The New Orleans Film Society announced the Narrative and Documentary Competition feature film selections that will compete for a grand jury prize at the 23rd Annual New Orleans Film Festival. The Festival will take place at venues across New Orleans from Oct. 11 to Oct. 18. The 2012 Festival lineup was chosen from a record number 1,250 submissions, and the 15 competing films are all Louisiana premieres. The winner in each category will be determined by jury, and will receive a camera package valued at $10,000 courtesy of Panavision.
Narrative Features In Competition Dead Dad (dir. Ken J. Adachi) – Estranged siblings fight over what to do with the ashes of their recently deceased father.
Four (dir. Joshua Sanchez) – Two tales of seduction and conflicted desire on the 4th of July.
Francine (dir. Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky) – Academy Award winner Melissa Leo stars as a woman struggling to find her place in an oppressive lakeside town after being released from prison.
It’s a Disaster (dir. Todd Berger) – Four couples meet for Sunday brunch only to discover they are stuck in a house together as the world may be about to end.
Leave Me Like You Found Me (dir. Adele Romanski) – A former couple take a camping trip in Sequoia National Park in an attempt to get back together.
Now, Forager (dir. Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin) – A married couple who gather wild mushrooms and sell them to New York restaurants come to a crossroads in their relationship.
Pilgrim Song (dir. Martha Stephens) – An unemployed music teacher sets out to hike Kentucky’s arduous Sheltowee Trace Trail in hopes of finding himself.
Documentary Features In Competition Bayou Blue (dir. Alix Lambert and David McMahon) – In a poverty-stricken area of southeastern Louisiana, 23 men were murdered between 1997 and 2006. Local police departments had great diffi culty finding the perpetrator, partly because of the great demands Hurricane Katrina put on them in 2005.
Call Me Kuchu (dir. Malika Zouhali- Worrall and Katherine Fairfax Wright) – This film traces the life of David Kato, Uganda’s first openly gay activist.
Captive Beauty (dir. Jared Goodman) – Four female inmates, raised on the streets of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin, Colombia, are brought together by a surreal beauty pageant held inside the prison walls.
A Girl Like Her (dir. Ann Fessler) – This doc unveils the hidden history of more than a million young women who became pregnant in the 1950s and 1960s and were banished to maternity homes to give birth, surrender their children, and then return home alone.
The Informant (dir. Jamie Meltzer) – A look at Brandon Darby, an activist known for his aid work in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as well as FBI informant largely responsible for the imprisonment of two youths following the 2008 Republican National Convention.
The Mechanical Bride (dir. Allison de Fren) – The state of the art in artificial companions — from life-sized silicone sex dolls to humanoid robots.
Trash Dance (dir. Andrew Garrison) – Choreographer Allison Orr finds beauty and grace in garbage trucks, and in the sanitation workers who pick up our trash.
Ultimate Christian Wrestling (dir. Jae-Ho Chang and Tara Autovino) – An examination of a traveling pro-wrestling Christian ministry.
Tickets and passes will go on sale Oct. 8 for the general public. Members of the New Orleans Film Society will be able to purchase advance tickets Oct. 1 and will receive discounts on all events.
