Making movies helps Johnson County man cope with MS. He has 2 showing at KC FilmFest

For L. Tanner Smith, making movies is more than a job, more even than a passion. The 31-year-old Overland Park resident has multiple sclerosis, and he credits filmmaking for giving him “a lot of purpose in life.”

“There was a time M.S. was getting the best of me,” Smith said. “I was clinically depressed, and nothing was getting me out of that funk, not even filmmaking. It just took a special project like ‘Millennial With a Cane’ to get me back on track, and once I did it sparked a whole new creative drive. And I’ve been making these films ever since.”

Smith typically directs, produces and at least co-writes all of his movies — and there are a lot of them. He usually appears in them as well, sometimes in the starring role, although he was not the star of “Millennial With a Cane.” That comedy/drama earned Smith the Fred G. Andrews Emerging Filmmaker Award from the Kansas City FilmFest International in 2022.

Now he has two movies at the 2024 festival April 11-14 at the AMC Ward Parkway 14. On April 13, “Funny Kind Crazy Clever” will screen at 2:30 p.m. and “Running” will screen at 4:30 p.m.

Veronica Elliott Loncar, the festival’s executive director, says 135 films, including shorts, were culled from about 850 submissions. For Smith to nab two slots among 26 feature-length movies, including narratives and documentaries, is unusual.

“He consistently enters good films,” Loncar said. “He makes a lot of movies, and he consistently enters good films.

“He puts a lot of work into it, and I think it shows.”

Smith has made comedies, dramas, documentaries and shorts, all shot in the Kansas City area. According to his IMDB listing, he has directed nearly 50 movies and shorts dating to 2009, including eight features in the past two years.

All this while coping with M.S., a chronic disease of the central nervous system that can cause pain, fatigue and impaired coordination.

“I’m on disability benefits … so rather than be a couch potato, I took filmmaking as my full-time job,” he said. “It’s nice to be busy when you don’t treat it like work. It’s just a fun little thing I like to do with my friends most of the time.”

Originally from Arkansas, Smith studied digital filmmaking at the University of Central Arkansas before moving to the Kansas City area to join his girlfriend and creative partner, Kelly Woodruff.

His process is independent filmmaking at its most independent.

He uses handheld cameras almost exclusively and finances his projects — none of which costs more than a few thousand dollars — largely from his disability benefits. He said he resorts to crowdfunding or outside sourcing only when absolutely necessary.

“Most of the time, it’s just out of pocket,” he said. “I call it the Walmart budget.”

None of that budget goes to paying actors, although Smith provides food on the sets and occasionally springs for gas money for actors traveling from out of town.

Rachel Klewicki stars as a serious runner who has epilepsy in “Running,” which already has screened at several other film festivals. Smith and Woodruff wrote the part with Klewicki in mind, and after she came on board, she contributed so many ideas to the project that she earned co-writing and co-producing credits.

She said Smith’s collaborative approach is fun, but the films are more than mere vanity projects.

“There’s always a deeper meaning to his work,” Klewicki said. “There’s always some kind of message or takeaway that you can get from them. Also, just a relentless sense of optimism, even when he’s dealing with a subject like M.S. or epilepsy, just relentless hopefulness in his films.”

Like many of the actors working gratis, she hopes these roles might lead to bigger things. Klewicki, who moved to Kansas City from Los Angeles to be closer to her father, is a personal stylist when she isn’t acting.

While immersing herself in the Kansas City independent film scene, she has become a big fan of Smith and his movies.

“The strength of Tanner’s movies are the stories and the characters, relatable characters with very realistic dialogue and realistic problems,” Klewicki said. “The characters go on a journey of some kind. To me, that’s what makes a good movie.”

As for his own journey with M.S., Smith said he has begun taking an infusion that “can make me feel fairly normal for quite a while,” but he doesn’t know what the future holds.

“I have remitting-relapsing multiple sclerosis, which means there are symptoms that come and go,” he said. “Some days I’m totally fine. Other days I’ll feel either very fatigued or very aggravated or in pain.”

Stress, along with extreme heat and cold, can worsen his condition, so it helps that he takes a stress-free approach to filmmaking.

His rewards are largely non-financial. Several of Smith’s movies are available on streaming services such as Tubi and Amazon Prime, but he said the income is minimal. “If I had a day job, it’s not something I would quit for.”

They typically don’t run in theaters, which is why Kansas City FilmFest and other festivals that have shown his works and given him awards are a big deal.

“When festivals recognize that simplicity, that heart, that passion that we put into these films, it really makes my heart glad,” he said.

KC FilmFest’s Loncar recognizes and appreciates those traits in films.

“You don’t have to have a big budget, but you have to have a story that people find interesting,” she said. “He tells stories about real things, real people, real emotions, and I think that works for people.”

Many of his films, including both at this year’s fest, feature characters with disabilities or chronic illnesses.

“The films that feature disabled people are just me trying to get new things across, because as I’m struggling with M.S., I’m learning more about that and about myself and about how other people deal with it,” he said. “I just want to use film to portray that journey.”

Kansas City FilmFest International

AMC Ward Parkway 14. 5:30 p.m. April 11, 5:40 p.m. April 12, noon April 13, 12:05 p.m. April 14. $10; $45 all-access pass. kcfilmfest.org.

Highlights: “Thelma” starring 94-year-old Academy Award nominee June Squibb and the late Richard Roundtree, 7:20 p.m. April 13; “The Idea of You” starring Oscar winner Anne Hathaway and directed by Michael Showalter (“The Big Sick”), 8:15 p.m. April 12.