FILM FESTIVAL NEWS: Dava Whisenant’s BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY Opens The 2018 Tallgrass International Film Festival Announces Film Lineup with an emphasis on the Indie Documentary

Dava Whisenant’s BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY Opens the 16th Annual Tallgrass International Film Festival presented by Consolidated Equities Trust (October 17-21) today announced the feature film lineup for this year’s edition with a full roster of Gala selections including;

Dava Whisenant’s BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY Opens The 2018 Tallgrass International Film Festival

Dava Whisenant’s BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY (Opening Night Gala), John Alexander’s THIS IS LOVE (Centerpiece Gala), and Theo Love’s WHITE TIDE: THE LEGEND OF CULEBRA (Closing Night Gala).

Those films are joined by Sahra Mani’s A THOUSAND GIRLS LIKE ME, which is Tallgrass’s DOXX Spotlight winner, and Sara Radle’s ELEVEN HUNDRED TO LUBBOCK, which is this year’s Stubbornly Independent Gala Selection.

BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY, Tallgrass International Film Festival
BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY

 

Director of Programming, Nick Pope said, “Documentaries led the pack in many ways as we made our official selections for Tallgrass this year, and while documentaries are not routinely thought of as “funny” or great sources for comedy, our Opening and Closing Night selections will both offer up exceptions to that rule. Add to that a Centerpiece choice that profiles one of Wichita’s favorite sons, and the two winners from our Stubbornly Independent and DOXX Spotlight competitions, and we have another wonderful slate of Gala presentations for everyone to enjoy this year.”

The Opening Night Gala will feature Whisenant’s festival favorite BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY on Wednesday, October 17. The film follows a writer’s experiences, both funny and unexpected, behind the scenes at a Late Night comedy show. The documentary includes appearances by a host of entertaining personalities, including David Letterman, Martin Short, Chita Rivera, Jello Biafra, and more. Director Dava Whisenant and Subject Steve Young are both scheduled to attend and participate in a Q&A. The film will be preceded by Celia Galan’s WE NEED IT YESTERDAY. The Gala will continue with an after party at Candela at The Lux (120 E. First Street) with music by DJ Carbon.

THIS IS LOVE
THIS IS LOVE

 

Alexander’s THIS IS LOVE will make its U.S. Premiere as the Centerpiece Gala selection on Saturday, October 20 at Scottish Rite Theatre (332 E 1st St N.). The documentary profiles Wichita musician Rudy Love and his successful career alongside legends like Little Richard and Ray Charles, Rudy Love’s experience in the music industry over the decades encapsulates an all-too-familiar struggle for African American artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Alexander and Producer JC Guest are both scheduled to attend. The film’s presentation will be preceded by a screening of Shaka King’s LAZERCISM.

WHITE TIDE: THE LEGEND OF CULEBRA
WHITE TIDE: THE LEGEND OF CULEBRA

 

The Closing Night Gala Presented by Butler Community College features Theo Love’s WHITE TIDE: THE LEGEND OF CULEBRA. Lysa Heslov’s documentary SERVED LIKE A GIRL on Sunday, October 21 at the Wichita Orpheum Theater. The film follows the adventure that ensues when a desperate Florida resident goes on a treasure hunt for $2 million worth of cocaine, buried somewhere in the shores of the Caribbean. Love and Producer Bryan Storkel will attend and participate in a post-screening Q&A, followed by an after party at the Wichita Art Museum (1400 Museum Blvd.) with live music by Stranded in the City.

A THOUSAND GIRLS LIKE ME, Tallgrass International Film Festival
A THOUSAND GIRLS LIKE ME

 

This year’s DOXX Spotlight screening, showcasing the incredible real life stories being told by women documentary filmmakers will be Mani’s A THOUSAND GIRLS LIKE ME. The documentary focuses on Khatera a 23-year-old Afghan woman who confronts the will of her family and the traditions of her country to seek justice for years of sexual abuse from her father. In doing so, she brings to light the faulty Afghan judicial system and the women it rarely protects. Sponsored by Bungalow 26 and Gretman Group, the film will screen Thursday, October 18 at the Scottish Rite Theatre.

ELEVEN HUNDRED TO LUBBOCK, Tallgrass International Film Festival
ELEVEN HUNDRED TO LUBBOCK

 

The winner of the Jake Euker Stubbornly Independent competition, presented by Rick & Monica Hutt is Radle’s ELEVEN HUNDRED TO LUBBOCK. The film will screen on Saturday, October 20 at the Scottish Rite Theater. The film follows a group of unlikely friends, as they pay tribute to their recently deceased loved one by relay-running his ashes across the country. Radle is scheduled to attend the screening, which will be preceded by Peter Espinosa & Brayden Frazier’s DTTW Film Race Winner, THE SMILE AND THE LIGHT BLUE EYES.

VIP TALLPasses for the Tallgrass Film Festival are available for purchase now. Please visit tallgrassfilmfest.com for more information.

 

THE 2018 TALLGRASS FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL SELECTIONS

 

OPENING NIGHT GALA SELECTION

(Presented by Steve Anderson)

BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY

Director: Dava Whisenant

Country: USA, Running Time: 88 min

A Late Night comedy writer stumbles on a hilarious, hidden world of entertainment and finds an unexpected connection to his fellow man. With David Letterman, Martin Short, Chita Rivera, Jello Biafra, and more.

Preceded by:

WE NEED IT YESTERDAY

Director: Celia Galan

Country: Spain, Running Time: 7 min

 

CLOSING NIGHT GALA SELECTION

(Presented by Butler Community College)

WHITE TIDE: THE LEGEND OF CULEBRA

Director: Theo Love

Country: USA, Running Time: 83 min

After his livelihood is upended by the 2008 financial crisis, a desperate Florida resident goes on a treasure hunt for $2 million worth of cocaine, buried somewhere in the shores of the Caribbean.  A fast, wild and comedic documentary like you’ve never seen.

 

CENTERPIECE GALA SELECTION

THIS IS LOVE                                                           US PREMIERE

Director: John Alexander

Country: USA, Running Time: 81 min

Despite finding success alongside legends like Little Richard and Ray Charles, Rudy Love’s experience in the music industry over the decades encapsulates an all-too-familiar struggle for African American artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.  Lauded by musicians worldwide, this biography lovingly celebrates the Wichitans life and music.

Preceded by:

LAZERCISM

Director: Shaka King

Country: USA, Running Time: 6 min

 

JAKE EUKER STUBBORNLY INDEPENDENT GALA SELECTION

(Presented by Rick & Monica Nutt)

ELEVEN HUNDRED TO LUBBOCK

Director: Sara Radle

Country: USA, Running Time: 99 min

A group of unlikely friends pay tribute to their recently deceased loved one by relay-running his ashes across the country.

Preceded by:

THE SMILE AND THE LIGHT BLUE EYES (DTTW Film Race Winner)

Director: Peter Espinosa & Brayden Frazier

Running Time: 5 min

 

DOXX SPOTLIGHT SELECTION

(Presented by Greteman Group)

A THOUSAND GIRLS LIKE ME

Director: Sahra Mani

Countries: France/Afghanistan, Running Time: 81 min

When a 23-year-old Afghan woman, Khatera, confronts the will of her family and the traditions of her country to seek justice for years of sexual abuse from her father, she sheds light on the faulty Afghan judicial system and the women it rarely protects.

 

THE ARK OF LIGHT & SHADOWS

Director: Jan Svatoš

Country: Czech Republic, Running Time: 90 min

The forgotten story of Martin and Osa Johnson, rebel filmmakers and Kansas natives who made some of the first films in Africa in times when filming itself was more dangerous than lions or malaria.

 

BEHIND THE CURVE

Director: Daniel J. Clark

Country: USA, Running Time: 96 min

A documentary film about people who think the earth is flat… Yes, really.

* Director Daniel Clark and Producer Caroline Clark scheduled to attend.

 

BEI BEI

Directors: Marion Lipschutz & Rose Rosenblatt

Country: USA, Running Time: 76 min

A legal and political drama with two extraordinary women at its center: one, a Chinese immigrant charged with first degree murder and the other, a successful white collar lawyer who unwittingly finds herself defending a woman against legally unprecedented charges.

 

BIKINI MOON

Directors: Milcho Manchevski

Country: USA, Running Time: 103 min

A charismatic but mentally unstable vet captures the attention of a documentary film crew who are ready to exploit her story for their own shot at independent movie fame.

Preceded by:

CADENCE

Director: Branwyn Elizabeth Driscoll

Country: USA, Running Time: 5 min

 

BISBEE ‘17

Directors: Robert Greene

Country: USA, Running Time: 112 min

An old mining town on the Arizona-Mexico border finally reckons with its darkest day: the deportation of 1200 immigrant miners exactly 100 years ago.
BITTER MELON

Director: H.P. Mendoza

Country: USA, Running Time: 96 min

When a Filipino-American family reunites for a Christmas party, the holiday takes a dark turn when they conspire to murder the abusive bully of the family.  Sponsored by Moeder & Associates

* Writer/Director H.P. Mendoza scheduled to attend
COFFY

Director: Jack Hill

Country: USA, Running Time: 91 min

A nurse takes vigilante justice against inner-city drug dealers after her sister becomes their latest victim. Introduction by 2018 Ad Astra recipient and cinema icon Pam Grier will be in attendance.

Preceded by:

HAIR WOLF

Director: Mariama Diallo

Running Time: 13m

 

CRIME + PUNISHMENT

Director: Stephen Maing

Country: USA, Running Time: 115 min

A group of brave officers risk it all to expose the truth about illegal quota practices in police departments.

 

DARK CITY

Director: Alex Proyas

Country: USA, Running Time: 111 min

20th Anniversary Director’s Cut. A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun.

 

DAUGHTERS OF THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE DALLAS COWBOYS CHEERLEADERS

Director: Dana Adam Shapiro

Country: USA, Running Time: 78 min

The never-before-told story of Suzanne Mitchell, the fiercely-loyal den mother of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

* Director Dana Adam Shapiro scheduled to attend.

 

DOUBTING THOMAS

Director: Will McFadden

Country: USA, Running Time: 80 min

After a white couple inexplicably gives birth to a black child, the purest bonds of trust, friendship, and love are put to the ultimate test.

* Co-Writer/Director Will McFadden scheduled to attend.

 

FAR FROM THE TREE

Director: Rachel Dretzin

Country: USA, Running Time: 93 min

Far From the Tree follows families meeting extraordinary challenges through love, empathy, and understanding. This life-affirming documentary encourages us to cherish loved ones for all they are, not who they might have been.   Sponsored by Bungalow 26 and Moeder & Associates

* Co-Director/Producer Jamila Ephron scheduled to attend.

 

JACKIE BROWN

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Country: USA, Running Time: 154 min

A middle-aged woman finds herself in the middle of a huge conflict that will either make her a profit or cost her life. Preceded by 2018 Ad Astra Award presentation and conversation with recipient, star and cinema icon Pam Grier – moderated by filmmaker and KU film professor Kevin Willmott

 

THE LAST SUIT

Director: Pablo Solarz

Country: Argentina/Spain, Running Time: 91 min

Abraham Bursztein, an 88 year-old Jewish tailor, runs away from Buenos Aires to Poland, where he proposes to find a friend who saved him from certain death at the end of World War II. After seven decades without any contact with him, Abraham will try to find his old friend and keep his promise to return one day.

Preceded by:

FAITH

Director: Tatiana Fedorovskaya

Country: Russia, Running Time 16 min

 

LETTER FROM MASANJIA

Director: Leon Lee

Country: Canada/China, Running Time: 75 min

A desperate SOS letter penned by a political prisoner turns up in Halloween decorations sold in Oregon, which sparks a nail-biting chain of events that exposes appalling human rights violations.

* Director Leon Lee scheduled to attend.

 

LIGHT IN THE WATER                                           US PREMIERE

Director: Lis Bartlett

Country: USA, Running Time: 75 min

The story of West Hollywood Aquatics, the first openly gay swim team and water polo club.

* Director Lis Bartlett scheduled to attend.

 

MR. FISH: CARTOONING FROM THE DEEP END

Director: Pablo Bryant

Country: USA, Running Time: 71 min

A feature documentary about the incomparable cartoonist, and multi-talented dissident known as Mr. Fish.

* Director Pablo Bryant scheduled to attend.

Preceded by:

ARTIST IN THEIR SPACE

Director: Bobby Obermite

Country: USA, Running Time: 8 min

 

THE MAESTRO

Director: Adam Cushman

Country: USA, Running Time: 96 min

After the Second World War, budding film composer Jerry Herst moves to Hollywood to study with infamous master teacher Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

* Director Adam Cushman and Producer/Actor David J. Phillips scheduled to attend.

 

MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS

Director: Mouly Surya

Country: Indonesia/France/Malaysia/Thailand, Running Time: 94 min

Marlina lives quietly in Sumba until one day a man named Markus and his gang try to rob her house and she kills him. Eventually, she is haunted by Markus, and her life turns in 180 degrees.

Preceded by:

DON’T BE A HERO

Director Pete Lee

Country: USA, Running Time 15 min

 

MEOW WOLF: ORIGIN STORY

Director: Morgan Capps & Jilann Spitzmiller

Country: USA, Running Time: 90 min

A disenfranchised group of artists, punks, and weirdos create a subversive DIY collective to disrupt the art establishment in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which in the face of internal turmoil evolves into a cultural phenomenon on the path to becoming a global creative empire.

Preceded by:

WASTE OF FILM – KC LOVES TRAVIS YOUNG

Director: Jason Dubois

Country: USA, Running Time: 9 min

 

NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE

Director: Vahid Jalilvand

Country: Iran, Running Time: 104 min

Kaveh Nariman is a coroner in the medical examiner’s office. One day at his work he meets a corpse which is very familiar to him.  Sponsored by Ulrich Museum of Art.

Preceded by:

THE ANGEL OF HULL

Director: Elizabeth Healey & James Card

Country: United Kingdom, Running Time: 7 min

 

PATRIMONIO

Director: Lisa F. Jackson & Sarah Teale

Country: USA/Mexico, Running Time: 83 min

As unrestricted development threatens water sources in Baja California, local peoples are beginning to push back against global business.

Preceded by:

MURDER ON THE REEF

Director: Allen Dobrovolsky

Country: Australia/Germany, Running Time 30 min

 

PIG

Director: Mani Haghighi

Country: Iran, Running Time: 107 min

Iranian directors are getting slaughtered by an unknown serial killer and a blacklisted director, Hasan Kasmai, is curious about only one thing: Why isn’t the killer after him?

 

RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE

Directors: Quinn Costello, Chris Metzler, & Jeff Springer

Country: USA, Running Time: 71 min

An offbeat environmental documentary about the monstrous swamp rats (nutria) at the edge of the world.

* Co-Directors Chris Metzler & Quinn Costello scheduled to attend

Preceded by:

LIONS OF WEST TEXAS

Director: Ben Masters

Country: Australia/Germany, Running Time: 10 min

 

ROLL RED ROLL

Director: Nancy Schwartzman

Country: USA, Running Time: 80 min

When social media, “boys will be boys”, and vigilante justice collide… one small town will never be the same.

* Director Nancy Schwartzman scheduled to attend.

 

SADIE

Director: Megan Griffiths

Country: USA, Running Time: 96 min

While her father is away serving in the military, Sadie battles to preserve his place on the home front when her mother takes an interest in the newest resident at the Shady Plains Trailer Park.   Sponsored by Bungalow 26

 

A SCIENTIST’S GUIDE TO LIVING AND DYING

Director: Nitzan Mager & Shachar Langlev

Country: USA, Running Time: 77 min

Obsessed with finding answers in her groundbreaking genetic research, a young scientist is thrown into free-fall when she becomes pregnant with her dead husband’s child and is suddenly confronted by the unknowable — absorbed into a realm of mystical female consciousness both terrifying and transcendent.

* Co-Directors Nitzan Mager & Shahar Langlev scheduled to attend.

 

SHOPLIFTERS

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

Country: Japan, Running Time: 121 min

A misfit family of pretty thieves take in an abandoned child. 2018 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’or winner. Japanese with English Subtitles.

 

TAXI TEHRAN

Director: Jafar Panahi

Country: Iran, Running Time: 82 min

After being blacklisted by the Iranian government, acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi poses as a taxi driver to have spirited conversations with Tehran citizens about life, art and the social challenges facing Iran.

Preceded by:

DIFFERENCE

Director: Ali Asadollahi

Country: Iran, Running Time: 15 min

 

A TUBA TO CUBA

Director: T.G Herrington & Danny Clinch

Country: USA, Running Time: 82 min

A Tuba to Cuba follows New Orleans’ famed Preservation Hall Jazz Band as they retrace their musical roots from the storied city of jazz to the shores of Cuba and in turn discover a connection that runs much deeper than could have been imagined.

Preceded by:

ROOM TONE

Director: Morgan Cooper

Country: USA, Running time 15 min

 

WHEN JEFF TRIED TO SAVE THE WORLD

Director: Kendall Goldberg

Country: USA, Running Time: 92 min

When Jeff, the manager of an old-school bowling alley, discovers the owner’s plans to sell, saving Winky’s World means pulling himself out of the gutter, too.

* Director/Co-Writer Kendall Goldberg and Actor Jim O’Heir scheduled to attend

Dava Whisenant’s BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY Opens The 2018 Tallgrass International Film Festival Announces Film Lineup with an emphasis on the Indie Documentary