From the archives: You are the Prize
Shreveport is home to the Louisiana Film Prize, a festival that was inspired by SXSW and has become as unique as the city itself.
Hello from Louisiana, where I’m getting ready to watch 20 short films that are competing in this year’s Prize Fest, an event in Shreveport I first found out about just a couple of years ago.
Founder Gregory Kallenberg, a documentary filmmaker who once worked at the Austin American-Statesman, launched this community event 13 years ago and has expanded it to New Mexico, where young filmmakers participate in a similar competition.
But it’s never been about the $50,000 prize.
I was reminded of that last night at the kick-off party, where Gregory rallied the crowd with his story about why Prize exists.
To convey that story to you, I wanted to share this news from my first Prize Fest two years ago, when I first got a taste of this magical gathering.
I couldn’t be happier to be back, this time with my film-loving 17-year-old in tow. (*cue mom heart melting*)
It’s worth noting that fellow Austinite Kevin Russell, aka ShinyRibs, who has his own Substack newsletter, is performing a reunion show on Saturday night with his old band Picket Line Coyotes.
That band evolved into The Gourds, and the rest is history.
Hope you all have a great weekend! Thanks so much for your support of this newsletter. It means the world that you, too, support independent artists making their way in the world.
Until next week,
Addie
Recently on The Invisible Thread:
The lesson from a bigfoot expedition? ‘We become more so’
Where boys and girls can all be queens
New shades of blue
The worth of a well-check
Shreveport isn’t a city that’s been on my radar, but that changed last weekend thanks to the Prize Fest.
This river city, tucked into the northwest corner of Louisiana, is known for gambling, but this multi-disciplinary cultural event showcased a whole other side to Ratchet City.
A few months ago, the folks at Prize Fest — a 10-day celebration of culture that started as a film festival in 2012— called to see if I’d be interested in judging a food competition with a handful of other food writers from across the country.
I already had a busy October schedule, but founder Gregory Kallenberg’s enthusiasm for the impact that Prize, as it is known, has on the local community convinced me that it would be worth the time to go.
“It’s like our own version of South by Southwest,” he told me. “Come check it out. You won’t regret it, I promise.”
Although I’ve shifted away from covering events like SXSW, I spent enough years attending panels, films and events to know that there’s something special that happens at conferences that are built around creative expression and networking.
So, I shoehorned this trip to Louisiana in and invited my bayou bestie, Dani, to join me. (Well, she told me that I couldn’t go to Louisiana without her, which is fair.)
Last weekend, we got to see what all the fuss was about.
Kallenberg, a filmmaker and former journalist, and his wife, Heidi, lived in Austin when their kids were little and were involved with SXSW when it was primarily a music-and-film festival.
When they moved back to Gregory’s hometown of Shreveport about 15 years ago, they started working on a plan to bring some of that creative energy to this city of about 200,000 people.
What if he organized a short film competition with cash prize and a catch — that the submissions had to be filmed in Louisiana?
The Louisiana Film Prize — shortened to Prize Fest or even just “Prize” — draws thousands of folks from the worlds of film (and food, music, fashion and comedy) across more than a dozen events, including music performances, comedy shows, a food tasting event (more on that later) and a red carpet party for the filmmakers. (And underdressed party crashers.)
We met all kinds of actors, screenwriters, producers and distributors on the first night we were in town, which inspired us to make sure to see the 20 short films competing for the $50,000 prize, but the whole point of us being there was a tasting event called Come and Get It, which started in 2019 and is now in its third year.
These tasting events — so common in Austin that we slowly stopped covering them during my time at the Statesman — provide an unmatched opportunity for chefs to present new dishes and introduce them to a new community of diners.
The twist at Food Prize is that local chefs get matched with visiting chefs, and together they collaborate to make a dish that will appeal to both the audience and a panel of judges.
Fat Calf Brasserie chef/owner Anthony Felan of Shreveport and Denise Joseph, who runs the kitchen at Uchi Dallas, won the people’s choice with their duck and truffle ravioli. The team of Sean Sullivan of Frank’s Louisiana Kitchen and Eppie Connolly of Adachi in Detroit won the judges’ choice with a 7-spice tuna tataki, citrus-ginger guacamole and pickled chayote that had all five tastes and then some.
Like SXSW, Prize Fest has added panel programming in the past few years, so after the Food Prize on Friday night, I joined my fellow judges, Tim Carmen of the Washington Post and Dallas freelance writer Steven Doyle, on a panel about building thriving food communities.
The leader of Slow Food North Louisiana led a conversation about what’s happening in Shreveport and in the food industry at large, letting the participants share their own experiences from the communities they serve.
It was an awesome weekend filled with enriching conversations and excellent food. I really loved some of the films I saw — “They Grow Up So Fast” won the $50,000 prize on Sunday — and can’t wait to see what other changes this event brings to Shreveport in the coming years.
Because the truth is, no matter how you feel about SXSW, the presence of such a large gathering of creative people *has* changed Austin for the better. It lets us show off the best of what *we* do and invites other change-makers to share what *they* are — an epic show and tell that plants seeds — and connections — that benefit both the locals and the visitors for years to come.
SXSW has become too big, in many ways, to even know where to start to get into the scene. I totally understand Kallenberg’s vision to bring something similar to Shreveport. Everywhere I looked, there were signs that played off the “Prize” concept.
“I am the Prize. You are the Prize. We are the Prize.”
Every city needs that kind of message.
