Imagine That Alaska Only Had One Polling Place In November 2020 [And AIFF2021 Recs]

 I just watched From The Hood To the Holler online via the Anchorage International Film Festival.  It's about Charles Booker's 2020 Democratic primary race against Amy McGrath in Kentucky.  She started the race with $29 million and he had $300,000.  But the Louisville protests over Breonna Taylor helped spark his campaign from the West End of Louisville through the Hollers of Kentucky.  

What struck me the most was this tidbit from the movie:  In Louisville, Kentucky, a city of over 700,000 people, there was only one polling place in the 2020 primary!   [Note: most of the facts here come from the movie, but I did check on the population of Louisville.  Here's what Wikipedia says:  

The city's total consolidated population as of the 2020 census was 782,969.[4]

Consolidated is the key - it's all of Jefferson County.  The Currier confirms:

"For the commonwealth's June 23 primary elections, Jefferson County offered voters only one polling location, at the Expo Center."]

The state of Alaska has roughly the same population as Jefferson County.  Imagine.  Just one polling place!  One of many ploys Republicans are offering to suppress votes.  

The movie was like a campaign film for Booker, rather than a documentary, and perhaps a bit too long, but well worth watching.  

Some other suggestions for people in the last couple of days before the Festival ends.  You'll note the documentaries are a strong category.  I recommend all of these.  

Documentary Features.

Captive - So far this is my personal favorite.  We can debate what makes a good film.  I spelled out what I consider important in a 2012 Film Festival post.  Captive is the story of western journalist of Asian descent going to Nigeria to interview girls and young women who had been kidnapped by Book Haram.  It's an important and well told story.  I posted about Captive already.

The Art of Sin -   Ahmed Umar, a refugee from Sudan who is now a Norwegian citizen, is an artist and a gay man.  The film tells his story of coming out - the first Sudanese of any fame to do so.  We see him in Norway and then on hist first trip back to Sudan after ten years away.  A powerful film.

The Form - The form in the title is an application to nominate someone as Righteous Among Nations, a recognition given by the yadvashem foundation to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from Nazis.  A young Frenchman is asking his mother to fill out the form for the people who hid her in Poland in WW II.  His mother has refused to talk about those experiences and doesn't want to fill out the form.  The son wants to know about that part of his mother's life.  

A Sexplanation - The title seemed exploitative. (Ya think?)  But it turns out to be accurate.  A 36 year old gay Asian man from San Francisco wants to learn more about why he had so much trouble finding out about sex and the shame he felt over masturbation and being gay.  He talks to a number of experts and also interviews his parents.  A fun and informative movie.  

Run Raven Run - I wrote about this film opening night.  Good movie.

Narrative Features

Tiger Within - Not entirely believable, but a good story anyway.  A Holocaust survivor takes in a runaway girl with a swastika on the back of her jacket.  Ed Asner plays the role of the old man.  

Lune  and Tall Tales - I wrote about these here (Lune) and here (Tall Tales).  Tall Tales is just a good story told well by a Hungarian film maker who has won best narrative feature  twice already at AIFF.  

I still have a bunch of features to watch.  I will note that I dropped out of The Wanderers about midway.  I tend to like off beat films, but this one just wasn't working for me. I finally gave up waiting for whatever it was that got this picked by the reviewers.  Given the relatively few narrative features, maybe it seemed good compared to others they watched.   And it's easier to move on to the next film when you're watching online than when you're in the theater and you'd have to wait for the next film to start anyway.  

Narrative Shorts

These films aren't too long, so I'm just going to list them and let you decide which to watch.

• Absurd Man
• Al-Sit
• Ala Kachuu - Take and Run
• Dualba - This one is odd, but it's Iranian and shows an unexpected side of that country - the location and the fact that someone made this film.
• Manila Lover 
• Synthetic Love
• The Women's Hour - Homage to old films

Documentary Shorts

I realize that I haven't seen many of these.  Here's one I'd recommend:

• Why Am I Black - Another African immigrant to Norway film.  A Somali this time if I remember right.