I first heard the term “southern circuit” while talking to former New York Times film critic, The Treatment radio host and venerated international playboy Elvis Mitchell. Over lunch in Krakow several years ago, he described the series of spring and fall film festivals throughout the American south. After a relatively quiet summer, come late August a festival seems to unfurl almost every week somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line, starting with the Sidewalk Moving Pictures Festival in Birmingham, Alabama. While high-profile southern fests such as SXSW, Atlanta, Oxford, Little Rock and Nashville take place during the spring, an even larger share space on the calendar between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. From Marfa, Texas to Savannah, Georgia and from Cucolorus, North Carolina to Memphis, Tennessee, the fall festival circuit brings indie movies of various shapes and sizes to towns with few art houses and little indigenous indie film culture.Hot Springs is only the 11th biggest city in Arkansas, but it’s likely the only one that has hosted a documentary film festival for the past 23 years. About an hour outside of Little Rock, Hot Springs is probably best known as Bill Clinton’s other hometown: born in Hope, #42 was raised largely in Hot…