Indie Grits offers glimpse into young, progressive Southern culture
Indie Grits has packed more into a shorter schedule this year, offering five days of cutting-edge film, art, music and technology in venues across downtown Columbia.
Wednesday’s opening night celebration sets the tone for the festival: Creative events are centered around the theme “Future Perfect” — a phrase that bestows an aura of optimism and experimentation onto the growing festival, hosted by The Nickelodeon Theatre.
Nickelodeon director Andy Smith said the artists and filmmakers involved in the ninth annual festival were challenged to demonstrate “how art and technology will influence the Southern city of the future.”
Festival director Seth Gadsden said this year’s compact Indie Grits event — with 74 films, more than 20 artists and about 15 bands — is all about challenging participants.
The festival nearly doubled attendance in two years, to more than 12,000 people in 2014. About 40 percent of the crowds came from outside Columbia, organizers said.
Many shows sold out.
“We’re hoping people come into the festival and they see things in ways they’ve never seen them before,” Gadsden said. “We really challenge people to look at new ideas and be inspired by what’s happening with young, progressive Southern culture.”
Here’s a sampling of events from opening night that demonstrate what Smith and Gadsden mean.
Film ... in a container
Starting on opening night and continuing through the festival, a 40-foot shipping container will be set up on the plaza outside the Columbia Museum of Art. Inside is a projection booth, a 100-inch-high screen, a professional sound system and 33 seats.
To open the festival, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., USC has put together archival footage from its Movietone News series that depicts expectations for the future from decades long past. They call it “Past Hopes for Perfect Futures.”
The mini-cinema offers an intimate moviegoing experience while viewing film that conveys a hopeful spirit of optimism, festival organizers said. “Viewers can decide for themselves if the present day lives up to yesterday’s dreams for the future.”
There’s no charge.
Music ... from outer space
The alt-rock band Hectorina presents its new rock opera, “Collywobble,” at 8 p.m. Wednesday just inside the Columbia Museum of Art, at Main and Hampton streets.
Organizers promise a visual treat as well as head-thrashing music from this Charlotte trio.
“Expect a spectacle of frenzied rock, costumes, dancing and a 10-foot-tall cosmic owl,” Gadsden said.
The rock opera is about a young former astronaut who returns to Earth after being laid off from his job, ending up on a quest to find the gateway to heaven.
It’s free.
Technology ... just for fun
Grit Man is basically a life-sized video game inspired by Pac-Man.
For a quarter, a participant can put on headgear and run through a maze on Hampton Street, facing ghosts in pursuit of nurturing power pellets. The originator of the game will sit on a tower above the game, controlling the sounds and the lights atop the walls of the maze.
An aerial camera will allow spectators outside the maze to view the game on a screen.
Art ... cover to cover
Charleston native Julie Henson has created an exhibition that employs Time, Life and Newsweek magazine covers and layouts to reinterpret the past.
“Parallel Horizons” will be on view at the Columbia Museum of Art throughout Indie Grits.
Admission is free on opening night.
These published photographs of the 20th century span decades, showing how images shape the cultural memory of events and reveal our dated perception of the future, according to the festival’s website.
If you go
Indie Grits
WHEN: Wednesday, April 15, through Sunday, April 19
WHERE: Various venues in downtown Columbia
COST: Each event includes a $10 option. A five-day pass for $100/$75 for members of The Nickelodeon Theatre available at indiegrits.com
Now showing – a second screen debuts
When Columbia’s independent movie theater moved to the center of Main Street in 2012, the job was just half done.
Wednesday, the Nickelodeon opens a second screen upstairs.
With 121 seats, it’s a bit larger than the downstairs screen and it draws on the history of the old movie house, dating to 1936, that the Nick inhabits. It features a top-of-the-line sound system as well, director Andy Smith said.
“It’s incredibly beautiful,” he said. And, with an elevator, it’s handicapped-accessible. While the downstairs theater is simple and understated, the upstairs screening room has some art deco touches in royal colors, red and purple. It originally was a balcony.
“We were trying to highlight some of the original features of the room, so there’s a sunburst motif at the top of the columns that are original from when it was the State Theater,” Smith said.
And while they won’t be done for a couple of months, The Nickelodeon Theatre is replicating some original light fixtures using “pieces and parts” left behind.
Wednesday, on the opening night of the Indie Grits festival, the upstairs theater will screen two films with local connections:
▪ “Cotton Road,” a documentary film directed by Laura Kissel of Columbia, at 5:30 p.m.
▪ “Lost Colony,” directed by Christopher Holmes of Winston-Salem and produced by Columbia native Adam Tate, at 8 p.m.
Dawn Hinshaw
This story was originally published April 11, 2015 at 9:50 PM with the headline "Indie Grits offers glimpse into young, progressive Southern culture."