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FilmDayton hosts Dayton-centric film festival

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By Laura Dempsey, Staff Writer Updated 6:06 PM Sunday, April 26, 2009

DAYTON — FilmDayton, a volunteer organization created to support and encourage local filmmaking, is holding the first of what it hopes to be an annual FilmDayton Festival, partnering with Wright State’s Big Lens festival for a weekend of Dayton-centric productions.

Karri O’Reilly, a FilmDayton board member and filmmaker herself, said the group chose to focus on local films for the first festival because “there’s so much involved with putting on a festival the first time, we decided the best and easiest way to do it was to call people you know and ask them to the festival.”

O’Reilly, a WSU grad and active lobbyist for film production tax incentives, said one of FilmDayton’s goals is to educate both legislators and the general public about the possibilities for the film industry in Ohio.

“Some people can’t believe they’ve ever made a movie in Ohio,” she said, “and we have access to the filmmakers. It’s a big community, but a lot of people in town have never had any exposure to the films made around here.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2403 or ldempsey@DaytonDailyNews.com.

FILM DAYTON FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

Films will all be screened at The Neon Movies, 130 E. Fifth St., Dayton. Tickets for each film are $10 for adults, $7 for students (with ID); a festival package is available for $75. Tickets can be purchased now at www.FilmDayton.com.

FESTIVAL OPENING: 5:30 p.m. “Pitch It!” panel

FILM: WSU Big Lens

SYNOPSIS: Student films from Wright State University

SCREENING: 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 15

FILM: Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie

SCREENING: 10 p.m. Friday, May 15

LENGTH: 63 minutes

GENRE: Documentary

ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: October 2008

LOCAL CONNECTION: Filmed between October 2005 and February 2007 in Portsmouth, Ohio,

hawnee State Forest and Wayne National Forest in the Appalachian foot hills of southern Ohio.

SYNOPSIS: Through the experiences of Dallas and Wayne, two amateur Bigfoot researchers, the film shows how the power of a dream can bring two men together in friendship and provide hope and meaning that transcend life’s harsh realities

INFORMATION: www.notyourtypicalbigfootmovie.com

EVENT: Document in Action! workshop

TIME: 11 a.m. Saturday, May 16

LOCATION: ThinkTV, 110 S. Jefferson, St. Dayton

EVENT: Directing Script to Screen: A Masterclass

TIME: 1:30 p.m. Saturday, May 16

LOCATION: ThinkTV, 110 S. Jefferson St., Dayton

FILM: Daughters of the Dust

SCREENING: 1:30 p.m. Saturday, May 16

LENGTH: 113 minutes

GENRE: Drama

ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: 1991

LOCAL CONNECTION: Film features Barbara-O, an independent filmmaker and actress from Dayton, who has acted in “Back Inside Herself,” “A Powerful Thing” and “Diary of an African Nun.” She’d also had television roles in “Laverne and Shirley” and “Wonder Woman,” and she co-starred with Muhammed Ali in the NBC mini-series, “Freedom Road.”

SYNOPSIS: The story of a large African-American family that moved north in the early 20th century, searching for a better future. The film also explores the culture of the Gullah people

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU GO: In 2004, “Daughters of the Dust” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. It features an unusual narrative device — the film is told by an unborn child.

FILM: Taken For a Ride

SCREENING: 4:30 p.m. Saturday, May 16

LENGTH: 52 minutes

GENRE: Documentary

ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: 1996

LOCAL CONNECTION: Created by Jim Klein, a film professor at Wright State.

SYNOPSIS: A documentary film that reveals story of an auto and oil industry campaign, led by General Motors, to buy and dismantle streetcar lines. Across the nation, tracks were torn up, sometimes overnight, and diesel buses placed on city streets.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU GO: “Taken For a Ride” uses investigative journalism, archival footage and interviews; it’s a meditation on corporate power, city form, citizen protest and the social and environmental implications of transportation. Won the Best of Festival award at the 1997 Nashville Film Festival.

FILM: The Speed of Life

SCREENING: 7 p.m. Saturday, May 16

LENGTH: 84 minutes

GENRE: Drama

ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: 2007

LOCAL CONNECTION: Directed by former Daytonian Ed Radtke whose previous work includes “The Dream Catcher” (1999).

SYNOPSIS: The story of Sammer, a 13 year old boy who escapes the streets of New York City by stealing video cameras from tourists. He and his friends retreat to their working class neighborhood to quickly sell the cameras, but Sammer always keeps the tapes. Alone in his bedroom and editing on a rack of stolen computers, Sammer explores this world of footage, infatuated by all the far away places and other people’s lives.

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