Lantana Projects - visual art sought, including video

Lantana Projects is looking for the most original and forward-looking art created in 2007 by artists from or living in the Memphis area. This juried show will be exhibited on Saturday, November 17 - mark your calendars now!

We are accepting submissions through October 31, and all visual mediums are welcome. For details please click the image above. Good luck!

Lantana Projects is a registered non-profit organization that is making Memphis a global leader in the contemporary arts community. Thank you for your continued support!

"Late" at Indie Memphis

'Tricks' in Tri-State Defender

The Tri-State Defender has a feature story on DeAara Lewis' "Tricks" that will be premiering at the Indie Memphis Film Festival (Monday, Oct. 22 at 9:55 p.m., and Tuesday, Oct. 23 at 3:10 p.m.)

An excerpt:

Lewis wrote and directed “Tricks,” and Chicago native, Rod Pitts, is cinematographer. Pitts said he and Lewis shot the film “in the summer of last year, all over Memphis. There were some hot days, but otherwise it was perfect.” Pitts is an award-winning filmmaker who attributed the ease of location scouting to the city’s friendly residents.

“I’ve been here in Memphis off and on about five years now,” said Pitts. “And it’s really easy to work here. People were very forthcoming about allowing us to use their locations. And we shot all over – from downtown to South Memphis to East Memphis.”

Lewis, along with actress LaDonna Long and filmmaker and actor Keenon Nikita, is already working on her next project, a trilogy that she hopes will make Hollywood pay attention.

For the full story, go here.

News items

John Beifuss at The Commercial Appeal has a few random film items:

• Memphis moviemaker Craig Brewer will fill the shoes (if not much else) of Elvira on Oct. 27 when he serves as grand marshal of the nationally televised NASCAR Busch Series Sam's Town 250 at Memphis Motorsports Park.
• "The Importance of Being Russell" won the Audience Award for Best Feature at the Secret City Film Festival in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Also, star John Pickle earned the Best Actor award at the second annual Southern Appalachian International Film Festival in Johnson City, Tenn., an event co-sponsored by East Tennessee State University. The movie also won the award for Best Comedy.
• Los Angeles casting director Linda Phillips-Palo will conduct acting workshops for kids, teenagers and adults Nov. 2-4 at the Lisa Lax Actors Studio at 174 Leif Cove in Cordova.

For more, go here.

Shrewsbury on display

Memphis filmmaker Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury is having an art show of his filmworks on Saturday. This is from John Beifuss' story in The Commercial Appeal:

... Shrewsbury describes the Saturday night happening he's hosting at the Memphis College of Art in Overton Park as "an opening reception for the piece of art that is my DVD. It's like an art reception with a screening instead of pictures hanging on the wall."

The event, scheduled for 6-9 p.m., is titled "Every Picture Tells a Story: An evening with Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury." And the new digital videodisc is "Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury, Esquire presents: My Very First Retrospective Anthology DVD 1999-2005."

The disk collects 19 shorts -- including narrative films, "slideshows," early works and music videos -- created by Shrewsbury in Memphis and New York, where he was a film and television major at New York University.

Shrewsbury, 32, said a wine-and-cheese reception starts at 6 p.m., followed by the hour-long screening at 7, hosted by local raconteur/gadfly Andrew J. Earles. Shrewsbury will discuss his work and answer questions.

A musician and actor as well as filmmaker, Shrewsbury said he decided to produce a DVD and organize a public screening of his work because "the people I most want to share it with are the people in Memphis.

"So much of it was made here, but even people I run into every day haven't seen it, because when I first started, the way to share videos was to trade tapes on VHS."

For more, go here.

Indie Memphis preview party tonight

John Beifuss writes in The Commercial Appeal:

The 2007 Indie Memphis Film Festival hosts its official kick-off tonight, with a free public preview party from 6:30 to 9:30 at Otherlands, 641 S. Cooper.

Trailers for many of this year's films will be screened, and music will be provided by local jazz combo, Rae-Ray. The event also will function as a kind of art show: Posters from past and present Indie Memphis films will be on display.

Beer and coffee will be for sale, as will Indie Memphis T-shirts and festival passes at a discounted price of $70, which guarantees admission to all events. (The cost of a pass jumps to $80 Oct. 19.)

Click here for more ...

'The Hanged Man' at Indie Memphis

The Hanged Man screening at IndieMemphis - Saturday, Oct. 20 at 6:25 p.m. at Studio on the Square.

For the past four years, they've known each other only by their Internet screen names. But tonight in a haunted barn, miles from the trappings of their troubled lives, a group of social misfits gather for the final, ultimate act ... suicide. Lured into a pact by their mysterious leader and desperate to escape their haunted pasts, the group is forced, one by one, to confront the failures, lies and delusions that have brought them to this night and the ultimate realization that maybe ... just maybe ... there's something to live for.

Mix one part Waiting for Godot and one part Breakfast Club with a hefty dose of Twilight Zone and the end result is The Hanged Man -- A supernatural thriller that tears away the false veneer of our everyday lives and shows us there is more in life to fear than death. At times dramatic, hilarious and moving, this offbeat 'dramedy' thriller continuously surprises with its unexpected plot twists and unique characters; giving the audience an entertaining look into the darker currents of contemporary American life.

The Hanged Man. Sometimes Death is just the Beginning...