SECTIONS:Defender PicksMardiMay 21stRosa Keller Library (5:00-9:00 PM) My House NOLA presents a rolling food vendor mini festival
The Antenna Gallery (7:00 PM) A series of music-themed movies and documentaries, curated and hosted by DJ Soul Sister, and co-presented by Charitable Film Network, Press Street, and WWOZ
Birdfoot Backstage with WWNO 89.9 FM Jewish Community Center (7:30 PM) The second evening of a chamber music festival that has something for classical aficionados and dilettantes alike
Pure X Circle Bar (10:00 PM) Catch the Indie rockers on their North American tour |
Pick of the FlicksNew Orleans Film Festival Director Offers Highlights From This Year's Lineup Bayou Blue  Una Noche Make room, Mike Scott. Starting Thursday, everyone in New Orleans is a critic. The New Orleans Film Society is holding the 23rd annual New Orleans Film Festival from October 11 to October 18, featuring some of the best films from around Louisiana and the world. Throughout the week, the festival packs in more than 200 films, 70 directors, panels and parties into 8 days of cinematic adventure.
Jolene Pinder, executive director of the New Orleans Film Festival, is one of many working hard today to ensure the festival gets underway smoothly.
“The New Orleans Film Festival is the largest and oldest film festival in the whole state of Louisiana,” Pinder said. “It’s a chance to showcase the incredible films from local filmmakers and international filmmakers.”
Along with incredible Louisiana filmmakers, the festival brings in movies from Argentina, Denmark, Canada and all around the United States. Pinder estimates there will be around 15,000 people attending this year at the many Fest venues. The screening sites also serve as a showcase of New Orleans' independent film spots, and include the Prytania Theatre, the Contemporary Arts Center, NOMA, The Joy Theatre, the Zeitgeist Center and many more.
“It’s really a chance to celebrate film, both from local indigenous filmmakers and filmmakers from across the world. These are things you can’t see in a movie theater,” says Pinder.
The 200 feature films and shorts playing across the city can make choosing a tall order, so NoDef asked Pinder about her choices from the list. She highlighted two documentaries, Jae-Ho Chang and Tara Autovino’s Ultimate Christian Wrestling and Alix Lambert and David McMahon’s Bayou Blue.
New Orleans Film Festival
What: 200+ films from Louisiana and around the world screen at 9 local venues.
When: Oct. 11-18. Full schedule and showtimes here.
Tickets: Individual screenings $8 NOFS members/$10 General public. Festival Passes $125 NOFS Members/$150 General public.
“[Ultimate Christian Wrestling] is about this subculture of people who chose to spread the gospel through wrestling. You see their WWF characters will be figures from The Bible [and] they will quote from scripture,” says Pinder.
From the ring to the swamp, Bayou Blue examines 23 murders that took place between 1997 and 2006 in a swampy area of Southeastern Louisiana. The film delves deep into the problems circulating in a town where poverty, racism, addiction and violence run rampant, and explores why the murders might've been ignored by the media.
And there's plenty more docs where that came from. Pinder says the nonfiction films are one of the strong suits of the festival.
"We have very solid, exciting documentaries and they don’t usually get run in a theater,” Pinder said.
Pinder also notes two exceptional narrative films, one of the two Spanish language films showing, Lucy Mulloy’s Una Noche, which provides a rare film portrait of Cuba, and local director Sean Gerowin’s Trailer Park Jesus.
A lighter film than Una Noche, Trailer Park Jesus follows the journey of recently dumped Jessie, whose car breaks down at a trailer park in nowhere Mississippi. With just a packet of LSD and a broken heart, Jessie must maneuver through the trailer park and find his way back home.
“Trailer Park Jesus is a very funny, psychedelic, and an amazing ride,” says Pinder.
Hitchcock and horror fans will also be elated to see the drive-in screening of Psycho this Sunday at the old Schwegmann’s (300 North Broad Street).
“Our sponsor is going to provide cars, [so attendees] can win a ride in a Ford Fusion to go to the drive-in,” says Pinder.
For those of you who love a freebee, renowned DJ Spooky is showing a free screening his film Rebirth of a Nation, a play on D.W. Griffith’s (somewhat offensive) classic, The Birth of a Nation.
On Sunday, DJ Soul Sister is hosting a screening of Brooklyn Boheme, a new work from writer and filmmaker Nelson George at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center. George's characters are his neighbors in the Clinton Hill/Fort Greene area of Brooklyn. That may sound boring, but for the fact that his neighbors are Spike Lee, Mos Def, Branford Marsalis and Toure, among other notables. George will be at the 4 p.m. screening for a post-film discussion, and a few surprise special guests are expected. He will also be on a panel discussion at 2 p.m. Saturday at the CAC titled Insider/Outsider Filmmaking.
Free panel discussions, such as a case study on Sundance favorite Beasts of the Southern Wild, will also explore the ins and outs of film and production.
Stay with NoDef for complete coverage of the New Orleans Film Festival. We'll be providing a look at the panels, films, directors and other characters that populate this local big screen bonanza.
Find the festival program here. |
Contributors:Dead Huey Long, Emma Boyce, Ian Hoch, Sarah Esenwein, Ryan Sparks, Will Dilella, Chris Rinaldi, Lianna Patch, Phil Yiannopoulos, Cate Czarnecki, Jonas Griffin, Jennifer Abbot, Mary Kilpatrick, Elaina Patton, Mike Horst, Devin Bambrick, Katherine McGuire, Norris Ortolano, Joe Shriner Staff WritersRyan Sparks, Kerem Ozkan Listings Elisabeth Morgan Puzzler Paolo Roy Art Director: Michael Weber, B.A. Assistant Managing EditorMary-Devon Dupuy Managing EditorStephen Babcock Editor: B. E. Mintz Published Daily byMinced Media, Inc. |
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