AIFF2020: The Festival Picks Versus My Picks

I was going to run through all the categories to compare the award winners chosen by the critics, the audience, and me.  But I just didn't see enough films in some categories to really comment, so I'm leaving them out.  Those that won that I didn't see are marked with an asterisk* in the tables below.  I posted all the winners here. 

As I was writing this, it became clear that the two narrative categories - Narrative Features and Narrative Shorts - were really strong categories with lots of excellent films.  Features, so much so, that I'll do another separate post on that category.  When it's up I'll put in a link here.  

I'd also note that evaluating films is never easy.  Lots of factors play a role - the quality of the film, how the topic and technique strike the viewer, and conditions of the viewing and the viewers mood and energy level while watching the film.  

Animated Shorts
	Critics	Audience	Steve
Winner	Gon, the Little Fox	Grab My Hand: A Letter To My Dad	Grab My Hand
Runner Up	Diminuendo	Just for the Record
2nd Runner Up	Just for the Record	Sad Little Fact

Grab My Hand: A Letter To MyDad was fantastic.  The best of the animation I saw by far.  The story was short and to the point.  The animation was original and beautiful and perfectly illustrated the story.  Identity Crisis and Encounters are worth mentioning.  Identity Crisis for the story, Encounters for the visual effect, though it was much too long.  I understand they wanted to show from the few to the many and back to the few, but it seemed to go on forever.  Maybe I wasn't in the right mood at the time.  

Diminuendo and Just for the Record were also worthy contenders.  Gon, the Little Fox and Sad Little Fact weren't my cup of tea.  

Feature Docs
	Critics	Audience	Steve
Winner	Never Too Late Doc Severinsen	Race to Alaska*	Cell
Runner Up	Race to Alaska*	Pushout:  Criminalization of  Black Girls in HS*	Cell
2nd Runner Up	Everything that  Could Have Been	Never Too Late Doc Sev Story	Cell

In the past, this has been a strong category at AIFF.  But this year I didn't see any films that I thought were 'excellent'.  Doc Severinson  was interesting, but as a film it wasn't particularly noteworthy in technique or how it told the story.  Everything that Could Have Been  was to me a family home movie that went on too long.  It was a loving memorial, but it wasn't close to a great film.  

Narrative Shorts
	Critics	Audience	Steve
Winner	Jane*	Masel Tov Cocktail	Masel Tov Cocktail
Runner Up	Masel Tov Cocktail	Kama'aina (Child of the Land)
2nd Runner Up	Undercut*	Rebel

I'm not offering Runner Up winners because I thought Masel Tov Cocktail was so outstanding and it's hard choosing among many worthy runners up. And I didn't see them all.    

Masel Tov for me was the perfect film, meaning it took advantage of all you can do with the medium of film to get its story across.  It packed in LOTS on content but there was nothing unnecessary - not even the gefilte fish cooking video.  The acting was fantastic. And it used humor beautifully to discuss the sensitive topic of Jewish identity and stereotypes in modern Germany, and in the telling, broke all those stereotypes. I did have one friend who said some of it was over his head, so it's possible non-Jews missed some things. 

I didn't see two that the Critics chose, so I can't comment on those.  I would note that I have no problem with the Audience Choice winners.  Kam'aina was a powerful look at a homeless Hawaiian teen.  But I also thought The Woman Under The Tree also told as sensitively  a different homeless story.  

Rebel  looked at immigration from the point of view of a young boy whose dad has taken him to a biker sort of rally/camp in the Canadian woods.  

Gather in the Center  and Thoughts and Prayers  were both about school shootings.  The first featuring active shooter classroom training for the teacher and students that goes wrong.  The second took a more unconventional view and looked at school shootings by highlighting a few kids who would be dead (in the film story, this was a narrative, not a documentary)  by the end of the school day.  

Flora was a visually exquisite Spanish film with a compelling story.  Bainne (Milk)  was a visually striking Irish film.   While Flora had brilliant colors and style as though each frame were a classic painting, Bainne was black and white and eerily represented a time of Irish famine. 

I also thought that When It Falls told an interesting, unusual story.  

Anna and Cake Day are two other worthy films in this category.  

Documentary Shorts
	Critics	Audience	Steve
Winner	Reclamation: Rise At Standing Rock*	Sky Aelans	Sky Aelans
Runner Up	Sky Aelans	Keep Saray Home*
2nd Runner Up	Antarctica	Hysterical Girl

Again, I didn't see all the films in this category, but I'm more aligned with the Audience Awards than the Critics Awards.  .

I would also recommend a couple of other narrative shorts that made a good impression:

Hysterical Girl - did a good job of looking through history - from Freud to MeToo - where women are dismissed as being hysterical and not taken seriously.  

The Marker - very simply and straightforwardly, but effectively, told the story of an artist who is putting up crosses at all the spots where immigrants have died in the desert crossing into the US.