Filmmaking 101: Festival prizes provide local opportunities

Austin Dean Ashford is a perfect example of the kind of filmmaker the Fayetteville Film Prize wants to encourage.

As a grad student in playwriting and acting at the University of Arkansas, Ashford was busy making an impact not only in the campus arts community but around the world with his one-man show "(I)sland T(rap)." It won Best One-Man Show Off-Broadway at Theatre Row during the United Solo Festival; won its share of 17 awards from the Kennedy Center, along with his play "Black Book"; and won awards at the San Diego International Fringe Festival.

Then Ashford pitched "(I)sland T(rap)" for the Fayetteville Film Fest's first $2,000 Fayetteville Film Prize in 2018 and won, allowing him to turn the "hip-hop riff about Black Ulysses on an Odyssey of self-discovery and a powerful exploration of a young artist of color navigating the turbulent waters of contemporary American culture while trying to find his authentic voice" into a film.

Now a Ph.D. candidate at Texas Tech, Ashford is a success story even before he reveals he was a high school dropout who had to start his road to higher education with a GED. He's also a person of color, which would make him perfect for the new Fayetteville Film Fest BIPOC Film Program -- if he still lived in Arkansas.

Announced Nov. 6 at the 12th annual Fayetteville Film Fest, the BIPOC Film Program "is designed to support and encourage Arkansas-based projects from Black, Indigenous and filmmakers of color through two initiatives: The Micheaux Award, which will distribute funds to BIPOC filmmakers in two cycles throughout the year, and the FFF-BIPOC Film Lab, which will facilitate year-round educational and workshop opportunities to grow the Arkansas-based BIPOC film community."

"Back in June, we put out a statement as a festival addressing the issues of diversity and inclusion, including a three-point plan for how we would address those issues," says Russell Sharman, executive director of the festival. "One was to restructure the board, which we've done. This is another part of that plan."

Open to projects made by BIPOC individuals living or working in Arkansas, with "preference to filmmakers focused on the BIPOC communities of which they are a part," especially those "that address issues of social and racial justice," the award will open its winter cycle for applications Nov. 15 through Dec. 31. Recipients will be announced Feb. 1.

Before that, however, the third annual Fayetteville Film Prize will be awarded Nov. 14, after judges have reviewed would-be filmmakers' 3-minute pitches. The opportunity to send in a pitch for a film remains open until 11:59 p.m. today, Nov. 8. The winner will have $2,000 and 10 months to make a film, which will then be shown at the 2021 Fayetteville Film Festival, along with the film by 2019 winner Johannah Orwiler, which was delayed by covid-19 issues.

Sharman says even though the pitches are being recorded for submission this year, the same rules apply.

"This year, the whole festival is online, so there was no reason we shouldn't have the pitch contest again, and just do it virtually," he says. "We also came up with the idea that instead of corralling a Zoom room, folks could prerecord their pitches, so we can have more than the 30 we normally accept. It's also very clear that you're not showing off filmmaking skills but your pitch skills -- no costumes, no props, no special-effects, just you and the camera for 3 minutes.

"Austin won because of his ability to communicate his vision through spoken word. It's not only thrilling to watch, it's got some real world applications. You have to be able to pitch as succinctly and evocatively as possible."