About a month and a half ago, we received the list of films selected for the Derby City Film Festival, the region’s most renowned celebration of independent cinema. The time is now nigh: the festival occurs this weekend at the Clifton Center, running from Friday, February 17th to Sunday, February 19th.
The festival opens at 7:00 on Friday evening with “Wid Winner and the Slipstream,” directed by Kentuckian Alex Gaynor. “Wid Winner” tells the story of two men on a cross-country trip to collect used car parts with which to construct a time machine.
The festival then continues with a plethora of feature films, short films, documentaries, international films, student films, panels, and workshops, before concluding with one of the most anticipated films of the weekend: “Below Zero,” which plays on Sunday at 6:00. In this film, a screenwriter suffering from writer’s block (Edward Furlong) shuts himself in a freezer in an old slaughterhouse in order to force inspiration, and the lines between fantasy and reality soon become blurred. The writer of the film, Signe Olynyk, refers to herself as a “method writer”: to write the script, she locked herself in a slaughterhouse’s freezer for five days.
Full details on the film schedules and details on the panels and workshops can be found at the Derby City Film Festival website. Since Louisvillians have a love of all things local, here is a list of films with connections to our city or our state, along with their showtimes:
+"Bailout" (Saturday at 3:30)
+"Bizarnival: Tuxedos in the Attic" (Saturday at 4:00, with Shorts Group C)
+"Frames" (Saturday at 12:00)
+”It’s In the Blood” (Saturday at 8:00)
+"Just For Today" (Saturday at 12:30, with Shorts Group A)
+”Legendary: When Baseball Came to the Bluegrass” (Sunday at 4:00)
+”Mother’s Red Dress” (Saturday at 2:00)
+”Overtime” (Saturday at 10:00)
+"Please Try Again" (Saturday at 12:40, with Shorts Group A)
+”Sam Steele and the Crystal Chalice” (Friday at 8:00)
+"Smells Like Community Spirit" (Sunday at 2:30)
+”Wid Winner and the Slipstream” (Friday at 7:00)
+”Wireface… In the Beginning” (screening with “Overtime”)
Tickets cost $7.00 for individual film screenings, or a festival pass can be purchased for $50.00. There are also passes available for each day of the festival. Pricing information and online ticket sales can be found here.
Trailers for some of the films to be screened can be found here.
Image courtesy of the Derby City Film Festival website.
