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Welcome to the Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission

Greetings and welcome to the Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission’s new web site! Brimming with new features and up-to-date information, we invite you to come in and look around to get a peek at what Memphis & Shelby County have to offer film productions of all sizes. Take a minute to browse our location library in Reel-Scout, check out our diverse production guide, or get a taste of productions that have shot here and utilized our crew base over at Film Memphis TV!

Supporting Partners of The Memphis and Shelby County Film and Television Commission:

Special thanks to Christopher Reyes, Sarah Fleming, and the crew over at Live From Memphis for their outstanding hard work in making this web site possible. Thanks also to content editor Jon W. Sparks.

Commission client 'Undefeated' gets Oscar nomination!

Tue - 24 Jan Written by Jon W Sparks

This morning's Oscar nominations included one made-in-Memphis film. Nominated in the Best Documentary category is Undefeated, the coming-of-age story of the football team at Manassas High School.

The documentary was inspired by a story in The Commercial Appeal about Manassas High School football player O.C. Brown. It premiered in March at SXSW in Austin, Texas and screened in November at the Indie Memphis Film Festival.

Undefeated tracks coaches and players through the 2009-2010 season as it aims to win the first playoff game in the school's 110-year history.

The documentary was made in cooperation with Memphis City Schools and with the assistance of the Memphis and Shelby County Film & Television Commission. The directors, Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, and producer Rich Middlemas lived here for nearly a year and shot 500 hours of video. Deputy Film Commissioner Sharon Fox O'Guin worked closely with Middlemas to help make the project happen.

Also nominated this morning in the Best Documentary category were Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (about the West Memphis 3 and also screened at Indie Memphis); Hell and Back Again, an embedded journalist's account of a Marine company in Afghanistan; If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, a look at the radical movement; and Wim Wender's Pina, a 3-D dance performance.

The 84th Academy Awards ceremony will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, hosted by Billy Crystal.

Here's the IMDB link for Undefeated.

Longtime Commission client McCarthy makes 'Tupelove'

Mon - 09 Jan Written by Jon W Sparks

Memphis filmmaker Michael McCarthy "has gone Elvis-legit, so to speak, uniting his distinctive indie-cult sensibility with the Tupelo Convention and Visitors Bureau to create a short film titled Tupelove," says John Beifuss in his story in The Commercial Appeal.

The 15-minute film can be found at tupelo.net, a promotion for the town where Elvis Presley was born 77 years ago.

McCarthy - dubbed by Memphis & Shelby County Film Commissioner Linn Sitler as "The Godfather of Memphis Film" - has been a client of the Commission for years. He was honored in 2001 in Spain for his work, and director Craig Brewer has said he considers McCarthy to be a teacher and influence.

The film features Memphis actor/musician Amy LaVere and New York-born, Memphis-based actor Corey Parker.

'Fresh Skweezed' highlighted at Oxford Film Fest in Feb.

Wed - 28 Dec Written by Jon W Sparks

The Oxford Film Festival is Feb. 9-12. Here's the lineup, which includes a lot of regional connections.

GB Shannon, co-director of the narrative short "Fresh Skweezed" is interviewed at the festival blog site about the film that was also screened at Indie Memphis in November.

Here's the interview.

Happy Holidays!

Sat - 24 Dec Written by Jon W Sparks

... from the Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission!

26 Years and Still Producing!

TV HIGHLIGHTS: This year, Commission clients created 721 local jobs on productions like the Free Sol/Justin Timberlake music video, Hoodies On, Hats Low, or, on the 17 episodes of network television series which shot here, including NBC, CBS, TLC, THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL, MTV, and Japan's NIPPON NETWORK. As the year drew to a close, mainland China's HUNAN NETWORK scheduled what's reportedly the first Chinese television shoot ever in the state of Tennessee. Focusing on Chinese immigrant turned Memphis businessman, Wei Chin, and his new hometown, the special will air in front of 500 million Chinese in 2012!

MOVIE & DOCUMENTARY SCENE: Many FILM COMMISSION client productions premiered in Memphis--with hundreds of local cast, crew, and appreciative hometown supporters in the audience. The features Losers Take All and The Grace Card premiered to sell-out crowds at INDIE MEMPHIS. Memphis-made documentaries were just as successful! Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin' was an audience knock-out. This is What Love in Action Looks Like and Undefeated opened to universal acclaim.

Thanks for making 2011 a good year!

The Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission