AIFF2019: Nae Pasaran, Straight Up, And Laugh Or Die

I've been seeing some terrific films.  Each deserves its own post, but I've almost gotten rid of my cold and so I'm not giving up sleep to post.

Last night's showing of Nae Pasaran was introduced by Alaskan-from-Chile, Pauline Larenas-Bajwa including a brief quote from poet Gonzalo Millán's The City.  This was the only film I got to see before the festival began.  

It was much better on the big screen without distractions. (When I saw it the first time on someone's home big screen tv, I was sitting next to a window with a bird feeder and nuthatches and chickadees were making constant visits.)

The director, Felipe Bustos Sierra's father was a Chilean journalist who was exiled during the Pinochet years.  Sierra grew up in Belgian and lives now in Scotland.  So this is a very personal film for him.  It digs deep into the story of the Scottish factory workers at the RollsRoyce plant who refused to repair the jet engines of the Chilean Air Force in solidarity with their union brothers in Chile.  Sierra interviews some of the workers who instigated the boycott and then he goes to Chile to find some Chilean Airmen who flew those jets, as well as members of Allende's government who were imprisoned and tortured by Pinochet.  It's an inspirational story about how people far away can fight tyranny and Sierra brings it full circle with messages from the Chileans to the workers.


It was followed by Straight Up - a film about a gay man who thinks he might be straight, since he's never really had a satisfactory encounter with a man. Todd  finds his soul mate in Rory - an attractive young lady whose interests and fast wit are a perfect match for Todd's.  Except for sex.  There's lots of very fast paced and smart dialogue, between Todd and Rory, Todd and his therapist, and between Todd and his friends who think this relationship is crazy.  A lot of what I liked about the film came from the charm and wit of Todd and Rory.  And it's a reminder that people don't fit the neat labels we try to use to categorize them.

James Sweeney and Katie Findlay

 Writer, director, and star (Todd) James Sweeney, who is originally from Anchorage, was there with co-star Katie Findlay (Rory) took questions after the showing.

Here they are in the Bear Tooth lobby - they still are obviously good friends.

I didn't think to ask James if naming the character Todd had anything to do with his own last name of Sweeney.








And tonight (Sunday) I got to see my favorite film so far - Laugh or Die.  Which takes place in a Finnish prison camp in 1918.  I said in an earlier post that it was a WWI film, which is technically true.  But more accurately for the film, in Finland there had been an overthrow of the new democracy by those who wanted to reestablish the monarchy.  They threw their fate with the Germans.  Those who had fought to regain the democracy had lost and many were prisoners, including a troop of actors, the most famous of whom was billed as the funniest man in Finland.
This comedian Toivo Parikka is played by Martti Suosalo, a wonderful actor who dominates the screen.  His weapon is his humor and the camp commander tells him if a visiting German general is entertained, he and his troop won't be shot.

Heikki Kujanpää

And we had director Heikki Kujanpää at the screening and up on stage afterward for Q&A.  One
person asked what "based on a true story" meant in this case.  He acknowledged that the wars were true and there were lots of prisoners, but the specific story was fiction.

I also enjoyed The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open, and I hope to write about it later.