The Louisiana Film Prize Festival had something for everyone

Friday morning before 10:00 am Ricky and I stood in line with dozens of other people at the Robinson Film Center waiting to see the films that were finalists for the Louisiana Film Prize.  Film makers come from across the country to make their films and compete in the competition.  The films have to shot in the Shreveport-Bossier metropolitan area and can’t be longer than 15 minutes. The 21 finalists are selected by the film festival judges, but the big winner is decided by viewer votes.  You have to see all the films, shown in venues spread across downtown Shreveport (or one location in Bossier City across the Red River from Shreveport) on Friday or Saturday in order to vote. 

Ricky and I decided the venues wouldn’t be as crowded on Friday.  Before we retired, we had to see all the films on Saturday, and one venue would fill up, then we had to scurry around to find another viewing site.  This year we watched the eleven films on the orange slate in a comfortable viewing room at the Robinson Film Center downtown, ate a quick  lunch at Abby Singer’s Bistro in the film center, then walked a block to the Capri Theater, an old theater where we could see the ten films on the teal slate.  The Capri had the added advantage of having a bar in the theater, so I sipped a glass of white wine while we watched the second slate of movies. 

The quality of the films has improved every year, so it was extremely difficult this year when it came time to vote for our top three films.  We eventually made our film selections, plus the best actor and actress choices.  The voting process is taken seriously and monitored closely. 

Films we liked included “The Verses” about escaped slaves trying to evade the bounty hunters and dogs on their trail, and the abolitionist family who helps the slaves; “TheStand” based on a true story of a busload of Christians and Muslims in Kenya uniting to stay alive while Muslim extremists seek to separate and kill all non-Muslims; Ya Abi (My Heart) about a Muslim immigrant to the US and her unlikely friendship with an American woman; “He Could Have Gone Pro” features a troubled family dealing with death; and “The Importance of Sex Education,” a coming of age comedy. 

The grand winner was “The Man from Mars.” A cynical podcast host travels the country in his beat-up RV interviewing unusual people who come to his attention.  He travels to rural Louisiana because there is a woman there who thinks she is the second coming of Christ.  The cynical host has a hard time making fun of this woman people call “Mother.”

Saturday our film prize tickets got us free entry into the Red River Revel, where we browsed a large variety of food and drink vendors.  We opted for Hawaiian food and beer that we ate while we listened to an hour and a half sound check for Polyphonic Spree, the Dallas band on tap for later that night.  We also did some serious people watching, but we never heard the scheduled band that was over an hour late getting on stage. 

We browsed through half the arts and crafts vendors, then decided to go home to watch the Tennessee-Georgia football game.  I attended graduate school at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and became an “orange neck”—translation, Volunteer fan.  If you saw this game, you will remember the wild finish, which included a successful Hail Mary pass by Tennessee’s quarterback into the end zone in the last 4 seconds to win the game.    Talk about Coach Butch Jones’ Pixie Dust!