NASHVILLE, TN – Nashville Film Festival has wrapped up its 2024 year, and according to the festival’s Executive Director Jason Padgitt, with great success. Padgitt said the festival itself was able to hold a wide variety of entertainment for guests, showing a total of 150 films that hailed from 25 different countries around the world.
“It’s been terrific and it’s really great to see something that you get to imagine all year come to life,” Padgitt said. “Just seeing the reactions of the audience and the filmmakers, and really everybody associated with the Film Festival, has been really gratifying and rewarding.”
Among this year’s list of accomplishments, Padgitt said the Nashville Film Festival marked the 20th anniversary of their community outreach effort, Living Reel. Padgitt said the goal of Living Reel’s three-month-long program is to take the resources available to Nashville Film Festival and apply them to a group of at-risk youth in the local area. He said that in the five years he’s occupied his position, the program has been dedicated to local girls living in the foster care system, between the ages of 13 and 17.
Padgitt said most of whom the program typically reaches out to, with the help of the private non-profit Youth Villages, do not have a background in film or music. He said to help make the vision of the participants a reality, Living Reel partners participants up with professional mentors with the help of Moraine Music Group. Padgitt said these professional mentors include songwriters, music producers, music engineers, and filmmakers who teach those under their wing the basics of their various crafts. He said though participants receive assistance, they are at the end of the day writing their own songs to express their hopes and life stories.
“[They] may not have a lot of confidence in themselves. They may not have a lot of confidence in their artistic ability, and they may not have any knowledge at all about how that works,” Padgitt said. “By the end of it … they get to see their music video as part of a premiere in the theater. They do the red carpet, and you see these young girls blossom with so much confidence.”
Padgitt said roughly 35% of the films featured this year included those submitted from Tennessean filmmakers under one of three distinctive categories: Tennessee Feature Film, Tennessee Short Film, and Tennessee Student Short Films. He said that regardless of whatever preferences guests may have going into the event, film festivals are a great way for people to see and experience new ways of filmmaking. Padgitt said the festival also provides people with the opportunity of learning about things happening in other parts of the world as well as what is happening in their local community of filmmakers.
Padgitt said to maintain its streak as the oldest running film festival in the United States, the Nashville Film Festival’s widely recognized annual event is a year-round planning endeavor. He said after 2024’s film festival wraps up, the planning for Nashville Film Festival’s 2025 showing begins in earnest just a week later. Padgitt said that the festival also accepts submissions from those who would like to see their film included as early as New Year’s Day, January 1st.
Padgitt said filmmakers looking to submit their film can do so at Nashville Film Festival’s website; nashvillefilmfestival.org. Padgitt said future updates regarding the festival are also available for citizens through their Instagram @nashfilmfest.
