The fourth day of the Savoy Lumière — its second full-day lineup — unfolded Sunday. The screenings, which featured four feature-length films and 11 short films, lasted from midmorning to nearly 10 p.m.
Opening Sunday morning was “Catching Bullets,” a documentary following the work of Darren Seals and other like-minded activists in St. Louis working to break the cycle of gun violence. Seals is the founder of the Sankofa Unity Center, a youth mentorship program located in a formerly condemned church in the Walnut Park neighborhood.
In one of the festival’s most powerful Q&As, the audience had the chance to speak with Ben Scholle, the documentary’s director, and Precious Jones, founder of Breaking Generational Poverty and mother of the late Preston “Tink” Jones, one of Seals’ mentees who lost his life to gun violence in 2022.
“I’ve been working on legislation around gun violence,” Jones said. “What I was going through with Preston, we didn’t have a lot of resources … my son was able to access guns way too freely and way too often, and that was something I never was quiet about.”
The second screening of the day was the feature film “Paper Marriage,” which follows the relationship between IT consultant Fanny and her unemployed acquaintance Jeff. With Fanny’s H-1B visa about to expire, Jeff agrees to marry her in exchange for a monthly $1,000 stipend. The film is a complicated but sweet portrayal of two people truly getting to know each other.
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Among the festival’s best-attended screenings was Sunday afternoon’s collection of short films titled “Chambana to Chicago,” featuring entirely local productions. Highlights included “Kal-Haven,” a post-apocalyptic horror with a shockingly high production value, and “Captain of Industry,” a fever dream of a film shot beautifully at Allerton Park’s mansion.
The evening concluded with two feature films: “Never Not Yours,” a portrayal of changing family dynamics in the wake of parental separation, and “Inbetweening,” a multimedia exploration of an artist’s struggle with creativity, featuring animation, live action, music and even puppets.
The fifth day featured only one screening: National Geographic’s “Sally.” The documentary explores the life of Dr. Sally Ride, through archival and recent interviews, training footage, photographs and, most importantly, the testimony of her life partner, Dr. Tam O’Shaughnessy.
A heartbreakingly impactful film, this final screening also drew a big crowd to the Savoy 16, making for a solid send-off to the festival.
“People are always asking me, ‘So, are you going to do this next year?’” said festival director Nat Dykeman, addressing the crowd before the final screening. “I don’t know exactly when we might do a Savoy festival like this, but I do have lots of plans for upcoming events.”
The best way to follow along with future screenings from the Chambana Film Society is through Facebook, Instagram and its good old-fashioned mailing list.
“I will definitely be back September 20 and 21 for what we’re branding as ‘Cinesonic,’” Dykeman said. “It will be about half this size, probably six or seven screenings, all music-related … And then, starting in October, maybe we’ll get back to monthly — or maybe two a month — screenings.”
