Tallahassee Film Festival marks 15th year with focus on Florida, ecology

Revising the old slogan, the Tallahassee Film Festival is thinking locally this year, with a number of films in multiple programs focused on ecological concerns that hit close to home – as well as a slew of new efforts from Florida filmmakers.

With more than 70 features and shorts – and as many filmmakers on hand to talk about them – the festival’s 15th anniversary edition unspools Saturday and Sunday at various venues in and around the Railroad Square Arts District, and on the Challenger Learning Center’s IMAX screen.

Oyster film: Tallahassee Film Festival spotlight: Chucha Barber produces stories, documents reality

Ecology on screen

On Saturday, Tallahassee author Jeff VanderMeer (“Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy”) will introduce “Environment in Focus,” a suite of local and international visionary short films sponsored by the Sunshine State Biodiversity Group, an environmental nonprofit he founded, focused on conservation and community involvement. The SSBG’s Alison Sperling, guest curator and FSU assistant professor of English, also will lead a Q&A at the event, in the Seminole Room of the Marriott Residence Inn.

On Sunday afternoon, local filmmakers Chucha Barber and Josh McLawhorn will present their documentary “Unfiltered: The Truth About Oysters” on the IMAX screen. The film explores the complex web of issues that led ultimately to the current shutdown of oyster harvesting in Apalachicola Bay.

Freshly Squeezed

The Sunshine State, and Tallahassee, gets ample exposure across various features and shorts blocks, including the “850 Edition” program Saturday evening and that afternoon’s screening of the documentary “Twice as Nice: The Legend of Charlie Ward,” with the FSU sports superhero in attendance.

Featured as well are numerous filmmakers with ties to the FSU Film School, including graduates like Ryan Brown, whose Millennial comedy “Free Time” screens Sunday afternoon. The festival will award $1,000 as its third annual Flamingo prize, co-sponsored with Flamingo magazine, to the top film submitted by a Florida filmmaker.

New Faces

The festival is a great space to discover original and inventive talents. Among others, look for work from Georg Adrian Koszulinski, whose allegorical feature “Red Earth” imagines the late Anthropocene, when humans have abandoned the planet to colonize Mars; Miami filmmaker Noah Salzman screens “Clocked,” about an 18-year-old boxer who saves his fight winnings in order to transition into a woman; and the world premiere of “Pomp and Circumstance,” by Adrian Anderson and Patrick Gray, a lo-fi comedy about an eccentric trio of friends in Burlington, Vermont.

Hot Docs

The festival opens Saturday morning with “Natalia,” from Academy Award-nominated director Elizabeth Mirzaei, which traces the journey of a buoyant 29-year-old woman as she prepares to become a nun in the Byzantine order (and still be an ardent Trekkie). The director will be on hand for a Q&A afterwards.

The film is among several vital nonfiction portraits at the fest, which closes Sunday night with the Slamdance winner “Starring Jerry As Himself,” a tragicomic true-crime saga of a Florida retiree who reenacts his seduction into an outrageous plot engineered by Chinese scammers.

Other selections include “Hummingbirds,” whose young filmmakers capture their lives as fronteriza artists and activists in a Texas bordertown; “Man on Earth,” a brave encounter with a man preparing to end his life via assisted suicide; and “Confessions of a Good Samaritan,” documentarian Penny Lane’s first-person account, and philosophical exploration, of her decision to donate a kidney.

Centerpiece Matinee

Cultural satire and digital subversion occupy the festival’s Sunday afternoon centerpiece in “Hello Dankness,” a dead-clever act of media reappropriation from the Australian duo known as Soda Jerk. The political fable, comprised of hundreds of film samples, recasts recent American political history as a mock suburban stoner musical. The filmmakers will join for a post-show Q&A. The screening immediately follows the VIP/filmmaker brunch, on the IMAX screen at the Challenger Learning Center.

Artist-in-residence/Cyberpunk 621

The festival’s inaugural artist-in-residence is Leah Shore, a New York filmmaker and animator whose rambunctious shorts take on often outrageous subject matter with edgy wit and imagination. She will give a talk and screen a selection of her films on Saturday evening at the 621 Gallery in Railroad Square. Afterwards, the gallery hosts “Cyberpunk 621,” a free festival party featuring music and visuals from Joe Kalicki and David Rodriguez.

Midnight Movie

There’s also thrills for genre fans. Cap City Video Lounge, one of the festival venues, hosts the Saturday “midnight movie” screening of “Eight Eyes.” Shot on 16mm in Serbia, the grimy shocker and Fantasia Festival favorite offers a disturbing spin on the theme of colonial tourism.

Tickets: Get tickets for Tallahassee Film Festival ahead of Labor Day weekend

Weekend passes are $45. Tickets also will be available at individual screenings for $10. More ticket, schedule and venue information at tallahasseefilmfestival.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee Film Festival rolls out more than 70 features