On Location: Film & Music Fest at 16
Films emphasize music, faith and the black experience
With new dates on the calendar and new leadership at the helm, the On Location: Memphis International Film & Music Fest enters its 16th season Thursday with an emphasis on films about music, faith and the black experience, while being potentially burdened by the loss of its tax-exempt status.
“We believe we can be more than just a film festival,” said new executive director Angela Green, a local lawyer. She said she believes the festival can have a positive economic impact for musicians and filmmakers and for the Memphis economy in general.
Among the more intriguing films on the schedule are Kathleen Davison’s haunted-house story “Primrose Lane,” about a couple “catapulted into an alternate reality”; Darva Campbell’s “Writer’s Cramp,” about two children who plan a “perfect” murder; Aja Salvatore’s documentary, “Music in Mali: Life Is Hard, Music Is Good”; “The Record Man,” a documentary about Miami-based R&B promoter turned disco pioneer Henry Stone, whose TK Records introduced the world to KC and the Sunshine Band and Memphis’ Anita Ward (“Ring My Bell”); Morecco Coleman’s “Gangsta Walking,” about Memphis hip-hop dance culture; and “Mabon ‘Teenie’ Hodges: A Portrait of a Memphis Soul Original,” a documentary about the late Hi Rhythm guitarist.
Justifying the “international” lineup of 15 features, 18 documentary or live-action shorts, four animated films and five music videos are films from Germany, Uganda, Australia, China and Trinidad and Tobago.
The live music roll call, meanwhile, features such performers as Mechelle Johnson, a neo-soul singer, and Georgia-based gospel harmonizers the Wardlaw Brothers. A “Blues Reel” concert, dedicated to B.B. King and Teenie Hodges, is set for Sept. 4 at Cooper Walker Place at 1015 S. Cooper; scheduled performers include the Garry Burnside Band and veteran bluesman Cash McCall, who recorded for Excello and Checker before cutting a string of solo albums in recent years for such labels as Evidence.
Cooper Walker Place originally was Galloway United Methodist Church, where Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two played their first public show in 1954. The venue will prove appropriate on Sept. 5, when Johnny Cash’s younger sister, gospel-country singer Joanne Cash, hosts a screening of a documentary about her life story and Christian faith, “I Do Believe.”
Unfortunately for organizers, the festival had its tax-exempt status revoked by the IRS after failing to file the necessary paperwork for three consecutive years. As a result, On Location this year will present some events in partnership with the nonprofit Ambassadors of Memphis, a group that says it uses biblical principals to determine support to needy individuals and struggling businesses.
Panel discussions also are part of the event, and numerous filmmakers will be in attendance, including director Trey Haley, whose film “The Man in 3B” stars Lamman Rucker and Billy Dee Williams.