In 1969, as far as film was concerned, Sundance was just a pretty boy who got his ass kicked with Butch Cassidy down in Bolivia. As for film festivals, there was Sinking Creek, a Middle Tennessee upstart founded that year by Mary Jane Coleman, a supporter of independent film back when the term meant mostly experimentals, documentaries and the occasional avant-garde feature.
Four decades later, Sinking Creek has become a torrent. Now known as the Nashville Film Festival, it's among the oldest festivals in the country, and last spring it set a new attendance record of more than 22,000 people. Now celebrating its 40th year, while undergoing nearly complete turnover in its top management, the NaFF promises a mix of world premieres, music docs and films from the international festival circuit, along with red-carpet events almost every night.
The festival is keeping most of those close to its chest, although the rumor mill tantalizes with possibilities (among them musicians, TV stars and maybe even a current Oscar nominee). But the NaFF offered a sneak peek Tuesday at its 2009 lineup, running April 16-23 at Green Hills. The early announcements range from a retrospective of past selections to the world premiere of a ballet film starring William Shatner.
No, you are not hallucinating. The documentary William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet concerns the attempt to create a ballet based on Shatner's 2004 album Has Been, produced by Nashville resident Ben Folds. Shatner and Folds are scheduled to attend, and the NaFF's new artistic director, Brian Owens, says he's already had inquiries from as far away as Toronto from people hoping to come.
The NaFF also hosts the local premiere of That Evening Sun, a Tennessee-filmed drama starring Hal Holbrook as a man confronting a family betrayal, an old enemy and the loss of his farm. Featuring actors Ray McKinnon and Walton Goggins from last year's NaFF hit Randy and the Mob, both of whom will attend, the indie feature was adapted from a novel by Middle Tennessee author William Gay.
Other 2009 festival selections include:
• Afterschool, a visually striking drama about teenage alienation by acclaimed young director Antonio Campos, who will attend the festival.
• Flying By, a world-premiere musical with Billy Ray Cyrus as a man who reunites with his teenage band at his high-school reunion. Last year's NaFF honoree Patricia Neal co-stars with Heather Locklear and High School Musical's Olesya Rulin.
• True Adolescents, a comedy about an indie rocker who takes his two teenagers on a disastrous hiking trip, featuring Frozen River Oscar nominee Melissa Leo and indie hero Mark Duplass.
• The Narrows, a drama about a student who gets in dutch with mobsters in his Brooklyn neighborhood starring Vincent D'Onofrio and Kevin Zegers.
• House of Numbers, Brent Leung's globe-spanning AIDS documentary, which was photographed by local filmmaker and NaFF staffer Pouria Montazeri.
• The Other Side of the Lens, the true story of a Salt Lake City newscaster, Reed Cowan, who arrived to cover the scene of a tragedy, only to find out the tragedy was his own. Cowan will attend the world premiere.
• Prodigal Sons, in which a transsexual filmmaker makes contact with the estranged brother who hasn't seen her since her surgery. That's only the first of many flabbergasting surprises in Kimberly Reed's documentary, which Owens says "is the only movie in my six years of programming where I walked up to the filmmaker and said, 'What are you doing in April?' "
Also on the bill are a number of selections tied to the festival's 40th anniversary. A restored print of Easy Rider, the movie that rattled Hollywood and ushered in the '70s, will be screened with special guest Peter Fonda and possibly others. (Here's hoping calls go out to Toni Basil and Phil Spector.) To represent NaFFs past, the festival has chosen retrospective screenings of Terry Zwigoff's Crumb, Kevin Smith's Clerks, Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth, and perhaps the best film ever made about moviemaking, Les Blank and Maureen Gosling's Werner Herzog documentary Burden of Dreams.
All-access passes are currently on sale at the NaFF website (nashvillefilmfestival.org). (Since the $225 cost includes access to meals and drinks in the VIP tent along with parties and 40 movies, it's something of a steal.) Individual tickets go on sale in early April.
Email jridley@nashvillescene.com, or call 615-844-9402.
