Filmmaker alumna Caroline Rumley (M.A. in Film, Video, and Digital Imaging) awaits with excitement and anticipation when her first feature film “Eponymous” makes its world premiere in the Big Easy as an official selection of the 35th Annual New Orleans Film Festival (NOFF, October 16-27, 2024).
The NOFF festival guide describes “Eponymous” as:
A man named Hiram Maxim created the first automatic machine gun, abandoning his family forever to chase glory. His son, Hiram Percy, invented the gun silencer, but few if any know of Hiram Percy’s connection to early personal filmmaking. This unique film, made by Caroline Rumley, who herself is married to a direct descendant of Hiram Maxim—also named Hiram Maxim (stay focused, it can get confusing)—is comprised of footage shot by cinema pioneer Hiram Percy Maxim, who wanted to change his name. It's a fascinating story of legacy and inheritance, as well as the history of guns and cinema itself.
Watch trailer here.
According to Rumley, a lot of people still recognize Rumley’s husband’s name, Hiram Maxim through the eldest Maxim’s machine gun ties, while others know that his son, Hiram Percy invented the gun silencer. However, few people if any, are aware of Hiram Percy’s connection to early personal filmmaking.
Rumley got her first taste of Hiram Percy Maxim’s film work long ago (way before she went back to school to study film at Georgia State) when her husband’s father screened a few 16 mm films in the old farmhouse, a building that also appears in some of the film’s footage. Rumley later discovered a whole arsenal of footage like that, a fact that stuck with the filmmaker.
“During Covid it became an obvious, though risky, choice; I was going to try to make a feature-length film by myself which would both outline Hiram Percy’s life in connection with his famous, yet absent father, while highlighting his work in early cinema, out of just footage he shot." said Rumley. "Equally daunting was the fact that all the key players in the film bear the same name.”
Caroline Rumley is a Southern filmmaker who combines solo-shot film, found and archival footage, text and sound to tell stories involving power structures. Her films have screened internationally at varied venues - from Melbourne’s Biennial of Video Art to Amsterdam’s IDFA to Berlin's Zebra Poetry Film Fest to Sundance.
NOFF brings togeher more than 250+ filmmakers from every corner of the world in attendance at 150+ films, and is one of the few film festivals that is Oscar®-qualifying in all three Academy-accredited categories.
“Eponymous” screens Oct. 19 and Oct. 20. For ticket information, click here. For NOFF virtual festival offering, click here.