Highlights include Theodore Collatos and Carolina Monnerat’s LGBTQIA+ documentary Queen of Lapa and Angela Pinaglia’s documentary Life in Synchro about “the most feminist sport you’ve never heard of.” Also featured are Black Lens Narrative and more Fest Forward animated/experimental short film slates.
The Oxford Film Festival’s 5th Weekly Virtual Film Fest puts documentaries front and center with Theodore Collatos and Carolina Monnerat’s Queen of Lapa, about Luana Muniz, the colorful Brazilian transgender personality, who guides and protects transgender sex workers in Rio de Janeiro, and Angela Pinaglia’s film Life in Synchro, which follows athletes immersed in the unique world of synchronized skating. Two shorts programs include a startling Black Lens Narrative collection, and another edition of the Oxford Film Festival’s signature Fest Forward animated and experimental shorts.
Life in Synchro will also be offered on Saturday, May 23, as part of Film Festival Day – Part 2, a nationwide event with close to 40 film festivals participating, with each film festival (including the Oxford Film Festival) sharing proceeds with the filmmakers.
As part of the special Film Festival Day presentation, director Pinaglia and executive producer Nicole Davies will participate in a Q&A along with the film’s subjects Emily Fitzgerald (a former competitive skater on the Dearborn Crystallettes), Heidi Coffin (a 68-year-old adult skater on the Maine DownEasters), and Peggy MacDonald (who was a skater on the first ever synchro team in 1956 and went on to coach the first ever national champions of the sport in 1984). The Q&A will be moderated by Women Sports Film Festival’s Co-Founder Susan Sullivan. To purchase a ticket, please go to filmfestivalday.com.
“Our audiences have become accustomed to the Oxford Film Festival bringing the world to them via the documentary films we program,” Executive Director Melanie Addington said. “Queen of Lapa and Life in Synchro are vastly different films, but share that sense of discovery, whether it be a transgender sex workers community in Brazil or the amazing women that make synchronized skating a sport that will surprise and excite you.
It’s also exciting to give a platform to the filmmakers and stories delving into the black experience in Mississippi, Memphis and this country through our Black Lens Narrative shorts program and the expected, yet unexpected cinematic visions our Fest Forward programs always deliver.”
The Oxford Film Festival was founded in 2003 to bring exciting, new, and unusual films (and the people who create them) to North Mississippi. The annual five-day festival screens short and feature-length films in both showcase and competition settings. The festival is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization. For more information, visit www.oxfordfilmfest.com.
Read more about each film / block here:
Queen of Lapa
Life in Synchro
Black Lens Narrative
Fest Forward
