Organizers of the Indigo Moon Film Festival (IMFF) are setting the stage for the stars of national and international independent cinema to shine their brightest.

The festival, which is a staple of the fall for cinephiles from all over North Carolina and beyond, got its start in 2016 and spans over three days. This year’s event will start Oct. 11 and show more than 80 films from filmmakers from all over the country at different venues in downtown Fayetteville.

Attendees will also get a chance to meet filmmakers and discuss their showings. The festival venues are SkyView on Hay at 121 Hay St., Rainbow Room at 223 Hay St., The Capitol Encore Academy at 126 Hay St., the CAMEO Art House Theater and The LOGE at 225 Hay St.

Jan Johnson and Pat Wright, co-founders and co-runners of the IMFF, said the films shown at the festival are primarily independent projects fueled by passion and hard work. 

“It's not the big movie houses that are backed by millions of dollars,” Johnson said. “These are films backed by hard-earned sponsors and sometimes they're funded by filmmakers’ own pocketbooks.” 

Wright said often filmmakers are not looking to monetize their movies. 

“These are things that are a passion project for them,” Wright noted.

Johnson said the experience at the IMFF differs from that offered at a multiplex or even a boutique movie theater due to the presence of the filmmakers.

“Almost every screening you've got filmmakers who will be here to talk about the film you just watched,” Johnson said. “It's really interesting, insightful and entertaining to hear from them. We've got great folks interviewing them, and it's just a really good time to have people from out of town enjoying Fayetteville and bringing their art to our area.”

For Wright and Johnson, IMFF is a way to shine a spotlight on what they believe is an underrepresented art in Fayetteville. As filmmakers themselves, they say they know what it is like to be a part of the independent cinema circuit and the struggles and joys that come with that.

“That's what makes this festival a little bit different from others,” Wright said. “We know what we appreciated when we went to a film festival, when we were having a film shown and how it made us feel. We just want to provide that same thrill of seeing your film on the big screen and hearing the audience laugh at just the right time. There's just nothing like it.”

The main event is the Friday showing of “Luther: Never Too Much” a documentary following the life of the late Luther Vandross. The documentary is directed by veteran documentarian Dawn Porter, who has made biographical documentaries of other historical figures such as Bobby Kennedy, Vernon Jordan and John Lewis. Porter has collaborated with Oprah and Prince Harry.

“Then everyone after the film will go down to SkyView for the opening night reception,” Wright said. “Where we'll have light bites and music of the era, and we will have all the filmmakers there to meet and greet.”

Saturday will be “wall-to-wall films.”

“Three venues, all day, starting at 10 a.m. ending at about midnight,” Wright said. “We'll be showing all kinds of films; short films, short film blocks filled with different shorts, We’ll show some feature length documentaries and narratives. We have animation student films, first time filmmakers, North Carolina filmmakers, local filmmakers, documentary shorts and narrative shorts.”

There will also be a “dinner and a movie (director)” event at SkyView at 6 p.m. Saturday, where attendees will be treated to a conversation with director Chris Everette, a North Carolina director from Durham. Everette presented his movie “Wilmington on Fire” at a prior iteration of IMFF. “A heavily armed mob launches a violent attack against African Americans on Nov. 10, 1898, in Wilmington,” reads the synopsis for the film.

The entire lineup for the festival can be found here: www.indigomoonfilmfest. com/full-schedule-of-films. 

Johnson and Wright said they have fallen in love with local films and that they want to make sure the IMFF showcases local talent. 

“As we started doing our own film festival, we fell in love with the North Carolina films,” Johnson said. “We made additional categories for those, and we were surprised by the number of local films from Fayetteville and Cumberland County. We have very talented filmmakers whose films deserve to be shown.”

This made them, overtime, expand the categories for submissions for IMFF.

“We try to give more categories to allow more filmmakers to participate and be recognized,” Wright said. “We get the list of films that have been submitted and we have a jury who watch every film and rank it according to plot, story, acting, lighting and a bunch of different categories.”

Wright said filmmakers end up loving Fayetteville by the end of their pilgrimage to IMFF.

“We have got so many filmmakers. More than ever before are going to be here,” Wright said. “They love Fayetteville. The reception they get in Fayetteville with the Indigo Moon Film Fest is really one of the few where they are treated practically like royalty.”