The Little Rock Film Festival (LRFF) will produce this year’s 48 Hour Film Project competition where film teams from across the state write, film, edit, and package a short film in only 48 hours. Teams can register and find other informaiton online at www.48hourfilm.com/littlerock.

When the competition kicks off on Friday, August 20^th, teams will be given a required character, prop, line of dialog and film genre and must turn in a complete short film 48 hours later.

Last year’s 48 Hour Film Project competition required teams to include a suitecase as a prop, a locksmith named Victor or Victoria Shay, and the line of dialog “this is for you.”   Teams drew from a wide variety of film genres including comedy, musical, family, buddy film, horror, and science fiction.

Screenings of the 48 Hour Film Project will happen August 25-27 at the Riverdale 10 Cinema.  Audience members can vote on their favorite film for the Audience Favorite award.

The panel of judges will determine which 48 Hour Film Project film entry receives the honor for “Best Film.”   This entry will go on to compete in the international 48 Film Project competition with film entries from 80 cities from around the world, and a few of those lucky 48 hour film participants will screen at next year’s Cannes Film Festival.

“The first spot was designed from the beginning to honor the late filmmaking pioneer Charles B. Pierce who is the namesake of the Made in Arkansas Award. Our goal with the bumper was to make something weird and fun in keeping with the spirit of Legend of Boggy Creek as a sort of homage. Zach Turner who starred in last year’s Slumberland which won the award was in the Yeti suit. We were very proud how it turned out” -Director Levi Agee

“This spot was a departure from our other bumpers in that it was very procedural and kind of a documentary itself of the idea “how someone would make the Golden Rock.” My wife is in the video and she got a new bike out of it because our next door neighbors wouldn’t let us borrow theirs to “make a movie.” We thought about having her sell the rocks at a Garage Sale but I think our video is short and sweet and brings some levity to a category that can be pretty in your face.” -Director Levi Agee

“The Narrative bumper took on the most abstract or conceptual form of the videos. We really wanted to take an iconic idea of The South (fishing) and place it in a downtown setting which is what I think the Little Rock Film Festival does best. This year we wanted to push the Southern element without being stereotypical or irrelevant. The Film Festival posters were a big inspiration to the spot. We closed down Capitol Street downtown with the help of Christopher Crane and Levi’s brother borrowed his friend’s duck hunting boat and we shot the thing in under two hours. Bill Cyrus, the actor, who is a transplant from Los Angeles, was terrific. He never questioned if we had lost our minds making someone fish in the middle of the city.” -Producer/Cinematographer Timothy Lucas Wistrand

The 4th Annual Little Rock Film Festival kicked off with a huge turnout of people waiting to get in the theater at the Riverdale to see Winter’s Bone. The cast of the film showed up for photos and press interviews setting the lobby of the theater abuzz. The packed cinema sat enthralled throughout the Ozark-Mountain drama’s Little Rock premiere and gave applause as the credits rolled.

Philip Martin, Movie Style Editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, moderated a Q and A session after the screening with selected actors from the cast including Garret Dillahunt, Lauren Sweetser, Dale Dickey, and others. The session was lively and brought great laughter and interaction from the audience and could have gone all night as one audience member said to me but alas a great After-Party was waiting for us at the Terry House Mansion.

The large white house was glowing with blue and green tinted lights giving the old stately manor modern curb appeal for late night party-goers. You could hear singer/songwriter Bryan Frazier and his band rocking from down the street. Mandy McBryde & The Chosen Few also gave a great show after Runaway Planet giving great ambience to Oxford American’s Southern Cultural stylings including great food. Inside the mansion patrons sat on giant cushions and chilled out to DJ g-force while sipping white wines.

Back outside festival-goers were treated to a surprise as the sprinkler systems on the lawn of the Terry House surprisingly went off. Rumor was that it was planned that way. No one seemed to mind.

Be sure to get your festival passes and tickets online or at Riverdale Cinemas and enjoy the rest of the festival with us!

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.

The brothers Barnes (Todd and Brad) have a new comedy, and it’s playing at The Little Rock Film Festival. Homewrecker is about an ex-con locksmith on work release who runs into a super-high-energy customer that uses Mike for more than just picking locks.

The Barnes brothers infuse screwball sensibility into their version of the romantic comedy. The chemistry between the leads is crucial: Ana Reeder revels in her free-spirited, no-boundaries role and keeps Margo likable; Anslem Richardson is perfect as her straight man. Full of jaunty dialogue and subtle charm, Homewrecker is an irresistible and impressive debut feature.

Think Higher Ed on 529 College Savings Day

The Little Rock Film Festival has been honored to have so many great sponsors step in and help support our cause. Today, in honor of 529 College Savings Day we’d like to highlight the iShares 529 Plan, a premiere level sponsor and presenter of the Little Rock Film Festival’s Charles B. Pierce Award for Best Film “Made in Arkansas”.

529 College Savings Day (May 29^th) is a day to reflect on saving for higher education. The iShares 529 Plan is an Arkansas state sponsored plan that is designed to help families save for higher education. Unlike regular savings accounts, 529 plans have unique features, like tax-free withdrawals* for qualified education expenses (including tuition, fees, certain room and board costs, and supplies), which help make saving specifically for education easier and more accessible.

Like many great programs and achievements, the LRFF was in large part born from our founders’ experience in higher education. It wasn’t until both of the Renaud brothers had attended classes beyond high school that they realized their passion for film and the great artistic potential of their native Little Rock.

Like many of the films we will view at the LRFF, college provides a multitude of experiences and truly influences our direction. It stimulates creativity, innovation and allows us to expand our knowledge of the world around us. Whether it’s at a 2-year junior college, traditional university, or a vocational school, higher education can help people realize their full potential.

In this spirit, the Charles B. Pierce “Made in Arkansas” Award suits both the mission of the LRFF as well as that of the iShares 529 plan: empowering Arkansas residents to act on their passion and help achieve their personal goals. Together, the LRFF and iShares 529 Plan hope to open the doors to higher education, making personal dreams attainable and putting a vibrant, promising future within reach.

The iShares 529 Plan is a college savings plan sponsored by the State of Arkansas. It is available through financial advisors, and is the only 529 plan with all Exchange Traded Funds as the underlying investments. With Exchange Traded Funds at its core, the iShares 529 Plan breaks new ground in the 529 plan arena by offering attractive benefits, including low expenses and transparency. For more information, please visit www.ishares529.com.

* Earnings on nonqualified withdrawals are subject to federal income tax and may be subject to a 10% federal penalty tax, as well as state and local income taxes. The availability of tax or other benefits may be contingent on meeting other requirements.

For more information about the iShares 529 Plan, contact your financial advisor, call 1-888-529-9552 or visit www.ishares529.com to obtain a Program Description and Participation Agreement which includes investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information; read and consider it carefully before investing or sending money. Upromise Investments, Inc. Co-Distributor and Underwriter; BlackRock Fund Distribution Company, Co-Distributor.

If you are not an Arkansas taxpayer, consider before investing whether your or the designated beneficiary’s home state offers any state tax or other benefits that are only available for investments in such state’s qualified tuition program.

[RM1] The iShares 529 Plan is a college tuition savings program sponsored by the State of Arkansas and is administered by the Arkansas 529 Plan Review Committee. Upromise Investments, Inc., and Upromise Investment Advisors, LLC, serve as the Program Manager and Recordkeeping and Servicing Agent, respectively, with overall responsibility for the day-to-day operations, including marketing and co-distribution of the Plan. BlackRock Fund Distribution Company also has responsibility for co-distribution of the Plan. BlackRock Institutional Trust Company, N.A. serves as Investment Manager for the Plan. The Plan’s portfolios, although they invest in exchange traded funds, are not exchange traded funds. Units of the Portfolios are municipal securities and the value of units will vary with market conditions.

Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal.

BlackRock Institutional Trust Company, N.A. and BlackRock Fund Distribution Company are subsidiaries of BlackRock, Inc., none of which is affiliated with Upromise.

iShares^® is a registered trademark of BlackRock Institutional Trust Company, N.A. All other trademarks, servicemarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

* Not FDIC Insured * No Bank, State or Federal Guarantee * May Lose Value

Get your tickets to the film here which plays at 4:15 PM Thursday, June 3 at Riverdale Cinemas #8.

The Colonel’s Bride really defies all expectations. The film is a completely different and thoughtful take on the whole mail-order-bride scenario. The film’s main character, Bill, a U.S. Army colonel, is not simply interested in a sexual relationship with his new Vietnamese wife, but instead craves companionship to dissipate his loneliness. Director Brent Stewart’s sense of pacing and humor strikes the right amount of charming eccentricity and emotional honesty. Starring J.D. Parker, The Colonel’s Bride makes a great addition to list of films vying for Best Southern Film for the Oxford American competition.

The narrative plays 5:45 PM on Saturday, June 5 at Riverdale Cinemas #8. Stewart is scheduled to be in attendance for the screening.

Tickets.

It’s a shame there aren’t more nonfiction films on the sociology and culture of the aboriginal people in Australia luckily the Contact is a compelling look at group of people that was once completely removed from modern society as we know it. The film looks at Yugali who had her first contact with “white people” and the modern world at age 17 in 1964.

Here is the summary for the film:

TWENTY-SIX years ago, Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson made First Contact, about New Guinea Western Highlanders seeing white settlers for the first time in the 1930s. It remains one of our great documentaries.
Now comes another absorbing “first contact” film much closer to home. Bentley Dean and Martin Butler’s Contact looks at some of the last Aborigines to meet the modern world – a mob of 20 desert-dwelling Martu people.
Remarkably, there is film of that 1964 meeting, taken by Native Welfare patrol officers making sure the area was cleared before the launch of a test rocket in the West Australian desert. It shows a nearly naked mob of women and children, hunter-gatherers who travelled with few possessions, and pet dingoes for company.
One of them was Yuwali, who was 17 at the time. Now a genial 62, she returned to the Percival Lakes region of the Western Desert for the film and remembers being terrified by the patrol officers’ truck. “You know those big rocks that we always play on?” she told her friends. “The rock has come alive.”
The Martu were so frightened of being killed and eaten by the white-skinned “devil men” that they headed back into the desert, only to be tracked down again before a second rocket launch later that year.
Being held by the patrol officers was a rude awakening. The Martu were tied around the ankles to stop them escaping then shipped off to Jigalong mission, 200 kilometres away, ending their nomadic lifestyle.
Three decades earlier at the same mission, three Aboriginal girls escaped to take the epic trek though the desert dramatised in Rabbit-Proof Fence.
Contact, which shared the best documentary prize at this year’s Sydney Film Festival, lets Yuwali and others – black and white – tell an emotional and historic story with a light touch.
Beautifully shot by Dean, the Race Around the World graduate who co-directed The President Versus David Hicks, it captures the collision of modern and ancient worlds. How incredible that it happened as late as 1964.

Go see the film Thursday, June 3 at 3:00 pm at Riverdale. Get your tickets here.

If you don’t know who Bill Hicks is you’re doing yourself a disservice. Bill HIcks is one of the wittiest and sharpest comedic minds to come through America’s catalogue of comedians. Hicks was one of those coveted “comedian’s comedian.” Hicks was a visionary who was way ahead of his time even before his death in 1994 on topics like drugs, God, and society. One can only imagine what his routine would be like if here still alive today. Hicks died at home with his parents in Little Rock, Arkansas on Saturday February 26 and was buried in Leakesville, Mississippi but his legend and his act would live on. His popularity growing steadily over the years, he developed a cult following.

Fans of documentaries like the Robert Evans bio The Kid Stays in the Picture will be delighted to know that this documentary is animated, “meticulously recreated in stunning three dimensional photorealism to provide a fresh new sense of the challenges the lone comedian faces and a real sense of what his journey was like.” The story is told by 10 of his closest friends and family who tell tales of Hicks’ life. American isn’t simply a look at the controversial and hilarious standup comic but a reflection on the artist and what made the man so relevant and revolutionary.

Come see the film about “the man who tried to save the world.”