The Smoky Mountain Film Festival is a multi-genre film festival event founded in 2015 by Breaking Fate Entertainment.  Our goal is to produce an annual film festival event in the Smoky Mountain Region, bringing independent media entertainment to the area and reward independent artists for outstanding works.

Our 2019 festival is scheduled for June 22nd at The Greystone Lodge in Gatlinburg, TN!

 

2019 Award Winners

BEST FEATURE
BURNING KENTUCKY
 
BEST SHORT
THE LOVE SUCKERS
 
 BEST DIRECTOR
 CARY PATRICK MARTIN - COFFEE AND A DONUT

 BEST WRITER
LAUREN COX - TRAVELING SOLDIER

 BEST ACTOR
DONALD MARTIN III - CAHABA
 
BEST ACTRESS
GRACE MCALISTER - THE PRESENT AND THE PASSED

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
HARVEST SEASON

BEST SOUND
LULLABY

BEST EDITING
EMPTINESS

BEST MUSIC
SUNRISE, SUNSET

2019 Award Nominees

BEST FEATURE
BURNING KENTUCKY
THE STRANGER
SUMMER OF 67'
 
BEST SHORT
SUNRISE, SUNSET
THE LOVE SUCKERS
COFFEE AND A DONUT
 
 BEST DIRECTOR
 CARY PATRICK MARTIN - COFFEE AND A DONUT
MIKE REDA - WHATEVER IT IS
ANDREW TRENT FLEMING & LAUREN COX - TRAVELING SOLDIER

 BEST WRITER
LAUREN COX - TRAVELING SOLDIER
CARY PATRICK MARTIN - COFFEE AND A DONUT
GRACE MCALISTER - THE PRESENT AND THE PAST

 BEST ACTOR
DONALD MARTIN III - CAHABA
EDDIE DEEZEN - THE LOVE SUCKERS
MERRIT VANN - HARVEST SEASON
 
BEST ACTRESS
ASHLEY DOUGHERTY - LULLABY
JOLIE LEDFORD - CLUELESS
GRACE MCALISTER - THE PRESENT AND THE PASSED

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
LULLABY
CAHABA
HARVEST SEASON

BEST SOUND
LULLABY
TRUST ME
CAHABA

BEST EDITING
JUVIE
CAHABA
EMPTINESS

BEST MUSIC
THE LOVE SUCKERS
SUNRISE, SUNSET
TRAVELING SOLDIER

 

SATURDAY JUNE 22ND 2019

09:30AM - DOORS OPEN

10:00AM - FILM BLOCK A

• TRUST ME 5M
• BAD SITUATION 9M
• FAVORITES 17M
• TAKE ME HOME 20M
• DOLL 20M
• BURNING KENTUCKY 91M

01:00PM - FILM BLOCK B

• WHATEVER IT IS 10M
• CAHABA 10M
• THE BLOOD CALLS 10M
• JUVIE 10M
• LAST CALL 11M
• ATHENA - GODDESS OF HEROIC ENDEAVOR 14M
• SUNRISE, SUNSET 15M
• THE SPIRIT SEAM 15M
• THE WAY OF DULA - AN UNCOMMON TALE OF A BELOVED PROFESSOR 17M
• THE STRANGER 53M

04:00PM - FILM BLOCK C

• INCOMPLIANCES 5M
• MANDATORY REST 6M
• BEFORE SUMMER ENDS 7M
• GWEN 9M
• TOASTED 12M
• THE LOVE SUCKERS 15M
• HARVEST SEASON 31M
• SUMMER OF '67 83M

07:00PM - FILM BLOCK D

• LOGBOY 3M
• LULLABY 3M
• CLUELESS 4M
• THE WINDOW 4M
• BURNING GRIEF 4M
• INKED 5M
• IN A FLASH 5M
• EMPTINESS 5M
• THE PRESENT AND THE PASSED 6M
• THE DEVIL'S ELBOW 6M
• TRAVELING SOLDIER 8M
• THE UNFINISHED GIRL 11M
• COFFEE AND A DONUT 11M
• FEET 12M
• RESERVATION FOR TWO 12M
• RUST BELT NEW AMERICANS 24M
• THE HIGH SIERRA TRAIL 39M
• MEMORIES 11M
• CAPTI 7M

10:00PM AWARDS CEREMONY

Check out the great films showing at the 2019 Smoky Mountain Film Festival!

Sunrise, Sunset is a bittersweet portrait of a family working together to transition their matriarch, Granny Jo, from her cherished family home to an assisted living situation. Through the lens of a child's imagination, questions about life's greater transitions are explored with straightforward simplicity.

You will never look at your appliances the same.

A young father will do anything to protect his family, even if it means losing his mind.

A young girl befriends a homeless man who is in search of the family he lost years ago. Krista sees the good in everybody and has the heart big enough to share the love of God with everyone she meets. Her new friend, a homeless man, seems to have something to share with Krista but doesn’t know how to face the truth. Charity, Krista’s older sister, doesn’t trust this man. Through the love of God, the act of kindness, and faith in forgiveness The Stranger finds what he has been searching for.

Veteran TV and movie actors Larry Thomas, (The Soup Nazi from "Seinfeld") Eddie Deezen, (Grease, 1941, The Polar Express) and Caryn Richman (The New Gidget, A Very Brady Christmas) star in this wacky comedy about a therapist that gives unusual advice to a troubled married couple.

When a love-struck, teenage girl seeks advice from an unsuspecting teenage boy, anything can happen.

Pablo is a young immigrant, new to the United States, and speaks no English. When he first comes into a diner, not knowing how to order, he mimics another customer. Thus, a “coffee and a donut” becomes his regular order.

Meanwhile, more appetizing meals pass in front of him, which he has to figure out how to order while in a busy environment that leaves him isolated.

He befriends Camila, an assertive Latina-American, who takes him under her wing while he learns how to start off with the most important meal of the day.

The Spirit Seam is a short animated film about a little girl, Pollywog, and her Pap-Paw. Located in an Appalachain coal-mining town in the 1950s, the film takes the audience through the daily life of both characters. At the start of the film, the characters eat breakfast together and then travel to their respective locations- Pollywog is dropped off at school, and Pap-Paw clocks into work at the Hiraethsburg coal mine. Throughout the film they experience the simple pleasures of rural Appalachian life: catching fireflies, fishing, catching frogs, and birthdays.

Pap-Paw and Pollywog's bond is incredibly strong. In fact, they are inseparable until illness threatens to fracture their small family.

This film is an homage to Gerst's maternal side and their origins working in Southwestern Pennsylvania. It is a piece rooted not only in family roots and origin, but in grief over the loss of family members as well.

The Spirit Seam combines a mixture of animation mediums. The characters have been 3D modeled and animated in Audodesk Maya while the elemental effects are created in the 2D Animation software Toonboom Harmony. The sets are created physically, and are created in a variety of ways: 3D printing, embroidery, felted yarn, and sculptural techniques.

A drop ship captain discovers the true motivations of a teen delinquent who has been ordered to serve 15 years as a laborer on an asteroid mining vessel

A young woman pursues a career in both welding and modeling reveals the challenges she encounters in each.

Two friends enjoy the last summer of their childhood before being interrupted by a school bully.

"Being human is given. But keeping our humanity is a choice." 
A thought provoking story inspired by a personal event, this film illustrates an intersection of two lives at a crucial moment where everything is not what it seems. Live and death is juxtaposed against a backdrop of daily monotony and a missed chance at empathy.

On a beautiful sunny morning in a suburb of Silicon Valley, Karen is taking her ailing daughter, Katie, to a doctor’s appointment. Katie suffers a relapse on the way and Karen rushes her to the hospital. While only blocks away, she encounters a police funeral detail blocking the road and Karen pleas in vain to the officer to let her through, while she calms her daughter. After considerable delay, Katie falls into a seizure as Karen speeds by the officers, who remain oblivious to the emergency.

A week passes as the same officer is called to oversee another funeral and he recognizes Karen. A feeling of shock and realization washes over him as he watches the ceremony from afar. Later, he reflects on whether he has lost his compassion for the public he serves daily.

A woman has premonitions of an approaching specter of death, and is convinced it's going to kill a man she doesn't know.

A final discussion with death.

After a shy, lonesome soldier strikes up a conversation with a young waitress, they find themselves wrapped up in an unexpected romance while he’s at war.

An experimental/spoken word short on the cost of a word

Three sisters deal with grief in their own different ways during a journey to a heritage railway station.

A southern gothic psycho-drama based upon the infamous Devil's Elbow river bend in the Appalachian mountains.

An educated painter seeks inspiration from a talented youth on a chilly morning by the Cahaba river.

In the midst of an artistic drought, Tristan agrees to meet with a talented and unknown artist with the hope of being inspired and reminded of his love for painting. However, when this unknown artist arrives at their agreed meeting spot on the bank of the Cahaba River, he is not as he described himself: he is not an elderly man finally following his lifelong passion, but an eager teenager in need of a warmer coat.

Cahaba is a surreal slice of life that uses the biodiversity and pollution of the Cahaba River to explore the identities of two artists struggling with their own forms of pollution.

Rylee, a young woman with paranoid schizophrenia, videotapes an episode of what she goes through for her father who abandoned her at birth.

The willpower of a recovering alcoholic is put to the test when he takes shelter from the apocalypse in a sports bar.

A man finds out his family isn't who he thought they were

A man from the baby boomer era struggles to live in a society that he feels is pushing him out.

A fastidious young woman gets stood up on Valentine's Day at the nicest restaurant in town, and in order to keep her reservation, she invites the only single person around, the homeless man from out on the street.

In the cutthroat world of ballet, an overlooked dancer fights for one last chance to make it big.

The woodsman loves to chop wood with his beloved axe “Ol’ Reliable”. All is good until one day he encounters an obnoxious boy made out of logs. Will the woodsman be able to catch the pestering LogBoy and live peacefully once more?

A husband learns that his wife of more than three decades has terminal cancer and questions if being so busy making a living all these years was worth it now that the future both Ed and Elsie had dreamed of is being ripped away by an incurable disease.

Gwen is preparing for the annual Blue Briar Neighborhood Fair, where folks come from miles to showcase their talents. Gwen has won “Best Dish” four years in a row with her fantastic egg dishes. Through storybook narration, the film takes a look at Gwen’s life-- her cooking, her boy- friend, her struggles, and her eggs.

Sometimes Life goes by in a Flash. They say just before death your life may flash before your eyes.

Immigrants and refugees are facing increasingly stringent immigration policies when trying to enter the United States. Refugees, by definition, come to the United States not out of free will, but out of desperation to save the lives of their families. As many communities have discovered, welcoming these new Americans does not go unrewarded. New Americans build communities and revitalize economies. The Rust Belt region is no exception. In order to understand our new neighbors, we need to listen to their stories and discover just how far they have come to share in the American dream.

Rust Belt New Americans is a film by MenajErie Studio, based on a photo exhibition by Maitham Basha-Agha. Maitham, a refugee himself, shares his story while helping others tell theirs.

Many worry their jobs will be the death of them. For others, that's the point. Follow the excitable Sara in her new simple and humble profession - harvesting the souls of the deceased.

This exciting documentary bounces back and forth between the modern experience of hiking the High Sierra Trail, and the early 1900’s when the trail was created. Join Chris as he drives his friend John to insanity over 6 days in the Sierra Nevada. Together they have some close calls with lightning, climb the highest mountain in the continental US, and discover the history of the trail brought to life via 3d animations created from historic photos provided by the NPS.

Steve and Natalie are pretty happy together, until it all comes crashing down when Natalie dies unexpectedly. After the funeral, Steve is having some trouble processing until he finds that the last thing Natalie did before she died was to make his favorite dessert. With this last push from Natalie, Steve starts the grieving process.

A timid janitor explores an alternate persona through a transformative, nightly ritual.

This film is a documentary of one of East Tennessee State University's most beloved professors. It follows his journey from an alcohol addict to a well-respected professor of psychology. The film also touches on his recent battle with brain cancer as Dr. Dula strives to make the most of his situation by encouraging others around him.

A old man reflects on an earlier age...

Two sisters live in the shadow of their mother's suicide, struggling to live their lives and protect their loved ones in the face of the Vietnam War.

No Synopsis Provided

A little girl in danger is happy to be saved by what she thinks is a police officer...

A girl dreams of the way she wishes the world could be... or perhaps the way the world already is.

In the foggy mountains of eastern Kentucky, a young woman searches for the missing pieces of a mysterious event that killed her family. When the truth is revealed, she must choose between the love of a man... or avenging her family.

A sick young man is disrupted in his sleep by the constant sounds of construction going on at his apartment complex.