Photo caption: Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal in Raoul Peck’s FOE, screening at the Nashville Film Festival. Courtesy of Amazon Studios.
The Nashville Film Festival opens on Thursday, September 28 and runs through October 4 with a diverse menu of cinema. The Nashville Film Festival is the oldest running film festival in the South (this is the 54th!) and is an Academy Award qualifying festival. The program includes a mix of indies, docs and international cinema, including world and North American premieres.
The closing night feature is Foe, a drama from Oscar nominated director Raoul Peck (I Am Not a Negro) that stars fellow Oscar nominees Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal.
See it here first: several films in the program have already secured distribution and will be available to theater and/or watch-at-home audiences. Before just anybody can watch them, you can get your personal preview at the Nashville Film Festival: Foe, La Chimera, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Fingernails, Flora and Son, Eileen, The Taste of Things, Silver Dollar Road and The Disappearance of Shere Hite.
I love covering Nashfilm in person, but I’ll be covering remotely this year; that just leaves more pig-forward delicacies from Peg Leg Porker and Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint for you.
Check out the program and buy tickets at the festival’s Film Guide. Watch this space for Nashville Film Festival recommendations. I’ll be back in a couple days with my recommendations.
Photo caption: Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.
Fanny: The Right to Rock documents the first all-female rock band to get signed by a major record label and churn out five albums. Fifty years ago, the band Fanny was breaking ground for women musicians – and for lesbians and Filipinas. Women rockers were a novelty in the early 1970; imagine layering on LGBTQ identity and Asian-American heritage.
Although you probably haven’t heard of them, this was no garage band. They had a major label record deal, European tours, and hung out with big name peers. Unlike many male bands of the period, Fanny didn’t crash and burn due to drug use or clashing egos. They just never caught on with record-buyers.
FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.
It’s pretty clear that sexism in the music industry and media, combined with maybe being a little ahead of their time to deny Fanny stardom. Too bad – I would have loved to listen to them in their heyday.
Their music fits right into the stuff I was listening to in the 1970s. I’m guessing that the reason why I hadn’t heard of them is that they didn’t get played on FM radio in the Bay Area.
These women can still really rock in their 70s, and they’re a hoot. Tomorrow night, May 17, they’ll perform for one time at the Whisky A-Go-Go to commemorate the 50 year anniversary of their now infamous club performance at the Whisky.
Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.
Fanny: The Right to Rock is filled with colorful anecdotes from back in the day. Todd Rundgren, an important early associate of Fanny, and Bonnie Raitt appear as eyewitnesses. Cherie Curry of the Runaways, Cathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s and Kate Pierson of the B-52s testify to Fanny’s trailblazing status.
I screened Fanny: The Right to Rock last year at the Nashville Film Festival. On May 22, you can watch it on your very own television when It will be broadcast on PBS and begin streaming on on PBS.ORG and the PBS APP.
Hannah Lee Thompson in HANNAH HA HA. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.
The indie Hannah Ha Ha is an extraordinary film about an ordinary person. Hannah (musician Hannah Lee Thompson in her first film) is content with her life in a small town – helping her dad (he would be lost without her) and giving music lessons. She touches lives, and townfolks eagerly help celebrate her 26th birthday, But her brother Paul (Roger Mancusi) points out that she is comfortable with a path that will leave her without a career or, critically, health insurance.
Here’s the rub – Hannah’s family and her community recognize her contributions, but our economic system doesn’t.
Paul wants what is best for Hannah, but every time he talks to her, he makes her feel bad about herself, finally shaming her into finding her place in the conventional economy (which is not at the top of the pyramid). Paul’s advice is sensible – if she wants health insurance and secure housing, she will need a job; it’s just that the entry level jobs in the small town’s fast food chains are so soul-crushing for her. (The movie was filmed in Sharon, Massachusetts.)
Thompson, whose Hannah is smart, witty, capable and utterly ill-suited for life as a corporate pawn, is excellent. With her sarcastic charm, she’s sympathetic and relatable. Thompson perfectly captures how defeated even a talented person can feel when forced into a harsher environment.
Mancusi lets the audience glimpse that Paul himself is not as upwardly mobile as he thinks or portrays. Paul has bought into the “work hard and get rich” ethic, and there’s a hint of desperation and self-loathing that he’s not further up the corporate ladder. He’s like a two-bit insurance salesman who votes Republican because he thinks he’s a “businessman”; in reality, no one in the 1% is going to let Paul control capital.
Filmed in a cinéma vérité style, Hannah Ha Ha is the first feature written and directed by Joshua Pikovsky and Jordan Tetewsky, and it’s masterfully edited by Tetewsky. The 75-minute running time allows for the characters and the plot to meander without dragging.
We are our choices – but who frames those choices? Hannah Ha Ha is a thought-provoking film that explores the profound question of what makes for human value and fulfillment.
Hannah Ha Ha premiered last year at Slamdance, played Tribeca, and I screened it for the Nashville Film Festival, where I featured it in Under the Radar at Nashville. It’s now streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube. Hannah Ha Ha is one of the Best Movies of 2023 – So Far.
THE RETURN OF TANYA TUCKER.: FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile is a portrait of a music legend with sapped confidence, whose career is jumpstarted by admiring younger musicians. The audience gets a glimpse into the creative process of writing of a song, an Emmy winner at that.
Tanya Tucker, in showbiz from age 9, exploded onto the country music scene with the monster hit Delta Dawn at 13. After stardom in her teen years and a Wild Child period in her twenties, her career dipped, setting up a comeback in her thirties. Now sixty, by 2019 she hadn’t released any recording for 17 years.
In 2019, Shooter Jennings began a project to showcase Tucker’s talent with new material (a la Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash) and invited Brandi Carlile to help. Carlile, a huge Tanya Tucker fan, became central to the project, coaxing Tucker along, pumping up her confidence and riding the roller coaster of Tucker’s reliability issues. The Return of Tanya Tucker is essentially a “making of” documentary about the project.
Now 60 and looking older, Tucker has a lot of mileage on her (and has launched her own brand of tequila, named with the Spanish translation of Wild Thing). Carlile finds out that Tucker is a handful.
Tucker is still a formidable song stylist, though, with a distinctive cry-in-her-beer break in her voice. The project goes better than anyone could have expected, and there’s a Feel Good ending. The Wife particularly enjoyed this film.
I screened The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile for the Nashville Film Festival. It is now in theaters.
Photo caption: LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES. Courtesy of AppleTV.
Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues affirms my observation that, ideally, a satisfying documentary requires a great subject and great source material. For decades, apparently focused on his historical legacy, Louis Armstrong audiotaped his conversations with visiting friends, preserving his candid thoughts and reflections on his life and times. His family has made those taped conversations available to the filmmakers and Armstrong’s own words are a revelation.
Armstrong’s public Satchmo persona, perpetually upbeat and non-threatening, made White Americans comfortable and seemed Uncle Tom-like to younger Black Americans. Armstrong’s own words in private (he preferred being called Pops) leave no doubt about his own complicated thoughts. Armstrong, who was raised in the South at the height of the lynching period, was clear-eyed and resolute about American racism. His perception of personal safety and commercial viability intentionally guided his self-invented image and, also, the roles in the Civil Rights movement that he adopted and that he declined.
Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues also lays out Armstrong’s pivotal influences on impact on vocal popular music, on jazz and on American music. We also see Armstrong’s private personality with his family and intimates.
Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, which closed this year’s Nashville Film Festival, is steaming on AppleTV.
Hannah Lee Thompson in HANNAH HA HA. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.
While the Nashville Film Festivalhas its share of high-profile movies, don’t miss the gems that are screening under the radar. These movies are why we go to film festivals. Here are my top picks.
Indies: HANNAH HA HA
The indie Hannah Ha Ha is an extraordinary film about an ordinary person. Hannah (musician Hannah Lee Thompson in her first film) is content with her life in a small town – helping her dad (he would be lost without her) and giving music lessons. She touches lives, and townfolks eagerly help celebrate to her 26th birthday, But her brother Paul (Roger Mancusi) points out that she is comfortable with a path that will leave her without a career or, critically, health insurance. Paul wants what is best for Hannah, but every time he talks to her he makes her feel bad about herself, finally shaming her into finding her place in the conventional economy (which is not at the top of the pyramid). Filmed in a cinéma vérité style, Hannah Ha Ha is the first feature written and directed by Joshua Pikovsky and Jordan Tetewsky, and it’s masterfully edited by Tetewsky. Thompson, whose Hannah is smart, witty, capable and utterly ill-suited for life as a corporate pawn., is excellent. We are our choices – but who frames those choices? Hannah Ha Ha is a thought-provoking film that explores the profound question of what makes for human value and fulfillment.
International: PIGGY
Laura Galán in PIGGY. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.
In the fresh and darkly hilarious Spanish horror movie Piggy, Sara (Laura Galán) is an overweight teenager cruelly teased by her peers. She works in her family’s butcher shop, which supplies her tormentors with a surfeit of unkind pork-related nicknames. One day, at the town swimming pool, mean girls sadistically traumatize her. Sara makes a shocking decision, and Piggy becomes a kind of Carrie meets Beauty and the Beast. Piggy is the first feature for writer-director Carlota Pereda, a veteran television director. Horror films turn on whether the protagonist can survive, and, often, on whether the victims deserve their demise; Pereda has a lot of fun with both. This is a hoot.
Documentary: RELATIVE
A scene from Tracey Arcabasso Smith’s RELATIVE. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.
Relative is filmmaker Tracey Arcabasso Smith’s reflective exploration of intergenerational sexual abuse in her own family. As Smith lovingly, but insistently, interviews her family members, she uncovers an epidemic of abuse in generation after generation. Relative becomes ever more powerful as Smith refuses to sensationalize, but stays centered on the strength and humanity of the women on camera. This is a brilliantly edited film – first person testimonies are inter-cut with the home movies of a lively family – a family we now understand was stained with corrosive secrets. Finally, Relative (BTW a great title) takes us to how the cycle of abuse can be broken. Relative is the first feature for director Arcabasso Smith.
Piggy screens on Saturday night, Hannah Ha Ha on Sunday, and Relative on Monday. Here’s the trailer for Hannah Ha Ha.
LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK AND BLUES. Courtesy of AppleTV.
The Nashville Film Festival opens on Thursday, September 29 and runs through October 5 with a diverse menu of cinema, available both in-person and on-line. The Nashville Film Festival is the oldest running film festival in the South (this is the 53rd!) and is an Academy Award qualifying festival. The program includes a mix of indies, docs and international cinema, including world and North American premieres.
The Nashville Film Festival embraces its home in Music City and emphasizes films about music (like last year’s Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road and Fanny: The Right to Rock). That’s the case with the films that open and close this year fest:
Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, and
The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile.
See it here first: those opening and closing films, plus Piggy, Meet Me in the Bathroom, Nanny and Aftersun have all secured distribution and will be available to theater and/or watch-at-home audiences. Before just anybody can watch them, you can get your personal preview at the Nashville Film Festival.
I loved covering the 2021 Nashfilmfest in person, with Poser and The Tale of King Crab as my faves. I’ll be covering remotely this year, but that just leaves more pig-forward delicacies from Peg Leg Porker and Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint for you.
Check out the program and buy tickets at the festival’s Film Guide. Watch this space for Nashville Film Festival recommendations (both in-person and on-line) and follow me on Twitter for the latest. I’ll be back in a couple days with my recommendations.
THE RETURN OF TANYA TUCKER.: FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.
Raya Burstein and Uri Burstein in CHARM CIRCLE. Photo courtesy of Cinequest.
Inthe superbly structured documentary Charm Circle, writer-director Nira Burstein exquisitely unspools the story of her own bizarre family. At first, we meet Burstein’s father, a sour character who inexplicably is about to lose his rented house, which has become unkempt, even filthy. He is mean to Burstein’s apparently sweet and extraordinarily passive mother, and the scene just seems unpleasant.
But then, Nira Burstein brings out twenty-year-old videos that show her dad as witty, talented and functional. We learn a key fact about the mom, and then about each of the director’s two sisters.
Some of the publicity about Charm Circle describes the family as eccentric, but only one daughter is a little odd – three family members are clinically diagnosable. Charm Circle is a cautionary story of untreated mental illness and the consequences of failing to reach out for help.
This is Nira Burstein’s first feature, and she has two things going for her: unlimited access to the subjects and a remarkable gift for storytelling. Charm Circle works so well because of how Burstein sequences the rollout of each family member’s story.
I attended a screening of Charm Circle, with a Nira Burstein Q&A at the Nashville Film Festival. In July and August, it will play both the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and Cinequest.
Photo caption: Sylvie Mix in POSER. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Films.
Poser, a deeply psychological portrait of an artistic wannabe among real artists, was the Must See at the 2021 Nashville Film Festival and it’s in theaters now (albeit hard to find). It is worth seeking out.
Lennon (Sylvie Mix) reveres the underground music scene of Columbus, Ohio’s Old North (which she compares to the cultural achievements of Renaissance Florence). Her entrée is a podcast, which allows her to meet a panoply of local artists, including Bobbi Kitten, the charismatic front woman of the real life band Damn the Witch Siren. At first, we chuckle and cringe at Lennon, until it becomes apparent that a much darker personal plagiarism is afoot and Poser evolves into a thriller.
Poser is the first narrative feature for directors Ori Segev and Noah Dixon (Dixon wrote the screenplay), Mix, Kitten and damn near the entire cast and crew, and it’s packed with original music. Segev and Dixon are Columbus filmmakers who work in music, and they wanted to set a story in that music scene with their favorite bands; they could have done that with a banal premise, but instead their story is super original
There is so much in here about identity and the creative process, lots of original music and some cultural tourism, too. A shot of the recording of train sounds is indelibly chilling.
The podcast lets Lennon invite herself into the world she worships. When Lennon is invited up on a rooftop by two actual artists, she can barely contain her excitement. We find Lennon amusing until she practices aping an artist in front of her mirror, and we sense something much darker is afoot. Stealing the creative work of someone else is plagiarism – but what is stealing someone else’s identity?
It’s easy to mock self-invention, but every achiever begins with the ambition to be something he/she is not yet. (And it doesn’t escape me that no one but me decided that I would become a movie blogger.)
Sylvie Mix and Bobbi Kitten in POSER. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Films.
Be prepared to be creeped out by Mix’s performance and to be dazzled by Bobbi Kitten’s magnetism. This is the first feature film for Sylvie Mix, and she is able to turn the role of a passive, unaccomplished, initially silly character into something powerful.
Poser is the first screen credit for the exuberantly confident Bobbi Kitten, who commands our attention whenever she is onscreen. Damn the Witch Siren is the premiere electronic act in Columbus, Ohio, and five of her songs are on the soundtrack.
Z Wolf in POSER. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Films.
Kitten’s colleague Z Wolf is also a presence in Poser. Z Wolf always wears a full wolf mask on his head, sipping a fountain drink through a straw with great practicality.
The audience gets to visit the Old North, Columbus Ohio’s local arts neighborhood. There’s a very funny montage where we hear from real artists and aspiring artists. It reminded me of a code that The Wife and our niece Sarah devised when strolling through an art show – BA for Bad Art, NA for Not Art and KA for Kid Art. One very stoned guy marvels over the secret of the doubled-over potato chip.
Poser is rolling out in theaters and is playing Landmark’s Opera Plaza beginning July 8. My favorite film at last year’s Nashville Film Festival, Poser is one of the Best Movies of 2022 – So Far.
Photo caption: Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of Film Movement.
Fanny: The Right to Rock documents the first all-female rock band to get signed by a major record label and churn out five albums. Fifty years ago, the band Fanny was breaking ground for women musicians – and for lesbians and Filipinas. Women rockers were a novelty in the early 1970; imagine layering on LGBTQ identity and Asian-American heritage.
Although you probably haven’t heard of them, this was no garage band. They had a major label record deal, European tours, and hung out with big name peers. Unlike many male bands of the period, Fanny didn’t crash and burn due to drug use or clashing egos. They just never caught on with record-buyers.
It’s pretty clear that music industry and media sexism, combined with maybe being a little ahead of their time to deny Fanny stardom. Too bad – I would have loved to listen to them in their heyday.
Their music fits right into the stuff I was listening to in the 1970s. I’m guessing that the reason why I hadn’t heard of them is that they didn’t get played on FM radio in the Bay Area.
Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of Film Movement.
These women can still really rock in their 70s, and they’re a hoot.
Fanny: The Right to Rock is filled with colorful anecdotes from back in the day. Todd Rundgren, an important early associate of Fanny, and Bonnie Raitt appear as eyewitnesses. Cherie Curry of the Runaways, Cathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s and Kate Pierson of the B-52s testify to Fanny’s trailblazing status.
I screened Fanny: The Right to Rock last year at the Nashville Film Festival. It releases into theaters, albeit very hard to find, this weekend. I’ll let you know when it becomes available on streaming services.
