After taking 2020 off because of, you guessed it, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tucson Film & Music Festival returns this weekend, Friday, Oct. 1-Sunday, Oct. 3, with a series of films slated for in-person showings at The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress, downtown.
The fest, now in its 17th year, is coming back strong with a focus on female filmmakers, according to press materials.
Movies with women directors have been chosen as this year’s opening night, centerpiece, and closing night films.
On Friday, the festival will premiere “Fanny: The Right to Rock,” by director Bobbi Jo Hart, a film that looks at the birth of Fanny, the 1970s California rock group of all women that earned praise and admiration from the likes of Bonnie Raitt, The Runaways’ Cherie Currie and Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott.
Fanny drummer Alice de Buhr will participate in a Q&A after the 7 p.m. screening.
“Crossing Columbus,” the festival’s centerpiece film, screening on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., looks at the annual pilgrimage of Mexican riders on horseback who travel to the small town of Columbus, New Mexico, each year to commemorate Pancho Villa’s raid on the town in 1916.
The film is directed by Cathy Lee Crane, who will be at the festival for a Q&A with her collaborator Beth Custer after the screening at 7:30 p.m.
A film about Fishbone frontman Angelo Moore, called “ForeverMoore: The Angelo Project,” will close out the festival on Sunday. Directed by Tisa Zito, the documentary looks at Fishbone, the all-black ska, punk, metal and funk band and its rise to fame under Moore’s leadership.
That movie screens at 7 p.m.
The three films anchor a weekend full of full-length features, documentaries and shorts.
Tickets can be purchased in advance for each screening at tucsonfilmfestival.eventbrite.com.
