Last Updated on June 9, 2024, 9:57 AM | Published: June 9, 2024
OKLAHOMA CITY — We’ve made it to the final day and we’re staring down the finish line of the 2024 deadCenter Film Festival, ready to put another wildly successful year in the books for the biggest film community event in Oklahoma.
Through the end of today, filmmakers, tastemakers, critics, reviewers, and above all, cinema fanatics will continue to descend upon OKC to catch as many films, panels, and events as possible.
This year’s festivities are loaded with a host of thematically exciting (and sometimes creatively bonkers) shorts and features, with filmmakers from across the nation and the world all lending their talents to the lineup.
Sunday’s final day lineup is mostly comprised of repeat screenings and wind-down events like the pass-holders brunch and the closing night party.
With the awards announced yesterday, this is your chance to catch the most buzzed-about films and winning entries one last time before they call cut on the event and wrap it up for the year.
Catch these happenings on Day 4 of deadCenter Film Festival 2024, and check out our featured selection for the day at the end:
Virtual Reality Films – The Fordson Hotel – All Day
deadCenter’s annual tech showcase is always a must-see, offering guests a chance to experience the kind of cutting-edge developments and technology that just might be driving the future of filmmaking.
And as last year’s impressive collection of VR films proved, the possibilities seem limitless for 360-degree and virtual reality filmmaking.
This year’s VR offerings cover everything from cave diving to traditionalist artwork-come-to-life to the D&D-based action-comedy of Best VR Film winner “Last We Left Off.”
Panel: Sound & Music – The Fordson Hotel – 12:00 PM
Of all the incredible panels and discussion events that this year’s festival has seen, this one boasts possibly the most exciting and fresh lineup of local panelists.
Exploring the endless potential of sound design and music in filmmaking will be:
Catapult Recordings founder Cooper Anderson / director (and 2024 award-winner for Best Music Video) Lauren Bumgarner / acclaimed singer-songwriter Olivia Komacheet / OKC-based filmmaker and composer Adam Ragsdale / the astonishing voice and face of “Cricket,” Sky Dakota Turner / and James Russell, renowned sound designer for films like “Minari” and Coppola’s long-awaited “Megalopolis.”
For any filmmaker looking to learn how to better incorporate music and sound design, or for any musician or engineer wanting to step into the filmmaking world, this panel is bound to be an invaluable inexperience.
‘Secret Mall Apartment’ – First Americans Museum – 12:30 PM
One of the most anticipated documentary features at the festival’s outset, and now one of the most talked-about following its Oklahoma premiere last night, “Secret Mall Apartment” tells the remarkably true story of, well, a secret mall apartment.
Beginning in 2003, a group of friends found a large, blocked off, completely unnoticed space inside Rhode Island’s busy, bustling Providence Place Mall and began converting it into their own secret living quarters and hangout spot.
The secret apartment continued evolving and expanding for years, right under the city’s nose, developing into a gathering place for arts and counter-culture in the face of gentrification and change.
Filmmaker Jeremy Workman presents the first-hand footage and accounts from all those involved for the very first time in this documentary that’s been picking up buzz across the country.
FREE PRESS FEATURED PICK: Sugar & Spice Shorts, including ‘Make Me a Pizza’ – Harkins Bricktown Auditorium 11 – 4:00 PM
You’ve made it through the entire festival, things are winding down, and you’ve got loads of energy left to burn off. So why not treat yourself to a selection of short films all about sexuality, intimacy, and the possibilities of close human physicality?
The Sugar & Spice Shorts block is about grouping together films that take a radical and poignant approach to sex and physical intimacy, through everything from broad, raunchy comedy to heartfelt, powerful animation, including this year’s winner for Best Animated Short, Hungarian filmmaker Flóra Anna Buda’s “27.”
One of the wildest and most talked-about selections in the block is undoubtedly writer/director Talia Shea Levin’s “Make Me a Pizza,” an increasingly literal, metamorphic, and straight-up disgusting deconstruction of pornography’s favorite “pizza delivery guy” trope.
Somehow simultaneously exploring the ridiculousness of improbable sexual fantasy, the limits of bodily possibility (and decency,) and even the struggles of capitalist inflation and food prices, “Make Me a Pizza” bakes everything into one wacky, risqué comedy as a woman attempts to pay for a pizza “with” her body.
Internationally acclaimed, award-winning filmmaker Talia Shea Levin wasn’t able to attend deadCenter in person this year, but Free Press had the chance to pick her brain about why OKC’s favorite film fest was on her radar and what it means to be included.
“I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about deadCenter from filmmakers who have attended and it’s been on my festival wish list for a while, so I’m beyond grateful to be selected this year,” she told Free Press in email. “I got a sense even from afar that the festival is committed to building a real sense of community among participants, and also that they might be enthusiastic about the strange or disturbing.”
“Make Me a Pizza” has the rare distinction of being included in two separate shorts blocks at the festival – being selected for both Sugar & Spice shorts as well as the visceral Bodies, Bodies, Bodies shorts program – meaning that the short screens no less than four times over the weekend.
“’Make Me a Pizza’ is a tough one to categorize, so it’s awesome that it’s found a home in two different groups of great shorts,” Levin said. “I love that the films in Bodies, Bodies, Bodies all have fresh takes on intimacy on screen and the wonder and horror of being a human with a body. That’s all super closely aligned with what I set out to explore with my film.”
Even as grotesque as the short is, Levin said she’s especially pleased to see her film included in Sugar & Spice Shorts to highlight its explorations of intimacy and even vulnerability.
“The films in Sugar & Spice tackle the chaos of being in relationships with other humans,” she said, “so I’m glad to know the quieter, more character-based (if still absurd) moments of ‘Make Me a Pizza’ can shine amongst films with similar themes.”
For more information about the 2024 deadCenter Film Festival, including the full lineup and schedule, visit deadcenterfilm.org.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
