Executive Director Melanie Addington leads 2019 Oxford Film Festival; Filmmaker Awards Red Carpet was nothing short of EPIC!

Under Executive Director Melanie Addington leadership, the Oxford Film Festival is beloved on the regional film festival circuit. Much beloved.

Once filmmakers and press members make their way to the film festival they immediately want to come back.

Yes, it is the land of William Faulkner, and yes, you can’t beat the Ajax Diner, but there is something else that Executive Director Melanie Addington has been able to successfully cultivate beyond that historic/artistic cache and culinary highlight that makes the fest the favorite launching point of the new regional tour each year.

Executive Director Melanie Addington leads 2019 Oxford Film Festival

I oftentimes say that film festivals take a large part of their personality from their EDs and Artistic Directors, and this one is a prime example of that.

The Oxford Film Festival oftentimes leads the way when it comes to aggressively responding to politics and inequities that affect its filmmakers. (Mississippi passes egregious anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, and Melanie adds a prominent LGBTQ+ sidebar and with the help of the wonderful Brian Whisenant, keeps growing it with each year.

Facts and figures keep hammering home the truth of women and disabled filmmakers not getting the same opportunities as everyone else and Melanie reduces submission fees for them.)

Melanie Addington creates “comfort zone, oasis” for filmmakers

In person, the Oxford Film Festival is a comfort zone, an oasis for filmmakers to connect with each other and see each other’s films and enjoy that shared camaraderie while bowling on opening night (literally) or hanging out at a longtime sponsor’s southern mansion, listening to each other and discussing topics during filmmaker panels that very much feel like personal “airing-out” sessions, and, of course, watching each other’s films.

Much of that comes from Melanie and is then infused throughout the rest of the great team that works with her to put the whole thing together.

Therefore, it – like it’s Southern neighbor Sidewalk FF, is a fest that filmmakers want to go to even if they don’t have a film that year. They just want to be there. It will be fun, it will be energizing, and it will be another reminder of why they love making films as it inspires them to get to work on the next one. In many ways, the Oxford Film Festival is like those Hot Wheels superchargers that would propel the toy cars down the long orange tracks for another trip.

That’s the proper image to have when you think of the fest.

Of course, on this particular evening, there were A LOT of those filmmaker Hot Wheels coming down the track. In fact, this may be the most filmmakers we have had on one of our Films Gone Wild/Festworks red carpet galleries since we began posting these.

In fact, there were so many filmmakers and films that a couple Oxford Film festival faithful that volunteered to help Chris Gardner and I run the thing literally bailed on us about midway through the hour and a half it took to get all of them through. It was understandable, because if you don’t do this routinely, then it CAN seem like a devastatingly endless stream of people posing for pictures and talking into microphones about their films.

But we love it, frankly.

And we also love the idea that so many filmmakers descended on a little college town in Mississippi to make it an oasis for the arts and inclusion right in the heart of a state that would do well to infuse more than a little of Melanie Addington’s spirit and can-do abilities and unwavering willingness to do what’s right for people – ALL people – in the rest of the state.

But before she runs for public office, let’s take a look at who was there:

Executive Director Melanie Addington leads 2019 Oxford Film Festivall Filmmaker Awards Red Carpet was nothing short of EPIC!