Written by Julieta Gozalo
This year, the Indie Memphis Film Festival is hosting their festival, which started on October 21st and goes until October 29th, as a hybrid online and outdoors format in an effort to reach more people. Customers are able to enjoy the festival in three ways: online at-home, at drive-ins, or in outdoor lawns. The festival is featuring over 20 screenings at outdoor venues including nightly films at the Malco Summer Drive-In, as well as lawn screenings at venues including Shelby Farms, Levitt Shell, The Grove at GPAC, Stax Museum parking lot, and the Downtown riverfront. The festival is screening over 230 feature films shorts, and music videos, with most screenings followed by filmmaker Q&As.
This year’s festival gives focus to BIPOC and women filmmakers. They are also shining a spotlight on politics and different approaches to what that means and how someone can engage. There are films about aging, weed legalization, electoral politics, activism, unhoused LGBQT+ youth, and more. In this difficult moment, Indie Memphis Film Festival seeks to reflect the community and the world, with a wide range of filmmakers tackling themes that matter to their communities.
Check out a glimpse of the lineup for this year’s festival below:
Screen shot from Freeland.
Freeland
80 min, Drama
Directors: Mario Furloni and Kate McLean
An aging pot farmer (Krisha Fairchild, Krisha) suddenly finds her world shattered as she races to bring in what could be her final harvest, fighting against the threat of eviction as the impact of the legalization of the cannabis industry rapidly destroys her idyllic way of life.
I Blame Society
84 min, Comedy
Director: Gillian Horvat
Synopsis: A struggling filmmaker senses her peers are losing faith in her ability to succeed, so she decides to prove herself by finishing her last abandoned film… and committing the perfect murder.
Reunion
96 min, Thriller
Director: Jake Mahaffy
Synopsis: A pregnant woman returns to her recently deceased grandparents’ family home to spend time with her estranged mother. What begins as a reunion turns terrifying.
Executive Order
103 min, Sci-Fi, Drama
Director: Lázaro Ramos
Synopsis: In a dystopian near future in Brazil, an authoritarian government orders all citizens of African descent to move to Africa – creating chaos, protests, and an underground resistance movement that inspires the nation.
Take Out Girl
100 min, Drama
Director: Hisonni Mustafa
Synopsis: To give her family a chance at a better life and save her family’s failing restaurant, Tera Wong, a desperate 20-year-old Asian girl, parlays her Chinese food delivery expertise into a profitable drug hustle.
American Thief
90 min, Drama, Thriller
Director: Miguel Silveira
Synopsis: A teen hacker seeking revenge for his father’s murder, a young activist, an internet conspiracy vlogger, and an artificial intelligence programmer become pawns in a plot to derail the 2016 presidential elections.
Shiva Baby
77 min, Drama
Director: Emma Seligman
Synopsis: At a Jewish funeral service with her parents, a college student runs into her sugar daddy in Emma Seligman’s brilliant cringe-comedy.
To learn more about the festival, or to buy passes, visit https://www.indiememphis.org.
Behind the Scenes image from the film What Do You Have To Lose?, which is showing at Indie Memphis Film Festival.