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Write on: Movie magic at LIFF

A good movie stays with you for a while. Right now, I can’t stop thinking about the movies I saw at this year’s Louisiana International Film Festival.

The 2015 festival was held over a four-day period in May and featured 60 screenings.

My favorite was Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. The movie follows Greg, a self-deprecating high school senior from a quirky family. Greg’s mother forces him to befriend Rachel, a classmate who has just been diagnosed with leukemia.

Despite the heavy subject matter, the film is incredibly funny. Everyone in our theater was cracking up at the antics of Greg and his friend, Earl, who produce intentionally bad film spoofs together. Their movies are remakes of classic films but with titles such as “A Sockwork Orange” and “Pooping Tom.”

The story takes a heartstring-tugging turn, though, when Rachel gets sicker, and Greg and Earl set out to make their first serious film—one for her.

No doubt it will draw a lot of comparisons to last summer’s The Fault in Our Stars, the tale of two cancer-afflicted teens who fall in love. But in Me and Earl, Greg is quick to tell the audience that he and Rachel will never be romantically involved.

At times, the film also reminded me of one of my favorite movies, 500 Days of Summer, which has a similar sense of humor and narration style. (In the first scene where Greg and Rachel hang out, the words “Day 1 of doomed friendship” flash on the screen.)

I read that when Me and Earl premiered at Sundance and other festivals, it got a standing ovation. The dialogue is witty, the camerawork is brilliant, and the characters are real, flawed—and you can’t help but love them.

I also enjoyed Unexpected, a film about a high school science teacher, Sam, grappling with an unplanned pregnancy. She struggles with the thought of taking time off from her career to focus on motherhood—and even has to pass up a dream job opportunity in the process.

While she prepares for her baby’s birth, Sam bonds with a pregnant student, Jasmine. Jasmine lives with her grandmother in a poor neighborhood, and though she is an A student, the thought of going to college once her baby is born seems like an impossibility.

Unexpected examines an out-of-the-blue pregnancy—a plotline that is somewhat overdone—in a raw, unique way.

After the films, I ventured to the filmmakers lounge. The loft-style lounge featured a small art gallery, live music, hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar.

Though the festival was over at that point, I glanced at the list of workshops offered by the festival’s filmmaker mentorship program. There were classes on crowd-funding, cinematography, documentaries, women in film and more. What an awesome resource for anyone interested in movie production. Even though I’m not a filmmaker, I found myself wishing I’d signed up for the program.

A press release after the festival said attendance nearly doubled this year, and I can see why. The film selection was really, really good. I left the theater on closing night feeling like I had just watched some of the best movies I’d seen in a while.

I already can’t wait for next year’s event.

Reach Jennifer Tormo at [email protected].