The 16th Annual Tallgrass International Film Festival presented by Consolidated Equities Trust (October 18-22) announced the films that will compete this year in Tallgrass’s Stubbornly Independent and DOXX Spotlight competitions.
The five finalists in the Stubbornly Independent competition include; H.P. Mendoza’s BITTER MELON, Will McFadden’s DOUBTING THOMAS, Sara Radle’s ELEVEN HUNDRED TO LUBBOCK, Adam Cushman’s THE MAESTRO, and Nitzan Mager & Shanchar Langlevm’s A SCIENTIST’S GUIDE TO LIVING AND DYING.
This year’s DOXX Spotlight finalists include; Marion Lipschutz & Rose Rosenblatt’s BEI BEI, Lis Bartlett’s LIGHT IN THE WATER, and Sahra Mani’s A THOUSAND GIRLS LIKE ME. The DOXX Spotlight Competition is sponsored by Greteman Group.
Regarding the Stubbornly Independent hopefuls, Tallgrass Film Festival’s Programming Director Nick Pope said, “It’s hard to imagine five stories that could be more different and unique in comparison to the others within the same group. And that is one of the great things about this competition, as year-after-year, it demonstrates to our Wichita audiences that oftentimes a limited filmmaking budget only increases the odds that the creativity and accomplishment in making these films will be that much greater.”
Gretchen Mitchell, Tallgrass’s co-Director of Programming, was equally enthusiastic about this year’s DOXX Competition finalists, saying, “Our second year presenting the DOXX Competition has once again succeeded in giving us the opportunity to highlight the great work being done by female documentarians and their unique perspective on finding fascinating stories needing to be told, and then having the skill and vision to explore those issues and real life from a woman’s perspective,"
This year marks the 7th year of the SI competition, where eligible films must be domestic narrative feature films made for $500,000 or less without traditional, theatrical, domestic distribution at the time of the festival screening. Finalists will be juried by a panel of industry professionals including director Cory Bowles (BLACK COP), Graham Fine (The Film Sales Company) and Carroll Gelderman (Cinetic Media)
The Stubbornly Independent competition winner will be announced with the Tallgrass Film Festival’s lineup next month and will be featured as the Stubbornly Independent Gala Spotlight selection sponsored by Rick & Monica Nutt on Saturday, October 20. The winner will also receive the Jake Euker Stubbornly Independent Award and a $5,000 cash prize. The three runners-up will be included as official selections in the festival and will be eligible for the Audience Award for Narrative Feature and $2,500 cash prize.