With a pair of exciting announcements already for 2024, the CFF has now more than doubled down and conjured a mega-wave of 21 additional features, more than 80 short films, more parties, panels and podcasts alongside the festival’s infamous watch parties.
Add the festival’s booming Discord community into the mix and the reasons for their growing reputation as the Summer Camp For Cinephiles begins to make sense.
There’s even a tribute to the festival’s longtime friend, the late great filmmaker Jeff Burr, to kick off the weekend.
Joining the previously announced World Premiere VIDEO VISION are three more features making their debut at the festival. A film marking the triumphant return of a filmmaker the festival's fans know and love, and two more from filmmakers whose mind-altering visions are sure to end up on countless Best of 2024 lists.
First, there's writer/director Kelsey Egan's THE FIX, CFF's 2024 Closing Night Selection. In the dystopian future of Egan's film, the air is toxic. A troubled young model (Grace Van Dien) takes an illicit new drug at a party and suffers a shocking transformation. She attempts to reverse the effects of the drug, only to discover her mutations may be the key to saving the human race. Throw in some wildly cool effects, the presence of Clancy Brown, and a jaw-dropping third act, and you've got yourself a film tailor-made to find its way into the hearts of the festival's longtime attendees.
Also world premiering is the debut feature of an exciting new voice in genre cinema, writer/director Racheal Cain, whose SOMNIUM acts as the centerpiece of the CFF's opening weekend. Starring the always awesome Chloe Levine (The Ranger) Cain's beautifully shot mind-bender takes place at an experimental sleep clinic, Somnium, where your dreams are made real. Side effects may include: hallucinations, confusion, paranoia, sleep paralysis, detachment from reality, lost sense of self, permanent nightmares.
After hotboxing festival goers’ brains with last year’s bodacious bong-load of hemp horror TRIM SEASON, filmmaker Ariel Vida a two-time festival alum well-anchored in the psyches of CFF audience returns with the World Premiere of a profoundly personal feature years in the making. In SLEEP, WAKE, FORGET, years after civilization has fallen and the infected roam the world, two brothers survive because of a unique skill - the ability to look into the minds of others. Vida's persistent efforts to complete her film saw her serving as director of photography, writer, make-up effects artist, production designer, and myriad other crew positions, and the result is something magical. Ariel's journey to getting the film made is an inspiring story in its own right, and CFF is honored to give her the spotlight to tell it and a screen to share her haunting labor of love.
Every year, the CFF throws a free kick-off event anyone can come out and enjoy. This year's launch party is a tribute to one of the festival's first champions. Filmmaker Jeff Burr (FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM, LEATHERFACE) was the embodiment of CFF’s mission to bring great genre cinema to the city of Chattanooga and beyond. He accomplished this with numerous screenings of his own films but also as a warm-hearted film historian, educator, and mentor to young, local filmmakers. Jeff gave fans new reasons to love cult classics screening for CFF audiences. This event is a free-to-attend (Jeff would have wanted it that way) celebration of the life and films of Jeff Burr.
Some very special guests, including some of Jeff’s close friends, will be joining us as we share memories of the man. As part of our tribute, we're honored to have the opportunity to share something we know Jeff would have liked more folks to see: a workprint of LEATHERFACE featuring a version of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III that hews far closer to Jeff's original vision than the official studio release. Also uncovered at Jeff's home by his close friend Mark Hannah is an incredible collection of dailies and behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot that we'll also be sharing along with our own stories and memories. We hope you’ll come and enjoy this candid glimpse into a profoundly creative, warm, and wonderful man.
These three world premieres plus special tribute event join 21 more carefully curated features with everything from the debut of filmmakers Benson & Moorhead's longtime editor Michael Felker, THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT, to the gorgeous cosmic-Czech-folk-horror of FALLING STARS, to a special screening of the unique and disturbing courtroom thriller RED ROOMS presented by UTOPIA. And there’s more: the spell-binding psychological drama CANVAS, alongside a fascinating film documenting THE UFOS of SOESTERBERG. The inclusionist community that makes up the festival's audience is sure to fall instantly in love with 2024's CFF centerpiece film OFF-RAMP, which kicks off the fest’s stacked virtual offerings with a heartwarming tale of a couple of lovable degenerates who must sojourn through America's hellish underbelly to The Gathering of the Juggalos, the one place on earth they feel accepted. Nathan Tape's film will charm audiences whether or not they're down with the clown and have them joining an angelic chorus of “Whoop Whoop.” We may not know how magnets work, but, like OFF-RAMP, they show us how to come together.
Also, early in her new film’s festival run is the wildly talented and prolific CFF alum Alice Maio Mackay, who takes holiday set horror to twisted new places with CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS. Then there is the haunting, beautiful, and deeply personal THE LONELY MAN AND THE GHOST MACHINE, the latest work of a filmmaker who has long been a part of the festival's extended family, Graham Skipper (SEQUENCE BREAK, THE LEECH).
Short-form cinema is another yearly staple of the festival, and the CFF's annual shorts showcases CFF SALUTES YOUR SHORTS, DANGEROUS VISIONS, and WTF (WATCH THESE FILMS) blocks are joined again by two volumes of their FUN SIZE EPICS block, which exhibits short films with slightly longer runtimes and strong enough world building to match any feature. Also expanded are the festival’s long running Dangerous Visions and WTF shorts blocks, which also receive second volumes BRIDE OF WTF and SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE DANGEROUS VISIONS. Festival fans can count on a mix of much-loved festival alums, talented new voices, and even another World Premiere from Author/Screenwriter/Director Benjamin Percy (Ghost Rider, Wolverine, the Comet Cycle novels). Percy's dread-filled 13TH NIGHT debuts in the festival's DANGEROUS VISIONS block and he will be on hand afterward to sign books and comics and answer questions.
Making sure that attendees have far more than just screenings awaiting them is the small army of vendors armed with everything from rare VHS tapes to books to artwork to boutique Blu-rays to lovingly crafted cannabis products and the book fair stacked with previously announced authors, live readings and mysterious secrets that CFF is calling its PHYSICAL MEDIA RODEO. Presented by our friends at Arrow Video, fans that want to pregame for the fest can check out a CFF Selects playlist packed with strange cinema and deep cuts curated by our crack team of trained weirdos hitting their Arrow Player service very soon.
All this, and we haven't even mentioned the fat stacks of live podcasts buoyed by our buds The Video Monsters and Dads From the Crypt, film education events, watch parties, whiskey parties, pizza parties, live music, exclusive screenings, and the long-form Q&As that see CFF leaning into the virtual side of things to take deeper dives into the year's films than an average festival Q&A would allow.
For the complete schedule of both in-person and virtual screenings and events, visit chattfilmfest.org, and keep your eyes peeled, as the festival's organizers can't seem to stop adding things. For folks who might only have the time or funds to see one or two films during the festival, limited quantity single tickets for all films are on sale starting today, April 16.
With its commitment to audience and filmmaker accessibility, its warm-hearted southern hospitality, and its consistently surprising and eclectic programming, the Chattanooga Film Festival has, in just 11 years, been chosen as One of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World (MovieMaker Magazine), one of FilmFreeway's Top 100 Best Reviewed Film Festivals in the World out of the nearly 12,000 festivals on that platform, been chosen multiple times as One of the 25 Best Genre Film (MovieMaker) and Horror Festivals (Dread Central) and hailed as "the gold standard on how to run a welcoming, unpretentious, no-bull**it film fest for folks who want to hang out and have a good time together" by legendary cinema publication FANGORIA.
Even Southern Living, Money, and Forbes magazines have all had nice things to say about the festival, offering definitive proof that no matter who you are, it’s good to get weird sometimes.