AIFF 2011: Busy Thursday, Lots of Interesting Choices

Hard decisions tonight.

For the early birds, Lesson Plan is playing at Out North at 5:50pm and  High Sierra:  A Journey on the John Muir Trail is playing at 6 at the Alaska Experience Theater.

Lesson Plan has won several Best Documentary prizes at other festivals.

Then, lots of good features:

Inuk - the opening night movie from Greenland which features a cast of kids from a real shelter for troubled kids going on a traditional seal hunt is showing in both theaters at the Alaska Experience Theater.  The main theater at 8pm and the smaller theater at 8:15pm.  I saw it last Friday - a story Alaskans can relate to.  Link goes to post showing  Q&A with three of the film makers.  Audio works, video dim. 

The short Views and Voices of Bristol Bay will have a free showing in the large theater at 7:20pm

An Ordinary Family (see audience reactions from last night here) is showing at Out North at  7pm.  Man brings boyfriend to annual family holiday.  At the door he tells bf the family doesn't know.  Brother is a minister, has trouble handling the unexpected guest.  Saw it last night and enjoyed it.

And at 8pm at the Bear Tooth is The Casserole Party.  From the trailer it's 1960's, five couples, the men will judge who made the best casserole, and then things get out of hand - here it's sex rather than violence.  As Mark Bell writes at Film Threat:

Image from IMDB

As the evening wears on, and the couples get drunk and silly, stupid parlor games turn to couple-swapping. From there, the film deals with the fallout of a bunch of sexually repressed couples working out their sexual appetites under the false pretenses of dinner get-togethers. As you can imagine, it’s all fun and games until someone falls in love… or gets pregnant… or may be a closeted homosexual.

 Ethan Berkowitz look-alike (at least in this picture) and actor in the film, Garrett Swann, is scheduled to be at the showing. 

And there are Snowdance  (Alaska related) shorts at Out North at 8:15 - including Nanuq (see interview with film makers Jill Jones and Brent Yontz from Tuesday night.)

Then at 10:15pm at the Bear Tooth - wear clothes you can get blood on - is Canadian film The Corridor.  James McCormick at The Criterion Cast writes (in part):

The Corridor is a very good low budget horror effort from Canada, which harkens back to the good old days of Canadian genre films of yesteryear. While watching it, I got the influence of The Thing mixed with an early Stephen King short story but is well executed with their limited budget. When it comes to the script, it is more about the psychological elements, where friends start to go against each other, maiming (a fantastic gore effect that is best left unmentioned until you see it, but it involves Jim, played by Glen Matthews, who is the friend who didn’t take part in the intro to the film, that is one of the best I’ve seen in quite some time) and murders, showing the underlying anger and what something as mysterious as the corridor can do to a group of lifelong friends who are all in a mid-life crisis.

Sounds like Casserole Club without the women.

AIFF 2011: An Ordinary Family - Audience Reactions

[NOTE: I'd recommend An Ordinary Family for people looking for something good to see tonight. But read more to see if this is for you.]

I'd decided to just stay at Out North after watching Give Up Tomorrow - a very compelling Filipino documentary about framed convictions on kidnap, rape, and murder.  [The film focused on one of the convicted and identified the film maker as a distant relative.  I assume the film is accurate, but I really know nothing about the case other than what I saw.]

But another festival junkie said she'd heard An Ordinary Family was one of the best films at the festival and the Out North offering was a Polish movie, Odd One Out [Nie ten człowiek], that had the word surreal in the description.  Ordinarily that would be an attraction, but I was tired and thought something I didn't have to work hard at was more appealing.

An Ordinary Family plays again tonight (Thursday).

The video has some audience reaction:




An Ordinary Family turned out to be a good, easy to watch (good characters, fairly predictable plot) film about a man coming to a family vacation with his male lover.  His brother, a minister, doesn't know they're coming.  The film's press kit (pdf) says the family has no clue about the boy friend or that Seth is gay, though it's not that clear in the movie. There are lots of ways a film can be categorized and most probably drive film makers crazy.  That said (and apologies to film maker Mike Akel, who wasn't able to make it last night) the basic theme - adjustments in people's heads to the new realities created by GLBT folks being more open and visible reminded me of the movie The Kids Are Allright without the star power of Annette Bening and Juliane Moore.  In terms of audience appeal, while The Kids, in my memory was technically better [slicker], I think this film would have a similar appeal if it had the same sort of advertising budget and its leads had the same sort of name recognition.  I suspect if you compared budgets and evaluated the two in terms of quality/cost, An Ordinary Family would come out way ahead. (One of the audience reactors  in the video said the photography was "a couple of steps above home video," I didn't notice that at all.)

I was particularly struck by the kids in the movie.  My guess is that they just left the camera running during down time and then used some of that footage of the kids just being kids. [It turns out that the son was the real son of the actor playing Thomas, Troy Schremmer.]

I'd now love to see the very same movie with the actors Troy Schremmer and Greg Wise switching roles (they played the two brothers Thomas and Seth).  It would be interesting to see how that would change the movie.  That thought just popped into my mind near the end of the film.

One question people had after the movie was:  where was it shot?  The director is from Austin, so that was suggested.  Going through the press kit, New York is mentioned several times, but I finally found a few references to the shoot being in Texas.  But nothing more specific.

Other interesting notes:  The character Thomas and his on-screen wife, are off screen husband and wife.  The actor, Troy Schremmer, is quoted making a fascinating observation in the press kit:

On working with his real-life wife on screen: “Fighting with Jonny (Janelle) is much, much more fun with a room full of cameras than it is in real life. Itʼs safer, for one thing, because of all the witnesses. Plus, weʼve got a director in the room to tell us when to stop or when weʼre getting too dull. And if we screw up and say something really out of line, we can just go back and start over again. I highly recommend it to any couple whoʼs looking for a little therapy or to spice things up a little bit”

There's a lot of interesting back story about creating the film in the press kit.
And if anyone is interested, you can get a Grandma ringtone.  (That will make sense after you see the movie.)

Here's the trailer:


AN ORDINARY FAMILY - Official Film Trailer! from Matt Patterson on Vimeo.

AIFF 2011: LA Film Makers With Anchorage Based Movie - Jill Jones and Brent Yontz

I caught Brent and Jill Tuesday night at the Bear Tooth after Moon Point.. They're up from L.A. with their Anchorage based story. It's in the Snowdance Program Thursday - details below. [A comment below suggests it was filmed in Anchorage, but not intended to actually be Anchorage specifically.]




Snowdance Program
Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011 - 
Out North Theatre - Main

My Offering | T Scott 2011
Bike/Ski/Raft Denali Traverse | 2011
Chablis | Slavik Boyechko 2011
Change | Michael Burns, Dean Q. Mitchell 2011
Nanuq | Jill Jones 2011
My Six (Known) Brushes With Death | Peter Dunlap-Shohl 2010
The Way | Kelly Gwynn, Jay Rapoza 2011
Eyes for Amber | Kyle Murphy 2011
Hell Yeah | Claudio Oakley 2011


I was a little concerned when I learned they did a movie set in Anchorage without ever having been to Anchorage.  But their short film is really about the little girl and her connection to Nanuq and the live action is all in the hospital.  (They gave me a DVD so I could see it.) The shots out the window are ok.  The parts that distort Anchorage badly are animated dream sequences and anything can happen in a dream. [UPDATE:  See comment below that says dream sequence wasn't intended to portray Anchorage, but stylized winter setting.] The film itself is believable and the acting is fine.

AIFF 2011: Total Drama's Chris McLean Alter Ego Christian Potenza Talks About Moon Point

 Walking out of The Wedding Party  I ran into Christian Potenza.  How could I miss him with his wild hat and goggles?  It turns out this Canadian from Toronto is the host Chris McLean on the Canadian online animated reality show Total Drama.  

Image from Total Drama

He's in Anchorage for the showing of the film Moon Point,  which he co-produced. He also acts in it.    But let him tell you himself in the video.  Director Sean Cisterna is also in the video.  He also has some nice words for The Wedding Party which we'd just seen.





Moon Point plays at the Bear Tooth Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 8pm. Followed by the Canadian Consulate's reception.  It plays again Wednesday Dec. 7 at Out North at 7pm.

For more information check Moon Point's official website.

AIFF 2011: Tibet, A Polish Hedghog, And An Australian "Greencard" Wedding

We saw Mila's Journey - Dutch Woman hitchhikes to India with her boyfriend and his super 8 camera about 1968.  They film a three month trek across Tibet.  They break up. He keeps half the film and she keeps the other half.  40 some years later his wife contacts her that he's dying.  She takes all the film (which no one has looked at) and gets it digitized and shows him as he's dying.  Then she retraces some of the journey in Tibet.

The film is her recounting all this - using the old footage and new.  I didn't connect with the  Mila, so that didn't help.  I also was around for many of the events - visited Amsterdam a few times while a student in Germany 1964-65, went to Monterrey Pop in 1967, then after Peace Corps Thailand spent ten days in Kathmandu.  Mainly I was thinking, if I'm this boring no wonder my kids don't want to hear about all this.

I don't know that others agreed with my feelings. 

We stuck our heads into George the Hedgehog, the feature length Polish animation which the AIFF website describes this way:

George is a skateboarding hedgehog who likes to drink beer and fondle women. However, he finds it difficult to pursue his passions when he's being tormented by neo-Nazi skinheads, mad scientist and the drooling, flatulent clone of himself.

From the ten minutes I saw of it, I'm not sure why this didn't get into the competition among the animated films.   It appeared to be a fairly potent social commentary in an uncouth South Park irreverence.  This could have been one of the best films at the Festival, but maybe ten minutes is the perfect amount to watch.  It plays again Saturday at 8:30pm at the Alaska Experience Theater. 

Amanda Jane begins Q&A as credits role

But we rushed off to the Bear Tooth to watch Amanda Jane's The Wedding Party which got an enthusiastic reception from the almost full house.  Guy needs money to pay debts so he can marry his true love.  Gets opportunity to make the money - by marrying a gorgeous young Russian woman so she can get her immigration settled.   People laughed at all the right places and there was loud applause at the end.  Film maker Amanda Jane was clearly, and rightfully, happy at the end when she did her Q&A.  It was a fairly complicated film, structurally, with separate sub-narratives for all of the members of the wedding party  - Robert Altman like.  She pulled it off well. 

My only problem was a personal one in which I'm clearly an outlier in terms of what people consider funny.  I prefer self-deprecating humor or humor used by people who have no other way to stand up to the powerful.  Here the biggest laughs seemed to be at people who were struggling as human beings, often in awkward sexual situations.  I felt sympathy for them in their unsuccessful attempts to connect with their mates.  One could counter argue that the audience was laughing at themselves as portrayed by the characters.   Maybe I had too much exposure to what bullying looks like lately when Brent Scarpo was in town.

I was impressed with the solid acting - every character was, as an audience member said, spot on.  The movie was well paced.  This is certainly as good or better than a lot of the films that make money in the US these days.  No one needs to be charitable to this film as a 'festival indie' film.  It stands on its own merits as a well made AND entertaining movie.  And it has great audience appeal.  It has a good chance for an audience award. It's not listed as 'in competition.'  I need to check on whether it was a special selection.

There probably should have been a warning not to bring the kids.  It plays again Saturday at noon at Out North.  You'll have fun with this one.

AIFF 2011: The Wedding Party - Australian Amanda Jane Talks About Her Film

I got to meet Australian director Amanda Jane Saturday night at an Anchorage International Film Festival party at the Spenard Roadhouse. (This was a public party that was free and open to anyone.) Her film, The Wedding Party, shows tonight at 8pm at the Bear Tooth. It also shows on Saturday Dec. 10 at 12pm at Out North.



We've had some great Australian movies at the AIFF. Street Sweeper and Birthday come to mind immediately.

AIFF 2011: Pebble Mine's Rio Tinto Subject of "Locked Out" Tonight 8pm Out North

The Anchorage Film Festival schedule for today is shortened compared to the weekend, starting at 6pm at Out North.  Out North has an 8pm showing of Locked Out  in the main theater that might be of interest to  anyone who wants to know more about the owners of Pebble Mine.  Whether you're pro- or anti- Pebble Mine or still making up your mind, here's a chance to learn more about the operations of one of the owners - Rio Tinto.


Rio Tinto Buys Into Alaska's "Pebble" Project -

Kennecott, through its parent company Rio Tinto, has purchased Galahad Gold Ltd.’s 19.8% share in Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum prospect, making it the largest single individual shareholder.[1] In February 2007, Northern Dynasty Minerals announced it would receive the Thayer Lindsley International Discovery Award from the Prospector's and Developer's Association of Canada for discovering the 32 square mile Pebble East deposit.[2]

This was a 2007 article and I wanted to check whether Rio Tinto was still connected to Pebble Mine.  If the Pebble Mine Partnership website lists its owners, I couldn't find it.  But Wikipedia does still list Rio Tinto as a major stockholder of the Northern Dynasty the original owner, as I understand it, of the Pebble Mine project.

Important stockholders in Northern Dynasty Minerals Limited include Kennecott (19.8%) which is a wholly owned affiliate of Rio Tinto, management (13%), and Mitsubishi (9.1%). One non-executive member of the Northern Dynasty board is a Rio Tinto representative. The corporate officers and executive board members of Northern Dynasty Minerals Limited are all, also, executive board members and corporate officers of Hunter Dickinson Corporation. Northern Dynasty is one of ten public mining companies driven by Hunter Dickinson, a Vancouver-based Canadian corporation.^[35]

Like any documentary, this film should be considered a source of information which leads you to ask more questions to determine how complete, accurate, and balanced the film's claims are.  From the Locked Out's website:

This is a compelling story of 560 unionized borax miners in the desert town of Boron, California who faced off against Rio Tinto, a British-Australian multi-billion dollar global corporation, which is the 3rd largest mining company in the world. Boron, population 2000, is home to many miners and their families, and is a close knit community of small businesses, churches, the boy scouts, the little league and many single family homes where workers have lived stable middle class lives for many generations. But their jobs and way of life were threatened when Rio Tinto locked them out of work on January 31st, 2010 and replaced them with scabs. Will the workers' middle class way of life be destroyed? Who will win this David and Goliath struggle?

This is the only time this film is scheduled at the Festival.  It is one of the Documentaries in Competition - meaning it was chosen as one of the best and is eligible for an award.


Mila's Journey - another documentary in competition - begins at 6pm and the adult's only Polish animated film George the Hedgehog is from 7pm - 8pm at Out North before Locked Out.

6:00 PM		Mila's Journey Annie Perkins, Rinku Kalsy 2011 | Documentary, In Competition | 70 min.	Out North Theatre - Main
7:00 PM		George the Hedgehog [Jeż Jerzy] Wojciech Wawszczyk, Jakub Tarkowski, Tomek Lesniak 2011 | Animation, Feature | 80 min.	Out NorthGallery

Also at 8pm at the Bear Tooth is the Australian film The Wedding Party which shows again Saturday at 12pm.  I'll have another post on this film.

AIFF 2011: This Is Not Real Director Hungarian Gergely Wootsch

I caught up with Gergely at the film makers' forum this morning, then at the showing of In The Shadow where I got this brief video. There's more information about his film at my post on the animated films in competition.



We got to see the film Sunday night before The Flood.  The visuals are wonderful.  Here's just one frame, with an audience member silhouetted in front.  Ropi, did you watch the whole video?

AIFF 2011: Busy Sunday

A couple of minutes before The Flood so I'll just put up the pictures with minimum text.

The film maker forum at Out North at 11 am brought together some of the film makers here at the festival. 








 We saw the Stan Lee Story but no pics.  Afterward film maker Yuki Ellias (on the right in front) watched herself as they tested her film before the audience came in.

 The warm 40˚F weather and rain made the Out North parking lot a mess.













Then over to the Alaska Experience theater - Jorge and Nicole are in the upper left to watch their film In the Shadow.

Then for the Q&A.

Then back to Out North to see Apartment in Athens which started out to be the best film I saw today, but there were technical difficulties and the dvd kept stopping.  Here
s the technician trying to fix it.



More later.

Gergely Wootsch

[It's later, The Flood was good, we also got to see Gergely Wootsch's animated short, This is Not Real,  before The Flood.   I was at the Bear Tooth and hadn't eaten since breakfast and they brought my food just as Gergely's film started.  I loved the look, but I need to see it again, uninterrupted.


When The Apartment in Athens was shut down (it was a PAL format on the PAL machine at OutNorth, and they got a second disk, but it did the same thing about 15 minutes into the film - it just kept stopping.  So I went to the other screening at Out North and saw the last three in the short Horror program.  I wasn't too impressed until the last one - The Attack of the Killer Mutant Chickens.   Maybe I'm biased because I interviewed the director, but I liked it a lot.  The visuals were great and the story was fun.]

]

AIFF 2011: Voices of Bristol Bay Precedes Inuk Opening Night

Opening night was sold out and packed.  Lots of people.  Lots of noise.

The opening short was a light and fun, yet very important look at people who live in Bristol Bay.  They gave 60 some people digital video recorders and asked them to video tape part of their day.  A wonderful glimpse at the people of the region.  It also got Alaska Native people into the theater to watch the Greenland film about troubled kids going out with traditional seal hunters.  I talked to one young man from Kotzebue (originally) after the film and he said he could understand a lot of it. 

Tony Sheppard introduced both films - it was strange without Rand Thornsley there - and then we saw the films.

Inuk was powerful and the story mirrored the story of many Alaskan Natives faced with the modern world impinging on their traditional way of life and with the added problems of global climate change having a huge impact on their frozen worlds.  The cast was all real people - kids at a shelter for troubled kids acted with traditional seal hunters.  One of the seal hunters - Ole Jørgen Hammeken - was there with the director Michael Magidson and writer Jean-Michel Huctin and they took questions afterward.

Even a film glitch with stopped the film and darkened the room toward the end didn't take away from the enthusiasm of the crowd. 




The video starts with Director Magidson telling the crowd how much they wanted to show this film in Alaska.  There's a brief clip of the film - after the glitch - and the Q&A.  The lighting in the Bear Tooth for Q&A has always been bad.  This year they did get a bit of light on the film makers. 




Here's a schedule for Saturday's films.  I'm late for the 1pm shorts at Out North.  Then I think I'll check out the Israeli SciFi flick at the Alaska Experience Theater at 3.  Unless I get sidetracked.

AIFF 2011: In The Shadow's Jorge Sermini and Nicole Elmore

Also at opening night I got to talk to Jorge Sermini and Nicole Elmore who between them wrote, directed, and acted in the Puerto Rican set film In The Shadow which involves an American tourist who gets involved with a local healer. But they can tell you better themselves. And since Tomás might read this, I asked Jorge to explain it again in Spanish. But don't shut it off then because Nicole talks at the end.

This one plays at the same time as Love You To Death on Sunday at 2:30, at the Alaska Experience Theater.

AIFF 2011 Yuki Ellias - Love You To Death

I caught Mumbai film maker and actress Yuki Ellias  at the Opening Gala of the Anchorage International Film Festival. Her film Love You To Death,  plays Sunday at Out North at 2:30pm. That's the only showing. 

AIFF 2011: Nayeem Mahbub, Mutant Chickens director, Interview From Kenya

Each year I seem to want to do more and more and feel like I'm doing less and less.  But I think, at least pre-festival, I'm doing more, but in a more focused area.  It seems that this year I've concentrated on the Animated Films in Competition.  There's already a post up with an overview of the seven. 

I've tried to contact the various film makers of these animated films to talk with them in advance.  I know that Gergely Wootsch [This is Not Real] is planning on being here for a week from London and that Patrick Neary [Landscape with Duck] is doing a reverse migration trip to the north in winter for the festival.

I've had some email communication with others and just had a skype chat with Nayeem Mahbub who is in Kenya for the wedding of a good friend.  The video quality was poor to begin with.  I did a video interview with Brent Scarpo before he came to Anchorage, but that was using my little camera to record the screen.  This time I have software called Call Recorder which records the skype audio and video directly.  As I say, the video quality I saw on my screen was pretty squirrely, but I'll leave it because Nayeem is still pretty expressive.

I had some questions that related to the cultural context of the film.  Nayeem is from Bangladesh. 

Q:  Is there a market for films like this in Bangladesh? 
A:  Not really 
Q;  Is there something that a Bangladeshi audience would get that an American audience might miss?
A: We follow a lot of conventions of Bangladeshi films - some dancing, a lot of sounds and uses of sound, and other conventions Bangladeshi audiences would recognize and combines them with a modern zombie style film.

I'm giving you these answers here because I still haven't figured out how I want to use what I got, given the quality of the video.  But I decided to take a three minute part of the chat to give you an idea of how much fun it was to talk to Nayeem.  I'll figure out how to use the rest later - there's too much going on with the festival starting now to do this well now.  But here's a teaser.

AIFF 2011: Anchorage International Film Festival Begins Today - What's New?

I've barely scraped the surface of things this year. I ended up being more focused on the animated films in competition. But here are a few things I've noticed about the festival that are different this year.

1.     Reduced Role of Bear Tooth
Rand Thornsley, as manager of the Bear Tooth theater, was half of the Tony Sheppard and Rand team at the heart of the festival.  He's moved to Oregon [Washington] to run his own theater there, and while I'm told he still programs the Bear Tooth he's not been involved in the festival this year. [UPDATE Dec. 5:  I ran into Rand Sunday night and Monday again.  He's in town for the festival.  He did have a small role in the festival.  He move to  Washington, not Oregon.  Camas to be exact - east of Vancouver, WA. and owns the Liberty Theater.]  Last year the Bear Tooth was non-stop film festival which included showing all the winning films again the week after the festival.  This year there are eight showings at the Bear Tooth, all features, all at 8pm.  A key festival staffer says that the manager at Bear Tooth has been very supportive. 

2.  Increased Roles of Out North and Alaska Experience Theater
These two venues will take much of the load from the Bear Tooth.


3.  Tickets and Passes
Individual tickets remain $8 - a bargain for film festivals.  (I think we paid $11 Canadian at the Vancouver Film Festival).  There is only one pass this year - all films.  The all events pass is gone.  The all films pass is $90, up from $80.

4.  All Animated Films in Competition in One Program
In the past it was a hassle to see all the animated films that were selected to be in competition (ie eligible for an award) because they were scattered over different programs. (Program meaning a grouping of films that all showed together.)  But this year there weren't that many animated films that got selected for the festival and all those in competition are in one program.

5.  Awards Ceremony moves to Organic Oasis
The awards ceremonies have been in the Bear Tooth the last two years.  This year they are out again.   I haven't been in the Organic Oasis for a while.  It will be interesting to see how they organize the awards there. 


6.  Cyrano's and Wild Berry Theater Join the Festival
There will be two showings (in HD) of the film  at Cyrano's of "A Director Prepares" on Tuesday at 7pm and 9pm.  The description says:

A DIRECTOR PREPARES is a 94 minute "hybrid" documentary/narrative-drama chronicling Alaska's foremost playwright/director, Dick Reichman, as he prepares his cast for the world premier of his play "The Big One" about the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Until 2010, the spill was the largest in history.

The Alaska Wild Berry Theater will show "The Movement: One Man Joins an Uprising"  at 2pm on Saturday Dec. 10.  The description for that movie is:

In 2004 Rick Finkelstein was paralyzed in a ski accident on Aspen Mountain. With a severed spine and severe internal injuries, he wasn't expected to live. Six years, nine surgeries and a lifetime of rehab later, cameras capture his dramatic return to Aspen.

7.  More Visiting Film Makers
And there's supposed to more film makers coming from around the world this year, partially due to an Academy of Motion Pictures grant to help pay for the airfare. Don't be shy about going up to them and welcoming them to Anchorage.  They mostly don't know many folks here and will appreciate it.



See you soon at the Bear Tooth tonight for the Greenland movie, Inuk, at 8pm.  For the last couple of years, the opening film has gone on to win the Best Feature.  If it happens again this year, we'll know there's a pattern.  This is the gala opening so it will be $20 ($10 with an all films pass) and includes a party.  The short A Day in Our Bay:  Views and Voices from Bristol Bay Alaska will be shown too tonight.

AIFF 2011: David Andrade on Nuts For Pizza and Making an Internet Collaboration Film

Nuts for Pizza is one of the animation films in competition for an award at the Anchorage International Film Festival that begins today, Friday, December 2.  David Andrade, the director, isn't going to make it to Anchorage - work deadlines - but we were able to connect via Skype Thursday evening.  And I got to try out Call Recorder, a software that allows you to record your Skype conversations.

In researching the animated films, I found out that Nuts for Peanuts was an internet collaboration.  32  people were involved in the film, many doing just one small part to move the film along, recruited via the internet on CG Chat.  You can see David's recruiting post from July 2010 here.

In the video David talks about the story for Nuts for Pizza, doing the film via collaboration,  and I asked him to talk a bit about the difference between hand-drawn video and computer generated video.  He also talks briefly about his current job working as video-game animator in San Diego.  Finally he tells us he wants to come to the Anchorage festival next year.



Using Skype to interview folks has lots of possibilities, but it also has its challenges. For one thing, you have more time and end up with a lot more video and thus need to do a lot more editing. Second, the audio and the video didn't come out synched and I had to extract the audio in iMovie and move it a bit. It's pretty close but not perfect.

Wednesday night I interviewed another animation film maker - Nayeem Mahbub. His film is in Bangla (the language of Bangladesh) but he was in Nairobi, Kenya for the wedding of a good friend. We had a fascinating chat about the meaning of this film in the Bangladeshi film world. But the video quality is terrible. Bad enough I don't have to worry about the audio/video synch. I can't take too much time to edit it because the festival begins tomorrow. So I'll try to get it up tomorrow.

Nuts for Pizza and Attack of the Killer Mutant Chickens both are part of the "Animation World-Wide" program (link goes to the schedule) which plays four times over the festival.

Day	Time	Venue
Sunday Dec 4	12 pm	Alaska Experience
Tuesday Dec. 6	7pm	Out North
Friday Dec. 9	7:20 pm	Alaska Experience
Saturday Dec 10	6pm	Out North

HTML Tables

Both these short animations come to the festival with previous festival awards (as do others) so this will be a highly competitive group.  For more, see my previous post on the animated films in competition.

AIFF 2011: UFAQs - Unasked Frequently Asked Questions about the Festival

[This is an updated version of similar posts from previous years.  If you only read one of my posts on the festival, this is the one to read.]

I'm not sure its cricket to have FAQs if no one has asked any questions so these are UFAQs - Unasked Frequently Asked Questions. This is information people might be or should be asking for. Below are links to posts with general information about the Anchorage International Film Festival.

Where's the official AIFF site?

Who won in each category?
2010 Winners -   No page of my picks last year  Official AIFF 2010 Winners Page 
2009 Winners -  My 2009 winners post -  Official AIFF 2009 Winners Page
2008 Winners - My 2008 winners post  -  Official AIFF 2008 Winners Page



What do all the categories mean? ("official selection;" "films in competition," etc. ) This is an updated post from 2008, but still gets the basic information across.  It also covers the process for how films get selected for the Festival and how the winners get chosen. 


What  films are the best films this year (2011)?
Films in Competition are the ones chosen  to compete for the Golden Oosiker awards.  Here are guides to each category - something about each film and when and where they will play. 

Films in Competition  - Features and Documentaries 2011 (My post)
      Link to Festival Genius Features Schedule
      Link to Festival Genius Documentaries Schedule

Films in Competition -  Animation 2011  (My post)
      Link to Festival Genius Animation Schedule
Films in Competition - Shorts  (coming soon I hope)
      Link to Festival Genius all Shorts Schedule
Films in Competition - Super Shorts   (coming soon I hope)
     Link to Festival Genius all Super Shorts Schedule
The films in competition for Snow Dance (Alaskan films) have not been announced yet as I post.  Short documentaries are included in documentaries, but none were picked to be in competition.  

What is Festival Genius?  
Festival Genius  is a national software program that AIFF began using last year.  It lets you sort films in many ways.  You can sort just to see all the films (each film is listed with a picture) in a category, for instance, or see the schedule for the films in a category.    My links sometimes do one, sometimes the other.  Also, the links only go to page 1, be sure to check for any additional pages linked at the bottom of the pages.
If you register on Festival Genius, you can use it to make your own schedule of films you want to see.  You can also make comments and reviews.
NOTE:  Once you're in Festival Genius, there doesn't seem to be a link back to the local AIFF website.  



Short films are grouped together into 'programs.'  How do I find which short films are playing together and the same of program?
Easiest place is the printed program. As of last year (2011) when they added Festival Genius software, things are easier to find.
Animation Programs - The link goes to all programs that have animation.  Some are programs that might have one animation in it.  Animation-Wrld Wide is the program with all the animated shorts. (There weren't that many this year, but the ones in competition appear to be pretty strong.)  There are also two feature animations - George the Hedgehog and Lady of Names.  George, I'm told, is definitely adults only, but Lady will be shown at the kids free showing at Loussac on Saturday, Dec. 10.

Snowdance Programs (films made in Alaska or by Alaskans)
Short Films - There's also a short documentary category.
Super Shorts
(The links only go to page one.  Check at the bottom for more pages.)

I'm not interested in the festival, but if there are any films on my favorite place, food, sport, etc.,  I'd go.  Are there any?

The Festival Genius software  allows you to look at a list of countries and then see what films are being shown from that country.  Click on the blue (where the red arrow points below) and it will open a list of countries.  Then pick a country, and wait until it loads the films from that country. (This screen shot is from 2010)

I counted 26 countries this year.

The film festival spans two calendar weeks and so you have to check for each week.  Just click on the week and it changes.  The Screenshot above is from last year, but here's a link to the same page this year:


http://anchorage.festivalgenius.com/2011/films

 Then click on the countries window to see the list of countries.  Choose the one you want and they will give you all the films from that country in the festival.

To find out about films of special topics, you need to look through the films themselves. 

How do I find your blog posts on specific films or film makers?  There's a tab below the page heading for Anchorage International Film Festival 2011.  I'll put links for specific films here as I post them  (check for the video posts there too)

Do you have videos of the Festival? - I'll add the video posts as they happen on my web with links at the Anchorage International Film Festival 2011 tab on the top of the page.



Where will the films be shown?
Locations:   Bear Tooth, was the main venue last year.  This year there are only eight showings there - all features, all at 8 pm. 

1230 West 27th Avenue (West of Spenard Road) - 907.276.4200

Out North has two rooms for screening. 
3800 DeBarr Road, (two blocks SW of Debarr and Bragraw)  907.279.8099



The Alaska Experience Theater has a large and small theater.
333 West 4th Avenue # 207  (4th and C St)  (907) 272-9076

Marston Theater (Loussac Library) will have the Family Programming on Saturday Dec. 10.

The Alaska Wild Berry Theater has one event - a ski movie - Saturday Dec. 10 at 2pm

5225 Juneau Street (Off Old Seward and International Airport Road) 907) 562-8858

Cyrano's has one film - A Director Prepares:  The Story of the Exxon Valdez.  

413 D Street (Downtown) (907) 274 2599

My understanding is the director pulled his film out of the festival last year because it wouldn't be shown in HD.  This is a special showing in HD.  

Two shows, Tuesday Dec. 6, 7pm and 9pm

There are special events at other venues.  You can check all the venues next to the window where you check the countries on Festival Genius (see screenshot above). 

What workshops are there?
There are  five workshops with film makers.  These are listed on the local site, but NOT on Festival Genius.  There's an $8 fee for most of the workshops, but they are free with Festival Passes.

What are your criteria for a good movie? When I made my picks for the 2008 best films, at the end of the post I outlined my criteria. The link takes you to that post, scroll down to second part.


Should I buy a pass or just buy tickets as I go?  

Tickets are $8 per film ($5 for kids, except at the Bear Tooth). All films passes are $100. (There's only one type of pass this year.) So, if you go to thirteen films, the pass is cheaper. But there are other benefits to the pass. You do have to get a ticket (free) for each film and only a certain number of seats are held for passholders, but you do get priority seating with your pass.
And if you have a pass, you'll go see more films because you'll think "I've paid for them. I should go and get my money's worth."
The pass gets you into Workshops free and a few extra events, though this year they give you a discount, and half price to the opening night film and the awards (which are $20 each, $10 less than last year.)

Another option is to volunteer and get a pass to a movie.

You can buy tickets at the venues.  You can also get advanced tickets at the venues.
You cannot buy tickets online this year.


What about family films? 
Saturday, December 10, 11:30am to 5pm  at Loussac Library - in the Marston Auditorium.  FREE
Here are the AIFF links for family events.
NOTE:  The link goes to page 2 of the schedule because it includes the all the movies in this category at the Loussac Library.  This event is free.  Check page 1 for week one showings of Lady of Names.

Who Are You Anyways? - who's paying you to do this? does your brother have a film in competition? What is your connection to the festival? From an earlier post here's my  
Disclosure:

Well I blogged the  2007 festival  and the AIFF people liked what I did and asked if I would be the official blogger in 2008. They promised me I could say what I wanted, but I decided it was better to blog on my own and then if I write something that upsets one of the film makers, the Festival isn't responsible.  They had a link to the blog last year.  They also thrown in a free pass for me since 2008.

I probably won't say anything terrible about a film, but I did rant about one film two years that I thought was exploiting its subject as well as boorishly demeaning a whole country. I mentioned in an earlier post that if I sound a little promotional at times, it's only because I like films and I like the kinds of quirky films that show up at festivals, so I want as many people to know about the festival as possible so the festival will continue. Will I fudge on what I write to get people out? No way. There are plenty of people in Anchorage who like films. They're my main target - to get them out of the house in the dark December chill when inertia tugs heavily if they even think about leaving the house. But if others who normally don't go out to films hear about a movie on a topic they're into, that's good too.

I did a post last year for Film Festival Skeptics who might be sitting on the fence and need to be given reasons to go and strategies to make it work.  

How do I Keep Track of What's Happening at the Festival?
  I'll be blogging the film festival every day.  The link below will be my festival posts only, starting with the most recent.

Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF 2011)


Are there other Alaskan Film Festivals? 
There are some events called 'festival' that I know of in Anchorage, but they aren't major film events like this one.  There is another organization,  that puts Alaska in it's name and rents a postal box in Alaska, but has no other connection that we can find to Alaska.  You can read about that at  Comparing the ANCHORAGE and ALASKA International Film Festivals - Real Festival? Scam?

Anyone who knows of other legitimate film festivals in Alaska, let me know.  I've heard stuff about Sitka in 2008.  And there's also an Indigenous Film Festival Feb. 2011. [Not updated since 2010]

AIFF 2011: Animated Films in Competition - Ducks, Nuts, Mutant Chickens, Zombies, and More

The 2011Anchorage International Film Festival starts in less than a week - Friday, Dec. 2.

These are the animated films that have been chosen by the screening committees as the best and they are in competition for the festival prizes.

All the Animated Films in Competition will be in the same program this year, so seeing them all will be much easier.  See the schedule at the bottom. 

8 Second Dance

Trey Moya

USA

8 minutes

HTML Tables

8 Second Dance was created by 12 students at the University of Colorado Denver's Digital Animation Center.


8 Second Dance from Bart Tyler on Vimeo.

Attack of the Killer Mutant Chickens [Murgi Keno Mutant]

Nayeem Mahbub

Bangladesh

15 minutes

Nayeem Mahbub

Mutant Chickens just started on the film festival circuit in September. It's already won Best Animated Film at the Rockport Film Festival and the Offshoot Film Festival. Nayeem Mahbub seems to have many overlapping roles - columnist for the Independent (Bangladesh), BBC producer/director, and graduate of Oberlin in cinema studies.



Probably, when most Americans hear the word Bangladesh, if they have any image of the country at all, think about poverty and flooding.  They probably don't think about

Bangla poet and philosopher Rabindrananth Tagore (1861 - 1941) was the first Asian novelist to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The award was for an English translation of his mystical poem "Gitanjali" (Song offerings).[From Betelco.com]

Or that's it's the 9th most populous country in the world with over 142 million inhabitants.  So it's good that we have a film from Bangladesh.

Not quite Tagore, in this film killer mutant chickens terrorize Bangladesh, but it's much better than that description sounds.

Landscape With Duck

Patrick Neary

USA

4 minutes

HTML Tables

This is a hand drawn animation about a duck who's late for migration and has to find his own way south.  Kinografx's facebook page says Duck's flying north to Anchorage for the festival. Does that mean Patrick Neary is coming along? [UPDATE 11/27/11 - 1:13pm: Comment below says 'yes.'  Also, I see I missed that Northwest Animation Festival selected  "Landscape with Duck" for their Best of the Fest.]

Nuts For Pizza

David Andrade

USA

2 minutes

HTML Tables

This 2:21minute animation has 32 people listed in the credits.  Back in July last year, the Director posted a request on CGSociety requesting internet collaboration on this film.   The n4p.theoryanimation.com sums up what happened next:

Nuts for Pizza represents a new wave of film-making techniques and is the first truly online collaborative animated short film. Simply by logging into a website, artists from the United States and Canada were given the means to produce Nuts for Pizza without ever meeting in person. In total, 32 skilled artisans worked together to produce the short, which was inspired by actual events.
Theory Animation began in early 2008, born from the desire to allow artists hundreds of miles apart to collaborate in a studio-like setting over the Internet. Because nothing like this had existed before, the goal was to create an easily-accessible portal that would allow anyone to use their skills to contribute to creative projects in production. With talented artists scattered throughout the globe, Theory Animation crosses borders and marries technology with art.

It's been at a few festivals so far won a Grand Festival Award at the Berkeley Video and Film Festival November, 2011.   Here's a medley of three different animations by director David Andrade.  The Nuts for Pizza clip begins at 45 seconds.


2011 Reel from David Andrade on Vimeo.

Something Left, Something Taken

Ru Kuwahata Max Porter

USA

10 minutes

HTML Tables

Their vimeo site has a picture of Max and Ru which I've paired up with a screen shot of the main characters from Something Left, Something Taken.

This one fits neatly in a theme I've mentioned on this blog at various times:  We see what we're conditioned to see.  This video below is the whole movie.  You can see it with French or Japanese subtitles at their Vimeo page.


Something Left, Something Taken- Full Version from Tiny Inventions on Vimeo.

Check their bi-lingual blog (Japanese and English) and this interview at Wacky Shorts Creations where they each answer the question: 

HW: What does being able to draw mean to you?

RK: Being able to create a world from nothing.

MP: Drawing can mean a lot of different things A drawing can be pure communication or a plan for something else. Sometimes the drawing is a finished product and sometimes it a way to study the world around us. I guess it’s all about the context.

This Is Not Real

Gergely Wootsch

UK

7 minutes

HTML Tables

Gergely, according to his website, is a Hungarian who's living in London recently got his MA at the Royal College of Art in Animation.  By the way, he's planning to be in Anchorage for the festival. 


This is Not Real - Trailer from Gergely Wootsch on Vimeo.

Year Zero

Richard Cunningham

USA

24 minutes

Richard Cunningham

HTML Tables

This is an animated zombie movie. Last year Elias Matar explained that Ashes was an "infected" movie rather than a zombie movie and this too seems to fit in the infected category, but I'm not an expert on these things.

The photo is a screen shot from Zombies 

Take Manhattan in Tribeca Animated Short 

DNAInfo  says,

"He spent 14 to 16 hour days at work in his Astoria basement apartment while "slowly draining away my savings." Without training as an illustrator or animator, the one-time Bard College student depended on online tutorials and forums and, for much of the process, a 10-year-old computer.
"I learned so much from 15-year-olds, just how to solve problems in Final Cut [video editing software]," Cunningham said. "It's kind of embarrassing listening to this pubescent kid tell you what to do, and yet they're totally right.'"Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110422/downtown/zombies-take-manhattan-tribeca-film-festival-short#ixzz1etrtr3Uq

Video from DNAInfo

WHEN AND WHERE TO SEE THESE FILMS?
 .
They will all be part of the porgram called "Animation World-Wide"  which will show twice at the Alaska Experience Theater and twice at Out North.

Day	Time	Venue
Sunday Dec 4	12 pm	Alaska Experience
Tuesday Dec. 6	7pm	Out North
Friday Dec. 9	7:20 pm	Alaska Experience
Saturday Dec 10	6pm	Out North

HTML Tables

Seven addition animated films will be part of the Animation World-Wide package.

One thing to pay attention to when you watch these films is the difference between hand drawn and computer drawn animation.  I'm not taking sides, but viewers should pay attention and learn to distinguish between the two.  Here's part of a blog post in which Tom Benthin addresses this:

I’ll start by saying that I believe that drawings that are hand-made and loosely or roughly drawn engage us more, drawing us into the process of animating what we’re viewing. By “animating” I mean the way we bring a drawing to life in our mind. Here’s a cartoon from the New Yorker that I’ve shown to graphic facilitation classes I’ve taught over the years:

You can read the whole post and see his illustrations here. 

If you want even more, in 2002, David Mitchell wrote a Masters Report on The Future of the Cartoon Feature Film.  But that's like a historical document given how fast technology is changing.

From Combat Girls [Kriegerin] to An African Election - The Anchorage International Film Festival 2011, First Peek

With over a month before the 2011 Anchorage International Film Festival opens, we can at least start to savor all the films we'll get to see.  The pre-screening committees have chosen the official selections (films that were selected to be in the festival from all the ones that were submitted) and the films in competition (the ones deemed best and thus in the running for the  prizes.)

It's a bit early, but I thought I'd post the feature and documentary films (a lot of the festival jargon and process is explained here) in competition  now for three reasons:

1. To remind folks in Anchorage that the Festival starts December 2.  Start thinking about whether you want a festival pass or you just want to drop in to see a few of the films.  
2. There is still time to volunteer at the festival.  This is a great way to see things from the inside.  Check out volunteer options here.
3. There's something delicious about getting to see the names of the films for the first time.  They mean nothing.  They're just titles, names of directors, and countries.  It's like getting the name of your blind date.  Over the next five weeks, I'll be doing homework on the films in competition and slowly putting up what I find on the blog.  We'll get to know which ones we hit it off with and which we don't.   By mid-December some films will be favorites and Anchorage will have met many of the directors.  And Anchorage is small enough and the festival casual enough, that if the director is here and you want to meet her, you can. 

So, look through the list of names.  Pick ones that sound good.  Imagine the possibilities.  And in six weeks we can look back at this page and remember this day when they were nothing but names, potential blind dates, and how much we've learned about them since. I've put in screenshots from trailers of three of the movies listed.  Can you match them to their titles?  If you click on them you'll be linked to their trailers. 

Features
Title	Director(s)	Country	Runtime	In Competition
Combat Girls [Kriegerin] [Combat Girls was pulled, not sure why.]	David Wendt	Germany	102m	✓
Inuk	Mike Magidson	France, Greenland	89m	✓
Kinyarwanda	Alrick Brown	USA/Rwanda	100m	✓
Mabul	Guy Nativ	Israel, Canada, France, Germany	101m	✓
The Casserole Club	Steve Balderson	USA	95m	✓
The Dead Inside	Travis Betz	USA	98m	✓
The Dish & The Spoon	Alison Bagnall	USA	93m	✓

Documentaries
Title	Director(s)	Country	Runtime	In Competition
Allentsteig	Nikolaus Geyhalter	Austria	79m	✓
An African Election	Jarreth Merz	Ghana	89m	✓
Give Up Tomorrow	Michael Collins	USA/UK	95m	✓
Goold’s Gold	Tucker Capps / Ryan Sevy	USA	76m	✓
The Green Wave	Ali Samadi Ahadi	Germany/Iran	80m	✓
We Were Here	David Weissman	USA	90m	✓
With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story	Will Hess	USA	80m	✓

We Were There is no longer listed on the program

[UPDATE Nov. 15:  I got word that there was a mixup and now African Election, The Green Wave, and We Were Here are no longer listed on list.  I will try to get the details and fill you in.  In their place now are on the updated website page are:
Beatboxing–The Fifth Element of Hip-Hop 
and
Locked Out.]


Go to the Anchorage International Film Festival website for all the entries in these categories and the others.

I have a film festival tab up on top from last year. It was my first use of tabs and I need to update it soon, but it gives you some background on the festival in general and some of the films and directors from 2010.

And remember, this is the long time legitimate Anchorage (not Alaska) International Film Festival. If you have any questions about the two different names, especially if you are a film maker, you can see my comparison of the two events here.