Malco Oxford Commons Cinema held the 22nd annual Oxford Film Festival Feb. 27-March 2. Over the four days of the festival, nearly 100 feature and short films were screened.
Chriss Alison Huff, who has won awards from OxFilm three consecutive years, reflected on what makes the festival draw a crowd each year. In 2021, their documentary film “GenderF**K Drag” won in the Mississippi Shorts category.
“There’s just something about the fest that I think draws people in. For example, I’ve made all kinds of friendships with folks all over the world, and we barely talk throughout the year,” Huff said. “But for some reason, we keep coming back here all together, and we see each other, catch up and we spend the weekend together. It cultivates such an interesting space.”
Originally from the Bay Area in California, Huff has been a resident of Oxford since 2006 and attended the University of Mississippi for both their undergraduate and graduate degrees in art and Southern studies.
Latoria Hicks, the winner of the UM Student Award this year, is an alumnae from Ridgeland, Miss., who graduated in 2024 with a degree in film production. Hicks received the honor for their film “Voices of the Academy,” their Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College thesis documentary that highlights African-American vernacular English’s validity in academic environments.
“I remember when I was younger, the language I grew up hearing being described as the sound of the unintelligent. It wasn’t until I got older when I started hearing about this ‘slang’ being its own legitimate language,” Hicks said. “So I went to Atlanta to talk to people who were studying this specific dialect, and that’s how this documentary came about.”
While this is the filmmaker’s first festival award, Hicks is not a stranger to the festivities.
“This is my third year attending OxFilm. I attended a couple of times when I was a student here, and what I really think makes it special is the connection to the community around it. It’s very quaint, it’s very intimate and it’s very close,” Hicks said. “If you’re looking for a very welcoming environment of people who just love filmmaking, Oxford is a perfect place for that.”
M-Alain Bertoni, from Winston-Salem, N.C., was a first-time attendee of OxFilm with their short film “No Signal.”
Bertoni emphasized the personal feeling of the festival’s atmosphere.
“I like the fact that we’re surrounded by other filmmakers but also people from this community. I was in the town square earlier hearing people in stores talk about the film festival. It was really nice,” Bertoni said. “It’s similar to other small festivals in that it’s very intimate, but I feel like a lot of care and effort has gone into it.”
A standout film that screened at the festival was “Lavender Men,” which was directed and produced by Lovell Holder. The film received the Hoka Award — the highest honor of the festival recognizing exemplary filmmaking.
“‘Lavender Men’ follows a stage manager who invents an elaborate queer fantasia regarding Abe Lincoln’s private life in order to resolve some internal questions they’re having about their personal world,” Holder said.
Holder is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles who attended the festival for the first time.
“I’ve had a couple projects screen here previously. In fact, the first feature I ever produced, a movie called “Some Freaks,” won the festival in 2017, so when the opportunity came to finally visit Oxford in person with “Lavender Men,” I couldn’t say no,” Holder said.
“I think the one thing that really allows Oxford to stand out is the genuine southern hospitality of the entire programming and administrative teams and making every filmmaker feel welcome and valued.”
Holder described the filmmaking process as an overwhelmingly positive experience.
“It was an incredibly rewarding process creating the movie,” Holder said. “We adapted it originally from a stage play, and we filmed it very quickly, but we were thankful that all of our lead actors were deeply prepared and committed to these stories.”
Mia Ellis, an actor and producer of the film from Madison, Miss., now based in L.A., shared a similar sentiment.
“The juxtaposition of one of the ‘great presidents’ side by side with a queer person of color who is trying to figure themselves out is intriguing but necessary to share because there are so many folks, whether they are queer or not, who are dealing with finding their place in the world,” Ellis said. “It speaks to allowing yourself grace and space to figure things out and to know that you have value.”
