The Tallahassee Film Festival has released the complete slate of films for the upcoming festival, March 23-25, 2018. It’s a diverse, funny and thoughtful collection of Official Selections from around the world and Spotlight films direct from major festivals like Sundance, Toronto and Berlin.
Find out about all the films here >>
Find all the shorts programs here >>
Find the full schedule of films here >>
Buy passes online here >>
The Opening Night film this year is the outrageous political satire The Misogynists, a wicked dissection of America in the age of Donald Trump directed by Onur Tukel, and the Closing Night film is a secret screening. The secret screening is a bold new film from one of American indie cinema’s most promising new directors, one whose debut effort met with international acclaim. Get ready for a real-life crime drama ripped, as they say, from the headlines, with a cast of young rising stars and a sharp and distinctive visual style that is matched by a creative, unconventional approach to storytelling.
The Closing Night movie has yet to be seen beyond a couple of festivals, which is why we’re so hush-hush. It’s impact will be even more forceful without the cushion that more revealing details might provide. Trust us: You do not want to miss it.
The directors of both the Opening Night and Closing Night films will be present at the screenings and Q&As will be held post-screening.
This year’s festival program features an incredible selection of films made by, starring and centered around women, as well as a bevy of films dealing exceptionally well with a range of topical issues from race to gender inequality to gun violence to political impacts, such as the post-Brexit feelings of many people in the UK.
We’re excited to be able to put together such an individual an amazing program of films the Tallahassee audience has never seen before, and we sincerely hope you enjoy the movies you are able to catch at this year’s jam-packed festival! Join us for fun after-parties at Proof Brewing Co. (catered by MoBi), and The Wilbury (featuring the Shaken-Not-Stirred Burlesque Show!), and VIPs can mingle with filmmakers at our Sunday brunch at Township.
Other Programming Highlights
The critically acclaimed film Madeline’s Madeline is director Josephine Decker’s wheel-within-a-wheel portrait of a young actress (the astonishing Helena Howard, in her movie debut) for whom life and performance become a risky vertiginous blur. The adolescent Madeline, newly ushered back into the world after a possible visit to the psych ward, casts herself with abandon into an experimental theater troupe directed by Evangeline (Molly Parker), who develops a dangerous obsess
ion with her.
Maxim Pozdorovkin’s Our New President is a found-footage project composed entirely of “fake news” from Russian television and social media, celebrating the 45th American president as a kind of vodka-fueled Russian fever dream. Hannah Fiddell’s The Long Dumb Road is a road-trip comedy about a college-bound teenager Nat (Tony Revolori), who offers itinerant 30-something mechanic Richard (Jason Mantzoukas) a ride during a stop-over in small-town Texas; neither one realizing the indelible impact each traveler will have on his respective journey.
Jurgen Ureña’s Hold Me Like Before is an effortlessly endearing film that tells the story of Verónica, a transgender who works as a prostitute in Costa Rica. Michael Glover Smith’s Mercury in Retrograde is a beautiful, thoughtful and nuanced examination of three couples from Chicago vacationing together for a weekend at a lakeside cabin in Michigan. Darien Sills-Evans’ One Bedroom is a smart, funny, invigorating story that focuses on an African American 30-something couple who, after five years in a gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood, spends their final afternoon together arguing as one of them moves out.
Robert T. Herrera’s Palacios is beautiful look at the lives of two seemingly disparate people. Eugene, an inner-city teen, and Holly, a widowed alcoholic, living in a secluded rooftop dwelling with her dog. Eric Stone’s Two Pictures is an impressive debut feature from an up-and-coming director about two contradictory individuals experiencing moments of disconnect and fear alongside moments of genuine connection. Shia Lebeouf’s #TAKEMEANYWHERE is a work commissioned by Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the Finnish Institute in London.
Great documentaries like Ink of Yam, Jamaica Man and WASP are also screening at the festival. Ink of Yam is a look at two Russian ex-pat tattoo artists who have created a place without walls in Jerusalem. Their studio – one of the only tattoo studios in the entire region – is open to all, regardless of nationality, religion or skin color. Through the tattoos and the stories is a unique insight into the sacred city. Jamaica Man is a film by Michael Weatherly, a subjective look at British ex-pat Nigel Pemberton. This biographical picaresque is a highly stylized and unconventional portrait of a raconteur nearing the end of his life. Inspired narratively by Spalding Gray, it’s a controversial look at a man stuck in time. W.A.S.P. A Wartime Experiment in WoManpower is a film that blends historical footage and interviews with over 30 original members of the WASPs (Women AirForce Service Pilots – a group of civilians who flew military airplanes so men could be freed for combat) sharing their stories decades later.
This year, we’ve partnered with the Palaver Tree Theater in Crawfordville, Florida, for our first-ever satellite venue during the festival. The Palaver will have their own program of curated shorts and features – all encores from the film festival, and they will be premiering the film All the Queen’s Horses, a documentary by first-time filmmaker, Kelly Pope Richmond, that investigates the crime of Rita Crundwell, a public servant of Illinois who stole $53 million over 20 years, and how her fraud was used to build an empire of one of the nation’s largest breeders of quarter horses.
Finally, we’ve added a starter selection of TV and new media programming for the 2018 festival. In this category, we’ll have the premiere of the pilot episode for a series titled Vashon. Gorgeous, quirky, Lynchian and packed-with-a-killer-soundtrack, Vashon is an ambitious series debut created by first-time filmmaker Curtis Fulton. Running from her past, a young reporter escapes to Vashon Island, where she reluctantly fights to free residents from a scientist’s experiment. The Emmy Award-winning Marcus Ross’ Lazy Circles is a Kids in the Hall-esque single camera comedy series opener taking a look at the hilarity and excitement in a small Oklahoma town. 
Whether it’s the house-raiding librarian’s book burnings, the mayor’s citizen arrest machine that catches perverts, or deadly storms being tracked by a weatherman’s nose, there’s always something crazy happening in Goshè. Screens as part of the comedy shorts program, “Usual Suspects.”
To learn more about all of our selections, visit the films page on our website and follow us on social media.
Passes are on sale now at our website, or purchase them at the door.
See you at the movies!