IndieWorks: Pride (Year 6 Kickoff) Recap

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Last Tuesday was the June (Pride-themed) edition of IndieWorks, and our first of Year 6! We screened 5 films and had over 60 people in house! Our first two films were dramatic, narrative pieces. They were beautifully shot, thought-provoking, and often bittersweet in nature. The second set of three films were slightly more experimental, all exploring identity in different ways. The styles and genres of those ranged but were all very visually driven. All the pieces of the night featured LGBTQ characters and celebrated the beautiful diversity that exists with pride. Some lovely discussions were had, and the night was a big success!

We'd just like to say thank you to everyone who came out to support the filmmakers and spend the evening with us & them. We do hope all enjoyed the films and the opportunity to network with other filmmakers and film enthusiasts. We know some connections were made! 

Enjoy the rest of Pride month! And we hope you'll join us again for our July screening on the 10th -  featuring an exceptional lineup of shorts focused on loss, grief, and healing. 

See photos from the evening:

The Films of the night:

Her Being Home (Directed by Ellie Gravitte, Written by Sophia Maro)
A young woman turns to an unexpected place to find comfort in a new home.  

Sanctuary (Directed by Jeanette Sears & Nicole Solomon, Written by Jeanette Sears)
Throughout the 1960’s, gay bars served as havens for a marginalized queer community across the country. Frequent police raids and laws dictating women to wear three pieces of “gender appropriate clothing” resulted in countless cases of police harassment, assault, and brutality. "Sanctuary" follows Meg and Abigail as they navigate their interaction and coping process after one such raid. 

Spot (Written & Directed by Jamie DiNicola)
A group of twenty-somethings circle around a stoop and share a joint when one of them gets lost in the mystery and beauty of the urban sidewalk - a mosaic of stories emerge. Spot pushes the known boundaries of diversity and inclusion in indie filmmaking.  

Living Waters (Directed & Animated by Ezra Ray)
When Judaism and transgender experiences intersect, there are many revenues of discourse and action that a trans individual can pursue. This experimental animation shows the birth and subsequent transformation of the protagonist through a Jewish lens. Jewish rituals of purification and transformation are found within water, and offer a path of renewal in this film. 

Hopelessly (Written & Directed by Tony Clemente)
Darren is determined to find a connection, no matter how many people he has to go through. Explore the day in the life of a queer, polyamorous relationship, in all its awkward beauty.

Watch our Q&A Recap. *Please know there are some film spoilers - feel free to look for an opportunity to catch the films at a festival or computer screen near you & then come back to watch!

The awards go to...

At the end of the evening, we announced our winning filmmakers for both Audience Choice Award & Silver Whiskers Award. The Audience Choice Award is voted upon by all those in attendance, and the Silver Whiskers Award is judged by the CongestedCat Team based on a rating system of 8 categories:   Story, Dialogue/Writing, Direction, Acting, Cinematography, Sound, Editing, and Production Value, along with a nuanced discussion focused on inclusion and originality. The Silver Whiskers winner goes on to screen again at our end of year Best of Fest screening next April. 

The Silver Whiskers winner also receives $50 towards a crowdfunding campaign on SeedandSpark.com should they use the platform and 50% off 4MileCircus' post-production audio cleaning service for a future project. 

For the June 2018 lineup, our winning films were:
    Audience Choice Award:  "Sanctuary"
    Silver Whiskers Award:  "Her Being Home" 

Georgia Film Festival Recap

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Last Saturday was the festival premiere of our feature About a Donkey. Kelsey and I flew down for the festival and enjoyed the hell out of it. 

The festival was held at the University of North Georgia, and is run by professors at the school. The whole staff was lovely and super welcoming. There’s a real community feel since many of the volunteers are students, and families of those students come out to support the fest. 

About a Donkey screened at 2:30pm in a nice theater. We could feel the care put into the setup. The screening started on time and played without tech issues. We had about 35 people in attendance, which was pretty cool considering we don’t have any cast or crew connections to Georgia. With the exception of wonderful filmmaker friend, Lynne Hansen (creator of I Make Films Like a Girl pins & shirts), who drove from Atlanta to finally meet me in person and support our premiere, everyone in attendance was a local who came out of mere interest in the film. We were elated to quickly realize the audience was enjoying the film because laughs started from essentially the first punchline and continued steadily throughout the film. One guy sitting right behind me and Kelsey was a particularly enthusiastic laugher, which made the experience all the more enjoyable for us! The Q&A was well-run and thoughtful. The audience had a lot of questions, and we were relieved and grateful to hear that the film resonated with them and they wanted to learn/see more! 

Even after the Q&A, quite a few people stuck around to talk to us and personally tell us that they liked the film. Two teen girls talked to us about their own aspirations in film and were super excited to meet us. That was a really humbling and inspiring moment. 

We spent much of the rest of the day hanging out with Lynne, whose work you should definitely check out. She’s a horror fan/filmmaker like me, but had some really positive feedback about the film and how it touched her despite its lack of gore! And a couple strangers even tweeted recommendations of catching the film at future festivals. The afterparty was really fun, held at a local brewery. We chatted with a couple other filmmakers in the festival, but mainly found ourselves in Q&A’s with students who wanted to hear more about what we do and how we do it. It was an awesome experience all around. 

I loved being part of the Georgia Film Festival and would definitely like to return. I want to thank them for programming our film. As filmmakers, our goal is to reach people beyond our own network, and festivals are a way to do that. However, festivals often have a goal of filling as many seats as possible, which typically means trying to program only name-driven content and/or local content where cast & crew will heavily market to their local networks. That’s why it’s so wonderful that the Georgia Film Fest programming team enjoyed the film enough to offer it a slot and allow us this audience engagement! 

We’ll have more festival news soon! Stay tuned!

-Christina