Saturday, November 5, 2011

Indie Film Fest

Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised by how cool Memphis can be. All week, Will and I have looking forward to the Memphis' Indie Film Fest! We went to two events last night. But before we hit the theater, we made a trip to Central BBQ for some grub!
 A BBQ portabella sandwich (of course!) for me and a pulled pork salad for Will. By the way, macaroni and cheese + BBQ sauce = awesome taste explosion in my mouth!
Now to the movies! The first was actually a set of 9 short films grouped under the theme "Life". At the door, they gave us little ballots to fill out so we could rate each film!
Several of the films dealt with coming of age or the defining moment when a boy becomes a man. A couple were really strange abstract ones with basically just objects and music. One dealt with how you can't let your life be ruled by fear that something bad is going to happen because we hear about all these terrible things on the news and online every single day. The film that most impressed me was one that was filmed down the street from my apartment in this huge abandoned brewery building called "9 Flights". The protagonist has this recurring dream about being a soldier in WWII and trying to save his Jewish Love. So well done!
We walked to Yolo for some frozen yogurt while we waited for the second film we wanted to see called "How to Cheat". This was a cleverly done RomCom that was so much more realistic than any that come from Hollywood. A husband has become bored with his marriage and decides to have an affair. Things get complicated and the end is not exactly happy as the "other woman" ends up pregnant. It was sort of refreshing to see actors that looked like average people, making mistakes, and having to actually deal with the damage when things don't work out perfectly.
One of the best parts of the fest was that the directors/producers/actors were there to field questions! It was definitely fun to see the people you had just watched on screen in real life and hear their perspective on the film and all the work they did to create it!

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