Asheville musician Ben Lovett takes home Madrid International Film Festival prize

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Photo by Ben Lovett

The Asheville singwer-songriter behind music, several impressively produced videos and a new experimental short film takes home a prize in Madrid: Best Soundtrack, for his short film Ghosts of Old Highways.

This is just the most recent award for Ben Lovett and his movie, which have both also won 2012 awards at film festivals in Denver, Memphis, Charleston and Atlanta.  Directed by Dan Bush, Ghost of Old Highways has received over 15 awards and nominations at film festivals across the United States including Best Score and Best Cinematography.

Ghost of Old Highways premiers tomorrow on IFC.com

From the film festival’s Tumblr:

GHOST OF OLD HIGHWAYS just won the award for Best Sound Track at Madrid International Film Festival. “Ghost Of Old Highways” is a short film based on the song of the same name by Lovett – a mini‐epic set in a haunted Civil War‐era dreamscape and made by a group of indie filmmakers from Atlanta.

It is the fourth installment in Lovett’s series of collaborations with film directors to interpret songs from the album, Highway Collection. The film will premiere on June 12 at IFC.com. “Ghost Of Old Highways” has now screened in 19 cities, 5 countries, and won 9 film festival awards in 2012 including Best Film, Best Score, and Best Cinematography. The Madrid International Film Festival announced Saturday, June 9th “Ghost Of Old Highways” won the Best Sound Track Award.

In “Ghost Of Old Highways” a man (Lovett) pursued by an invading army hunts down previous versions of himself amidst the purgatory of a fractured consciousness.  Shot on location in the North Carolina mountains, the crew battled rugged landscapes and unpredictable weather atop Black Balsam, a 5,000‐foot peak near Cold Mountain, to capture the film’s surreal look and tone, conjuring a visual language that exists somewhere between Terrance Malick and Frank Miller.Georgia native Ben Lovett, who wrote and produced an entirely new piece of music for the final version of the film, explains the project as becoming a collaborative circle of ideas. “Each idea became the catalyst for a new idea‐the song inspired the script; the script inspired the film; the film inspired the score; the score is inspired by the song.”

Ghost of Old Highways website

The atmospheric video for “Eye of the Storm” has been watched over 500,000 times on YouTube.

Ghost of Old Highways trailer

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

  • 1

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