SLIFF 2013 Opens This Thursday Night With WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS

It’s almost here! The 22nd Annual St. Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF) kicks off this Thursday night, November 14th.

SLIFF will screen 330 films: 75 narrative features, 63 documentary features, and 192 shorts and the first of these will be the eagerly-awaited Branson documentary WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS. The screening will take place at the Tivoli Theater Thursday night, November 14th, at 7:00pm.

There will be an opening night reception, awards presentation, and live performance by WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS subjects Gail Lennon, Bill Lennon and Pope Firman before and after the screening. Doors open at 6pm.

Cost is $15 for the reception, film, and concert.

Co-directors AJ Schnack and David Wilson, cinematographer/producer Nathan Truesdell, and subjects Bill and Gail Lennon will be at the reception. Schnack is the recipient of SLIFF’s Charles Guggenheim Cinema St. Louis Award.

WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS is a story of family, community, music, and tradition set against the backdrop of Branson, Mo., one of the biggest tourist destinations in America. A remote Ozark Mountain town of just 10,500, Branson hosts more than 7.5 million tourists a year and generates nearly $3 billion in annual tourism revenue. At the heart of Branson’s appeal are the more than 100 staged music shows that have earned the town the moniker of “the live music capital of the world.” These shows are well known for their “family” style of entertainment. Crowds from around the country, and particularly from the American Midwest, flock to Branson for this return to old-fashioned values. The filmmakers spent the past five years documenting Branson and profiling four families who live and perform there. Film Threat “the filmmakers mingle the stories into a powerful salute to the town’s animated spirit… it’s a nicely observed slice of life.” Jason Gorber Twitch Perhaps the best part is that while Branson is explicitly a town of kitsch, there’s nothing smug or sarcastic about the film. While I adore the like of a Christopher Guest-style poke at such pretensions as much as anyone, what comes across in this film instead is a greater diversity and greater introspection than I had any right to expect.

The critics have been raving about WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS:

Film Threat wrote:

 “the filmmakers mingle the stories into a powerful salute to the town’s animated spirit… it’s a nicely observed slice of life.”

And Jason Gorber at Twitch wrote:

“Perhaps the best part is that while Branson is explicitly a town of kitsch, there’s nothing smug or sarcastic about the film. While I adore the like of a Christopher Guest-style poke at such pretensions as much as anyone, what comes across in this film instead is a greater diversity and greater introspection than I had any right to expect”.

WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS will also screen as part of SLIFF Sunday, Nov 17th at 7:00pm at the Wildey Theatre

For ticket information, visit Cinema St. Louis’ site HERE

http://www.cinemastlouis.org/we-always-lie-strangers