Tucson Film Festival’s small selection team handled a record number of selections this year.
“That was exciting,” said Tucson Film Festival Director and Founder Michael Toubassi. “Post-pandemic, I think filmmakers are finally getting back to getting films done, submitting them, and being able to go back out in the festival circuit.”
Hosted by downtown arthouse The Screening Room, Tucson Film Festival will be four nights of independent narrative features, documentaries, shorts, interactive opportunities and live music events.
Twenty-two years ago, when the festival began, it screened purely music-related content. Over the years, it redefined its mission to platforming movies that have desert or southwest “vibes or connections,” whether through the filmmakers or the films themselves.
Then, it extended its reach to University of Arizona school of Theatre and television films, and also began considering narrative features with broader subject matters.
This year’s program is full of award-winning and award-worthy films, which Toubassi attributes to two decades of reputation building on the festival circuit.
“We’ve begun getting a different level of films,” Toubassi said.
The first screening of the weekend will be Test, the festival’s Thursday night “kickoff film.”
Test is a sports drama directed by Sam McConnell and written by and starring Brock Yurich (Tyler Perry’s “The Haves and the Have Nots”), alongside Matthew Morrison (“Glee”), Paloma Garcia-Lee (“West Side Story” 2021), and Tammy Blanchard (“Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows”). The feature follows a closeted bodybuilder pursuing a professional card, all the while reckoning with religion, sexuality and performance-enhancing drug abuse.
“I wouldn’t want to pigeonhole it as just an LGBTQ+ film, because it’s much more than that, but it kind of delves into this whole amateur body building world that’s out there.”
Tucson Film Festival doesn’t always schedule Thursday night screenings, but rather reserves the slot in case “something special” comes in. According to Toubassi, that special film is Test, which has already taken home awards at several festivals.
“It’s maybe not traditional for what the festival does, like a music documentary or an Arizona filmmaker, like the other ones are, but it’s something that we feel is really strong.”
“It’s an award worthy film that’s doing incredible on the festival circuit, and it’s been winning lots of awards, but we’re just excited to be able to bring it to Arizona for an Arizona premiere. It’s a really cool opportunity for us to have a movie that I think that everyone will be talking about.”
The first of two music documentaries, “The Palomino,” will be Friday’s opening night film. Directed by Adrienne Isom and written by KP Hawthorn, the documentary chronicles half a century of Los Angeles’s honky-tonk scene and its impact on American music and culture.
“Even though it’s about a club in Los Angeles, it pretty much feels like it could be a story about a club in Tucson,” Toubassi said. “It really has all the elements that the festival kind of looks for in a movie, and especially in a documentary.”
Following the screening, two of the film’s subjects, legendary rockabilly singer-songwriters Rosie Flores and James Intveld, will participate in a Q&A panel with the director and writer.
Then, the festivities will migrate to Club Congress, where Flores and Intveld will deliver a live performance at the outdoor plaza stage.
“It’s a very special event at this beautiful venue and the two artists are so perfectly suited,” Toubassi said. “We’re just excited that they’re going to come to town to support the movie, as well as give us a show. It’s really exciting for us to have that.”
Saturday’s “centerpiece” film is the world premiere of “Music Ruined My Life,” an equally eccentric and introspective autobiographical documentary by and of Matt Goldman. In the film, Goldman, an Arizona native, UA and Tucson Film Festival alumni, reflects on a failed band that he started in Tucson in the ‘90s.
The film is “wild, weird and darkly funny,” according to a press release.
“It really has all the elements that the festival looks for in a movie, and especially in a documentary,” Toubassi said, adding that both anchor documentaries are “two really strong picks that fit in with the mission or through-line” of the festival.
The premiere will precede a Q&A with director Matt Goldman and producer Stephen Butler, and a special live “music reunion of sorts,” Toubassi said.
On Sunday, the festival will culminate with “The Only Way Out is Through,” a narrative psychological drama about three friends on a backpacking expedition that takes a sudden turn, directed by Kieran Thompson and starring Alex MacNicoll (Transparent, Brilliant Minds).
“It’s about male adult relationships and how childhood friends can transition to being adult friends.”
“Our kickoff night and our closing night are two narrative films that I think are going to really resonate with Tucson audiences,” Toubassi said.
“We always strive to bring in the best movies we can, that we think the Tucson audiences will respond to.”
Tucson Film Festival
WHEN: October 8-11, various times
WHERE: The Screening Room, 127 E Congress St.
COST: Tickets from $10
INFO: tucsonfilmfestival.net
