Going Up: Knoxville’s Elev8or Pitch Competition

I’ve participated in that ritual so many times that I was pleasantly surprised by what was on offer the first night at last November’s FILM FEST KNOX. There were multiple events, with the central one the screening of not one film but eight. At the festival’s downtown Regal Cinema hub, the shorts, all eight-minute-long proof-of-concepts for feature films, played to a packed house who cheered the local makers. The films were culled from a group of 21 short film proposals, with the advancing filmmakers given two months to actually make the films and rehearse accompanying one-minute pitches….

Of course, the Elev8or Pitch organizers and the Knoxville Film Commission hope that the film, when it’s made, will be shot locally, not just because of the production funds spent in the community but so that it can be part of the larger infrastructure FILM FEST KNOX hopes to build. “A cultural investment becomes an economic investment,” says Harrill, “by creating a culture where people feel like they’re part of a community that can sustain them and provide a home for their artistic ambitions.”

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