Orlando Film Festival, Films Reviewed by Orlando Sentinel
Kiele Sanchez, Black, White & Blues
Programming a film festival can’t be easy, even in the best of times. And with the beating indie film has taken in the past five years, just getting filmmakers to either pay an entry fee and submit their movie or who will simply allow their movie to be shown, for free (they get paid nothing, typically) grows more and more difficult. Landing a cross section of movies that will appeal to a wide audiences is even tougher for start-up film festivals run by people not networked in with distributors, who have a history with a lot of different filmmakers or have garnered a little prestige.
Yes, the long-established Florida Film Festival makes it look easy. Veteran festival runner Nina Streich guarantees The Global Peace Film Festival will have lots of good movies. But even those festivals have stinkers.
Newer and smaller local fests — The Central Florida Film Festival, the OLA Fest and the Orlando Film Festival — by necessity are packed with movies that won’t ever see distribution, may not make it to DVD and by any measure are just filler.
This year’s Orlando Film Festival seems this year to be overwhelmingly filler. All these puppet movies? SEVERAL collections of short puppet movies? Twenty and 30 year old Muppet pictures? All these movies that have been in other area festivals?
I haven’t seen everything, not by a long shot. But I had to go through a LOT of movies this year to get to a handful worth plugging in print so that the festival will have decent awareness as it gets underway Nov. 3 (Nov. 3-7). Too many of these films (and I run into this every year with this festival and a couple of others) make you wonder, “If this is what got in, what did you turn down?” (more…)
Black, White and Blues plays Orlando Film Festival this Weekend
The latest movie from former and current Tampa residents Morgan Simpson, Jeff Balis and Charlie Poe is Black, White and Blues, a tale of rural redemption that’s showing Saturday at the Orlando Film Festival.
Apparently their earlier effort, Clear Lake, WI, that played at the 2009 Gasparilla festival turned out to be the calling card I predicted it would be. For their next production, the trio pulled in such Hollywood talents as Oscar nominee Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile), Luke Perry (Beverly Hills 90210) and Tom Skerritt (the original MASH) for acting parts, and Mario Van Peebles (Panther, Posse) to direct.
Black, White and Blues stars Simpson as Jefferson Bailey, a down-and-out blues musician with a debt to rough necks chasing him out of town. He hitches a ride with a gentle giant named Augy (Duncan), tries reuniting with a ex-flame (Kiele Sanchez) and mends fences with his father (Skerritt). In addition to acting, Simpson co-wrote the screenplay and produces. Balis is another producer and Poe gets the executive producer credit.
Black, White and Blues is screening Saturday at 7:45 p.m. at Plaza Cinema Cafe, 155 S. Orange Ave. in downtown Orlando. The festival features nearly 100 features/documentaries/shorts, in addition to several special events including a closing night concert with Edwin McCain.
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