Fall Guide 2024: What to Catch at the Nashville Film Festival

Autumn at the movies promises a little something for all audiences. 

Vanderbilt University’s free ongoing International Lens series at Sarratt Cinema features a wide array of films, from sobering documentary A Decent Home (showing Oct. 3) to a special pre-release screening of A24’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Nov. 14) and Denis Villeneuve’s astonishing Blade Runner 2049 (Dec. 5). The 19th annual International Black Film Festival is set to take place Oct. 2 through 6 and feature a number of promising titles — particularly in the Long Documentary category, which will include Emmett Till: White Lies, Black Death and ​​Betye Saar: Ready to Be a Warrior, among several others. Meanwhile, a number of limited and wide releases are set for the Belcourt Theatre as well as the area’s AMC and Regal locations. Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited epic Megalopolis will land Sept. 26, with anticipated titles A Different Man and Joker: Folie à Deux coming in October.

Before all that, however, the 55th annual Nashville Film Festival will take over the Belcourt, Regal Green Hills, The Franklin Theatre and elsewhere. Taking place Sept. 19 through 25, the fest will feature nearly 50 feature-length films and a slew of panels, short films, music videos and more.

Ahead of the fest, our film writers cued up a number of this year’s selections. Below, read our 16 picks for what to check out at this year’s Nashville Film Festival.

Devo

Few bands lend themselves to the documentary form like Devo, the abrasive performance-art outfit with a radical worldview that evolved — or perhaps devolved — into one of the most pioneering acts of the video era. Devo charts the band’s singular genesis from an idea into a full-blown movement, born from the political maelstrom of Kent State during the Vietnam War, synthesizing the thumb-nosing absurdity of Dada-ism and pop art with the oxidized decay of the Midwest. Though the documentary’s format is a little straightforward for a band that was so consistently out-of-the-box, Devo features a wealth of archival footage, from the band’s proto-punk performances for befuddled audiences in Ohio to the radical video art that put them on the map of an early MTV. 3:30 p.m. Sept. 19 at the Belcourt NADINE SMITH 

A Man Called Hurt: The Life and Music of Mississippi John Hurt

Jamison Stalsworth and Alex Oliver’s blues documentary A Man Called Hurt: The Life and Music of Mississippi John Hurt doesn’t revolutionize the music-doc genre. But over the course of little more than one hour, the filmmakers manage to illuminate the life and especially the music of a blues pioneer whose guitar style continues to influence pickers the world over. The film tells of the shy, smiling John Hurt’s early life in Mississippi, where the singer was born just two generations out of slavery. The bluesman cut his first recordings before the Depression, but talking heads like singer-songwriter John Sebastian help flesh out Hurt’s rediscovery by Greenwich Village folkies in the 1960s. The directors mostly spare viewers new interpretations of the music from contemporary artists, and the film is at its best when it dives into the technical elements and mysterious roots of Hurt’s ebullient fingerpicking. This one is a must-see for Nashville guitar slingers at this year’s fest. 3:30 p.m. Sept. 20 at Regal Green Hills Theater 16; 9 p.m. Sept. 24 at The Franklin Theatre JOE NOLAN

The Day the Music Stopped

Documenting the long-mounting battle between independent music venues and big corporate interests like Live Nation, The Day the Music Stopped focuses on longtime Nashville show space Exit/In in particular. The feature-length doc includes interviews with former Exit owner Chris Cobb, former Metro Councilmember Jeff Syracuse, former Nashville Mayor John Cooper and a host of artists — not to mention performances from the likes of Alanna Royale, JEFF the Brotherhood and more, plus some especially moving footage of scatologically named posi-punks Diarrhea Planet’s performance at Cobb and company’s run of farewell shows in 2022. The film, directed by Patrick Sheehan and produced by beloved local journalist and broadcaster Demetria Kalodimos (who also provides much of the documentary’s context), feels a bit like a time capsule, running through the multitude of hardships and complications that befell Nashville over the past half-decade — from COVID, the March 2020 tornado and the Christmas Day 2020 bombing to Music City’s rampant development boom. 6 p.m. Sept. 20 at Regal Green Hills Theater 3 D. PATRICK RODGERS 

Songs From the Hole

Contessa Gayles’ Songs From the Hole tells the story of James Jacobs, who served decades in prison after shooting and killing another teen in cold blood when he was only 15 years old. The film — which Jacobs co-wrote — follows Jacobs and his family through the years of his incarceration, when the young man began writing songs to help him maintain his sanity in the crushing isolation of solitary confinement. Songs From the Hole struggles to connect Jacobs’ story to larger social justice narratives, but its portrait of Jacobs and his family is revealing. The real stars here are Gayles and her editing team, who deploy creative re-enactments, reverse footage and inventive cutting to match the beats and lyrics Jacobs wrote in his cell. The result is far more visually poetic and formally experimental than most documentaries of its kind. It reads like a long experimental music video, bringing a fresh look to a tragically all-too-familiar story. 6:30 p.m. Sept. 20 at Regal Green Hills Theater 15 JOE NOLAN 

We Can Be Heroes

Live-action role players of all ages will most likely get a kick out of this coming-of-age doc, which won the Special Jury Award for Empathy and Bravery at this year’s SXSW. Directors Carina Mia Wong and Alex Simmons get into fantastical-filmmaking mode as they follow the boys, girls and nonbinary kids who attend a live-action role-playing summer camp in upstate New York. It’s an eye-opening mix of fantasy and reality, as these youngsters turn into mythical, larger-than-life warriors in the blink of an eye, briefly escaping the mental, physical and personal obstacles they regularly face in real life. 1:30 p.m. Sept. 21 at Regal Green Hills Theater 3 CRAIG D. LINDSEY

Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted

For more than a half-century, the prolific soul man known as Swamp Dogg has paved his own lane, occupying almost every position imaginable in the music industry. From songwriting workhorse to self-taught record mogul, Swamp Dogg has done it all on his own terms, mixing blues and country with a bawdy sense of humor and clear-eyed political consciousness. You can’t pin the man down: He scored hits for Johnny Paycheck and Tracy Byrd, but he’s also worked with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and even managed a young Dr. Dre; he’s experimented with Auto-Tune, but he’s also dabbled in old-time string music. The new documentary Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted is a fittingly eccentric portrait of an artist who gladly draws outside the lines, blending stories from the Dogg himself and longtime bandmates with whimsical sound design and psychedelic animated interludes. 4 p.m. Sept. 21 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2 NADINE SMITH

Jazzy

Somehow both languid and fleeting, Morrisa Maltz’s South Dakota-set coming-of-age tale Jazzy floats by dreamily, riffing on the filmmaking of early Sofia Coppola and Barry Jenkins but with a style all Maltz’s own. Jazzy, the director’s second narrative feature film following 2022’s Lily Gladstone-starring The Unknown Country, centers on Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux’s Jazzy during an always difficult moment in the life of an impressionable kid: the untethered period when your best friend moves away. Gladstone, on board as an executive producer alongside the Duplass brothers, teams up once again with Maltz for a brief but important supporting role. 5:30 p.m. Sept. 21 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 LOGAN BUTTS

Bob Trevino Likes It 

Bob Trevino Likes It is a heartwarming movie about what it’s like to have the worst father in the world — and that’s not an exaggeration. The film follows Barbie Ferreira as Lily Trevino, a 20-something traumatized by an estranged father who accidentally befriends a stranger on the internet (John Leguizamo) with the same name as her deadbeat dad. The semi-autobiographical film is from writer and director Tracie Laymon, and festivalgoers be warned: It’s a tearjerker. Beautifully written and full of fantastic performances, Bob Trevino Likes It will go down in history with feel-it-all comedy-dramas like Little Miss Sunshine. If you’re in therapy, you should probably see this movie; it’ll probably make you want to go for an extra session afterward. 6:30 p.m. Sept. 21 at Regal Green Hills Theater 16 HANNAH CRON

My Old Ass

After dealing with the painful subject of school shootings in her 2021 feature debut The Fallout, actress-turned-director Megan Park goes for more lighthearted (but still sentimental) fare with her sophomore flick. Nashville alumna Maisy Stella stars as a teen who spends her 18th birthday drinking some shroom-infused tea with friends and getting a sobering visit from her middle-aged self (Aubrey Plaza). Does any of this make a lick of sense? Hell no. But this will certainly delight those who’ve always wanted to go back in time and tell their younger selves to lighten the fuck up. 8 p.m. Sept. 21 at Soho House CRAIG D. LINDSEY

Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story

One of the myriad treasures in Nashville’s Music City crown was the late, great Jackie Shane — R&B musician and soul singer, bandleader, fashion plate, pangender icon and dynamic performer. Shane packed in audiences internationally before returning back home to Nashville to care for family and conceal a burning spotlight of a gift underneath a bushel. Directors Lucah Rosenberg-Lee and Michael Mabbott don’t just give a diva her flowers — they help chart a whole other history of Nashville music, as well as depict a family in the process of fixing several decades’ worth of fragmentation. The music is flawless, to the surprise of no one who’s heard the live record of Shane onstage, but Any Other Way lets Jackie — the woman and the icon — live in her own words: sweet and sassy, with a Little Richard wig anecdote that’ll blow the roof off the theater. Essential viewing for everyone. 1 p.m. Sept. 22 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2 JASON SHAWHAN

Driver

Nesa Azimi’s Driver depicts the struggles and sacrifices undertaken by some of the country’s most underappreciated workers: female truck drivers. The film follows Desiree Wood and the members of her organization Real Women in Trucking as they fight day-to-day setbacks and an industry that fails to protect its workers from harassment and abuse. This is what America looks like to many — open roads, truckstop towns, small paychecks and large workloads. Every woman in the film is someone you know, and their support for one another carries their story through every hope and every heartbreak. It’s a necessary and thought-provoking piece about the injustices many try to make invisible and the importance of listening to those who have been silenced by systems we are all complicit in. 3:30 p.m. Sept. 22 at Regal Green Hills Theater 15 HANNAH CRON

To a Land Unknown

An unexpected heart-pumping thriller, narrative feature To a Land Unknown tells the story of a Palestinian refugee struggling to make it and provide for his family in Athens. But one day, after being ripped off by a smuggler, he sets off on a dangerous journey of revenge. He pivots from the emotional strife of living on the fringes to having to act in the moment and do what’s necessary to stay alive — and Mahmood Bakri’s lead performance is staggering. At a time when it’s very needed, To a Land Unknown zooms in on the plight and trauma of Palestinian displacement in a way you won’t be able to forget. 6 p.m. Sept. 22 at Regal Green Hills Theater 15 SADAF AHSAN

The Black Sea

In this improvised dramedy, co-director Derrick B. Harden is a streetwise Brooklynite who comes to Bulgaria to spend some “adult time” with an old lady he met on Facebook. When he gets there and learns the woman is dead, the stranded tourist finds ways to make a buck, including starting up a cafe outside the office of a friendly travel agent (Irmena Chichikova). While clumsy in places, this movie does put you in the shoes of a foreigner who comes to a country with nothing except drive, ambition and hope for a better tomorrow. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 22 at Regal Green Hills Theater 3 CRAIG D. LINDSEY

Universal Language 

Part absurdist comedy, part surreal drama, Universal Language takes place in the city of Winnipeg — where everyone is now a Farsi speaker, and everything is influenced by Iranian culture. The plot follows several characters and plot lines including but not limited to frozen money, beauty-pageant-winning turkeys and Tim Hortons. It’s a wacky and sometimes confusing picture that has a distinctly Canadian sense of humor — one that might be lost on an American audience. But it’s a great pick for any fan of oddball movies or anyone who needs a break from the Hollywood machine. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 23 at Regal Green Hills Theater 15 KEN ARNOLD

Superboys of Malegaon

Whether you’re a fan of Hollywood or Bollywood, it’s unlikely you’ve heard the incredible real-life story of Nasir Shaikh, who once was an amateur filmmaker in the Indian town of Malegaon. Along with his buddies, he made low-budget, community-sourced comedies and dramas (and, of course, superhero movies) for his hometown to enjoy. It’s an endearing story, and in director Reema Kagti’s accomplished hands, Superboys of Malegaon is a hilarious and touching look back at a small-town hero who brought the kind of hope and joy only cinema can. If it doesn’t inspire you to pick up a camera or make your wildest dreams come true, it hasn’t done its job. 11 a.m. Sept. 25 at the Belcourt SADAF AHSAN 

Music Video Programming

There are many interpretations of what a music video should be, but some of the best are veritable short films with stories that work even with the music removed. This year’s fest pairs many of its most anticipated releases with music videos that complement their themes, ranging from popular favorites to rare live recordings. Chappell Roan’s “Casual” (showing 5 p.m. Sept. 22 at Regal Green Hills Theater 16), directed by Hadley Hillel, is a fantastical cinematic treat in which Roan falls into the snare of a man-killing siren. Carrie Brownstein directs Succession’s J. Smith Cameron in the video for Sleater-Kinney’s “Say It Like You Mean It” (6:30 p.m. at Regal Green Hills Theater 16), portraying a darkly burning narrative in stunning black-and-white. Psychedelic global music trio Khruangbin’s “A Love International” (available to stream online) captures the beauty of imagination and love across generations with direction from Scott Dungate. Director Reece Daniels takes “playful” to a new level in Jordan Webb’s Monopoly-inspired “Pass Go” (7:30 p.m. Sept. 22 at Regal Green Hills Theater 3), while another selection sees Nashville Ballet interpret Chet Atkins’ “Jitterbug Waltz” (3:30 p.m. Sept. 20 at Regal Green Hills Theater 16 and 9 p.m. Sept. 24 at The Franklin Theatre). Be sure to arrive early to your NaFF feature-length screenings to see these music videos and more. HANNAH CRON

Fall Guide 2024

María Magdalena Campos-Pons’ 'Behold' tops our list of the season’s most exciting art, music, book, theater, dance and film events