Tallahassee Film Festival

Projects include film festival, Get Gaines Going

By Steve Liner
Business Matters Editor
Tallahassee Democrat

Knight Creative Communities Initiative volunteers continue to push for development of the Gaines Street corridor as part of Get Gaines Going.

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative (KCCI) began a year ago as an effort to determine ways to keep young professionals in Tallahassee. Key volunteers say the result is “powerful, sustainable, important” community action.

And, they say, the success points to a new era in Tallahassee’s political and economic life.
“What we need most here is private investment,” said Leon County School Board Member Sheila Costigan. “KCCI proves it’s now time.”

In a recent interview, Mike Pate, area director for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation that provided funding for KCCI, called the program “enormously successful,” lending credibility to rumors the Knight Foundation will soon announce a second-year grant to extend the project.

Two of the three KCCI initiatives hosted visible public events in May: the very first Tallahassee Film Festival and the public unveiling of Sustainable Tallahassee. And volunteers continue to apply pressure to state, county and city officials for action on development of the Gaines Street corridor as part of Get Gaines Going.

In the meantime, Pate has been quietly assembling his case for what could become a second year. This week he will meet with KCCI’s community advisory group in what could be a last step before a new financial proposal is finalized.

Pate and volunteers point to the results of KCCI as an unqualified success. “We had no idea the talent in Tallahassee or the response we would get,” said Costigan, a Knight community advisor and key volunteer in the Get Gaines Going effort.

Costigan and others point to the success of the KCCI process as proof Tallahassee  is “ripe for a new approach to community action.”

KCCI was first announced in January 2007. The Knight Foundation funding was used to draw together volunteers interested in the creative side of life in Florida’s Capital City. Forums were held in a format developed by Richard Florida, a professor at George Mason University, to facilitate “community-up rather  than to-down” development.

The forums delivered the ideas for the film festival, a program to support environmental action and resource conservation, and defined the need to press forward with cleanup and redevelopment of Gaines Street.
Hundreds participated in the original sessions, called throughout the community by more than a dozen local catalysts.

Pate said the Knight Foundation specified only a single imperative for programs that would grow out of KCCI: They must be viable, ongoing nonprofit organizations by the end of the first year. He said all three efforts have recently attained that goal. Each group’s leaders said recently their efforts will continue.

Organizers of the Tallahassee Film Festival, Sustainable Tallahassee and Get Gaines Going are taking long-term views and highlighting the communitywide impact of their projects.

“This is a very large issue that encompasses concerns about the energy we use and our weekend yardwork’s impact on water quality,” said Kristin Dozier of Sustainable Tallahassee.
“All of us should think about the products we use, where they come from, how they are used and what happens to them when we’re done.”

“We are the creative hub of Tallahassee where visual artists, performance artists, small businesses and entrepreneurs can find a place to showcase their work in an 18-hour downtown environment,” Costigan said of Gaines Street.

Contact Business Matters Editor Steve Liner at (850) 599-2238 or sliner@tallahassee.com

ABC 27 WTXL-TV Tallahassee

The works of Kenneth Jones, an award-winning filmmaker and Florida A&M University (FAMU) journalism professor, plus two other FAMU alumni filmmakers, will be showcased during the inaugural Tallahassee Film Festival May 15-17.

Jones’ film “Love & Fate,” an 89-minute feature film, was selected from more than 150 entries from all over the world for the TFF. The film is “about a home for the mentally ill and a young lady who falls in love with a visitor without the visitor knowing her mental status,” said Jones. “Love & Fate” will be shown for free on May 16 at 8 p.m. at the Florida Museum of History’s Heritage Hall, 500 S. Bronough St.

Jones, who serves on the Tallahassee Film Festival Board, said the film cost about $75,000 to produce and was originally distributed on Encore, Starz and Eastern Federal Theatres between 2001 and 2003.

Jones said he is excited about the festival because it will “showcase stories, cultures and environments that you don’t see in the multiplex theatres … It’s important to educate our community about the process of filmmaking. We will have panel discussions and a question and answer session so people can understand the whole film process including writing, directing and producing.”

In addition to Jones’ film, the documentary work of two other FAMU alums will be shown during the festival. For example, Leonard Horton’s “Dawson Days,” a film about the historic, award-winning Tuskegee Choir, won the National Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Award in 2004. “Dawson Days” will be shown May 17, at 2 p.m. in the All Saints Cinema, 903 Railroad Avenue, and again that same day at 6:30 p.m. at FAMU’s School of Journalism and Graphic Communication Lecture Hall, 510 Orr Drive. Augustine Rho’s “Voice of Rape,” which won a first place Florida AP Award, will be shown on May 16, at 3:45 p.m. in the Museum of Florida History’s Heritage Hall and again on May 17, at 9 p.m. in the FAMU SJGC’s Lecture Hall.

Another film with FAMU ties is “Fear in Florida: When Hate Becomes A Crime,” a film about the bombings on FAMU’s campus in August 2000. It will air May 16, at 3:45 p.m. in the Museum of Florida History’s Heritage Hall and again May 17, at 9 p.m. in the FAMU SJGC Lecture Hall.

FAMU’s SJGC Lecture Hall is one of five venues for the Tallahassee Film Festival. Other venues include the Museum of Florida History’s Heritage Hall, Florida State University Student Life Center Theatre, the FSU Film School Mix Theatre and All Saints Cinema. For more details about the festival, go to www.tallahasseefilmfestival.com.

By Nicolette M. Daniels
The FAMUAN

For three days the Tallahassee Film Festival, “For Filmmakers Who Have Something to Say,” will spotlight expert and emerging filmmakers. The event is slated for May 15-17 and is sponsored by Knight Creative Communities Initiative, a group that promotes community talent.

Dorothy Bland, a film festival board member and division director of Florida A&M’s School of Journalism & Graphic Communication, said the event will be beneficial to all in attendance. Bland said the festival is an event that focuses on local talent as well as Florida’s history in filmmaking.

“This event is for the community and for the students at Tallahassee Community College, Florida State University and Florida A&M University to show off their work and for people to enjoy the art of filmmaking,” Bland said.

The festival will cover a variety of film-related activities, such as workshops and screenings. Workshops and screenings will be held at Heritage Hall at the R.A. Gray Museum, All Saints Cinema, the Student Life Cinema at FSU and the FAMU SJGC Lecture Hall.

Florida ranks No. 3 in the film industry, according to filminflorida.com. FSU has the No. 1 film school in Florida.

“We are very fortunate to have all three schools of higher education to be involved and also having the event in Tallahassee,” Bland said. “In addition, we have our very own professor Kenneth Jones who graduated from FSU film school and who is an award-winning filmmaker.”

Bland said Jones’ work will be recognized at this event, as well as Burt Reynolds, a world-renowned actor who is also an FSU graduate.

Bland said the film festival board put a lot of work into deciding the venues. This was in an attempt to draw visitors to the Gaines Street area.

“I look forward to each venue at each university and seeing others work,” said Lamont Carswell, an FSU student and producer of the short film “Dreaming in Color.”

Bland said individuals submitting their work for the first time will have the opportunity to learn from Florida’s filmmakers and network with filmmakers in the industry.

James Bland, 22, a senior business administration student from Titusville, said he is looking forward to “viewing the other films that are entered in the film festival and hopefully winning an award for my film.”

“This will be my first film festival, so I’m really looking forward to the overall experience,” said Bland, writer and director of “Dreaming In Color.” “I hope to meet some key people in the film industry that could possibly offer me some advice and guidance on how to become a better filmmaker.”

Dorothy Bland said if students take advantage of this event they will be amazed of the history and talent in Florida.

“I’m not sure how the turnout will be, being that the film festival is in the summer,” Bland added. “I want to take advantage of everything that festival has to offer.”

For more information about this event, please visit http://www.tallahasseefilmfestival.com.