Garret Dillahunt plays Wayland McGlawhorn in Arkansas Traveler. Teaser footage of the film will be shown tonight at 6:40 at Riverdale Cinemas.

About 10 years ago, Sean Bridgers had an idea for an unconventional story.

In the span of time now passed, he’s found a number of people who share his vision for the post-Civil War, Faustian Western that is Arkansas Traveler.

And they’re on the cusp of bringing the story to life.

Bridgers and Michael “Ffish” Hemschoot, along with fellow filmmakers Ed Leydecker and Shane Seley and actors Garret Dillahunt (Winter’s Bone) and Angela Bettis (Girl, Interrupted) will be on hand at 6:40 tonight for a screening of  10 minutes of teaser footage they’ve shot for Arkansas Traveler. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.Bridgers, best known for his role as Johnny Burns on HBO’s Deadwood, has crafted a story centered around the characters of Waylan (played by Dillahunt) and Myrtle (played by Bettis). Waylan is a Confederate soldier who, upon learning of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, embarks on a journey home to Arkansas.

While on his odyssey he comes across Myrtle, a damaged woman who is determined to survive.

Bridgers’ and Hemschoot’s company Travelin’ Productions has not secured enough funding to shoot the entire film. It’s a project they’ve been working on for a while, but this year they decided to stop waiting for phone calls from potential investors and give the world a taste of what they could do.

The result is 10 minutes of teaser footage that they are now using to shop the film.

Bridgers said if nothing else, shooting a small morsel of the film has whet their appetite for the project.

“I don’t think anyone wanted to stop,” he said. “It was really great to see it all come together, albeit in a 10-minute teaser.”

Dillahunt, who also had a prominent role in Deadwood as the chilling Francis Wolcott and who has acted in such films as No Country For Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Road and this year’s Little Rock Film Festival opening-night feature, Winter’s Bone, said he relates well to the flow of the dialogue in Arkansas Traveler’s script.

“The language in it is one of my favorite things about it,” he said. “It’s not that you [can't understand it], but it’s elevated.”

Hemschoot said that the few people who have seen some of the footage from the teaser are already asking for more.

“The general reaction has been, ‘OK, now I want to see the movie,’” he said. “It has all the elements you want in a Western, but it has a story that a mature audience, people who like good stories, can relate to.”

The team of filmmakers is hoping to build some momentum with tonight’s screening that will help vault the project toward a production deal for the full movie.

The plight of Afghani soldiers training to fight the Taliban is the subject of Carol Dysinger's documentary Camp Victory, Afghanistan.

While much of the U.S. military focused on the conflict in Iraq, a select few National Guardsmen were training Afghani troops how to fight the terrorists inhabiting their country.

Camp Victory, Afghanistan takes on great relevance given the Department of Defense’s new commitment to winning the war in the home of the Taliban.

Director Carol Dysinger collected footage of Afghani soldiers and their training process from 2006 to 2008. The soldiers go from struggling to march in time to being confident in their ability to defeat their enemy.

Camp Victory, Afghanistan gives viewers a unique look into how war is being waged in southwest Asia and the people who are taking up arms to fight their terrorist countrymen.

The film will screen at 6:45 p.m. Thursday and again at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Dysinger will be on hand for both screenings, both of which will be at Riverdale Cinemas.

Morgan Simpson, Michael Clarke Duncan (both pictured) and Tom Skerritt star in the Southern film Black, White and Blues.

As Southern-fried as catfish in Paula Deen’s kitchen, Black, White and Blues features the richest parts of Southern culture: our food, our music and our ability to overcome demons to find redemption.

Acclaimed director Mario Van Peebles tracks the journey of a blues musician, Jefferson (Morgan Simpson), who leaves Austin, Texas, to escape a loan shark (Luke Perry) and heads  back to his roots in Alabama, along the way befriending Augy (Michael Clarke Duncan) and Santa (Tom Skerritt), who help him overcome his pent-up anger over losing his parents and his ever-present stage fright.

The music and acting shines in this film, highlighted by original songs by Tree Adams and  a great supporting performance by Skerritt.

Black, White and Blues will screen at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 5, at Riverdale Cinemas.

P-Star Rising is an incredible documentary by Gabriel Nobel about a young hip-hop star getting into the rap-game and her relationship with her manger/single father. P-Star Rising goes beyond the trappings of a highly ambitious father who is using his daughter to get fame and money by showing the depth and multi-dimensional facets of the family in the film. You really have to see to believe how talented this young girl is and the types of environments she performs in.

At age 9, Priscilla, an adorable yet precocious little girl, tells her single-father, Jesse,: “I am going to become a rapper and fulfill your dreams of succeeding in the music business.” Moved by Priscilla’s passion and impressed with her natural talent and undeniable charisma, he begins to teach her all he knows about rapping. In the four years that follow there is no question that rapping has brought Priscilla closer to her estranged father, and that her success has made him proud. Before our eyes, this father-daughter duo go from a one-bedroom shelter in Harlem to a 4 bedroom apartment, from food stamps to shopping sprees, from rapping on street corners to sold out night clubs, and from sneaking under train turnstiles without the $2 fare to spare to being driven around in tinted SUV’s. It is further undeniable that Jesse has been reborn, from looking at old photos and bitterly reflecting on how he never was given the respect he deserved in the music business as a rapper himself to finding his own voice and self-respect as his daughter’s overzealous manager. But in the efforts to make her dad proud, Priscilla struggles to remain a child and finds herself trapped in a world of people twice her size and four times her age and doesn’t know who to trust. Jesse himself is caught between wanting to protect his daughter’ innocence and exploiting her raw talent to fulfill his deferred dream. All they know is that the ride has just begun.

Get your tickets and passes here for the showing at 1:30 PM on Friday June 3 and Sunday June 6 at 3:30 PM Riverdale.

Lena Dunham (on the floor) writes, directs and stars in Tiny Furniture alongside her mother, Laurie Simmons (pictured sitting) and sister Grace Dunham.

It’s been a busy year for Lena Dunham. The talented young indie film director is getting rave reviews for her latest film, Tiny Furniture.

A quirky and honest look at life after college for a New York native, Tiny Furniture won the jury prize for best narrative film at the 2010 South By Southwest Film Festival. Dunham also received SXSW’s Chicken and Egg Emergent Narrative Women Director award.

In addition to directing the film, Dunham stars alongside her sister, Grace, and mother, Laurie Simmons.

Producer Alicia Van Couvering will be on hand at Tiny Furniture’s two screenings at the LRFF, the first of which will be at 5:15 Friday, June 4, with another screening at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 5. Both screenings will be at Riverdale Cinemas.

Trailer: http://vimeo.com/9749563

Wo Ai Ni Mommy is an exceptional story about the adoption of Fang Sui Yong from China by American Donna and Jeff Sadowsky. The film shows us the culture clash and psychological rammifications of the adoption process and acclimation to a completely new lifestyle from these young children. Filmmaker Stephanie Wang-Breal crafts together a touching and socially important documentary that is a must-see for all festival goers.

Here is the official synopsis:

From 2000-2008, China was the leading country for U.S. international adoptions. There are now approximately 70,000 Chinese children being raised in the United States. Wo Ai Ni Mommy explores what happens when an older Chinese girl is adopted into an American family. This film reveals the complicated gains and losses that are an inherent aspect of international, transracial adoption.

In 2007 Donna and Jeff Sadowsky of Long Island, New York submitted their dossier to adopt eight-year old Fang Sui Yong from Guangzhou, China. From the very first moment Sui Yong meets her new mother, Donna, we get a real sense of the emotional confusion and loss Sui Yong experiences, as adoption workers translate their first words of communication. This day will change Sui Yong’s life, forever. Language, habits, food, everything she knows will never be the same. Her new life in America is filled with happiness and confusion. As she struggles to survive in this new world, we witness her transform into a lively, outspoken American. Sui Yong has become someone neither she nor Donna could have imagined. In a sense, she’s the same girl Donna met in Guangzhou all those months ago – and yet she’s utterly different.

  You can watch the trailer below and get your tickets  and festival passes here for the 12:00 PM showing on Saturday June 5.

Danny Buday’s new film boasts an incredibly gifted cast including Twilight’s Cam Gigandet, Julianna Guill, Jena Malone (Donnie Darko), Will Lun Yee and many more.

Four People. One Horoscope. Infinite Possibilities. Jake Gibson’s (Cam Gigandet) horoscope forecasts a perfect FIVE STAR DAY the morning of his birthday. Little does he realize that what’s foretold to be a flawless day, unfolds to be far less than stellar when Jake’s world is turned upside down as all that could go wrong…does. Determined that Astrology has no legitimacy, Jake embarks on a journey to test the theory of Astrology by finding the three people born the same time and place as himself – Sarah Reynolds (Jena Malone), Yvette Montgomery (Brooklyn Sudano) and Wesley Henderson (Max Hartman). The journey quickly uproots Jake from the small college town of Berkeley, California to downtown Chicago where he sets out to find and interview Sarah, Yvette and Wesley to see if their birthdays proved to be as disappointing as his own. Jake’s pursuit in finding his three Astrological matches (or Zodiac twins) will not only test his convictions, but validate how life’s unexpected twists of fate can deliver much more than the anticipated. The unforeseen takes Jake from the Windy City, to the boardwalk of New Jersey’s Atlantic City, to the bustling streets of New York. What Jake learns along the way is an important lesson about life, love, fate and destiny that will unexpectedly change his life forever.

Check out the trailer:

Watch this Five-Star film Saturday June 5 at 7:00 PM at Riverdale Cinemas #1. Director Daniel Buday and his producer Mike Robertson will be present for the screening. Get your tickets here.

When life dealt Terry Hitchcock a harsh blow – losing his wife to breast cancer and having to raise three young kids on his own – he just ran.

He ran a lot.

In fact, at the age of 57, he set out to run 75 marathons in 75 days as a way to raise awareness about the difficulty of raising children in single-parent families.

Hitchcock’s plight is the subject of the inspirational documentary My Run, directed by Tim VandeSteeg and narrated by Arkansas native Billy Bob Thornton.

In addtion to providing the narration for the film, Thornton lends a track, “Every King Wears a Crown,” from his band, The Boxmasters, to the film’s soundtrack. Catch this award-winning documentary at The Little Rock Film Festival at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, June 5, at the Clinton School of Public Service. Hitchcock and his son will be in attendance for the screening.

Here’s the inspirational trailer:

Many audience member’s will know Josh Radnor from the critically acclaimed CBS show How I met your Mother but after the Little Rock Film Festival you will appreciate the talented filmmaker so much more. Radnor’s film which he costars and directed concerns the “generation moment” between a group of six New Yorkers coming to grips with their ambitions and relationships. The film has a killer exciting cast of Malin Akerman, Josh Radnor, Kate Mara, Zoe Kazan, Tony Hale, Pablo Schreiber, Michael Algieri, Richard Jenkins and many more talented folks.

The Springdale, AR based distribution company, Hannover House snagged the rights to this film after getting much buzz and winning an Audience Award in Sundance this year. You have to get in line and see this expertly made bittersweet comedy.

The film plays at 4:30 PM on Saturday, June 5 at Riverdale Cinemas #1. Get your tickets here.

Miao Wang uses interviews with three taxi drivers to tell the story of Beijing's state of constant change in Beijing Taxi.

Beijing Taxi, directed by accomplished documentary filmmaker Miao Wang, takes a snapshot of the Chinese capital as it prepares for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.

Wang, who grew up in Beijing, chose to interview three taxi drivers and follow them around the city to show the ever-changing nature of her hometown.

Beijing Taxi will screen at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, June 3, at Riverdale Cinemas.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtmdD-KHmZ8