Jackson Free Press

Katy Smith blinks in the afternoon sunlight of a bright spring day and says, "I love downtown Jackson. I think it's really beautiful, and people don't appreciate it."

Although the Jackson native is only 20 years old, she has already graduated from Mt. Holyoke in western Massachusetts with a double-major in film studies and history. What's more, her film, "Men You May Not Have Met," which is a short documentary about men's self-perceptions, screens at this year's Crossroads Film Festival. (See Crossroads schedule, page 20.)

After her northern stint, Smith was eager to come home to Jackson, where she had studied in Power APAC. "I hate the North. It's so cold I couldn't stand it," she says.

Smith works as the assistant to the artistic administrator for the International Ballet Competition, which comes to Jackson on June 17. Then, in the fall, she will head to graduate school at UNC Chapel Hill. "I'm really interested in women's history in the South before the Civil War," she says. "Both slaves and the wives of plantation owners."

She looks forward to blending filmmaking with her historical studies, saying that she finds filmmaking personally satisfying, even if few people ever see the finished product.

Smith says making the documentary showing at Crossroads was illuminating for her. "For instance," she says, "I asked men how they rated their sexuality, with 1 being homosexual and 10 being heterosexual. The homosexual men all rated themselves 1, but none of the heterosexual men said they were 10. Some were 9, others 6 or 7. That really surprised me." Smith was the director, writer, producer and editor of the film.

Although independent films don't make much money, Smith says they're worth it because they give the filmmaker the freedom to pursue her ideas. "I was very naïve when I went to L.A.," she says, explaining that she took classes there and had an internship in Hollywood. "I thought everyone had the same creative ideals, but filmmaking is really money-driven out there. All the creative ideas get squashed. That's when I realized I didn't want to be in the industry."

Until school calls her away from her home once more, Smith is making the most of her time in Jackson, anticipating the film festival and appreciating the warmth, both in the weather and the culture. "People up North have this idea that Southerners are shallow or fake, but I don't think that's true at all," she says.

"I don't want to go above the Mason-Dixon Line ever again. There's just not the same warmth in people there."