Hollywood paid Nashville a visit not once but twice last year. First, Robert Redford's major-studio epic The Last Castle filmed at the old state prison for almost four months last spring. Then Colored Eggs, a low-budget independent film starring Faye Dunaway, shot at breakneck speed for five weeks in November and December. While Redford's film pumped a lot of money into the local economy, critics panned it, and it sunk like a stone at the box office last fall. Hopes are high that Colored Eggs will find a warmer reception with both the public and the press. The film has its world premiere at the gala invitation-only opening of the Nashville Independent Film Festival Tuesday June 4.

 

The film has been described as Steel Magnolias meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, with a little Driving Miss Daisy thrown in for good measure. It follows the fortunes of Amber Connors (Lauren Holly), a woman battling cancer while falling for a younger man (Ian Somerhalder) in a small Southern town. The film also focuses on Betty Miller (Faye Dunaway), a cantankerous woman being wooed by the town's resident philanderer (Tom Skerritt). The ensemble cast features veteran character actor Edie McClurg as Nurse Rollins and Janet Carroll as Mrs. Lane, head of the Baptist Women's League. Most of the film's other roles are filled by professional Nashville actors, and there are appearances by Rita Coolidge and Grand Ole Opry stars Earl Scruggs, Jan Howard and Jeannie Sealy.

No one hopes the film is a success more than Ned Horton, the Nashville businessman whose friendship with Colored Eggs director Martin Guigui was the key to bringing the film to Nashville. "Martin and I were best buddies in high school in Vermont," Horton says. "We actually made movies in high school, started our own radio show on a local station and played in a band together." Horton went on to work in radio, a profession that ultimately brought him to Nashville in 1986. He now runs the Horton Group, an entertainment-related marketing company.

Horton and Guigui stayed in touch over the years as Guigui pursued his interests in music and film. Guigui co-starred in Time Chasers in 1994 and opened with his own band for Eddie Money and Talking Heads. He wrote and directed his first feature film, My Ex-Girlfriend's Wedding Reception, in 2001. Described as the "Spinal Tap of wedding receptions," the film earned critical acclaim at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival and Temecula International Film Festival.

For his second feature-film directing effort, Guigui chose Colored Eggs, based on a little-known play by former Nashvillian Daniel Wright, who also penned the screenplay. "I wrote the play in 1993 while I was still in grad school at Arkansas State," Wright says. "It's been produced maybe 10 or 15 times at theaters around the South since then." One of those productions was at Columbia State Community College in Maury County, where Wright taught from 1996 to 1999. The play didn't morph into a film project, though, until Wright met film producer Randy Holleschau while researching a coffee table book on Elvis (Dear Elvis: Graffiti From Graceland). Holleschau got the Colored Eggs script circulating in Hollywood, where it found its way into the hands of Guigui in 2000.

"I talk to Martin a few times a year, and each time I'd tell him he needs to come to Nashville to do a film," says Horton. "In May last year I said that to him again, and he told me about this project he had that was set in a small Southern town." Less than six months later, Colored Eggs was under way in Nashville.

The project filmed over a period of about six weeks, using the Bordeaux Hospital and West End School as primary locations. The opening scene was shot in Springfield's town square, while Horton's own South Nashville neighborhood provided other locations. "The production company even used my house for auditions--which was a bit of a surprise for my wife," Horton says. "They also used my neighbor's front porch for one shot."

While the film is filled with oddball characters (such as a woman who receives messages from outer space on her Walkman) and offbeat events (such as a parade of kids dressed as Easter eggs), Wright says his script isn't just another Hollywood take on the eccentric South. "Quite a bit of it is based on experiences in my own life," he says. "I used to do volunteer work in a cancer hospital in Arkansas, and I was struck by how much more vivid everything is for the patients there and how they focus on what's really important. So for me, the essence of Colored Eggs is how important it is in life to find a connection to another person and how once you have that, everything changes."

How inclusive is Nashville's hometown film festival? Broad enough for both a documentary about right-wing Christian haunted houses and an appearance by the director of Pink Flamingos.
 

Cult-movie legend John Waters (Hairspray) is among the featured guests of the upcoming Nashville Independent Film Festival, to be held June 5-9 at Regal's Green Hills megaplex. Waters joins what may be the strongest lineup of films in the festival's 33-year history, a crowd-pleasing mix of award-winning documentaries, American indie features and world-cinema highlights.

Perhaps the most anticipated of the bunch is the NIFF's opening-night selection, Colored Eggs. Shot in Nashville last winter, the film stars Faye Dunaway, Lauren Holly and Tom Skerritt in a comedy-drama about terminally ill patients whose lives are unexpectedly touched by romance. The script was written by former Nashvillian Daniel Wright, and much of the movie was filmed at Bordeaux Hospital with local actors in supporting parts. NIFF executive director Brian Gordon says that the movie's stars are in negotiation to attend.

In addition, cast member Peri Gilpin and producer Peter Casey from TV's Frasier will conduct a workshop on producing for the small screen. The number of visiting filmmakers is higher this year, Gordon says, as is the number of films. Approximately 200 films are booked for the five-day festival, up more than 50 films from last year. The 2001 NIFF attracted more than 10,000 patrons.