AIFF 2021: Captive and Tall Tales [Updated]

My Favorite Doc and Most Powerful Film So Far:

The film Captive is why I like film festivals.  This is not an easy film.  The journalist/film maker, Melissa Fung, is in Nigeria interviewing young girls who have been kidnapped and forced to marry Boko Haram soldiers.  She looks in on them over a couple of years as she reveals to the audience that she too has been captured and raped.  The screenshot gives a sense of the rapport that Fung has with her subject, which is part of why this is such a powerful film.  Given the stories we hear everyday about the US, we have many similar survivors.  And, given the Texas legislature, the rape statistics in the US in general, and the naked power lust of January 6,  we have many men in the U who have no empathy or understanding of women or other human beings.  And while these young women live in comparative poverty, their clothing and beauty are exquisite.  

[UPDATE Dec. 7, 2021 4:13 pm

I couldn't resist this link which showed up today.  The abduction of women is a global and local problem.]

My Favorite Feature So Far                 

Tall Tales.  Hungarian film maker Attila Szasz has had the best film at the Anchorage International Film Festival twice already.  He makes beautiful, tight, thought provoking films. This one takes place at the end of WWII.  Men have been scattered all over the war zone and wives and parents are desperate for word about their husbands and sons who haven't returned.  The main character reads the classified ads seeking information and goes to visit the desperate families and tells them what they want to hear.  But things get complicated.  He's not the only one telling Tall Tales.  The credits and the noirish color add to the that post war period feel.