Ida Plus Academy Award Nominee Shorts - Docs and Live Action

Picture from IMDB

First we saw Ida.  A beautiful black and white Polish film that I could connect to in a variety of ways.
1960 or so.  Ida is a teenaged sister in a convent.  She's preparing to be a nun.  But first she's told she must go visit her aunt, the one who hadn't bothered to come visit her ever.

The movie is about the relationship between Ida, Wanda, her aunt, and the revelation of their past - her family was Jewish and killed in the woods, except for Ida.  How did it happen?  The aunt takes her to the village they came from to meet the family now living in their old home.  The movie also explores Ida's identity crisis described well by her aunt who ironically asks, "A Jewish nun?"

The village reminded me of the farmland along the East-West German border near Göttingen where I was a student only four years after the time in the film.  And I too searched my mother's parents'' graves in the Jewish cemetery in Köln.  And my step-mother has talked about coming home from the labor camps to find new people in her home and much of the family furniture among the neighbors  In 82 minutes, Ida, which seems to move so slowly, richly fills in the history of these two women's lives.  We feel like we know them intimately.

A remarkable movie.  The New Yorker review gives much more depth than I have time for.  You can see the Ida trailer here.  (Don't be put off by the ad.)  Ida is up for an Academy Award for best foreign language film.


Then we saw the Academy Award nominated short documentaries and tonight we saw the short live action films. (This just means fiction or narrative films.)

There's so much going through my head.  It was good to see the Anchorage International Film Festival's best documentary - White Earth - in the running.  The films were all good, yet I couldn't help thinking, "These are the best shorts in the world?"

I would love to introduce Aya - an Israeli woman - who while waiting to pick someone up at the Ben Gurion airport, is given asked to hold a passenger sign for a few minutes, while the chauffeur who's there to pick the person up quickly moves his car.  She ends up taking the passenger to his hotel in Jerusalem and charming her Danish passenger once he decides she's not going to kidnap him.  I think she enjoy spending time with Wanda and Ida.

I think Universal Love which won the Founder's Award at the AIFF in December, but none of the short film awards, was good enough to fit in with this group of shorts.  But they were all good.  The Phone Call about a woman at a suicide prevention center talking to an older man whose taken enough pills to take care of things and won't give his address would have seemed much better if we hadn't seen real live phone volunteers in the short doc, Crisis Hotline:  Veterans Press 1,  talking to a series of vets the night before.  That was powerful too, but felt more like a promotional film for the hotline. It focused - as a crisis hotline must - on the immediate emergency at hand.  It didn't look, as a movie could have, at the larger political and economic reasons why these soldiers were sent to war zones that caused their suicidal conditions.

There were two more Polish films, both very personal family films.  Joanna was a follows a terminal cancer patient's months of leave taking from her son and husband.  Our Curse gives us a husband and wife grappling with the news their newborn son has Ondine’s Curse (also known as Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome or CCHS) and breathe on his on while  asleep.   They talk through their frustration that the baby is still at the hospital,  their fears for his and their futures, and they struggle with the equipment when he does get home.  These two are powerful films and with two very young grandkids I found Our Curse very hard to watch.  

I'd seen White Earth twice already in December at AIFF.  It stood up well the third time - a beautifully film shot in the oil patch of North Dakota.  Why I picked it my favorite in December was its tight editing, stunning photography, and ability to tell the story through the voices of the people in the film, not through a narrator.  The other AIFF documentaries were all compelling, but needed editing.

La Parka (The Reaper) source

My favorite Monday night was the Mexican documentary about the slaughterhouse worker.  Such an exquisitely filmed movie!  The visual story seemed to be told in reflection and shadows.  Lots of gritty still life geometrical patterns of walls, chains, ropes, floors, amplified with loud crashes and clangs,  We see blurred animals, feet of animals, carcasses, but relatively few whole beasts.  And we hear the slaughterer talk about how he's made peace with the notion that he kills 500 bulls a day.  He doesn't sound quite convinced.  I haven't seen American Sniper, but it might be good to see it paired with La Parker (The Reaper).  

La Parka - screen shot from trailer

The camera sat on this picture as the cat walked from the truck until it was hidden by the steps.  

The film starkly yet subtly raised the ethical dilemmas of slaughter houses.  

La Parka screenshot from trailer

And it paused on the shot below a few long seconds too.  

I'd also like to introduce the character Parveneh to Ida.  Pari is an Afghan woman sewing in Switzerland trying to send money home to her mom to pay for her dad's operation.  Although she's traveled far, she seems as sheltered as Ida was in the convent.  A sweet film.

And as I move to my favorite, I can't skip the most delightful of the films - Boogaloo and Graham.  With armed soldiers walking down the Irish streets in 1978, Dad brings home two baby chicks for the boys.  This was the funniest of all the films.  The only other one that offered some good laughs was Aya.  The boys were priceless.  

Butter Lamp source

Butter Lamp took the honors for me with its original concept and fine execution.  We watch as a traveling photographer takes photos of Tibetan families in front of an ever changing set of backdrops.  Charming.   

But I wouldn't be upset if any of them won- particularly Aya or Boogaloo and Graham.

Below are the two lists with links to the trailers.  

Live Action

• Aya
• Boogaloo and Graham
• Butter Lamp
• Parvaneh
• The Phone Call

Documentary

• Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
• Joanna
• Our Curse
• The Reaper (La Parka)
• White Earth

The New York Times also has a review (including the animated shorts).

AIFF 2014: Their Bests And My Bests - Features

I've had posts like this - where I compare my picks to the festival picks - because I've had real disagreements with the festival picks.  This year, I'm not too much in disagreement with the festival picks, but there are some films I'd like to focus on a bit more.

In this one I'll go on past the table of picks to talk about the features and the made in Alaska categories.

Category	Festival Picks	Steve's Picks
Feature*	Best: The Ambassador to Bern Runner-Up: Come To My Voice Honorable Mention: I Believe In Unicorns	Ambassador to Bern Come to My Voice Rocks in My Pocket
Documentary	Best:  White Earth Runner-Up:  Coney Island: Dreams For Sale Honorable Mention: Seeds of Time	White Earth Shield and Spear Mala Mala Barefoot Artist
Made in Alaska*	Best: Detective Detective Detective  Runner-Up: Tracing Roots  Honorable Mention: The Empty Chair	The Empty Chair
Short	Best: Till Then [Bis Gleich]  Runner-Up: What Cheer  Honorable Mention: How Hipólito Vázquez  Found Magic Where He Didn’t Expect It	Universal Language* One Armed Man Bis Gleich Reaching Home Into the Silent Sea
Super Short	Best: Four Brothers. Or Three. Wait…Three  Runner-Up: Full-Windsor  Honorable Mention: Enfilade	Enfilade ** didn't see Four Brothers
Animation	Best: 365  Runner-Up: Wire Cutters  Honorable Mention: Ronald Gottlieb	Speed Dating 365 Ronald Gottlieb and Moving Out

Discussion

Not too much difference in our picks here.  There were not as many really good features this year as in the past.

Features

Ambassador to Bern - Most everything worked in this intelligent drama about two Hungarian immigrants who break into the Hungarian embassy in Bern not long after the Russian invasion of Hungary and the execution of the former prime minister Nagy in 1958.  The characters are all real, three dimensional (except maybe Vermes), the light and pace and decency of everyone all reflect a different time and place.   Overall, a very satisfactory film.  All the people I talked to after the film (there's a video of audience reaction here) enjoyed it, called it intense, though they weren't all sure of the historical context.

Come To My Voice-  This Turkish film focuses on the personal burdens on Kurdish villagers in Turkey.  We see the grandmother and granddaughter as they struggle to get their son/father released from the Turkish soldiers.  The situations are very mundane yet tell a very big story with the dramatic mountain scenery almost a character in the movie.

Rocks In My Pocket - Was the wild, sardonic, extravagant, and brilliant tour of the mind of a  Latvian-American woman, exploring the history of her mental illness (depression) in her family in gorgeous animation.  Each frame is a piece of art.  The reactions I heard were all strong - people loved it or hated it. I'm in the former category.  It was a long involved story which interwove the history of Latvia in the 20th Century, the condition of women, and the migration of depression from generation to generation via the women in her family.  Was it too long as many complained?  I'm sure it could have been edited, but I couldn't tell you where.  Tying all the various threads together was one of the important parts of the film and that took time.  It just wasn't packaged like a typical Hollywood movie.  It requires people to go into a different mental and temporal space, the break loose from our cultural expectations of how a film is supposed to be paced.  Even if someone thought the story got too entangled or long (I didn't) you could just sit back and enjoy the rich imagery of the animation.

The other films I saw (all those in competition, but not all the features at the festival) were at a different level of overall quality.  To my surprise, I liked I Believe in Unicorns.  There was a certain amount of playing with the film images that could have been tacky, but worked.  The film told the story of a young girl and her first love.  The short affair was an escape from taking care of her disabled mom and her choice of boys was not the best.  It felt real and believable.
I also liked Appropriate Behavior and Listening.

One other feature I'd mention is the Mexican Consulate's offering - The Zebra.  It offered us a view of the Mexican revolution through the eyes of two young men who were headed north and looking to join one of the revolutionary groups, though their reason for joining one over the other had little to do with political ideology.   I suspect there is a lot of symbolism I missed.  Certainly the zebra of the title - not a painted horse, not a donkey with stripes, not a Yankee horse, or an African horse (as it was variously described in the film) - symbolized something about knowing what different revolutionary groups.  The theme of every man for himself also must have had more meaning than I understood.  Unfortunately I didn't think of any of these questions when the director was in Anchorage and I could ask him.

Made In Alaska

I only saw two films in this category - The Empty Chair and Kaltag, Alaska - which played together.  (I just checked and I did wee one more - WildLike which I discussed briefly elsewhere.)

So I can't judge how good the other films were.  But I can say that The Empty Chair was a very important film.  Greg Chaney, the film maker, was able to use his own interviews of still living members of the Juneau community who were around in the late 1930s and early 1940's - including some who were sent to internment camps in WWII for being Japanese-Americans - as well as archival footage and home movies from the time to capture an important historical event - the internment of Japanese-American citizens of Juneau in WW II and how the community reacted.  I've written more about what I liked about this film in an earlier post.   Without having seen more than a clip of Detective, Detective, Detective  , but having talked to people who did see it, I would wager a significant amount that in 10 years The Empty Chair will still be an important film - maybe even more so because the some of the people in it might no longer be alive - but the others will have been long forgotten.  I would rank The Empty Chair in among the best documentaries in the festival.

OK, I've gotten that off my chest.

I'll do one or two more posts like this that cover documentaries, shorts, super shorts, and animation.

AIFF 2014: Reflections On This Year's Festival From Jim Parker and From Me

The festival activities are now over (well, as I write this there are still people in the Alaska Experience Theater watching the last movie in Best of the Fest).  Let me take a first stab at some of my reactions to this festival.  But first, here's Jim Parker, Director of Film Programming, talking on Dec. 13, about how the festival was going for him.




Jim has been really great to work with as a blogger trying to get information about the festival this year and in previous years.  So I'm not at all happy with the news that he's moving to North Carolina, but he did say he hopes to be up for the festival next year.

Now, my thoughts:

1.  Technical Issues

I experienced fewer technical glitches and I didn't hear about them from others.  There were a couple of times when the wrong film began to play, but it  was quickly fixed.  I don't know about any showings that had to be canceled because the the film was in a format that particular theater couldn't play or other technical problems.

I'm still hoping they'll have a way to play movies without the audience seeing the computer screen as the projectionist (can we still use that term?) goes through the list of films and then clicks the right one.  (And while part of me likes the transparency of that, another part would like the film to just come on without us seeing under the hood.)

2.  The Festival Trailer

We've had good ones in the past, but no matter how good they were, after seeing them about four or five times (they're played before each film), they tended to get tiresome.  This year's trailer incorporated clips from about 20 different films in the festival and had music that I enjoyed hearing each time it played. I never got bored watching this one and I watched it a lot of times. And I enjoyed the care with which the clips were edited and how the music worked with the video - especially as it went to the clip from Taking My Parents To Burning Man.  Each time, I could identify a clip from one more movie I'd seen.


2014 Anchorage International Film Festival Teaser from Anchorage Int'l Film Festival on Vimeo.


3.  The Venues

The Museum and the Alaska Experience Theater are a five minute walk from each other.  That was good.  The Bear Tooth had no films the second weekend this year.  I never made it to the library or the Alaska Community Works.  Perhaps ride share boards could be put up in the venues for people looking for a ride to get to another showing.  For the most part, the volunteers seemed to be good at getting rides for visiting film makers, but others could have used some help too.  The Bear Tooth had good lighting for film makers doing Q&A after the films.  In the past, I've had to settle for sound only because the stage was too dark for video.  The sound had an echo up front, but when I moved back and to the middle it was better.  Mike at the Bear Tooth was great, and the Alaska Experience Theater staff was doing a lot more too - like food and drinks.  They also had a scanner for pass holders which made getting tickets much faster.  And they had 'real' tickets.

4.  The Films

Overall, I thought we've had stronger fields in the past.  There were plenty of good films.  Animation and Narrative Shorts were strong, but there was only one program of animated films.  There were a lot more Alaska films and they got audiences.  I only got to see two - but one, The Empty Chair, was really, really good.  The films offered a very diverse set of experiences and points of view.  And as much as I complain about not being able to see everything, that's not really a bad thing.  I'll talk more about the films I liked in a later post. [UPDATE:  Dec. 29:  Here's my list of favorites compared to the festival awards - and comments on the features.  I'm working on the documentaries.]  One word that came to me throughout, and I heard from others, was "editing."  A lot of films seemed to go on too long.  It's hard to cut up your baby, but it often makes a better film.

5.  Scheduling

With so many films shown in different locations, it's impossible to make a perfect schedule. But I'd like it to be not only possible, but relatively easy, to see all the films in competition in any one category.  Animation:  no problem.  They were all in one program.  Narrative Shorts?  Much harder.  Thursday had all three programs playing.  You could watch the Love and Pain program and then the Mixed Bag program.  But the Global Village overlapped the other two.  And the Mixed Bag program only played once.  You had to carefully read the program in advance to see that the only way to see all the Narrative Shorts was to go to the first Global Village program the first weekend.

I wasn't able to see all the documentaries in competition, but I think I could have, if I sacrificed seeing those of another category.

A little more attention to timing would have helped a couple of times.  One night there was an hour gap between films at the Bear Tooth.  The next night the gap was 75 minutes.  They could have put in most of a shorts program in the gap.  Or had some film discussions for the audience members who were staying for the next film.

6.  Visiting Film Makers

There were lots of them and it was great hearing them after their films and talking to them in between films.  It would be nice if they had badges that labeled them as film makers so that audience members could know more easily.

Those are just some off the top of my head thoughts that I wanted to get down before I forget them.

And Bye Jim, we're going to miss you.

AIFF 2014: Awards Update - Alaska Films, Features

I'm at the Organic Oasis.  People are eating.  I'll just add to this post rather than a bunch of posts.  So keep checking.  [I've changed my mind, I'll just be putting up new posts, and add to them.  The did the docs first because one of the winners was heading to the airport.  See doc winners below.]

Starting 6:48pm

Features
#3  I Believe in Unicorns
#2  Come To My Voice
#1  Ambassador To Bern

Made in Alaska
#3  Empty Chair
#2  Tracing Roots
#1  Detective, Detective, Detective


Added starting 6:33pm

Special Award - Founders Award - Film and Film Makers in the Spirit of the Festival

Universal Language

Shorts
#3   How Hipólito Vázquez Found Magic Where He Didn’t Expect It
#2  What Cheer?
#1  Bis Gleich


Super Shorts
#3  Enfilade   (see wikipedia)
#2  Full Windsor
#1  Four Brothers, or Three, Wait . . .


Animation Awards
#3  Ronald Gottlieb
#2  Wire Cutters
#1  365


Reading a poem about the oosik, which are the awards for the festival.  I have a picture of the oosik awards in an earlier post tonight.

6:32pm Thanking all the sponsors now.

She's thanking lots and lots of people who were involved in various activities like the library discussion on homelessness, the QuikFreeze people, Frost and the drive in movie,

I'm missing people.  I should have gotten her list before hand.  I'll try to update this later.

This is in reverse order - most recent first.
Charlie  - who did the trailer (which was really good - probably the best ever, because it included clips from some of the films and had great music (that could be listened to over and over again.)

Animation - Jonathan, Rachel

Docs - Will and Jim Parker

Shorts Programmers - Rich Curtner and George

Features Programmers Kelly Walters, Gita, Natalie Eleftheriadis

Volunteer Coordinator - Rebecca.  Has been volunteer at Sundance for many years.

Tony Sheppard - Founder of the festival and hospitality left this morning.

Christie - applied for several grants for us and got one from the Atwood foundation for film maker travel.  Liaison at the library too.

Rich Curtner - the board president, and shorts programmer along with George
all the technical stuff on the website, and all the media, finances.  We owe him a lot.

Thanking key people - Jim Parker first - who's leaving for North Carolina.

Best Docs:

#3:  Seeds of Time
#2:  Coney Island
#1: White Earth

AIFF 2014: Pictures from Award Gala

I was going to add names, but this is going way too fast.  These are pictures of folks eating and now they are giving out the awards.  They are recognizing Jim  Parker, the director of film programming who is moving to North Carolina after this festival.  

AIFF 2014: Sean McCarthy On 'Moving Out' And The Kurdish Film 'Come To My Voice'

We saw the animation program last night and it was probably the overall strongest program.  Every film was good and a number were better than that.  I also knew nothing about what I was going to see - except for Ronald Gottlieb - which meant everything was a total surprise.

One of the film makers there was Sean McCarthy with a 6 minute video that he and many, many friends have been working on for several years.  It was quite elaborate with the key character going into different picture frames in a gallery and interacting with the pictures.   Here's Sean briefly talking about it after the showing last night.  But this is the kind of thing you can't talk about very helpfully, you have to just see it.  I tried to link it in the video, but I couldn't figure out how to link it to something outside of YouTube.





Here's a link to the video on his website. I had trouble getting it to work. I'm crediting that to my slow internet connection.

And for the record, we saw Come To My Voice this morning.  A strong feature about a Kurdish village where an informer has said they had guns.  But the Turkish soldiers can't find any.  So they take the men and tell the women and the mayor that when they turn in the guns, they'll release the men.  The film focuses on the mother of one of the men and her granddaughter as they go about trying to free their son/father.  This is the kind of pictures we should see more of, to give a sense of words we hear on the news all the time, like 'Kurds.'  By the way, the mountain scenery was beautiful.  

[For people interested in the technical stuff - there are black borders on this video because the new iMovie has a wider screen for the videos and since I'm pretty close to my subjects, it cuts too much out.  So I need to see if I can adjust my camera to to use a different aspect ratio.]

AIFF 2014: Sunday. The Last Day. Turkey, China, Florida, Then Awards

This is the last day of the festival.  Sort of.  Tuesday and Wednesday will have Best of the Fest, where they will show some of the winning films again for those who missed them or want to see them again.

So here's Sunday:

I've heard good things about Come To My Voice from different folks, so that's where I'm headed first.  It's a film that focuses on a Kurdish family in Turkey.  I suspect I'll then go see the Chinese films.  Husband, Wife, and the Other Man, then the shorts.  They are sponsored by the Confucius Institute at UAA and should be good.  Though, they will have been approved by the Chinese government.    I saw Last Stop, Flamingo.  It's a quirky little film that had lots of nice touches about the director's road trip to Florida.  (Quirky isn't a put down.  I mean here that it creates its own conventions and doesn't worry about how a film is supposed to be.)

The Awards Galas I've attended in past years have been very casual events with good food and a chance to talk with the different film makers.

AIFF 2014: Barefoot Artist and Coney Island

Barefoot Artist turned out to be a really good documentary.  Maybe.  I have some second thoughts, but I can't deny I was pulled right into the story from the beginning and the movie traveled far - geographically and emotionally, and raised lots of questions about art, fulfilling one's own destiny, and duty to others.  More on this later after I've thought it through.

Alessandra Giordano after Coney Island

Coney Island, Dreams For Sale was yet another film that shows the how hope and dreams can inspire a community  and how a film maker can be entangled into a long terms commitment to a story.  Like Divide In Concord,  Coney Island followed community organizing over a public decision,  The film showed a wide variety of interesting characters and pulled a lot of loose ends together well.





I also saw Last Stop, Flamingo.  There were a lot of interesting parts here - I liked the animation between parts.  I didn't get a sense of it all fitting totally together, though there was a theme of the present and the past and change as he looked at different people and places that reflected unfulfilled dreams, and change over the centuries.  The film reflects a lot of talent.

I also realized that I could use the back of the Museum's auditorium to walk back and forth while watching Flamingo.  I really needed to be doing something other than sitting.  I think for just one movie, sitting is fine.  Especially if you can walk or bike to and from the movie.  But for a festival where you're watching two or three or more movies a day, there's a need to move around while watching.  

AIFF 2014: Who Is Ronald Gottlieb And Does Engin Karabagli Have Hairy Legs?

In Engin Karabagli's short animated film, which plays in the Animation program tonight at 7pm, the main character is named Ronald Gottlieb.  And that is also the name of the film.  Where did that name come from?

Ronald Gottlieb has a problem in the film.  He has no hair on his skinny legs.

At the festival, I keep running into Engin.  We made a short video of him describing his film last week.  It was the regular canned statement that all filmmakers have practiced just in case someone asks.  I prefer something more spontaneous.  So I asked for more on Thursday.  And I put the two clips together and posted them Friday here.

But then I thought I really should have asked him why he named the movie Ronald Gottlieb and was there some personal issue about leg hair?  And so when I saw him again Friday night at the short docs program, I got the chance to ask those questions.  And you can see and hear the answers below.



You can see Ronald Gottlieb and the other short animated films at 7pm today (Saturday) at the Alaska Experience Theater.

AIFF 2014: Saturday Schedule - Lots of Movies, No Bear Tooth

The second weekend, lots of movies, lots of hard choices.  But no Bear Tooth this weekend.  That's new this year.

Here's the grid for Saturday.  You can get it with live links here.

The only thing I'm absolutely sure of, is that I want to see the Animation program at 7pm.  And I've heard good things about The Barefoot Artist showing at 11am.  Appropriate Behavior is a figuring out who I am film about an Iranian-American lesbian.  It's funny and well done.  I've posted about 6 Bullets to Hell here.  A friend has challenged my problem with a gang rape and murder in the movie.  I'm not saying it doesn't fit in the movie, but I am saying that in general, movies that have violence against women as entertainment, aren't movies I want to see.  There are times when such events are part of the context of the movie that makes an important point.  My friend pointed out that a 14 year old is molested in WildLike too.  My response is that

• what we saw on screen was from the point of view of the victim
• it was suitably uncomfortable and creepy
• the film showed the long term negative consequences
• the situation was integral to the whole story which was about sexual abuse and its terrible consequences

Is a movie like 6 Bullets To Hell merely reflecting society?  Or do such movies model behavior for viewers as well as desensitize them to the fact that such actions are despicable?  Even if the movie then proceeds to portray the perps as the bad guys?   I don't know the answer to that.  I'm not for banning such scenes.  But I don't have to watch them and I hope others object to them as well.  This is NOT entertainment - and 6 Bullets To Hell, if not meant to be entertainment, is nothing at all.  

Sorry, didn't mean to go there, but I do think violence against women is a major problem in the world and in Alaska and it should be challenged when it's used as entertainment in films.

All The Time In The World is about a family of five that spends a year in the Yukon wilderness.  That's all I know about it.

A non-film event Saturday is the SAG-AFTRA seminar.  That stands for Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Actors.  It's intended to educate both actors and film makers on the role of the union is film making.  It's being put on by Ron Holmstrom.  Below is a video where he explains more:

I mistyped the date - as you can see above - but that led me to learning about using annotations in YouTube as you'll see if you watch the video.

AIFF 2014: Engin Karabagli, Ronald Gottlieb, And Saturday Night's Animation Program

The only animation I've seen so far this year has been the feature length Rocks In My Pocket which I thought was great, though I understand the folks who say it was too long and needed some editing.  I forgive the film maker for such little issues given the amazing visual story she told.

There was also a bit of animation in some other films - in the short narrative film about  communicating with plants, Life and Perception by Andre Stamatakakos.

I first ran into Engin Karabagli, last Saturday afternoon and got a bit of video about his film.  I missed the animation program that evening, but I've seen Engin here and there and yesterday I decided to get something a little more candid than the first shot.  His film, Ronald Gottlieb, plays again Saturday night at 7pm, when I'm planning to see it.  Here's an invitation to see Ronald Gottlieb by the film maker - who was born in Istanbul, grew up in Holland, went to NYU, and now is based in Istanbul.



If you see him around the festival, be sure to say hi.


Here's the whole animation program from Anchorage Festival Genuis:

7:00 PM     Sat, Dec 13

screens with... I Need My Monster | Stephen Baker, Howard Cook 2014 The Gulf | Carl Beauchemin 2014 Indian Ate The Woodchuck | Brad Pattullo 2014 Ronald Gottlieb | Engin Karabagli 2014 Something Important | NaiWei Liu 2014 Waterproofing | Brad Leyden 2014 365 | Greg McLeod, Myles McLeod 2013 Speed Dating | Meghann Artes 2014 Wire Cutters | Jack Anderson 2014 Sebastian | Vlad Marsavin 2013 Moving Out | Sean McCarthy 2013

And if you really can't go tomorrow night and really want to see Ronald Gottlieb, it's on Engin's vimeo page.

AIFF 2014: Seeds of Time and Mixed Bag Shorts Make Great Film Night [Updated with Video]

This turned out to be the most satisfying evening at the festival.

Seeds of Time was inspiring in many ways.  The film is about a man from a farm family who eventually sets up the world's biggest seed bank in arctic Norway to collect seeds of the different varieties of food crops.  While our politicians are ditzing around, there are people doing things to be prepared for the impacts of global warming on agriculture.  There was a line in the film that went something like:  Politicians are about winning, while scientists are about finding solutions.  When I see a film like this on a critical issue facing humankind, I shake my head in dismay at all the people who will spend their time on activities that don't lead to any growth in understanding.  But they'll never see this film.  A thoroughly satisfying film, despite the dire implications for future food security.

We were going to sneak out of Seeds of Time  to at least catch Universal Language, which I'd enjoyed so much the first time, but Seeds of Time was too good to leave.  But we did get to catch the end of the Love and Pain program - Reaching Home and What Cheer?  were just as good as they had been the first time.

Then we saw the Mixed Bag program - the only time it was shown.  One after another we saw great short narrative films.

• One Armed Man | Tim Guinee 2014 -  A Phillip Seymour Hoffman production, about a worker in a cotton gin factory who lost an arm in a work accident who confronts the owner of the factory, drew me in immediately.  This has to be a scene from what will be a feature length film eventually.  
• 
  
• Samantha '66 | Dan Wainio 2014 -   

A young man is looking at super 8 film of a man and woman which he tells us at one point, was his dad, several years before he met the woman he'd marry. Not great, but playful and interesting.

Tom in America | Flavio Alves 2014  -  Another serious production that's going on to be a longer film, looks at a couple who've just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and the wife finally figures out her husband is gay.  The Brazilian director, Flavio Alves, answered questions at the end of the program. (See video below)

• The Ladder | Pete Fitz 2013  - 
• Compared to the previous ones - especially Tom and One Armed Man - this was a little lighter, but it
• was still a nice, solid, little film
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• Life and Perception | Andre Stamatakakos 2013  - I'm still thinking about this one about a scientist who is being dismissed by his colleagues because he's trying to communicate with plants.  As he's about to give up, the experiment works.  Then the film goes into an animated scene and the Indian sounding music takes off in a different direction.  It worked for me. 
• 
  
• Zugwang | Yolanda Centeno 2014  - If there was a weak film in the group, this would be it.  Even so, it was wasn't bad.  A nerd sees life as a game of chess.  
• 
  
• Enfilade | David Coyle 2014  WOW! Things work mysteriously in this white room with red trim.  A very nicely thought out and executed film.  
• 
  
• Break in Reality | D.K. Johnston 2014  -  We've seen films by people from this Alaskan team of film makers for some time now and this was the most professional of all.  

All in all, this program should have played more.  I was told they wanted to have more times for the Alaskan films.  I don't mind that, but this program was better, in my humble opinion, than some of the features that are getting two shots.

I'll be putting up some video of the Q&A, but it's late now and the video is uploading slowly.
[UPDATED 7am:  here's the video:]

xxx

AIFF 2014: The Good And The Bad Of 6 Bullets To Hell

[I didn't start out to do a post on 6 Bullets To Hell.  It just happened.  I don't have the video edited that should go with this - the Q&A after the film - and I'll add it later.  This post just wrote itself.]




The face you see on the screen is not always a face you'll recognize off the screen.  I tried to take a couple of pictures of the opening of 6 Bullets To Hell to be able to give you a sense of the kitchy spaghetti western look in the titles and images.  I was too late, but this image from the screen turned out useful because I had - unknowingly - just taken Crispian Belfrage's picture with Ken Luckey. I'm still not sure who this is.  I thought it was the hero Bill Rogers.  But as I look at the actors, I'd say it looks more like Ken Luckey than Crispian Belfrage, who played Rogers.  Luckey played Joseph 'Two Gun Joe' Ross, a scuzzy guy with yellow teeth.

6 Bullets To Hell is one of those films I'm not sure what to do with.  Is it cool because it's an homage Sergio Leone?  Or is the homage idea just a way to get away with a tacky movie?  Was it an excuse for these guys to go to a grown up summer camp in Spain and make a movie?  It mostly followed the spaghetti plot line (from Wikipedia):

Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars established the Spaghetti Western as a novel kind of Western. In this seminal film the hero enters a town that is ruled by two outlaw gangs and ordinary social relations are non-existent. He betrays and plays the gangs against one another in order to make money. Then he uses his cunning and exceptional weapons skill to assist a family threatened by both gangs. His treachery is exposed and he is severely beaten, but in the end he defeats the remaining gang. The interaction in this story between cunning and irony (the tricks, deceits, unexpected actions and sarcasms of the hero) on the one hand, and pathos (terror and brutality against defenseless people and against the hero after his double play has been revealed) on the other, was aspired to and sometimes attained by the imitations that soon flooded the cinemas.

In this case the hero has given up being a gunfighter for farming. (Thus the first question in the Q&A which I'll get up eventually.)  It's the outlaw gang that comes into town.  I don't recall any deceit by the hero.  He went up to each target and told them he had come to kill him.  We certainly had scenes of terror and brutality - particularly the gang rape and murder of the hero's pregnant wife.  One can argue that this film portrays the rapists as disgusting thugs who all get killed in the end and so it tells a moral tale.  But the good guys are all good and the bad guys are mostly all bad.  One did halfheartedly protest the rape and murder, but he was quickly killed.  He should have pulled out his gun and shot a couple of the gang since he ended up dead anyway.  But then there would have been no need for the hero.  Some of you may be detecting my attempt to be fair with a movie that has such gratuitous violence (we really don't see any actual sex).  I'm thinking I should have asked them about how they felt about adding one more violent gang rape and murder to the endless such images that are already on the screen.  Was it better than The Lookalike because it was an homage?  Or because there were clear distinctions between the good guys and bad guys?  Or because it was outdoors mostly?  Or was The Lookalike better because the characters were more nuanced?  In both most of the women were basically sex objects for men and some got shot.

Better to compare it with the opening night film WildLike which looks at sexual abuse from the abused perspective, where we see the social and emotional impacts on the young girl.  Or I Believe In Unicorns which also has a younger girl seduced by an older (but not that much) guy.  In these films there was little violence.  WildLike portrayed the lead up to sex, but then cutaway.  Unicorns was more overtly sexual, but the kids had some clothes on, and the nature of their sexual relationship was important to understanding the story.

They clearly were having fun being in Alaska, and the audience made me proud with their unexpected questions and (expected) hospitality.  Here the crew are getting some pictures together in front of the film festival sign.

Russel Cunningham, Luckey, Tanner Beard, Belfrage, and friend (r-l)

I probably would have skipped 6 Bullets to Hell since I knew it was not my type of movie.  But it played at 10pm, there was no other films on at that time, and I was already at the Bear Tooth.  The Q&A was more entertaining than the film and I'll add that here when I get the video ready.

Any movie can give one something to chew on.  I'm not sorry I saw this one.  I enjoyed talking to the actors who were there.  They were genuinely decent guys.  I just keep thinking though, that we have relatively little time on earth and we should be thinking how what we do makes the world a better place to be, helps make humans more hopeful and decent to each other.  Maybe they'll take the experience they got from this film to make future films that add a little more understanding and insight into the world.

AIFF 2014: Anchorage Audience Liked The Ambassador To Bern

This film plays again tonight (Wednesday) at 5:30 downtown at the Alaska Experience theater.  Last night's audience at the Bear Tooth appeared to really like it  Here is a sampling of the audience as they walked out.  (And the two dark ones at the end were in the unlit theater still.)





This is everyone I talked to.  (I didn't cut out ones I didn't like.)

There was a short written explanation of the context at the beginning of the film, but it went too fast for most people to read.  AVO was the secret police in Hungary.

Actually there were two stories going on.  The breaking into the Hungary embassy is what we see on the screen, but the background (which relates to what's going on) was the Hungary freedom fighters in 1956 and the subsequent Soviet invasion to put them down.  Among the embassy staff there are people who were on different sides of the political upheaval  in Hungary.

You can see my Skype interview with the director, Attila Szász, here.

AIFF 2014: What's On Today (Wednesday)

  Here's the Wednesday schedule.

ACS Internet was down till just now.  Just a quickie here and I'll try to get a Wed post up shortly.

Ambassador to Bern was very good last night.  Two Hungarian immigrants to Switzerland in 1956 break into the Hungarian embassy in Switzerland after the Russians invade Hungary.  I asked a bunch of people, as they came out of the theater what they thought.  Intense was a word a number used.  It's one of the best films I've seen at the festival so far.   I've got a Skype interview I did with the director, Attila Szász up here.

[UPDATE:   I just posted video of audience reactions to The Ambassador to Bern.]

I saw the documentary  Mala Mala  Monday night.  It's a strong documentary that takes you into a world I knew nothing about - transexuals in Puerto Rico.  While the filmmakers take is sympathetic, it's not all a pretty picture.  When you seriously look into the world of transexuals, you have to question our culture's traditional black and white notions about gender.  What your genitals look like simply may not be consistent with what you head knows.  Is that a disorder?  To the extent that people's mental and physical identities are inconsistent and that causes them pain, sure.  But if society were not so freaked out about the idea, they would have a lot less pain.  Worth seeing - and it had the best final credits of any film I've seen so far - neon lights, music, and a dancer.

Both these are 'in competition' for awards in their category, and if I hadn't seen them both, I think I'd be headed for the Alaska Experience small theater to see them at 5:30 and 7:30.


The Mexican Consulate program at the Bear Tooth should be good too - they always bring up first rate films and there's a reception after The Zebra.   I suspect that's where I'll end up.

But the museum hosts two docs that have tempting subjects.  Thule Tuvalu is a documentary that apparently links glacial melting in Greenland to the flooding of the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu.  Cold Love looks at arctic exploration.

Winter Project is a feature centering on snow machining in Alaska.

AIFF 2014: Powerful Alaska Film On Juneau Japanese-Americans And WW II

Imagine the high school newspaper editor's father being arrested by his best friend's father and sent out of state for the crime of being of Japanese.

The Empty Chair in the title of the film refers to a chair on the stage of the 1942 graduating class at Juneau High School.  The valedictorian, John Tanaka, wasn't there.  He'd been relocated with his family to an internment camp after Pearl Harbor was attacked.  John's best friend's dad was the highest ranking military officer in Juneau at the time and was ordered to arrest John's father, and later to round up all the Japanese-American residents and ship them south to an internment camp.

I got to see The Empty Chair Sunday morning - at its world premiere on the  73rd  anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Heres a bit of video I took during the Q&A after the Sunday showing.



This film is a testament to how a dedicated film maker can preserve a small but significant part of history with his camera.  Greg Chaney interviewed Juneau residents who experienced those events.  Japanese-Americans who were kids back then and were sent to camps during the war.  Their white classmates, and a few others alive at the time like Katie Hurley.

Chaney chronicles a small Alaskan town - the film estimates Juneau had about 5000 residents then - where the Japanese residents were well integrated into the community and how some key members of the white community struggled when they were required to deport these citizens to the camps.

The film also takes advantage of vintage film and photos from any number of archives and from some family film that includes footage of playing in the snow on Dec. 7, 1941.

This is a huge contribution to Alaska's history and because it focuses on high school (and younger) kids, it would be a terrific addition to Alaskan history curriculum in high schools throughout the state.

It plays again tonight (Tuesday) at the Alaska Experience Theater at 7pm.

The programming is tight this year, but if you're seeing The Ambassador to Bern at 5:30 at the Bear Tooth, which I also recommend, there will be time enough to get downtown to see The Empty Chair.    It's ok if you're a few minutes late, though you might want to reserve a ticket in advance if you can.

The movie is quite well done, even on the minuscule budget they had.

AIFF 2014 - Attila Szász Talks About His Film The Ambassador To Bern

The Ambassador To Bern looks to be a very good film.  Unfortunately, film maker Attila Szász can't make it to Anchorage for the festival - he's just starting filming of his next film.  But I got a chance to interview him via Skype recently.  I'm going to combine text and video here, because I think it will work best, particularly since there was some trouble with the Skype images for some of the video.  I'll give you enough video to get a sense of Mr. Szász.

The Ambassador to Bern plays

Today (Tuesday) at 5:30pm at the Bear Tooth and 

Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5:30pm at the AK Experience small theater

There's nothing in this long interview with the director that should be a spoiler for anyone.

As I've worked with the video in preparing this post, I realize there are a couple of key themes of interest that are discussed:

• The poetic license of fictionalizing a historic event.  Szász speaks of how the facts aren't all known about what happened, so they decided to write their own story about it.  And even though the ambassador in question was still alive - in his 90s - they decided not to talk to him before making the film. 
• Using past events to get people to discuss current events.  Szász relates that while they wanted people to think about how people in government today have the same kind of complex relationships as people did in the past, he wasn't trying to make a point either for or against the current Hungarian government.  But people on different political sides saw statements for or against the current government. 
• The story I hear from all film makers - the perseverance required to make a film.  

We spoke first, well after comparing the weather in Anchorage and Budapest, about how he got onto this topic.  He had a friend who'd stumbled onto the story of two Hungarian immigrants in Switzerland who stormed the Hungarian embassy in Bern, not long after the Russians crushed the Hungarian revolution in 1956.

1.  How he found the story

"Our screen writer Norbert Köbli who wrote two movies before regarding this subject matter, spent time in the library searching for those other two movie and he kept bumping into interesting stories from this time - 1956 and the surrounding year - and he bumped into this story he’d never heard of, actually no one had ever heard of it in Hungary, this attack against this embassy in Bern and he liked the idea of something that happened outside of Hungary regarding the revolution, it was the aftermath of the revolution."

2.  Fictionalizing an historical event   (this is the text of the video clip above)

"He realized what they had in the library was just the confessions of those people in the embassy and he realized they were synchronized confessions, synchronized reports, probably just one side of the truth.  Then he decided, ok, he takes creative freedom  and writes a version that’s a possibility that might have happened inside because nobody knows what really happened inside.  That’s why he created this hostage situation that never really happened in the embassy.   Because what happened according to the reports, the two guys broke in and started shooting and they were surprised the people in the embassy started shooting back.  They found at least 70 something bullet holes in the walls. So it was like a scene from a Western movie and we realized it would be too much to consume for the audience, the whole shooting, so we decided to go with a more intellectual happening inside."

Since I haven't seen the movie - only the trailer - I asked about what the two were looking for in the safe in the embassy.

3.  What were they looking for in the safe?

"No body knows what they were after but there were two versions, one is to get the attention of the Western media, because the former prime minister was just executed two months before this happened, and these guys who were immigrants in Switzerland,  realized nobody pays attention to what is going on in Hungary any more so they decided to make a blast, come up with something violent and loud, that’s why they used their guns.  They got what they wanted because the western media covered the event for many months afterward and again they started paying attention to what was happening in Hungary.     

And the other version was they were after the agent list which they kept in the safe in the embassy, because they heard that a lot of agents filtering in among the immigrants, pretending they are immigrants and finding out what all the immigrants are about and there were even attacks happening against the immigrants in Switzerland, so that’s why the guys decided to find out who were the agents among the immigrants so that’s the other version, but we thought that the agent list, even if it might be true it’s a little bit used for these kinds of movies, so we started the code book"

Q:  First shown on Hungarian tv?

Yes it was on Hungarian tv and came out on dvd and had a limited theatrical run and now on the festival circuit

Q:   Did people come out and tell you more about that time?

People wanted to find out what was true and not true.  After the gala premiere in Budapest, in the movie theater.  One of the relatives of one of the guys who died in the embassy came up to us.  

4.  Relatives of the two men contacted us after seeing the film  (Part 4 is in the clip above)

"Two guys were shot during the incident and we kept (???).  His relative showed up and  said it was very shocking to see the movie and told us her version of what happened.  A few months later, relatives of the other guy showed up.  They still lived in Bern, they said they liked the movie, they like the performance, but didn’t come up with their own version.  

The Ambassador was still alive, fictionalizing names of characters 

Actually the guy who was the ambassador in the film was still alive when we shot the film, but we decided not to contact him because he was over 90 years old and because we have a very strong statement in the movie that never happened in reality.We decided to change his names, to change all the characters’ names in the film, because it was not about them any more.  It was a story inspired by a real incident.  I think one or two months after the premiere he died." 

He had a very brilliant career.  He  became ambassador in Moscow and Prague and I don't know where else and he retired as a deputy prime minister I think.  He went far after this incident.  Basically we didn’t want to use him as a model.  We created brand new characters and we just wanted to show that there was a lot of conflict inside the embassy between the workers, between the secret police, between the ambassador,  between the secretaries, so it's all about people agreeing or not agreeing about how the system works and fighting for how things work.  The same thing that is happening today.  We wanted to reflect that as well, And of course we wanted to create a very tense and suspenseful thriller with all the twists. We realized whenever it was shown in a film festival outside Hungary, would have difficulty to understand the political and historical context because we used a lot of names that they don’t know who they are, but they enjoyed it anyway - 

Q:  but they’re all fake anyway -  

The Real Historical Figures in the Film

No the real names, because we're using the name of János Kádár  new prime minister at the time  of the incident who executed the former minister [Imre Nagy], so these were real historical figures, but outside of Hungary very few people know who they are, [but they kept hearing their names again and again. . .]

5.  Parallels to today 

Q:  You say the same thing is happening  today in Hungary.  What parallels are there?

It was fun to see that both parties said, this is a great movie for our party.  One party said because it is anti-communist it is a good election movie.  We told him that was not our motive, or goal at all.  We didn’t want to criticize or agree with the current government, just to show nothing has changed in the last fifty years.  Another crew member asked how could you get financing for this because you can see all the lines all the turns all the suggestions in the story and in dialogue are so much about what’s going on today.  So we enjoyed the situation that everyone kept hearing what they wanted to hear and read what they wanted to read between the lines, so it’s something that makes people think and makes people think about the recent situation, so that was fun.

How the film evolved over a decade

Q:  I understand that was your first feature film?  Yes.  

Q:  How does it feel having it done?

 I was working on getting my project off the ground for about a decade.  I directed a short film that has done pretty well all over the world. And so I thought ok the next step would be easier for now I have a   [hole in can?]   , but the one or two projects I was working on was too big to get financing in Hungary especially because we imagined  . . .

6.   A Script Appears

I wanted to shoot film based on my script, but it took a very long time that I got very frustrated.  My old friend Norbert Köbli, who wrote the screenplay, suddenly out of the blue called me and said I wrote this script and I know you aren’t interested in other people’s scripts but just read it and if you like you have a chance to direct it.  At that time I said I was interested in anything, Norbert just send it over.  He sent me the script and I read it and said, it’s going to be a tv film because it’s not financed by the film fund, but by another authorization who are usually financing tv movies and short films.  Yes, it’s a very little money, very low budget, but maybe you can take it one step further than a tv movie if you can get hold of the material.  Fine, I’ll give it a try, even if it is a tv movie, it is a narrative I can direct, because I usually direct commercials for a living and you know I wanted to, finally I wanted to film  . . . 

7.   Shooting the film and distribution

It was a very,very fast, crazy fast shooting and we enjoyed every moment of it, and the editing was brilliant. But we had a deadline.  We needed to deliver the film. 

Q:  Where did you shoot it?  

We shot it in Budapest.  So it was a great couple of months.  We had a limited run in movie theaters we gave it a chance, but the Hungarian tv had a premiere date, no distributors wanted to touch it because they didn’t have time to promote the film before it came out.  So we just went from movie theater to movie theater and they enjoyed it very much and they wanted to show it  so they organized special screenings all over the city and then we had the tv premiere and then afterward it came out on DVD because of the demand. 

Because the critics reacted enthusiastically and the audience loved it and so they all wanted to see it again.  So it is out in DVD and from time to time it is being shown in a movie theater in a couple of the cities in Hungary and we just had a rerun on tv so, we are getting good feedback and now we are in the beginning of our festival run.  We had the international premiere in Montreal with [?????] and we won an award in the first fiction film category, Bronze Zenith for the First Fiction Feature Film.  It was a blast.  It was a nice start with the festival.  And probably because of Montreal and the award, a lot of festivals have taken notice  and we’re happy to see it is doing well around the world and we are happy to see it is going to Alaska - We’re pleased -  Actually the short film I was talking about was also screened at this festival in Anchorage, it was called Now You See Me, Now You Don’t  In 2006 it was screened in Anchorage.  

Q: I started going to the festival regularly in 2007, so I don't recall it.  Is anyone from the film coming to Anchorage? -  

 I would love to go, but we are shooting our next movie.  Same crew and same producer, same production company, same writer, financed by the same authority.  And the same amount of money.

8.  The new project - assassination of a famous courtesan, financing the film

Q: What's the new film about?

The ssassinatrion of a famous courtesan….Years ago that shook up the entire city of Budapest, everybody was talking about it because the courtesan was very famous, everyone knew about her and they were shocked because someone famous was getting murdered.

Q:  Was that before or after the Arch Duke got shot?

It’s before.  It takes place in January, so it’s maybe a couple of months before the assassination [of the Arch Duke].  It’s a style piece.  It’s the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy.  So it’s very difficult to recreate the era, because we have to start from scratch, the costumes the props, set, everything.  And we have so little money again, but I just couldn’t refuse this chance because the script is again is something I love very much.  I was warned, do you remember the first time you had to shoot in 17 days with so little money, you suffered and you were frustrated, and you want to do it again?  I said, yes, because it’s a good script and we have now, nineteen days so it’s two more days, - piece of cake - probably it's a bit longer,  the story. so it’s very difficult to shoot again, but hopefully next time we’ll have the backing of the film fund and we’ll have maybe three or four times the time and money, because it’s normal that Hungarian films are being shot in 35, 40, maybe 45 days and we had less than 20 both times.

 Q:  So they got good value for their money?

Yes, and I’m afraid they are getting used to it that I am maybe being categorized as a guy who can make something good with very little money, so let’s not give him any more.

 Q:  That’s good and that’s bad

Yes, so we are very excited, we start shooting in two weeks, and we see how that turns out.   But otherwise we have now a lot of projects we want to take to the film fund

9.  Why the Hungarian poster just had the ambassador's face and the English poster had guns

Based on our success with the Ambassador to Bern, they are open to support us, and we’ll see how this second movie turns out.

 Q:  One more question - about the differences between the two posters

The first one was a teaser poster.  In Hungary the guy who plays the Ambassador is a very famous actor.  So his face alone is a very strong image for most of the audience.  But the producer wanted to something to put more actors, more action to show it has some real action, excitement, suspense in the film, so that’s how we came up with the second poster.  And we decided to use the second one internationally, because no one knows the actor who plays the ambassador outside of Hungary, so we wanted to give a feel of what is happening in the film.  I remember the first version of the poster even had explosions in it because the graphic artist got carried away so let’s not go the Indian way or the Thai or Korean way 

 Q:  The US way

So we don’t have any of that in the film so we took it off.  

 Q:  Is there anything I didn’t ask?

I don’t want to spoil anything for you, so I’d rather not talk about the story  , , I think  the first film it was a great experience but every film maker says that,  especially working with the actors, that was the biggest jump for me, to work with such good actors.  And we were very happy and pleased to see all the love we received.  We didn’t know if it would go anywhere.  We wanted to make a film that might be broadcast on tv once or twice and that was it and we’re happy to see the length it goes.  These are very good months for us.

Q:  Looking forward to seeing it. 

I asked again if anyone from the film might be able to come to Anchorage and he said unfortunately not.  Everyone is busy.  He's starting his new film and the actors are all involved in live theater in Budapest.  He said that right then Ambassador to Bern was at the Cairo Film Festival and they'd been offered airline tickets and free hotel rooms, but no one could even take advantage of that, even though none of them had ever been to Cairo, and it's a lot closer to Budapest than Anchorage.