Archive for August, 2009

Don’t miss the Memphis premiere of Mike McCarthy’s CIGARETTE GIRL, presented in partnership with Indie Memphis and On Location: Memphis, Thursday, Sept. 10th at Malco’s Studio on the Square. Tickets are $12 each and include admission to the after-party at Nocturnal.

Online ticket sales for the Memphis premiere of CIGARETTE GIRL have closed. Remaining tickets will be sold at the door beginning at 6 pm the night of the screening.

It’s 2035 and smokers are demonized for their dirty habits, forced into a ghetto known simply as the Smoking Section where mainstream non-smoking society hopes its nicotine addicted inhabitants will simply vanish. Put simply: it’s not the place you want to be walking through at night. In this Smoking Section, Cigarette Girl - a classic noir McCarthy lead, all curves, loaded with ammo, and va-va-voom - spends her days selling smokes at under market much to the chagrin of the Vice Lord who runs the Smoking Section. Then Cigarette Girl’s grandmother contracts emphysema and Cigarette Girl decides to kick the habit. After three days of cold turkey Cigarette Girl has to kill for a smoke - or be killed in the Smoking Section.

Pure “smokesploitation,” CIGARETTE GIRL mixes misfit social commentary with beautiful babes and bad boys, guns and glamour, and lots of cigarettes, all shot with the feel of a classic drive-in grindhouse roughie. McCarthy’s works include the crowd pleasing SORE LOSERS and TEENAGE TUPELO, regarded as a classic of the underground-into-indie film scene of the ’90s. CIGARETTE GIRL looks like it will be his biggest film to date.

Click here for more on CIGARETTE GIRL…

Indie Memphis will present Magnolia Pictures’ acclaimed Sundance Film Festival comedy, HUMPDAY, as a special “members-only” screening on Monday, August 31st at Malco’s Studio on the Square.

Associate producer Ted Speaker is scheduled to attend and participate in a Q&A after the screening.

HUMPDAY was written and directed by Lynn Shelton, who screened her last feature, MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE, at the 2008 Indie Memphis Film Festival. While in Memphis last October, Shelton (along with HUMPDAY associate producer Ted Speaker and director of photography Benjamin Kasulke), served on the jury and presented awards for Live From Memphis’ Music Video Showcase, which screens as part of the festival. After HUMPDAY’s Sundance Film Festival premiere in January, Shelton was tapped to write and direct the second season of Craig Brewer’s MTV web-series, $5 COVER, which is currently in production in Seattle.

Admission to the screening is free for Indie Memphis members as a “thank you” for helping the 501(c)(3) non-profit successfully meet its ArtsMemphis challenge grant. Those wishing to attend who are not already Indie Memphis members can join online or at the door the night of the screening.

Individual Indie Memphis memberships are available for $50 each ($30 for full-time students; $40 for filmmakers with at least two production credits), and provide year-round benefits, including special discounts at the annual Indie Memphis Film Festival, set for October 8-15, 2009.

What: Indie Memphis “members-only” screening of HUMPDAY

When: 7:30 pm, Monday, August 31st

Where: Malco’s Studio on the Square

Admission: Free for Indie Memphis members.
Memberships available online or at the door the night of the screening.

About the film:

It has been a decade since Ben (Mark Duplass, THE PUFFY CHAIR) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT) were the bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took the alternate route as a vagabond artist, skipping the globe from Chiapas to Cambodia. When Andrew shows up unannounced on Ben’s doorstep, they easily fall back into their old dynamic of macho one-upmanship. Late into the night at a wild party, the two find themselves locked in a mutual dare: to enter an amateur porn contest together. But what kind of boundary-breaking, envelope pushing porn can two straight dudes make? After the booze and “big talk” run out, only one idea remains — they will have sex together… on camera. It’s not gay; it’s beyond gay. It’s not porn; it’s art. But how exactly will it work? And more importantly, who will tell Anna, Ben’s wife?

Writer/director Lynn Shelton, director of MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE and recipient of the “Someone to Watch Award” at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards, expertly mines the biggest ironies of the male ego to hilarious effect. HUMPDAY is a buddy movie gone wild.

“More full of story, laughs and genuine human emotion than a dozen studio movies.”
~ David Carr, New York Times

“A fresh, funny and highly perceptive picture that blends dudely comedy and adult
relationship drama. Director Shelton is a major arrival on the independent scene.”
~ Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

Click here to view the HUMPDAY trailer.