Film Fest Knox has announced that actor, writer, director, and producer Tim Blake Nelson will receive the second annual James Agee Prize when the festival returns to downtown Knoxville from November 12 through November 15, 2026. Festival passes went on sale Tuesday, with general admission priced at $100 and VIP access set at $275.
The prize, which honors artists who have made significant contributions to American regional cinema, was first awarded in September 2025 to Sailor Bear Films, a Texas-based production collective founded by Toby Halbrooks, James M. Johnston, and David Lowery, according to Visit Knoxville. This year's honoree, Nelson, has more than 100 on-screen credits and has also produced regional independent features shot far from Hollywood, including *Old Henry* in Tennessee in 2021, *Asleep in My Palm* in Ohio in 2023, *Bang Bang* in Kentucky in 2024, and *The School Duel* in Florida in 2025, as reported by The Knoxville Focus.
Nelson is set to receive the James Agee Prize on November 14 at the Regal Riviera, the downtown Knoxville multiplex that serves as the festival's home base, per the same account. The event will showcase his work as an actor, writer, director, and producer within American regional cinema, and will include a special revival screening of *Eye of God*, his 1997 directorial debut starring Martha Plimpton. That film premiered at Sundance and went on to win the Someone to Watch Award at the 1998 Independent Spirit Awards, a milestone The Film Stage notes as a defining early achievement in Nelson's filmmaking career.
A Fast-Rising Festival With Hollywood Ties
Film Fest Knox launched in 2023 as an initiative of the Visit Knoxville Film Office, stepping into the void left when the 19-year-old Knoxville Film Festival came to an end. The new event was created as a collaboration between the film office and Darren Hughes and Paul Harrill of local screening series The Public Cinema, according to Filmmaker Magazine. The festival is held annually every fall in downtown Knoxville and hosts three film competitions, including the American Regional Cinema Competition, which invites five narrative features made outside Los Angeles and New York City and offers three cash prizes plus an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run in America sponsored by Regal Cinemas.
That national industry incentive has helped set Film Fest Knox apart from other regional festivals, and the recognition has followed. Knoxville has been named four times to MovieMaker Magazine's national list of Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker, while the festival itself has been recognized twice on the publication's 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee list, per the Knoxville Focus report. Tennessee also sweetens the deal for production teams: the state offers a discretionary 25% grant rebate on qualified in-state expenditures for projects meeting a $200,000 to $500,000 spend threshold, administered by the Tennessee Entertainment Commission.
Elev8or Pitch and Other Fall Programming
Beyond the Agee Prize ceremony, the festival's Elev8or Pitch competition will bring the top eight regional filmmaking teams to the stage on opening night, November 12, to deliver live one-minute pitches for feature film projects. Teams have until October 17 to produce an eight-minute proof-of-concept short film alongside their pitch, with a kickoff party for the competition already held at Scruffy City Hall on July 16. Other festival programming includes Made in Tennessee, featuring new work by filmmakers throughout the state, a Currents program screening highlights from top festivals worldwide, and a Revival strand presenting restored and overlooked films from the past.
Nelson arrives at the festival amid a busy stretch of his own career. He stars alongside Vera Farmiga and Jim Parsons in *The Leader*, which recounts the true-life story of the Heaven's Gate cult and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2026, and he is also set to appear in HBO's *Task* season two. Off screen, Nelson has written the novels *City of Blows* and *Superhero*, adding to a body of work that stretches across acting, writing, directing, and producing.
Honoring Knoxville's Own Literary Legacy
The prize's namesake, James Agee, was born in Knoxville and lived from 1909 to 1955, attending Harvard before going on to write the screenplays for *The African Queen* and *The Night of the Hunter*. His posthumous 1957 autobiographical novel, *A Death in the Family*, set in Knoxville's Fort Sanders neighborhood, won the Pulitzer Prize after his death, according to the Knoxville Focus. Anchoring the festival's top honor to Agee's legacy ties the modern film gathering directly to the city's literary roots.
To keep audiences engaged outside the November dates, Film Fest Knox also hosts a free monthly screening series at the Regal Riviera, showcasing curated independent and international film restorations, according to Inside of Knoxville. Full festival passholders can attend the entirety of the festival aside from VIP events and the VIP hospitality tent on Gay Street in front of the Regal Riviera, while VIP passholders gain access to all films, workshops, and two exclusive parties: an opening cocktail party at The Vault on November 12 and a VIP opening night party at the Five Thirty Lounge atop the Hyatt Place hotel on November 13. Single-showing tickets will also be available to festival attendees, with additional programming and ticketing options expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
