Bushnell delivers a particularly strong performance as an aspiring pop singer, complete with highly original and hilarious songs. Writer/director Kris Elgstrand is a strong new voice in independent cinema and we are excited to see what he comes up with next. “ The jury awarded Krisha Fairchild with Best Actress for Krisha and Daniel Cerqueira with Best Actor for Radiator. The Special Jury Prize for Direction went to Sarah Adina Smith for The Midnight Swim.

Best Original Song Winner – “One Kind of Love,” from Love & Mercy, written and performed by Brian Wilson Honorable Mention – “Found You,” from In My Father’s House, written and performed by Rhymefest

Graveyard Shift Competition

Grand Jury Prize (tie) – Alléluia, directed by Fabrice du Welz Grand Jury Prize (tie) — They Look Like People, directed by Perry Blackshear

“The jury found itself unable to determine a hierarchy between exquisite works of passion, madness, human bonds and inhuman horror.”The jury awarded for Best Actress to Amy Everson in Felt and Best Actor to MacLeod Andrews in They Look Like People. The Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Use of Music went to Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It.

Ground Zero Tennessee First Competition

Grand Jury Prize – The Keepers, directed by Joann Self Selvidge and Sara Kaye Larson
Southwest Airlines Audience Award Overall Winner In My Father’s House, Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg, scored 4.99 out of 5 Southwest Airlines Audience Award Winners Narrative Competition – Eadweard, Kyle Rideout, director Documentary Competition – In My Father’s House, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, directors Special Presentations – Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, director Spectrum – The Waiting Country Woman, Li Yangiu, director Music Films/Music City – Revival: The Sam Bush Story, Kris Wheeler and Wayne Franklin Tennessee First – Mind/Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw, Rick Goldsmith, director New Directors Competition – The Challenger, Kent Moran, director Graveyard Shift – They Look Like People, Perry Blackshear, director Southwest Airlines Audience Awards – Documentaries – Top Five
1. In My Father’s House, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, directors
2. Mind/Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw, Rick Goldsmith, director
3. The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young, Annika Iltis and Timothy Kane, directors
4. Revival: The Sam Bush Story, Kris Wheeler and Wayne Franklin, directors
5. Imba Means Sing, Danielle Bernstein, director
Southwest Airlines Audience Awards – Narratives – Top Five
1. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, director
2. The Challenger, Kent Moran, director
3. Love & Mercy, Bill Pohlad, director
4. Ain’t It Nowhere, Scott Murphy, director
5. I’ll See You in My Dreams, Brett Haley, director
Tennessee Horizon Audience Award for Best Shorts

Presented by TN Film, Music & Entertainment Commission and Native Magazine Winner (tie) – Daddy’s Little Girl, directed by Chad McClarnon Winner (tie) – Usetocould, directed by Drew Maynard

Sponsored Awards

NPT Human Spirit Award – My Voice, My Life, directed by Ruby Yang Women in Film & Television Award – Yosemite, directed by Gabrielle Demeestere Outstanding LGBT Film – Naz & Maalik, directed by Jay Dockendorf Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Award – Alfonso Gomez-Rejon for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Lipscomb University Prize of the Ecumenical Jury – Rosenwald, directed by Aviva Kempner.
Complete List of Short Film Award Winners Live Action Short – Grand Jury Prize: Daytimer, directed by Riz Ahmed (United Kingdom) Live Action Short – Honorable Mention: Tzniut, directed by David Formentin (USA) Live Action Short – Honorable Mention: Saturday, directed by Mike Forshaw (United Kingdom) Special Jury Prize for Visual Storytelling: The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometer 375, directed by Omar El Zohairy (Egypt) Animated Short – Grand Jury Prize: Bear Story, directed by Gabriel Osorio (Chile) Animated Short – Honorable Mention: Man on the Chair, directed by Dahee Jeong (France) Special Jury Prize for Achievement in Animation: Pineapple Calamari, directed by Kasia Nalewajka (United Kingdom) Documentary Short – Grand Jury Prize: La Vie en rose comme dans les films, directed by Christophe M. Saber (Switzerland) Documentary Short – Honorable Mention: Autofocus, directed by Boris Poljak (Croatia) Special Jury Prize for Bridging the Gap Between Experimental and Documentary Filmmaking: Object, directed by Paulina Skibinska (Poland) Experimental Short – Grand Jury Prize: (null), directed by Michael Lange, David Gesslbauer (Germany) Experimental Short – Honorable Mention: Play Within a Play, directed by Yasmijn Karhof (Netherlands) Student Short – Grand Jury Prize: Wire Cutters, directed by Jack Anderson (USA) Student Short – Honorable Mention: The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometer 375, directed by Omar El Zohairy (Egypt) Watkins Young Filmmaker Award: Poet Against Prejudice, directed by Faiza Almontaser (USA) Web Series Grand Jury Prize: 24 Hour Records, directed by Brad Cash (USA) Web Series Honorable Mention: HelLA, directed by Rory Uphold (USA) Graveyard Shift Grand Jury Prize for Short Film: Alone, directed by Didier Philippe (France) Graveyard Shift Honorable Mention for Short Film: Primrose Lane, directed by Nick Phillips (USA) Ground Zero Tennessee First Shorts Documentary Award: Muddy Pond, directed by Tyler Jones Ground Zero Tennessee First Short Narrative Award: Trying Not to Explode, directed by Dave Dorsey Tennessee Horizon Audience Award for Best Shorts presented by TN Film, Music & Entertainment Commission and Native Magazine (Nominees – winner announced Thursday, April 23) Contrary to Likeness, directed by Motke Dapp Daddy’s Little Girl, directed by Chad McClarnon Futureman, directed by Patrick Sheehan How I Got Made, directed by Tracy S. Facelli Nashville in Harmony: Ten Years of Using Music to Build Community, directed by Steven C. Knapp Usetocould, directed by Drew Maynard Steven Goldmann Visionary Award: World of Tomorrow, directed by Don Hertzfeldt (USA)
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Nashville Film Festival Unveils Narrative and New Directors Competition Film Selections incl. World Premiere of UNDISCOVERED GYRL Starring Christian Slater, Justin Long, Martin Sheen

The Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) announced the film line-up for the Narrative and New Director Competitions, taking place April 17 – 26, 2014. NaFF has expanded to 10 days and two locations, with competition films, red carpet events, and opening and closing night parties at Regal Green Hills Stadium 16 and free films nightly at the Nissan Multicultural Village at Walk of Fame Park, downtown Nashville.

Films include the World Premiere of UNDISCOVERED GYRL directed by Allison Burnett, and starring Britt Robertson, Robert Patrick, Christian Slater, Justin Long, Martin Sheen, Kimberly Williams-Paisley. UNDISCOVERED GYRL follows the life of Katie Kampenfelt, a beautiful, imaginative teen who, after graduating from high school, decides to take a year off before college. Almost immediately Katie’s life begins to veer off course. Through the prism of a blog she writes, the audience is given a rare, voyeuristic glimpse into the imagination, sexual yearnings, and haunted psyche of a soul in progress.

Narrative Competition
The Animal Project | Director: Ingrid Vininger. Canada. 90 minutes.
Starring: Hannah Cheesman, Kate Corbett, Noah Davis, Aaron Poole, Jessica Greco, Joey Klein.
As a thirty something acting teacher attempts to push a group of eager young performers out of their comfort zones, he struggles with his own ability to live an authentic and fulfilling life with his teenage son. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Buzzard | Director: Joel Potrykus. USA. 97 minutes.
Starring: Joel Potrykus, Joshua Burge, Jason Roth, Lisa Mueller, Alan Longstreet, Michael Saunders.
Paranoia forces small-time scam artist Marty to flee his hometown and hide out in a dangerous Detroit. With nothing but a pocket full of bogus checks, his Power Glove, and a bad temper, the horror metal slacker lashes out. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Club Sandwich | Director: Fernando Eimbcke. Mexico. 82 minutes.
Starring: Lucio Giménez Cacho, María Renée Prudencio, Danae Reynaud.
While vacationing at a beachside resort, a single mother faces inevitable separation anxiety when her 15-year-old son — who is also her best friend — discovers magical chemistry with a girl his own age. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

The Enemy Within | Director: Yorgos Tsemberopoulos. Greece. 107 minutes.
Starring: Manolis Mavromatakis, Maria Zorba, Yiorgos Gallos, Antonis Karistinos, Thanasis Papageorgiou.
Kostas Stasinos, 48, the owner of a garden supply store, lives an ordinary life with his wife Rania, his 17-year-old son Andreas, a high school senior, and his 14-year-old daughter Luisa. When his house is ransacked by a gang of hoodlums, his family’s peace and happiness are destroyed, introducing violence into their everyday lives in the shape of an old rifle. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

The House That Jack Built | Director: Henry Barrial. USA. 90 minutes.
Starring: E.J. Bonilla, Melissa Fumero, Leo Minaya, Flor De Liz Perez, Saundra Santiago
Jack Maldonado is an ambitious young Latino man who fueled by misguided nostalgia, buys a small apartment building in the Bronx and moves his boisterous family into the apartments to live rent-free. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

The Identical | Director: Dustin Marcellino. USA. 88 minutes.
Starring: Blake Rayne, Ashley Judd, Ray Liotta, Seth Green, Joe Pantoliano
The Identical is the story of a young couple, who give birth to identical twin boys in the depths of the Great Depression. Unable to care for both, the couple gives one son to be raised and adopted by an evangelist minister and his wife. The film tells the story of the separated twins, Drexel Hemsley and Ryan Wade, and the very different lives they lead–different except for a shared passion for music. WORLD PREMIERE

Little Brother | Director: Seric Aprymov. Kazakhstan. 97 minutes.
Starring: Alisher Aprymov, Almat Galym.
A small remote village, lost in the mountains and having little but nothing of a connection with an outer civilized world. We face the monotony of life that devours the living in the souls of people. The protagonist is a nine-year-old kid Yerken who resembles an ill nestling forced to live without any support and help whatsoever. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

Love Me | Directors: Maryna Gorbach, Mehmet Bahadir Er. Turkey | Ukraine. 90 minutes.
Starring: Ushan Çakir, Viktoria Spesivtseva, Güven Kiraç, Olena Stefanska, Mehmet Bahadir Er.
Sprinkled with hilarious notes of cultural clashes and an endearing display of the kindness of strangers, this idiosyncratic “comedy drama” will warm hearts in the most unexpected way. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

Maryan | Director: Ganapathy Bharat. India | Namibia. 150 minutes.
Starring: Dhanush, Parvathi Menon, Salim Kumar, Appukutty, Jagan.
Maryan is the journey of a fisherman from South of India and his fight for survival. This film is a gritty adventure drama about the undying human will to survive and the power of love. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

Noble | Director: Stephen Bradley. Vietnam | United Kingdom. 101 minutes.
Starring: Brendan Coyle, Deirdre O’Kane, Liam Cunningham, Mark Huberman, Nhu Quynh Nguyen.
NOBLE is the true story of a funny, feisty and courageous woman called Christina Noble who overcomes the difficulties of her childhood in Ireland to discover her destiny on the streets of Saigon in 1989, fourteen years after the end of the war. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

Peace After Marriage | Director: Ghazi Albuliwi. USA. 86 minutes.
Starring: Ghazi Albuliwi, Assaf Cohen, Einat Tubi, Hany Kamal, Hiam Abbass, Omer Barnea.
Desperate for companionship, a lonely, young Palestinian-American man agrees to marry an Israeli woman in need of a Green Card, forcing them to re-examine their respective cultural and familial traditions. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Something Necessary | Director: Judy Kibinge. Germany | Kenya. 85 minutes.
Starring: Kipng’eno Kirui Duncan, Hilda Jepkoech, Carolyne Chebiwott Kibet, Anne Kimani.
A woman struggling to rebuild her life after the civil unrest that swept Kenya after the 2007 elections claiming the life of her husband, the health of her son and leaving her home on an isolated farm in the Kenyan countryside in ruins, she now has nothing but her resolve to rebuild her life left. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

Test | Director: Chris Mason Johnson. USA. 89 minutes.
Starring: Kevin Clarke, Kristoffer Cusick. Chris Mason Johnson. Scott Marlowe. Matthew Risch.
San Francisco, 1985. Two opposites attract at a modern dance company. Together, their courage and resilience are tested as they navigate a world full of risks and promise, against the backdrop of a disease no one seems to know anything about. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Thou Wast Mild and Lovely | Director: Josephine Decker. USA. 94 minutes.
Starring: Joe Swanberg, Sophie Traub, Robert Longstreet, Kristin Slaysman, Matt Orme.
There are places you go, where the things you do will matter to a lot of people. Then there are places you will go, where the things you will do matter only to a very few. But to those few, they will matter – a lot. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Undiscovered Gyrl | Director: Allison Burnett. USA. 100 minutes.
Starring: Britt Robertson, Robert Patrick, Christian Slater, Justin Long, Martin Sheen, Kimberly Williams-Paisley.
Undiscovered Gyrl follows the life of Katie Kampenfelt, a beautiful, imaginative teen who, after graduating from high school, decides to take a year off before college. Almost immediately Katie’s life begins to veer off course. Through the prism of a blog she writes, the audience is given a rare, voyeuristic glimpse into the imagination, sexual yearnings, and haunted psyche of a soul in progress. WORLD PREMIERE

New Directors Competition

1982| Director: Tommy Oliver. USA. 80 minutes.
Starring: Wayne Brady, Hill Harper, Sharon Leal, Ruby Dee, Bokeem Woodbine, Troi Zee, La La Anthony.
From the earliest days of the crack cocaine epidemic that plagued America comes this story of Tim, a devoted husband and proud father trying to protect his ten-year-old daughter from the ravages of his mother’s addiction. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

9 Full Moons | Director: Tomer Almagor. USA. 103 minutes.
Starring: Amy Seimetz, Bret Roberts, Donal Logue, Dale Dickey, Harry Dean Stanton, James Duval.
A wildly enigmatic, hard-partying young woman compensates for her loneliness with different men, until she falls for Lev, a solitary musician with a radically different personality. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

As It Is in Heaven | Director: Joshua Overbay. USA. 86 minutes.
Starring: Sylvia Boykin, Todd Bagley, Meredith Cave, Chris Nelson, Kassandra Botts, Abi Van Andel.
After the death of the Prophet, a young man is called upon to lead his small religious sect as they anxiously await the end of the world. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Before I Disappear | Director: Shawn Christensen. USA. 94 minutes.
Starring: Shawn Christensen, Emmy Rossum, Paul Wesley, Ron Perlman, Richard Schiff, Fatima Ptacek
At the lowest point in his life, Richie gets a call from his estranged sister, asking him to take care of his eleven-year-old neice for a few hours. Based on the Academy Award-winning short film Curfew. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Chasing Ghosts | Director: Josh Shreve. USA. 93 minutes.
Starring: Toby Nichols, Frances Conroy, Robyn Lively, W. Earl Brown, Tim Meadows.
Lucas, an eleven-year-old boy mourning his brother’s death, seeks answers by filming funerals. When his camera captures something unexpected and extraordinary, he and his family are thrust into the spotlight and he forms an unlikely friendship with an author who survived a near-death experience. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

Congratulations! | Director: Mike Brune. USA. 90 minutes.
Starring: John Curran, Rhoda Griffis, Robert Longstreet, Jack McGee, Adam Fristoe.
Veteran Detective Dan Skok of the Missing Persons Bureau lands the case of his career – a six-year old boy who disappears inside his own house. What should be a traditional investigation becomes an absurd and comic exploration of a man who’s profession is a perpetual search. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Drunktown’s Finest | Director: Sydney Freeland. USA. 95 minutes.
Starring: Jeremiah Bitsui, Carmen Moore, Morningstar Angeline, Kiowa Gordon, Shauna Baker.
Three young Native Americans – an adopted Christian girl, a rebellious soon-to-be father, and a transsexual model wannabe – strive to escape the hardships of the reservation and find a place for themselves in an evolving world. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Forty Years from Yesterday | Director: Robert Machoian, Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck. USA. 76 minutes.
Starring: Bruce Graham, Matt Valdez, Suzette Graham, Rebekah Mott.
Bruce awakens one morning to find that his loving wife of forty years has unexpectedly passed away. What follows is an intimate portrait of the process that follows: how to deal with the body, the legalities; how to manage one’s relationship with God; how to move on. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Grace | Director: Heath Jones. USA. 95 minutes.
Starring: Annika Marks, Sharon Lawrence, Michele Feren, Erin Beute, Brian Patrick Clarke.
After a weekend of binge drinking in a small Florida town, Gracie ends up in the county jail with two options; six months in prison or ninety Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in ninety days. She chooses the meetings and embarks on a new life path and begins to put the pieces of her shattered life back together. WORLD PREMIERE

I Believe in Unicorns | Director: Leah Meyerhoff. USA. 80 minutes.
Starring: Natalia Dyer, Pater Vack, Julia Garner, Amy Seimetz, Toni Meyerhoff.
An imaginative teenage girl who is the sole caretaker of her disabled mother escapes into a fantasy world as her first relationship with an older boy begins to turn violent. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

Medeas | Director: Andrea Pallaoro. Italy, Mexico, USA. 97 minutes.
Starring: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Brían F. O’Byrne, Mary Mouser, Ian Nelson.
Ennis, a stern and hard-working dairy farmer, struggles to maintain control of his life and his family, while his wife, Christina, retreats inward, slowly disconnecting from him and their five children in this intimate portrait of a rural family’s struggles in a harsh and shifting landscape. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

OJ: The Musical | Director: Jeff Rosenberg. USA. 90 minutes.
Starring: Jordan Kenneth Kamp, Malcolm Barret, Larisa Oleynik, Owiso Odera, Bianca DeGroat, Sarah Hagan.
Eugene Olivier is an eccentric theater artist who leaves New York to take on Los Angeles. With his two best friends from high school, he begins his quest to stage the next great American musical – a retelling of the OJ Simpson story, adapted from Shakespeare’s Othello. TENNESSEE PREMIERE

The Resurrection of a Bastard | Director: Guido van Driel. Netherlands. 89 minutes.
Starring: Yorick van Wabeningen, Goua Robert Grovogui, Juda Goslinga, Jeroen Willems.
Three men – an old Frisian farmer bent on revenge, a gangster who has just barely survived “liquidation,” and an illegal immigrant with an uncertain future – all meet under an ancient oak tree, beyond the last town. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

Trap Street | Director: Vivian Qu. China. 93 minutes.
Starring: Yulai Lu, Wenchao He, Young Hou, Ziaofei Zhao.
Li Qiuming works for a digital mapping company surveying the streets of the quickly changing city. To make ends meet, he moonlights by installing surveillance cameras. One day, he has a brief encounter with a woman who disappears down an unmappable street and becomes infatuated with her. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

White Shadow | Director: Noaz Deshe. Tanzania / Germany. 117 minutes.
Starring: Hamisi Bazili, Salum Abdallah, Riziki Ally, James Gayo.
Alias is a young albino boy growing up in the Central African bush. His condition makes him the subject of taunting; but he faces an even graver danger: witch doctors and many people of the region believe the body parts of albinos have mystical powers. To save him from a ghastly fate, his mother sends him to Dar es Salaam to live with his uncle, where he faces a new sort of danger. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE

Image: Lee Ann Womack arrives for the Southeast Premiere of Noble Things at the 2009 Nashville Film Festival. Picture, from left, are Sallie Mayne, NaFF executive director, Womack, Stacy Widelitz, Naff board president, and Brian Owens, NaFF artistic director.
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Nashville Film Festival Announces Special Presentation, Opening Day and World Vanguard Films incl. World Premiere of THE IDENTICAL Starring Ashley Judd, Seth Green

THE IDENTICAL directed by Dustin Marcellino

The Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) announced the Special Presentations line-up for the 45th annual Festival, taking place April 17 to 26th 2014. Films on opening day include the World Premiere of THE IDENTICAL directed by Dustin Marcellino and starring Blake Rayne, Ashley Judd, Ray Liotta, Seth Green, Joe Pantoliano, Amanda Crew, Brian Geraghty. THE IDENTICAL is the story of a young couple, who give birth to identical twin boys in the depths of the Great Depression. Unable to care for both, the couple gives one son to be raised and adopted by an evangelist minister and his wife. The film tells the story of the separated twins, Drexel Hemsley and Ryan Wade, and the very different lives they lead–different except for a shared passion for music. Other films include the Tennessee Premiere of CHASING GHOSTS directed by Josh Shreve, and THE CASE AGAINST 8 directed by Ben Cotner and Ryan White.

Brian Owens, NaFF’s Artistic Director, programmed Opening Day with Nashville in mind. These are films made in or near the city, by a Tennessee filmmaker, or by a filmmaker well-loved by the NaFF festival audience.

Opening Day Selections:

The Identical | Director: Dustin Marcellino. USA. 88 minutes.
Starring: Blake Rayne, Ashley Judd, Ray Liotta, Seth Green, Joe Pantoliano, Amanda Crew, Brian Geraghty
The Identical is the story of a young couple, who give birth to identical twin boys in the depths of the Great Depression. Unable to care for both, the couple gives one son to be raised and adopted by an evangelist minister and his wife. The film tells the story of the separated twins, Drexel Hemsley and Ryan Wade, and the very different lives they lead–different except for a shared passion for music. WORLD PREMIERE.

Chasing Ghosts | Director: Josh Shreve. USA. 93 minutes.
Starring: Toby Nichols, Frances Conroy, Robyn Lively, W. Earl Brown, Tim Meadows.
Lucas, an eleven-year-old boy mourning his brother’s death, seeks answers by filming funerals. When his camera captures something unexpected and extraordinary, he and his family are thrust into the spotlight and he forms an unlikely friendship with an author who survived a near-death experience. TENNESSEE PREMIERE.

The Case Against 8 | Directors: Ben Cotner, Ryan White. USA. 112 minutes.
Shot over five years, this behind-the-scenes look at the case against California’s Proposition 8, follows the unlikely team that took the first federal marriage equality lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. TENNESSEE PREMIERE.

TN Shorts 1 & 2 – A selection of Tennessee Shorts, to be announced in a later release

Special Presentations

American Commune | Directors: Rena Mundo Croshere, Nadine Mundo. USA. 90 minutes.
Raised on The Farm by a Jewish mother form Beverly Hills and a Puerto Rican father from the Bronx, filmmakers and sisters Rena and Nadine Mundo return to the rural Tennessee commune for the first time since leaving in 1985. Ready to face their past after years of hiding their unique upbringing, they chart the rise and fall of America’s largest utopian experiment. TENNESEE PREMIERE.

Dom Hemingway | Director: Richard Shepard. United Kingdom. 93 minutes.
Starring: Jude Law, Emilia Clarke, Kerry Condon, Richard E. Grant, Demian Bichir.
After spending 12 years in prison for keeping his mouth shut, notorious safe-cracker Dom Hemingway is back on the streets of London looking to collect what he’s owed. TENNESSEE PREMIERE. A Fox Searchlight Release.

Field of Lost Shoes | Director: Sean McNamara. USA. 94 minutes.
Starring: Luke Benward, Lauren Holly, Nolan Gould, Max Lloyd-Jones, Jason Isaacs, David Arquette, Keith David, Gale Harold, Zach Roerig, Tom Skerritt.
Based on a true story of the American Civil War, culminating at the Battle of New Market, May 1864, a group of teenage cadets sheltered from war at the Virginia Military Institute must confront the horrors of an adult world when they are called upon to defend the Shenandoah Valley. Leaving behind their youth, these cadets must decide what they are fighting for. WORLD PREMIERE.

Happy Christmas | Director: Joe Swanberg. USA. 78 minutes.
Starring: Anna Kendrick, Lena Dunham, Melanie Lynskey, Joe Swanberg, Mark Webber.
Irresponsible 20-something Jenny arrives in Chicago to live with her older brother Jeff, a young film-maker living a happy existence with his novelist wife Kelly and their two-year-old son. Jenny’s arrival shakes up their quiet domesticity as she and her friend Carson instigate an evolution in Kelly’s life and career. SOUTHEAST PREMIERE. A Magnolia Pictures Release.

Ida | Director: Pawel Pawilkowski. Poland. 80 minutes.
Starring: Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Dawid Ogrodnik, Jerzy Trela, Adam Szyszkowski.
18-year old Anna, a sheltered orphan raised in a convent, is preparing to become a nun when the Mother Superior insists she first visit her sole living relative, her Aunt Wanda – a worldly and cynical Communist Party insider, who shocks her with the declaration that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of a repressed past. TENNESSEE PREMIERE. A Music Box Films Release.

Locke | Director: Steven Knight. United Kingdom. 85 minutes.
Starring: Tom Hardy.
Ivan Locke has worked diligently to craft the life he has envisioned, dedicating himself to the job that he loves and the family he adores. On the eve of the biggest challenge of his career, Ivan receives a phone call that sets in motion a series of events that will unravel his family, job, and soul. TENNESSEE PREMIERE. An A24 Release.

Lucky Them | Director: Megan Griffiths. USA. 97 minutes. CLOSING NIGHT SELECTION.
Starring: Toni Collette, Ryan Eggold, Thomas Haden Church, Ahna O’Reilly, Oliver Platt, Amy Seimetz
More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers in this charming dramedy set against the vibrant Seattle indie music scene. SOUTHEAST US PREMIERE.An IFC Films Release.

Obvious Child | Director: Gillian Robespierre. USA. 83 minutes.
Starring: Jenny Slate, Gaby Hoffmann, Jake Lacy, David Cross, Richard Kind.
For aspiring comedian Donna Stern, everyday life as a female twenty-something provides ample material for her incredibly relatable brand of humor. On stage, Donna is unapologetically herself, joking about topics as intimate as her sex life and as crude as her day-old underwear. But when Donna gets dumped, loses her job, and finds herself pregnant just in time for Valentine’s Day, she has to navigate the murky waters of independent adulthood for the first time. TENNESSEE PREMIERE. An A24 Release.

Words and Pictures | Director: Fred Schepisi. USA. 111 minutes.
Starring: Clive Owen, Juliette Binoche, Amy Brenneman, Bruce Davison, Keegan Connor Tracy.
Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche headline this playfully comedic drama about an English teacher who challenges the school’s art teacher to a battle of wits. Jack Marcus is annoyed by his students’ obsessions with good grades over actual learning. Once a thriving novelist, Jack hasn’t published in years and has a tendency to drink his frustrations away. Dina Delsanto is an abstract painter who, like Jack, once was celebrated for her art. Her arthritis has made the act of painting too painful. With teacher reviews impending, Jack decides to inspire the English students by declaring “war” on pictures, believing that the written word gives more meaning to life. Dina accepts Jack’s challenge and the battle begins. TENNESSEE PREMIERE.

World Vanguard

The Amazing Catfish | Director: Claudia Sainte-Luce. Mexico. 89 minutes.
Starring: Lisa Owen, Ximena Ayala, Sonia Franco, Wendy Guillen.
Lonely young twenty-something Claudia, meets ailing matriarch Martha in a hospital room after Claudia is admitted with appendicitis. The women bond over a shared bag of potato chips. Martha has four kids from three different fathers. Claudia has been alone all her life. When Martha spots Claudia walking home after her surgery, she offers her a ride in her over-crowded Beetle – and their lives will never be the same. TENNESSEE PREMIERE.

Butter on the Latch | Director: Josephine Baker. USA. 63 minutes.
Starring: Isolde Chae-Lawrence, Stephan Goldbach, Charlie Hewson, Sarah Small.
Sarah reunites with her old friend Isolde at a Balkan folk song and dance camp in the woods outside Mendocino, California. They sing a song she learned years before about dragons who entwine themselves in women’s hair, carrying them off through the forest, burning it as they go. When Sarah pursues fellow camper Steph, her nights of secrets and singing with Isolde come to an abrupt end. TENNESSEE PREMIERE.

The Enemy Within | Director: Yorgos Tsemperopoulos. Greece. 107 minutes.
Starring: Manolis Mavromatakis, Maria Zorba, Ilias Moulas, Thanasis Papageorgiou.
Kostas is a progressive ideologist living a good life with his wife, son and daughter and running a successful flower shop despite the turmoil of the Greek economy. When their home is invaded by a gang of thieves, the violence shatters his family’s peace. Morally demolished, Kostas struggles to get his family back to normal. US PREMIERE.

Long Way Home | Director: Gergory Hadden. Sweden / USA. 87 minutes.
Starring: Elizabeth Cook, Viktor Åkerblom, Jason Alexander, Phil “The Mangler” Kaufman, Rhondi Reed.
When Nashville star Molly Rhodes meets Swedish music producer Vincent Deuce, their plan is to create a new genre from scratch – Super-Country. Their new single, “This Is Not Your Country,” becomes a hit, but Molly isn’t convinced that this blend of country and Swedish House music is the best direction for her career. NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE.

Manakamana | Director: Stephanie Spray, Pacho Velez. Nepal / USA. 117 minutes.
Documentary.
From the makers of Leviathan, comes this sensorial documentary that takes us on a cable-car ride up and down the vast landscapes of Nepal’s Trisuli valley, where the world-famous Manakamana Temple attracts Buddhist pilgrims from around the world. TENNESSEE PREMIERE. A Cinema Guild Release.

Metro Manila | Director: Sean Ellis. United Kingdom / Philippines. 115 minutes.
Starring: Jake Macapagal, Althea Vega, John Arcilla.
Seeking a brighter future in megacity Manila, Oscar and his family flee their life in the rice fields of the northern Philippines. But the capital’s intensity quickly overwhelms them, and they fall prey to the rampant manipulations of the locals. Oscar catches a break when he’s offered steady work for an armored truck company. Soon, the reality of his job’s danger sets in and Oscar must confront the perils he faces in his new life. TENNESSEE PREMIERE. An Oscilloscope Release.

A Story of Children and Film | Director: Mark Cousins. United Kingdom / France. 101 minutes.
Documentary.
Following up his epic documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Mark Cousins presents a globe-spanning rumination on the way the lives of children are presented in cinema, surveying such classics as E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The 400 Blows, Fanny and Alexander, Los Olvidados, andThe White Balloon. TENNESSEE PREMIERE.

Vic + Flo Saw a Bear | Director: Denis Côté. Canada. 95 minutes.
Starring: Pierrette Robitaille, Romane Bohringer, Marc-André Grondin.
Victoria and Florence are two ex-cons trying to make a new life for themselves in the backwoods of northern Quebec. Seeking peace and quiet, the couple slowly begin to feel under siege as Vic’s parole officer keeps unexpectedly popping up and a strange neighborhood woman turns out to be a menacing presence from Flo’s past. TENNESSEE PREMIERE.A Kimstim release.

When the World’s On Fire | Director: James Clauer. USA. 70 minutes.
Starring: James Cooke, Joshua Elrod, Leo Kling, Travis Nicholson.
Javier, a Guatamalan immigrant, finds himself homeless and living on the fringes of society in a hardscrabble Southern city. With his loyal dog as his companion, Javier encounters a revolving cast of charcaters, each more colorful than the last – rugged souls trying to break free from their suffocating predicaments and hoping to catch some glimmer of their American Dream. TENNESSEE PREMIERE.
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‘After’ and ‘Beauty is Embarrassing’ open ‘BIG EASY EXPRESS’ and ‘Paul Williams Still Alive’ to close 2012 Nashville Film Festival

Beauty is Embarrassing

Continuing a trend started several years ago, two films will officially open and close the Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) when it takes place April 19-26, 2012 at the Regal Green Hills Cinemas.

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The First Grader, ‘Wish Me Away’ and “Most Valuable Players” Grab Audience Awards at 2011 Nashville Film Festival

The First Grader

“The First Grader,” “Wish Me Away” and “Most Valuable Players” walked away with the two major audience awards, the latter two tying, at the 2011 Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) presented by Nissan closing night party at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville.

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‘Weekend’ and ‘If a Tree Falls’ Win Top Prizes at 2011 Nashville Film Festival presented by Nissan

“Weekend,” Andrew Haigh’s unapologetic love story about two men in a weekend affair, and “If a Tree Falls,” Marshall Curry’s profile of environmentalists driven to extremes, captured the top jury prizes at the 2011 Nashville Film Festival (NaFF). “Weekend” was awarded the Bridgestone Grand Jury Prize, the top narrative prize; “If a Tree Falls” received the Documentary Channel Grand Prize in the Documentary Competition.

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