31 shorts. 12 features. Dozens of new and old friends in film. Two tuckered out Village Foxes!
This summer, VFM team headed down to Birmingham this for our first Sidewalk Film Festival. For one great week, we caught cutting edge cinema in the heart of Alabama; meeting, learning, and having a blast with our fellow filmmakers all along the way.
We love being Sidewalk members, and the Festival brought reel magic to the Magic City with all it had to offer. If you’re a filmmaker, or otherwise in need of motion graphics, special effects, or voiceover work, don’t forget that you’ve got a friend in VFM! Village Fox Media has the design and VFX experience your next project needs. Check out our portfolio here, reach out today, and get ready for your big ideas to shine, on and off the silver screen!
We kicked off our Sidewalk screenings early with their Spotlight Nights, starting with Monday’s Alabama spotlight. We were able to meet so many talented local filmmakers, and see their work outside of the hectic hustle and bustle of our weekend’s stacked schedule. Some of our absolute favorite films of the festival were seen across these nights, including Life & Liberty’s The Third Child (dir. Serna Amini). This fascinating and well-crafted selection follows the only hearing person in an all-deaf family on his journey to become a voice actor, and went on to win the Sidewalk’s Best Documentary Short Film award.
The futuristic handheld pictured is an ARRI HI-5, courtesy of SouthCine Rental, who, along with Champion Lighting and Grip, graciously shared their elite equipment and experience at the festival’s TechTuesday event. We learned so much about the technology that empowers modern filmmaking, got hands-on with these high-tech tools, and made connections with other filmmakers: huge thanks to the folks at TechBirmingham for hosting!
After Disneybounding into the full-fledged festival Friday with Stolen Kingdom (dir. Joshua Bailey), we hit the ground running Saturday morning, splitting up to take in films across the many venues Sidewalk had to offer. Throughout the weekend, we ran into so many good festival and filmmaking friends across the festival, including Colin Albea, Chase Tinnon, Megan Palmer-Plotka, and Kitty Byrge, all while running back and forth from the fine arts school to the theatre district for packed shows like Good Boy (dir. Ben Leonberg) and the international animated shorts.
After sticking it out through six features, including a late-night screening of the stunning F***toys (dir. Annapurna Sriram) and Saturday’s Not Our First Rodeo party at Cahaba, we powered through our final day. Our Sidewalk Sunday saw us attending Reel South's Movie Maker Meetup, John Hill’s Animation Conversation, and the Filmmaker Happy Hour. Additionally, we made it to several SHOUT features and shorts, including Plainclothes (dir. Carmen Emmi), Queens of the Dead (dir. Tina Romero), and the Nothing is Sacred selections: a fittingly incredible end to our first-ever Sidewalk weekend.
Despite all the wonderful screenings and events we did make it to, there were so many we had to miss, which just goes to show how much quality was jam-packed into this year’s Sidewalk Film Festival. We already can’t wait for next year!
I want to give a special shoutout and recommendation for this movie, Good Boy. Not the most scary horror movie in the traditional sense, but it emotionally impacted me more than anything I have seen in quite a while! This film really inspires me because it communicates something that could really only be said through the medium of film. It’s a reminder of how powerful film is as a medium to tell your story and let your voice be heard. It connects people through emotion and allows reflection on painful realities in a safe way.
And don’t worry, the dog is OK.