Reel Nashville: 24 Films to Check Out at This Year’s Nashville Film Festival

What We’ve Seen

‘Hit Man: Secrets of Lies’

Between David Fincher’s The Killer and Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, fall 2023 is proving to be a season rich with assassin tales. Add to the watchlist writer-director Elias Plagianos’ short film “Hit Man: Secrets of Lies,” starring beloved character actor Richard Kind. Kind, an extremely familiar face in comedy, is playing against type here as a stoic contract killer who heads to a small town to find and eliminate a target. It’s more character study than action/thriller, and while a couple of characters’ motivations prove to be a touch perplexing, Kind’s performance alone makes the 19-minute runtime absolutely worth it. Throw in performances from a couple other top-notch performers (Karen Allen! William Sadler!) and you’ve got yourself a short that feels like a teaser for a forthcoming HBO prestige drama. 11 a.m. Sept. 29 at the Rothschild Black Box Theater at Vanderbilt D. PATRICK RODGERS

Cypher

Tierra Whack’s rise to fame seems almost too good to be true in Cypher, a psychological thriller disguised as a music documentary. A film crew follows the Philadelphia phenom around, but they soon learn they aren’t the only ones with cameras on the rapper. A conspiracy begins to reveal itself, and Tierra Whack, and her rising profile, seem to be key to it all. The rap star is charismatic and an instantly likable protagonist, and the film’s structure shows off a studied understanding of mockumentaries and found-footage horror. It’s fitting that a rapper as experimental as Tierra Whack, whose debut album was entirely one-minute songs, stars in something so nontraditional. The film plays with entertainment conspiracy theories — like the cloning of Gucci Mane — to explore themes about what artists give up en route to stardom. 6:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

Called to the Mountains

I can’t say enough about how happy this hourlong documentary about a 50-year-old Japanese bluegrass band made me. Archival footage from Bluegrass 45’s 1971 debut trip to the United States combined with modern-day scenes from the band’s own bluegrass festival in the mountains of Japan (you’d be forgiven for confusing the scenery with West Virginia’s) and their return to the U.S. as old men collectively paint a picture of joy, friendship and the pursuit of obscure passions. The music, beautiful Japanese and American mountains and rich characters would have been plenty to make this story compelling, but cinematographer (and director/producer) Josh Goleman’s creativity and keen eye in shooting the modern-day scenes are the cherry on top. 11 a.m. Sept. 30 at The Franklin Theatre; available to stream Oct. 2-8 STEPHEN ELLIOTT

Time Bomb Y2K

A pitch-perfect snapshot of what the late ’90s felt like, this documentary chronicles the years leading up to Jan. 1, 2000, when people ranging from unassuming computer programmers to far-right militias to President Bill Clinton expected a computer malfunction to cripple the world. This strictly archival documentary fails to answer the one question I had about Y2K: Was it all a big false alarm, or did the years of intense work on the problem prevent catastrophe? Still, the deftly compiled footage, unspoken parallels to the present day, and building tension as the date approached in the film were enough to keep me hooked. 11 a.m. Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 STEPHEN ELLIOTT

Food Roots

Chicago native Billy Dec is a restaurateur, a hospitality celebrity, an actor and a part-time Nashvillian. He’s a Filipino American, and his restaurants — like Sunda Nashville — reflect his passion for new twists on Asian classics. Documentary Food Roots follows the entrepreneur on a journey to the Philippines to reconnect with long-lost family and uncover the foundations of his ancestors’ foodways. The Dec-produced doc might have been a self-indulgent vanity project — Dec once played himself on an episode of Entourage — but instead Food Roots is a warm, sometimes endearingly intimate family portrait. It’s also a homespun primer on the trending flavors of the Filipino foodie craze. 11:30 a.m. Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2; 11 a.m. Oct. 4 at the Belcourt JOE NOLAN

Dusty & Stones

This 2022 doc follows a pair of country-and-Western-loving musicians from the African kingdom of Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). Their dreams of walking the U.S. streets with six-strings on their backs becomes a reality when they are invited to perform at a Texas-based awards show. Before they do that, they make an emotionally overwhelming stop in Nashville, where they get to record their music. Director Jesse Rudoy will have you rooting for these sensitive singer-songwriters, especially when their journey becomes a trial by fire as they get to the Lone Star State and mingle with the condescending natives. 1:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at The Franklin Theatre CRAIG D. LINDSEY

Country Brawlers

Boxing stories have often revolved around poor people overcoming adversity. It’s cliché, but the athleticism and dedication always hit a sweet spot for moviegoers, even if that bootstrap message is flimsy. But in some places, the fight inside the ring is just part of several battles outside the ring. The documentary Country Brawlers looks at the fight scene in Appalachia, a boxing circuit that is struggling and desperate to compete and stay alive, much like the communities where the subjects live. Ashland, Ky., has been hit with job loss and drug addiction, and a pair of plucky fighters try to thrive in the bleak, hollowed-out environment. The townspeople muddle through life with old-school toughness, the boxers aren’t superstars (though one is a hometown hero), and the camera work is artful. 6:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at The Franklin Theatre ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

Divinity

For a movie made up of several interesting parts — including a score tag-teamed by DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill and David Lynch’s go-to sound designer Dean Hurley and a truly otherworldly, lo-fi visual aesthetic — Divinity does not equal the sum of its ambitious parts. However, for those missing out on the fail-son/God-complex father-son dynamic from Succession, it is worth the price of admission to see Stephen Dorff (playing a character named Jaxxon Pierce) and Scott Bakula operate in director Eddie Alcazar’s hallucinogenic black-and-white world. Plus, it’s only 88 minutes. 9 p.m. Sept. 30 at the Rothschild Black Box Theater at Vanderbilt LOGAN BUTTS

The Puppetman

Messy and at times overeager to create something enduring and iconic in the all-too-rarefied pantheon of franchise slashers, The Puppetman somehow finds a way to use its flaws and missteps as part of an overall pathway that you can’t help but respect. The survivor of her father’s deranged murder of her mother, Michal (Alyson Gorske) is suffering the ongoing fallout from an unimaginable horror. There’s a very elastic metaphor about survivor’s guilt, abuse and the legacy of religious grooming here, skillfully deployed to feel perceptive and icky at different points in the story. Just when you think it’s lost you, it rallies with a one-two punch of deeply imaginative gore that will stick in your head forever. Similarly, there’s a point when you wonder what they’re going to do given the attrition of cast members, with which the filmmakers ramp things up with a narrative feint that reengages the viewer. In a way, this beast is structured so that with Michal and the Puppetman, you go through the emotional evolution that happens over the course of the first three or four films in a franchise — it just all happens in less than 100 minutes. But damned if it doesn’t work, leaving you ready for wherever the Puppetman pops up next. 9:15 p.m. Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2 JASON SHAWHAN

Black Barbie: A Documentary

Now that Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie basically saved the movies with their billion-dollar-grossing Barbie adaptation, let’s start talking about this other Barbie film that hit the festival circuit early this year. Director Lagueria Davis traces the history of the first African American Barbie doll, which dropped in 1980, interviewing the women of color who inspired and shaped it (including her aunt, a former Mattel employee). Davis also rounds up Barbie fans young and old and gets their thoughts on finally seeing a melanin-enhanced version of America’s favorite plastic everywoman. 1:30 p.m. Oct. 1 at Sarratt Cinema at Vanderbilt CRAIG D. LINDSEY

It’s Only Life After All

Indigo Girls documentary It’s Only Life After All captures the duo’s legacy while avoiding one of the common pitfalls of the modern doc: a copious amount of talking-head celebrity interviews. This film has none, allowing Amy Ray and Emily Saliers’ life-changing music and activism to stand in the spotlight, framed by old footage and interviews with the Girls and punctuated with commentary from fans spanning their decades-long career. Director Alexandria Bombach paints a tender and meaningful portrait of the world’s most famous lesbian band, filled with strife and heartache as well as their cultivation of belonging and friendship. It’s funny and tender, a fitting tribute for two of music’s unabashed trailblazers. 3:30 p.m. Oct. 1 at The Franklin Theatre HANNAH CRON

The Sacrifice Game

A structural triumph, this brisk Christmas shocker plays out with the loosey-goosey charm of an RPG session and the organizing instincts of the most ghoulish of dinner parties. A big leap forward from writer-director Jenn Wexler’s equal parts alienating and charming 2018 debut The Ranger, The Sacrifice Game is always a few steps ahead and never afraid to mess with the status quo. As our protagonists, Georgia Acken and Madison Baines are just superb, alongside a great turn from Wexler regular Chloë Levine and The Boys’Love Sausage Derek Johns. And the vibes are off the charts, somehow starting with stylish home invasion and austere boarding school allegory before shifting gears like you’re in a sports car that they won’t even let you drive with American auto insurance. Versatile for hangouts and headtrips — and a new classic of Christmas chaos. 9 p.m. Oct. 1 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 JASON SHAWHAN

When Evil Lurks

Vicious in a way that makes you feel like it’s aiming to make Talk to Me seem like a laugh riot, the latest film from Demián Rugna (Terrified) pulls no punches and sets itself on damaging its psychic points of impact. There’s a sense that this film is working in the same style sandbox as the Ju-On universe — not in terms of its narrative specifics, but in its inescapable fatalism, easily transferable and impossible to escape. Demon-as-virus is fertile ground, and When Evil Lurks yields unimaginable dispersion and growth rates from its points of incursion. As far as gonzo shocker moments, this one has several, and there are many instances when this could absolutely break members of the audience. Just know nothing is sacred. Nothing. Deadbeat dads will probably adore this, without realizing it’s disassembling them every step of the way. 9 p.m. Oct. 2 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2 JASON SHAWHAN

What We’re Looking Forward To

‘Raada’ (‘Muck’)

A bright, colorful short, this film tells the story of three friends who get caught up in crime, scandal and tragedy in rural India in the 1980s. This one looks like it includes elements of gritty crime stories, boisterous Bollywood productions and friendship tales, and it should be well worth its 22-minute run time. 11 a.m. Sept. 29 at the Rothschild Black Box Theater at Vanderbilt STEPHEN ELLIOTT

Fingernails

Featuring a murderers’ row of hot young actors (Women Talking’s Jessie Buckley, Sound of Metal’s Riz Ahmed, The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White, Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy), Fingernails sounds like a unique combination of science-fiction and psychological drama: Buckley plays a woman who starts work at an institute tasked with determining the romantic compatibility of various couples. Greek writer-director Christos Nikou received acclaim for his 2020 feature debut Apples — a film that caught the eye of Cate Blanchett, who signed on as a producer for Fingernails. If that’s not enough of a vote of confidence for you, Nikou also previously collaborated with fellow Greek writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos, one of the most interesting filmmakers to emerge in the past two decades. 6:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at Regal Green Hill Theater 2 D. PATRICK RODGERS

Patria y Vida: The Power of Music

A feature-length documentary, this is the story of a song by Cuban rappers that went so viral, and was so tied to recent protests on the island, that one of the rappers was imprisoned and another creator of the song exiled. The song won two Latin Grammys and racked up millions of views, and one of its creators met with President Joe Biden. Patria y Vida should help explain whether the song’s impact has had an even more lasting impact than that on the island. 9 p.m. Sept. 29 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 STEPHEN ELLIOTT

Pencils vs. Pixels

Animation has changed. And while some inventive endeavors like the two Spider-Verse films show off how magical and inventive digital animation can be, many — like myself — are probably missing the old-school cel animation style that dominated that ’90s and prior eras. Pencils vs. Pixels seeks to tell just what happened to cause the shift away from 2D storytelling. The film focuses in particular on Disney and American films, which may disappoint fans of foreign animation (definitely an oversight), but a stacked cast of interviews should still make for a fascinating oral history with top-notch visuals. 4 p.m. Sept. 30 at The Franklin Theatre; available to stream Oct. 2-8 ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

Asleep in My Palm

Tim Blake Nelson is a Cohen brothers regular (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) who brings his rangy dramatic chops to Asleep in My Palm. The film is directed by the actor’s son, Henry Nelson, making his feature debut. They say casting is everything, and the elder Nelson is teamed with Chloë Kerwin (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) to tell the tale of a father and daughter living off the grid in self-imposed isolation near the outskirts of an elite university campus. The younger Nelson also wrote the script, which might be the story of a troubled veteran suffering from PTSD — the film’s trailer mentions that Nelson’s character “saw some bad things in the war.” This is one of the films I’m most looking forward to seeing at the fest. 6:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 JOE NOLAN

Eileen

Based on the acclaimed 2015 novel of the same name by Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen might be the most eagerly anticipated book adaptation since Gone Girl. The period thriller stars Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho) and Anne Hathaway (you know her) as two women working at a prison who become entangled in a disturbing crime. The film debuted at Sundance and is directed by William Oldroyd, who directed Florence Pugh in 2016’s Lady Macbeth, and the script was written by Moshfegh and Luke Goebel. Eileen — Moshfegh’s debut —powerfully explores the relationships between women in a strange, sometimes off-putting way. I imagine it might be the perfect thing for fans of Mary Gaitskill or Dancer in the Dark. 7 p.m. Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2 LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

La Chimera

La Chimera received a nine-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Cannes back in May. Alice Rohrwacher’s stylized story is part romantic costume drama, part crime yarn, part comedy of longing. Rohrwacher deploys a variety of historical film and theatrical techniques to tell the tale of a young archaeologist caught up in the illegal underground trade of Etruscan artifacts. The movie’s depictions of the Italian countryside recall the heightened realism of Italian postwar cinema, and even the casting of Isabella Rossellini feels like a nod to the Italian Golden Era. La Chimera is a movie about love and crime, but also a movie about movies. And it feels like it’s about to break in the U.S. just in time for awards season. See it now and brag about it when your friends can’t get tickets for the Thanksgiving theatrical release. 4 p.m. Oct. 1 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 JOE NOLAN

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

A24 didn’t give us an opportunity to view this time-bouncing, Southern-based drama, which had its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. In her feature-film debut, writer/director/Tennessean Raven Jackson goes back and forth through the decades as she tells the story of Mack, a woman of color loving and learning in rural Mississippi. (It was also partially shot in Jackson’s home state.) Three different women play Mack, including British actress Zainab Jah as older Mack. With Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) handling producing duties, we’re just gonna assume that some harrowing, heartbreaking, hella-Black shit will go down. 6:30 p.m. Oct. 1 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 CRAIG D. LINDSEY

I Used to Be Funny

Writer-director Ally Pankiw, known for her work as a story editor on Schitt’s Creek and as a director on shows such as The Great and the most recent season of Black Mirror, makes her feature film debut with I Used to Be Funny. The film stars Rachel Sennott (Shiva Baby, Bottoms), who’s in line to take the throne from Danny McBride as Funniest Person Alive, in my humble opinion. Sennott plays Sam, a stand-up comic in Toronto struggling with depression after a girl she used to nanny goes missing. Sam must decide whether to join in on the search for the missing girl in this comedy-drama that borders on thriller territory. 7 p.m. Oct. 2 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 LOGAN BUTTS

A Taste of Things

Known as The Pot-au-Feu in France, A Taste of Things sees Vietnamese French filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng (Norwegian Wood, Eternity) teaming up with Benoît Magimel and Oscar winner Juliette Binoche for what looks like a scrumptious romance between two French foodies in the 1880s. Trần won the Best Director honor at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for this project in May. In his review for The Telegraph, film critic Robbie Collin says the “culinary romance is so vividly and lovingly made, you’ll swear you can smell and taste every shot.” Sounds like you’ll want to grab a bite before watching. 12:30 p.m. Oct. 3 at the Belcourt CORY WOODROOF

Fallen Leaves

From Le Havre to The Other Side of Hope, Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki has made a career of unforgettable character studies steeped in humanist ideas and hard-earned emotions. His latest film Fallen Leaves won the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and has been selected by Finland as its submission for the Best International Feature Film at next year’s Academy Awards. Indiewire film critic David Ehrlich described Fallen Leaves as the director’s “lovely ode to movies” that “finds light in the darkness of modern life.” If that’s not the perfect description for a Kaurismäki film, we’re not sure what is. 1 p.m. Oct. 4 at the Belcourt CORY WOODROOF