Tickets are on sale for the 2007 Asheville Film Festival, coming up Nov. 8 to 11. They can be purchased on line at www.ashevillefilmfest.com, or by calling the Pack Place Box Office at 257-4500. Tickets for individual screenings are $7 in advance and $8 at the door.
The festival has a vivid variety of films this year, including both local and international entries.
Asheville’s favorite for Best Local Movie of the Year, the kung-fu spoof Golden Blade III: Return of the Monkey’s Uncle, from T.J. Wiedow is among the selections. Those who missed it the first time around this summer will have another opportunity to see it on the big screen and judge for themselves if its kung-fu is the strongest.
It’s not the only movie with local ties. Ghost Town, WNC native Dean Teaster‘s tribute to the Ghost Town in the Sky theme park, will also be at the festival. Filmed in Maggie Valley, it’s attracted substantial buzz on the film festival’s online discussion boards and throughout the area.
Other locally filmed movies include The List starring Malcolm McDowell, Simple Things, and Chris Gallaway‘s documentary‚ The Green Race Movie.
There will also be a block of local works in progress, giving festival-goers a first glimpse at new documentaries by local filmmakers Rod Murphy, Adams Wood, Linda McLean and Rebecca MacNeice. Another local film block will spotlight local shorts.
The festival has Academy award-winning director/writer/actor Ray McKinnon‘s comedy Randy and the Mob, Alex Orr‘s underground hit Blood Car, and Intervention, featuring Asheville’s own Andie MacDowell and 2006 festival honoree Jennifer Tilly, all of which are in competition.
The festival’s also attracted entries from around the globe, including the Greek coming-of-age story Uranya, and Wholetrain, the tale of rival gangs of hip-hop inspired German graffiti artists.
As in years past, the festival has many documentaries as well, including the Sundance Directing Award Winner War/Dance, a tale of redemption in war-torn Uganda, David Redmon and Ashley Sabin‘s Kamp Katrina, which screened as a work in progress here in 2006 and has since gone on to win awards around the country, and Greensboro: Closer to the Truth, a look into the 1979 shootings of protesters by the KKK in Greensboro, N.C.
Fans of Oscar-winner Phillip Seymour-Hoffman are sure to be pleased, as he and Laura Linney head up the opening-night movie The Savages, and he also stars in the crime thriller Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.
This year’s Career Achievement Award winner, Tess Harper, will be featured in her own retrospective, including Tender Mercies, Crimes of the Heart (which got her an Oscar-nomination) and Tim Kirkman‘s Loggerheads.
The festival will close with French director Julian Schnabel‘s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, winner of the best-directing award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Visit www.ashevillefilmfest.com/filmfestival/films for more festival information and trailers for most of the movies.
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