Now in its third year of showcasing movies, workshops and celebrations of the local filmmaking community over the course of a jampacked weekend, the Cat Fly Film Fest returns to Asheville with its most ambitious edition yet.
“Cat Fly is so much more than when we first started,” says programming director Brittany Jackson. “Over the last three years, it’s been incredible to see the professional connections made at Cat Fly events bloom into collaborative projects and form a greater sense of community.”
The festivities begin Friday, March 29, at the Asheville Masonic Temple, 80 Broadway, with a red carpet reception (black tie optional), complete with refreshments at 6 p.m. and a screening of traditional narrative and documentary short films at 7 p.m. The evening continues with Cat Fly After Dark, a second block of programming, at 9 p.m. at The Mothlight, 701 Haywood Road. This West Asheville portion includes live performances and the premiere of the five-part music video series, Disco Paw.
On Saturday, March 30, at 11 a.m., Gunner Willis (Netflix’s “Ozark”; HBO’s “Vice Principals”) will lead an acting workshop called Playing the Normal Dude at the Asheville School of Film, 45 S. French Broad Ave. It will be followed at 2 p.m. by a table read of a feature film script by a local screenwriter at The Asheville Studio, 12 Old Charlotte Highway, Suite 75, and a filmmaker mixer. The action then shifts to New Belgium Brewing Co., 21 Craven St., for a 6 p.m. Community Night screening of horror, experimental and genre-bending creations.
Cat Fly wraps up Sunday, March 31, at the Fine Arts Theatre, 36 Biltmore Ave., with a 4 p.m. screening of the feature-length film, Pop-Pop is Dead, which was filmed on location in Gaffney, S.C. Single-day tickets or VIP weekend passes can be purchased online. catflyfilmfest.com/festival
