On target
A look at the latest and greatest from dead Center Film Festival, hitting Oklahoma City June 7-10.
Sara Thompson thinks of the deadCenter Film Festival like summer camp for moviemakers and film fans.
“It’s like the first day of summer camp is Thursday night, and you meet everybody at the Thursday night party. And then by Sunday, you feel like you’ve known everybody for three years even though it’s only been four days. I think that feeling has remained even though we’ve grown exponentially,” she said. “And I think that what has changed is that the films have just gotten cooler and cooler and cooler.”
This summer, Thompson is the new head counselor at the state’s largest film festival, after she was hired late last year as deadCenter’s director of programming. An awardwinning moviemaker, she previously programmed the festival’s short films slate.
“I was a shorts programmer for six years, and I was the first shorts programmer that we ever had. So, being immersed in that world for six years ... got me very interested in just how we can bring in the best films from around the world, what can we do to make ourselves a viable film festival not only in Oklahoma City but in the film festival industry at large, nationally and internationally,” she said.
“I feel like I’m piggybacking on the great work of so many people, that it’s just ‘how can I take their work to the next step?’ And I think it’s just getting more films, the best films, and just really well rounding out our festival the best I can by getting the best content I can.”
The 18th Annual deadCenter Film Festival opens Thursday and rolls through June 10 at various locations in downtown Oklahoma City.
Succeeding a staple
Thompson succeeds festival staple Kim Haywood, who joined deadCenter in 2003. For the last seven years, Haywood served as director of programming and education. During Haywood’s tenure, film submissions to the festival increased 400 percent to 1,200 films per year, four deadCenter films were nominated for Oscars, and deadCenter was selected as one of the “20 Coolest Film Festivals in the World.”
Haywood left deadCenter to become executive director of Rodeo Cinema, a nonprofit independent art house movie theater opening soon in Stockyards City. The sister theater to Tulsa's Circle Cinema, Rodeo Cinema is saddling up to offer first-run independent, foreign and documentary films, guest speakers, film events, and specialty programming under Haywood's direction.
“Honestly, I thought Kim Haywood was going to be impossible to replace because she’s just been the core of the festival for so many years — more than a decade — but the fact is, she really helped us pick Sara to do this. She trained Sara, so Sara’s just stepped in and been awesome,” said Lance McDaniel, deadCenter executive director.
“She really kind of changed the way we were going after shorts and attracting shorts from different places. I think over her six years, the quality of our shorts just got outstanding . ... She really is looking at deadCenter from ‘How do we benefit these filmmakers more?’ And that’s been the most exciting to me, because Kim and I worked very hard — and obviously Kim was there before me — to try to figure out new ways that could help the filmmakers.”
After previously helping shorts filmmakers connect with online distribution opportunities via ShortsTV, which handles the Academy Award-nominated short films, Thompson said one of her goals over the next few years is to make deadCenter an Oscar-qualifying festival.
“I think it just takes us to a new level, and it would bring in so many awesome films because that’s the ultimate goal for a filmmaker is for their film to win an Oscar. So, getting to play at a festival that would help facilitate that would be awesome,” Thompson said. “The first step in that direction has just been programming more films, so right now, this year we have 10 narrative features, we have 10 feature docs, and we have 102 short films, which is up about 20 (shorts) from last year.”
Record-setting slate
More than 1,300 films were considered for the 2018 festival, and about 135 were chosen to screen at the four-day event. The festival receives more submissions every year, Thompson said.
“This year was another record year,” she said. “When you think about how many are actually selected, it shows that it actually is pretty difficult to get into deadCenter.”
About a dozen more selections are virtual reality films, which will be showcased in the new techCenter technology conference June 8-10 at 21C Museum Hotel. A partnership with the Chickasaw Nation, the conference will focus on VR, augmented reality and drones, exploring how the technologies changing the film industry also are rapidly expanding businesses in a variety of sectors.
“I think that VR is a big part of the future of film, because we’re moving into such an interesting time when people can actually just watch their movies in their living room. A lot of the movies that are even playing at like Sundance or South by Southwest (festivals) are going straight to Netflix or straight to Amazon, and they’re not even getting theatrical releases,” Thompson said. “So, it really is a time to think about where is the technology of film going, and I think VR is such an exciting component . ... So, we definitely want to be a part of that.”
Festival highlights
The festival will open with the documentary “Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
“It sounds like a deadCenter film: It’s a little bit sexy and fun and it ends being about this total badass powerful woman who created them and controlled them for 30 or 40 years and basically took on the NFL and Playboy,” McDaniel said. “You go in kind of thinking it’s going to be titillating and it ends up being about this superpowerful woman, so it’s just awesome.”
The Thursday night slate also will include a showing of “The Independents,” a musical drama written and directed by Greg Naughton,husbandofOklahomaborn and bred Broadway star Kelli O’Hara; the world premiere of “You People,” the witty, socially conscious dramedy from first-time Oklahoma City filmmaker Laron Chapman; and a screening of “American Animals,” the Sundance favorite starring Evan Peters (the “X-Men” film franchise) and Barry Keoghan (“Dunkirk”).
“It is based on a true story of four college kids that try to pull off a heist at their university, and I don’t want to give anything way. But I will say that much,” Thompson said of the latter.
Thursday’s festivities also will include screenings of two short film blocks and the deadCenter opening reception at the OKC Museum of Art, followed by the opening night party at The Jones Assembly.
“While we have a lot of fun parties and there’s other things that make us special, it’s the films that are our whole purpose. And I think she’s going to do an amazing job of keeping those on track — and keeping the focus on films,” McDaniel said of Thompson.
Other planned highlights as the festival moves into the June 8-10 weekend include the premiere of "The Jurassic Games," a thrilling dinosaur movie mashup from Oklahoma City director Ryan Bellgardt (“Gremlin”) starring Ryan Merriman (“42”) and Adam Hampton (“Gremlin”); “Hal,” a documentary from University of Oklahoma graduate Amy Scott about Oscar-winning filmmaker Hal Ashby (“Harold and Maude”); “Hearts Beat Loud,”a musical drama starring Nick Offerman (NBC’s “Parks and Recreation”), husband of Emmy-winning Oklahoma actress Megan Mullally (NBC’s “Will & Grace”); French writer-director Julien Faraut’s unconventional sports documentary “John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection”; and a free outdoor double feature of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s new Nick Collison short documentary “Mr. Thunder,” and the Lynyrd Skynyrd documentary feature “If I Leave Here Tomorrow.”
“I think that we’re just as cool as a big festival in a big-market city and that we have fantastic films, but we are still small enough that we can offer a super intimate experience with our filmmakers and with our festivalgoers,” Thompson said. “I hope that we continue to just bring in the best indie films that we can — and also bring in just really cool films that wouldn’t come here otherwise — but still keep that feeling of ‘Oh, that filmmaker is flying back to L.A., but they had the best time in Oklahoma.’”