Reel Nashville 2005

For seven days, starting next Thursday, Regal's Green Hills megaplex will serve as a microcosm of the split-level movie market. The upstairs screens—the big ones, up there with all the neon—will be showing blockbuster Hollywood product. Take the escalator downstairs, walk down a hallway, and there will be four screens parceled out for something called "indies."

Something similar happens at Green Hills every week. The difference is that starting next Thursday, more than 10,000 people will turn out for the indies alone. Now in its 36th year, the Nashville Film Festival—don't say "NIFF," it's officially the "NaFF"—has become a link in a widening alternative distribution circuit made up of local and regional film festivals. The good news: it's your chance to see terrific movies that are too risky, too unconventional, too specialized, or simply too far outside the mandates of exhibitors and distributors to reach those top-level theaters. The bad news: In many cases, it's your only chance.

To get the most out of the festival, whether you're a first-timer or a hardcore iron-butt cinephile, the Scene offers this guide to many of the films showing at the 2005 NaFF. In addition, we offer a few practical tips:

Buy advance tickets. First, assume that anything with a visiting star—like the opening-night gala screening of The Thing About My Folks, hosted by Peter Falk and Paul Reiser—will sell out fast. Get those first. Same goes for personal-appearance events such as the talks with Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman (1:30 and 7:30 p.m. April 16), Closer producer Cary Brokaw (7 p.m. April 19), indie-film legend John Pierson (11 a.m. April 16), and Billy Ray Cyrus. (You laugh, but the dude did work with David Lynch.) Second, bear in mind that the weekend and nighttime weekday slots fill up faster. The best time to beat crowds: weekday afternoons. Now go to www.nashvillefilmfestival.org or call (800) 965-4827 and order; online will be cheaper.

Watch out for single screenings. Movies that have distribution or a heavy buzz will often show only once, since their distributors or makers anticipate a regular run. This year, those include the Jia Zhangke drama The World (see the sidebar), the French festival favorite The 10th District Court (see below), and the well-received closing-night doc Townes Van Zandt: Be Here to Love Me (not available for review). Get those ahead of time.

Anything local will sell out. This year, that includes the documentary A Reawakening in Cayce Homes; the Tennessee Film Nights of shorts by local filmmakers (two programs' worth); and the locally produced feature Dear Mr. Cash. As Bob Dylan sang, if you gotta go, go now.

Arrive at least a half-hour early. There will be lines to buy popcorn. There will be lines to buy tickets. There will be lines to pick up tickets. There will be lines into the theaters. Do not fight these: talking to other people in line is one of the best parts of the festival. (When else will you find 200 people in line for a film from mainland China?) But don't show up five minutes before showtime and expect to get a seat that's not in someone's lap.

Stay for the filmmaker Q&A's, if possible, and ask good questions. Nothing makes the city look better to visiting talent, or strengthens the festival's chances to attract more.

Be nice to the festival staff. Most are volunteers. They did not build the goofy parking garage (park high, take the elevators), and they did not create the traffic jam getting into or out of it. They are not intentionally slowing down the ticket computer. And festival coordinator Mandy McBroom is, like, way cute and a sweetheart to boot.

Finally, ride the buzz. Ask people what they've seen, and if you hear about something you hadn't considered, give it a shot. If nothing else, you'll have lots of pleasant conversations with complete strangers you'd never meet otherwise. At a film festival, you can get past a lot of awkward social conventions with just this simple icebreaker: "What've you seen?"

On with the show.

♦ = Highly recommended.

Thursday, April 14

♦ Hustle & Flow (9:30 p.m.) A last-minute addition to the fest (and an eleventh-hour coup), Memphis filmmaker Craig Brewer's drama about a Bluff City pimp (Terrence Dashon Howard) who takes an all-or-nothing shot at becoming a rapper caused a sensation earlier this year at Sundance. (After a well-documented bidding war, it eventually sold to Paramount and MTV Films in the biggest deal to come out of the festival in a decade.) Brewer, whose fine debut film The Poor and Hungry swept the NaFF awards in 2001, and native Nashville actor DJ Qualls will attend; no word on whether producer John Singleton will make it out.

Friday, April 15

Rhythm Is It! (1:30 p.m.; also 2:30 p.m. April 17) The rhythmic savagery of Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps" provides the backdrop for a collaboration between the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and 250 young dancers, most of whom have never set foot in a rehearsal studio. With only weeks to go, the project becomes a kind of modern-dance boot camp that tests the students' endurance on every level. The fast cutting favored by filmmakers Thomas Grube and Enrique Sanchez Lansch doesn't work for dance: it chops and scatters the big finale when we just want to see how the pieces finally fit. Still, it's hard not to be moved by conductor Simon Battle's boyish enthusiasm, by the kids' growing pride, and by the inherent excitement of music that after almost a century still sounds raw and newly born. —Jim Ridley