50 Films, 3 Screens, One TFF
Taking Over DWTN!
Sky-high spectacle and down-to-earth artistry promise to make the 2024 Tallahassee Film Festival the most dynamic edition yet for the 16th annual celebration of independent movie-making, which moves downtown for the Labor Day weekend event. Programs are scheduled Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 on the five-story IMAX screen at the Challenger Learning Center, the festival’s presenting sponsor, and its planetarium, as well as at Cap City Video Lounge in Railroad Square.
Passes are on sale now. A pass is your best bet if you plan to catch more than one movie, but individual tickets are also available for every show, at the door, the day of the show for $10.
Start with a Splash!
To make the most of the opportunity, the festival is going big with films that will splash vividly across the giant screen. Highlights include Saturday morning opener “Boys Go to Jupiter,” a boldly colorful sci-fi fable from visionary animator and rising star Julian Glander. The New York Times raved about its premiere at the Tribeca Festival: “Following a cast of slackers and crackpots in suburban Florida, the video game-like musical comedy marries gummy 3-D graphics and stoned-guy humor with sly commentary on hustle culture and the gig economy.”
Bookending the fest is more animation, as it closes Sunday night with a double-bill from legendary artist Don Hertzfeldt, presenting his latest short “Me” with a revival of the 2012 “It’s a Beautiful Day.”
Or a Visit to Jay, Florida
We are honored to be the world premiere of “Welcome to Jay,” a documentary 10 years in the making. Filmmaker Jeffrey Morgan digs deeper into the reputation of Jay, Florida — a predominantly white town, onetime known as a “sundown town”. It interweaves two stories: the 2010 killing of an 18 year old Black man by a 21 year old white man at a party in Jay, and an eerily similar 1922 incident that is said to have led to the exodus of the Black community that lived there at the time.
“Welcome to Jay,” selected for The Better Angels Society Lavine Fellowship, a nonprofit founded by filmmaker Ken Burns to promote the production of historically significant films, isn’t intended to portray the town of Jay one way or another, it’s a story that shows us a microcosm of this negative racial and ethnic sentiment that has become pervasive – and disappointedly more acceptable – across the nation today.
The filmmaker, Jeffrey Morgan, will be present at the screening for a post-film discussion moderated by special guest, Ted Ellis, Director of FSU’s Civil Rights Institute.
Indie Discoveries
As always, the festival showcases fresh new work from a wide array of rising talents, as well as films lauded on the international festival circuit. There are selections from Rotterdam (a pair of gripping, poetic nonfiction portraits “A Man Imagined,” from Canada, and “Flathead,” from Australia), Slamdance (the fictional self-portrait of a New York sex worker in flux “Sam’s World”), Tribeca (“Mountains,” a moving family drama set in Miami’s Little Haiti), and Wilmington, N.C.’s Cucalorus (“Rats!” a boisterous, gag-a-minute stoner comedy), among others.
North Florida in Focus
Tallahassee filmmakers shine in two special shorts programs. “Florida Gone Wild” explores the natural world at our doorsteps, with Ian Edward Weir’s “Tigers of the Sky,” a beautiful documentation of a pair of Great Horned Owls and their offspring at the St. Mark’s Wildlife Refuge, and Sammy Tedder’s “River Obscura,” (pictured above), the beloved local musician’s tribute to a tributary, the Sopchoppy River. Homegrown shorts also are featured in “The 850 Block,” which glimpses at the city and its characters through multiple perspectives.
Gorge(ous) on IMAX
Paris, Texas
There’s lots more in between, including the festival centerpiece, the 40th anniversary 4K re-release of “Paris, Texas,” Wim Wenders’ 1985 classic, starring Hollywood legend Harry Dean Stanton as a lost soul on a quest to reunite with his wife (Nastassja Kinski) and son, marked by Robby Müller’s stunning cinematography and an unforgettable Ry Cooder score.
Grasshopper Republic
Likewise eye-popping is “Grasshopper Republic,” which combines intense macro photography and striking sound design for an immersive dive into the grasshopper industry of Uganda, where the insect is a delicacy.
Know Before You Go
In keeping with tradition, the festival once again will host its VIP/Filmmaker Brunch on Sunday, Sept. 1, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Challenger Learning Center, where patrons and attending filmmakers get the chance to eat, drink and converse ahead of the afternoon’s screening of “Paris, Texas.” Some of them may have been up late the night before at the fest’s Saturday night karaoke party, to be held this year at Barrel Proof Lounge Midtown and upstairs at The Over Hang on Thomasville Road.
Passes ($95 VIP, $50 all-access) are available online at www.tallahasseefilmfestival.com, and can be picked up from 10:45 a.m. Saturday Aug. 31 at Challenger Learning Center, 200 S. Duval St. Individual tickets are $10, and can be purchased at each screening.