Cajun music documentaries by Les Blank and four films on Southern
food culture lead the bill at the 2010 Ozark Foothills Filmfest, set for
March 24-28 in Batesville.

The festival, now in its ninth year, should include more than 50 entries
this year, including 20 by Arkansas filmmakers, president and
co-founder Bob Pest said.

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The Little Rock Film Festival follows in June, and will announce its
lineup in May, and like the Batesville screenings it will put an
emphasis on Southern film. “This year we really want to embrace the fact
that we’re from the South, and we’re one of the premiere Southern film
festivals,” said director Jack Lofton.

The Ozark Foothills Filmfest is partnering this year with the Southern
Foodways Alliance of Oxford, Miss., on a special showcase, “Southern Succulents.” The showcase will feature four
films from the alliance, including “Above the Line: Saving Willie Mae’s
Scotch House,” about a chicken-frying expert and the rebuilding of her
New Orleans restaurant after Hurricane Katrina.

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But, as Pest notes, the big deal is Blank, an acclaimed documentary
filmmaker who often focuses his lens on folk culture. He’ll screen “J’ai
Ete au Bal” and “Marc and Ann,” each featuring the Savoy Family Cajun
Band. The band will perform Saturday night, March 27, after the
screenings.

Pest bills his festival as “filmmaker friendly.” There are no prizes
awarded. “We’ve kept it noncompetitive to encourage young, emerging
filmmakers,” he said.

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A grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will allow
the OFF to offer a half-day independent-film marketing workshop. Heidi
Van Lier, filmmaker and author of “The Indie Film Rule Book,” will
conduct the free workshop Friday afternoon, March 26.

The Batesville festival, which will take place largely on the campus of
the University of Arkansas Community College, is thriving and, unlike
many film festivals, here to stay, according to Pest.

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The LRFF, now in its fourth year, looks like it’s becoming an
institution. The five-day event will be held June 2-6 in downtown Little
Rock.

Festival director Jack Lofton said the attendance at the festival grew
from 3,000 its first year to 20,000 in 2009. “Like most thriving cities
that have an art scene, people in Little Rock are really hungry for
film,” he said.

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The number of films to be shown is also on the rise. “We had around 85
films and 160 screenings last year,” said Lofton. “We’re going to have
over 100 films this year.”

The Oxford American magazine will present the inaugural Best Southern
Film Award at the Little Rock festival. Any Arkansan can submit his or
her film for free to the “Made in Arkansas” program. The deadline for
film entries is April 15.

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The LRFF will also include acting workshops this year, “with some
recognizable names,” Lofton said. Those names will be announced in May;
Lofton said the festival is working with an actor from ABC TV’s “Grey’s
Anatomy.”

There will also be an Arkansas music video competition, lectures, panel
discussions and parties — including the Oxford American’s opening night
party, a deejayed party aboard the Arkansas Queen riverboat and a
“Twitter party,” the location of which will be revealed via the social
networking site. The gala and awards ceremony, co-sponsored by the
Arkansas Times, will be held at the Clinton Presidential Library.

Need a film fix before the major film festivals? Market Street Cinema in
Little Rock has its Found Footage Film Festival coming up Friday, March
12 (see the To-Do List for more details).

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