AIFF 2009 - Loose Ends and Albert Shin on Point Traverse

The Anchorage International Film Festival 2009 went well.  A real step up from last year. There were very good films in all categories and I don't think there were any complete dogs.  But I still haven't figured what percent of all the films I saw.  Probably a reasonably high percent, but only because I saw so many of the shorts and animated programs.  There are lots of films I totally missed.  While I think that Birthday should have been among the feature winners and Prodigal Sons among the documentary winners, that's all a matter of taste.  The films that did win were good solid films.

But once the gala was over Sunday night, some loose ends started showing.  The website had problems - Rand mentioned at the Gala that they were having trouble posting the best of the fest schedule.  But when I looked Monday night, I could find only a few of the winners categories posted.  My list was much more complete, but I was trying to blog and video simultaneously and so I had a few gaps and one clear mistake.  I'm still trying to square the AIFF's website list of Snowdance winners with what I thought I heard in a couple of cases. 

Also, Monday night's showing of People of the Seal   AND Best Snowdance Shorts at 5:30 was replaced by Mount St. Elias.  Something was wrong with the compilation disk apparently.  There were a few unhappy film goers.   I found out after ordering some food to eat in the theater, but I really didn't want to see Mount St. Elias again, so I got some quiet time over dinner with my wife in the restaurant, took care of an errand, and checked out some books at Title Wave until the 8 pm showing. 


All the film makers I've talked, said they really have enjoyed the friendly nature of the festival and the enthusiasm and helpfulness of the volunteers. (I'll put up some video comments by three film makers later.)  This is not a fussy or pretentious festival.  It runs on the volunteer power and a few main folks who work non-stop for ten days plus prep.  So, a few kinks are probably the cost of having a low key, but high quality festival. 


And as we left Monday night, I got to talk to Don Chan who's been coordinating film makers' visits and Albert Shin, whose film Point Traverse had its world premiere Saturday night in Anchorage.  Had I known it was a premiere and that Albert was there, I would have stayed in the museum Saturday night instead going to see From Somewhere to Nowhere.  But that too was a good film that intimately took us into the lives of migrant workers in China.   All this is preface to the short video below where Albert briefly talks about his film.  As I  write this at 2:15 am, his plane should have just taken off as he journeys back to Toronto.