Local Chattanoogan brings film to Chattanooga Film Festival

HAMILTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WDEF) – The Chattanooga Film Festival has been providing artists an outlet for a decade.

“Even though the arts and music and things like that have grown by leaps and bounds in Chattanooga. I didn’t want to see film get left behind,” said Chris Dortch, festival director.

He is proud of this festival and is excited for its success. Dortch said “In year ten, we feel like it’s worked out. We just got named one of the 25 coolest film festivals in the world by movie maker magazine, so we feel like we are doing something right.

The festival runs through Sunday and will feature many films over the next three days.

“We spend a whole year scouting out films from all over the world and try to bring the best of what we assemble here to Chattanooga every year,” said Dortch.

A Chattanoogan created one of those films.

“Anya is a 1970 period piece its a horror film, it’s a revenge story,” said Alex Preavett the director of photography for Anya.

Preavett said he “was in charge of the general look of the film, how it was lit and the creative process behind that.”

The creative process paid off because they filmed the movie in one night.

“We shot this overnight in Tellico plains, just one night. We shot it from about 5pm to about four or five in the morning,” said Preavett.

Preavett is excited to bring Anya to his hometown. He said, “Having a home town showing like this, especially at the Read House, which is historically known for being haunted and everything, and having a horror film there is exciting, especially one that’s been made locally. That’s really just a cool thing to have”

The Chattanooga film festival will run through Sunday. Anya will show at 10:30 Friday morning.