Blogger Ethics: Leave Comment From Kidney Trader?

One of  my 2013 Anchorage Film Festival posts included a short overview of the film "Tales from the Organ Trade."  A documentary about selling and buying kidneys and the people involved - on various sides, sellers, buyers, and doctors.  

Today someone left a comment - basically, it's an ad for a hospital that buys and sells kidneys in India. 

So, what should I do with it?  Delete it?  Leave it as a comment on the movie?  When I went to get the link for that old post, I saw that there was already another similar type of comment.  I can't remember if I saw it and decided to leave it, or I never saw it.  It was posted a few months after the original post.  

The film itself was not a clear cut condemnation.  While it showed how poor folks risked their lives for pitifully small amounts of money and rich folks spent huge amounts to get a kidney, it did show some strong arguments for letting people who need a kidney pay for one.  

Thoughts? 

Apollo Hospital Friday, March 27, 2015 at 6:11:00 AM AKDT

Hi friends greeting from Apollo Hospital India (Dr. Leo Gomez).
Specialist hospital that buy human kidney.
If you are Interested in Selling or buying Kidney
Please do not hesitate to contact us.

Phone number : +9191678XXXX
Email : apollohospitalkidneydep@gmail.com
Dr. Leo Gomez

SteveSaturday, March 28, 2015 at 1:49:00 PM AKDT
I don't know. Normally I'd delete that message, but it's an eerie reminder of what the movie was about. Readers, what should I do with it? Leave it? Delete it?

Blogger Ethics: Leave Comment From Kidney Trader?

One of  my 2013 Anchorage Film Festival posts included a short overview of the film "Tales from the Organ Trade."  A documentary about selling and buying kidneys and the people involved - on various sides, sellers, buyers, and doctors. 

[UPDATE March 30, 2015:  Inspired by the most recent Anon (3/30/15) comment, I'm adding a link to HBO where you can download the movie "Tales From The Organ Trade."  You can also go to the movie's website where you can watch the trailer.]

Today someone left a comment - basically, it's an ad for a hospital that buys and sells kidneys in India. 

So, what should I do with it?  Delete it?  Leave it as a comment on the movie?  When I went to get the link for that old post, I saw that there was already another similar type of comment.  I can't remember if I saw it and decided to leave it, or I never saw it.  It was posted a few months after the original post.  

The film itself was not a clear cut condemnation.  While it showed how poor folks risked their lives for pitifully small amounts of money and rich folks spent huge amounts to get a kidney, it did show some strong arguments for letting people who need a kidney pay for one.  

Thoughts? 

Apollo HospitalFriday, March 27, 2015 at 6:11:00 AM AKDT

Hi friends greeting from Apollo Hospital India (Dr. Leo Gomez).
Specialist hospital that buy human kidney.
If you are Interested in Selling or buying Kidney
Please do not hesitate to contact us.

Phone number : +919167859153
Email : apollohospitalkidneydep@gmail.com
Dr. Leo Gomez

ReplyDelete

SteveSaturday, March 28, 2015 at 1:49:00 PM AKDT
I don't know. Normally I'd delete that message, but it's an eerie reminder of what the movie was about. Readers, what should I do with it? Leave it? Delete it?
ReplyDelete

NY 1st Time Book Promotion With Foreigner Swearing In Thai - AIFF Winner's New Video Goes Viral

Thanachart in Anchorage Dec 2013

Thanachart Siripatracha's The Words I Love won honorable mention at the Anchorage International Film Festival for short documentary last December.  We had the pleasure of having Benz (as he's called) stay with us for part of the festival.  His winning film was charming as is he.  He currently lives in New York where he's been studying film making.  You can see a short video of Benz talking about his first time in Alaska at this post. 

A couple of weeks ago he sent me a link to a video he did to promote his book - related to the AIFF winning film.  His book,  New York 1st Time, is in Thai about his adventures in New York.  

 

The video was a spoof of his book by talking to a farang (foreigner) about his first time in Bangkok.  In this case it was his first time being cursed by a Thai.  That doesn't happen often (a foreigner being cursed by a Thai) unless the foreigner really deserves it, as he did in this case.









Here's the viral video (it's in English and Thai):





I was going to wait to post about this until I got the book, but Benz sent me a follow up - the Bangkok post has written about this video.  Here are a couple of excerpts:

A video clip of an American retired lecturer documenting his first experience of being sworn at in Thailand has attracted more than half a million views after one day after being uploaded to YouTube. . .

Thanachart Siripatrachai uploaded the video clip of 78-year-old Nelson Howe describing his first experience of being subjected to foul language after living in Bangkok for three years. .  .

The video was made to promote a book written by Mr Thanachart about his 'first time' experience of visiting New York. Mr Thanachart, an assistant film director, said on his Facebook page that Mr Howe was a former university lecturer who he met accidentally in New York.

Mr Thanachart initially just wanted to promote his book using the clip describing Mr Howe's 'first time' experience in Thailand. But the film-maker now plans to make several more videos based on the academic's...

 By the way, as I write this, the video has 2.5 million hits. 

AIFF 2013: Best Animation Winner Mr. Hublot Also Gets Academy Award

The timing of this post shows you how much my life has been interfering with my blogging.  The Oscars were announced two weeks ago, but I'm only getting this up now.


There's no question that visually and technically, this short animation is perfect.  But I was taken by a couple of other short animated films in the Anchorage festival that showed more originality.  Animation Hotline and The Rose of Turaida both had great unusual visuals and interesting content.  I wrote about the whole program - albeit briefly - here.  But there are some visuals from them.

I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about my tardiness.  Mr. Hublot's website lists the AIFF win, but only says Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Short.  

Screen shot taken March 16, 2014

I do understand how keeping up with all your digital media isn't easy, but I think if I'd won the Academy Award, I'd have gotten that up on my main website. 

AIFF 2013: Iranian Film Makers Talk about Their Future

Plot 1
She's won a fellowship to leave Iran to study in Berlin.  Her fiance is happy for her.  She's planning her trip when she's raped.  And nothing is the same.

 Plot 2

Film makers' movie gets accepted in film festival in Anchorage, Alaska.  They travel to the festival and meet a lot of people including a blogger who covers the festival.  "Everything is Fine Here" wins honorable mention in the feature category.  They meet with blogger after the festival to talk about their film and their future plans.  

How often do you get to talk with Iranians?  I wanted to know more.  I talked with Pourya Azarbayjani and Mona Sartoveh for about 90 minutes partly in English, but also with the help of a local Farsi speaker. 

Finally I asked them to just talk on camera, without being interrupted with interpretation.  We'd get the interpretation later.

A couple of weeks or so ago, I met with the interpreter and we discussed her interpretation and played around with different words to express what they had said.  And we decided not to try to add subtitles to the video, but rather put the English translation below the video in the post.

So, watch the short video and see how much you can pick up from the body language and tone of voice.  Then read the translation below.





The translation:

Steve:  Ok, you have come to the US and you plan to stay for the moment, you have a sister in Boston, So what do you expect to do for the next three years?

Pourya:  We have decided for now to stay here for a couple of reasons.  The first is to learn how to speak English well, because we can reach more people if we can tell our stories in English than we could in Farsi.  And it is easier to tell these stories in English because there are so many people here who have come from all around the world. We believe we have come to the right place, because of all the people who have come here with the American dream to build their lives and because they have so many different backgrounds and cultures, there are so many different stories to tell.  And I believe that here it’s possible to tell these stories. 

We decided in the next three years to make a film, a very good film, Mona and I together. And we’re hoping that first we can raise the money, and second, we can learn how to reach the American audience, and then the rest of the world. 
Mona, do you agree?

Mona:  I agree with you completely.  I hope we’ll succeed.  I’m sure we will. 

Pourya:  The most important thing is this.  As two Iranians, we love all the people from around the world from any nation, religion, and race.  We believe it’s time that borders and religions should not separate human beings.  We, before anything else, are human.

What Are The Odds? A Good Story About How The Unlikely Does Happen

I was in a Persian grocery store in LA.  I wanted to buy something for Gita who had translated for Pourya and Mona, the Iranian film makers whose film, Everything is Fine Here, got honorable mention for features at the Anchorage International Film Festival.   Here's a short post and video (in Farsi) from early in the festival.

I explained to the clerk that I had a Persian friend in Anchorage and I wanted to bring back something she would like, but probably can't get in Anchorage.  She was having trouble figuring out what I wanted.

Then a young man came up to me and said, "I lived in Anchorage for two years, what do you want?"  I explained the situation.

"What's your friend's name?,"  he asked.
"Gita"
Big smile.  "I know Gita, I've eaten at her house."

He suggested three things that would be hard to get in Anchorage - fresh bread, fresh dessert, and barberries (Zereshk).  But, he said, wait until just before you leave, so they'll be fresh.

And then I asked him what he did for two years in Anchorage.

"I taught at the College of Business and Public Policy at UAA."

It turns out he was there - where I taught - after I retired.  But we had lots of common friends and I walked out of the shop in amazement at my good luck.


People talk about things being destined to explain such things, and I like that notion.  I'm skeptical though. 


What are the odds?

A million to one?  100, 000 to one?  !000 to one? 

There are lots and lots of Iranians in LA and a good place to run into them is an Iranian grocery store.  If he goes to the grocery once a week the odds suddenly don't seem so remote.

The store is open seven days a week, 13 hours a day (12 on Sunday). (I just called and checked.)   So they are open  90 hours a week.  Say he spends 15 minutes in the small store per visit.  There are four quarter hours per hour, so I have one chance in 360 to be in the store when he is in any given week.  That's much better odds than most lottery tickets. 

It's a small store so the odds are good he could hear me talking to the clerk.

The odds that an Iranian who had lived in Anchorage for two years would know Gita are probably very high - there aren't that many Iranians in Anchorage, and Gita's been here a while. That he had worked where I worked?  A little lower. 

I also think about how easy it would have been for us both to be in that store together and not connected.  If I hadn't said anything about Anchorage to the clerk, we never would have met.  Or if did we meet at the checkout - which we did - would we have found out about our one degree of separation? 

And I wondered about how many times we've been right near someone but didn't know it.
The odds of this happening are great enough - at least in people's minds - that if I wrote it in novel, people would find it a little far-fetched.   But it happened.  And Gita came and got all the goodies we brought back right after we got home.  And she loved the story.    

When she gets the translation done, I'll do another post.  We had an interesting conversation.  You don't get to talk to Iranians coming right from Iran in Anchorage every day.

And while we're talking about links and degrees of separation, here's a video of a Kevin Bacon TED talk on how he responded to the Kevin Bacon Six Degrees game by setting up Sixdegrees.org to get people to donate to charities.

AIFF 2013: The Words I Love Director On Anchorage And His Film

I still have film festival video and other posts to put up.  One film maker I almost didn't record was Thanachart 'Ben'* Siripatrachai. 


The irony is that Ben stayed with us for several days of the festival and so I guess I thought I could get him any time.  Finally, I decided as we were having lunch downtown between films, I better do it.

His film The Words I Love  won honorable mention in the short docs category.  It was a film that caught my attention when I first saw the description and turned out to be a very unique film, Ben just doing seemed right to him, not following any preset rules for how to tell his story.  The audiences responded well with frequent laughs and chuckles.

Here's video we did. 






*If anyone is interested:

His nick name is 'Benz' like the car.  But in Thai, there is no final 'nz' sound, so it just becomes Ben.  So I've decided to just write in 'Ben'.  On his website he writes it in Thai (see image on top) as a final 'n.'  There really is no letter for a 'z' in Thai, though in Thai 'Benz' would  have a final 's' [เบนซ์] that wouldn't be pronounced (the squiggly line above the 's' on the end [ซ์] makes the 's' sound silent.  But in English he writes Benz.  But when he pronounced it, he said Ben.  In the image the first letter [เ] is the vowel sound 'eh'.  Then comes [บ] the 'b' sound, and finally the [น] 'n' sound. The squiggly mark on top appears to be a high tone mark [ป็], though at first I thought it was a 'Mai Dtaikhu' which shortens the vowel sound and would be found in the Thai word เป็น which is the word for 'to be.'  

So we have - เบ๊น- the way Ben spells his name in Thai.
We have -เบนซ์ -  the way Mercedes-Benz is spelled in Thai.
And - เป็น  -  the common word for the verb 'to be.'

[Update Jan 5, 2013:  I don't write Thai very often these days and I forgot a small detail.  There are two different Thai letters that represent two slightly different sounds that English uses the letter B for.  I think it's pretty easy to see the difference between ป and  บ. The first one is unvoiced and the second one is voiced.  I won't even try to explain that but if you are interested here are two sites that explain it - one in writing and one with a video. ]

 

AIFF 2013: Two Fine Films: De Nieuwe Wereld (The New World) and Hank and Asha

This is a continuation of this post on "What Makes A Good Film?"


My 1's (movies that had me walking out of the theater going 'wow!'):

7 Cajas (7 Boxes)

Die Nieuwe Wereld (The New World)

Hank and Asha

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (明天記得愛上我)


All four of these movies pulled me in so completely that I wasn't watching the movie making - all the technical stuff worked to tell the story, not distracted from the story (either because it was bad or so spectacular that it distracted.)

All four, I left the theater with the feeling of having seen a really good film.

Of the four,  I probably was the least swept away at the moment by The New World.  But it wouldn't let go of me.  Scenes kept coming back to me.  When I saw Hank and Asha I walked out pumped.  What a great film.  But then, I wondered was there enough depth?  Was this just a well made, but light romantic comedy?  The New World seemed more important, but I didn't walk out with the same elation.  Was I just being shallow?

At this point, I think they are both very fine movies.  The New World told a complicated story deceptively simply.  It quietly took us on a tour of two people's broken hearts.  We slowly learn about Mirte and Luc and their similar losses that allowed her to reach out to help him. At the same time helping herself.  On the surface though, it almost seems like a documentary about life at the airport's detention area for asylum seekers waiting for the decision whether they can enter Holland or not.  It's so understated.  Even the colors are muted.  One audience member told me his initial reaction was negative because there was no humor.  But the humor was there.  It was just so quiet.  Like a little dab of yellow in a grey-brown world.  For example - people are coming in the door at the end of the hallway where she's just mopped the floor.  She waves her hands at them to stay on the side - these are immigrants who probably don't speak Dutch.  She makes 'chhhhhh...chhhhhh" sounds at them.  An African stares at her as he walks down the hall.  She again goes, "chhhhhhh. . .chhhhhhhhhh."  He smiles and goes, "chhhhhhh. . .chhhhhhhhhh" back to her as though he were learning to say 'hello' in her language.   It's such intimate cross cultural communications that make this movie so powerful.  Two low level people in a political no-man's land at the airport, but not technically in Holland. In another scene, she catches him staring at her and she waves him off and tells him not to look at her.  He comes up to her and in complete innocence says, "I've never seen a white cleaning woman before."

This is a movie where you have to look closely or you'll think nothing is happening, but it's just happening at a lower volume and slower pace than we're used to in US film.  Slight gestures fill the screen with meaning if you're attuned to them.  When they get to the scene where she's washing the glass wall and he dances on the other side along with her motions it's like an explosion in another movie.

We get glimpses behind the scene in this asylum center - the workers making bets on who's lying, the attorneys trying to find ways to mesh the clients' stories with the specifics of the law, the impossible responsibility of determining if someone is telling the truth.  We see the healing relationship between the mother and her young son.     There's the motor bicycle she rides everywhere.  There's so much.  I was only able to see this film once and I know that a second and third viewing would reveal so much more I didn't see.

Actors Bianca Krijgsman and Issaka Sawadogo were superb.   This was, for me, one of the gems of the festival.


And then I saw Hank and Asha.  This is a feel good movie.  It's a video romance between two strangers, played by actors (Mahira Kakkar and Andrew Pastides) loaded with charm.  It's all told in the videos they - two budding film makers - send back and forth to each other between New York and Prague.  There's no nudity, no sex, no violence, just two well adjusted 20 somethings falling into an unexpected friendship that gets to the edge of something more.  Everything worked for me as they shared their lives with each other via video.  There's nothing heavy here, no imminent deportations, though there is appropriate cultural and parental conflict.  The epistolary film, that uses an exchange of videos rather than letters, is itself a comment on what we have lost as we've moved to instant global communication.   Everything worked for me.  The story, the characters (I never thought of the actors as actors it was so real), the way it was all put together seemed so natural.  We were simply eavesdropping as two people opened their video mail from their new found friend across the Atlantic.

The film makers - James Duff and Julia Morrison - were at the festival and I was able to learn more about the film.  You can see my video with them in Anchorage discussing the film here.  Most surprising was that the two actors only met after the filming was done. In fact Mahira did all her video in ten days in Prague before any of Andrew's video was made.  This speaks well to the scripting, the acting, and the editing.

James and Julia said Hank and Asha will be available on Netflix in April and people should put it on their lists now.  This is the kind of film I feel pretty comfortable recommending - it's hard not to like.  We did see this one twice and it held up nicely the second time.  I saw lots of things I'd missed the first time.

Next, two films that were not in competition because they were special selections - invited films, not submissions.  

Tale of Two Cities - Divided Between Anchorage And LA

Ice Wall Seward Highway south of Anchorage

It was several degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) when we left Anchorage just after midnight Christmas morning.  It was ridiculously warm (on the way to mid 80s) and clear as we arrived into LA almost 40 minutes early around 8 am.  (There'd been a stopover in Seattle)

So this post is going to mix some leftover Anchorage photos from a great sightseeing day with New York based film maker Thanachart Siripatrachai mid December with photos of flying into LA today.  That jumble of hot and cold, wilderness and urban has been the last year as we try to spend as much time with my mom in LA as possible, yet maintain our Anchorage activities.  So why shouldn't you go back and forth between the two too?

Anchorage sunset Dec. 12, about 3:45 pm returning from Glen Alps.









Flying into LA Christmas Day, looking south toward Palos Verdes with Catalina Island very clear in the background.  LAX in the foreground.  We were early and spent some time flightseeing over LA.









Benz (Thanachart) checking out mostly frozen Turnagain Arm.  It was about 10˚F (-7˚C) that day and while it was mostly clear when we left the house, twenty minutes later it was mostly cloudy in the Arm and soon began to snow lightly.

And there was a brisk wind.  We walked around Beluga Point checking the ice formation on the water.  It was getting really cold with the wind.  So it was a little surprising when we saw three people get out of a car.  She was wearing lots of white. They climbed over the barricade and over the railroad tracks.  She pulled off her shawl and they started taking wedding pictures.  He had on an overcoat and scarf.

We came into LA, just north of the airport headed east (earlier photo above) came back a bit, and then looped around north with this view of downtown and all the mountain backdrops clearly displayed.  When we completed the circle we were headed west right over the Coliseum.

It was the 1984 Summer Olympics that made me realize what a huge part of my life the LA Coliseum had been.  From Boy Scout jamborees to rodeos,  early Dodger games and UCLA football games - I'd been to the Coliseum for various events all my early life.

Click to see map better

And at the LA Sports arena (the white oval)  I saw Lyndon Johnson nominated to be the vice presidential candidate with John Kennedy in 1960.  Someone had given my mom tickets and we were way up near the rafters, but we were there.  And I watched the UCLA basketball team in 1963 beat number one Michigan there - getting 16 points in a row at the beginning of the game - to go on for their first undefeated season and the beginning of their dynasty.  I also spent a lot of time in the museums and rose garden there at Exposition Park as a kid.  Followed by my graduate studies next door at USC.  Lots of my formative years spent in these few square blocks below us in the airplane yesterday morning.

 After we stopped at Bells Nursery (previous post on Christmas trees) Benz and I drove up to Glen Alps and walked to the Powerline Pass trail.





























We're closing in on the airport here.  I'm looking north as LA stretches to the hills.  It stretches even further over the hills in the valley.  And south out the other side of the plane.  And east.  But you can't see it quite this clear most days. 

This part of Chugach State Park is about 20 minutes from downtown Anchorage.  Nothing out there but nature- trees and bushes, a few trails, moose, bear, and other smaller critters. 

Here's Benz, tanning, Anchorage winter style. 









To put the top ice picture into perspective, I thought I better add this one Benz sent me.  All these are sharper if you click them.

AIFF 2013: What Makes A Film Great?

Great art occupies your soul.  It reshapes your brain and plays with your heart.

Since everyone's brains and hearts are constantly changing and different from other people's, what gets to me might not get to you.  What gets to me today, might not have gotten to me 20 years ago.

So picking 'best' movies at a festival is always going to be questionable and contentious.

But does that mean all movies are equal, that there are no objective standards people can agree on?  I've written about how to evaluate films before.  (Checking that link shows it similar to this list and more detailed.  And here are my thoughts on good documentaries from last year.)  But each year there are different things that happen that raise new factors to consider.  So here's this year's take on (at least) features. 

We've got the technical aspects

• visual experience
• the sound
• how it's all put together

We've got the content

• the characters
• the  story
• the import in the world

We've got the style

• complexity of the story
• point of view
• clarity
• purpose 

Each of these three categories and nine subcategories are worthy of long posts of their own.  I'll spare you now and perhaps expand if necessary as I write about the films.

I would add that the great movies leave you walking out of the theater saying, "That was great."  In the perfect movie experience, everything blends together so well that you are sucked into the movie thoroughly and you aren't also observing the movie making.  These explicit factors emerge later as you have time to think about the film.  And the really good films keep talking to you. Your subconscious lets parts of the film bubble out into your conscious to ponder further.

So, how did the 'bests' get distributed this year?

Festival Judges' Best Features:

1. Tu Seras Un Homme (You’ll Be A Man)
2. Die Nieuwe Wereld (The New World)
3. Inja Hameh Chiz Khoob Ast (Everything Is Fine Here

Audience Choice – Features

1. Mourning Has Broken
2. Hank and Asha
3. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

A note on how the festival works.  There are two kinds of fims

• those submitted for awards 
• special selections that are solicited by the festival (or offered to the festival, as was the case of the films presented by the Anchroage Mexican Counsel)

Of those films submitted and selected for the festival, the initial screeners choose what they think are the best.  These then are "in competition" for awards.

Of the films above, Mourning Has Broken was selected, but not in competition and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?  was a special selection, not eligible for an award.


Here's a table of all the features at the festival with the official awards, the audience awards, and my choices.

Title	Status	Festival Award	Audience Choice	My Choices
7 Cajas (7 Boxes)	Special Selection			1
9 Full Moons	Selected			*
Aanya Ka Banya (Delinquent Dancers)	Selected			*
The Animal Project	Selected			**
Contracted	Special Selection
Detroit Unleaded	In Competition			3
Die Nieuwe Wereld (The New World)	In Competition	2		1
The Frozen Ground	Special Selection
Hank and Asha	James E. Duff		2	1
Inja Hameh Chiz Khoob Ast… (Everything Is Fine Here)	In Competition	3		3
Juventud (Youth)	Special Selection
Mine Games	Selected			*
Mourning Has Broken	Selected		1
Route of Acceptance	Special Selection
Tu Seras Un Homme (You’ll Be A Man)	In Competition	1		2
Vino Veritas	In Competition			2
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (明天記得愛上我)	Special Selection		3	1

I've marked my choices with these symbols:

1 = Walked out thinking, wow, that was a good movie
2 =  Good movie, just not quite level 1
3 =  Lots that I liked, worth seeing
** = There's good stuff in it, but needs work
* =  Saw the movie, but not that impressed
   =  Didn't see the movie

I was trying to figure out how to write about so many films.  Putting them all in one post seemed excessive.  Now that I've finished writing about two of my favorites, I realize the best way is to just list my favorites (the films I rated 1 above) and end this post.  I'll add additional posts about specific films.  The first will discuss The New World and Hank and Asha.   As I add posts, I'll link to them from here. 


My 1's:

7 Cajas (7 Boxes)

Die Nieuwe Wereld (The New World)

Hank and Asha

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (明天記得愛上我)


All four of these movies pulled me in so completely that I was engrossed in the story and not thinking about the movie making - all the technical stuff worked to tell the story, not distract from the story (either because it was bad or so good.)

For all four, I left the theater with the feeling of having seen a really good film.


When I have posted about the other features, I'll add links to this post. 

AIFF 2013: Tu Eres Un Homme - Best Of The Fest Encore Showing Tonight

I think we have to pick a winner, because we don't have time to simply compare movies without actually coming up with "the best."

Best of The Fest Tonight (Thursday) 6:30  Ak Exp Large 7:30 Ak Exp Small 8:30 Ak Exp Large

I liked this film and I don't have a problem with it being 'the best' but there were other films that shouldn't have been bumped.  But since this film plays again tonight at the Alaska Experience Theater, I'll write about it now in hopes people will make the effort to go see it at 6:30pm.

It's French.  It deals with a decent family that has been rendered dysfunctional because of an accident the young son had.  And probably the father had some control issues already.  But nothing that can't be worked out.  The characters are likeable and the audience is on their side.

At the center of the film is the relationship between the 20 year old babysitter and his ten year old kid he watches over - they become good friends that is unexpected given the age difference.  But they are both smart and both are outsiders - and the babysitter seems to understand his ward's needs.  It's a chaste, but loving relationship.  I told the director that I'm looking forward to the follow up when Leo is 20 and Theo is 30.

And that's one of the neat things about the festival - we got to talk to a lot of the film

Cohen and Prada Getting Best Feature Award

makers and Benoit Cohen and producer Matthieu Prada were very available and that allows me to say more about the film than I otherwise could.

The opening scene is extreme closeups of Leo.  Cohen said afterward that he wanted to show the intimacy with which a family member, probably a parent, can look at a child.  The original opening didn't quite work, he said, and this was added later.

When Theo comes into this family's life, he begins to interrupt the dysfunctions that arose after Leo's accident:  the overprotection of Leo, the withdrawal of the mother, the need for control of the father.

Cohen said it had a small release in France but it wasn't extreme enough for the French audience.  The hints of illicit relationships don't turn into adultery or pedophilia.  It has done much better in the US film festival circuit where it has won a number of awards, including Best Feature here in Anchorage. 

This Youtube is only in French, but the film tonight will have subtitles.  




Leo and his mother are Cohen's real life son and wife.  He wanted to capture his son just before he began to change into adolescence and that caused them to rush production a bit. He said there were some issues with working his son long hours for the film.  In the beach scene he got tired of running back and forth.  I suggested the scene where he was buried int he sand gave him some rest and Cohen raised his eyebrows and said he was buried for four hours.

This film raises for us what has been lost by society's paranoia about touching kids.  The fears of incest and pedophilia have resulted in widespread prohibitions against touching by professional adults working with children.  The film challenges that response and suggests that there is a need for more non-sexualized touching and non-sexual intimacy.

It plays tonight with the animated film winner Mr. Hublot which is incredibly richly and beautifully animated.  It's a Luxumbourg/French film.  As with other animated films in the festival, it seemed that all the film makers' energies went into the visual and little was left over for a story to match the imagery. 


7:30 - in the other theater - Documentary winner McConkey plays with Super Short winner Anatomy of Injury.  McConkey was an extreme skier and base jumper.  The film shows lots of his feats and does some exploration of why he was so driven to such extreme activities. 

8:30 - back in the big theater - Best Short Documentary The Guide along with Best Snowdance Film Mike’s Migration and Best Short Lambing Season

Lambing Season director Jeannie Donohoe (R) at Awards Ceremony

I liked The Guide.   Biologist E.O. Wilson visits Gorgongosa National Park in Mozambique.  The real focus is on the young local man whose dream has been to be a park guide, but he's now thinking about being a biologist.  I haven't seen the other two yet, but have heard very good things about Lambing Season. 

AIFF 2013: Best Of The Fest Thursday At Alaska Experience Theater

The schedule for Thursday is:

Time	Place	Films
6:30 pm	AK Exp LARGE	Best Feature:  Tu Seras Un Homme Best Animation:  Mr. Hublot
7:30 pm	AK Exp small	Best Documentary: McConkey Best Super Short:  Anatomy of Injury
8:30 pm	AK Exp LARGE	Best Short Doc:  The Guide Best Snowdance Doc:  Mike's Migration Best Short Narrative:  Lambing Season

"Tu Seras Un Homme" (You Will Be A Man) is a French film about a somewhat dysfunctional family that finds its way back to functional.  It's lovingly made - starring the director's wife and son among others - and I plan to see it again to see if I can catch things I missed the first time around. 

"Mr. Hublot" is visually spectacular, though the story it tells is somewhat empty.  That's a problem I had with a lot of the animation - the technology offers potential for fantastic imagery.  And it's ok to just have a visual feast, but if there's a good story too, it's usually much better.

"McConkey"  Ski daredevil turned base jumper does amazing and crazy stuff until he does something crazy but not amazing.  The film does some probing in what drove McConkey to continually push to do more extravagant and dangerous stunts.  I can't help but give some of the credit to Red Bull and other sponsors who encourage people to risk their lives like this. 

"Anatomy of Injury" - I think I saw this, but don't remember it.

"The Guide"  - Biologist E. O. Wilson meets an amazing young local guide at Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique.  An interesting short doc.

"Mike's Migration" - didn't see it. 

"Lambing Season"  didn't see it but heard very good things about it. 

AIFF 2013: Bambi or Invective - Thinking About Film Criticism

Seeing lots of movies last week has me thinking about movie reviews, their purpose, their effects, and one's qualifications to write them in the first place.  I do want to write about some of the films I saw and also about the festival's awards.

So, when I found Maureen Dowd's column in the Anchorage Daily News today, (in the NY Times a couple days ago) on the "Bambi Rule,"  I read it with care.

Should reviewers be nice or critical?  Here's the argument for being nice:

"Eggers chided Harvard students: 'Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic, and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them.'”

And here Dowd quotes Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic:

“'Rebecca West established what she called ‘the duty of harsh criticism,’ and she was right. An intellectual has a solemn obligation to speak out negatively against ideas or books that he or she believes will have a pernicious or misleading effect upon people’s understanding of important things. To do otherwise would be cowardly and irresponsible. “If one feels that a value or a belief or a form that one cherishes has been traduced, one should rise to its defense. In intellectual and literary life, where the stakes may be quite high, manners must never be the primary consideration. People who advance controversial notions should be prepared for controversy. Questions of truth, meaning, goodness, justice and beauty are bigger than Bambi."

It's much harder to critique a film when you've met the film maker.  And this is good.  It forces me to distinguish between the film and the film maker.  I need to write about the film, I need to write about it from my perspective (rather than an omniscient reviewer perspective), and I need to be constructive.  When I wrote during the festival, it was to give potential viewers an idea of quality and topic so they could decide among the many choices, but I didn't want to do spoilers.  After the festival, now that I've had time to think, I can write more meaningfully about the films.

Basically, I want to write so that the film maker is not mad at me after reading a review.  (Well, not mad for long anyway.)  It's hard enough to make a film without having people who haven't made a film tear it apart.  I try to write using the same frame of mind I used to critique my graduate students' papers.  The point is to help the student write a better paper next time.  That requires me to avoid evaluative terms as much as possible and use concrete examples of what I liked and disliked.  I'm usually right about what I like and dislike, but the odds go down when I talk about what's 'good' and 'bad.'

That said, standing up for important values when someone trashes them is also important.  I've only been harsh in my AIFF  movie criticisms over the years when I thought the film makers had acted very badly (The Dalai Lama's Cat) or when there was a particularly ethnocentric movie (Exporting Raymond.)  But even in those reviews, I tried to stay objective and gave detailed examples of why I was bothered. 

The Dowd piece, I'm guessing, looks to the extremes - the smarmy reviews that almost seem part of a public relations campaign (and NPR and ADN participate in this along with all the other media) and the nasty insults that are often more reflective of the reviewers' problems than the work reviewed. 

All that said, I'm hoping to post my thoughts on the features - narrative and documentaries - and on the animation program.  And I'll slip in a few of the shorts, but I didn't see enough of them.  Coming soon. 

AIFF 2013: Short Docs

Honorable Mention:  The Words I Love
Runner UP;  Slomo
Winner:  The Guide

AIFF 2013: Awards Animation

Second Runner Up - Mr. Super Juice -Mike Wellin

Runner Up - Blue (not here)

Winner - Mr. Hublot

AIFF 2013: Gala Awards Dinner

This is the Iranian table here to cheer on Pourya and Mona who did Everything Is Fine Here.

Pourya and Mona 

Lambing Season's Jeannie Donohoe (r) with biggest fans

Mr. Super Juicer's Mike Wellins, Lisa Freeman, Jasper Thune

AIFF 2013: 7 Cajas Was Great! Awards Ceremony Starts Soon

7 Cajas (7 Boxes)  was a terrific action thriller - but it all takes place in the market area of Asunción, Paraguay.  Most of the characters are presented in a way that their involvement in criminal activities is understandable if not excusable.  All the loose ends get tied together - even ones I didn't realize were loose until they got resolved.  A lot of fun.

I'm at Organic Oasis and folks are eating and the awards should start around 6 or 6:15pm.  I'll post and tweet - @whisper2world and #ancff.

AIFF 2013: Sunday! Almost Over! What To See?

I think having just one car between us AND having one of the film makers staying with us made things a little more hectic this year.  But there were lots of good films, lots of visiting film makers, but not enough time.

I'm headed for 7 Cajas at 11:30 am - I haven't seen this Paraguayan film that was one of the biggest Paraguayan films ever.  People say it's good.

We saw You'll Be A Man Saturday night and it's a very good film.  The film maker, Benoit Cohen, said, after the showing that it had a small release in France - but it was too normal to be a success in France.  It's doing much better on the US festival circuit. Their characters, as troubled as they were, weren't committing adultery or incest.  It is a very warm and touching film that explores relationships that are feared today because of the potential for abuse, but can be (and in this movie are) caring and needed.  Very worth watching, especially so if you also understand French.  The Director and Producer are in town and should be at the showing Sunday at AK Exp at 1:30pm.  You can see a very short video of Benoit and Matthieu describing their arrival in Alaska.

Icebound was the opening night film - a documentary about the 1924 serum run to Nome.  Think you know all there is to know?  This film bursts a lot of myths about the run - including the Balto myth. 

Lion Ark plays again at 3pm.  You can watch my video with the director Tim Phillips here.  I made this earlier in LA.   It documents the rescue of 25 lions from illegal circuses in Bolivia.

Awards Ceremony starts at 4pm at the Organic Oasis.  I'll try to blog them live and maybe tweet too.  (@whisper2world, #ancff). 

Here's the official schedule for SUNDAY DECEMBER 15, 2013:

11:00 AM		Environment Docs Documentary Program | 94 min. screens with... Backyard | Deia Schlosberg 2013 Not By Sight | Sabrina McCormick 2013 We Can't Eat Gold | Joshua Tucker 2013	Alaska Experience Theater - Large Theater
11:30 AM		7 Cajas Juan Carlos Maneglia | Feature | 100 min.	Alaska Experience Theater - Small Theater
1:00 PM		Arctic Housing Docs Documentary Program | 85 min. screens with... Housing First in the Artic | Cory Gordon 2013 Life on Ice | Greg Chaney 2013 Magnetic Reconnection | Kyle Armstrong 2012 Passive House: A Building Revolution | Faith Morgan 2013	Alaska Experience Theater - Large Theater
1:30 PM		You’ll Be A Man Benoit Cohen 2013 | Feature | 87 min. ** Note: Filmmaker attending	Alaska Experience Theater - Small Theater
2:00 PM		Icebound Daniel Anker 2013 | Documentary | 100 min.	Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center
3:00 PM		Lion Ark Tim Phillips 2013 | Documentary | 97 min.	Alaska Experience Theater - Large Theater
4:30 PM		Awards Gala Awards Gala | 210 min.	Organic Oasis
8:00 PM		Best of Fest Best of Fest | 120 min. screens with... McConkey | Steve Winter, Murray Wais, Rob Bruce, Scott Gaffney, David Zieff 2013	Bear Tooth Theatre

AIFF 2013: Sarah Knight Talks About Her Film Vino Veritas

It's 1:30 am Saturday.  I saw Vino Veritas last night and I really want to be in bed now, but I have some video to share with folks who are thinking they might want to see this film.

Knight (r) talking to audience member after showing

It's a good film.  It's in the Virginia Woolf genre - two couples together in a house and they start talking more candidly than normal.  It's gentler than Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and last year's festival example of this genre, Between Us.


It's much too soon for me to write about this film.  I need to think about it more.  For example, Benz (who directed The Words I Love) asked me if I thought it made a difference that it was on Halloween.  Yes, if it weren't Halloween we wouldn't learn that Claire had no identity of her own, except when she won the Halloween costume award each year.  But as I thought about his question more, I realized that the three characters who took the truth serum wine, were all dressed in costumes that were not who they really were.  The one who did NOT take the truth serum was dressed in his real life doctor gown.

I need more time to tease out insights like that.

Vino Veritas plays today (Saturday, Dec. 14, 2013) at 4pm at the Alaska Experience Theater.  Bring your spouse.  

In the meantime, you can watch the video of Sarah.