Let’s face it, there is a lottery aspect to all of this, except YOU have quite a bit of influence over who gets that big-ass check. I feel like I am saying the same thing over and over again here, but the fact is that the culmination is a genuinely affecting moment that sweeps every single person involved up into it. And THAT is the magic of Film Prize.
Call for Entries open May 1, 2017, for the 2018 Oxford Film Festival, taking place in Oxford, Mississippi, February 7-11, 2018. The 15th edition of the festival includes a new film and screenplay competition with cash prizes, as well as a reduced submission fee incentive for female filmmakers.
Last year, in a meeting with a major PR firm in L.A., I was told that unless the fest’s dates lined up perfectly with the actual release of the film that there was no way they would recommend that client going to the fest. It was just a pain-in-the-ass for the publicist. And that was a friend of mine. Cutthroat, baby.
The Opening Night red carpet at the Oxford Film Festival is also a raucous event at The Lyric with Thacker Mountain Radio music blaring forth live onstage not that far from where the photos and interviews are being done in the foyer.
Melanie Addington, executive director of the Oxford Film Festival, said, “This will be a major event for the film festival and the community as Danny Glover is not only a beloved actor, known for a number of film classics, but also has long been dedicated to speaking out about the human rights and social injustice.
As I grew up in Los Angeles and San Diego, I don’t say this lightly, but Oxford has a ton of opportunities and activities for what appears on paper to be such a small town. And if you visit you see the Old School charm of the Historic Square (downtown) and the rapidly growing outskirts being annexed as the city expands. Yes, it does have a history that is thorny, including the integration of James Meredith in 1962 and the riots that ensued and the fact that the Governor fought against the federal government during that entire process. The town and school has fought hard to banish old ways of thinking with ongoing fights to get rid of monuments to a past riddled with hate.
