New College of Florida documentary will screen in Tallahassee<\/a>![\""First]()
<\/p>\nOther remarkable films with their eye on Florida include \u201cFirst They Came for My College,\u201d Patrick Bresnan\u2019s documentary about the state\u2019s conservative takeover of Sarasota\u2019s innovative New College; \u201cThe Moths & The Flame,\u201d Kevin Contento\u2019s poetic look at Black fatherhood, shadowed by the sugarcane fields of Pahokee; and \u201cAndre,\u201d the debut from Miami-based writer-director Spencer Levy, which offers a uniquely surreal vision of the Capital City and its eccentric personalities.<\/p>\n
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Dylan Melcher\u2019s comedy \u201cJellyfish Season\u201d turns a weekend escape to the beach into a strange odyssey for three buddies looking to reboot their lives. Sundance favorite \u201cTake Me Home\u201d draws on writer-director Liz Sargeant\u2019s own life in an emotionally powerful family drama set amid a dangerous Florida heat wave.<\/p>\n
Among multiple shorts blocks devoted to everything from comedy to nonfiction, the Tallahassee Filmmakers group premieres the Tally850 Short Film Competition. Competing teams were tasked to make a short film in 90 days, and the top ranking films will premiere on the big screen in the “850” shorts program on Saturday, Oct. 10.<\/p>\n
Friday on our minds<\/p>\n
The group also will participate in special Friday daytime events focused on the city\u2019s filmmaking community. Look for panels and screenings of locally produced documentaries from Bobby Buccellato and Adam Baumel (\u201cCarter Country,\u201d which explores Jimmy Carter\u2019s rural Georgia roots) and musical legend and naturalist Sammy Tedder (\u201cRiver Obscura: Secrets of a Blackwater River – Episode Two,”) with further explorations of the Sopchoppy River.<\/p>\n
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The day\u2019s programs also include a visit from Alabama writer-director and educator Michael Curtis Johnson, who will screen his \u201cThe Undiscovered Country,\u201d a no-budget drama made with his students at the University of North Alabama, and a unique screening of so-called \u201cdome films,\u201d projected in 360 degrees in the Planetarium.<\/p>\n
Mean Streets and Rolling Thunder![\""American]()
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Heroes of rock\u2019n\u2019roll and cinema whose careers are potently intertwined are examined in a pair of literary events.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Oct. 8, New York Times Magazine contributing writer Mark Binelli visits the Challenger to talk about \u201cJust a Shot Away: Martin Scorsese\u2019s Life in Film\u201d (Metropolitan), the first major biography of America\u2019s greatest modern filmmaker, accompanied by rare public screenings of two essential Scorsese short films, \u201cAn American Boy\u201d and \u201cWhat\u2019s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?\u201d Midtown Reader will sell copies for signing.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Oct, 10, Chicago filmmaker Michael Smith will discuss \u201cBob Dylan as Filmmaker: No Time to Think\u201d (McNidder & Grace), an analysis of the protean songwriter\u2019s cinematic vision, accompanied by Ben Creech\u2019s short film adaptation. (Smith also will screen his latest comedy, \u2018Hekla\u201d).<\/p>\n
Cap City: Indies gone wild<\/p>\n
Longtime festival partners Cap City Video Lounge will host a bespoke program on Saturday, Oct. 10, in their new, expanded screening space on West Pensacola Street. It\u2019s fully loaded with fresh and unpredictable new work from rising indie filmmakers.<\/p>\n
The roster includes the Montreal sendup \u201cMessy Legends,\u201d a fractious comedy about delusional millennial scenesters from the duo known as Voyeurism (Kelly Kay Hurcomb and James Watts), and Jennifer Kroot\u2019s \u201cHunky Jesus,\u201d a documentary about San Francisco drag legends. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” will also flaunt a special guest appearance by Tampa Bay members of the troupe.<\/p>\n
New York City is the main character in Jess Zeidman\u2019s \u201cHuman Theories,\u201d which tracks an array of encounters across some 40 vignettes throughout a day in the life of a metropolis. Taylor Olson\u2019s \u201cStitches,\u201d a psychological freakout in three episodes, takes the late-night slot, preceded by a block of horror-themed shorts.<\/p>\n
Strange Days<\/p>\n
Ecological themes find compelling expression in a pair of visionary documentaries focused on earth and sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cDaughters of the Forest\u201d is a story of entanglements: between humans and mushrooms; the visible and the invisible; generational knowledge and modern science.<\/p>\n
\u201cShifting Baselines\u201d offers a strikingly monochrome meditation on outer space and our complicated contemporary relationship to the stars, as Elon Musk fantasizes about colonizing Mars. It\u2019s not the only film about the strange times we live in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Great Experiment,\u201d from Steven Maing and Eric Daniel Metzgar, chronicles in spellbinding black-and-white American life between the years 2017 and 2021, holding up a mirror to a country at war with its own reflection.<\/p>\n
![\""Ponderosa,"]()
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Rob Rice\u2019s \u201cPonderosa\u201d offers its own dark and subversively wry study of surreal contemporary Americana.<\/p>\n
\u201cLost Cause,\u201d from Adam Kritzer, is a meta-narrative about a Yom Kippur service that turns into a group therapy session that turns into a musical.<\/p>\n
The found-footage documentary \u201cNova \u201878\u201d spotlights cultural giants from the Beat and Punk eras \u2013 William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Timothy Leary, Laurie Anderson \u2013 as they perform at the 1978 Nova Convention in New York, offering uncanny projections of the future: our present. The film closes the festival Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Family fun![\"Pierce]()
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There’s also free outdoor entertainment Oct. 10 with a 30th anniversary screening of Tim Burton\u2019s \u201cMars Attacks!\u201d on the green by Kleman Plaza. The cult favorite, a deliriously nutball spoof of 1950s alien invasion movies, stars Jack Nicholson, Jack Black, Annette Bening and Danny Devito. Those surf-rocking apes from space The Disasternauts play at 7 p.m., with screening to follow at 8. Blankets and lawn chairs encouraged.<\/p>\n
If you go<\/p>\n
All Access ($60) passes are on sale at tallahasseefilmfestival.com<\/a>. Tickets to individual programs can be purchased at the door (and in advance online for some select programs). Festival venues are Challenger Learning Center, 200 S. Duval St. and Cap City Video Lounge, 2122 W. Pensacola St.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct. 4, 2026, 5:03 a.m. ET Four days. Five screens. 80 films. And one big concert. This week,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[64,16957,112356,1024,1025,31705,39,89,343,27810,4967,2099,96,232,234,233,34],"class_list":["post-418911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-accessmetered","tag-ny","tag-sourcetallahassee-democrat","tag-sstsentertainmentthings-to-do","tag-sstsnthings-to-do","tag-tagfilm-festivals","tag-tagflorida","tag-tagflorida-state-university","tag-taglocal-affiliate-arts-entertainment","tag-tagmovies","tag-tagnew-college-of-florida","tag-tagnew-york","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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