AIFF 2022: Anchorage International Film Festival Begins Friday With Turkish Entry At The Bear Tooth

I once was totally on top of the Anchorage International Film Festival each year.  I've fallen behind this year, but this should get you into the mood.  

You can get tickets for individual films or passes for the whole festival at the AIFF website.  $100 passes for all films is a good deal if you have time to see more than eight or nine films.  I checked a couple and they were $12 each.  

Venues will be mostly Bear Tooth and the Museum.  

Also, check on the AIFF Facebook Page.

Feature Films

NARRATIVE FEATURES  - Note:  Three of these are by women film makers.  

“Dealing With Dad” by Tom Huang • USA

Interview with Director Tom Huang from Oxford Eagle

“The Last Birds of Passage” by Iffet Eren Danisman Boz • Turkey

OPENING NIGHT FILM, FRIDAY DEC. 2, 2022 

From an article on this film from Business Mirror.  It seems pretty relevant to issues faced by Alaska's ancient peoples.

"In one scene in the film, the nomads are invited to a kind of cultural festival in the city. They are declared as the real Yoruks, an identity important for them. Their presence is applauded and people take their photographs as if they are museum specimens. In real life, the director admits to a prejudice these people experience. It is a discrimination that is more subtle and implicit, and which comes out only in conflicts that arise because of the fact that there are people who move from one place to another, their incursion into lands not ably validated by license or ownership. Thus even on the way to the mountains, these people have to be careful not to tread on plantations owned by other people. Their supply of fresh and clean water is also endangered because mining and other human activities that allow humans to stay put have occupied lands and endangered the surroundings."

“Where Life Begins” by Stéphane Freiss • Italy, France 

From Home MCR:

"26-year-old Esther, the daughter of a rabbi from Aix-les-Bains, joins her ultra-Orthodox family on their annual trip to a farm in southern Italy, where they perform the sacred task of harvesting lemons. While Esther is expected to marry a man she does not yet know, her budding friendship with Elio, the farm owner, encourages her to follow her desire to leave religion and live life on her own terms. Set in the beautiful Italian countryside, Where Life Begins is a tender yet thought-provoking exploration of tradition, family and self-realisation."

 

The Wind & The Reckoning” by David L Cunningham • USA

From Cinema Clock:

"1893. The Hawaiian Kingdom has been overthrown by a Western power just as an outbreak of leprosy engulfs the tropical paradise. The new government orders all Native Hawaiians suspected of having the foreign disease banished permanently to a remote colony on the island of Moloka'i that is known as 'the island of the living grave'. When a local cowboy named Ko'olau and his young son Kalei contract the dreaded disease, they refuse to allow their family to be separated, sparking an armed clash with brutal white island authorities that will make Ko'olau and his wife, Pi'ilani heroes for the ages."

“You Resemble Me” by Dina Amer • USA

From the Press Kit (download at bottom of this page):  

SYNOPSIS

Cultural and intergenerational trauma erupt in this story about two sisters

on the outskirts of Paris. After the siblings are torn apart, the eldest, Hasna, struggles to find her identity, leading to a choice that shocks the world. Director Dina Amer takes on one of the darkest issues of our time and deconstructs it in an intimate story about family, love, sisterhood, and belonging.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

As a Muslim Egyptian woman living in the West, I’ve struggled to reconcile pieces of my identity that feel contradictory. I am a woman who has spent the majority of my life praying discreetly in public spaces (airports are the hardest). And yet I don’t look like what most of society envisions as a Muslim woman. I don’t wear a hijab and I love Cardi B. Throughout my life I’ve lived through the shadow of how the failure to reconcile a Muslim Western identity with such clear contradictions can result in a haunting headline. [This is just a short excerpt]

I couldn't get an embed code, but here's a link to the trailer.  I'd recommend watching it.

From the AIFF Facebook page, here's some other films at the Bear Tooth