Nashville Film Festival '16: Sing Street, Morris from America Join Special Presentations

The Nashville Film Festival starts three weeks from Thursday, and anticipation ratcheted up several notches with the release of the Special Presentations slate, the event films shown out of competition.  The incomplete list announced a few weeks ago had plenty of tantalizing films: Yorgos Lanthimos' Cannes head-scrambler The Lobster, with Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz; the Sundance documentary sensation Weiner, following disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner's downfall; Joachim Trier's Louder Than Bombs with Isabelle Huppert and Jesse Eisenberg; Whit Stillman's Jane Austen adaptation Love & Friendship with Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny; Natalie Portman's directorial debut A Tale of Love and Darkness; and the PBS documentary miniseries American Epic charting the rise of popular music with help from presenters T Bone Burnett, Robert Redford and Jack White.

But NaFF has since announced even more titles in the section, starting with Chad Hartigan's Morris from America, a character study of a rap-loving teen relocated to Germany that brought The Office's Craig Robinson acting honors this year at Sundance. Taika Waititi's vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows played The Belcourt for months on word of mouth; his new feature Hunt for the Wilderpeople stars Sam Neill in the tale of a city-bred upstart and his feisty uncle who become inadvertent outlaws in the New Zealand bush.

Those who loved director John Carney's romantic musical drama Once will be pleased to see his birth-of-a-band Sundance crowdpleaser Sing Street alongside new films from revered indie filmmaker Ira Sachs (Little Men with Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle) and French actress turned director Anne Fontaine (The Innocents, a drama of sexual assault and liberation at a Polish convent in the waning days of World War II).

In Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, Jesus Camp directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady question whether TV has gone soft and vanilla since the taboo-busting days of All in the Family, Good Times and Maude. And as a natural fit with Jesse Moss' documentary The Bandit, the fest skeds a 40th anniversary screening of Smokey and the Bandit, now a treasure trove of ’70s interstate-America location shooting.

Below, the full list from the festival's website.

American Epic/United Kingdom, USA (Director: Bernard MacMahon)
AMERICAN EPIC takes us on a journey across time to the birth of modern music, when the musical strands of a diverse nation first combined, sparking a cultural renaissance that forever transformed the future of music and the world.Cast: T Bone Burnett, Jack White, Nas, Alabama Shakes, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Steve Martin, Edie Brickell, Beck, Elton John, Taj Mahal, The Avett Brothers. Three Night Closing Spotlight Event.

Born in Bristol/USA (Director: Chusy)
Everyone knows where rock ‘n’ roll, blues and jazz were born. But few know where one of America’s most important genres of music got its start. This is the story of country music’s most historic event: The Bristol Sessions. Through cinematic reenactments, we revisit those 12 days in 1927 when musicians recorded the songs that would go on to be known as the “Big Bang” of country music. Cast: Dolly Parton, Sheryl Crow, Vince Gill, Ashley Monroe, Keb Mo, Carl Jackson. Work in Progress.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople/New Zealand (Director: Taika Waititi)
Raised on hip-hop and foster care, defiant city kid Ricky gets a fresh start in the New Zealand countryside. He quickly finds himself at home with his new foster family: the loving Aunt Bella, the cantankerous Uncle Hec, and dog Tupac. When a tragedy strikes that threatens to ship Ricky to another home, both he and Hec go on the run in the bush. As a national manhunt ensues, the newly branded outlaws must face their options: go out in a blaze of glory or overcome their differences and survive as a family. Cast: Julian Dennison, Sam Neill, Rachel House, Rima Te Wiata, Oscar Knightley, Rhys Darby.

The Innocents/Poland, France (Director: Anne Fontaine)
In 1945 Poland, a young French Red Cross doctor who is sent to assist the survivors of the German camps discovers several nuns in advanced states of pregnancy during a visit to a nearby convent. Cast: Lou de Laâge, Agata Buzek, Agata Kulesza, Vincent Macaigne, Anna Próchniak, Klara Bielawka.

Little Men/USA (Director: Ira Sachs)
Jake is a quiet, sensitive middle schooler with dreams of being an artist. He meets the affably brash Tony at his grandfather’s funeral, and the unlikely pair soon hit it off. The budding friendship is put at risk, however, when a rent dispute between Jake’s father and Tony’s mother threatens to become contentious. Cast: Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Ehle, Paulina Garcia, Theo Taplitz, Michael Barbieri, Alfred Molina.

The Lobster/Greece, United Kingdom, Ireland (Director: Yorgos Lanthimos)
In a future world, single people are arrested and have 45 days to find a mate or they face being transformed into an animal and released into the woods. Cast: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, John C. Reilly, Lea Seydoux, Olivia Colman, Ben Whishaw.

Louder than Bombs/Norway, France, Denmark (Director: Joachim Trier)
The fractious family of a father and his two sons confront their different feelings and memories of their deceased wife and mother, a famed war photographer.Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Isabelle Huppert, Gabriel Byrne, Amy Ryan, David Strathairn, Devin Druid.

Love & Friendship/Ireland, Netherlands (Director: Whit Stillman)
Lady Susan Vernon takes up temporary residence at her in-laws’ estate and, while there, is determined to be a matchmaker for her daughter Frederica — and herself too, naturally. Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel, Emma Greenwell, Justin Edwards, Tom Bennett, Jemma Redgrave, Stephen Fry. Day One Spotlight.

Morris from America/USA, Germany (Director: Chad Hartigan)
The romantic and coming-of-age misadventures of a 13-year-old American living in Germany. Cast: Craig Robinson, Carla Juri, Lina Keller, Markees Christmas, Jakub Gierszal, Levin Henning.

Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You/USA (Director: Rachel Grady, Heidi Ewing)
A look at the life, work and political activism of one of the most successful television producers of all time, Norman Lear. Cast: John Amos, Adrienne Barbeau, Valerie Bertinelli, Todd Bridges, George Clooney, Dabney Coleman.

Sing Street/Ireland (Director: John Carney)
With 1980s Dublin mired in recession, Conor’s parents move him from a comfortable private school to a rough inner-city public school where the scrappy 14-year-old forms a band. Mentored by his older brother, a dropout who’s hip to cool tunes, Conor starts to compose lyrics and the glam-ish band finds its “no covers” groove. Renaming himself Cosmo, he convinces the mysterious, über-cool Raphina to star in their music videos (and tries to win her heart in the process). Cast: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Lucy Boynton, Jack Reynor, Aidan Gillen, Mark McKenna.

Smokey & the Bandit/USA (Director: Hal Needham)
The Bandit is hired to run a tractor trailer full of beer over county lines in hot pursuit by a pesky sheriff. Cast: Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Jackie Gleason, Mike Henry, Paul Williams. Special (almost) 40th Anniversary Presentation.

A Tale of Love and Darkness/Israel (Director: Natalie Portman)
A drama based on the memoir of Amos Oz, a writer, journalist, and advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Cast: Natalie Portman, Makram Khoury, Shira Haas, Neta Riskin, Gilad Kahana, Mor Cohen.

Weiner/USA (Director: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg)
An examination of disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign and the landscape of today’s political landscape. Cast: Anthony Weiner. Centerpiece Spotlight.