When the San Diego Comic Com announced its cancelation, it really hit home that this year would see almost nothing for fans of movies and geek culture.

However, there are some alternatives popping up now thanks to the internet and some savvy promoters. On top of Wizard World holding lots of virtual panels, now a new convention in Houston is hitting the internet.

QuarantinedCon promises to bring pop culture and comic conventions together using a social online gathering experience.

The event takes place on May 2 and May 3 and the best news is that it is FREE.

“Our hope is to spread positivity and provide distraction during this troubled time,” said founder Dirk Strangely.

The event will be an all-in-one platform where fans can interact with artists, celebs, and vendors and also make purchases just like if you went to the convention in person.

There will be two multicast panels. One is with stars from Deadwood including Peter Jason, Larry Cedar, and Pasha D. Lychnikoff. The second is with horror icons, including Kane Hodder (Jason), Tiffany Shepsis (Tromeo & Juliet) and Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp).

A full list of guests can be found on the events website.

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The deadCENTER Film Festival is Oklahoma’s largest film festival, attracting more than 30,000 attendees this past June.

The name change reflects the festival’s programming expansion to provide year-round educational opportunities for film teachers and working professionals, along with its statewide high school and college education tour. The 15-year-old deadCENTER Film Festival will remain the cornerstone program of the deadCENTER Film Institute.

Current Executive Director Lance McDaniel will transition into the role of artistic director with a focus on expanding educational programs for the institute.

During his five years as executive director, McDaniel has established the filmmaker Distribution Forum, deadCENTER University for high school students, the Oklahoma Film ICON award and the Statewide Education and Festival Tour that won the 2014 Governor’s Arts Award for Education.

The new executive director will manage the business of the deadCENTER Film Institute, overseeing all finances, including expanding corporate and foundation partnerships and building an endowment. Candidates will be evaluated on their experience in fundraising and corporate business development in Oklahoma.

Experience in film and festival management is not a requirement.

Interested applicants are encouraged to send a resume and cover letter to jobs@deadcenterfilm.org by July 31. Interviews will be held in August with a goal of announcing the new executive director in early fall.

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After the screening, writer/director/star Tim Blake Nelson hosted an extended Q&A session with the audience and had more than a few jokes and interesting insights up his sleeve.

Q: The movie had an absolutely pristine look. What sorts of cameras and equipment did you use to film the movie?

Tim Blake Nelson: We filmed Anesthesia only with 35 and 50mm lenses. We wanted for you to see what the eye sees so there’s not much compression. No telephoto lenses really at all and no wide angle. Just really frank photography that’s meant to be present in the room. And we shot the entire film in 28 days.

Q: Your past films are very very personal. Can you tell us the genesis of this idea.

I can tell you, some of it is a little too personal, but I’ll just say it’s a movie I’ve been waiting a long time to make. The initial idea came when I was in graduate school and I lived in a walk up. It was in a bit of a dodgy neighborhood. To get into the building you would buzz in and then the tenant would speak to you on an intercom, to determine if you deserved access. You could listen to the street and so I would go late at night and listen to the street as people passed by. I’d hear a word here and a word there. And then I started to fantasize ”what would happen if a tenant witnessed a moment of violence’. What if they decided to become involved in its cause or causes in the aftermath. That was in 1986 when I came up with that idea. Then I left it alone, but always wanted to write about New York. But I felt that I needed to learn more about New York. I had plenty to write about Oklahoma and for some reason the Holocaust with The Greyzone, but the other movies were about Oklahoma. And so after living in New York now for over 30 years, I am now raising kids there and having most of my closest friends there as well. And my brother lives there who is is two years older than I and he’s raising a family.

*Nelson’s mother who is in the audience interjects and shouts “1 year!”

Well…14 months. That error came about because I has three children and two of them are two years apart.

I thought, now I’m ready. And then that notion of hearing something over the intercom. The rest of it is just a stew of personal experiences. Really, pretty much of it is put altogether based on what I’ve observed from my reality and the reality of my closest friends.

Q:There were some things about this movie that reminded me of a movie called “Mindwalk” which also starred Sam Waterson. Are you familiar with that movie?

TBN: I’m not. I’ll go and look for that. I’ll gladly talk about any movies that influences this one. That’s not one of them, I’ve not seen that. One of the biggest influences is probably my favorite Woody Allen movie “Crimes and Misdemenors”.

Q: Was Crash one of those influences?

TBN: This is going to sound oxymoronic.  I admire Crash, but I’m not so much of a fan of Crash. I saw Crash once in the theater when it came out and I didn’t go back and watch it. I certainly thought, well  ‘this is a New York version of that style of storytelling’. I hope even to the fans of Crash that it’ll work on those terms. New York is a much tighter place. We’re more densely in relation to one another. It’s just a place of more density. I think that this movie has an intimacy that is appropriate to New York.

Q: How did you balance the writer/director/actor duties. Did make lots of changes while you were shooting?

TBN: Well most of my scenes; all of my scenes were with those two amazing kids, Anna Marks and Ben Koenigsberg. Hopefully they’ll have wonderful careers if that’s what they want. And then with Jessica Hect who I’ve known for years. Then with Sam. I was surrounded by wonderful actors. A lot of what you’re doing when you’re acting on stage or in film if the on set environment is right, is you’re knowing what it is you want and who you are and you’re working with those around you. In a strange way making what they’re doing almost more important than what you’re doing. Like in life, when we’re with someone else, we’re so focused on what their response is and trying to figure out what they want. So I had great scene partners. So it was actually a lot less difficult than what I imagined it would be.  Of course, I never had time because of the 28 schedule to watch anything I did so I’d just turn particularly to Jessica and Sam and say ‘do you think we got that’. And I knew if  that they said yes that it was probably pretty good.

*smiles* Of course I to edit my own performance and take all of the really egregiously bad horrible acting stuff out.

Q: In the writing process did your write this linearly or did you look at each sub-story and then connect them after the fact?

TBN: Wonderful question. I did not write it linearly. I built it laterally as it were. I never knew where each story was going. I certainly didn’t know Joe was going to try to save the Zarrow character until it happened. Then what happens is, once you’ve achieved that, then you can go back retroactively and say  ‘fix this,’ ‘clean up that’. and then you can go back and revise.

I’d gotten a dog for my boys. Of course, those of you who are married and have children and dogs, it’s the husband who ends up doing the crate training.

*Crowd interjects*

Well I did anyway!

*laughs*

So I was up a lot dealing with this damn dog. And then during the day dealing with the dog. I wrote this doing that. I was just like water and cracks on the sidewalk. When I needed to be by the dog,  I was really writing the heart of this. It was interesting.

Q: What kind of dog?

TBN: You know I’m a little embarrassed. It’s one of those designer dogs. What little macho credibility I have is just really….it’s a cockapoo! It’s a very good breed.It’s not a Blue Heeler or Australian Shepherd. We don’t go raccoon hunting or anything. It’s just a little domesticated designer dog.

Q: A lot of the pain the character had seemed to be a response to a nihilistic society. Do you think that this story was in any case an argument for God?

TBN: Well…*pauses* First off, I don’t think our society is nihilistic. Strangely enough, other than aspects of what Zarrow has to say, there’s no character’s point of view in this movie which I entirely agree or espouse. I don’t think this movie is arguing a point of view. I think of it more as an abstract painting. There’s no lesson here other than the really really unnervingly broad statement that if you’re going to live a life that has any sensitivity to your surroundings, pain is going to be inevitable. That’s why the movie ends the way it does. At least he’s not in any pain. That’s the only way that’s going to happen. I’m not anti-technology. I loved Kristen’s monologue. I loved writing it and I especially loved the way she delivered it. I loved being able to lavish attention on it in the film. It’s kind’ve an aria. But do I agree with what she has to say whole heartedly? No. I think there’s truth in it. I think that she from her point of view is expressing something totally legitimate, but that’s not the way I feel. I am not a nihilist nor do I necessarily despair over the contention made by Nietzche that God is dead.  It think that once he made that statement and we started to contend that in the 20th century that it placed us in a terrific kind of predicament and we’re still dealing with that. Aspects of technology are  desperately and unwittingly trying to take its place. I am placing that in the movie so that going away and saying ‘well the filmmakers want me to believe this’ instead that you’ll talk about the movie amongst yourselves because that’s what I like when I go to see a movie.

Q: Something that I thought was prevalent was the work of the ensemble. What are your opinions on an ensemble in the film and the challenges of trying to create that?

TBN: No challenges whatsoever. I guess when you cast an ensemble in a movie like this you have to be careful. I got a great piece of advise from Joel Cohen. He said you can cast one pain in the ass, but just one. Two…it’s really going to hurt your movie. That’s kind of it. There were really none of those in this cast. I have this wonderful casting director whom I always use from Atlanta who now lives in New York named Avy Coffman. She and I put this group together. I guess more broadly, Yeah I think ensemble movies can be incredibly interesting.

There always has to be a gravitational force in a movie. In this case it was Sam. Sam was not my first choice for this role, but he should have been. That’s one of those interesting lessons you learn as a director. I went after this actor and that actor. The first actor I went after I’d done a movie with. I thought I’d just send it to him and of course he’d want to the role. And then he said no. Then I sent it to another actor who I didn’t necessarily want to work, but maybe he was going to be my one pain in the ass of the ensemble and then he said not. But then Sam and his agent were just chasing the role. And then I went to another guy who was off in France doing a movie and he wasn’t reading it quickly enough and I got my little feelings all hurt. And then I  said  ‘Alright, I’ll have lunch with Sam Waterson.’ And then I sat across from him and said ‘what an idiot I’ve been. He should have been my first choice.’ Sam’s generosity, he’s just such a nice guy. Those monologues are so hard to learn. I did another movie with the professor at the heart of it and that actor didn’t really learn the monologues. He kind’ve paraphrased it. You know….I f**king wrote those monologues. It’s like ‘why are you paraphrasing them? I poured over all of those words.’ But then it’s an indie film and you just have to deal with it. But Sam, he just learned them verbatim. This other actor who’d done this other movie with me is this  academy award nominated, you know major film star. So I was just so grateful. I asked ‘how did you learn them so well’. Sam is from the city, but he has this farm in Pennsylvania and  he said ‘I just go out and  just deliver the monologues to the cows’.

Anyway, in terms of ensembles, if its right for the movie, it’s great. But you know, you can’t argue with Lincoln. That movie is Daniel Day Lewis’s movie. The rest of us are just in his orbit. It kind’ve just depends on the project.

Q: At the beginning of the film, we see the ending scene. Conceptually, how and why did you decide to begin there?

TBN: In New York because we’re all packed in there..and I grew up here where that’s not the case, especially in the Paris of the southwest, Tulsa where I grew up

* Wow, shots fired!*

Oklahoma is more of the Moscow.

I actually now love Oklahoma City. Not because you invited the film here, but the revival in Oklahoma City has been incredible and of course I’m a Thunder fan. Having grown up with space around me where you didn’t encounter your neighbors so much. In New York you just see….you’re just with everyone. You witness these interactions that just seem quotidian every day. Nothing going on there, just something casual. I love this notion of this aloof camera(35mm lens) from across the street and you just see this guy go across interact with this guy with flowers. You see some girls go by while he’s buying the flowers. There’s a beggar out there acting for money. The guy comes out and goes on his way. You just take that for granted in New York. But what if you had access and you really knew what was going on. Then you went inside and experienced an interaction inside. What if you actually penetrated the reality. That’s just a phenomenon of living in New York. It felt essential to tell the story that way.

Thank you so much for showing up tonight and coming out to support this wonderful festival!

The post dCFF 2015: Tim Blake Nelson Anesthesia Interview appeared first on Renegade Cinema.

Anesthesia opens with the mugging of Professor Zarrow(Sam Waterston) inside the of his own apartment building. Several characters rush to the scene to find him stabbed with his fate left a mystery. The movie then turns back the clock and follows a number of the people connected to the mugging and follows the stories of their daily lives leading up to the event. The story follows the lives of a recovering drug addict named Joe(K. Todd Freeman) and his friend Jeffrey(Michael Kenneth Williams), a father(Nelson himself) and his cancer diagnosed wife(Jessica Hecht),  a man named Sam(Corey Stoll) who is having a secret affair, and one of Zarrow’s own students Sophie(Kristen Stewart) who struggles to come to terms with own reality. Each of these characters wrestle with their roles in the continuously difficult situations life in the twenty first century brings. 

The film features a sprawling narrative following each member of the ensemble cast as they explore the four corners of New York City. Each supporting character stars in  their own their own mini-novel before their connections to Professor Farrow become clear. It works as a very clever way to look at the different facets of the city with each story exploring the differing philosophies, socioeconomics, and difficult hurdles these people must overcome to survive.  Zarrow acts as the  moral center of gravity by holding each of these lovely and broken individuals together as they go through their own journeys throughout the film. It’s a brilliant use of a non-linear plot structure and is designed to focus on the locale while delivering powerful character driven interactions.

Anesthesia is most definitely an existential venture akin Woody Allen’s early work. The movie wrestles with the notions of the “death of God” in the era of technology and mankind’s need to find fulfillment through humanism. Each of the characters are confronted with crisis in one form or another and they all bring their own unique perspective to finding a solution. Kristen Stewart’s Sophie wrestles with being human and existing in world that she believes doesn’t need her while the likes of Michael K. Williams’s Jeffrey returns to his childhood home to right the wrongs of his past through means of wealth. These are all broken people desperately seeking to find away to survive without knowing exactly how to do it.

The movie avoids preaching a hard and fast moral of the story in favor of a far more ambiguous outcome. Professor Zarrow acts as a guide in his tenure as a Philosophy professor by deliveing some of the most powerful monologues I’ve seen on the big screen in years. Like every great professor, Zarrow never gives the audience an answer to the more difficult questions at hand, but rather challenges us to take them head on to make the world a very place. Sam Waterson’s performance of these lectures is moving and masterful. Each word written by Nelson oozes a passion and intelligence rarely seen even in the indie film circles. Through Zarrow, the film dares us in the audience to examine the people we pass by each and every day and wonder what their stories are. It’s moving, it’s powerful, and it works as a reminder of why I decided to start writing about movies in the first place.

The ensemble cast is an impressive team of up and comers, big names, and famed character actors. Each and every one of them deliver some of the best work of their careers with the biggest standouts being Waterson, Stewart, and Freeman.  Kristen Stewart turns in what should  be a career defining moment in her one on one with Zarrow as she pours out the hopelessness of the heart of Sophie who struggles to defeat her nihilist ideals. Even Corey Stoll(who has become the go to guy for the role of a wealthy home wrecker) brings a level of humanism to his despicable actions that we haven’t seen before.

Tim Blake Nelson has done great directorial work in the past with The Grey Zone and Leaves of Grass, but Anesthesia really takes the cake as his most personal work to date. Despite the having very ambitious goals, he quickly establishes a very down to earth tone. His script is very smart and admirable. Like the endlessly admirable professor, Nelson’s script delivers line after line with each throwing a punch the heart. Even though some of the voices seem uncharacteristically intelligent, you quickly grow to respect the worldview they each represent. These characters are all tortured by something, but the script seems to exhibit that the most beautiful part about the brokeness of these people is their desire to search for hope to make it better.

Anesthesia is a rare breed of smart humanist filmmaking we don’t get to see often enough. It presents some of the inevitable issues we’re all facing in the postmodern era  in a very honest light without celebrating or penalizing the responses of the characters. Like most great pieces of literature, it leaves the answers and the takeaway from the movie for us to explore in the aftermath. The lack of resolution to the themes at hand will be frustrating to some, but there’s no doubt that Tim Blake Nelson succeeded in telling the story of a group of seemingly unconnected New Yorkers as they were inspired in the wake of a tragedy.

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Alex(Scott), Emily(Schilling), and their son RJ are new to Los Angeles and are eager to make new friends. In attempt to meet new people, Alex takes his son to a birthday party where he makes a friends with Max. Max’s father Kurt(Schwarzman) gets very excited and invites Alex and his family over for a dinner party. After meeting Charlotte(Godreche) the two families everything seems like it’s going off without a hitch until Kurt puts the boys to bed and the truly wild side of the mysteriously friendly couple begins to come out.

The entire movie stays put in one house which makes for an exciting challenge for writer/director Patrick Brice. He sets up the couple as this wealthy and affluent couple, but leaves just enough off about them that you can’t help but feel uneasy. It’s a premise that just as easily could have been the set up for a great horror movie, but luckily this couple is less psycho killer and more late night sitcom. The slow burn speed of the reveals of the quirky turned queerish marriage is masterful. The further down the rabbit hole the audience goes the louder the laughter grows in order to help ease the painfully uncomfortable nature of each and every secret exploit the duo is into. 

The script is strong with this one as Brice manages to hit a particularly seductive cadence with the pacing. Each and every absurd revelation about Charlotte and Kurt is more obscene than the next, but none of the so called “skeletons” in the closet ever feels out of the realm of possibility with these people. Everything from Kurt’s obsession with painting anuses to Alex’s complex about the size of his own manhood make for some serious laughs despite often feeling grossly uncomfortable.

Given the single location, this is hardly a plot driven movie. It’s all about these characters as they wrestle with their insecurities and uncertainty of their roles in their marriages. It may be a comedy, but there’s actually a fair amount of growth for all of the characters and in a way their interactions in the film act as a sort of therapy session for everyone involved. It may all end in what feels like a totally pointless orgy, but these characters do not start this evening in the same emotional place as they started and the bookended scenes of the couples interacting in the park only highlight their respective arcs.

Patrick Bice has a very unique voice and style that’s somewhere between the raunchiness of Adam Hertz’s American Pie and Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. It’s a very dry conversational style laced with sexual references and not so subtle cracks at sex positions, pretentious artist, and just about everything that makes the world go round. It’s a unique voice that didn’t fully resonate with my own sensibilities, but it delivered something we haven’t seen much in the realm of popular comedy in the last ten years.

For all of its artistic success, The Overnight is definitely going to be a niche comedy. It’s a little too uncomfortable for mainstream adult audiences, especially given the unashamed use of male nudity. If you’ve got sensibilities of steel, you’ll find a lot to enjoy with this sexually quirky exploration of marriage, but for everyone else The Overnight is going to be a curious but necessary pass on the rental shelf.

The post dCFF 2015: The Overnight Delivers the Sleepover From Hell appeared first on Renegade Cinema.

A documentary about the complicated legacy of Evel Knievel and a metaphysical drama about a children’s book author won top honors at the 15^th Annual deadCENTER Film Festival, held June 10-14 in downtown Oklahoma City.

“Being Evel,” by Academy Award-winning director Daniel Junge was selected as Best Documentary Feature, and Best Narrative Feature was awarded to Director Oliver Thompson’s “Welcome to Happiness.”

A generation of Americans grew up worshipping self-styled hero Evel Knievel – watching him every Saturday on Wide World of Sports and buying his Ideal toys. For producer/subject Johnny Knoxville and so many others, he was the ultimate antidote to the disenchantment of the 70’s. But few knew the incredible and often complex aspects of his epic life, which, like his jumps, was sometimes glorious and sometimes disastrous. With an entire genre of sports ascending from his daring inventiveness, now is the time to look at this extreme man and his complicated legacy.

“Being Evel” producers include Johnny Knoxville, Jeff Tremaine, Mat Hoffman, Brendan Kiernan, Justin Moore-Lewy and Daniel Junge.

“Welcome to Happiness” is a metaphysical drama featuring Nick Offerman about a children’s book author who is the gatekeeper to a mysterious door in his closet that only allows certain people to enter. When he learns where the door leads, his life is forever changed.

Best Narrative Short honors went to “This Way Up” by Director Jeremy Cloe, and Christopher André Marks’ “Tiger Hood” won Best Documentary Short.

“Skid,” by Ryan “Staples” Scott, won for Best Oklahoma Feature, and “Course of Food,” directed by Christopher Hunt and produced by Chef Marc Dunham, was chosen as Best Oklahoma Short.

Yoko Okumura’s “Kimi Kabuki” was voted Best Student Film.

Special Jury honors went to “Best of Enemies” in the documentary category, and “The Overnight” for narrative.

2015 deadCENTER Film Festival Award Winners

• Best Narrative Feature: “Welcome to Happiness”
• Best Documentary Feature: “Being Evel”
• Best Narrative Short: “This Way Up”
• Best Documentary Short: “Tiger Hood”
• Best Oklahoma Feature: “Skid”
• Best Oklahoma Short: “Course of Food”
• Best Student Film: “Kimi Kabuki”
• Special Jury Documentary: “Best of Enemies”
• Special Jury Narrative: “The Overnight”

The winners were selected by an independent panel of film industry professionals that includes respected directors, writers, producers and actors.

Judges include: Kat Candler, Michael Rossato-Bennett, Chuck Foxen, Gray Frederickson, Fritz Kiersch, Greg Mellott, Oklahoma Film Critics Circle, Hamad Altourah, Jeffrey Palmer, Victoria Sturtevant, Derek Watson, Anthony Foreman, Kyle Roberts, Clark Wiens, Annabell Grundy, and Bradley Beesley.

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It’s a slice of life movie set in one of Oklahoma’s the titular town of Hollis. Daryl (Ty Fanning) has lived his life taking care of his older brother Hollis (Matt Altobelli) and fighting off  the defeatist philosophies of his father Frank (Terry Masters). After being accepted to Duke on a scholarship he decides to chase dreams by accepting the seeming ticket to success. Daryl begins to make preparations until Hollis winds up running into in trouble with the law.  With time running out, Daryl must make difficult decisions to determine whether he’s going to leave everything behind to chase his future or stay behind to protect his past.

This movie could have been a simple inspirational tale about a small town boy making the acceptance list for Duke, but instead Hollis spends more time exploring the weight of sacrificing the things he loves in order to pursuing his larger ambitions. Like Daryl, the audience lives in the uneasy tension of “should he stay or shouldn’t he” that give the movie and decisions made real stakes.

The movie landed a an exception duo with Tye Fanning and Matt Altobelli who quickly establish a warm and believable chemistry that grounds the heart of the movie. Daryl and Hollis are front and center, but it’s the warmth of the townsfolk of Hollis that really sell the reality of these characters. If you’ve grown up in a small community, you’ve probably experienced the same type of love all of these characters are portraying. These actors feel like people you’d run into in just about any small town and its these details that set this film as something special. The friendly folks of Hollis hit just about every note, but it’s the less kindly characters who come across as caricatured and stilted. Frank for instance never feels like a real guy. He’s an angry and bitter person, but his deep rooted hatred for his boys never really feels quite like it’s earned. The same can be said for Deputy Johnson who comes across like mustache twirling bully whose sole purpose is to make everyone miserable. By and large the cast and delivery are really exceptional even when the script comes across a bit stilted.

Like the acclaimed Winter’s Bone, this movie gives us a look at the smaller towns that most people blow right past on the highway without a thought. Unlike last year’s Rutterless which focused on Oklahoma’s city scenery, Hollis gives us another piece of the country seldom seen on the big screen. The film was shot completely on location in Oklahoma and thanks to some impressive work by cinematographer Samuel Calvin, the far corners of the beloved Sooner state have never looked better. The camera work along with several smart editing decisions set a fittingly rural atmosphere encompassing the entire uniquely rustic community.

Hollis may have moments when it stumbles, but the story being told is a uniquely Oklahoman tale aspiring to inspire the state’s most talented artists to dream a little bigger. It’s grade A filmmaking telling the story of a town and a family Hollywood would never dare explore and it’s got more heart and ambition than just about any blockbuster hitting the big screen summer. If you’re looking for something new and something fresh at deadCenter, make it Hollis.

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However, for those worried, this is really just Marvel movies and they should still have plenty of representation at the convention for their comics. Honestly, this might be for the better. If Comic-Con weeds out a little of the movie entertainment, they might lose some interest from mainstream fans, but it is supposed to be about comics, and they have been pushed aside lately.

For those that just want to see the movie stuff, don’t worry because DC Comics will be there in full effect. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad should both have major presence at this year’s festival. And, honestly, those movies need more advertising to succeed than anything Marvel does because Marvel will sell itself based on its recent output.

Sadly, that means we won’t get this at Comic-Con this year

Are you sad that Marvel Studios won’t be at Comic-Con? Are you even planning on attending the big event? Let’s talk comic conventions in the comment section below.

The post Comic-Con won’t see Marvel Studios in attendance in 2015 appeared first on Renegade Cinema.

Every year the festival brings in native Oklahomans working around the industry and honors their outstanding achievements with the Oklahoma Film ICON Awards. Past recipients of the Oklahoma Film ICON Awards have included people working in various facets of the industry with recipients like “X-Men” and “Enchanted” star James Marsden and Oscar-winning make-up artist Matthew Mungle. These are undoubtably big shoes to fill, but this year’s honorees are some of best and brightest yet.

One of the more recognizable faces to receive one of this year’s ICON awards is none other than Tim Blake Nelson of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” fame. Before Nelson went on to make waves in Hollywood, he graduated from Tulsa’s Holland Hall before moving on to Juilliard to further his career in performance. The actor, singer, director has appeared in more than 65 movies including superhero blockbuster “The Incredible Hulk,” family favorite “Holes,” and the critically acclaimed “Lincoln”. Nelson is set to screen his new movie “Anesthesia” on Saturday June 13 at the Oklahoma Museum of Art.

Another one of this years recipients, Bob Berney, has found success working behind the scenes as the CEO of Picturehouse. Through the movie distribution company, Berney has worked on the releases of critical darlings like Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pans Labyrinth,” Robert Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” and Christopher Nolans’s mindbender “Memento”. Bob Berney is making an appearance on an Okie Film ICON panel at the Oklahoma Museum of Art on Friday June 12 before screening his film “Gloria” at the Devon Energy Auditorium later that evening.

Upcoming documentarian Brad Beesley is another one of the honorees originally from Moore, Oklahoma. He’s known for covering some of the more interesting local stories with documentaries like “Okie Noodling” for PBS or “Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo” for HBO. Beesley is doubling down at this year’s festival by entering his most recent documentary “The Verdigris: In Search of Will Rogers” set to screen 12:30 on June 13 at the Harkins and his latest short film “Calls to Okies” on Friday in the same theater. He closes out his tour of Dead Center when joins in on an Okie Film ICON panel on Friday afternoon.

The final recipient of the ICON awards is former OU grad and associate director of the Native American and Indigenous Programs for the Sundance Institute, Bird Runningwater. Runningwater has championed Native American filmmakers in his time with the Ford Foundation Fellowship that was established to support emerging filmmakers. Bird Runningwater will lead a discussion covering Sundance Programming and Indigenous film at 1:30 on Saturday June 13 at the Oklahoma Museum of Art.

After 15 years, deadCenter continues to grown and attract more and more artists actively working in the industry thanks to the talent of ICON recipients. The festival is a key piece of Oklahoma’s recent creative renaissance with more than 25,000 people attending 2014’s event. This year’s festival is a four day occasion being held in downtown OKC and it kicks off Thursday, June 11 and runs through Sunday, June 14. All access passes can be purchased online or tickets to individual screeners can be purchased the night of the show.

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Here is a look at their recent press release.

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Approximately 100 films have been selected for official screenings at the 15^th Annual deadCENTER Film Festival to take place Wednesday, June 10 through Sunday, June 14 at five locations in downtown Oklahoma City.

More than 1,000 films were submitted for the 2015 festival, including comedies, dramas, documentaries and short films from Oklahoma and around the world. Click here to view the schedule

“With well over 1,000 submissions, this was our most competitive year ever,” said Kim Haywood, director of programming and education for deadCENTER Film Festival. “It was a great thrill to see a record eight feature films produced in Oklahoma make the cut. It is obvious that our great universities and our state rebate program are having a huge impact on the growth of the film industry here in Oklahoma.”

More than 25,000 people attended deadCENTER Film Festival screenings in 2014, generating an economic impact of approximately $2.1 million for Oklahoma City.

Indoor screening locations will include the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Dr., Harkins Bricktown 16, 150 E. Reno Ave., Devon Energy Auditorium, 333 W. Sheridan Ave., and the Terrace Room at Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave.

All Access passes are available online for $125 ($75 for students), and gains the holder priority admission to every film, party, panel and special event.  Individual tickets may be purchased for $10 at the door prior to each screening.  Admission priority is given to pass holders.

There will also be three outdoor screenings that are free and open to the public at The Great Lawn at Myriad Botanical Gardens.

The deadCENTER Film Festival is Oklahoma’s largest film festival, named for its geographic location in the center of the U.S. The nonprofit organization provides year-round events and education to support its mission to promote, encourage and celebrate the independent film arts.

Visit www.deadcenterfilm.org for more information.

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