There are a number of KMUW connections to this year’s festival, especially on Saturday as the station is sponsoring the screening of the documentary Seized, which is about the 2023 police raid on the Marion County Record newspaper that made global news. I caught the movie at Sundance earlier this year and I was surprised to discover it’s a lot more purely entertaining than you might expect. And while we may know the broad strokes of the story, we’re given a whole lot more detail and nuance than we’ve had in most reports. The movie plays at the Orpheum at 2:00 on Saturday and will be followed by a Q&A featuring KMUW’s Suzanne Perez talking with Eric Meyer, the owner and editor of the Marion County Record.
Saturday night, Jedd Beaudoin will talk to musician Stewart Copeland, who you may know best as the drummer for The Police, but who’s worked in all sorts of genres throughout his decades in music, including opera and film scores. There’s a documentary about the man that’ll play at the Orpheum that night, followed by that Q&A and conversation between Jedd and Copeland.
Also Saturday at the Boulevard in Old Town, the documentary Fighting More than Fire will play. This movie talks about the history of Black firefighters in Tulsa and will be followed by a Q&A featuring Carla Eckels talking to the movie’s director and three retired firefighters. That movie also plays Friday morning, although the Q&A is only on Saturday.
And Friday evening at the Boulevard, there’ll be a screening of When We Were Live, about the long-thriving public access television scene in Austin, Texas. Our own Teri Mott will host the Q&A for that with the film’s director.
As for me, I’ll be posting my dispatches from the festival each day at kmuw.org, talking about all the movies I’ve seen. And, full disclosure, I’m also on the jury this year for both the narrative short and narrative feature competition films, those winners will be announced Sunday evening at the Orpheum.
You can find a full schedule for this year's festival at tallgrassfilm.org.
