For Nashville fans of innovative art, Friday night will be fraught with difficult choices. You must decide between the Translation/Jozef van Wissem show at Open Lot, the Nashville Film Festival (for which I reviewed five films in the latest Nashville Scene, shameless me-plug), and this lineup at Betty’s Bar & Grill in West Nashville:
Stone Jack Jones, 84001, and Charlie Rauh. 10pm.
Or, if you really like Charlie Rauh, you can see him in Translation at Open Lot at 6, and then run over to Betty’s and see him AGAIN at 10!
Me, I am seriously torn. The whole concept of Translation hooks me and the artistry of Jozef van Wissem fascinates me. However, 84001 & Rauh are a treat to watch and Leslie Keffer organizes epic Betty’s shows. 84001 will be performing the set they’re taking to the City Skies Festival near Atlanta May 1st (check back for an article about that fest soon).
But I LOVE LOVE LOVE film festivals, and having attended the Nashville Film Fest for 3 years running, I can say that it has a pretty good track record. I would rate it slightly under the more challenging St Louis Film Festival and miles under the phenomenal Toronto Film Festival (I got to go in 2005, yay me!) Nashville has a tendency to cater towards more flashy-star-power fare than the other two reputable festivals, and it is VERY easy to buy a NaFF ticket for a stinker. On the other hand, the festival also has programmed some of my favorite films of recent memory including Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century and John Gianvito’s Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind. Do you research and you will be rewarded. This year’s highlight for me is one of the films I reviewed for the Scene: The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy — the 61 day chronicle of a man who commits suicide by starving himself out in the woods. The only voice is a narrator reading entries from the man’s diary, the pictures get more hallucinatory as the film progresses. I won’t say anything more about it here; if this sounds interesting to you, go read my review. (I’m also helping my friends at The Film Talk with their daily podcast from the fest. Streams live from their site.)
So, what will you be doing? What will I be doing? Probably cloning two copies of myself and attending all three shindigs.
See you this weekend.
Tony
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