AIFF 2015: Saturday Best Of The Fest Schedule - It's All Good

Here's the schedule for tonight.  Everything is at the Alaska Experience Theater.

Hard choices.  In this case I've seen them all, and they're all worth watching.

From This Day Forward won the Audience Choice Award.   The filmmaker chronicles her father's transexual journey, beginning when the kids were little.  Making the film gave her the opportunity to ask questions she'd never asked and for the whole family to talk through things and come closer together.  A good film that helps us understand one family's experience of having a transgender family member.  This is a documentary. 7pm Alaska Experience Large

When The Ocean Met The Sky.   The father's will requires the three sons to go on a trek that replicates one their parents did long ago.  The sons don't get along well, but the will requires them all to participate or the inheritance goes to charity.  All three sons are likable and flawed and the film makers pull it off well, in large part due to the fine actors.   A solid film that I enjoyed. A feature.  7pm Alaska Experience Small

Brainwashing of My Father.  Another strong documentary.  This film actually isn't finished and the filmmaker asks for feedback.  This time the filmmaker's father changes radically, beginning when he had a long commute to work and started listening to conservative talk radio in the car.  The filmmaker also has cameos from many other people who lost their fathers to the far right cult of Limbaugh and Fox.  She also goes through the history of how conservative talk radio came to be and documents how wealthy conservatives plotted out the strategy to cultivate support.  I only saw the first hour - I was headed to another overlapping film - but it was well worth it.  If you've lost your dad to Fox News, this is the movie for you.  8:30 pm Alaska Experience  Large

Best of the Fest Shorts and Short Docs  - This is a terrific program.  Really well done films.  Definitely worth seeing.  It also includes my favorite film from this year's festival -Superjednostka.  This 20 minute Polish film worked for me because it was the perfect use of the medium of film.  The camera told the whole story of this huge Soviet era housing block - the building itself and some of the people who live inside it.  But most people will probably find other films more to their liking, like The Bravest/The Boldest  or  The One Minute Time Machine.  Or This House Is Innocent.  This is the reason for film festivals.  This would be my recommendation.  But all the others are good too.