Scruffy City Film & Music Festival to Exhibit Best of Music Films
Each year thousands of films are submitted to festivals around the world. The Scruffy City Film & Music Festival is no exception. This newly renamed festival, formerly the Knoxville Film & Music Festival, in the heart of downtown Knoxville wants to only exhibit the crème de la crème of films and music. The selection process is long and grueling. They’ve brought in a committee of 30 filmmakers, educators, and musicians, to make the selection choices.
Along with these practiced individuals, SCFMF has also solicited a number of University of Tennessee Cinema Studies students for help in the selection process, giving these students the opportunity to gain real world experience in the film industry and also helping to bring the process a little closer to home for this grass roots festival that is set to become one of the premiere music and film festivals in the US.
This year’s newly announced Director of Programming, James McNally, was gracious enough to answer a few question about the screening and selection process. James is the SCFMF Program Director and Founder of Shorts That Are Not Pants, and has held various positions of import at different festivals, including Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival.
This is the Festival’s second year using FilmFreeway.com as their submissions platform. “FilmFreeway makes it really easy for filmmakers to find our festival and to submit their work. Along with our programming committee, I am able to log in to our festival’s page on FilmFreeway and watch any film submitted to us,” said McNally. “Then I’m able to give it a rating out of 10. When several of our team members have done the same, we have a consensus on whether the film is a contender or whether it’s not for us.”
The Scruffy City Film & Music Festival selections are certainly defined by their qualifiers. “Our festival is pretty unique in that we look for a strong musical element in everything that we select. It could be the subject matter, but just as often it’s simply a strong use of music in the film, whether that’s the score or the soundtrack,” McNally answered. “Apart from that, we’re just looking for strong storytelling and innovative use of the film medium. We really want our audiences to enjoy everything we show them, and based on what we’ve been seeing, I think we’re going to have a really great lineup this year.”
One of the first films selected was Disney’s “The Tunes Behind the Toons.” The short documentary is a veritable who’s who of award-winning composers, among them Alan Menken, Randy Newman, Richard Sherman and other experts who share their insights into the role of music in adding character into animation over the decades, beginning with the work of Walt Disney and Carl Stalling to today’s CGI wonders.
As of this writing, The Scruffy City Film & Music Festival has over 300 submissions from 30 countries. They are close to deciding on a number of films, and until the submission period closes, that number will escalate to over 40 Official Selections.
The deadline for submissions has been extended to March 23. For more information, visit https://www.knoxvillefilms.com.
The Scruffy City Film & Music Festival is an opportunity for filmmakers, film lovers, musicians, and diehard festival enthusiasts to experience something special during the week of April 28-May 3 in the one of the most eclectic, electric cities in America, affectionately known by locals as The Scruffy City.
