September 18 is the kickoff of the 16th annual Fayetteville Film Fest, a regional festival in the heart of Fayetteville. Ozarks at Large’s Andrea Gratol has the details.
Chase Goforth is the director of marketing for the Fayetteville Film Fest. He says the festival is an opportunity to highlight Arkansas films, national and international films.
“Our goal is to both promote filmmaking inside of Arkansas as well as give our locals here in Fayetteville a chance to see art and see films that they normally wouldn't get to see.”
On Sept. 18, the festival will open with the film Tomorrow's Too Late. The film follows Dylan, a transgender man who is a pop-rock singer from London.
“Dylan began his career as Lottie Holloway, who had a whole career and released albums before transitioning to Dylan. When Dylan began taking testosterone, it wrecked his singing voice. And so the movie is about Dylan having to make this incredibly difficult personal choice of, ‘Do I do this and be the person who I truly am inside? Or do I live a life as someone I don’t think I am—I know that I’m not—and keep a career?’”
The movie started as Dylan making video diaries for himself and soon developed into a documentary.
“We’re going to screen the movie, and then Dylan’s going to perform. Dylan actually duets with Lottie via video. Lottie wrote songs that Dylan completed on the other side of his transition, and it’s an incredible story. We’re so lucky to have them here the whole weekend.”
The festival will also have screenings like Artfully United, a documentary about a muralist from Los Angeles who received support from community members to paint murals in underserved communities. Another documentary follows Jule Campbell, the founding editor of the Swimsuit Issue at Sports Illustrated in the ’60s.
“Everybody, of course, assumes that was some men that put that together. But it was not. It was Jule Campbell and her daughter. Jill documents her mother's story. And it's unreal good. It's got interviews with Naomi Campbell and Kathy Ireland and Cheryl Tiegs.”
On Friday night, the film Enthralled will be making its world premiere right here in Fayetteville.
“A local thriller that was all made here in Arkansas, here in the area. And they've actually got distribution already. So that'll be a movie soon everybody will be able to see on streaming.”
The film festival will be screening 97 films in three days. This year, they will be teaming up with the Fayetteville Public Library and the Center for Innovation to highlight the city's accessibility for filming.
“They have all this equipment to shoot film inside the library studio, and you can use that just with your library card. They teach you a short class on how to do it. Tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gear is there for your use for whatever project you want to use.”
The Fayetteville Film Fest is more than just showing local or international films, but will also have a range of workshops and classes, like a directing workshop from Chase Goforth himself to an auditioning class for aspiring actors.
“And so Women in Film Arkansas is going to put on a short little intensive on how the audition process works, which is really unusual. It's a lot of self-tape. You have to make videos of yourself and submit them in projects that are casting and what are the best practices for auditioning for this project.”
Chase says that there is one thing that makes Fayetteville Film Fest different than anywhere else in the area, and that is community.
“Fayetteville. What we've got is we don't have a bunch of movie stars coming in, but what we do is we have the arts community of Fayetteville and the citizens of the population of Fayetteville that's so supportive of the arts here and want to be a part of things like the Fayetteville Festival.”
Chase says that art is in the culture of Fayetteville, and as a filmmaker, he believes that the film industry will continue to grow in our little town.
“We have a number of studios here now. Fayetteville is such a great place to shoot. We've had major things shot here from True Detective to Sovereign was just here. We've had a number of big projects come to town, but it's also so friendly for small productions.”
With the hopes of the film industry growing in Fayetteville, Chase says that this will be beneficial to everyone.
“You know, Nick Offerman's in town, and he gets to tweet about the barbecue place that he likes, and that's good for everybody. We spend a ton of money on hotel stuff. We spend a ton of money on infrastructure here in town. They all shop here and eat here. Filmmaking is great for everybody in the area.”
The Fayetteville Film Fest invites anyone who's interested in film or the industry. No experience required. Passes and individual tickets are on sale on the Fayetteville Film Fest website.
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