Let's all go to the movies: A few questions about the Tallahassee Film Festival

For 15 years, the Tallahassee Film Festival has delighted our eyes with movie magic from around the world.

The Tallahassee Film Festival, which runs Sept. 3-4 at venues around town, was founded in 2007 with the support of the Knight Creative Communities Institute, a nonprofit that implements “sense of place” projects which expand and enhance the Tallahassee community.

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Since then, the organization has developed into an international film festival that provides a space for artists to safely share their work and for Tallahassee to view groundbreaking films. They recently launched their Youth Filmmaking Bootcamp, a program designed for high school students to mold their visual and technical filmmaking skills.

With all that in mind, I dug deep into my inner film geek, wearing my 1985 horror cult classic Re-Animator shirt as armor. I prepared to ask Chris Faupel, creative director of the Tallahassee Film Festival, the difficult questions.

Film Q&A

Q: Comedy, drama, or horror?

A: That’s the trifecta that’s the perfect film.

Q: Spielberg or Tarantino?

A: Depends on how I’m feeling that day… Today’s a Tarantino day.

Q: Poehler or Fey

A: Fey all the way.

Q: Have you seen "Russian Doll"?

A:  …. Oh yeah, yeah. "Russian Doll" is pretty amazing.

His gushing over Natasha Lyonne’s performance redeemed him.

Q: "Star Trek" or "Star Wars"?

A: "Star Wars" hands down.

Q: "Back to the Future" 1, 2, or 3?

A: One sets it all up … I’m a purist. The first is always the best … Although I don’t necessarily feel that way about "Alien" vs. "Aliens." 

'A walking festival'

Now that we have a true idea of who Chris Faupel is, we can see how his lifelong passion for film led him to obtain a bachelor’s in creative writing from Florida State University and secured him a place as the creative director and curator of the Tallahassee Film Festival.

Faupel is a state employee by day turned early evening avenger of films that fly under the radar, like their super secret Sunday showing of a film Faupel, deemed “a cult classic in the making.”

Faupel ensures that the festival delivers unique films in a fun and engaging way. To do so, he and his team of film-loving volunteers have created a walking festival that highlights talented filmmakers from around the world while still supporting local intimate venues throughout Tallahassee.

“I love the idea that it can be a walking festival for people. We have people who attend this from out of the state. They come in from all around the country, even from other countries. And you know, to be able to walk from venue to the next, to walk from one movie to the next,” Faupel said.

“We try to touch all the venues that are in the footprint that we have. So this year we are using Cap City Lounge. We actually turned one of the large conference rooms at the Residence Inn on Gaines street into a 100-seat theatre. We are doing films over at the IMAX downtown and Challenger Learning Center; the Hyatt House at Railroad Road Square as well. Every year we really switch up and use different venues.”

Months of work

On Labor Day weekend, these Tallahassee-grown venues will house 50 films in total: 13 features (including the aforementioned super secret Sunday showing), five programs of short films, and a 4K restoration screening of David Lynch’s "Lost Highway."

The months of work Faupel, Artistic Director Steve Dollar, and the team of volunteers at the Tallahassee Film Festival becomes evident when investigating their carefully curated festival of films. They chose to keep the submission requirements as open as possible.

Faupel said, “I take a very unique approach to the film festival curation, which is that we don’t have that many constraints around the film. There's no run time constraints, no content constraints, thematic constraints. It’s just whatever the filmmakers are working on. We’ll watch it and we watch it objectively.”

Diverse and accessible

Tallahassee Film Festival provides a diverse lineup of films from Hollywood-style films like "Freedom's Path" (Saturday at 8 p.m.) which tells the story of the Underground Railroad from the perspective of the slave to a feature-length animated film, "Quantum Cowboys," which uses 12 different animation styles all voiced by famous actors like David Arquette, Alex Cox and Neko Case.

Faupel prides himself on the Saturday morning festival opener, "The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to see Titanic," a feature film from Finland that follows a blind, wheelchair-bound man on his journey to show his sick, online girlfriend the one film she has never seen and he does not want to see, "Titanic."

The festival is committed to providing a diverse, accessible lineup. “We partnered with another organization in town called blindCAN. They’re going to be doing a live audio transcription for visually impaired people who want to see it … This is really going to make it available to that community, who really the film is for.”

Chris Faupel values the artistry found in the city of Tallahassee and is committed to the growth of unique creative stories and artists.

So, lights, camera, and get to action Tallahassee; go see one of the amazing films that are sure to keep your inner critic pleased.

If you go

Dr. Christy Rodriguez de Conte is the feature writer for the Council on Culture & Arts. The Council on Culture & Arts (COCA) is the capital area’s umbrella agency for arts and culture (tallahasseearts.org).

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee Film Festival showcases 50 films in two days