Lights, camera, action: Film festival back at last

It’s been a long time coming.

After a two-year hiatus, the Tallahassee Film Festival made its return back into the city. Initiated in 2008, the festival is a weekend-long event where 90 films across different genres will play at different venues around Tallahassee.

The event went into action at 7 p.m. Friday at the FSU Student Life Center and hosted by creative director Chris Faupel. The bill consisted of three films: two shorts and one feature-length. The headlining film was the political comedy/drama, “The Misogynists” by Onur Turkel along with a Q&A featuring the director.

The first flick to debut was London director Samuel Clemens’ “Say No,” a film focused on the growing epidemic of school shootings and the consequences of bullying.

Randal Christopher’s “The Driver is Red” followed. It is an animated short film about the capture of SS Nazi Adolf Eichman —one of the main orchestrators of the Holocaust— after he made his escape to Argentina after World War II.

 “The Misogynists” is set in a hotel suite on a Tuesday night on Nov. 8 2017, the night of the presidential election. Starring Dylan Baker, Lou Jay Taylor and more, Tukel’s film captures the state of the United States politically and socially.

“I started writing a day or two after the election, cause I was upset after the election. For me writing, film and art is therapy,” Tukel said.

For over 30 minutes he and a panelist discussed the specifics of some of the tasks he went through while making the movie including the filming process, his headspace during writing, changes in direction and more. He claimed to mainly be focused on the reactions of audiences.

“If I can get both sides to laugh at themselves I’ve done well,” he said after the movie concluded.

For a movie concerning a controversial topic such as the presidency, the audience received the film well.

“It’s really interesting to see his passion,” international affairs major Cassidy Willever said. “He was dissecting both sides and it wasn’t attacking, but understanding.”

SLC Film Committee member Lexi Boynes said the movie was more “abrasive” than she expected but still had a fun experience.

Faupel is calling it a “relaunch” of the film festival. “I’ve really tried to see it through to keep a film festival —a full scale film festival —in Tallahassee, and for the past couple years we’ve been showing one-off screenings to raise funds.”

The Tallahassee Film Festival will feature more diverse films throughout the weekend including a secret screening at 7:15 pm Sunday at the Student Life Center