By Brian Landa @BrianLandaLawyer
Storytelling. That was the primary theme of the weekend. And what a weekend it was! When I was asked to go to the 22nd Annual Oxford Film Festival in Mississippi, home of the Ole Miss Rebels, I was not looking forward to a nine plus hour drive from Dallas. But I was surprised and impressed on every front.
A phrase kept coming up over and over during the weekend. “The most personal stories tend to be the most universal.” And a lot of these films are very personal. But extraordinarily universal.
Writers John Grisham and William Faulkner have major local connections, and storytellers they are. I didn’t get a chance to see any John Grisham or Faulkner sites, but I saw a lot of films, which can and hopefully will change the world. It’s a very regional festival with a definite state-focused angle. This is the first time I’ve ever stayed overnight in Mississippi, and we may have certain expectations or preconceptions based on the history of that area. The incredible diversity and open mindedness of this fest was almost an act of rebellion. In fact, I think it was definitely an act of rebellion. Irony or coincidence. Either way. It’s meaningful.
We were traveling with a skeleton crew of three: Our fearless leader Daniel R. Durrett and a newer camera ops trainee John F. Gray, who will also be writing for us. We were the only traveling press on site, so we intend to get the word out about these extraordinary films. Some have legs and some are dangerously subversive. But it is time to lean in.
David Power of Atlanta’s Color Book is an amazing cinema verite style near documentary. At least two of the featured films were about young black children dealing with death and both took home major awards. Otaru is a beautiful short lensed in Mississippi by The Jubilee Project. The film is about two very good friends who love to run and play and catch fireflies. Otaru means firefly in Japanese. The themes of death and family and coping are very powerful within less than ten minutes.
Color Book, a feature film. is life-changing and also about a young black child dealing with grief, but this one is so real, it feels like you’re watching reality. Power was able to obtain complete cooperation of the Atlanta transit system, known as MARTA. The long sequences on buses and trains are fascinating and dynamic. Even though the film is called Color Book, it is in black-and-white, which is a bold choice because the emotions themselves are the color, so it almost feels like it’s in color because it’s a very warm black-and-white with lots of variations and shading.
Jeremiah Daniels, the young star with Down syndrome, was found in the Colorado Down community and relocated to Atlanta for several weeks for the shoot. As Power said in the Q&A, Jeremiah leaving his family was definitely a boost to the role because it is about losing a family member. The way the father (the often understated, but sometimes volatile William Catlett) and son interact is so natural that I thought they were biological. It turns out that, incredibly, they had just met for the very first time a week before filming began.
I hope this one has legs. It could become the next fest breakout, like Sing Sing. And it has much more universal themes than trying to stay sane while imprisoned. Children being less overwhelmed by the big city than their parents is also a theme. They are pretty comfortable running around subway stations and such, with varying levels of trauma and drama, depending on the plot. The short film Sky, from director Andrew Lucido, which preceded Color Book, follows a young rebellious boy exploring Manhattan without permission.
Otaru preceded Designed By Preeti, a feature film directed by Gayatri Everitt Bajpai, starring and written by Rashmi Rustagi as Preeti, about an Indian American woman in Northern California dealing with an abusive husband. The marriage has been lengthy enough for a college age daughter and certainly lengthy enough to allow the problems to bubble to the surface. The cast is almost completely Indian American / South Asian. This film is tinged with some darkness, but is very hopeful and light and bright along the way. Themes of family and friendship abound. The film also mentions my very favorite Indian dessert ever, Gulab Jamun, which I discovered when I was living in Ohio a block from an Indian grocery. Set in the wealthy Indian population of Silicon Valley, the characters are always preparing and sharing various dishes.
As an Indian food afficionado, it was fun to see a lot of delicacies I had never heard of. The lead character is a fashion designer, who is trying to make it more of a profession than a hobby that her husband looks down upon. The film explores multiple interracial relationships, premarital sex, and a lot of other intense issues, but they flow naturally with the plot. Nothing is forced. It was great to see Nirmala Vishwakumar (AKA “Pati”), the grandmother from Mindy Kaling’s Netflix series “Never Have I Ever” as a friend of the family. She’s a delightful performer. Although she can get fussy, she always has a twinkle in her eye.
The filmmakers believe that Designed By Preeti is the first prominent feature release since Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala (1991) to feature a South Asian / Black romance prominently. Denzel already had his Oscar for Glory (1989) and was making brave and bold regional acting choices when he made a quiet indie rural drama, coincidentally set on the Mississippi coast. That film was also Sarita Choudhury’s screen debut. I love small world coincidences, and the synergies continuously happening in Oxford were near magical at times.
Not all the films were quite as intense though. One of the greatest moments of the entire weekend was Counting In, a wacky mockumentary from director Griffin Davis and the debut feature of his comedy group Probably A Cult, about the greatest “1234” count in guy in the music business, the legendary, but eventually vanished without a trace, Steve Staccato.
The creatives and cast stayed in character for the entire Q&A. It was very impressive and hilarious. During the Q&A, I inquired about my favorite 1234 count in guy, DeeDee Ramone. Steve’s reply (looks like they found him!) was that they were very good friends. As such, he still communes with DeeDee from the beyond and they enjoy doing count ins together. “1234!” indeed.
The Q&As were all very lively and I attended both of the seminars as well. The writing one was amazing and the business one included a lot of great incentives for Mississippi filmmakers. Mississippi film commissioners were on that panel. As an entertainment lawyer in my daily life, I was very impressed by the information that was provided.
Saturday afternoon was all about women directors and racing speed. This block featured Haley Watson’s directorial debut 30 For 30 ESPN documentary Motorcycle Mary about Mary McGee, not only the first woman to ever ride motorcycles professionally in the US, but also the first human ever to complete the Baja 500 solo. What a story. The block also had a longer documentary, Isky, about Ed Iskenderian, inventor of a racing cam that was key to the development of salt flats hot rod and track drag racing culture. He’s still very much alive and kicking at 103. He was not present, but director Cheyanne Kane was. During the Q&A, I asked her if his being an Armenian-American in Southern California pre-WWII was a factor at all in any discrimination or racism, as he looked ethnic at the time and his full name was on the buildings and merchandise and such. She said not once in the dozens of hours of interviews did it ever come up. A pure example of color blindness, because Ed “Isky” Iskenderian is just that awesome. He gave us printed ads on T-shirts! He was the first to do that too. My mid-century-modern (MCM) and race culture friends love that I saw that one.
Lots of people traveled in for this festival from further than Jackson, although plenty of people came in from the state capital as well. I was pleased with the turnout. I’ve been to festivals that were at capacity and some with a few people seated here and there. If everything universally has gotten more oppressively faith-based and religious, I really didn’t see it in these films. These were about storytelling and art and humanity. Lavender Men, directed by Lovell Holder, based on a New York stage play, is about the lesser-known gentle side of Abraham Lincoln and explores his relationship with his law clerk, but in such an amazingly artistic way that every moment is stunning, The lead, Roger Q. Mason as Taffeta, runs the show as a rainbow-friendly gay Fantasia. So anything can happen.
All of the movie action took place in a single theater complex, which is for the best. I like spread out festivals, but there needs to be convenient transportation and parking and here there certainly was. Three of the auditoriums were dedicated to the festival and they were lively all the time. Color Book was so well-attended that there were a few people on the stairs and they had to bring in chairs for a few others. The more people that see this movie, the better for humanity.
Mary Elizabeth Ellis of “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” had her new short quirky comedy Last To Leave, with a dark twist, as the opening film for Andrew Stevens’ documentary about his mother Stella Stevens, and both are excellent. And interestingly, both have ties to Dallas. Stevens lives there and Ellis went to SMU. So that was a nice moment of synergy for all of this as we were literally the only outside press outlet present.
The Stella Stevens documentary, Stella Stevens: The Last Starlet is very good, although there may be a bit too much Quentin Tarantino in there. But as he is the expert on everything cinematic, he’s telling us things we never knew. Her career was a jeopardized in the 1970s for a while when she did a sex scene with Jim Brown in a blaxploitation movie. Again, the content of these films was very surprising for being in Mississippi, but people do say Oxford is really the Austin of Mississippi.
I didn’t see a single walkout, ever. Anybody who left came back, and very few ever got up at all, because these films were so compelling. The programmer Becca certainly had something to say, but the way it was done with balance and grace was awesome. With arts funding endangered and things shifting very quickly along the political and social justice landscape, this festival was an act of subversive defiance. I’ve been festing for years, and this was definitely one of the best fest experiences overall. I was also battling a headache the entire time, but the quality of the art and conversation and one on one discussions was so great that I didn’t let it bother me, and that is what makes these regional festivals so special. You really get some facetime with the creatives.
This fest wasn’t just about the films and seminars though. Oxford definitely kept us fed and entertained. For a very short festival, this one had a few lively evenings with a DJ / dance floor and really good Mexican food at the restaurant hosting the closing night social. As a Texan, I can be particular about cuisine. I was impressed. Of course, the VIPs were elsewhere closing night. Which is fine. That’s why they fest.
As it was my first time in Mississippi, it was fortuitous that the GPS took us the opposite way back home, because we found ourselves in Vicksburg at the torpedoed and captured USS Cairo. On the way, I glanced up just as we passed Stella Stevens’ hometown of Yazoo City (Current Pop. 10,300). Which is why Andrew has this as the closing film of the festival. Mississippi connections abound. Ellis is also from the state. She was born in Laurel (Current Pop. 17,200).
When both Stevens and Ellis kept talking about Dallas things in their Q&As, I was like “Whoa. This is even a smaller world than I thought.” And I managed to get a shot of the Yazoo City sign just in time. The universe was very kind with this entire experience. It wanted us to be there. And beyond. Five states in three days. Although Tennessee was just for a brief moment. Graceland will have to wait. 20+ hours in the car. And I would do it all again.
Mississippi is certainly not what people may think. I’m sure it is in parts, but what I experienced fest weekend was very much not that. So much that I kept forgetting I was in Mississippi. You don’t expect a lot of edgy content where the Rebels play, but the organizers are not going to be silenced. I hope this fest will continue to thrive into its third decade and I know our team will continue to support it. Looking forward to attending again for year twenty-three!
