Eight filmmakers with Arkansas connections have been selected to screen their short works at the 12th Annual Ozark Foothills FilmFest. The showcase program will be screened on Sunday afternoon, April 6th at noon in Independence Hall on the campus of the University of Arkansas Community College in Batesville (UACCB). Participating filmmakers include college professors, students and other aspiring filmmakers. The program includes:
Still from John Wayne’s Bed
Chutes and Gates, by University of Central Arkansas (UCA) faculty member Michael Gunter. This comic farm film, shot at the Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranch, follows a young boy as his grandfather teaches him the ins and outs of farming.
The Proposal, by Joe Dull, also a UCA faculty member. The short film features Daniel, a man unlucky with women, who asks one-year-old Emma for permission to marry her mommy. He needs it to go well. It doesn’t.
Cold Tracker, by filmmaker Leon Tidwell, follows a Civil War soldier who returns home to find that his wife has been murdered less than a day before his return. Getting no help from the sheriff he sets off to take revenge on his wife’s killer.
John Wayne’s Bed, writer and director Sarah Jones has created an inspiring film based on a true story of an Arkansan with Lou Gehrig’s disease who refuses to be defined by his illness.
Scattered City, directed by William Aughtry, takes place in Charleston, South Carolina, where an aging private detective searching to find a young boy lost in Hurricane Katrina finds little help.
Greed, by Trenton Mynatt, set in the Ozarks in the 1880’s, is the story of a wealthy man on the run due to the untimely deaths of his brothers. He travels through the hills with a small posse in the hope of escaping the fate that befell his brothers.
Tomahawk, written by Avery Moorehead and Eric White and directed and edited by Eric White, is another revenge film about a recent parolee who returns home to avenge the death of his wife and daughter.
Broken Glass and Sunday Visit, by Ariel Bisbee, are two artfully designed shorts that reveal the creator’s ability to work with setting and imagery to capture a moment with few or little words. Broken Glass is a short dialogue-free film about a small moment in the life of one young girl. Sunday Visit follows a young girl and her older brother who are reunited for a couple of minutes on a Sunday afternoon.
All of the filmmakers will be in attendance and will participate in a Q&A following the screening. The entire program will last about two hours. Ticket information is available at www.ozarkfoothillsfilmfest.org.
Ozark Foothills FilmFest is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arkansas Arts Council, the Independence County Recreation Fund and numerous Batesville businesses. The Event Sponsor of the Arkansas Showcase program is FutureFuel Chemical Company. A complete listing of festival sponsors is available at www.ozarkfoothillsfilmfest.org/sponsors.
