The Scene has been attending the Nashville Film Festival since the days it had a different name (the Sinking Creek Film Celebration), a different location (Vanderbilt's Sarratt Cinema) — and a much different attendance figure. In those days, several hundred people would wedge for a weekend into Sarratt's wooden desk seats for lineups heavy on documentaries, experimental films and the stirrings of what would become the independent cinema groundswell.
This year, upwards of 25,000 are expected to visit the rechristened NaFF over its two-weekend run, continuing today through April 25 at Regal's Green Hills megaplex. That's a lot of people, a lot of films and a lot to pack into limited time, energy and space. So as you start to fill out your schedule, consult our annual guide to getting the most day by day out of NaFF's roster of feature films, music docs, animated and live-action shorts, and other attractions.
We've got FAQs on everything from ticket info to repeat screenings. We've got a spotlight on Tennessee-related films. We've even made you a handy list that will help if you can only pick five movies out of the roughly 280 showing this year. Most of all, we've pre-screened more than three dozen festival features and passed along our opinions on what to see (or skip) below, with additional notes on films we didn't get to see in advance. We'll also offer updates throughout the festival week on the Scene's arts and culture blog Country Life, on Twitter and on Facebook.
So find your seat — the lights are going down.
★ Highly recommended
Thursday, 4/16
★ 6 Desires: D.H. Lawrence and Sardinia
(5:15 p.m.; also 3:45 p.m. April 17) Critic Mark Cousins has evolved into a filmmaker of substance. His chatty, erudite 15-episode The Story of Film became an unexpected hit when TCM aired it a few years back. Cousins' latest essay film, while it does touch on the cinema, is more of a sojourn into intellectual history in the vein of Chris Marker. It returns us to 1921, when Lawrence and his wife left Britain for Sardinia. As he moves through spaces the couple haunted, Cousins is interested in how writing bears traces of the history that circulates around it, and considers whether those traces can be reread from the landscape today. MICHAEL SICINSKI
Austin to Boston
(6 p.m.; also noon April 17) This road movie/rock doc chronicles four mostly British indie-Americana acts as they pile into vintage VW camper vans driven by Mumford & Sons member Ben Lovett and Old Crow Medicine Show's Gill Landry for a zigzagging two-week tour of earnest shenanigans and club dates across Middle America. If 72 minutes of that sounds boring, it is — perhaps even for fans of featured artists such as Ben Howard and Bear's Den. While a detour into Nathaniel Rateliff's hometown of Herman, Mo., gives a decent glimpse into the singer-songwriter's bootstrap small-town upbringing (he and Landry are the two Americans on the tour) and live footage of folk-rock sister act The Staves' otherworldly harmonizing yanks the heartstrings a time or two, this traveling revue — part of Lovett's record label cum loose touring collective Communion — mostly just captures giddy Brits as they amuse themselves with very American activities, like going to shooting ranges, eating fast food and camping. ADAM GOLD
★ Goodbye to Language 3D
(7:15 p.m.) The latest from one of the world's surviving masters of '60s art cinema, Jean-Luc Godard, is a typically (some would say maddeningly) oblique cine-essay, pieced together via footage of a lovers' quarrel, fragments of a thriller plot and adorable home videos of a dog. The twist is that Godard shot Goodbye to Language in 3D and uses the format in innovative ways, sometimes taking advantage of the technology to create a natural split-screen by sending different images to each eye. The film's a challenging one, geared more toward people already familiar with Godard's gnomic style and preoccupations. But those who are hip to the New Wave legend will be delighted to see that even in his 80s, he's still trying to reinvent cinema. NOEL MURRAY
★ (T)ERROR
(8:45 p.m.; also noon April 17) One of the most gripping and mind-boggling documentaries in recent years, Lyric R. Cabal and David Felix Sutcliffe's (T)ERROR follows an undercover FBI operation from start to finish, as a misanthropic old stoner tries to earn the trust of a possible domestic terrorist. Cabal and Sutcliffe have captured some incredible footage of a covert op in progress, but they don't take anything about it at face value. This is a movie about how the war on terror can easily devolve into a petty, pathetic skirmish, where a flawed amateur is paid a lot of money by the government to try and convince a non-threatening nobody to commit treason. (T)ERROR is an eye-opener, and exciting to boot. NOEL MURRAY
Not screened at press time:
• Adult Beginners (7 p.m.) A name cast featuring Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale, Joel McHale, Josh Charles, Mike Birbiglia and Jane Krakowski populates this comedy about an entrepreneurial failure turned reluctant nanny, directed by Oscar-nominated producer Ross Katz (Lost in Translation). Kroll will attend, as will Tig Notaro, who appears in the preceding short "Clown Service."
• Monument to Michael Jackson (9 p.m.; also 3:15 p.m. April 17) That's what a Serbian village plans to erect to stimulate tourism and replace a deposed despot's statue in the town square, in writer-director Darko Lungulov's acclaimed tragicomedy. In Serbian, Macedonian and German with subtitles.
• Another (9:30 p.m.) Kicking off the Graveyard Shift section of late-night genre-movie programming: Jason Bagnacki's throwback to the color-saturated Italian possession thrillers and giallo shockers of the 1970s. Happy 18th birthday, Jordyn — Auntie Ruth has a surprise for you ...
Friday, 4/17
★ Los Hongos
(5 p.m.; also 12:30 p.m. April 20) Oscar Ruiz Navia's socially relevant slow-burn film follows Ras and Calvin, two graffiti kids who live in the Colombian city of Cali, a place Navia depicts as holistically and realistically as anything in David Simon's repertoire. But the real strength of Los Hongos is the collaborative — and at times combative — relationship between Ras and Calvin and the many characters who populate their worlds. A must-see for graffiti heads and social activists. In Spanish with subtitles. LAURA HUTSON
★ The Ambassador to Bern
(5:15 p.m.; also 5:15 p.m. April 21) The title of Attila Szasz's political thriller is something of a grim pun: The subject is indeed the Hungarian ambassador to Switzerland, but if anybody's facing public immolation it's this harried bureaucrat (played with clammy intensity by Janos Kulka), caught between conniving apparatchiks in post-revolution 1958 and the former freedom fighters who've stormed his office in protest of the Soviet clampdown. The latter point a gun at his head and issue demands; the former — led by an underling who wants his job — are only too happy not to negotiate. It's a nifty premise, and under first-time feature helmer Szasz's accomplished direction — the opening that lays out the embassy and introduces the principals in spatially precise strokes is particularly sharp — the result sometimes resembles a cross between a muck-raking Costa-Gavras suspenser and Dog Day Afternoon ... all in a crisp 76 minutes. In Hungarian and German with subtitles. JIM RIDLEY
★ Some Beasts
(5:30 p.m.; also 3:15 p.m. April 20) Our screening link kept stalling throughout this promising feature by Dallas writer-director Cameron Bruce Nelson, and here's why we plan to catch it on the big screen: The cast mixes nonprofessional actors with indie vets like star Frank Mosley, whose résumé includes Upstream Color and Ain't Them Bodies Saints, against the backdrop of a working farm; producer Ashley Maynor backed one of the best movies at last year's NaFF, Knoxville filmmaker Paul Harrill's Something, Anything (now on Netflix); and the film was completed with a grant from the Austin Film Society. Any two of those factors would make it worth a look; all three's a lock. JIM RIDLEY
Love & Mercy
(7:30 p.m.) Screenwriter Oren Moverman and producer-director Bill Pohlad take a novel approach to the life of Brian Wilson, telling the Beach Boy's story by cutting back and forth between two periods in his life: the late 1960s, when Wilson was slowly losing his mind while working on Pet Sounds and Smile; and the mid-1980s, when he was living as a recluse under the care of a micro-managing psychotherapist (played by Paul Giamatti). Paul Dano and John Cusack are terrific as the the '60s Wilson and the '80s Wilson. Love & Mercy is too shapeless and too beholden to biopic cliches, bit it does capture what makes its subject special, particularly in the scenes where the young genius is happily playing around in the studio. NOEL MURRAY
★ For Grace
(8:45 p.m.; also 11 a.m. April 18) Food is a tricky subject for documentarians, because the emotions it stirs rarely transmit to the viewer. But filmmakers Kevin Pang and Mark Helenowski have found a powerhouse story in Curtis Duffy, arguably the next great American chef. Pang, an award-winning writer, and Helenowski, a young filmmaker with an outstanding touch, take the opening of Duffy's Michelin three-star restaurant Grace and turn it into an examination of the chef's troubled past. It's a masterful look at the demons that often drive the best. STEVE CAVENDISH
The Ladies of the House
(10 p.m.) Fans of grindhouse rotgut will lap up the debut feature from John Stuart Wildman, which reflects his unusual résumé: Film Society of Lincoln Center publicist and co-star of vintage VHS oddity Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. Alas, a lack of rooting interest really hurts his grimy, sleazy Eli Roth-esque homage to '70s gore movies: Do I cheer for the sadistic cannibal strippers, or the most reluctant of the rape-ready bros who get inside their charnel house? Wildman has talent — he nails the 42nd Street atmospherics — and I feel like I've seen 7,000 other versions of this movie that weren't as briskly paced, impressively shot and edited, or loaded with such nauseatingly convincing makeup effects. The downside is, I now feel like I've seen 7,001 versions of this movie. JIM RIDLEY
Not screened at press time:
• Cowboys (12:30 p.m.; also 5:30 p.m. April 23) An Eastern Western? A professional theater director returns to his home village to stage a misbegotten cowboy musical in this Croatian crowdpleaser from writer-director Tomislav Mrsic, reportedly due for an English-language remake. In Croatian with subtitles.
• Shorts — Experimental Showcase (5:45 p.m.; also 2:30 p.m. April 20) NaFF was founded 46 years ago as a showcase for cinema's farthest reaches; this year's dispatches include films by Mary Helena Clark, Joana Pimenta, Paul Horn, Arash T. Riahi, Nicolas Brault, and Michael Lange & David Gesslbauer. Watch for a cameo by Miley Cyrus.
• Buskin' Blues (6:30 p.m.; also 10:45 a.m. April 18) Expect much of the street-performing population of Asheville, N.C., to be on hand for Erin Derham's documentary about the incredibly diverse musical talents to be found on the city's sidewalks, the challenges they face, and the customs they share.
• Safelight (7:15 p.m.; also 10 a.m. April 18) American Horror Story's Evan Peters and Juno Temple co-star in Tony Aloupis' romantic road-trip drama about two teens on a journey of discovery to California's lighthouses.
• Animation Showcase (7:45 p.m.; also 4:30 p.m. April 20) You won't want to miss Sundance sensation "World of Tomorrow," the latest from cult hero Don Hertzfeldt, in NaFF's perennially popular block of animated shorts.
• Krisha (9:45 p.m.; also 3:30 p.m. April 20) This year's SXSW narrative feature winner, adapted by Trey Edward Shults from his 2014 short about a fraught Thanksgiving gathering with family members in most key parts.
• Unexpected (9:45 p.m.) How I Met Your Mother star Cobie Smulders gets a dramatic showcase in Kris Swanberg's well-received Sundance character study as an inner-city teacher who bonds with a promising student (Gail Bean) over the situation they share: an unplanned pregnancy.
Saturday, 4/18
★ Top Spin
(4 p.m.; also 12:30 p.m. April 19) The world is currently obsessed with true crime documentaries. But Top Spin, a documentary the follows three American teenagers who are sacrificing their high school years in hopes of winning the U.S.'s first Olympic medal in ping pong, is more riveting than watching Robert Durst burp up his breakfast. If you were a fan of Spellbound, which profiled young students as they prepared for and competed in the National Spelling Bee (the kid who talked in robot voices was the best!), then put Top Spin on your must-see list. Then stay for NaFF's table-tennis festivities. MEGAN SELING
The Keepers
(4:15 p.m.; also 12:15 p.m. April 20) For anyone who loves animals, working at a zoo sounds like a dream job — spending your days surrounded by tigers, red pandas and every kind of snake you can imagine. The Keepers shows what that life is like by following the staff at the Memphis Zoo as they sing gospel songs to the penguins, feed watermelons to hippos and shovel lion poo. But the documentary also shows that being a zookeeper is not always a real-life fantasy: It's highly competitive, the pay is lousy, and sometimes people treat you like crap. Worst of all, not all the animals have a happy ending — like Kofi, the giraffe that has been living at the zoo for years but can't be out with other giraffes for safety reasons. He has to stay behind locked doors until they can transport him to another zoo or refuge, which would be a heartbreaking thing to face every day. #FREEKOFI! MEGAN SELING
Eadweard
(6:45 p.m.; also 1:45 p.m. April 19) A period piece based on the life of eccentric 19th century photography innovator Eadweard Muybridge, Eadweard focuses largely on the phase of Muybridge's career in which he shot nude series — according to the film, lots and lots ... and lots of nude series — in order to capture the "essence of an action." Michael Eklund turns in a very Daniel Plainview-esque depiction of the photographer, but aside from some to-be-expected-in-Hollywood anachronisms (e.g., those nude bodies look awfully yoga-toned for the time), it's a strikingly shot depiction of a fascinating life. D. PATRICK RODGERS
Entertainment
(7 p.m.) The very definition of "not for everybody," Rick Alverson's semi-comedy Entertainment stars real-life stand-up Gregg Turkington (aka Neil Hamburger) as a performer who spends his days sullenly drinking his way across desolate stretches of California and his nights delivering raunchy, halting one-liners in underpopulated bars. The film's title is ironic: Though the comic's act is funny (in a sick-humor kind of way), most of Entertainment consists of bleakly absurdist scenarios that test the viewer's endurance. It's an experience like no other, though, and adventurous festgoers aren't likely to forget it. NOEL MURRAY
★ Sweet Micky for President
(9:30 p.m.; also 3:45 p.m. April 19) In the wake of 2010's devastating Haitian earthquake that killed 220,000 people, outspoken, flamboyant Haitian konpa singer Sweet Micky (née Michel Martelly) became his country's first democratically elected president to peacefully take office. The story of his campaign as an unlikely people's candidate is fascinating and compelling. Haitian-American musician and Fugees co-founder Pras Michel (who dominates screen time here) encouraged Martelly to join the race, working tirelessly against the odds to break the long cycle of despots in the world's first independent black republic. But an already uphill battle gets even steeper when Michel's world-famous estranged former Fugees bandmate Wyclef Jean enters the race. Actor-philanthropist Sean Penn, Haiti's most high-profile, dedicated charitable champion, gets in the mix, as does then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Director Ben Patterson captures all the drama and digestively distills the complex politics in this Michel-produced (and consequently propagandistic) documentary, which only passingly mentions or altogether omits criticism that's since dogged Martelly's presidency. Pras Michel will attend the screening. ADAM GOLD
WildLike
(9:45 p.m.; also 9:30 p.m. April 20) David Hall Green's slow-moving but rewarding depiction of a runaway teen in the Alaskan wilderness is worth seeing, particularly for its performances. Charismatic newcomer Ella Purnell plays the brooding, damaged MacKenzie, on the run from her subtly sinister uncle (Brian Geraghty); veteran actor Bruce Greenwood plays the similarly brooding and damaged Rene "Bart" Bartlett, a cagey hiker who somewhat reluctantly takes MacKenzie under his wing. The themes of loss and mourning are painted just a tad thick — nearly every character seems to have a dead brother or father or wife — but the film's breathtaking backdrop, which serves almost as a character in itself, deserves to be seen on the big screen. D. Patrick Rodgers
Cub
(10 p.m.) A sort of junior version of the "monster in the woods" movie, Jonas Govaerts' Belgian horror-comedy follows a scout troop whose camping trip takes a scary turn when they're simultaneously stalked by a clever serial killer and a feral boy, both of whom only the troop's resident outcast Sam seems able to see. The film works best when it's about how the other kids' (and counselors') mistreatment of Sam makes his life plenty hellish even before the predators close in. But despite its wild premise, Cub is disappointingly flat — neither funny enough nor nerve-wracking enough for a campers-in-trouble throwback. NOEL MURRAY
Not screened at press time:
• Shorts — Young Filmmakers Showcase (10 a.m.) NaFF's annual Saturday morning block spotlighting the festival headliners of tomorrow.
• The Homestretch (1 p.m.) Three homeless teens fortify themselves against Chicago's bitter cold and hardships in this free ITVS Community Cinema screening, co-sponsored by Nashville Public Television with a post-film discussion led by Oasis Center.
• How to Dance in Ohio (1:30 p.m.; also 6:15 p.m. April 23) Set for premiere later this year on HBO, Alexandra Shiva's doc offers an upbeat look at three teens at various points on the autistic spectrum preparing for their first prom night.
• The Boy and the World (1:45 p.m.) Hailed as one of the most dazzling gems from Brazil's current animation boom, Ale Abreu's dialogue-free epic uses a broad sampling of his homeland's native music to chart a boy's search for his father in the city.
• Outlander (3 p.m.) Enjoy the kilty pleasure of Starz's softcore Scottish drama at a combination screening and costume parade. Let your sporran swing with pride!
• Meru (4:30 p.m.) Outdoor-adventure fans will want to hang on tight as three climbers attack one of the world's most daunting walls — the Shark's Fin on the Himalayas' Mount Meru — in Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi's doc.
• The Blind Boys of Alabama: How Sweet the Sound (4:45 p.m.) Now in their eighth decade, the soul-stirring gospel greats share their story in Leslie McCleave's documentary tribute. What makes this a must-see: The Blind Boys of Alabama will be attending.
• All-Stars (6:45 p.m.; also 1:15 p.m. April 19) Vanderbilt grad Lance Kinsey has a roster of comic acting credits dating back to Doctor Detroit and multiple Police Academy sequels (he was the hapless Proctor). He must've called in a lot of favors for this mock-doc about the reluctant coach of a fastpitch team for 10-year-old girls, 'cause look at this cast: Fred Willard, John Goodman, Illeana Douglas, Richard Kind, Mary Lynn Rajskub ...
• Made in Japan (7:15 p.m.; also noon April 20) Welcome back to Nashville, Tomi Fujiyama — the first Japanese country music superstar, who played the Grand Ole Opry in 1964 and got a standing ovation. She'll likely get another tonight at Josh Bishop's documentary, whose executive producers include Morgan Spurlock and narrator Elijah Wood (who may attend).
• The Challenger (7:15 p.m.; also 12:30 p.m. April 20) Kent Moran wrote, directed and stars in this boxing drama about a Bronx auto mechanic who steps in the ring for his mother's sake. The late Michael Clarke Duncan (in his last role) and S. Epatha Merkerson co-star.
• The Dead Lands (9 p.m.) No less a fan than James Cameron is beating the taramu for this horror-tinged Maori-language adventure, a sort of Kiwi Game of Thrones that pits an orphaned warrior boy (James Rolleston) against the cannibal hordes of a rival tribe. Watch for Rena Owen, the star of Lee Tamahori's due-for-rediscovery drama Once Were Warriors.
• 7 Chinese Brothers (9:15 p.m.; also 4:15 p.m. April 20) Jason Schwartzman carries Bob Byington's comic study of a booze-sodden mope who whiles away his time at a Quick Lube or talking to his dog. Shoring him up are TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, Alex Karpovsky and filmmaker Alex Ross Perry.
Sunday, 4/19
★ L'il Quinquin
(2:45 p.m.) Though many great filmmakers are trying their hand at TV these days, it's still surprising that French iconoclast Bruno Dumont (L'Humanite, Flanders, Hadewijch) would take the plunge. Perhaps even more surprising is that Dumont's four-part miniseries is an unqualified triumph. A cockeyed police procedural set in a redneck town in the French hinterlands, Li'l Quinquin follows the fortunes of an awkward but determined inspector named Roger Van Der Weyden (Bernard Pruvost). Not for nothing is this disheveled Columbo figure named after a famed painter of altarpieces; these mysteries do indeed have a deity at the center. In French with subtitles; highly recommended. Preceded by Nashville cinematographer turned director Tracy Facelli's short "How I Got Made," starring Grayson Russell, Briley Thomas and Jeff Boyet. MICHAEL SICINSKI
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
(6:45 p.m.) It's a real coup for Nashville to land what was hands-down the most popular film at the Sundance festival this year: a cinephile-friendly teen dramedy about a shy filmmaker named Greg (played by Thomas Mann) whose plans to coast anonymously to graduation are thwarted when he and his only friend/collaborator Earl (Ronald Cyler II) are forced to spend time with leukemia-stricken classmate Rachel (Olivia Cooke). But while plenty of post-Sundance viewers are likely to fall in love with Greg and his goofy home movies, there's also bound to be some resistance to Me and Earl's phony version of high school, its underdeveloped supporting characters, and its somewhat insensitive use of a terrible disease as a tool to improve the life of an ordinary boy. Will that backlash begin here? NOEL MURRAY
Songs She Wrote About People She Knows
(8:15 p.m.; also 1 p.m. April 22) The premise is charming — a middle-aged woman who has trouble speaking her mind is trying to sort through the shit that life has thrown at her with "musical therapy," where she leaves lovely-sounding but brutally honest singsong messages on people's answering machines. (The opening number, about how she can't be thrown in jail so long as she doesn't actually do the things she sings about, is pretty great.) But when she sings to her boss, Dave, about how he's an asshole, her bravery weirdly reignites his abandoned rock-star dreams, and he drags her into his plan to be music's next big thing. The acting is not awesome, and there's so little depth to the characters it's hard to trust they're not just terrible, vapid people who deserve the shit they were served. Yet even with some undeniable flaws, it still comes together in a mostly sweet and quirky film. MEGAN SELING
★ Naz & Maalik
(8:30 p.m.; also 3:15 p.m. April 22) Jay Dockendorff's playful, compassionate and beautifully acted feature tags along with two closeted Muslim teens as they traverse gentrified Brooklyn hawking lotto tickets and discussing the limits of their faith. Hounded by an FBI agent who is "just getting to know the neighborhood" — as the bureau mistakes their down-low secrecy for sinister plotting — both young men try to decide for themselves whether Allah is punishing or compassionate. Lead actors Kerwin Johnson Jr. and Curtiss Cook Jr. seem to grow over the course of the film: We watch their characters become increasingly wary of the world around them as their relationship is tested. Not to be missed. ERICA CICCARONE
★ Slow West
(9:15 p.m.) Writer-director John Maclean's Western fable requires a little patience, not because it's poky or arty, but because for much of its first hour it's too precious. In telling the story of a dangerously naive Scottish immigrant (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) who goes searching for his childhood sweetheart on the frontier with the help of a good-hearted outlaw (Michael Fassbender), Maclean relies on familiar pulp archetypes, which he pushes toward the twee. But then, out of the blue, Slow West resolves with a climactic half-hour gunfight sequence that's as exciting — and funny — as the genre has ever produced. The destination more than justifies the journey. NOEL MURRAY
Sufferland
(10 p.m.) Local psychedelic/prog/noise outfit Linear Downfall — which in the past has collaborated with The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd as Electric Würms — describes its art film Sufferland (a companion piece to the band's album of the same name) as "a walk through the many compartmentalized landscapes in the mind of a tormented girl who is under the control of a tormented man." Much more a series of vignettes than any sort of conventional narrative piece, Sufferland is part performance art, part horror film, part long-form music video — and those parts add up to a pretty challenging watch. There's a contorting, nearly nude figure rolling around in a cement cellar; candlelit occult rituals; extreme close-ups of a man eating what appears to be raw meat; a daisy growing out of a steak. Bon appetit! D. PATRICK RODGERS
Not screened at press time:
• Imba Means Sing (4 p.m.; also noon April 21) The young stars of the African Children's Choir — especially their 8-year-old drummer Moses — take center stage as director Danielle Bernstein charts their path from poverty to international stardom.
• The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young (4:15 p.m.; also 4:30 p.m. April 22) Directors Annika Iltis and Timothy Kane explore what few media people (other than The Believer essayist Leslie Jamison) have dared before: the secret East Tennessee race notorious for punishing its participants beyond all rational limits.
• Molly Takes a Trip (6:15 p.m.; also 4 p.m. April 21) Previously known as GASP, Annika Kurnick's enigmatic drama strands a shy, bookish girl (Elsa Carette) on an island for a night of debauchery with a party that's missing one thing: the host who invited everyone.
• Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey (6:30 p.m.; also 2:45 p.m. April 23) Hal Holbrook's six-decade partnership with the best comedy writer an actor could want — Mark Twain — forms the basis for Scott Teems' fond salute.
• Live From New York! (6:45 p.m.; also 3 p.m. April 20) Head writer and "Weekend Update" co-anchor Colin Jost will be on hand for this documentary history of Saturday Night Live's first 40 years.
• Rosenwald (7 p.m.) Documentarian Aviva Kempner (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg) tells a story that should be far better known: that of Julius Rosenwald, the Sears, Roebuck tycoon who devoted his fortune to building 5,400 schools in partnership with Booker T. Washington in African-American communities throughout the South (including in Middle Tennessee — his papers are housed at Fisk University). Kempner will attend the fest.
• Funny Bunny (9 p.m.; also 4:30 p.m. April 21) Alison Bagnall, the co-author of Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66, directed this comedy about the misshapen triangle involving a troubled animal activist (Joslyn Jensen), the trust-fund shut-in named Titty who worships her from afar (Olly Alexander), and the childhood-obesity activist (Kentucker Audley) who attempts to bring them closer.
Monday, 4/20
★ Margarita, With a Straw
(5:45 p.m.; also 3:15 p.m. April 22) An Indian feature about a young woman with cerebral palsy coming of age in New Delhi and at school at NYU, Margarita, With a Straw is both earnestly sweet and gratifyingly frank about sexuality. Laila (Kalki Koechlin) doesn't let her disability interfere with her ambitions as a writer, but when it comes to love and sex, there aren't clear role models for a girl in a wheelchair. The movie has a delicate touch depicting Laila's sexual experiences (including a lesbian affair) and is equally affecting showing her devotion to her loving, sitar-strumming mother (Revathy). It may seem too heart-warming for folks seeking avant-garde festival fare, but Koechlin's sunny, nuanced performance shouldn't be missed. DANA KOPP FRANKLIN
★ Welcome to Leith
(7 p.m.; also 2:45 p.m. April 23) A bracing look at the limits of free speech and the state of political debate in the 2010s, this documentary examines what happened when a handful of notorious white supremacists moved to a small North Dakota town and started making plans to found a new homeland. Directors Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker piece together a lot of the story after the fact through interviews, but they also have footage shot by the locals and the new arrivals as each tried to document (and to some extent provoke) "harassment." The Aryans are smug and enraging, but what makes Welcome to Leith so powerful is that Nichols and Walker are willing to ask whether people with repellent worldviews should be allowed a place to be themselves, even if it's just a few crummy trailers with no water. NOEL MURRAY
★ The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
(7:30 p.m.; also 9:15 p.m. April 23) Award-winning director Stanley Nelson's dynamic new documentary is invaluable, spotlighting a group whose fiery rhetoric and penchant for flamboyant public gestures often overshadowed a commendable general platform and objectives that were anything but radical. The first in Nelson's three-volume series on misunderstood or little-known black community institutions, The Black Panthers traces the group from its early beginnings in Oakland, Calif., to its emergence as a national entity and subsequent dissolution in the late '70s and early '80s. Nelson's production brilliantly combines interviews, news footage and portraits of charismatic figures like Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton to offer a compelling history. The Panthers' many good works included a free breakfast program, a solid newspaper, calls for wider job training in the inner cities and an emphasis on citizen involvement and political activism. Of course, these things were never as well publicized as their armed confrontations with the police and FBI. The film probably won't please those who view the Panthers either as black superheroes or armed thugs. But for anyone truly interested in trying to understand who and what they really were, it's the best filmed presentation yet. ROB WYNN
★ Runoff
(8:30 p.m.; also 2 p.m. April 21) One of the festival's major finds this year — a riveting character study reminiscent of the Dardenne brothers' ethical thrillers, both in its consideration of a moral dilemma from all angles and in its gradually tightening tension. In one of the best performances you're likely to see at NaFF '15, Joanne Kelly (Syfy's Warehouse 13) plays Betty Freeman, a farm wife whose family farm-supply business is being strangled by a Monsanto-like corporate competitor. A shady customer offers to make up the lost revenue — if Betty can do a little favor for him. The acting, plot developments and crises are all believably scaled: As with the Dardennes' movies, that only gives us more reason to bite our nails — especially with Kelly's immensely sympathetic protagonist forcing us to consider how we'd act at every turn. A hugely promising feature debut for writer-director-editor Kimberly Levin. JIM RIDLEY
Not screened at press time:
Frame by Frame (6 p.m.; also 12:30 p.m. April 21) A nominee for SXSW's Grand Jury prize, Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli's documentary trains a lens on male and female photojournalists attempting to build a free press in Afghanistan in the wake of Taliban rule.
Radiator (6:15 p.m.; also 12:30 p.m. April 21) Richard Johnson, the veteran British leading man perhaps best known for Robert Wise's The Haunting, and Gemma Jones, TV's Duchess of Duke Street, play an aging couple whose son (Daniel Cerquiera) must cope with their advancing infirmity in Tom Browne's black-humored drama.
My Voice, My Life (7 p.m.; also 12:45 p.m. April 22) Oscar-winning documentarian Ruby Yang ("The Blood of Yingzhou District") focuses on the astounding resilience of students and teachers working to put on a high school musical at a Chinese summer school for the blind and impoverished. In Cantonese with subtitles.
We Were Rebels (8:45 p.m.; also 3 p.m. April 21) A former child soldier in the Sudanese civil war, Agel finds a peaceful new life as captain of South Sudan's national basketball team — only to find conflict isn't so easy to escape, in Florian Scewe and Katharina von Schroeder's documentary. In English and subtitled Dinka.
The Midnight Swim (9 p.m.; also 3:45 p.m. April 23) Three sisters begin to experience strange phenomena when they meet at the lakefront home of their dead mother (NaFF favorite Beth Grant). Could Mom be sending messages? That's the hook of Sarah Adina Smith's eerie, understated first feature.
They Look Like People (9:30 p.m.) Yikes! A hit at this year's Slamdance, Perry Blackshear's shocker leads the audience to wonder whether one of a pair of old friends is dangerously disturbed, or the other really is a shape-shifting humanoid.
The Chambermaid (10 p.m.; also 2:30 p.m. April 22) Attention Fifty Shades of Grey fans — here's the BDSM drama that NaFF staffers vastly prefer. Luxembourg actress Vicky Krieps, a rising star seen most recently in the Philip Seymour Hoffman espionage drama A Most Wanted Man, plays a reserved hotel maid unable to shake her glimpse of a dominatrix at work. In German with subtitles.
Tuesday, 4/21
★ In My Father's House
(6:30 p.m.; also 1:45 p.m. April 22) The moving new documentary by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work) follows Chicago MC Che "Rhymefest" Smith — who won a Grammy for co-writing Kanye West's "Jesus Walks" and an Oscar for co-writing Selma's "Glory" — as he reconnects with his homeless, alcoholic and long-estranged father. It's a remarkably intimate family portrait, exploring not only Smith's newfound and sometimes tumultuous relationship with a father who's in recovery (and attempting to get his life back on track) but also Smith's relationships with his own children and the challenges that plague African-American families. Smith and the directors will appear. D. PATRICK RODGERS
For the Plasma
(9:30 p.m.; also 2:15 p.m. April 22) At last, a film for everyone who enjoys bewilderingly motivated characters and a baffling plot set against a soundtrack heavy on xylophone. It starts with the teasing ambiguity of a Murakami novel: Two women live in a remote house in Maine, monitoring CCTV footage of the forest to predict stock market trends. For a time, it's fun to guess what directors Bingham Bryant and Kyle Molzan have up their sleeves — you're not aware what's going on, but it sure looks interesting. Patience wears thin, however, as the sparse dialogue needlessly obfuscates the narrative. The arrival of two flatly written Japanese businessmen only heightens the sense you're watching somebody's hapless David Lynch imitation. ERICA CICCARONE
★ Felt
(10 p.m.) Jason Banker wrote, directed, produced and edited Felt, but it will undoubtedly be remembered as Amy Everson's movie. The actress, who helped Banker write the script, is in almost every shot, with her squeaky voice and awkward Aubrey Plaza deadpan. But Felt is rarely played for laughs — it follows Amy, an unhinging performance artist, as she adopts secret male alter egos (think flesh-colored body suits, realistic soft-pack dildos, and terrifying knit ski masks) to help her cope with an unnamed but obviously sexual trauma. Felt is weird, but that weirdness has a point — and a jaw-dropping conclusion. Recommended for horror fans who've been burned by love. LAURA HUTSON
Not screened at press time:
• Sand Dollars (5:30 p.m.; also 2 p.m. April 24) On the 40th anniversary of Robert Altman's Nashville, it's great to see Geraldine Chaplin getting her best reviews in many years for Laura Amelia Guzman and Israel Cardenas' drama about a wealthy Frenchwoman's shifting balance of power with a young Dominican sex worker (Yanet Mojica). In English and subtitled Spanish and French.
• Heartworn Highways Revisited (6 p.m.; also 9:45 p.m. April 23) Forty years after the wonderful music doc Heartworn Highways, which captured artists such as Guy Clark, David Allan Coe, Rodney Crowell and Steve Earle in their bohemian bloom, a new doc purports to catch up with their modern-day descendents — folks like Nikki Lane (who'll be at the screening), Justin Townes Earle, Jonny Fritz and Bobby Bare Jr.
• The Road Within (7 p.m.; also noon April 22) In writer-director Gren Wells' U.S. version of the German film Vincent Wants to Sea, a teenager with Tourette's (Robert Sheehan) embarks on a seriocomic road trip with a germophobe (Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel), an anorexic (Zoë Kravitz) — and his late mother's ashes.
• The Royal Road (7 p.m.; also 12:45 p.m. April 23) Queer-cinema historian, programmer, author and filmmaker Jenni Olson devised this one-of-a-kind meditation on butch gender roles, the Mexican-American War, the relationship between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Hitchcock's Vertigo and nostalgia, with an audio drop-in from Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner.
• Lake Los Angeles (8 p.m.; also 1:15 p.m. April 24) Director Mike Ott's follow-up to his indie drama Little Rock takes place in the desolate SoCal region of the title, concentrating on the developing bond between an exiled Cuban (Roberto Sanchez) and a 10-year-old Mexican girl (Johanna Trujillo) waiting for her family to arrive from across the border. In Spanish with subtitles.
• Revival: The Sam Bush Story (8:30 p.m.; also 4:30 p.m. April 24) Better get tickets now for the world premiere of Wayne Franklin and Kris Wheeler's portrait of Founding Father of Newgrass and master instrumentalist Bush — especially since rumor has it some guests you won't want to miss are planning to attend.
• Stray Dog (9:15 p.m.; also noon April 23) Advance word says not to miss this change-of-pace documentary by Oscar-nominated writer-director Debra Granik, about the biker and Vietnam vet known as Stray Dog who appeared in her indie smash Winter's Bone — and whose faith in his country's potential despite his experiences is something to behold.
• Manglehorn (9:30 p.m.) Al Pacino has a showcase role as the withdrawn locksmith hero of David Gordon Green's character study, who strikes up a tentative friendship with a small-town bank teller (Holly Hunter). Watch for a supporting role for filmmaker and frequent NaFF guest Harmony Korine.
Wednesday, 4/22
★ Homeless
(5:15 p.m.; also 3:30 p.m. April 23) "Filmed in a real shelter with real homeless people" sounds queasily like a sideshow come-on, but Clay Riley Hassler's affecting feature debut is nothing of the kind. Shot with nonprofessional actors in Winston-Salem, it's a portrait of a wary teen (Michael McDowell) trying to take the incremental steps — a shower, an interview, a job — that will get him out of a shelter and into an apartment. Hassler doesn't have to trump up conflict and crises: When you haven't got a car, money, a roof or dependable parents, making it through the day is struggle enough. When the kid gets a food-court job and a place to crash with a kindly co-worker (Julie Dunagan, agonizingly relatable), a viewer shares his elation, as well as his fragile hope that it will last. Thanks to the actors and Hassler and Anna Fields' script, we understand why the characters make the choices they do — even when we bitterly hope they'll choose differently. JIM RIDLEY
★ Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
(6 p.m.; also 2:30 p.m. April 23) Here's the movie that last year's stupefying, inexplicable NaFF award winner The Identical should have been: the true story of Jimmy Ellis, the singer who parlayed his blessing/curse — a voice that sounded uncannily like Elvis — into brief stardom with the help of a mask, The King's fortuitously timed death, and a morbid yet goofy gimmick that palmed him off as a possible second coming called Orion. Although some of it is very funny — especially one subject's recollection of his Polaroid porn stash — filmmaker Jeanie Finlay doesn't hoke up the story with cutesy flourishes. Ultimately, this oddly haunting doc is a tragedy: the story of a long, slow fall from showbiz grace, and a man left trying to fill an empty mask. JIM RIDLEY
★ Yosemite
(7:15 p.m.; also 1:30 p.m. April 23) Based like Gia Coppola's Palo Alto on short stories by actor James Franco (who appears here), writer-director Gabrielle Demeestere's take on Franco's material is surprisingly moving. Set in Palo Alto in the '80s, it follows the lives of three boys in the same fifth-grade class as they grapple with the usual coming-of-age stuff. Only the film is filled with foreboding: A human rib cage is discovered in a campfire. A stranger invites a child over to read comic books. Police hunt a mountain lion. Yosemite is moody and understated, with well-wrought dialogue and excellent performances from the young cast. I may be a hard sell on Franco in general, but I'd watch Yosemite again. Demeestere will attend. ERICA CICCARONE
H.
(9:45 p.m.; also noon April 23) Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia's beautiful but problematic film offers a parabolic imagining of two women's intertwining lives. The first woman's story involves the film's most interesting element — the phenomenon of Reborn Angels, a kind of super-realistic newborn doll treated with a care that's reminiscent of the Real Doll in Lars and the Real Girl. Robin Bartlett plays her character with nuanced kindness, and is the strong spine of an otherwise flimsy movie filled with portentous weirdness: random mysterious noises emanating from the sky, an increasingly silly recurring black horse, and an ending that seems like the filmmakers' attempt to deal with the trauma of miscarriage through science fiction. LAURA HUTSON
Not screened at press time:
• Diamond Tongues (5:45 p.m.; also 11:30 a.m. April 24) Connoisseurs of celluloid freakouts are directed to July Talk frontwoman Leah Goldstein's toxic diva trip as a jealous, stardom-obsessed wannabe actress up for her big break in a horror opus called Blood Sausage.
• Ben's at Home (6 p.m.; also 1 p.m. April 23) And he's not leaving, in this bittersweet post-breakup comedy starring Dan Abramovici.
• I'll See You in My Dreams (7:30 p.m.) In previous years, NaFF's warm-fuzzies slot went to feel-good fare such as The Intouchables; this year's model features Blythe Danner as a widow facing an unusual choice between romantic interest Sam Elliott and her growing closeness to poolboy Martin Starr.
• The Record Man (8:15 p.m.; also noon April 23) Mark Moormann's Tom Dowd and the Language of Music remains one of the most affecting music docs to show at NaFF; Moormann is back with another profile of a music-biz figure whose influence is far greater than his renown, producer/executive turned Miami disco czar Henry Stone.
• Country: Portraits of an American Sound (8:30 p.m.; also 5 p.m. April 23) That's right, portraits: the realm of veteran country-music photographers Les Leverett, Henry Diltz, Raeanne Rubenstein, Leigh Wiener, Henry Horenstein, David McClister and Michael Wilson, who discuss their famous images (with many of the subjects appearing on camera). Lorrie Morgan, Manuel and Peter Cooper are among those scheduled to attend.
• Fresh Dressed (8:45 p.m.) In this documentary fresh from Sundance, director Sasha Jenkins traces the evolution of hip-hop fashion from the Sunday best of slave days through the influence of Easy Rider and biker culture to the dawn of trailblazing rap style-setter Dapper Dan.
• Horsehead (10 p.m.) Only on the Graveyard Shift will you find a French nightmare phantasmagoria with a cast featuring Lucio Fulci leading lady Catriona MacColl, "One Night in Bangkok" chart-topper Murray Head, Haute Tension/Gaspar Noe bogeyman Philippe Nahon — and, oh yeah, a scepter-wielding equine demon summoned from a girl's deepest fears.
Thursday, 4/23
Alleluia
(10 p.m.) Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz's telling of the same real-life murders that inspired Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers and Arturo Ripstein's Deep Crimson may be the strangest, sickest take yet — a skin-crawling gradual immersion in homicidal symbiosis. Laurent Lucas' curdled good looks are well-suited to the part of a foot-fetishist con man who fleeces lonely women, only to meet his no-soul mate in pathetically clingy Lola Dueñas (from Almodóvar's Volver). Their path to hell doesn't swerve: The grisly comic undertones vanish altogether about the time they lay hands on an ax. In French with subtitles. JIM RIDLEY
Not screened at press time:
• Wolf Totem (6:30 p.m.) Quest for Fire and The Bear director Jean-Jacques Annaud returns with another nature epic, this one based on Jiang Rong's blockbuster Chinese novel about a Beijing student who battles marauders both lupine and human alongside a rugged group of Mongolian herdsmen. In subtitled Mandarin and Mongolian.
• The Tribe (7 p.m.; also 1:15 p.m. April 24) Not for the faint of heart, but it carries the Drafthouse Films badge of distinction. Last year's Cannes Critics Week prize winner, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's beyond-brutal drama plunges viewers into a violence-ridden Ukrainian boarding school for the deaf along with its newest teen resident. We're out of luck if we don't know sign language: there are no subtitles — something the director uses to withhold crucial information from viewers, as surely as the detailed sound tips us to things in store for the unaware characters.
Friday, 4/24
Not screened at press time:
• Do I Sound Gay? (6:15 p.m.) Is there a stereotypical way that gay men sound or speak, and does it make men self-conscious about their voices? Director David Thorpe addresses the topic from multiple angles, with help from subjects such as David Sedaris, George Takei and Megan Seling's old boss at The Stranger, Dan Savage.
• Welcome to Me (7 p.m.) What would you do with an $85 million lottery jackpot? Why, follow the example of O Magazine-obsessed nutcase Kristen Wiig — and produce your own syndicated TV show to give full vent to your neurosis, down to your swan-boat entrance. How's this for a supporting cast: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Linda Cardellini, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, Loretta Devine, Alan Tudyk and Joan Cusack?
• Rain the Color of Blue With a Little Red in It (10 p.m.) Watch out, or Dan Auerbach will snatch the ticket right out your hand for this Graveyard Shift must-see, the first Tuareg-language feature film: a Niger-set semi-remake of Purple Rain (dig that translated title), with guitarist Mdou Moctar in the role of His Royal Badness. Bombino fans, take me with U.
