Jimmy Stewart welcomes you to the Magic of Movies!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants are on a nationwide tour through the Hollywood festival circuit; others are local productions on shoestring budgets. Projects with household names screen alongside indies with big hopes — sometimes with a cast of unknowns, sometimes with a familiar face or three from pop culture’s past and present.
Heartland’s 35th edition runs October 7-18 and will be my fourth time diving in. I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all, maybe more if time permits. Some are highly anticipated and might go on to compete at the next Academy Awards, much like last year’s Blue Moon and It Was Just an Accident. Or they’ll be smaller and criminally overlooked, which sadly is how things can go sometimes. (My favorite Heartland 2025 entrant, Egypt’s heartbreaking Oscar submission Happy Birthday, never found a US distributor and is still unavailable to stream here.) Results and fates will vary. Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry, no matter how big or little. Given the viewing volume and thereby the subsequent writing volume, I might keep these write-ups shorter than usual. (I said MIGHT. Stop looking relieved.)
First in line: Heartland proudly presented the sold-out Festival World Premiere of Jimmy — a biopic of legendary actor Jimmy Stewart, focusing on his World War II service and the aftermath. It was a natural fit for Heartland — his family has maintained close ties with them since the late 1990s, even allowing them to name one of their annual awards after him. As one of the festival’s two big opening-night galas, the screening was held downtown at Scottish Rite Cathedral and welcomed cast and crew members for an intro and Q&A afterward. Accompanying me was my wife Anne, who read a Stewart biography not too long ago and was curious to see what they covered. We didn’t take notes during the Q&A, but she did her best to catch a few pics from our long-distance uppermost balcony seats.
