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The Little Rock Film Festival has a track record of picking winners

The documentary Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer provides insight into the Russian government and a tiny group of activists who have captivated the world. The film will screen at the Little Rock Film Festival, which opens Wednesday.
The documentary Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer provides insight into the Russian government and a tiny group of activists who have captivated the world. The film will screen at the Little Rock Film Festival, which opens Wednesday.

The lineup for the seventh Little Rock Film Festival, which opens Wednesday and continues through Sunday, reads like a musing in the Hollywood Reporter on independent Oscar contenders.

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Courtesy of Mark Thiedeman

Sean Rose stars in Last Summer, by Arkansas filmmaker Mark Thiedeman. It’s a poetic musing on what happens to high school sweethearts as college looms.

There’s the opening night film, Short Term 12, which won the Grand Jury and Audience awards at South by Southwest.

There’s Blood Brother, showing Thursday and Friday, which won Grand Jury and Audience awards at Sundance; The Kill Team, screening at 2:45 p.m. Friday, best documentary at Tribeca; William and the Windmill, showing Thursday and Friday, Grand Jury documentary, South by Southwest; and Dirty Wars, screening at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sundance Cinematography Award. And that list is far from extensive.

The LRFF has a history of picking gems. Last year, Beasts of the Southern Wild won the festival’s Grand Prize six months before being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Restrepo won the Golden Rock Documentary Prize in 2010, the same year that Winter’s Bone screened in the Golden Rock Narrative Competition. Both of these movies were also up for Oscars.

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Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories

The filmmakers for These Birds Walk, a documentary about runaway boys in Karachi, Pakistan, will be in town for the Little Rock Film Festival screenings.

But in some ways, 2013 is LRFF’s coming out bash. Paste magazine and CurrentTV (now Al Jazeera America) will be back this year, Filmmaker magazine plans to send a reporter, and Oscilloscope Laboratories, a big-screen distribution company founded by late-Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, plans to send a marketing representative. Last month, for the second time, the festival was named one of the “top 25 worth the entry price” by Moviemaker magazine. That’s out of about 5,000 festivals worldwide.

All of this, combined with pre-film performances by local musicians at the year’s largest venue, The Arkansas Repertory Theatre, and a new, walkable festival scope (key sites include the Dundee Building on Little Rock’s Main Street and the Argenta Community Theater in downtown North Little Rock), should solidify the festival’s reputation as one of the most desirable places to screen. “Our mission all along was … to take all these things from festivals around the country, take what everybody does best, and combine it into our festival,” says Craig Renaud, co-founder.


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“What everybody does best” is a rare amalgamation of consideration on the part of festival directors and generosity on the part of sponsors - among them, downtown hotels, North Point Toyota and Stone Ward marketing/public relations. Filmmaker perks include expense-paid travel, free accommodations and transportation within Little Rock, as well as networking opportunities and legendary parties.

“At a panel at South By [Southwest], somebody asked ‘what’s the greatest party of all the festivals you’ve ever been to,’ and two of the people said that, hands down, ‘it’s the boat party at Little Rock,’” Renaud says. Last year, hordes were turned away from Sync or Swim, the sixth LRFF party aboard the Arkansas Queen - and that was after the Queen reached 89 over capacity.

“It was epic!” remembers J.P. Langston, special events coordinator.

‘ALL DOORS ARE OPEN’

Craig and his brother Brent, both documentary filmmakers, started the festival in 2007 with their friends Jamie Moses and Owen Brainard. The brothers had just returned to their hometown of Little Rock from their new home in New York to make an HBO documentary about the 50th anniversary of the Central High School desegregation crisis. That first year, attendance hovered around 5,000 and roughly 30 volunteers pulled off the whole event. In 2012, attendance had multiplied to 25,000. Even so, the budget for year-round programming under Little Rock Film Festival, Inc. is less than $100,000 and, according to recent tax documents, gross receipts for 2011 were under $50,000. This means the festival relies heavily on community support - particularly because it offers some of the largest cash prizes on the circuit.

“The prizes makes it something that a lot of films want to be a part of, and it makes the festival more prestigious,” says Charlie Olsky, Oscilloscope Laboratories publicist.

This will be the third year the Oxford American has offered a $10,000 prize for “Best Southern Film,” and the first year Heifer International is offering a $10,000 prize for “Best Humanitarian Film.” This partially explains the festival’s stellar lineup, although the Renauds’ extensive industry contacts don’t hurt.

“Good Night premiered at South By [Southwest], and I got a text from one of the brothers - ‘hey, are you going to send us Good Night, or what?’” says Austin-based actor and director Jonny Mars. His documentary, America’s Parking Lot, opened the 2012 festival, and this year he will screen two films in Little Rock.

According to Mars, Little Rock has plenty of filmmaker buzz. “People are either like, ‘I’ve been there, it’s amazing,’ or ‘I’ve heard about it, I want to go,’” he says. “What stands out is how personal it is, and how much the focus is on the filmmaker. … There’s a level of Sundance and South By [Southwest] that’s definitely who you know, not necessarily what you made. Little Rock, all doors are open.” Mars has been taking films to festivals since 1999, and he knows the drill. This year, he had four films at Sundance and seven at SXSW. But then, Little Rock numbers speak for themselves. Craig Renaud expects 90 percent of the filmmakers to attend this year, just as they did last year.

Travel and other logistics are organized by this year’s 425 volunteers. Someone had to watch the nearly 700 films submitted and select 80 to program. Someone had to schedule venues and plan parties.

Angie Stoffer, head of operations, works every evening as the festival nears, despite her full-time job with the Arkansas Motor Vehicle Commission. She has been with LRFF since the beginning and takes her annual vacation to be available 24/7 during festival week. “When this first started, way back when, I saw an advertisement in the paper for volunteers. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this might be as big as Sundance one day and I want to be a part of it.’” She taps her chest. “I love independent film. The other ones are entertainment and they make the money, but the documentaries and stuff, they come from here.”

COMING ATTRACTIONS

And the ones that really come from here, the films made in Arkansas, are getting better each year, according to Renaud: “The festival gives a platform for local filmmakers … and it gives a networking opportunity with outside filmmakers. Our Arkansas program was very competitive this year. A lot of things got rejected.” To keep things kosher, the “Made in Arkansas” lineup is selected by programmers for Film Forum, a nonprofit, independent film theater in New York.

Daniel Campbell, 32, has won the Charles B. Pierce Award for best Arkansas film twice. This year, he’ll screen his third short, The Discontentment of Ed Telfair. He met Graham Gordy, a Little Rock based writer with the Sundance Channel series Rectify, at the 2010 LRFF. Gordy liked Campbell’s short Antiquities, a romantic comedy about a minimum wage worker at a flea market, and now the two are turning it into a feature script. And when Campbell runs into snags, he solicits advice from Ray McKinnon and Joey Lauren Adams, actors/ directors with Hollywood credentials, whom he also met at the Little Rock Film Festival. He’s the classic example of the festival’s primary goal at work - “we wanted to grow film in Arkansas,” Renaud says.

Next year, the LRFF plans to celebrate another first - its first year in the Central Arkansas Library System’s Arcade Building, currently under construction in the River Market District near the Main Library. The Arcade’s 325-seat theater is set to become the permanent home of the festival and its affiliated events - the Argenta Film Series, the Little Rock Horror Picture Show, the Reel Civil Rights Film Festival, the 48 Hour Film Project and the Music Video Competition.

“I think that new theater will be the missing key to what they’re trying to do. That’s the final piece of the puzzle. To have that much latitude, to be able to operate your own venue, that’s huge,” Mars says.

Little Rock Film Festival

Wednesday-Sunday, various locations, Little Rock and North Little Rock

Information and complete schedule: littlerockfilmfestival.org, (501) 205-0400

A $300 all-access Gold Pass gets admission to all films, panels and parties. A $150 Silver Pass gets admission into most films, panels and parties. It won’t get you into special events, such as the opening night film, awards gala and VIP after-parties. A $50 Bronze Pass gets admission into all films except for the opening night film. Priority seating always goes to pass-holders, but there is a queue for most films and a $10 suggested donation at the door. LRFF sells advance tickets only to special events, such as the opening night film and specific parties. There’s also a smart phone app to help you make it to the right place at the right time.

PARTIES AND PANELS

At 10 p.m. Thursday, legendary Little Rock band Big Silver will deliver Americana at White Water Tavern. Free for Gold and Silver passes, $10 at the door. 21 and up. 2500 W. Seventh Street, Little Rock.

Since the Arkansas Queen has sailed off to other ports, the stuff of future legends will happen at 9:30 p.m. Friday on the Junction Bridge with the neosoul jams of Velvet Kente. Free for Gold and Silver passes, $15 per ticket. All ages. 200 Ottenheimer Plaza, Little Rock.

The Friday VIP Argenta Rooftop after-party begins at midnight. Get there early. Gold passes only. 301 Main St., North Little Rock.

Gnawing Whole Hog barbecue to the soundtrack of Arkansas guitar hero Greg Spradlin should be well worth your Saturday evening. Oxford American headquarters, 1300 Main St., Little Rock. 8 p.m. Gold and Silver passes only. All ages.

One of the most promising panels is scheduled for noon Sunday:

“Flip the Script” will be a face-off between combat veterans and war correspondents. The panel includes Jeremy Scahill, with The Nation, and Brent Renaud, who spent a year embedded with the Arkansas National Guard, covering the war in Iraq. Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 601 Main St., Little Rock. Priority seating, pass holders only.

Film capsules

Films to catch: Most films have multiple screenings. Check littlerockfilmfestival.org for screening times.

Last year the Little Rock Film Festival screened Destin Cretton’s I Am Not a Hipster. This year, his newest film, Short Term 12, opens the festival, after picking up two major awards at South by Southwest. Brie Larson is Grace, a smart young staff member at a group home for teenagers. But residue from her own abuse threatens Grace’s job and her relationship with Mason (John Gallagher Jr.), a goofy, lovable co-worker and her live in boyfriend. Short Term 12 handles somewhat cliched material deftly, with respect, nuance and unforced moments of levity.

These Birds Walk, a documentary about boys taken in by Pakistan’s Edhi Foundation, is frank and poetic. In the sprawling city of Karachi, often only Edhi drivers collect corpses from the streets, venture into rioting neighborhoods to transport patients to hospitals and crisscross the city all night, returning runaway children to their families. In the style of Fredrick Wiseman, filmmakers Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq record life as it happens.

The Girl stars Abby Cornish as Ashley, a cashier in Texas with a penchant for making terrible choices. She and her trucker father frequent a Mexican border town, and one night, convinced that money is what stands between her and her 5-year-old son - currently in foster care - she agrees to smuggle people to Austin. Her ill-planned actions have tragic consequences and she ends up caring for a little girl with a missing mother.

12 O’Clock Boys, about dirt bike gangs that run the streets of Baltimore, is a stunning first effort by 26-year-old director Nathan Lotfy. It’s a real-life fairy tale, rivaling the fictional Beasts of the Southern Wild in its insider glimpse of a magical fringe society.

Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer is a documentary cobbled together from Russian courtroom footage, rehearsal footage and interviews with the families of band members who were jailed following the now infamous punk performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February 2012. The film offers fascinating insight into Russia’s government and culture, while humanizing the women behind a movement largely misunderstood by the media.

Last Summer, made by Little Rock’s Mark Thiedeman, is the gorgeously shot, languorous story of Jonah and Luke, who have been together since childhood. Now, as Jonah prepares to leave for college, all he wants is Luke to ask him to stay. But intuitive, easygoing Luke knows his brilliant boyfriend needs to get out of their pleasant but stifling rural Southern town. Mostly this film is about the rhythms of daily life, of first love, of being gay as a matter of course, not a matter of controversy.

45 RPM, made by Paragould native Juli Jackson, is a quirky film about a young woman from New York on an identity quest that becomes an epic road trip. Charlie knows the keys to her past are buried in the record shops and flea markets of rural Arkansas, but she doesn’t yet realize the importance of the journey itself.

Ain’t In It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm is a documentary that follows Arkansas native Levon Helm, the recently deceased founding member of The Band, recording his first album in 25 years.

The documentary Blood Brother, winner of two major Sundance awards, tracks a disenchanted young American in India, where he works and lives with HIV-positive kids.

Wamja: An Afghan Love Story is a narrative feature about a quick romance gone south and the dire situation of being unmarried and pregnant in Kabul.

Style, Pages 49 on 05/12/2013

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