Bearded Child Film Festival All Stars ... and more!

Indie Memphis' Micro Cinema Club has a juicy offering Wednesday night.

The Bearded Child All Stars is this Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Power House, 45 G.E. Patterson (between Main & Front Streets). Admission, please note, is free.

Northern Minnesota's Bearded Child Film Festival features a selection of experimental, low-budget, and extremely bizarre short films. For the past five years, the festival has thrived within the obscurity of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, a mill town of under 8000 people located 150 miles northwest of Minneapolis. In order to develop a niche within the crowded world of festivals, the Bearded Child specifically seeks out work that is often "too weird" or too "lo-fi" for many festivals. The festival has encouraged filmmakers to push the boundaries of corporate film culture, while entertaining local crowds of pseudo-lumberjacks and old women in the process-- a curious venture to be sure. After five years of obscurity, the Bearded Child Film Festival is now crisscrossing the nation with a selection of "All Star" films from the past five years. While the tour will hit major cities such as San Francisco, Montreal, and New York, their main focus is on smaller towns and rural areas. "Cultural missionary work!" says founder, Dan Anderson. The tour will hit such sites as Kirksville, Missouri and Harrison, Arkansas, along with several stops in the South, including Memphis. The tour kicked off at the Burning Man Festival in late August, and will continue well into the Christmas holidays. Attendees should expect a mix of experimental films, oddball comedies, and the bizarre. Many of the films have never been shown outside of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

And then next week is the Indie Memphis Micro Cinema Club on December 14 at 7:30 p.m.

Entering its second year, the Indie Memphis Micro Cinema Club presents short films from around the world. On the second Wednesday of every month, this free event highlights a selection of short films curated by Will O'Loughlin. December's program will highlight musicals, featuring:

West Bank Story (2005 Sundance film); Art Thief Musical (2005 USC graduate film school); Different; Child Psychology; Walking Between the Lines; Genesis 3:19 and other gems TBA.

In addition, Indie Memphis will collect DVDs in new or good condition for Operation Entertainment, an effort to bring movies to soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bring em with you.