The Institute of Southern Storytelling is set to host their inaugural Story Fest on Thursday. It will serve as the kickoff to Clinton’s Red Brick Roads Festival. The event starts at 6 pm and is free to the public.
“It’s about film,” said the executive director for the Institute of Southern Storytelling, Anthony Thaxton. “We will have books for sale. So, anything about storytelling is part of Story Fest.”
Inside the Entergy Theater at the Gore Arts Complex, the Institute will premiere their first narrative short film, “Chasing Rabbits.” The film serves as the directorial debut for local author Michael Farris Smith and is based on his short story. Smith’s as well as Thaxton’s books will be on sale after the premiere.
“It was a fun project for the students of Mississippi College to work on,” Thaxton said. “We had a whole student crew. That was very enjoyable. We’ve had students involved with some of our documentaries, but they want to do narrative film storytelling. This was a chance for them to work on a real project.”
One member of the student crew was Xavian Branch, who currently serves as an intern for the Institute this semester.
“I was a production assistant and slate operator,” Branch said. “During scene transitions and starting over different scenes, I was like, ‘Scene 1, Take 2, slate.’ I was also in control of the fog machine. We were in a house and for the aesthetic of the movie, the fog added to the ambience that we were trying to create.”
At the event, there will be a Q&A session with character actor Gary Grubbs, who starred in various movies and television shows such as JFK and M*A*S*H among others.
