This weekend, independent filmmakers, student filmmakers, audience members and everything in between made their way to Downtown Regal Cinemas West 8 for the 2019 Knoxville Film Festival.
Keith McDaniel originally founded the festival in 2004 as the Secret City Film Festival in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Nine years later, it moved to Knoxville and became the Knoxville Film Festival, where it has been steadily growing ever since.
This year’s festival, which took place from Sept. 13 through Sept. 15, had a huge variety in the films that were shown. The festival features screenings of many local and non-local films, and it is also home to two different filmmaking competitions: The Tennessee 10 Filmmaking Challenge and The Seven Day Shootout.
The Tennessee 10 Filmmaking Challenge gives ten of Tennessee’s up-and-coming filmmakers 90 days to create a feature film. At the end of the time period, each of the films that were completed are screened and pitted against each other. “Trapped,” directed by Edy Recendez, won the award for Best Film in this year’s challenge.
The Seven Day Shootout gives filmmakers seven days to complete a short film that is shown against the others. There were 30 teams that entered the competition. This year, “Arthur’s Epic Yarn,” directed by Jeremy Lowery & Chuck Morgan, won Best Film in the Shootout.
Each film featured at the festival came with its own unique backstory. During question-and-answer sessions following the screenings of their films, the filmmakers were able to go into detail about certain aspects of their creative process.
Some films, such as “The Adventures of Wonderboy,” were dreams come true for not only the filmmakers, but also their stars.
“The lead in ‘The Adventures of Wonderboy’ is on the autism spectrum, and, when he came to me and told me he wanted to make the film, we got right to work on it,” said Marti King Young, co-director of “The Adventures of Wonderboy.” “We contacted the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio to get good people to surround him.”
Other films, such as “The Piano Love Affair,” told true stories of local Tennesseans. The film tells of the lost love of World War II veteran Charlie Brakebill. The film not only features a dramatic retelling of the events with actors but also interview sections with Brakebill himself.
“I originally wrote the short film script as a sizzle reel for a feature film,” Steve Sherman, writer of “The Piano Love Affair,” said. “Then we realized that the short could stand on its own and, when we interviewed Charlie, it became clear that we needed to include him in the film.”
Over the course of the weekend, over 90 films were screened. Whether they were short films or feature films, narrative or documentary, student or professional, one thing was for sure: they were appreciated by the film community in Knoxville.
