Tallahassee Film Festival

Tallahassee Democrat
January 2, 2009

By Mark Hinson

Last May, the inaugural Tallahassee Film Festival gave more than 2,600 movie buffs sneak peeks at such films as Werner Herzog’s “Encounters at the End of the World,” Helen Hunt’s directorial debut “Then She Found Me” and Tallahassee native Aloura Charles’ fine first feature “Reservations.”

Expect more advance screenings — and more international cinema — when the Tallahassee Film Festival returns in April. This year’s celluloid overload is being expanded from three days to five. It will run from April 15-19 in venues all around the city, and many of the screenings are free.

“We moved it to April because that’s when the biggest student population is in town,” festival president Robert Howard said. “And we are all about education. It’s also when the legislators will be here, too. Maybe we can attract them to the festival.”

Budding Steven Spielbergs also will be happy to learn that the film festival is expanding its popular 24-Hour Film Contest to a 48-Hour Film Contest.

During last year’s competition, more than 15 teams of amateur and professional filmmakers signed on to write, act, shoot and edit a five-minute movie in a 24-hour period. They were all given a common theme and a whopping $100 budget. The mini-movies turned out to be a popular draw when they were posted online for voting and viewing at Tallahassee.com.

For more on the coming attractions for 2009, visit www.tallahasseefilmfestival.com.

January 2, 2009
By Mark Hinson

Docs rocked in 2008.

When it came time to draw up a list of the year’s best films, several fine documentaries kept popping up again and again. Most of these non-fiction flicks were shown at All Saints Cinema, the Miracle 5 or as part of the inaugural Tallahassee Film Festival in May.

So, instead making them compete with “Wall*E” in the overall best-of list, I decided to give special commendations to:
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