Oxford Film Fest to screen “Grease” and “Night of the Living Dead” at drive-in

Published 1:15 pm Friday, June 26, 2020

The Oxford Film Festival is entering it second month of its drive-in and offering up two cult classics.

On Saturday, the drive-in will screen “Grease,” starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John as Danny Zuko and Sandy Olssen as they reunite at Ridell High School after a summer romance.

Next Thursday, the George A. Romero classic “Night of the Living Dead” will screen at the drive-in, located next to Cannon Motors off Highway 6. The movie centers around a group of people from Pennsylvania who barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a group of zombies that are roaming the East Coast.

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Friday marked the beginning of the 10th week of the Virtual Oxford Film Festival. It will include screenings of award-winning documentaries and music to accompany the two drive-in offerings.

Winners from last year’s Memphis Film Prize and Louisiana Film Prize will have their films shown during the week. Leslie Woodhead’s documentary “Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things” and Asaf Galay’s “Army of Lovers in the Holy Land,” which chronicles the upheaval that took place when the band’s lead singer moved from Sweden to Isreal put music front and center again, are also showing next week.

“‘Army of the Holy Land’ and ‘Ella Fitzgerald: Just one of Those Things’ are inspiring documentaries that are a vivid reminder of why art can change the world,” OFF executive director Melanie Addington said. “Between that and ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ which is one of the all time drive-in classics, to the weekly virtual festival continuing with award-winning films such as ‘The In-Between’ and last year’s winners and top finishers from the Memphis and Louisiana Film Prize competitions, and ‘The Evening Hour,’ which played at Sundance, this is an action-packed week.”

Based in rural Appalachia, “The Evening Hour” centers around Cole who is a popular young health aide at a nursing home that makes ends meet by redistributing excess medication from townies to local buyers. The fragile balance of Cole’s double life is then threatened when a childhood friend returns with a plan of his own.

The 2019 Memphis Film Prize winner “A Night Out” is directed by Abby Meyers and Kevin Brooks and is about a woman who goes for a night out after a messy breakup. Louisiana Film Prize winner from last year, “Black Pajamas” is by Hattie Haggard Gobble and is about a Vietnam Veteran who encounters one his triggers when walking along a large river.

Both films are part of the Short Film Program that is airing during next week’s slate of virtual fest offerings.

For more information about the drive-in, which is $20 per car, as well as the rest of the films showing during next week’s lineup, visit oxfordfilmfest.com.