Yet again, the Murfreesboro Pulse is a proud sponsor of one of Middle Tennessee’s most important events: the Nashville Film Festival. It continues to put our state on the map as a cultural center by sharing great music films, documentaries, shorts and features that tie into a bigger picture that elevates art across the board.
Now in its 46th Year, the 2015 Nashville Film Festival has stretched its schedule to 10 days of non-stop cinematic adventure with its biggest docket to date.
The festival runs April 16-25 at the Regal Green Hills Cinema 16. For tickets, showtimes and additional information, be sure to visit the Nashville Film Festival’s website.
Here’s a look at a few of the films playing at this year’s Nashville Film Fest:
Horsehead | Director: Romain Basset
Visiting her mother after the death of her grandmother, a young woman experiences the same vivid nightmares (both literally and figuratively) that plagued their family. Fearing a legacy of insanity, she pours through her grandmother’s effect to see if she can best the surreal demons that haunted her past. It’s a cool film that reconfigures elements of The Cell and A Nightmare on Elm Street for a fresh take on a classic concept.
The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young | Director: Annika Iitis and Timothy Kane
Like Yoda’s cave for runners, the Barkley Marathons holds whatever you enter it with. And its entrants are the pique of health from across the globe, tested to a soul-crushing exhaustion by a former running champ who wanted to “shake things up” with an approach that’s clandestine and grueling. Prefontaine, eat your heart out.
Runoff | Director: Kimberly Levin
Aptly titled and ever topical, Runoff is the singular and subtle story of what goes one between “the grass and the glass” when mega-corporations do business with farms. A wolf enters the fold of a small farming community, slowly poisoning the crops and farmers as a lone family must maintain their farm’s integrity. Can David slay Goliath? Or will the town be another victim of business as usual?
The Blind Boys of Alabama
How Sweet the Sound: The Blind Boys of Alabama | Director: Leslie McCleave
Filmed over the course of 10 years, How Sweet the Sound tells the story of The Blind Boys of Alabama, who met as children in the 1930s at a segregated state-run vocational school and would become one of the last great gospel groups. The surviving band members relive their unlikely success story as we see a rare, and frank view of life on the road with these renowned performers now in their ’70s and ’80s.
Cub | Director: Jonas Govaerts
We’ve seen something of a return to form with horror films. People like the primality that’s offered when the role of technology is minimized, the isolation is “upped,” and the “campfire myth” is toyed with like a mouse. Cub, from a director out of Belgium, furthers those tropes in a juicy bit by putting kids in harm’s way. It’s one of the year’s go-to movies that you won’t wanna miss. “Scout’s honor . . .”
Nashville in Harmony: Ten Years of Using Music to Build Community | Director: Steven C. Knapp
It’s often forgotten that Music City got its name because of the impact a small group can have on a big community. Intersecting “queer” and “choir,” this doc takes you behind the risers of the LGBT sequel to the show-stopping Jubilee Singers, and revisits their importance in 2015 as attitudes shift in the country. More of a feel-good, bubblegum story than one might expect, it’s good to see the strength of the community pull together.
Live from New York! | Director: Bao Nguyen
Opening SNL was a famous catchphrase the introduced the world to people who now need no introduction. This documentary pieces together archival footage with interviews of a cast that made America laugh through four decades and became an entertainment phenomenon that maintained its spot in our hearts.
