Memphis
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Trailer Watch: Tim Sutton’s Memphis
Tim Sutton’s Memphis is a sort of ethnographic rendering of slow cinema, at once alluring and incomplete. The Brooklyn-based director’s second film stars non-actor Willis Earl Beal in a quietly transfixing performance as a mysterious, errant musician, who slinks about the city, with little mind for his work. For its many hypnotic elements (the soundtrack not least among them), Memphis is at its most electrifying when Beal is allowed to lay into some unsuspected sycophant or do-gooder with exacting cool remove. Unfortunately, it’s a remove that often bleeds into the narrative, whose fragments leave the viewer with little to cling to. Kino Lorber will release the […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Aug 22, 2014 -
Welcome to the Terrordome: Sundance London (April 25-27, 2014)
Over one long weekend at the end of April, the third annual edition of Sundance London — a slimmed-down, satellite companion to its 30-year-old US forebear — took place. The first thing to note about the festival is the sheer oddness of its location. The films screen at a characterless (though decently-appointed) Cineworld multiplex inside the O2 Arena, a corporate enormo-dome that hosts everything from musical concerts to live comedy to darts tournaments. The O2 is situated at the Greenwich peninsula on the south bank of the River Thames, roughly six miles to the east of central London, where most […]
by Ashley Clark on May 16, 2014 -
IFP & Vimeo Celebrate Filmmakers and Storytellers at 2014 Sundance Film Festival
On Sunday night, IFP and Vimeo held a party to celebrate the thirteen films screening at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival that had first been developed at the IFP Labs, Project Forum or other IFP programs. IFP supported films included Appropriate Behavior, CAPTIVATED: The Trials of Pamela Smart, Cesar’s Last Fast, Dinosaur 13, Hellion, Little Accidents, Marmato, Memphis, Obvious Child, The Overnighters, Ping Pong Summer, Rich Hill and The Skeleton Twins. The Park City celebration also included many of the 45+ IFP alumni from previous years that were launching new work at the Sundance Film Festival. Joana Vicente, IFP and Made […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 24, 2014 -
Sundance Days Four and Five: Reflection
I think I incorrectly titled my last post. Compared to the rate I am moving at now, my pace on Day Three seems utterly turbo. I am combining the last two days because there is a bit less to report. A good number of our crew members had flights cancelled due to a snow storm in New York City, which allowed for a bit more time to reflect all together. Memphis screened at the Sundance Resort on Tuesday evening. While the movie played for a different audience than we had interacted with over last four days, our crew sat in […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 23, 2014 -
Sundance Day Three: Slowing Down
While the days moved just as quickly as earlier in the festival, and really it was only Day 3, Sunday felt slower, calmer. Maybe I felt more confident having two super successful screenings under our belt, maybe I was more in the rhythm of working on little sleep and running between events and interviews, but things seemed to be moving a tad slower. That does not necessarily mean energy was low, very much the opposite. The Memphis crew was buzzing around parties and screenings and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Willis Earl Beal, our lead, was even having a good time – and he […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 21, 2014 -
Sundance Day Two: Keep Going
Is anyone else already exhausted? Day Two was about keeping energy up. Despite a late Friday night, a less than peaceful rest over at the crew condo, and once again forgetting to drink enough water, on Saturday we had to keep moving. It’s pretty incredible how quickly the hours disappear. Waking up at 7A to realize it is quickly 6P and you have no idea how that could have happened. Where did the day go? Day Two went to supporting fellow filmmakers, an extremely successful radio show, pouring over press breaks, and a long drive back and forth to Salt […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 20, 2014 -
Creating Memphis and Ping Pong Summer: An Interview with Production Designer Bart Mangrum
This is not production designer Bart Mangrum’s first movie at the Sundance Film Festival. He designed Septien (2011, directed by Michael Tully) and I Used To Be Darker (2013, directed by Matt Porterfield), and was both an on-set dresser and extra in Stoker (2012, directed by Chan-wook Park). But this is the first time Mangrum has been at Sundance as the production designer of two feature films screening in the same category. Mangrum was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and still lives there. His father ignited his enthusiasm for art by teaching him how to draw during church around […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 20, 2014 -
Sundance Day One: Premiere Your Film
This is my fourth year attending the Sundance Film Festival, but my first as a producer with a film playing. In the last few years I have come as a spectator, volunteer, fan, and writer, but yesterday I premiered a film as a co-producer. Our film, Memphis, premiered Friday morning in the NEXT section to a sold-out audience. Last year I chronicled my experience at the festival through a barrage of photos of films I went to, meetings I took, and parties I enjoyed as I tried hard to hustle and find traction with some projects — one of which […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 18, 2014 -
“Life is Artifice”: Willis Earl Beal at the Premiere of Memphis
“I couldn’t figure out if I was acting or telling the truth,” said singer Willis Earl Beal, making his film debut in Tim Sutton’s Memphis, at the movie’s U.S. Sundance Film Festival premiere yesterday. “That’s the way it is with my life. I’m trying to be real but I can’t. Or, if I am being real people don’t recognize it as that.” Beal — not from the film’s eponymous city, but like his character, a mysterious figure whose obliquely impassioned DIY soul soars over crackly, homemade backdrops — inflects Sutton’s film with his own very artful dodgery. Indeed, the spirit […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Tim Sutton’s Memphis
Here’s a look at Memphis, Tim Sutton’s follow-up to Pavilion which has been developed in tandem with the Venice Biennale Film College, as one of the first three projects to emerge from the program’s first year. The film, which shot in the early part of the summer in the city of its title, has its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 31, and via The Dissolve we have a trailer for the film. It looks gorgeous and the story about a Memphis-based musician who is “surrounded by beautiful women, legendary musicians, a stone-cold-hustler, a righteous preacher, and a […]
by Nick Dawson on Aug 22, 2013
