Li'l film fest not so little anymore

Photo by The Commercial Appeal files, The Commercial Appeal files

Sarah Fleming and Christopher Reyes founded Li'l Film Fest in 2006.

The title adjective may be an abbreviation of "little," but the irreverent and democratic Li'l Film Fest this weekend emerges from a 15-month hibernation looking fatter than ever.

Photo by The Commercial Appeal files

Sarah Fleming and Christopher Reyes founded Li'l Film Fest in 2006.

The venue space for the mini-festival is the largest yet (the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art auditorium, instead of the old MeDiA Co-op theater). The judges are bigger names than before (out-of-town filmmakers whose works have screened at Sundance and Slamdance). And -- perhaps most important, for the local filmmakers who participate -- the cash prize is a whopper: $500, for the winner of the Jury Award, up from $200. (Meanwhile, the winner of the Audience Award, voted on immediately after the screening, gets to pocket the door receipts.)

"Li'l Film Fest 9" begins at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission is $5. DVD's of the festival shorts will be offered for sale at the door.

The festival is dedicated to the topic "Memphis -- Fact or Fiction?" Thirteen local filmmakers -- including such veterans of the Memphis movie scene as Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury, J. Lazarus Hawk and collaborators Morgan Jon Fox and John Tom Roemer -- have contributed shorts to the event, focusing on Memphis myths and milestones ("Weird Tales of Shelby Forest" is director H.G. Ray's contribution). As required by the Li'l Film Fest rules, each of the films is truly "li'l" -- under five minutes in length.

"I really think this is our best festival," said Li'l Film Fest co-founder Sarah Fleming. "I think you can see some real growth in the filmmakers. They've created work of a higher caliber."

The festival was founded in 2006 by filmmakers Fleming and Christopher Reyes of Live From Memphis (livefrommemphis.com), a Web site and production company that has been extremely active in the local arts scene. It was perhaps the most democratic of film festivals: Almost any movie was welcome, as long as it was five minutes or shorter and related somehow to the particular festival's chosen focus.

The first Li'l Film Fest took place March 25, 2006. The focus was the then-recent implosion of Baptist Memorial Hospital on Union Avenue; participating filmmakers ingeniously incorporated footage or stills from the explosion into their shorts.

Intended as a quarterly event, subsequent fests focused on such topics as barbecue, Elvis, freedom of speech and Craig Brewer. The shorts typically were humorous and irreverent, although there were some exceptions, including Angel Ortez's chilling "war on terror"-referencing 2007 work, "First Amendment -- Canceled." (Ortez returns Saturday with a film titled "El Regalo," or "The Gift.")

The last Li'l Film Fest screening took place on Dec. 15, 2007. Fleming said Live From Memphis took a break from the festivals to work on other projects and to re-organize its finances and business plan.

The festival's fatter profile is due, in part, to increased sponsorships, and to Live From Memphis' recent partnership with the Memphis Tourism Foundation, which is underwriting the Li'l Film Fest's production costs (and which may put some of the shorts on its Web site at memphistourism foundation.org).

This Li'l Film Fest is a true collaborative effort. Indie Memphis and the Memphis and Shelby County Film & Television Commission are providing the $500 in prize money. Indie Memphis executive director Erik Jambor recruited the national judges for the event, who include Kent Osborne, a "SpongeBob SquarePants" scripter who also wrote the Sundance Film Festival feature "Dropping Out"; Tom Quinn, writer/director of "The New Year Parade," which won the top awards at last year's Slamdance and Indie Memphis film festivals; and Heidi Van Lier, creator of the 1999 indie film, "Chi Girl."

"Li'l Film Fest 9"

The festival begins at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Overton Park. Admission is $5. For more information, go to livefrommemphis.com and click on projects.

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