Saturday is a reduced schedule. I've got Sunday here too. We've got Gwich'en and Glitched.
Anchorage Museum morning feature, then a move to the Bear Tooth.
10:30 am Bonnie Thunders: That Beautiful Moment
Here's information on Bonnie Thunders (the person, not the movie) from DNN (Derby News Network)
Bonnie Thunders, whose real name is Nicole Williams, grew up far from fame. She started out in synchronized skating, not the kind of place where people shout your name from the stands. But in 2006, she joined the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league in New York City. From that point, everything changed.
Her teammates still say she brought a calm focus that felt rare. She wasn’t loud; she just worked harder, trained longer, and thought deeper about the game. Wikipedia notes that she moved from a local skater to captain of the Gotham All-Stars in only a few years.
Bonnie Thunders and That Beautiful Moment
People often talk about Bonnie Thunder’s beautiful moment — not a single jam, but a kind of electricity that ran through her skating. She had a way of waiting, almost still, then bursting through a gap no one else saw. One stride later, the blockers were behind her, and the scoreboard was moving again. [emphasis added]
That’s what made her famous beyond the sport itself. ESPN once called her the LeBron James of roller derby. It wasn’t just speed. It was how she turned reading a pack of moving bodies into art.
The Story of Bonnie Thunders Roller Derby
When fans say Bonnie Thunders’ roller derby, they mean the era when Gotham Girls couldn’t be stopped. Her leadership brought the team five world titles under the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association between 2008 and 2016.
Every season looked the same from the outside: Bonnie skating and Gotham winning this was always on the minds of the spectators. Inside the team, it was endless planning, tape study, and drills that left everyone breathless.
In 2017, she surprised the derby world by moving to Portland to join the Rose City Rollers, another powerhouse. ESPNW called it the biggest transfer in the sport. Yet, in true Bonnie fashion, she said little and let her skates do the talking.
If you're like me, you don't follow roller derby closely, or at all. This seems like a great way to get an insider view of the sport and one of its greatest stars. But appears this is a 2020 movie which is much older than festival guidelines allow. This is the second film like that. Haven't gotten an answer to my questions on why.
BEAR TOOTH
12:30pm Spotlight Selection Shorts
- Stronghold
- Christmas IRL
- The Singers
- Flavor of the Month
- Forged
- MascLooking
- Saverio
- My Message to You
- Alutiiq Superhero
- Shaped by Land
- Braids
- Witness: Indigenous Arctic Voices
- The Woman Who Married A Bear
- Two Old Women
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| Director on set with Two Old Women actors, from email from the film making team |
"Two elderly Gwich’in women —Ch’idzigyaak and Sa’—find themselves abandoned by their tribe during a brutally harsh famine.Devastated and scared of what the future holds, Sa' must convince Ch'idzigyaak that their survival is worth a fight and 'if we are going to die,then we should die trying to live'.Based on the novel by Velma Wallis 'Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival'"
"Shaaghan Neekwaii: Two Old Women is the first screen adaptation of Velma Wallis’s 1993 novel, filmed in Fairbanks, Alaska, and told entirely in the Gwich’in language. Directed by Gwich’in filmmaker Princess Daazhraii Johnson and starring Margaret Henry John and Brenda Kay Newman, the film explores themes of survival and resilience. Wallis has supported Johnson since she was first inspired by the book in her youth. “We know this story from our bones,” Wallis says. The film was produced by Deenaadai Productions, in partnership with Girinkhii - a Gwich'in language revitalization and cultural preservation organization."
I'm guessing very few people in the world have ever seen a Gwich'in language movie.
Alaskan filmmaker Zoe Quist’s sci-fi comedy Glitched will close the 25th Silver Anniversary edition of the Anchorage International Film Festival on Sunday, December 14, 2025.Raised in the frozen wilds outside Fairbanks and still calling Alaska home, filmmaker Zoe Quist (Raw Cut, Mining for Ruby) brings her latest feature back to the state for its Alaska premiere following its U.S. Premiere at the La Femme International Film Festival, where Quist won Best Feature Director.
Starring Mischa Barton (The O.C.), Abigail O’Regan (Spellbound), Donal Brophy (Sleep No More), Jack McEvoy (Vikings), Elijah Rowen (Vikings), and John Connors (Crazy Love, Re-Creation by Jim Sheridan), Glitched follows a pair of ambitious twins who turn their grandmother’s crumbling castle into a virtual-reality playground, only to accidentally open a supernatural portal. Cue one debonair 18th-century ghost, a race against time, and a castle full of unlikely heroes trying not to get stuck in the afterlife. What happens when a VR game unleashes a real ghost?
Glitched is written by Steve Grabowsky (Los Angeles) and produced by Maria O’Neill, p.g.a. (The Black Guelph), Susan Wright, p.g.a., and Zoe Quist.
"the frozen wilds" is a favorite cliche for Outsiders talking about Alaska.
Museum - Best of The Fest
1pm - Best Short Films
3pm - Best Documentary Feature
4pm - Best Narrative Feature
Best, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. But there are a number of films in each category that I would be comfortable with. Documentary features may be the hardest category to choose a best from. But there were also several excellent features. And there were sooooo many shorts to choose from.
