Welcome to the 10th annual
Indie Grits Festival Indie Grits is free this year! But what does that mean to me?
Excellent question! A lot of the parties and concerts will have an unlimited capacity, so really all you have to do is show up! There are still some events that will have a limited capacity, including all of the film screenings at the Nick and the Puppet Slam.
How admission will work: There is a special Indie Grits box office set up at 1621 Main Street (just four doors down from the Nick). It will open one hour before the first screening each day. Attendance is first come first served. We will begin seating from the box office
at 1621 Main 30 minutes before each screening begins. We’ll seat each event to capacity. We do advise showing up early to grab a good place in line.
Don't like how that sounds? We are offering VIP passes for $200 ($150 for Nick members) that allows you to jump the line. Head to indiegrits.com for more information. If you’re a VIP pass holder you walk right up to the Nick (1607 Main Street) for film screenings. If you arrive more than 30 minutes before the screening you are seated before any of the general admission line. If you arrive after seating has begun you can jump to the front of the line as long as there are seats available.
Contents
contents
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The Weekly Revue Bar Mitzvah
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Indie Bits Kindie Grits Back Alley BBQ Puppet Slam Festival Schedule River Site Map Main St. Map
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2016 Films Festival Staff Indie Grants Shorts Film Index
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Ten Years of Indie Grits Support from Year One History of the Fist & Spoon Waterlines River Concert eighth blackbird
Thank you to our sponsors:
WITH THE CARD THAT OPENS DOORS IN 50 STATES
SouthCarolinaBlues.com
One Columbia for Arts and History
public art, audience development, artist resources, comprehensive arts calendar
onecolumbiasc.com
@onecolumbia | facebook.com/onecolumbia
Andy Smith, Festival Co-Director
ten years of indie grits
Ten Years of Indie Grits
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We really didn’t know what we were doing. When the Nick hired me in January of 2007, we had five months to put a festival together. Larry Hembree, then Executive Director of the Nickelodeon, and ETV’s Betsy Newman and Amy Shumaker came up with the name. John Whitehead, Executive Director of the Columbia Music Festival Association, secured some funding. But we really didn’t know what we were doing.
ten years of indie grits
"We really didn't know what we were doing."
At the time, cities all over the country were starting film festivals. It was essential that we were not just another entry in the [Insert City Name Here] International Film Festival catalogue. Instead we sought to carve out a space for filmmakers whose work didn’t fit into neat categories, who were overlooked by traditional festivals but were shaping a new reality for those of us living in the South. We knew from the beginning that our city would be a crucial part of the festival. I had recently moved back to Columbia and wanted to find a way to show off the great things I had rediscovered—from bands to artists to buildings—in hopes of drawing more positive attention to our city.
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There were a number of disasters our first year. A thunderstorm derailed the outdoor screening we planned; another program spiraled out of control when a director told us his film was still rendering—30 minutes after the screening was to begin. DVDs (yes, we tried to do our screenings from DVDs) skipped and stalled at will. But something special happened. On the final night of the festival, we invited that year’s filmmakers to join us in the (old) Nickelodeon, where we talked about all of the things that went wrong. We laughed and drank together, and it was on that night we stumbled upon something unique--a spirit of community and camaraderie that has been a hallmark of our festival ever since. Now, as we embark on our tenth festival, I like to think we’ve got a better handle on things. No longer just a scrappy little arts event, Indie Grits has grown into one of the South’s premier film festivals, regularly drawing over 12,000 attendees. We’ve broadened our scope to include all different aspects of new southern culture, and begun receiving financial support from large funders like the National Endowment for
ten years of indie grits
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With this in mind, we decided to offer a gesture of thanks to all of you who have supported us over the years. Thanks to the Central Carolina Community Foundation and our other financial supporters, this year’s festival will be completely free to the public. We look forward to opening our doors so everyone in the community can enjoy what has become such an indispensible part of our lives.
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the Arts. At our core, the driving force is the same. What’s changed, I believe, is Columbia. We’ve become a more creative and vibrant city. We are seeing more artists, filmmakers, and musicians create better and better work and audiences are more willing than ever to take a chance on something new.
Left: Early Indie Grits screening in 2008 Indie Grits Cinemovements talkback in 2013 Above: Indie Grits 2013 on Main St
Support from
Year One
Interview with Beth Slagsvol
ten years of indie grits
During the first Indie Grits, I was approached by an enthusiastic audience member who wanted to help the festival grow. Little did I know, Beth Slagsvol would end up playing an essential role in the festival's history. Not only has Beth been the festival's largest individual benefactor for 10 straight years, she's also helped support numerous Indie Grits alumni with film projects and was critical in the Nick hosting its first ever filmmaker-in-residence this year. I recently sat down with Beth to talk about how Indie Grits has changed and to better understand what she saw in our fledgling festival. – Andy Smith
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Andy Smith: My first memory of meeting you was after one of the first screenings. You stopped me and offered to put up some additional award money. What in the world drove you to feel like that was something you would want to do? Beth Slagsvol: If I recall correctly, Whit [Beth's husband] probably told me that there was a new film festival in town. I thought "Wow, that's impressive. I need to make sure that happens and goes off really well."
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I also wanted to make sure that your filmmakers were going to be happy. All I could do at that point was meet you, introduce myself to you, and make sure there was a little extra something in the kitty for an award or something. I came in and said "What could I do to help out?" AS: I just remember that that was so cool for us. I think it really delighted some of the filmmakers. Since you’ve been
with us from the beginning, you’ve seen the festival undergo a pretty large transformation. Now that we are in year 10, what stands out to you the most from that transition? BS: Well it's gone from just screening films to being this whole downtown event. We had the art walk last year, we have all these other artists, installation art, music, and it's just really evolved. I can't even think how much it's grown. Would you say 10 times its original size? AS: I think the first year we had 1,500 people come. So we haven’t grown quite 10 times. I think our largest attendance was 12,000. BS: But you've gotten recognition. You guys have really made a big difference. I think it's so important that filmmakers have their voice and can put their product out. It's crucial for a filmmaker to have a platform to be able to share their product.
AS: What are some of your favorite memories from the past 10 years? Are there certain films or other moments that stand out? BS: The one that stands out always when I think about Indie Grits in the beginning was Georg [Koszulinski] screening Immokalee, USA [in 2008]. We started talking and I found out what Georg does and that he makes films with integrity and it's not about the finished product it's really about his subject. So Georg is a big part of Indie Grits for me. We've done several films together since then. I also remember the DornStar [2007-2008] guys. I love their stuff. There was also Limo Ride [2014]. Oh my god, I laughed so hard. I love the animation stuff, which I never really knew about. It's amazing to me and I always wonder, "How did they do that?" Of course with the experimental stuff you have to put on your experimental brain to go there, but I like it. AS: We will have 10 years in the books after this year. Do you have any thoughts on where you’d like to see Indie Grits go? Any directions that you’d like to see the festival explore? BS: Gosh, I have no idea where that would be. Well, I would say more music. To me, in my mind, the voice of film and the voice of music are very close. It's someone using their creative thoughts. So I'd love to see the festival do more work combining film and music.
Fist & Spoon I’ll never forget being selected to develop the Indie Grits logo. Andy Smith had just been hired, and we met for the first time when the Nickelodeon came to interview my firm.
Fortunately Andy didn’t throw us out of the room. It was a gracious act of tolerance he
In developing concepts, John and I kept returning to images that evoked collisions of past and present as well as genteel society and rugged independence. For weeks we had this trippy, hypothetical dinner party playing out in our conversations with every kind of character imaginable seated around the
table. Somewhere along the line, one of us said "…and you know they’re all eating off somebody’s great-great grandmama’s silver that had to be dug up after the war.” The other countered, “Yeah, she’d be surprised how nice it looks clenched against cousin Duane’s knuckle tats.” Multiple iterations ensued and ultimately the tattoos were scrapped for simplicity’s sake. We presented what became the logo along with two more expected directions, but advocated pretty passionately for the fist and spoon. Ten years later, I’m thrilled that this symbol of cultural paradox still announces the arrival of Indie Grits each April. The logo remains one of my favorite projects, just as the festival remains my favorite Columbia tradition.
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It was one of the first pitches I recall being really excited about--excited to the point that my creative partner John Foust and I (both in our early twenties) hit the Nick folks with an overly earnest, bravado-laden speech. Something to the effect that there was no way they could go anywhere else for this work because we were their target demographic and understood what this festival was all about.
would reprise numerous times throughout our collaboration. Not throwing us out when we insisted that a music playlist serve as our creative roadmap. Not throwing us out when we challenged the conventional wisdom surrounding attraction marketing. Not throwing us out when we argued for a logo that offered no visual reference to film, but instead took cues from buried plantation silverware and prison tattoos.
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Michael Powelson, Creative Director at Riggs Partners
ten years of indie grits
History of the
"I kept returning to images that evoked collisions of past and present as well as genteel society and rugged independence."
Seth Gadsden, Indie Grits Co-Director
wa t e r l i n e s
indiegrits.com
This event has given new meaning to our city’s relationship with water and directly affected our original vision for Indie Grits on the River. Changing our original concept, we gathered a group of local and regional artists to explore these new relationships with our waterways and assist with the healing of our strong community. This group of artists formed Waterlines and was challenged to create new works in film, performance, transmedia, and public art, all commissioned by the Nickelodeon Theatre.
But in early October of 2015, those rivers took a violent and unexpected turn. After historic rainfall, man-made dams failed, water lines streaked unexpectedly across urban landscapes, and we saw our neighbors’ homes submerged, our community changed overnight. Rivers swelled over banks and tore over what Columbia had built, leaving debris and fresh soil in its wake. The October floodwaters inflicted a trauma that is still ongoing.
Celebrating ten years of Indie Grits, we wanted to highlight Columbia’s defining feature--the lines of water coursing through our city built on rivers. Those broad and deep imprints have long shaped the community’s culture and development.
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The artists were encouraged to collaborate with each other from the beginning. During almost a dozen meetings going back to October, the Waterlines artists came together to share their own experiences of the flood, hear stories from community members, review photographs and other documents, and ask questions of professionals with first-hand knowledge of the flood and its impact.
Above: Roni Nicole Henderson and Bill Stangler at an early Waterlines meeting.
Moving Pictures: Film The flood touched Indie Grits Filmmakerin-Residence, Joshua Yates, in a very direct way, as he had to rescue friends from a nearby cabin at around 5:00am on October 4 during the storm.
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The Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stangler has been a regular fixture at Waterlines meetings and an invaluable resource, connecting us with community members and offering us first hand tours of our waterways.
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Photojournalist Sean Rayford gave a special presentation sharing his personal experiences documenting the flood with his prolific archive of photos.
That experience compelled him to begin collecting stories from people affected by the flood across the state. Yates recorded audio interviews with flood survivors and cataloged their oral histories, which he will soon be donating to the USC Libraries’ Office of Oral History. Yates’ film Underbelly Up is an experimental, autobiographical document that synthesizes those interviews with improvisational dialogue and hand-processed 16mm celluloid, creating a surreal, emotional dreamscape exploring loss, trauma, and the construction of memory.
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While the artists met, Luke Hodges and a team of students from Trident Technical College in Charleston scoured the web for social media materials documenting the statewide flood and assembled an archive of more than a thousand photos and videos gathered from YouTube, Vine, Instagram and more. The archive has been used as a tool for discovery and education and has provided a wealth of materials for projects. The artists’ collaboration has yielded more than a dozen new works. These works, in almost every case, have pushed artists to work outside their comfort zones. Their collective efforts forced them to respond to the flood and its aftermath in ways that led to new discoveries both personally and within their artistic processes.
Left: SC National Guard, October 2015 Above: Josh Yates, 35mm, 2015 Right: Dorian Warneck, 35mm, 2015
Facing the vestiges of a tumultuous year in South Carolina, Roni Nicole Henderson is exploring the connections between more than one tragedy that struck our state last year.
Also exclusively using archival footage, Lydia Pappas of USC Moving Image Research Collections is creating a film titled Film on the Water. Through the lens of MIRC’s varied collections and a plethora of footage covering waterways around the Midlands, Lydia is looking at the effect of humans on the water, as well as the water’s potential to enrich or devastate lives.
Rather than finding dark clouds and still swollen waterways, however the students found beautiful skies in the weeks following the flood. Merging the two--the darkness of the flood and the light that followed--is After the flooding rain, a multi-channel, interactive video installation created by Keyes’ students. Using projections of underwater footage, the piece creates the experience of being submerged. As viewers navigate the space, immersing themselves in the darker water, their movements trigger the brighter, more lyrical videos made after the flood. The abstract vignettes symbolize an attempt to interrupt the waters, just as the waters interrupted Columbia.
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Inspired almost entirely by the Waterlines archive, Steve Daniels constructs a narrative by reconstituting found footage and family photos. Set to an aural landscape inspired by pulpy, Old Time Radio horror tales, his film Maggot is a fictional story of a teenager who enters a strange, semi-submerged house in a flooded river, and discovers hundreds of photographs floating inside. After taking some of the photos, the boy soon goes missing.
As t hey begin to rise again Chrysant hemums faint ly smell, After t he flooding rain.
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Created in collaboration with choreographer Kwame A. Ross and composer Venecia Flowers, the film begins at the Emanuel AME Church in the “Holy City” and travels to Columbia with its confluence of rivers. Stopping to visit sites of flood trauma, the film is an attempt to help the state heal from all of its recent devastation.
Once classes resumed following the flood, filmmaker and USC instructor OK Keyes took immediate action tasking cinematography students to create experimental short films about the flood and its impact inspired by the haiku poetry of Matsuo Bashō.
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Her short film break{through} attempts to map these recent emotional memories through South Carolina’s major waterways and the bodies of nine dancers, honoring the nine victims of the Charleston church massacre.
Immersive Experiences: Video Installation
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After the storm, filmmaker Wade Sellers found himself helping neighbors by doing what he does best. Using the means of his local production company, he went to the homes of people affected by the flood to record video and photograph property loss and damages. The images would help the residents prove their losses in insurance claims.
Captured in Still: Photography Front and center, Jorge Intriago, photojournalist for the S.C. National Guard and a photo student at USC, photographed the flood and the Guard’s response, as more than 4,000 members answered the call to help their communities. They took to the waters and the air to document the flood response from the first day of rain through the end of the recovery efforts. For Waterlines, photographs taken by Intriago and other public affairs guardsmen will be on display. The flood also spread south to Charleston, a community that floods seemingly as often as the tide rises. The peninsula’s reaction to high water is a regular subject for Dorian
16 Struck by the experience, Sellers later returned to the homeowners to interview them about the flood at the site of their loss.
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In Anatomy of a Flood, a three-way video installation, Sellers immerses the viewer in first hand testimonials interwoven with archival educational and news footage, and a new, narrative film of a scientist explaining the phases of the flood. To the viewer’s left and right, projected images of rising water recreate the immediacy of the flood experience so many shared.
Above: Josh Yates, 35mm, 2015 Right: Dorian Warneck, 35mm, 2015
Warneck, a street photographer in the city and maker of the Neighbors zine. Warneck’s contribution to Waterlines features a selection of photographs that focus on his city and its ability to live in and around the frequent flood waters.
plants to endure the strong force of water.
Actor and educator Shannon Ivey moved back to Columbia in early November, choosing a duplex in Forest Acres, one block from an area decimated by the October flooding. In her solo performance piece, Natural Disasters of the Human Kind, Ivey gets personal. “I have a waterline. It’s on my body. It’s my C Section scar,” she writes in a description of her piece, which explores change, grief, resiliency, pregnancy and gender. The performance blends monologue, found sound recordings and movement playing on the metaphor of a waterline as a physical reminder of a personal flood.
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Portrait photographer and gardener Michael Dantzler links plants and people in his project The Ark. The piece consists of paired photographs--on one side, images of plants that help prevent erosion in floodplains, and on the other, portraits of people in the community that neighbors turned to for help during the flood--who, like those plants to the ground beneath them, help hold the community together. His piece explores the resiliency of both humans and
Taking the Stage: Performance Art
Unlocking the Data: Interactive Works
In Water Me, a team of artists--Cecil Decker, Chris Johnson, Danny Oakes, James Owens and Michelle Skipper--recreate the experience of being shut in during the flood with a video game challenge. To win, the player must keep a plant alive--feeding the plant fresh water, not contaminated
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When the flood hit, much of the city was inaccessible. Dams burst, bridges failed and roads were impassible under pools of water. Pipes burst, tainting the drinking water supply. There was not much to do but wait for conditions to improve and resources to return to capacity.
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Diving into data and building mathematical models helped some Waterlines artists tell stories of the flood. Some of those stories are dependent on viewer participation to come fully to life.
water from the tap. As days pass in the game, the player passes time watering the plant, listening to the radio and staring out the window.
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Drawing heavily on audio clips from the Waterlines archive, musician Daniel Machado created a new musical composition that scales down the timeline of the flood into a ten minute audio piece. Within this structure, the piece explores textures and musical expressions that represent events that happened during the flood and the emotional state of the flood’s victims and bystanders. In an accompanying video projection, a SoundCloud timeline highlights key flood events as the composition unfolds.
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Artist Jordan Young set out to portray the flood experience in sculptural, mathematical, and digital terms. In collaboration with fiber sculptor Susan Lenz and USC Professor of Mathematics Jerry Griggs, Young’s Flooded mines data and the flood archive to sculpturally chart how social media users documented their experiences of the flood. The piece is an attempt to show the hidden patterns underlying the collective experience of the flood. Viewers also will be able to navigate first-hand video accounts of the flood as an interactive element of the sculpture.
In the Streets: Public Art Some Waterlines artists were challenged to do work outdoors, activating public spaces in a way that would invite viewers to engage with our theme and encourage participation beyond the Indie Grits community. This year’s Mural Artist-in-Residence Josef Kristofoletti will invoke our aesthetic preoccupation with, and complicity in, our own gradual destruction, using a building on Taylor Street as his canvas. The piece will appropriate rainbow-like bands from chromatography--a process whereby the chemical components of a mixture are revealed through color in such a way that they recall ribbons of gasoline floating on water or the remnants of a chemical spill left on the sides of a building. Left: SC National Guard, October 2015 Above: Dorian Warneck, 35mm, 2015
That waterline illustrates the devastating, contrary beauty of mass pollution and environmental degradation. Meanwhile, the mural’s title, Tokamak, identifies a reason for hope: the same-named fusion reactor that some believe offers a solution to our long-standing dependence on fossil fuels.
The stories and relationships that emerged from those interactions formed the basis for a collaborative exhibition, a cooperative inquiry into self-care, both individual and communal. The resulting Waterlines Screening & Performance is
Throughout the Festival The photo show at the Nickelodeon WATER ME and Wade Sellers at 1216 Taylor St Jordan Young and Joshua Yates at the Free Times Gallery Joesph Kristofoletti mural at Main and Taylor OK Keyes at The Sweet Spot Daniel Machado at the Indie Grits Queue Lauren Greenwald projected on 1612 Main St
Friday at 7:00pm and Sunday at 4:00pm Waterlines Screening and Performance at the Nickelodeon with: Steve Daniels Roni Nicole Henderson Lydia Pappas Joshua Yates And more
Thursday at 6:30pm Shannon Ivy at The Sweet Spot
Made possible by: The Central Carolina Community Foundation The National Endowment for the Arts ONE Columbia for Arts and History
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Wanting to explore our theme’s potential influence on public health, USC Ph.D. student Jason Craig invited a group of artists, musicians, actors, activists, and community members to a series of weekend workshops. Laying bare their own experiences, the members of the workshop began exploring the possibilities that collective sharing presents to the health of a community.
When and where to see the Waterlines Pieces
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Collaborative Storytelling: Waterlines Screening & Performance
After a year of stunning tragedies, new beginnings and shifting topographies in the state, Waterlines is our offering to you, an imaginative rethinking of the powerful natural symbols that have defined our community.
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Across from the Nickelodeon on Main Street, Lauren Greenwald’s piece Waterway combines archival footage from the last century and current videos to create an experiential depiction of our environment. The piece explores not only the natural waterways in the region, but man-made paths and routes created for water and the destructive floodplains of the recent natural disaster. Projected on the facade of a building, Greenwald’s piece explores South Carolina’s waterways and landscape, how we move through them, and the ephemeral quality of those movements.
an experimental, transmedia exhibition featuring storytelling, music, dance, song, poetry, film and more that presents viewers with a microcosm of the Waterlines experience.
Indie Grits
River Concert 20
The initial plan for the 10th Indie Grits was to hold the entire festival on the banks of the Congaree River. The October flood forced us to scale down our plans. This event is our celebration of that original vision.
Saturday, April 16th 12:00pm - 10:00pm
Indie Grits River Site
At Senate & Gist Streets
Big Freedia
• The Difference Machine • New Madrid • Dear Blanca Diali Cissokho and Kaira Ba • TOMBoi Megan Jean and the Klay Family Band C.A. Johnson High School Marching Band
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events
eighth blackbird
A Collaboration with Southern Exposure New Music Series
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Thanks to a collaboration between Indie Grits and Southern Exposure at USC, eighth blackbird will kick-off the 2016 Indie Grits Festival with their HAND EYE project. Indie Grits alum Patrick Nugent will present original video art accompaniement.
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eighth blackbird's reputation as one of the world’s leading music ensembles is without question. These “super-musicians” (LA Times) have won multiple Grammy awards, premiered new works by many of the world’s leading composers, and produced seven acclaimed recordings. The sextet has been celebrating this, their 20th anniversary season, in style, winning both a 2016 Grammy (their fourth) for Best Small Ensemble / Chamber Music Performance, and a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.
Thursday, April 14th 6:00pm - 10:00pm
Indie Grits River Site
Happy Hour: 6:00pm-8:00pm Earsight Duo: 6:30pm eighth blackbird: 8:00pm
Yet I’m particularly excited to help present eighth blackbird’s first Columbia performance not because of their award-winning past, but because of what they represent for the future of both classical music and the arts in South Carolina’s capital city. From its inception, eighth blackbird has been in the vanguard of a movement that continues to redefine classical music as an art form without boundaries based on old notions of genre, class, race, educational background, or social status. They champion an evolving, often multi-disciplinary art
that is evocative, instantly appealing, and which satisfies both the head and the heart. This partnership between two Columbia originals and--dare I say--artistic gems of the Southeast, USC’s Southern Exposure New Music Series and Indie Grits, represents a booming, progressive, vital Columbia. It is emblematic of the spirit of collaboration that will fan the artistic flames of our famously hot city into a blazing future. J. Michael Harley
Artistic Director, Southern Exposure New Music Series
events
The Weekly Revue
Bar Mitzvah 1216 Taylor St
doors & live music: 8:00pm Weekly Revue: 8:30pm dance party: 10:00pm - 12:00am
In the Jewish faith, thirteen is the time when a young person becomes an adult in the eyes of the community. This coming
of age is celebrated with a Bar Mitzvah, the most treasured life cycle ritual of the teenage years. And so the Weekly Revue is thrilled to announce the Weekly Revue’s Indie Grits Bar Mitzvah, Friday April 15th! The festivities will be followed by a music fueled reception until midnight (with our house band The Restoration). If you’ve never been to a Bar Mitzvah then you can’t afford to miss this
opportunity. If you’ve been to a Bar Mitzvah, you’ve never seen one like this. We Guarantee It. Save the date folks. Teenage exploration and ancient scripture are about to smash. Show may not be appropriate for actual teenagers.
Toby Lou,
The Nasty One
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This year Indie Grits makes ten years and the Weekly Revue will be there for the third time which means together we are thirteen, ripe with energy, potential, and barely controlled hormonal impulses. Our most adorable days may be in our past but our most fertile are still to come.
Ladies and Gentlemen of Columbia, South Carolina, this is your personal Rabbi, Toby Lou, with an important message about the romance and brotherhood between the Weekly Revue and our beloved Indie Grits.
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Friday, April 15th 8:00pm - 12:00am
Showcase
Thursday - Sunday April 14th, 15th, 17th 12:00pm – 8:00pm
April 16th
12:00pm - 6:00pm events
Reboot Rumble
Indie Bits Indie Bits is a celebration of independent gaming and interactive media designed to foster collaboration between developers and enthusiasts, academics, artists, all interested in games and gaming technologies.
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Kindie Grits Let's Make a MONSTER MOVIE!
Saturday, April 16th SC State Museum 10:00am - 2:00pm Congareee Room indiegrits.com
Calling all kids and families, Kindie Grits, presented by the SC Governor's School for the Arts & Humanities, welcomes kids of all ages to make a monster movie with us! Utilizing animation and live-action techniques, markers, cardboard, glitter, and other crafty techniques we will create a short film by the end of the workshop. Kat LeeHong, youth
educator extraordinaire, will lead the workshop with a few Indie Grits filmmaker alums who are sure to deliver a magical and monstertastic experience. 2016 is a special year for Kindie Grits as the South Carolina State Museum is allowing Grits kids to skip general admission to the museum and pay only $8 for BOTH a planetarium show of your choosing AND a 4D movie! Wow, what a deal!
Sunday, April 17th 5:00pm - 9:00pm
Indie Bits & Pieces Saturday, April 16th 12:00pm - 4:00pm
1216 Taylor St
Sunday, April 17th 1:00pm - 5:00pm Nickelodeon Back Parking Lot Featuring BBQ from Mike Davis of Terra and Lamb's Bread Vegan Cafe
Avi Jacob 2:30pm
Prairie Willows 3:30pm
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Grace Joyner 1:30pm
events
Back Alley BBQ
with live music by:
Puppet Slam
1:00pm & 3:00pm the Nickelodeon
What's a Puppet Slam? The Puppet Slam Network defines a Puppet Slam as, "the nexus of vaudeville, burlesque, and performance art through the intersection of experimental theater, art, music, and dance as a viable alternative to the culturally homogenous digital mass media."
The Puppet Slam is an adults only event.
House band:
She Returns from War (Charleston, SC ) The puppeteers participating in the 2016 Indie Grits slam are: Bonnie Duncan (Boston, MA) , Baxter Engle (Columbia, SC), Larry Hembree (Columbia, SC), Lyon Hill (Columbia, SC), Tamara Joksimovic (Columbia, SC), Kimi Maeda (Columbia, SC), Brandon McIver (Columbia, SC), Valerie Meiss (Asheville, NC), Melissa Reed (Columbia, SC), Will Schutze (Charleston, SC), Neda Spalajkovic (Columbia, SC), West of Roan: Channing Showalter and Annie Schermer (Marshall, NC)
Made possible by the Puppet Slam Network & City of Columbia
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Sunday, April 17th
festival schedule
Indie Grits Schedule Thursday, April 14 th Film:
Harvest
1:30pm /
Page 32
Film: Jacqueline (Argentine) 2:00pm /
Page 32
Film: Social Disparity Shorts 4:45pm /
Page 43
Film: Little Sister
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5:15pm /
Page 33
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1:30pm /
Page 35
Film: Experimental Shorts:
Form and Process 3:30pm / Page 46
Film: Portraits of Legacy 4:30pm /
Page 48
Film: Generation Lost 5:45pm /
Page 50
Indie Bits Showcase / Page 24
Thu, Fri, Sun: 12:00pm-8:00pm Sat: 12:00pm-6:00pm 1216 Taylor St
All film screenings are at the Nickelodeon.
eighth blackbird at Indie Grits
Film: The Color of Fire 7:00pm /
Page 34
6:00pm-10:00pm / Page 22 River Site at Senate and Gist
Film: Everywhere Here
Natural Disasters of the Human Kind
Film: Jacqueline (Argentine)
6:30pm-7:30pm / The Sweet Spot, 930 Gervais St
Friday, April 15 th Film: A Reason To Stay
Ongoing Event
8:00pm /
9:30pm /
Page 44 Page 32
Page 17
All film screenings are at the Nickelodeon.
Waterlines Performance 7:00pm-8:30pm /
Page 13
The Nickelodeon
8:00pm /
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Page 36
Film: Paperback 9:30pm /
The Weekly Revue Bar Mitzvah 8:00pm-12:00am / 1216 Taylor St
Film: Deep Run
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Party at the Whig! 12:00am-2:00am The Whig, 1200 Main St
Kindie Grits 10:00am-2:00pm / SC State Museum, Congaree Room
Film: Everywhere Here
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Film: Indie Grants Shorts 10:00am /
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11:30am /
12:00pm /
Page 38
Page 20
River Site at Senate and Gist
Back Alley BBQ Puppet Slam Page 25
The Nickelodeon
Film: Yazoo Revisited 1:30pm /
Page 42
Puppet Slam 3:00pm /
Page 25
The Nickelodeon
Page 24
Film: Eat White Dirt 8:00pm
/ Page 38
After Party at Art Bar!
Page 37
Film: Loa
9:00pm-2:00am Art Bar, 1211 Park St
Page 39
Film: Rubbertown 4:30pm /
Page 41
Film: Little Sister
Page 40
9:30pm /
Page 33
All film screenings are at the Nickelodeon.
Waterlines Performance 4:00pm-5:30pm /
Page 13
Film: Experimental Shorts: Form and Process 6:00pm / Page 46
1216 Taylor St
Film: (TBA)
Indie Bits: Reboot Rumble
7:45pm
5:00pm / Page 24 1216 Taylor St
Film: Portraits of Legacy 5:30pm /
Page 48
Film: Generation Lost 8:15pm /
Page 50
indiegrits.com
Page 25
Nickelodeon Back Parking Lot
1:00pm /
7:00pm /
Film: Paperback
Sunday, April 17 th 1:00pm-5:00pm /
Film: Overalls and Aprons
12:00pm-4:00pm /
2:45pm /
Page 43
27
Indie Grits River Concert
Film: Social Disparity Shorts 5:30pm /
Indie Bits and Pieces
2:00pm /
12:00pm-10:00pm /
Page 44
1216 Taylor St
Film: Eat White Dirt
festival schedule
All film screenings are at the Nickelodeon.
Saturday, April 16 th
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Kindie Grits: Saturday, April 16 th
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River Concert: Saturday, April 16 th
6:00 - 10:00pm // pg. 22
eigth blackbird: Thursday, April 14 th
Events at River Site
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Events
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14. Back Alley BBQ 15. Puppet Slam 16. The Weekly Revue Bar Mitzvah 17. After Party at Art Bar! 18. After Party at The Whig!
19. Indie Bits Game Showcase 20. Indie Bits and Pieces 21. Reboot Rumble
2016 Films 2016 films
31
Awards Curators' Grits
The People's Grit
Helen Hill Memorial Award
Voted on by the public via ballots handed out at the door of each screening.
2016 Filmmaker Fellow Award Voted on by the 2016 selected filmmakers who are present at the festival.
Voted on by the curators, programmers, and the staff of Indie Grits.
Awarded to the best work by a female filmmaker, in honor of Columbia native and celebrated animator, filmmaker and teacher Helen Hill (1970-2007). Voted on by the curators, programmers, and the staff of Indie Grits.
indiegrits.com
For the 10th year of Indie Grits, we are mixing things up a bit by offering four awards:
Thursday April 14 th
feature blocks
1:30pm
Harvest
Cagney Gentry - Winston-Salem, NC 133 minutes
Hank Colby, the solitary hero at the center of this melancholy meditation on time, tends his land as best he can in his advanced age. As his dedicated work routine breaks down, specters of the past invade Hank’s memory. In the rural calm of the Appalachian Mountains, moments of quiet transcendence suffuse this bewitching, lyrical anti-narrative.
32
Thursday April 14 th 2:00pm
Thursday April 14 th indiegrits.com
9:30pm
Jacqueline (Argentine) Bernardo Britto - New York, NY 89 minutes
Holed up in a small Argentine town with a cache of secret documents, an eccentric French fugitive reaches out to a lonely film director to document her triumphant revelation of an international conspiracy. As she hums pop songs and dodges their questions, the crew grows increasingly suspicious of their purpose.
Thursday April 14 th 5:15pm
April 16 th 9:30pm
[non-competition]
feature blocks
Saturday
Little Sister
Zach Clark - Brooklyn, NY 91 minutes
After a young nun’s veteran brother descends into solitude, she decamps the nunnery. Returning to her estranged family’s home, she tries to help before their dysfunction frays her nerves. But in this sweet, barbed comedy, the sister has her past: a bedroom covered in goth-metal bric-a-brac, a form of kindred history that might save her brother.
33
Blood Letting - Blood Warrior William S. Davis - Charlotte, NC 3 minutes
Shot on grainy, gritty 16mm film, this eery, devilish mountain tale follows a mob of torch-bearing townspeople as they pursue an unfortunate man through the rural countryside.
indiegrits.com
Preceeded by:
Thursday April 14 th
feature blocks
7:00pm
The Color of Fire
Dorian Warneck - Charleston, SC 70 minutes
In this fearlessly intimate account of the moral corruption of war, filmmaker Dorian Warneck follows his father back to his birthplace of Dresden, Germany for a final family gathering. There, the senior Warneck recounts his experiences as a young man on the front lines of WWII: witnessing his city’s firebombing and enlisting in the German army.
34 indiegrits.com
Preceeded by:
Cotton Country
Emily Harrold - New York, NY 15 minutes
A farmer investigates the history of his land--cotton fields that have belonged to his family for 200 years--and grapples with the ethics of inheritance.
Friday
April 15 th
feature blocks
1:30pm
A Reason to Stay
Janene Knox, Peter Becnel - New Orleans, LA 91 minutes
A young couple purchase their New Orleans house four days before Hurricane Katrina makes landfall. With no money left to evacuate, they decide to party through the storm. As the water rises, the festivity becomes a rescue operation and they turn their new home into the neighborhood’s makeshift refuge.
35
The Exceptionally Extraordinary Emporium Lindsey Phillips - New Orleans, LA 19 minutes
Decked out, dolled up NOLA paraders preparing for Mardi Gras sift through pounds of fabrics, feathers, and beads at the family-owned Jefferson Variety craft store.
indiegrits.com
Preceeded by:
Friday
April 15 th
feature blocks
8:00pm [non-competition]
Deep Run
Hillevi Loven - New York, NY 75 minutes
36
Cole and Ashley’s playful love structures their life. A life composed of under-the-table construction gigs, a family no less real for being non-genetic, and a church that might disavow them if they learn that Cole is transgender. By refusing to compromise Cole’s identity, they create a center of gravity on the emotional, financial, religious, and familial high wire of rural North Carolina.
Preceeded by:
Rotatio
Ian McClerin - Charlotte, NC 4 minutes
indiegrits.com
Shannon May Mackenzie is no stranger to the healing powers of art: her meditative temporary installation--a six-foot circle inscribed with thousands of individual lines and isolated, single sentence memoirs--serves to neutralize lingering traumas from the past.
Freak of Nature
Danny Flores - Columbia, SC 2 minutes
This deeply personal video diary--created by the Nickelodeon Theatre’s TakeBreakMake after school program--confronts themes of transphobia and gender dysphoria from an insider’s perspective. [Made possible by SC Equality]
Friday
April 15 th 9:30pm
April 16 th 2:00pm
feature blocks
Saturday
Paperback
Adam Bowers - Los Angeles, CA 78 minutes
In this well-observed, funny romance a frustrated pizza maker--too old to mingle with his college town’s millennials--feels trapped in slacker purgatory. When the girl of his dreams arrives, he must reckon with the realities of growing older, and face a difficult personal obstacle.
37
Preceeded by:
The Boombox Guy
Dust of the Ground - Columbia, SC 4 minutes
The Dinner
Sarah Vollman - Nashville, TN 3 minutes
A gatecrasher intrudes on an intimate evening in this claustrophobic, darkly gritty tale of pasta slurping insanity.
indiegrits.com
Hi-fi evangelist JJ Shepherd roams the streets of Columbia with a boombox perched on his shoulder, spreading his love of music among the good people of this small southern city.
Saturday April 16 th 11:30am
Saturday feature blocks
April 16 th 8:00pm
Eat White Dirt
Adam Forrester - Ruston, LA 37 minutes
An oddly spellbinding personal, cultural, and scientific history of the deeply transgressive practice of consuming soil, this film collects and combines the experiences, processes, and explanations of people who eat dirt with the scientists who study them.
38
Preceeded by:
Miss Addie Johns - Brewton, AL Hamilton Ward - Charlotte, NC 3 minutes
Was Miss Addie merely eccentric, or was she a witch? Our faceless storyteller, recalling a mysterious neighbor from his youth, cannot seem to give an answer.
Collinsville Trade Day, 1988 indiegrits.com
Jason Keener, Charles Keener - Hoover, AL 7 minutes
Shot over the course of a day and then edited three decades after the fact, two generations of Keeners reconstruct a gathering of rural vendors bartering for used appliances, fresh produce, and decorative odds and ends.
Lamp: A Ghost Story
Thomas Southerland - Lexington, KY 16 minutes
A seventy-year-old Kentuckian loses sleep after buying a secondhand lamp.
Saturday April 16 th
feature blocks
2:45pm
Loa
Georg Koszulinski - Seattle, WA 61 minutes
As practitioners of Vodou—a syncretic religion drawing from Western African, European, and Caribbean traditions—a houngan and a mambo perform their clerical duties, deep in the Haitian mountains. The two priests bring their complex spirituality into the light for a Westerner’s camera, even as the rituals recede into the darkness of night.
39
War Prayer
Richard Wiebe - St. Paul, MN 17 minutes
War produces many kinds of ruins, and all litter Cyprus. Since the island’s partition and exploitation by militarized governments, the icons of violent history decay into a new iconography, full of horror but not empty of faith.
indiegrits.com
Preceeded by:
Saturday April 16 th
feature blocks
4:30pm
Rubbertown
Remington Smith - Atlanta, GA 78 minutes
Environmental catastrophe defines the lives of Rubbertown’s residents, whose Louisville, KY neighborhood sport poison-belching chemical plants and devastatingly high cancer rates. Through candid interviews and journalistic daring, this fiercely intersectional study exposes the toxic structures that permit such reprehensible corporate behavior.
40
Preceeded by:
The Send-Off
Ivete Lucas, Patrick Bresnan - Austin, TX 13 minutes
indiegrits.com
Agriculture failed Pahokee, FL, which saw its farmable land succumb to the poisons of industry. As unlikely to escape town as they are their approaching adulthood, the local teenagers invest prom with festive, transitional significance.
Beneath a Glass Floor Lobby Lisa Danker - Orlando, FL 4 minutes
When the remains of an ancient village are found beneath the construction site for a new building, a group of Miami residents must reckon with the past.
Saturday April 16 th
feature blocks
7:00pm
Overalls and Aprons Thibaut Fagonde - Mt. Pleasant, SC 73 minutes
Between the rapidly expanding culinary scene of Charleston, SC and the increasing sophistication of politicized foodie culture, “farm-to-table” has become a prized ideal of food preparation. For ten prominent Charleston chefs and the farmers they work with, how viable—and desirable—is locally-sourced cuisine?
41
The Bugg Farm
Christine Anthony, Owen Masterson Atlanta, GA 11 minutes
Though the Marines took him around the world, Addis Bugg found himself drawn back to a cultivated heritage in Georgia: the centuries-old family farm his great, great, great grandfather, freed slave T.J. Bugg, tilled after his emancipation.
indiegrits.com
Preceeded by:
Sunday
April 17 th
feature blocks
1:30pm
Yazoo Revisited: Integration and
Segregation in a Deep Southern Town David Rae Morris - New Orleans, LA 84 minutes
42
Diving deep into the history of Yazoo City, MS, David Rae Morris complicates the mainstream account of the city's integration of its public schools, decades after it was federally mandated. Morris uses his father's account as a blueprint and expands it with eyewitness testimonies of the racial tension and violence that history tried to erase.
indiegrits.com
Preceeded by:
invisible-i-am
Harriet Showman - Columbia, SC 3 minutes
Her captivating language keeping time with the rhythms of an industrial dryer, former SC Poet Laureate Izzybelle Shaw spits spoken word poetry about the invisibility of Black children, women, and mothers.
[A part of Civil Rights Sundays]
Thursday April 14 th 4:45pm
Saturday 5:30pm
shorts blocks
April 16 th
Social Disparity Shorts By confronting the lingering inequities of life in the South head on, the shorts in our Social Disparity block aggravate the activist impulse in all of us, inciting action and inspiring optimism among audiences hungry for social progress.
I, Destini
2014 Helen Hill Award winner Kelly Gallagher returns to this year’s festival with her latest From Ally to Accomplice, a handcrafted herstory of white anti-racist activism. Indie Grits newbies Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan round out Social Disparity with their documentary The Curse and t he Jubilee, about a once-booming industrial town reckoning with its steady, post-industrial decline.
From Ally to Accomplice
Nicholas Pilarski
43
Indie Grits alum Nicholas Pilarski returns with I, Destini, a melancholy, hallucinatory animated short that commits Destini Riley’s memories of her brother’s incarceration to film. Small town Eureka Springs, AR, divided by a vote for a historic LGBT rights ordinance, provides the backdrop for our next documentary short, Peace in t he Valley--from Indie Grits newcomers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher.
Brooklyn, NY 14 minutes
Peace in the Valley
Michael Palmieri Donal Mosher Portland, OR
Kelly Gallagher
Yellow Springs, OH 18 minutes
The Curse and the Jubilee Ivete Lucas Patrick Bresnan Austin, TX 25 minutes
indiegrits.com
15 minutes
Thursday April 14 th 8:00pm
Saturday
shorts blocks
April 16 th 12:00pm
Everywhere Here
44
Come trail after the filmmakers of Everywhere Here--a group of artists whose humane, hypnotic expeditions venture deep into uncharted territories of feeling, traversing landscapes both foreign and familiar and documenting unusual experiences the likes of which you've never encountered before. These compassionate, astutely observed life studies smudge the national and emotional boundaries restraining our unbridled empathy.
indiegrits.com
Filmmaker Lindsay Branham’s Nascent, a lyrical documentary set amid the tumult and turmoil of a conflict-ridden Central African Republic, follows two children on either side of the country’s ongoing religious confrontations. We leave the stifling heat of the CAR behind for the wintry Alaskan tundra of I Am Yup’ik, Indie Grits alum and Columbia native Daniele Anastasion’s (Big Grit Award winner in 2011, The Redemption of General Butt Naked) striking nonfiction collaboration with filmmaker Nathan Golon about an indigenous tribe’s trek toward basketball glory. It was a Short Film Grand Jury Prize nominee at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Next on our itinerary, a visit to a bilingual butcher shop in Carrboro, NC with documentary director and first-time Indie Grits filmmaker Victoria Bouloubasis’s Un Buen Carnicero. Kelly Creedon-another Indie Grits alum--continues our southeastern jaunt with In This World, a remarkably felt profile of spotlight hungry, multi-talented North Carolina performer Courvosier Cox. Indie Grits alum Anna Kipervaser’s experimental travelogue A Meeting, in Light whisks us away to terrains as diverse as Chicago and Morocco, uniting disparate imagery under a gauzy, seductive visual style. Jonathan Rattner’s meticulously documented dog-sledding expedition The Interior concludes Everywhere Here with a return to the frosty wilds of Alaska.
Nascent
Lindsay Branham Jon Kasbe New York, NY 6 minutes
Daniele Anastasion, Nathan Golon Washington, DC 16 minutes
Un Buen Carnicero
shorts blocks
I Am Yup'ik
Victoria Bouloubasis Durham, NC 14 minutes
In This World Kelly Creedon Charleston, SC 15 minutes
45
A Meeting, In Light Anna Kipervaser Durham, NC 5 minutes
indiegrits.com
The Interior
Jonathan Rattner Nashville, TN 24 minutes
Friday
April 15 th 3:30pm
Sunday shorts blocks
April 17 th 6:00pm
Experimental Shorts Form & Process
46
Experimental filmmaking is the sturdy celluloid backbone of our enterprise here at Indie Grits, the unbreakable foundation on which our festival was built. For a quintessentially Gritsian experience, embrace these grainy, gritty, hand processed, brainborn concept pieces that resurrect Jurassic-era technologies and artifacts (16mm film, Bolex cameras) for your edification and enjoyment. Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina for a raucous weekend of DIY, southern-fried experimental filmmaking, so grab your fork and knife and take a bite of this ultra-rich, life-sustaining brain food.
indiegrits.com
Aaron Kutnick’s squirmy, wormy, aptly titled 16mm Sound Film kicks off our intellectual and aesthetic tasting tour, followed up with Julianna Thomas’s Black & White in Color, a billowy, beautiful study of color suspended in space. Columbia based filmmaker Sydney Key’s Colored interrogates ideas of Blackness and its myriad depictions on screen, while director Bonne Fee’s jittery, nostalgia-tinged beachside home movie untitled concerns itself with parent/child relationships. Everyone Is, Jonathan Rasmussen’s cheeky animated collage is paired nicely with the screeching sax sounds of Iowa City’s Curt Oren. Radioactive neon afterburn marks
Body Contours, Indie Grits alum Kristin Reeves’s latest screening at the festival. Next on the docket, Nick Bontrager’s Target mashes up C-grade sci-fi and educational films from the 70s and 80s to tell a story of robots replacing their human counterparts. Indie Grits alums Josh and Annie Gibson time travel to 50s-era Cuba in their travelogue Tempo of Tomorrow Revisited, and Big_Sleep™-fellow festival alum Evan Meaney’s experimental exploration of the human desire for preservation--finishes our crop of experimental cinema.
16mm Sound Film Aaron Kutnik Durham, NC 2 minutes
Black & White In Color shorts blocks
Julianna Thomas Atlanta, GA 2 minutes
Colored
Sydney Key
Columbia, SC 2 minutes
untitled Bonne Fee
San Antonio, TX
47
4 minutes
Everyone Is
Jonathan Rasmussen Huntersville, NC
Target
Nick Bontrager Fort Worth, TX
3 minutes
Body Contours
5 minutes
Kristin Reeves
Tempo of Tomorrow Revisited
6 minutes
Durham, NC 13 minutes
Big_Sleep™
Evan Meaney Amy Szczepanski Columbia, SC 28 minutes
indiegrits.com
Annie Gibson Josh Gibson
Murray, KY
Friday
April 15 th 4:30pm
Sunday shorts blocks
April 17 th 5:30pm
Portraits of Legacy
48
Past and present converge in Portraits of Legacy, a probing, insightful exploration of eccentric individuals and fantastic families. Questions of inheritance and heritage abound in these meticulously observed, deeply personal character studies, absurdly funny and incredibly disquieting by turn. For an hour and half of documentary domination, plop down in your plush theater chair and gobble up the heaping helping of nonfiction nutrition we've projected on the screen in front of you. Indulge in the unreal and the surreal, but don't forget that these unfathomable tales are anything but tall: they're indisputably authentic, utterly, unbelievably true.
indiegrits.com
Indie Grits alum Tyler Trumbo returns to this year’s festival with Frogman, an incisive reminiscence of a childhood marred by bugged homes, mysterious, threatening car tails, and frequent, unexplained parental absences--everyday concerns when your father is a spy for the United States government. Indie Grits initiates Brian Gersten and Liz Dubendorf travel to The Hollerin’ Contest at Spivey’s Corner, a small town competition in rural North Carolina the likes of which you’ve never heard before. Spearhunter, Luke Poling and Adam Roffman’s darkly funny tale of unrestrained, relentless obsession, follows the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest
spear-hunter” and his quest to build a museum honoring his underappreciated art form. Louisianian Zack Godshall’s post-Katrina shipbuilding odyssey The Boatman documents the ongoing struggle of blind ninety-something Joseph Gonzales to complete his long gestating passion project. Columbia, SC based filmmaker James Owens concludes Portraits of Legacy with The Movie About My Fat her--a down-home observance of his eccentric, tale-telling daddy, a man with a checkered past and no shortage of odd beliefs.
Frogman
Tyler Trumbo Palo Alto, CA 15 minutes
shorts blocks
The Hollerin' Contest at Spivey's Corner Brian Gersten Liz Dubendorf
Chicago, IL, Philadelphia, PA 17 minutes
49
Spearhunter Luke Poling Adam Roffman Somerville, MA 14 minutes
Zack Godshall Lafayette, LA 13 minutes
The Movie About My Father James Owens Columbia, SC 27 minutes
indiegrits.com
The Boatman
Friday
April 15 th 5:45pm
Sunday shorts blocks
April 17 th 8:15pm
Generation Lost
50
An astronaut's glove drifts through solar systems and across galaxies. A grieving police officer shimmies his way through a eulogy for his dearly departed dance instructor mother. A mesmerizing, phantasmagoric VHS tapestry plays behind a rising sonic tide of sinister synth sounds. The insanely individual independents gathered together for Generation Lost are a constellation of stars in the Indie Grits film firmament. For a program of intergalactically funny, wrenching, exceedingly well-crafted crowd-pleasers, look no further than this crop of stupendous shorts.
indiegrits.com
We’ve got music videos, live-action narratives, a slice of animation, and even a helping of documentary cinema. In the incredibly diverse, talent rich Generation Lost, every genre is accounted for, every preference seen to. Don’t miss out on this block, folks. These filmmakers’ mantles are already heavy with awards, and their vibrant, unmistakably original films will be gracing bigger and bigger screens in the years to come. Festival alum and Sundance winner Bernardo Britto kicks us off with Glove, an animated existential jaunt through space, followed up with Thunder Road-fellow Indie Grits alum Jim Cummings’s painfully funny, 2016 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning funeral meltdown. Nickelodeon Theatre Filmmaker in
Residence Joshua Yates hypnotizes with his expressive analog music video Purple, followed by Nathan Honnold and Haley McManus’s diabetes inducing documentary, the unhinged candy binge Getting Old. John Merizalde’s elegant, quietly riveting black and white music video Bang, astonishes with unexpected violence, while Reuben Bloom’s evocative Root bound delves into the sensory experiences of its protagonist. 2013 Young Grit Award winner Joshua Rainwater returns with Jasmines, about an oxygen deprived spaceman’s final memory-filled moments. Indie Grits alum Harry Bartle’s Rouler, Sonner punctuates our Generation Lost block with a farcical tale of intrigue, about a young man assigned to deliver a mysterious parcel--its contents and destination unknown.
Glove
Alexa Lim Haas, Bernardo Britto Brooklyn, NY 6 minutes
Purple - Silk Duck
North Hollywood, CA
Iowa City, IA
Jim Cummings 13 minutes
Josh Yates
shorts blocks
Thunder Road
10 minutes
Getting Old
Nathan Honnold, Haley McManus Alpharetta, GA 2 minutes
51
Bang Jon Waltz
John Merizalde Los Angeles, CA 4 minutes
Rootbound Reuben Bloom Charlotte, NC 17 minutes
Joshua Rainwater Columbia, SC 7 minutes
Rouler, Sonner Harry Bartle
New Orleans, LA 14 minutes
indiegrits.com
Jasmines
Thanks to the Nickelodeon and Indie Grits staff, board, and interns for their dedication, creativity, and energy.
indiegrits.com
52
Nickelodeon / Indie Grits Staff:
Nickelodeon Board of Directors
Andy Smith, Executive Director Seth Gadsden, Managing Director Kristin Morris, Marketing Manager Carrie Grebenc, Development Manager Kaitlin McKnight, Theater Operations Manager Pedro LopezDeVictoria, Programming Coord. Savannah Taylor, Designer Amada Torruella, Development Asst. / Volunteer Coord. Stephanie Campbell, Asst. Theater Manager Deborah Adedokun, Asst. Theater Manager Jessa Gaitor, Asst. Theater Manager Quereshi Breaux, Theater Staff Bree Burchfield, Theater Staff Laura Godenick, Theater Staff Adam Hoffbauer, Theater Staff Nic Jenkins, Theater Staff Charlotte Johnston, Theater Staff Joseph Niati, Theater Staff Torres Perkins, Theater Staff Ony Ratsimbaharison, Theater Staff Sean Shoppell, Theater Staff Anna Weller, Theater Staff Tobey Wilson, Theater Staff Phill Blair, Festival Logistics / Beer Man Luke Hodges, Marketing Asst. Katie Alice Walker, PR Rupert Hudson, Filmmaker Hospitality O.K. Keyes, Festival Videographer Lyon Hill, Puppet Slam Coordinator Sean Rayford, Festival Photographer
Lynn Stokes-Murray, President John P. Boyd, Vice President Chris Controne, Treasurer Lemuel Watson, Secretary Judy Battiste Amos Diasa Nikky Finney Sam Johnson Tracy Jones April Kelly Bob Mason Duncan McIntosh Scott Middleton Wendi Nance Anne Postic Elizabeth Reardon Walton Selig James E. Smith, Jr. Scottie Smith
Interns Kara Anderson Pauline Arroyo Steffi Brinkmann Briana Gadsden Nathan Leach Mike Opal Christine Shestko Jasper Taylor
Indie Grants Shorts indiegrits.com
Saturday, April 16th / 10:00am
the Nickelodeon
Works-in-progress screening of the latest Indie Grants short films, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. The Indie Grants is a joint effort between the South Carolina Film Commission and Trident Technical College, teaming up South Carolina scripts and stories with top production professionals. The 2016 funding cycle is now open. Visit indiegrants.org for more information.
Pilgrims (Work-in-Progress)
Brad Land & Corbitt Howard Toddville, SC Set in the punk scene of Greenville, SC, in the 1980's, 16-year-old Terry Webber struggles to navigate a new reality after a tragedy involving his girlfriend.
Isle of Palms (Work-in-Progress)
Joe Worthen Greenville, SC A young man is sent on a sun-washed quest to track down the mysterious molly dealer Hugo Bereft.
Film Index #
16mm Sound Film
A
N
Nascent
G 47
Gallagher, Kelly
43
Gentry, Cagney
32
Gersten, Brian
49
45
Getting Old
51
Anthony, Christine
41
Gibson, Annie
47
Gibson, Josh
47
Glove
51
51
Godshall, Zach
49
Bartle, Harry
51
Golon, Nathan
45
Becnel, Peter
35
Beneath a Glass Floor Lobby
40
Big_Sleep™
47
Haas, Alexa Lim
51
Black & White In Color
47
Harrold, Emily
34
Blood Letting - Blood Warrior
33
Harvest
32
Bloom, Reuben
51
Hollerin' Contest at Spivey's
49
Boatman, The
49
Body Contours
47
Bontrager, Nick
47
Boombox Guy, The
37
Bouloubasis, Victoria
45
I am Yup'ik
Bowers, Adam
37
I, Destini
Branham, Lindsay
45
B
Bang - John Waltz
Bresnan, Patrick
40,43
Britto, Bernardo
32,51
Bugg Farm, The
41
Corner, The Honnold, Nathan
51
Overalls and Aprons
41
Owens, James
49
P
Palmieri, Michael
43
Paperback
37
Peace in the Valley
43
Phillips, Lindsey
35
Pilarski, Nicholas
43
Poling, Luke
49
Purple - Silk Duck
51
R
Rainwater, Joshua
51
Rasmussen, Jonathan
47
Rattner, Jonathan
45
Reason to Stay, A
35
Reeves, Kristin
47
45
Roffman, Adam
49
43
Rootbound
51
In This World
45
Rotatio
36
Interior, The
45
Rouler, Sonner
51
invisible-i-am
42
Rubbertown
40
I
J
Jacqueline (Argentine)
32
Jasmines
51
S
Send-Off, The
40
Showman, Harriet
42
Smith, Remington
40
Clark, Zach
33
Collinsville Trade Day, 1988
38
Color of Fire, The
34
Southerland, Thomas
38
Colored
47
Kasbe, Jon
45
Spearhunter
49
Cotton Country
34
Keener, Charles
38
Szczepanski, Amy
47
Creedon, Kelly
45
Keener, Jason
38
Cummings, Jim
51
Key, Sydney
47
Curse and the Jubilee, The
43
Kipervaser, Anna
45
Target
47
Knox, Janene
35
Tempo of Tomorrow Revisited
47
Koszulinski, Georg
39
Thomas, Julianna
47
Kutnick, Aaron
47
Thunder Road
51
Trumbo, Tyler
49
D
K
40
Davis, William S.
33
Deep Run
36
Dinner, The
37
Lamp: A Ghost Story
38
Dubendorf, Liz
49
Little Sister
33
Dust of the Ground
37
Loa
39
Loven, Hillevi
36
E
L
Lucas, Ivete
Eat White Dirt
38
Everyone Is
47
Exceptionally Extraordinary
35
Emporium, The
F
40,43
T
U
Un Buen Carnicero
45
untitled
47
V
Vollman, Sarah
M
37
W
Masterson, Owen
41
McClerin, Ian
36
War Prayer
39
McManus, Haley
51
Ward, Hamilton
38
Meaney, Evan
47
Warneck, Dorian
34
Fagonde, Thibaut
41
Meeting, in Light, A
45
Wiebe, Richard
39
Fee, Bonne
47
Merizalde, John
51
Flores, Danny
36
Miss Addie Johns -
38
Forrester, Adam
38
Freak of Nature
36
Morris, David Rae
Frogman
49
From Ally to Accomplice
43
Brewton, AL
Y
Yates, Joshua
51
42
Yazoo Revisited: Integration
42
Mosher, Donal
43
and Segregation in a Deep
Movie About My Father, The
49
Southern Town
indiegrits.com
Danker, Lisa
53
C
H
O
film index
Anastasion, Daniele
45