Northwestern Oklahoma State University will play host to the deadCENTER Film Festival Organization Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 17-18, in the Student Center Ballroom on the Alva campus in conjunction with the Graceful Arts Center and Rialto Twin Theatre in efforts to launch the inaugural Salt Fork Film Festival. This event is free and open to the public.
The two day event will include two seminars and the annual Cultural Heritage Lecture at Northwestern featuring deadCENTER Executive Director and Alva native Lance McDaniel. It also will include a full day of film classes at Alva High School; a pre-viewing reception at the Graceful Arts Center; free film viewings at Rialto; and a viewing after-party at the Graceful Arts Center.
The schedule for the Salt Fork Film Festival is listed by time, location, and event:
Wednesday, Sept. 17
1:30 to 3 p.m. - Northwestern Student Center Ballroom, film-making workshop No. 1.
3:15 to 4:45 p.m. - Northwestern Student Center Ballroom, film-making workshop No. 2.
7:00 p.m. - Northwestern Student Center Ballroom, Cultural Heritage Lecture featuring Lance McDaniel.
Thursday, Sept. 18
8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. - Alva High School, film-making workshops.
5 p.m. - Graceful Arts Center, downtown Alva, pre-film reception.
6 p.m. – Rialto Twin Theatre, downtown Alva, film viewings (on all three screens).
10 p.m. - Graceful Arts Center, after-party (meet the actors and producers).
McDaniel has significant experience with more than 14 films, including Oscar-nominated “Million Dollar Baby” and Emmy-nominated “First and Female,” a documentary of the 2010 Oklahoma Gubernatorial Race. McDaniel also directed and produced “Light From the Darkroom,” a thriller set in Panama and China but filmed on location in Oklahoma with an all Oklahoma crew, starring Puerto Rican actress Lymari Nadal, who played Denzel Washington’s wife in Ridley Scott’s blockbuster “American Gangster.” In the film, Nadal stars alongside Steven Michael Quezada from “Breaking Bad,” Russell Wong from “The Joy Luck Club” and former Miss Panama Patricia De Leon. Oscar nominee and co-writer of “Apollo 13,” Al Reinert wrote the screenplay with first-time screenwriter Kathleen Rooney from Tulsa.
As part of the deadCENTER Film Festival Statewide Tour and in support of the film “Light From the Darkroom,” which will be shown at the Rialto, Nadal is coming to Alva to attend the film viewings.
In addition to “Light From the Darkroom,” “Alive Inside,” the Audience Award winning documentary from the 2014 Sundance Film Festival also will be featured at Rialto during the film viewings. In addition to the two feature films, the Salt Fork Film Festival will include two programs of short films from the past 14 years of deadCEnter, including the “Best of Oklahoma Shorts” and “Best Comedy Shorts.”
The deadCENTER Film Festival is Oklahoma’s largest film festival and one of the “20 Coolest Film Festivals in the World,” according to Movie Maker magazine. deadCENTER is in its 15th year of bringing quality independent films to Oklahoma and providing a nationally recognized platform for local filmmakers to share their work. For more information about deadCENTER visit www.deadcenterfilm.org.
For more information on the Salt Fork Film Festival workshops and Cultural Heritage Lecture contact Dr. Kay Decker, social sciences department chair and director of the Graceful Arts Center, at (580) 327-8521 or kldecker@nwosu.edu.
-NW-