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Credit: CONTRIBUTED
The festivities will kick off Friday at the Foundry Theater with comedian/musician Reggie Watts. Watts most recently starred as the bandleader on CBS’s “The Late Late Show with James Corden.” His first Netflix special, “Spatial,” notably received critical acclaim with the New York Times calling it, “a giddy rush of escapist nonsense” and dubbing Watts, “the most influential absurdist in comedy today.”
Saturday will notably spotlight the 30th anniversary of “Pulp Fiction.” Prior to the screening live music from the soundtrack will be performed by Nick Kizirnis and a costume contest and trivia will be hosted by comedian Justin Howard.
“Year 1 was a huge success and I was really humbled and appreciative of the genuine enthusiasm from not only the village but surrounding cities like Dayton, Cincinnati and Columbus,” said festival founder and programmer Eric Mahoney. “The whole weekend was really well-received. For Year Two, we’re fostering bigger and better things such as educational programming, hosting our first world premiere and having significant people from the film world come in person to visit us which helps legitimize what we’re doing. I feel incredibly excited about our program this year. It feels like we have a lot of momentum and support which is great.”
Mahoney grew up in Dayton and returned to the Miami Valley during the coronavirus pandemic to be closer to his family. He previously spent over 15 years working as a filmmaker in Brooklyn, New York, building a resume that includes producing the global anthology film “Madly” and documentaries such as “North Dixie Drive” and “Brainiac: Transmissions After Zero,” which premiered at the 2019 South by Southwest Film Festival.
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Credit: CONTRIBUTED
He is particularly excited to showcase female filmmakers this year especially as the festival presents the inaugural Julia Reichert Award to an emerging female documentarian who will be given $3,000 to help bring their next project to life.
“We had so many submissions and they were all deserving,” Mahoney said. “We will announce the winner after the screening of ‘Julia’s Stepping Stones’ and let her speak about the project she’s working on.”
He also praised “The Uninvited,” which tells the story of an elderly stranger’s arrival at a party. The film debuted in March at South by Southwest and was screened at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month. The cast includes Walton Goggins, Pedro Pascal, Rufus Sewell, Elizabeth Reaser, and Lois Smith.
“I’m beyond excited that Yellow Springs is among the first couple of places to screen the film,” Mahoney said. “It takes place in one setting over the course of one evening with (characters) going on personal journeys throughout the night. It’s a wonderful piece.”
Goggins, a two-time Emmy nominee (”Justified,” “Fallout”), noted the importance of the film’s exploration of loneliness, ambition and privilege.
“‘The Uninvited’ is ostensibly a story about two dissatisfied halves of a fraught couple on the night of an important party,” Goggins said. “But it is about so much more. It explores the loneliness of a life fixated on external validations, the pursuit of success and the absurd privilege squandered over minor gains while the real life waiting to be lived languishes in the empty rooms of the house they can no longer afford. It is about a lonely, elderly woman that upends and reorders, through her joyous and tragic memories, the lives of everyone at the party. She breaks them out of their solipsistic universes and the loneliness that staring mostly at oneself can provoke.”
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Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Conners, Goggins’ wife, also views the film, which is loosely based on a true story, as a timely commentary on ageism in Hollywood.
“The film is set in Hollywood and is in some ways a critique of Hollywood’s treatment of women,” Conners said. “As you age into irrelevance you become unwelcomed, uninvited. Each of the female characters are actresses at different stages of their careers and hence different stages of their age and invisibility. There is a young woman that is beautiful and captures everyone’s attention, a middle-aged woman that is kind of half-disappeared, and an old woman that is completely a ghost. The film is also a genuine idea of being unwelcomed in your own life and how do you belong again in your own life? The characters are so superficially driven and along comes a woman experiencing a real crisis of being alone in the world. The reality of her mortality breaks the vanity and superficiality of these people and kind of brings them home.”
Mahoney hopes festivalgoers are receptive to supporting a festival that desires to showcase fresh, impactful films with a personal touch.
“We work really hard to find the best new films coming off of their major world premieres in order to give people an early, first look,” he said. “To be able to hear from the artists themselves in the room and see films before they come out is what makes the festival experience fun.”
HOW TO GO
What: Yellow Springs Film Festival
When: Oct. 4-6
Where: Foundry Theater, 920 Corry St.; Little Art Theatre, 247 Xenia Ave., Yellow Springs
Tickets: Film badge: $65; Other events: $10-$35
More info: ysfilmfest.com
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Opening Night
Friday, Oct. 4 at Foundry Theater
5 p.m. Reggie Watts
8 p.m. “The Uninvited” (live Q&A with Nadia Conners in person with Walton Goggins on Zoom)
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Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Special Events
“Eno” (sold out)
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 8:30 p.m. Little Art Theatre
“Pulp Fiction”
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. Foundry Theater
“Julia’s Stepping Stones”
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 4 p.m. Little Art Theatre
Dave Hill
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 4:30 p.m. Foundry Theater
“Legion 44″
Sunday, Oct. 6 at 2 p.m. Foundry Theater
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Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Narrative Films
“In the Summers”
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 6 p.m. Little Art Theatre
“Darkest Miriam”
Sunday, Oct. 6 at 4:30 p.m. Little Art Theatre
“Eephus”
Sunday, Oct. 6 at 11 a.m. Little Art Theatre
Documentaries
“I Like It Here”
Sunday, Oct. 6 at 11 a.m. Foundry Theater
“A Photographic Memory”
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 1:15 p.m. Little Art Theatre
“Spiz”
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 1 p.m. Foundry Theater
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Credit: CONTRIBUTED
WAVELENGTH Partnership
WAVE Grant Showcase Narrative Shorts
Sunday, Oct. 6 at 1:45 p.m. Little Art Theatre
Midnight Movie
“A Desert”
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 11:45 p.m. Little Art Theatre
Short Films
Short Films Program
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 10:30 a.m. Little Art Theatre
Educational
Stephen Michael Simon Film Seminar (free)
Saturday, Oct. 5 at 10:30 a.m. Foundry Theater
Closing Night
“Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai” (live Q&A with director Jim Jarmusch with rapper RZA of Wu-Tang Clan on Zoom)
Sunday, Oct. 6 at 6 p.m. Foundry Theater
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Credit: CONTRIBUTED
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