Movie about this particular town couldn’t be more perfect for Macon Film Festival

Macon native Tim Hall’s “Born River Bye” is a cultural experience that could really resonate with those who attend its screening at the Macon Film Festival.

It’s been 10 years since Hall graduated from First Presbyterian Day School and his film will be presented at the 12th annual Macon Film Festival under the Georgia Feature Narrative category.

“It’s about two childhood friends who reconnect in Macon, Georgia. It explores life in the South and two characters dealing with Southern expectations. While one conforms, the other doesn’t and the story follows as they figure out what they want out of life,” Hall said.

Hall said he wanted to showcase the reality of living in the South.

“We aren’t all sitting on front porches, sipping tea out of Mason jars. The South isn’t portrayed in film often and when it is it’s displayed as a caricature,” Hall said.

The film features historic and identifiable parts of Macon that will likely create a sense of familiarity for the audience.

“We shot all over town and businesses like Starcadia, which is now closed, let us. It functions as another thing from the character’s lives that has decayed,” Hall said.

The Macon Film Festival aims to be inclusive through adding a wide range of films that display the large artistic range of cinema.

The film categories include documentary, Georgia documentary, Georgia narrative, feature, LGBT, music, narrative feature, narrative short, special screening film, spotlight film and student shorts.

Screenings started Thursday with films playing through the weekend at the Douglass Theatre, Cox Capitol Theatre, Museum of Arts and Sciences and Theatre Macon.

There are also daily spotlight films and each evening will close with a special screening. Here are highlights for the other special screenings, which will all be shown at the Douglass:

▪ “Brave New Jersey” at 7:15 p.m. Friday. The film stars Tony Hale and Heather Burns and tells the story of a small town on the night of Orson Welles’ legendary 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast — the hoax that terrified some listeners into believing Martians were invading America. The movie was directed by Judy Lambert, who will be conducting a question and answer session after the screening.

▪ “Lucky” at 7:15 p.m. Saturday. This film is character actor John Carroll Lynch’s directorial debut and follows the spiritual journey of a 90-year-old atheist.

▪ “Please Call Home” at 5:45 p.m. Sunday. The film tells the story of family and brotherhood that surrounded Macon’s Allman Brothers Band and the place they called home, The Big House.

Spotlight films include “Basically Frightened at noon Saturday; “Jackson” at 1:30 p.m. Saturday; “Swim Team” at 1:45 p.m. Saturday; “Rumble: Indians who rocked the world”: 11:45 p.m. Sunday; and “Whose Streets” at 3:15 p.m. Monday.

The festival also provides opportunities for people to learn more about the full-dome experience. This begins Friday with Diana Reichenbach’s “Crafting an Immersive Experience” class, that will focus on the evolution of her interest in immersion for audiences.

Reichenbach is an award-winning multimedia artist who specializes in immersive and architectural media. In addition to her independent and professional work, she is a professor of Animation at Savannah College of Art and Design.

“We do workshops every year, we have a partnership with Bragg Jam and want to tie Macon music history with film,” said Julie Wilkerson, president of the festival.

There will be another workshop later that day on the technical aspect of full-dome filmmaking. All the workshops will be at the Museum of Arts and Sciences.

“This year we are focusing on the filmmaker and the experience. I feel like with this new experience people would want to know how full dome is done,” Wilkerson said.

This story was originally published July 19, 2017 at 1:41 PM with the headline "Movie about this particular town couldn’t be more perfect for Macon Film Festival."