North Carolina's Cucalorus Film Festival announces features exploring clowns, comedians, lady golfers, poets, and teenage powerlifters

WILMINGTON, N.C., Sept. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Cucalorus (www.cucalorus.org) announces more than 50 feature film selections for its 22nd annual Cucalorus Film Festival and Connect Conference, November 9-13, 2016 in downtown Wilmington, NC. A small batch of additional films and more than 150 shorts will be announced in two weeks. Named one of MovieMaker's "25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World" for three years in a row, Cucalorus celebrates creativity from around the world through daring, diverse programming with signature events like Dance-a-lorus, the Bus to Lumberton and Visual/Sound/Walls. The festival will honor one of the local industry's founding fathers with a special program called "Joe Dunton: The Big Picture Past and Present."

Entering its second year, the Cucalorus Connect Conference showcases innovation driven leaders with more than 40 events covering industries like marine sciences, healthcare, film production, and financial services through the lens of technology and education. Organized through an ongoing partnership with UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and tekMountain, highlights include a keynote by Louis Foreman of Edison Nation, the 10x10 Challenge, a Virtual Reality Theater, Cuctails, and Port City Pitches.

Narrative selections include Ingrid Jungermann's Women Who Kill (Best Screenplay for a U.S. Narrative, Tribeca Film Festival), Tim Sutton's Dark Knight (inspired by the Colorado multiplex massacre) and Celia Rowlson-Hall's mythical retelling of the Virgin Mary Myth Ma (Best Film, Sarasota Film Festival). Documentaries include Carrie Schrader's Founders, an inspiring glimpse into the thirteen women who founded the LPGA. SXSW Grand Jury winner Tower retells the tragic story of America's first mass school shooting. Generation Startup, directed by Academy Award Winner Cynthia Wade, follows six Venture for America fellows as they launch start-ups in Detroit.

16 shorts blocks cover thematic content ­­(dance, comedy, horror) with aquatically-inspired names like Pufferfish, Dottyback, and Vampire Squid, and will include a special program of the best Canadian Shorts of the year curated by Lisa Haller, Senior Programming Associate at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The festival's Works-in-Progress program, a workshop-style review of top social documentaries in-the-making, includes Jon-Sesrie Goff's After Sherman, Nyijia July's Just Us, Rhasaan Nichols' Flint Water Crisis, Ricky Kelly's A Tale of Two Beaches, and Natalie Bullock Brown's Baartman, Beyoncé, and Me.

Tickets on sale now: Dance-a-lorus (Nov 9 / 7pm), Keynote Speaker Louis Foreman (Nov 9 / 1pm), Generation Startup Screening (Nov 10 / 7pm), 10x10 Screening (Nov 13 / 7:45pm).

View early selections and purchase festival passes at www.cucalorus.org. The complete list of film festival and conference selections will be announced soon to feature over 200 films and 40+ keynotes, panels, breakouts, and social events.

About Cucalorus:
Cucalorus was founded in 1994 by the underground filmmaking collective Twinkle Doon. Today, Cucalorus is a multi-disciplinary arts organization supporting emerging creative professionals through an annual film festival, a residency program, micro-cinema, summer outdoor screening series, and extensive community engagement program. The annual festival takes place every November, celebrating independent and international film for five days in historic downtown Wilmington, NC. MovieMaker Magazine has recognized it as "One of the Coolest Film Festivals in the World" for the past three years. More than 200 films screen each year at venues all over downtown Wilmington, attracting a large number of participating artists (300+) and thousands of fans and industry professionals (accumulated attendance in 2015 was 17,630). Cucalorus is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that relies on funds from individuals, businesses, and grants for its annual celebration. For more information on the Cucalorus Film Festival visit www.cucalorus.org.

Media Contact: Becca Ederer
[email protected] / 910.343.5995

SOURCE Cucalorus Film Festival

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http://www.cucalorus.org