The deadCenter Film Festival wrapped up last weekend, screening 160 films to thousands of film fans from across the country. This was the first fully in-person festival since the pandemic and the excitement was palatable. From the rooftop of the Museum of Art to the patio at The Jones Assembly to the ballroom at 21C Museum Hotel, every single party was filed to the brim with enthusiastic filmmakers and eager fans excited to hear more about the movies they watched.
The big film winner was Fancy Dance, an Oklahoma-made drama from writer/director Erica Tremblay that stars Lily Gladstone, who also stars in the upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon. Fancy Dance won Best Narrative Feature and Best Indigenous Feature, and Tremblay was presented with the Oklahoma Film ICON Award.
Bad Press, a film about a rogue reporter fighting to expose her government’s corruption when the Muscogee Nation suddenly begins censoring its free press, was awarded Best Documentary Feature. Black Barbie, the hilarious and insightful film from University of Oklahoma graduate Lagueria Davis, won the Special Jury Prize for Best Documentary. Quantum Cowboy, a wild western featuring David Arquette, took home the special Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature. And, in the two Oscar qualifying categories; Young People, Old People, and Nothing in Between won Best Live Action Short; and, Swing to the Moon won best Animated Short.
We Will Speak, a documentary about Cherokee activists working to preserve their native language, co-directed by Schon Duncan and Michael McDermit, won best Oklahoma Feature. The External-Internal Monologue of an Interdependent Insomniac, written and directed by recent high school graduate Julian Felix Aaronson, took home Best Oklahoma Short.
Because I helped launch the Film Forward program, I spent all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday showing virtual reality experiences, drone films, and motion capture demonstrations to the hundreds of students and business people coming to experience what’s next in the film industry. Body of Mine, a virtual experience that lets you take on the virtual body of a different gender, won best VR Experience for Los Angeles filmmaker Cameron Kostopoulos.
Sunday was my day to watch films and all of the following were wonderful: Steps, a short film about UCO Paralympian Derek Loccident from director Michael Zubach for the OKC Thunder; The People’s House: The Story of the Oklahoma State Capitol from Bryan Beasley; Body Electric from director Nick Demos; The Herricanes from director Olivia Kuan; Bottoms, a comedy from Emma Seligman; and, Riding Legacy: An Oklahoma Black Cowboy Story from Kian Taylor and Jay Ridley.