The Most Buzzworthy Movies Of Middle Coast’s 2016 Lineup
Submissions for the 2016 festival are closed and we can’t wait to announce our full lineup of films with you! But while we continue to watch submissions and tweak our full program, we wanted to share the featured films that will headline the festival. These films screened at Sundance, SXSW and Cannes and are getting praises from film reviewers everywhere.
Audience members will get the chance to meet with most of the filmmakers of these films, so you’ll want to get a weekend badge to ensure you see them all (plus everything else screening in between)!
KRISHA- Trey Shults, Director
[When Krisha shows up at her sister’s Texas home on Thanksgiving morning, her close and extended family greet her with a mixture of warmth and wariness. Almost immediately, a palpable unease permeates the air, one which only grows in force as Krisha gets to work cooking the turkey and trying to make up for lost time by catching up with her various relatives, chief among them her nephew, Trey. As Krisha’s attempts at reconciliation become increasingly rebuffed, tension and suspicion reach their peak, with long-buried secrets and deep-seated resentments coming to the fore as everyone becomes immersed in an emotionally charged familial reckoning.]
Krisha won the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at the 2015 South-by-Southwest Film Festival and is also screening at Cannes.
THE FITS- Anna Rose Holmer, Director
[THE FITS is a psychological portrait of 11-year-old Toni—a tomboy assimilating to a tight-knit dance team in Cincinnati’s West End. Enamored by the power and confidence of this strong community of girls, Toni eagerly absorbs routines, masters drills, and even pierces her own ears to fit in. When a mysterious outbreak of fainting spells plagues the team, Toni’s desire for acceptance is twisted.]
The Hollywood Reporter writes in a review: “Refreshingly, the writer-director declines to draw the usual picture of poverty, drugs, crime and lack of parental supervision that often seems obligatory with a low-income urban setting. Instead, the film remains tightly focused on Toni as she filters and processes her experiences in an environment both familiar and foreign to her.
Some of the cast and crew will visit Bloomington to share their experience of making the film with the Middle Coast audience.
HUNTER GATHERER- Josh Locy, Director
[Ashley Douglas thinks everything should fall into place when he’s released after three years in prison. His friends should come to his welcome home party. (They don’t.) His girlfriend, Linda, should greet him with open arms and open legs. (She doesn’t.) So Ashley, a forty-something African-American, restarts his life with next to nothing: no friends, no lovers, no connections. He has is a bedroom in his mom’s house, a box of treasures he buried in his back yard, and a nostalgic and deeply ingrained need to be with Linda-his one, true love. That is, until he meets a new friend, Jeremy, and things start to turn around.]
Variety says: “Locy has structured “Hunter Gatherer” as a series of interrelated quest narratives — the active, problem-solving angle of which is built right into the title — which lends the movie its weirdly charmed, even magical feel. Yet at no point does it feel as though the film is soft-pedaling the complexities of being a poor, uneducated black man in urban American, only that it’s intent on telling a different story — or perhaps the same story in a different, less widely used language.”
TRANSPECOS- Greg Kwedar, Director
[On a remote desert highway a makeshift Border Patrol checkpoint is manned by three agents: Flores (Gabriel Luna): with an uncanny ability to track; Davis (Johnny Simmons): joined the Border Patrol with dreams of romancing señoritas and riding on horseback; Hobbs (Clifton Collins Jr): one of the old guard who believes a college degree can’t stop a bullet. It’s like most boring days, but soon the contents of one car will change everything.]
The Hollywood Reporter says the film is “artfully made but wholly accessible for a mainstream audience, it features strong performances but no names in the cast who’ll draw attention on their own.”
Transpecos won the audience choice award for Narrative Feature at SXSW.
MA- Celia Rowlson-Hall, Director
[This film uses no dialogue and modern dance to tell the story of a modern day virgin Mary, traveling to Las Vegas to give birth.]
Variety raves: “Ma” is a specialty item even by festival standards, and yet without so much as uttering a word, this microbudget labor of love augurs an exciting new voice.
THE ALCHEMIST COOKBOOK- Joel Potrykus, Director
[Young outcast Sean has isolated himself in a trailer in the woods, setting out on alchemic pursuits, with his cat Kaspar as his sole companion. Filled with disdain for authority, he’s fled the daily grind and holed up in the wilderness, escaping a society that has no place for him. But when he turns from chemistry to black magic to crack nature’s secret, things go awry and he awakens something far more sinister and dangerous.]
Indie Wire flagged the film as a “hidden gem” in this year’s SXSW lineup, and we love supporting filmmaker Joel Potrykus because he’s a midwest filmmaker, based in Grand Rapid, MI.
TRAPPED- Dawn Porter, Director
[Since 2010, 288 laws regulating abortion providers have been passed by state legislatures. In total, 44 states and the District of Columbia have measures subjecting abortion providers to legal restrictions not imposed on other medical professionals. Unable to comply with these far-reaching and medically unnecessary laws, clinics have taken their fight to the courts.
As the U.S. Supreme Court decides in 2016 whether individual states may essentially outlaw abortion (Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt), Trapped follows clinic workers and lawyers who are on the front lines of the battle to keep abortion safe and legal for millions of American women.]
RUSH BROTHERS- Jordan Haro, Director
[In 1998, Jaron Rush was the No. 1 high school basketball recruit in the country and was expected to be a future NBA star. But a high-profile NCAA scandal and personal struggles prevented him from ever joining the NBA. His two younger brothers, Kareem and Brandon, both starred at The University of Missouri and The University of Kansas, respectively, before becoming NBA players themselves. The documentary follows their stories of talent, tragedy and triumph as they figure out life beyond the NBA and within their family.]
SLASH- Clay Liford, Director
[It’s the age old story of a teenager who writes erotic fanfiction about his favorite sic-fi hero and learns hard-won truths about life in the process. The movie is funny and heartfelt and the cast is great (Michael Johnson, Hannah Marks, Tishuan Scott, Michael Ian Black, Jessie Ennis, Peter Vack.]
BOOGER RED-Berndt Mader, Director
[Booger Red is a combination documentary/narrative feature about a veteran reporter investigating an alleged child sex ring in Texas. The movie follows the reporter on his journey through East Texas as he tries to figure out if the incident actually happened or not. The story is based on an actual even in Texas, with real interviews from those involved in the case.]