St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase

Musical duo Rusty and Clark Fairwood are a flashy act on the rise. With their smart suits (complete with bedazzled crosses and American flags) and massive coifs, they're entertainers in the Grand Ole Opry style. When they audition to be hosts on the talk show East Plains: Get Out, the Fairwood boys are faced with a dilemma. The TV station that broadcasts the show pretty much runs the town of East Plains, but the owners are immoral sinners. Will the Fairwood Brothers be stained by filthy lucre, or will they fight for justice? The feature film exploring that question, East Plains: Get Out (directed by Renior Fairwood), screens at 9:15 p.m. Friday, July 13, the opening night of this year's St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase. In addition to twelve different programs of short subject films (including "Lingua Francas," a documentary about fine dining in Springfield, Missouri, which is featured in the RFT's Short Orders section this week), the festival also squeezes in eight feature films. Among them are the documentaries Gateway Sound and The Best of Us: 100 Seasons of Muny Magic. The former is an in-depth look at how a local recording studio has adapted to survive the transformation of the music industry. The Best of Us is an interview-intensive film about a more stable musical industry, the Muny. And then there’s writer/director Catherine Dudley-Rose's film Parallel Chords, which began as a short subject featured in the 2015 edition of the showcase. Dudley-Rose has expanded the story into a full-length film about a young female violinist struggling to maintain her individuality under constant pressure from her father (a pianist) and the industry's expectations for young women with talent. The director is a successful violinist in her own right, which no doubt informs the story. The St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase continues Friday through Sunday for two weeks (July 13 to July 22). All screenings take place at Washington University's Brown Hall (Forsyth Boulevard and Chaplin Drive; www.cinemastlouis.org). Tickets are $10 to $13.