In 2016, year two, Longleaf received entries from 10 countries and screened 50 films on three screens at the museum. By accepting entries only through Film Freeway and launching Facebook and Instagram pages, the festival became part of the virtual community.
The afternoon of Friday, May 13, began with two film blocks in Daniels Auditorium, and the evening ended with an opening-night reception for filmmakers. Saturday, May 14, started with a morning workshop, Acting for the Director, that was led by producer/director/actor Estes Tarver. Following a morning film block, a lunch-n-learn panel discussion, Getting to Distribution featured filmmaker Vernon Rudolph and entertainment attorney Thomas Varnum. Three more film blocks completed the day.
Longleaf 2016 concluded with Guy Gaster, North Carolina Film Office, hosting the annual Longleaf awards ceremony. There, 39 films were recognized for having Tar Heel Tie-Ins and 17 other prizes were awarded.
During the free festival, more than 850 people attended. The following 50 films were screened:
in alphabetical order by title
click on an image to expand it
Saman Hosseinpuor
1-0
A boy is watching a soccer game on TV and gets so excited he forgets he’s in the middle of a haircut. Oops!
Hannah Furgiuele
A Mighty Fine Memory: Stories and Tunes from the Fiddler of Banjo Branch
This film features master fiddler Roger Howell, 2015 recipient of the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award, which is presented by the North Carolina Folklore Society to recognize individuals who have made exemplary contributions to traditional culture and folklife in the state.Produced by Liston B. Ramsey Center for Regional Studies at Mars Hill University. Click here to watch a trailer.
Wei Ying and Geoff Groberg
Atomic Retro Customs: The Electric Guitars of Matt Nowicki
Matt Nowicki is a luthier in North Carolina who builds electric guitars that are famous for their retro designs and custom details. Click here for the website.
Cara Hagan
Believe
If you don’t believe in Santa Claus already, Believe will change your mind . . .
Camden Watts
Brewconomy
Brewconomy, an independent documentary about North Carolina craft beer, explores the growth of craft beer in the state and the industry’s positive impacts on local agriculture, community, and economy. Click here for a trailer.
Nadia Dean
Cameron
An epic adventure unfolds on the frontiers of North and South Carolina during the American Revolution. Click here for a trailer.
Anna R. Jones
Chairman Jones—An Improbable Leader
James Henry Jones was a self-educated farmer who emerged as a trailblazer during the 1969 school desegregation crisis in Northampton County. His leadership as North Carolina’s first black school board chairman introduced a new era in public education and had a marked effect on racial progress in the state. Click here for a trailer.
Click here for a list of award winners for 2016 . . .
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Andrew Stacy Huggins
Civil
One fateful day in South Carolina, 1865: Five individuals’ lives will be changed forever. Click here for a trailer.
David Puckett
Clyde’s Place
Every Tuesday since 1974, Clyde Maness has opened the doors of the Maness Pottery and Music Barn for the public to enjoy southern cooking, live music, and a vibrant social scene. Click here to watch a trailer.
Chip Hackler
Cosmic Kiosk
Trapped in his little booth, security guard Hank Goodman yearns for adventure and true love. Click here to watch a trailer.
Evan Vetter and Holly Border
Daylight Come
Following decades of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, two American women struggle to help a group of Congolese women rebuild their lives amidst the scars of sexual violence and poverty. Click here to watch a trailer.
J. A. Steel
Death Key: Origins
The Mayans predicted the end of the world on December 21, 2012, so . . . why are we still here? Click here to watch a trailer.
Morgana McKenzie
Ellie
Desperate measures are taken to escape a violent world concealed within an isolated cottage.
Bob Celli
Figs for Italo
Based on a True Story, Figs For Italo is about a brother and sister in WWII Italy, and how past events can change everything and ripple into the present. Click here to watch a trailer.
Click here for a list of award winners for 2016 . . .
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Brad Hinkle
Flightless: The Art of Mark Strucko
Strucko, a renowned contemporary wildfowl sculptor, travels from his home and workshop in Raleigh to the 45th annual Ward World Championship Wildfowl Carving Competition—a competition sponsored by the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Arts—in Ocean City, Maryland. Click here to watch a trailer.
Neil Soffer
Frame Drop
Ned, a meticulous young man, sets up his first apartment according to a strict plan. While applying the finishing touches, a phenomenon forces him to question his way of life.
Paul-Thomas Parnell
Harker: The Awakening
A popular high school senior encounters a crashed meteor and gets infected with a strange alien weapon, which makes him very sick but also gives him strange new abilities. Click here to watch a trailer.
Justin Suttles
Hominid
Two ambitious, young primatologists and their team of researchers receive funding for a trip into the depths of the Northern Cascades to find what they believe will be the truth behind the legend of Sasquatch. Click here to watch a trailer.
Clayton Witmer
I Only Smile in Pictures
In a bleak, distant future, the monotony of one man’s life is broken when he finds what genuine happiness can be. Click here to watch a trailer.
David Spaltro
In the Dark
A skeptical grad student interviews a renowned paranormal specialist—for her thesis on the benefits of supernatural research in regards to modern psychology—then joins a field study trip to Brooklyn, where they visit a family home “besieged by evil spirits.” Click here to watch a trailer.
Ellen Hemphill and Jim Haverkamp
It Had Wings
A widow, alone at home, sees something heavenly—and apparently wounded—fall into her backyard. Kindness becomes what might save us yet. Click here to watch a trailer.
Click here for a list of award winners for 2016 . . .
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Nic Beery
January
A chance encounter on a train changed their lives forever. Click here to watch a trailer.
Meredith Sause
Keepsake
After their mother dies, estranged sisters Misty and Julie return to their childhood home to clean out her house. Unfortunately for them, their mother was a hoarder. Click here to watch a trailer.
Christopher G. Moore
Knob Goblins
As part of his final psychotherapy treatment, a mental patient returns to the basement of his deserted childhood home so he can face his fears involving the death of his younger brother. Click here to view a trailer.
Zoë Miller
Le Couteau
A woman gets ready for work . . .
Ylet Mlo and Rose Gard
My Friends
The imagination and wonder of a little girl.
Rob Underhill
No Child
Growing up, and the power of growing together. Click here to view a trailer.
Azure Allen
One Day on Carver St.
In the Jim Crow south, a world where the lines between black and white were firmly drawn, Charlie’s Place was a rare pocket of diversity. Click here to view a trailer.
Kenny Dalsheimer
Peace in Our Pockets
The inspiring story of Kenyan activists using mobile phones, text messages, and grassroots organizing to build peace and defuse violence in the lead up to Kenya’s 2013 elections. Click here to view a trailer.
Click here for a list of award winners for 2016 . . .
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Shaun Swift
Permanent Press
A demon terrorizes a small mountain community in the form of a possessed dryer—a brand new cycle of terror.
Meghan Cowen
Pillow Talk
A comedy short about a teenage girl and her desperate search for a boyfriend.
Dylan Crumpler
Silly Honest Kind
A filmmaker shoots for perfection but instead discovers something greater.
Evan Kidd
Son of Clowns
When minor TV star Hudson Cash loses his show and returns home to live with his parents, he finds that adjusting to life back in North Carolina—where his family’s backyard circus is floundering—may be his most challenging role yet. Click here to view a trailer.
Elizabeth Fletcher
Terms and Conditions
Read the fine print.
Jay Lifton
TEST
A seemingly unremarkable man spends one day taking a bizarre test at a mysterious facility. Click here to view a trailer.
Kim Best
That Deputy Sheriff Might Surprise You
Formidable even as a child and dubbed “the Shark” by her colleagues, Lucy Zastrow, the first woman deputy in the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, proved herself to be tough but fair.
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Michael Raab
The Disappearing Church
Once the center of a thriving Ukrainian immigrant community, Saints Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church in rural St. Helena, North Carolina, has seen its congregation all but disappear.
Brian Gersten and Liv Dubendorf
The Hollerin’ Contest at Spivey’s Corner
The National Hollerin’ Contest at Spivey’s Corner is full of history, characters, and sounds. This documentary short features the stories of three former champions as they attempt to reclaim their titles and keep the oft-forgotten tradition of hollerin’ alive. Click here to view a trailer.
David Weintraub
The Land Still Speaks to Us
Elders in Henderson County share values from their lives on topics from farming and canning to making molasses and moonshine—like a window, a time machine into the soul of western North Carolina.
Jason Arthurs and Ted Richardson
The Last Barn Dance
Randy Lewis knows that losing his dairy business would mean losing his livelihood, but he is most worried about losing a way of life and ending a family heritage that has hosted barn dances for nearly 50 years. Click here to view a trailer.
Alvaro Ron
The Red Thunder
Sarah, a nerdy teenager, needs her mom’s brand new car to go on a date with Danny, the boy she is in love with. Click here to view a trailer.
Mariah Dunn Kramer
This Is My Home Now
Four youths from three Montagnard immigrant families, who have fled their homelands in Southeast Asia, work to forge a new future in North Carolina. Click here to view a trailer.
Clark Ivers
To Die For
In the aftermath of a catastrophic event, the last humans on Earth survive in an underground facility built by the USDEP, the Department of Extinction Prevention. Click here to view a trailer.
Click here for a list of award winners for 2016 . . .
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Harvey Lowry and Michael Davis
Union Bound
This is the amazing, true story of Joseph Hoover, a Union soldier who was captured by the South, then was aided by slaves who helped him avoid recapture until he could make it back to Union-held territory. Click here to view a trailer.
Bradley Bethel
Unverified: The Untold Story Behind the UNC Scandal
After a college writing tutor and some of his colleagues are falsely accused in a university athletics scandal, he grows determined to set the record straight. Click here to view a trailer.
Jason Hutchens
Voices of the Lumbee
This documentary film raises awareness about ongoing struggles in the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, still suffering in the wake of decades of economic downturn in the state’s Coastal Plain region. Click here to view a trailer.
Jonathan Newport
Voices Unlocked: A True Story
The younger brother of a teen with nonspeaking autism creates a short documentary to raise awareness of the unappreciated abilities of people with autism while also highlighting the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM), a new form of therapy that is opening the world of autistics and changing perceptions about them at the same time. Click here to view a trailer.
Paige Blankenship
Walker World
Meet Allen Walker, the eccentric creator of Walker World: a large playhouse of wonder built completely out of recycled and refined materials on the edge of North Carolina’s Cape Fear River in Castle Hayne.
Sergi Marti
Wut
Wut is a courageous Rottweiler, trained to obey his master . . . a Nazi soldier assigned to occupied France during World War II. Click here to view a trailer.
Evan Kidd and Marilynn Barner Anselmi
You Wouldn’t Expect
Almost 7,600 individuals were forcibly sterilized by the North Carolina Eugenics Program between the 1930s and 1974. This is the story of one.
Click here for a list of award winners for 2016 . . .
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