Here are the metro-east directors whose films will be featured at St. Louis film festival
This year’s Whitaker St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase will take place on July 15-24 at Washington University’s Brown Hall Auditorium.
Over 60 films—ranging from documentaries to experimental shorts— will be screened throughout the showcase. The event, hosted by Cinema St. Louis, will also feature master classes, post-screening Q&A sessions and will end with an awards ceremony at Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room.
Chris Clark, artistic director for Cinema St. Louis, said the showcase is the second largest film festival the nonprofit sponsors (the St. Louis International Film Festival, which is in the fall, is the largest).
“The showcase is dedicated to St. Louis-area filmmakers and those who live elsewhere but have strong local ties like maybe they grew up here, went to college here, have family here,” Clark said. “The film doesn’t have to take place in St. Louis, but it’s the people. The people that made it have to have a connection here, so it’s to celebrate the deep pool of talented people who live and work here and have worked everywhere.”
For this year’s showcase, three films by directors who have ties to the metro-east will be screened. They are:
4x4
Directed by Andrew Berger
4 mins
Hometown: Edwardsville
Category: Drama Shorts 1
Friday, July 22 at 8:45 p.m.
Synopsis: A young man feels defeated by his severe OCD, while his frustrated therapist attempts to help him make a breakthrough.
The Tattoo Artist
Directed by Matthew Purkaple
2 mins
Hometown: Belleville
Category: Animated & Experimental Shorts
Friday, July 22 at 6 p.m.
“It’s about a character going to work, essentially,” Purkaple said about his film. “I like to illustrate surreal art. I like to create art that is unworldly…the idea of ‘The Tattoo Artist’ came from me being out with some friends and doodling some fun art, and I drew this image of a character tattooing this figure in this unworldly world.”
a love letter to Brian, Lesley, and Michelle
Directed by Hettie Barnhill
62 mins
Hometown: East St. Louis
Category: Animated & Experimental Shorts
Friday July 22 at 6 p.m.
“(It’s) for people who have no connection to (Black Lives Matter) or did not identify with the movement and for the ones who identified with the movement, (it’s )saying this is not new information,” Barhnill said about her film. “I didn’t want anyone thinking I don’t need to hear another story about this. “’a love letter to Brian, Lesley,and Michelle’ was pretty much a love letter to Black Lives Matter, which is a love letter to myself. As a Black person, my life matters”
Tickets for the screening can be purchased here.
“I think people will be impressed and surprised about how really good these films really are and how talented these filmmakers are, even the student works…this is really exciting stuff,” Chris Clark said. “These films can be shown anywhere and they’d be deemed really good stuff.”
This story was originally published July 11, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Here are the metro-east directors whose films will be featured at St. Louis film festival."
