These are the movies you won’t want to miss

The 27th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival is set to run Nov. 14-17 at Crosstown Theater and the Studio on the Square, with encore screenings Nov. 18-19.

A trivia contest, parties, film workshops and panel discussions are on the schedule (and those who can’t or don’t want to leave home can watch some films online via a “virtual festival”), but the main focus is, of course, on the work that will be splashed on the movie screens at Crosstown and Studio.

The lineup includes close to 40 feature films and 50 or so short films and music videos, including many created by local or “Hometowner” (in festival parlance) filmmakers, including teens participating in the “Youth Film Showcase.”

That’s a lot to watch, but the total actually represents a retrenchment: the 2023 festival lasted six days, and scheduled close to 170 films. This year’s event has fewer films screening at fewer venues, as Indie Memphis organizers cut costs and readjust, in the wake of the economic uncertainty that has hit most arts-related nonprofits in the wake of disruptions of the COVID shutdowns. (One change: The films aren’t in competition this year, so the only festival honors will be in the “Audience Award” category.)

Is more always better? With veteran festival staffer Kayla Myers stepping up to the role of interim director of programming this year, and Indie Memphis executive director Kimel Fryer overseeing her third festival, the film slate seems as ambitious and high-quality as ever. In fact, this year’s compact schedule may be welcomed by veteran festgoers who in past years have been intimidated by the wealth of choices and frustrated by the many competing and overlapping screenings.

Still, there are a lot of choices. What to see? Here are a few categories and films of note.

Pulitzer prestige: ‘Nickel Boys’

Dubbed “a staggering achievement” by critic Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times, “Nickel Boys” won’t be hard to find later this year (it’s slated to arrive in Malco theaters Dec. 13), but it’s arguably the festival’s most high-profile “prestige” film: It’s an adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize winner by Colson Whitehead (whose previous novel, “Underground Railroad,” also was awarded a Pulitzer), and it’s likely to earn critics’ group awards and even Oscar nominations (the director, making his narrative feature debut, is RaMell Ross, whose documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” screened during the 2018 Indie Memphis festival). Inspired by fact, the movie is a harrowing drama set inside a segregated reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. “Nickel Boys” screens on the festival’s closing night, at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 17, in the Crosstown Theater.

Animation: ‘Memoir of a Snail,’ ‘Flow’ and ‘Boys Go to Jupiter’

An eight-years-in-the-making emotion-walloper from Australia, with a voice cast led by Eric Bana and “Succession” star Sarah Snook, the R-rated “Memoir of a Snail” (8:15 p.m. Nov. 16, Crosstown) uses anthropomorphized stop-motion gastropods to enact a multigenerational saga of “whimsical misery,” according to Slant.

Meanwhile, Latvia’s entry for this year’s Best International Feature Film Oscar, “Flow” (3 p.m. Nov. 16, Studio on the Square), employs what Variety describes as “hypnotic CGI” to depict a cat, a capybara, some cranes, a lemur and other animals on a dangerous journey across an apocalyptic flooded landscape.

The third animated feature is Pittsburgh-based Julian Glander’s colorful and dreamy “Boys Go to Jupiter” (6:15 p.m. Nov. 15, Studio on the Square), in which a suburban teenager encounters an extraterrestrial blob.

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Hometowners: ‘Bluff City Chinese,’ ‘Adopting Greyhounds’ and ‘Funeral Arrangements’

Indie Memphis from the start has showcased the work of local, so-called “Hometowner” filmmakers, many of whom had their first public screenings at the festival and some of whom — Craig Brewer, Ira Sachs — went on to achieve commercial success and international acclaim. As always, this year’s Hometowner category offers a mix of shorts and features of all types, as well as music videos.

Possible standouts include Thandi Cai’s “Bluff City Chinese” (6 p.m. Nov. 15, Crosstown), about Memphis’ Chinese community, which has been little chronicled despite its long history; David Goodman’s “Adopting Greyhounds” (5 p.m. Nov. 17, Studio on the Square), which follows the fates of the dogs who were among the last racers at the now-closed Southland Greyhound Park in West Memphis; and a blast from the past, veteran Memphis filmmaker Anwar Jamison’s microbudget “Funeral Arrangements” (6 p.m. Nov. 15, Studio on the Square), a comedy to die for, so to speak, that debuted at the 2009 Indie Memphis fest.

Also, if you want a preview of the future of Mid-South filmmaking, don’t miss the Memphis Youth Film Showcase (11:30 a.m. Nov. 16, Crosstown), which presents short films by students from across the Mid-South.

Discoveries: “Universal Language,’ ‘On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’ and ‘Moving’

A chief reason to attend film festivals is to take chances on cinematic underdogs — to gamble that you might be moved, awed, enlightened and/or entertained by an unusual, underpromoted movie that otherwise might have escaped your notice.

Just about everything on the Indie Memphis calendar fits that category, but a few that seem particularly promising are “Universal Language” (4 p.m., Nov. 15, Studio on the Square), an absurdist comedy-drama from director Matthew Rankin (who like another eccentric auteur, Guy Maddin, hails from Winnipeg, Canada); “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” (4 p.m. Nov. 17, Crosstown), a drama set around the funeral of an abusive relative, from the Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni, whose debut feature, “I Am Not a Witch,” was a highlight of the 2018 festival; and a reissued rediscovery from Japanese master Shinji Sōmai, 1993’s “Moving” (2 p.m. Nov. 17, Studio on the Square), which Rotten Tomatoes summarizes as “a prime example of the late director’s talent at portraying adolescence on screen.”

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Documentaries: ‘It Was All a Dream,’ ‘Marc Gasol: Memphis Made,’ ‘Dahomey’ and ‘New Wave’

Once all but limited to festivals and public television channels, nonfiction films are now among of the most-watched titles on the streaming services — as long as the documentaries are about murder, scandal or celebrity.

Celebrities are here — the opening night film, “It Was All a Dream” (7 p.m. Nov. 14, Crosstown), focuses on such 1990s rap giants as The Notorious B.I.G., and one of the Hometowner docs is “Marc Gasol: Memphis Made” (2:15 p.m. Nov. 17, Studio on the Square) — but for the most part the documentary filmmakers at Indie Memphis cast their light and brought their artistry to cultures and conflicts without built-in sensationalist or mass-audience appeal. For example, Mati Diop’s award-winning “Dahomey” (1:15 p.m. Nov. 16, Studio on the Square) looks at the return of looted museum treasures to Africa, while “New Wave” (7:15 p.m. Nov. 17, Studio on the Square) examines the overlooked Vietnamese-American New Wave music scene of the 1980s.

Indie Memphis Film Festival 2024

When: Nov. 14-17 (main festival), Nov. 18-19 (encore screenings).

Screenings: Crosstown Theater and Malco Studio on the Square.

Workshops and panels: The Green Room, Crosstown Concourse.

Trivia Party: 7 p.m. Nov. 15, Hampline Brewing, 584 Tillman.

Tickets to single screenings: $15. Passes: $240-$130. “Virtual” pass (watch films online): $30.

Online: For tickets and more information, visit indiememphis.org.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Indie Memphis Film Festival 2024: The movies you should check out