AIFF2016: Another Good Day of Films

We watched animated films at the museum after going to the AK Experience first, by mistake.  We missed the first one or two.  The best of what I saw was  My Life I Don't Want - which in very basic and simple terms tells the universal story of women.  

Serena Dykman, Nana director

We stayed at the museum to see Nana, a granddaughters film about her grandmother's life after Auschwitz.  Her grandmother made it her mission to be an eyewitness who would let as many people as possible know that what life in Auschwitz was like.  I was impressed by her dedication to helping people connect to what happened so that they could prevent it from happening again.  When asked how she survived, she answered that it was luck  She wasn't smarter or more capable than others, she just got the breaks that others didn't.  She also said that no, others can not understand what happened no matter how long she talks.  And it struck me that experiential learning programs are needed to get a sense of this.  There was an elementary school experiment called Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes.  Teacher Jane Elliott divided the class up by eye color and then said that the blue eyed kids were less important, less capable, less smart than the brown-eyed kids.  The next day she switched it around.  The affects, in just two days were staggering and a follow up about 20 years later showed that the impacts were lasting.  You can see this powerful experiment at this link to the Frontline show.

I mention this here, because I think without doing that kind of exercise, people don't get it.  And, unfortunately, it is almost impossible to do that kind of exercise today in schools.  While I understand the concerns for not traumatizing students, I also know that true learning often involves a certain amount of mental distress.

Lalihta Rajan

Because we were at the museum watching Nana, we missed the Global Village program of shorts that had Lalihta Rajan's G;aswAsians in it.  But here's a picture I took of her at the AK Exp Theater Saturday.

Haper's Farce before Prince Achmed showing

At the Bear Tooth, the band Harper's Farce was playing before The Adventures of Prince Achmed started.  I'll put up more on that amazing film with great live music.


The 8:15pm Bear Tooth movie was one of the Features in Competition - the first girl I loved.  I'll do more on this later, but it was an excellently made film.  Two of the producers were there and answered questions after the film.  I'll try to get some of that up.

Michael Faulkner, Director of Shu-De

And I'll just add this picture of director Michael Faulkner, whose Shu-De played Sunday night.  It was really a concert tour sort of movie, but it took place in the republic of Tuva and the concerts featured throat sincere.


The first weekend is over.  That's usually the most hectic part because a) I haven't quite figured out the program and how to see as many of the films I'm interested in as possible.  It's also films from 11 or 12 am until 10:30pm.  But Monday is just a couple of films in the evening at the Bear Tooth.

The festival is off to a great start.  The live music interludes at the Bear Tooth have been great - particularly Blackwater Railroad Company because their music was in the film that came right after.  Everything just seems to be a little smoother.  There are lots of big cameras around - meaning more media are taking a serious interest in the festival.  And audience awards are back.  Since I've often been critical (constructively I hope), it's important to also pat people on the back when they're doing it right.  Good job to the festival board and staff and volunteers!

AIFF 2015: Saturday Best Of The Fest Schedule - It's All Good

Here's the schedule for tonight.  Everything is at the Alaska Experience Theater.

Hard choices.  In this case I've seen them all, and they're all worth watching.

From This Day Forward won the Audience Choice Award.   The filmmaker chronicles her father's transexual journey, beginning when the kids were little.  Making the film gave her the opportunity to ask questions she'd never asked and for the whole family to talk through things and come closer together.  A good film that helps us understand one family's experience of having a transgender family member.  This is a documentary. 7pm Alaska Experience Large

When The Ocean Met The Sky.   The father's will requires the three sons to go on a trek that replicates one their parents did long ago.  The sons don't get along well, but the will requires them all to participate or the inheritance goes to charity.  All three sons are likable and flawed and the film makers pull it off well, in large part due to the fine actors.   A solid film that I enjoyed. A feature.  7pm Alaska Experience Small

Brainwashing of My Father.  Another strong documentary.  This film actually isn't finished and the filmmaker asks for feedback.  This time the filmmaker's father changes radically, beginning when he had a long commute to work and started listening to conservative talk radio in the car.  The filmmaker also has cameos from many other people who lost their fathers to the far right cult of Limbaugh and Fox.  She also goes through the history of how conservative talk radio came to be and documents how wealthy conservatives plotted out the strategy to cultivate support.  I only saw the first hour - I was headed to another overlapping film - but it was well worth it.  If you've lost your dad to Fox News, this is the movie for you.  8:30 pm Alaska Experience  Large

Best of the Fest Shorts and Short Docs  - This is a terrific program.  Really well done films.  Definitely worth seeing.  It also includes my favorite film from this year's festival -Superjednostka.  This 20 minute Polish film worked for me because it was the perfect use of the medium of film.  The camera told the whole story of this huge Soviet era housing block - the building itself and some of the people who live inside it.  But most people will probably find other films more to their liking, like The Bravest/The Boldest  or  The One Minute Time Machine.  Or This House Is Innocent.  This is the reason for film festivals.  This would be my recommendation.  But all the others are good too.

AIFF 2015: Best of The Fest Friday Night Offerings

After the main part of the festival is over, the best films in key categories are shown again to give folks a chance to see them.  Here's the schedule for tonight (Friday, Dec. 18).  All the showings are at the AK Experience Theater - large or small.

This screenshot has no working links.  Original, here, gives details.

If you're interested in documentaries, you have to choose between one or the other.

Circus Without Borders is an uplifting story about acrobats in the Canadian Arctic who connect with acrobats in Guinea.  An enjoyable film about cooperation of people from distant lands who have a common bond.  It was the runner up in the documentary category.



It plays with the best short doc - which because of how things were scheduled I didn't get to see - that deals with the Canadian tar sands from a Native perspective.  It should be good.
7pm at AK Exp Large

Madina's Dream,  which was awarded best documentary, is  harder movie to watch, but with much more important information.  On the broadest level, it's about the consequences of the arms trade.  On a specific level, it shows us two views of the Nuba people of the south of Sudan.  One view is from the women and children in a refugee camp in the new country of South Sudan.  The other view is from their men who are still in Sudan fighting the Sudanese army who are taking over their traditional land.   7pm AK Exp Small








Orphans and Kingdoms  - Best feature winner.  Another I didn't get to see.  8:30 pm AK Experience Large.   Here's the trailer.







Also showing at 8:30pm  AK Experience small is top winner of the Alaska Made films - Heart of Alaska - a cross country trek with kids in Southcentral Alaska.


Enjoy.

AIFF 2015: Special Directors' Award and Audience Award Winners UDATED with Pictures

Tan and Toyami at AIFF 2015 Gala Awards

Special Directors award to Shoji Toyami  and Shuichi Tan  of Magic Utopia.  

King Tan, and Toyami

Also involved with the film was King.

This was very much an artistic film with lots of abstract imagery.  A beautiful film that you won't see coming out of Hollywood.












Audience Award

This is one of the most coveted awards because it's the one the audience liked most.

Sharon Shattuck (l) listening to audience member

Winner   -   From This Day Forward

Below is a shot I got of director Sharon Shattuck at the Bear Tooth Tuesday night listening to one of the audience members after the showing of From This Day Forward.


This was a film about a family whose dad comes out as transgender when the kids were fairly young, made by one of the daughters, much later. It was a powerful film.

AIFF 2015: Documentary Winners UPDATE: Features

[I originally understood that all the docs were grouped together for one award, but at the ceremony, it turned out they had awards for short docs and for full length docs. I tried to note that quickly as the awards were being announced.]

Docs

Bihttoš          Winner  Short Docs

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers

Children of the Arctic  Honorable Mention  Docs

Nick Brandestini

Circus Without Borders   Runner Up  Docs

Susan Gray, Linda Matchan

Lost & Found

Nicolina Lanni, John Choi

Love Between the Covers

Laurie Kahn

Madina’s Dream   Winner Docs

Andrew Berends

Man in the Can

Noessa Higa

Superjednostka    Runner Up Short Docs

Teresa Czepiec

Nicholas Coles and Rich Curtner after Awards

The House is Innocent  Honorable Mention  Short Docs

Nicholas Coles

 The House Is Innocent is about a house in Sacramento whose owner murdered and buried several older folks whose social security she kept collecting. [I should have added that a couple bought the house and fixed it up, but left some signs indicating the history of the house.]  Rich Curtner, AIFF Board President, talked to film director Coles about an Anchorage house of a murderer that is now owned by someone involved with the film festival.

FEATURES

And The Circus Leaves Town   Runner Up

Mete Sozer

Creditors

Ben Cura

Jasmine     Honorable Mention

Dax Phelan

Magic Utopia    

Shoji Toyama, Shuichi Tan

Orphans & Kingdoms   Winner

Paolo Rotondo

The Descendants

Yaser Talebi

      

AIFF 2015: Made In Alaska Winners

Honorable Mention - We Are All Related Here

Runner Up -  Degrees North

Winner -  Heart of Alaska

AIFF 2015: Awards Ceremony Beginning

7pm

The festival director Rebecca is thanking everyone whose been involved.


I think I'll just update this post as the evening goes on.  So you can just reload the page for updates.

AIFF 2015: It's Sunday, the Festival Ends With Films And Gala

So, here's the last day's program.  [Well, technically, there will be Best of The Fest next Friday and Saturday nights.]

This is a screenshot - for the original with links click here

If you haven't seen any of the shorts programs, I'd recommend them first.

Lost and Found is a documentary about beach combers in Alaska and British Columbia who find Japanese tsunami debris and try to fin the original owners.  While I had one problem with this film, it's still worth watching.

There are two Alaska made films Heart of Alaska and Sea Horse.

Midori in Hawaii - This is a strong film about a Japanese woman who visits her younger sister in Hawaii.  I wasn't all that impressed when I watched it, but scenes from the movie have been replaying in my head.  That's always a sign the movie was better than I first thought.

The Awards Ceremony is in a different place this year - The Williwaw - which is at 6th and F (602 F Street).  I'll try to live blog from there if they have wifi.

AIFF 2015: Powerful Bengali Film Under Construction

Lots of themes interwoven into this film about a an actress performing aTagori play, Red Oleanders, married to a rich husband who is ready for her to quit acting and have babies.  Her servant who becomes pregnant and leaves to work in a clothing factory.  Concerns that the character she plays, Nandini, is not a realistic woman because she only cares for others and has no self.    She gets a chance to direct a modern version with a modern interpretation, but this conflicts with the wishes of her husband who doesn't take her work seriously and her mother who is becoming more religious.

So much there, all with Dhaka as the backdrop - her fancy apartment and then the hustle and bustle of street life.  Well done and unexpected film

Animation starts soon.

AIFF 2015: Stink! Report

Drove gingerly downtown in the new snow.  Didn't want to end up like this guy who was parked about as close as you could get to the AK Exp Theater, where I'm headed soon.  At least he missed the fire hydrant.



But I kept walking down to the Snow Goose for Stink!

Stink! is one of those films I think everyone should see.  This young man's wife has recently died of cancer and he buys some pajamas for his little girls for Christmas.  But when they open the package there's a strong chemical smell.  So he calls the company they come from - Justice - to find out what chemicals are in them.

This leads to a long trail - including finally sending them to a chemical testing lab - to find out why companies won't reveal their chemicals.  There are interviews with various proponents of labeling chemicals in products and banning known carcinogens, interviews with lobbyists and a pro-chemical lobby congress member.  Footage of congressional hearings.

Every film makes me think about the criteria of a good documentary.  I've address this at length during other festivals.  In this case the strength is taking a complex subject, getting the basic issues, and clarifying them in a compelling way.  Adding in his family issues in this regard makes it a little more personal.

The basic points I got were:

Chemical industry has hijacked legislation by
Lack of transparency protecting them from disclosing chemicals in their products - particularly behind the term 'fragrance'
not banning know carcinogens
not requiring that chemicals be proven safe before using them in products
Europe and even China in some instances have higher standards than the US
While chemical industry says the amounts in their products are minor, this doesn't account for the accumulated impacts of all the exposure people get from all over
New borns have been found to have close to 200 non-human-natural chemicals

There's lots more alarming information.  I highly recommend this.  Don't by the perfume the filmmaker concocted to prove how easy it was to get approval.  He called it "Ignorance is Bliss" but since he put urine in it, it could have been called "Ignorance is Piss."

Pam Miller talking with audience after Stink!

Pam Miller of Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ATAC) was there to talk with audience members about the film and the Alaska Toxic-Free Children's Act (HB 199/SB111) which

"would ban ten toxic chemicals used as flame retardants in children's products and upholstered furniture in Alaska."

AIFF 2015: Saturday Overview From 5 pm - Animation, Magic Utopia, Love Between The Covers

Already posted Part 1 for Saturday,  

Here's Part 2, and a reminder - no Festival movies at the Bear Tooth today, but there are films at the Snow Goose, so don't go to the wrong venue.  An * means the film is in competition. Here's the grid, with details below.  Grid is screenshot, so no links.  Go to the original here to get links for everything.   For Saturday Part 1 - the morning and early afternoon, go here.

Since this is the second half of the day's grid, the locations got cut off.

Left is AK Experience Large,    Middle is AK Experience small,    Right is SNOW GOOSE

Screenshot has no links, for links go here.

Animation Program* - All the animated films are in this program.  I haven't seen it yet, but these usually have some of the most interesting films.  And they're short, so if you don't like what you're watching, a better one will be soon.  All the 'in competition' animated films are in this program.  For more on each film, click here. 5pm AK EX Large

No Greater Love - A military chaplain's movie about his work with the soldiers in war and going home.  5:30 pm AK EX small.








Where Do We Go From Here?  - A 25 year old moves into an nursing home.  6pm Snow Goose.







Magic Utopia* - I saw this Thursday night and have some video of the co-directors during the Q&A that I haven't had time to put up yet.  This is a beautiful film, but definitely NOT a Hollywood film.  A lot of loving attention is paid to details.  Art is part of the fabric of this film.  And strange things happen - levitation, a phone call from a dead person.  But I'd note, they played the trailer for Die Hard before this film, and there's nothing more unreal in this film than there is in Die Hard.   If you're looking for a strong plot line and plenty of action, skip this film.  If you want to see the kind of artistic film you can't normally see, then this is for you.  7pm AK EX Large




Love Between The Covers* - I haven't seen this documentary yet.  It didn't get the audience I expected when it first played.  It's an exploration of romance novels and novelists, why they aren't taken seriously, and why they are such an important part of the fiction market.  I'm told this is a serious film to be watched.  And I'm looking forward to seeing it.  8pm AK EX Small


They Look Like People  -  Here's the blurb:

"Suspecting that those around him are actually malevolent shape-shifters, a troubled man questions whether to protect his only friend from an impending war, or from himself."   8pm Snow Goose

Living With The Dead - I still have some of my mom's ashes.  Does that mean I can relate to this film?  The blurb:

"Max McLean is eighteen years old and can't get out of bed. Since her boyfriend Adam killed himself over a year ago, Max has been using sex, drugs, and parties to ignore the pain until one day she wakes up in a hospital, haven taken a nearly lethal dose of sleeping pills. While being haunted by visions of Adam, Max runs away from home and ventures into the forest with a bizarre but endearing boy named Ish."

As you can see, I can't post the trailer here, but just go to the link below.   9pm AK EX Large



Living with the Dead - Trailer from Tobias Beidermühle on Vimeo.

AIFF 2015: Saturday Preview Part 1 Daytime - Animation, Stink! And Much More

Interesting options today.  New venue - Snow Goose - so be careful you don't go to Bear Tooth by mistake.  No Festival films there today.  *means 'in competition."

So, let's do this by morning and by evening.  Morning first.

This screenshot doesn't link, go here for the links

Made in Alaska Shorts at 11am AK EX Large - See what your fellow Alaskans are producing.  For details and trailers of each film, click here.

Stink! - Is by a  dad trying to figure out the chemicals in his kid's pajamas.  You'll be one of the first  to see this.  11:45am at the SNOW GOOSE


STINK! opens in New York on Black Friday November 27th & Los Angeles on December 4. from NetReturn Entertainment on Vimeo.

A Courtship - documentary about an evangelical Christian who wants an arranged marriage.  1pm AK EX Large

Shorts - Real Life  - If you haven't seen a shorts program, go see these, there are some gems in here. And if you don't like one, then the next one comes up quickly.  But the shorts I've seen have all be worth watching.  2pm Snow Goose   (some are in competition)

Under Construction -    This is the movie to see if you want more information on the people Trump wants to ban from the US.   3pm AK EX Large

"Muslim woman Roya struggling to find herself in the sprawl of urban Bangladesh. Roya performs her last show playing ‘Nandini’—the epitome of Bengali womanhood, the central character of Rabindranath Tagore’s play ‘Red Oleanders.’ She delves into a psychological journey and battles to reconstruct ‘Nandini.’ Roya finds herself under-construction—traveling alone to exert her own desires, wishes and ambitions."

From This Day Forward - Another interesting documentary of political relevance as conservatives try to repeal Anchorage's new civil rights protections for the LGBT community.  This film is made by the daughter of a man who told his family when the kids were young, that he was really a woman.  It was difficult for the family, and the now adult daughter goes back home as a filmmaker to document their story.  Well done.  The filmmaker was here for the Tuesday night showing.   3pm AK EX Large




Very, Semi-Serious - A doc on  cartoons in the New Yorker.   4pm Snow Goose


OK, this gets you to about 4:30.  I'll post the rest of the late afternoon and evening soon.

AIFF 2015: I Found My Perfect Movie - Superjednostka

The Polish documentary short by Teresa Czepiec was the best film I've seen at the festival so far. That's a pretty strong statement and I'll try to flesh out the reasons when I have more time. For now, I'll just say, it used the medium of film to tell the story better than anything else I've seen. The camera flowed, shots transitioned beautifully. The images in this otherwise stark Soviet era housing block, were beautiful. There was no narration and relatively little talking, but the story of the building and the people who lived in it was exceptionally well told.

 I'd pick this one for the best documentary of the festival simply because it was the best use of the medium to tell its story.  To give you at least a sense of it, here's the trailer.





Unfortunately, unless the jurors agree with me and it gets an award, today was the last chance to see this film at the Festival.

AIFF 2015: Friday Overview

Is it really Friday already?   Movies start early today - 2:30pm at the Bear Tooth for the Martini Matinee which includes both narrative and documentary shorts, some of which are in competition* (Asterisks for films in competition).  A few we saw last night in the shorts program, and they're worth a second look.  The documentary shorts I haven't seen yet and am looking forward.  Since they are all packaged together, no need to tip you off.  It's better to just let you pick your own favorites.

All the evening showings will be at the Alaska Experience theater.


The evening has several features and documentaries in competition.  I'm looking forward to seeing The Creditors*.  Here's the synopsis from The Creditors' website:

"Based on August Strindberg's 1888 play, "Creditors" is a modern re-telling of Strindberg's story of love, betrayal, revenge and psychological manipulation, which he considered to be his one true masterpiece.
Grant Pierce (Christian McKay) arrives from London into Madrid, Spain, hoping to be given the chance to meet his favourite painter, American Freddie Lynch (Ben Cura), who is currently staying at a private hotel in an unassuming location outside the city. As Grant steps into the main building of "El Madroño", he finds Lynch a crippled man whom, he soon reveals, has been unable to actually paint for the better part of a year.
As the two men get to know each other under the watchful eye of one of the owners of the hotel, Michael Redmane (Tom Bateman), they start to piece together the disturbing picture of Freddie's marriage to beautiful writer Chloe Fleury (Andrea Deck) which harbours secrets that will reveal much more than Freddie's recent creative emaciation and his obsession with Chloe's ex-husbandAt times disturbingly funny and cruelly bleak, "Creditors" deals with some of the most private aspects of human relationships."

AK EXP Small  8pm 


I haven't seen this yet, so no guarantees, but it looks like one of the more ambitious films in the festival.


Here's the grid for today.  It's stretched out because it starts at 2:30pm.

This is a screen shot. Click here for the original with working  links.

Orphans and Kingdoms* is a New Zealand feature that's in competition.  AK EXP Large  9pm




CODE is a documentary about gender issues in the tech industry.  AK Exp Small 5pm

Janey Makes a Play is about a 90 something woman who writes and directs her own play.  AK Exp Large 5:00pm






And Brainwashing of My Dad  is about how Fox News has taken over the filmmakers' Dad's brain.  It says on the SCHED:

"Special “work-in-progress” screening. This is a rare opportunity to see an early edit of the film and provide valuable feedback to the director, Jen Senko."

AK Exp Large 7pm    I'm guessing liberals will have trouble with this because it's so depressingly true and conservatives will have trouble because it's so disturbingly false.

AIFF 2015: Shorts - Jury Selection - Wow, Good Show

The program just ended.   All of them were definitely worth watching.  Some were excellent.  I'm sitting in the theater during the break until Magic Utopia.  So let me just ramble and see which ones I remember.

The Story of a Rainy Night - was amazing and so sad.  A man in his Iranian apartment (more people should see Iranian films and see how well many Iranians live) on a rainy night.  He feeds a cat we never see.  Then there's a knock on the door and a daughter arrives with kids and husband.  The old man acts surprised she came.  Two more kids arrive, there's lots of commotion.  Someone brought a birthday cake.  There's talk about not seeing the kids very often.  They also brought some pizza.  We see the man from the back of the head mostly.  Sometimes from the left side, sometimes from the right, but never fully from the front.  Until near the end the camera comes around and examines him fully and closely and the audience realizes that all the visitors were an illusion.  He's been home alone on his birthday.  He lets the cat out.   When all the kids were there the subtitles were flying and it was hard to read and a linguistically talented friend said it wasn't Farsi, maybe Iranian Azerbaijani.

Nkosi Coiffure - Terrific.  Belgian lady and her boyfriend are fighting on the street and she slips in a door to escape him.  She's in an African hair salon.  One of the ladies goes outside to talk to the boyfriend and the others talk to the lady.  Wonderful film.

The Bravest/The Boldest - This one's been on the circuit a long time, but I understand why.  Two military chaplains go to tell a woman her husband's been killed.  She's in the elevator coming up from the laundry room when they get in.  She senses they're there for her.  When they get to her floor, they let her go out first, but she says not her floor and pushes another button.  The rest of the movie she avoids them as she deals with her grief.  Excellent film.

Zawadi - A Kenyan girl is sick so her mom has to stay home to watch her, so Mom tells her son he has to collect twice as many bottles today to make up for her staying home.  And the neighbor girl is upset because it's her birthday and her mom doesn't remember.  Beautifully done.

The Call - A pregnant South African prostitute, the taxi driver who's the father, a cell phone left in the cab, and a funeral.  Terrific acting.

Mike - A young man drops his brother off at the barber shop and waits in the car for him to come back.  He finally goes in to check and the receptionist says there haven't been any little boys.  Also good, but not quite at the level of the others for me.

Merry Xtmas -  This one stood out because it starred Dick Van Dyke, Valery Harper, and Matthew Modine, was full Hollywood production levels, and was short, sweet, and funny.  And a good ending to a set that started with a man waiting for his kids to come for his birthday.  It somehow seems like it shouldn't be in the mix with these other, more budding filmmakers.  But it was great.

OK, I've gone back and I missed three, but that's not a reflection on the films.  One of them - The One Minute Time Machine - was one of my favorites.   I'll talk about

[UPDATE 11:44pm - the new film was starting and I had to shut down my computer and I wasn't even sure this got posted.

One Minute Time Machine - was a romantic physics sci-fi short, with good imagination and characters.  Very clever and well executed.

The other one I forgot was Unleaded about and armed robbery that went wrong, at least from the robbers' perspective.  It was well done, fun, but again, like Mike,  not quite there with the others.


Picking the best will be hard.  For me, just based on the one I enjoyed the most, it would be One Minute Time Machine.  But I also really liked Nkosi Coiffure. plus The Bravest/The Boldest had great acting and a good twist.   And I know I'm going to see that cab driver's face from The Call in my head many times in the next week or two.

Congratulations to those who put this whole package together.  All the films were worthy, and, as I said, starting with the imaginary birthday dinner and ending with the manipulated Christmas dinner was a great touch.

AIFF 2015: Thursday's Got Great Offerings - Magic Utopia, Creditors, and Shorts Jury Selection

Everything except the After School Special and the Quick Freeze (which are more like local contests) is in competition.  Circus Without Borders looks at acrobats in the Arctic who team up with acrobats in Guinea.  Jasmine is a Hong Kong based murder mystery.

Screenshot - click here for actual schedule with links

I've been told that Japanese made Magic Utopia is the feature to see.  But it's not an easy film they say.  My early perusal of the features in competition led me to believe that Creditors is also an interesting and complex film.  You can see details and trailers  of both (and Jasmine) at my overview of the features in competition.


I'm going to pass on Creditors tonight (it's playing again Friday at the Alaska Experience Theater at 8pm)  so I can see the Shorts Jury Selection.  This program has all the short narrative films that are in competition, plus a few more.  I haven't seen any of the shorts programs yet because of the way things have been scheduled.  Tonight's the right time for me to start.

The Quick Freeze films are always fun.  The groups get three prompts that somehow have to be incorporated into a film and then have six days to make a film.  This year's prompts are:

• VHS tape
• Kiss  
• Dolly/slider shot.

 Each year these productions have gotten more and more clever and professional.  These should be good, for those of you who can sleep in late on Friday.

Here's more on the Quick Freeze for this year:

AIFF 2015: Lost And Found Eventually Lost Me

I'd seen the trailers for this enough that I was getting a bit jaded, but I had high hopes for this film.  What could go wrong?  People find tsunami debris on Alaska and Canadian beaches and track down the owners and take the things back.  International cooperation, returning lost items to disaster victims, all good fodder for a movie.  Generally the movie was good and I felt the people in the movie were sincerely trying to do some good.

But somewhere along the way it got a little cloying and annoying.  I think the underlying issue for me is the construct of helper and help.  Being a helper means you have the power to do something for another who, in this situation anyway, has less power.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't help others, but we should understand our motives and not get carried away with what we've done.  I posted long ago about charity and included some Jewish thought on charity that is relevant here, though not sufficient, I'm sure, for some to get my point about the power relationship in giving.  Part of the issue is that in Japan there is a very strong culture of gift giving and thanking.  So the degree of thanks became a bit embarrassing.  

After all, these people where doing what they enjoy doing - beach combing.  They found some stuff an said, wow, wouldn't it be interesting if we could find the owners?  So far so good.  But then they get on planes and fly to Japan and become the recipients of this overwhelming level of thank you.  I get all this.  It's my nature to try to find the person who lost something, to get something back to a rightful owner.  But I also know that it's what I enjoy doing and I'm not making any big sacrifice to help out.  I'm not interrupting my life or giving away money that I can't afford to give.  I'm just doing what I enjoy doing and if that makes someone else happy, then that's a bonus.

Kevin and kids answer questions after Lost and Found

So I was sitting there watching the film end and thinking about whether I'm being overly picky and critical.  But my gut was telling me this was a bit over the top.

And then the movie ended and one of the finders, who's from Anchorage, and his kids went to the front to answer questions.  Two things he said stood out:

• Some people weren't interested in getting stuff back or even talking to us.   Wow, that certainly wasn't in the story.  We were told about a signed volley ball whose owner hadn't been found, but not about people who weren't interested, who didn't want to be 'helped.'

• That he'd been contacted by the film makers and they were interested in his story and that they paid for his trip to Japan.   

OK.  That made more sense, because the returning of the found items and the meetings between the losers and the finders were all filmed.  So maybe that was my problem.  This was the story line for a film and the filmmakers found the folks to fit their story line.  Japan experiences disaster.  Debris crosses Pacific.  People find the debris and track down and return the debris.  What a wonderful heartwarming story.  But at least some of these folks wouldn't have gone to Japan on their own if they hadn't been encouraged and financed by the film makers.  And the film never mentioned the people who didn't want their stuff back and didn't want to meet or even talk to the people who found it.  Including that would have made this a much richer film.  But instead we got an, apparently, artificially sweetened feel good story.

It makes Ruth Ozeki's novel, A Tale For The Time Being, all the more remarkable with its richness and darkness.  This story, completed just before the tsunami hit, tells the story about a Japanese-Canadian who finds a teenage Japanese girl's diary on a beach in British Columbia.  She too wants to find the owner and return the diary.  But the story doesn't have the Disneyesque happily after after quality of Lost and Found.  The diary tells us very dark tales of life as a teenager in Japan.

That said, I have no criticism for any of the beach combers.  My sense was that they were each doing their thing and genuinely wanted to be helpful and that they all learned a lot and grew from these experiences. What I saw in the film makes me think the people returning stuff to Japan were themselves a bit overwhelmed by their reception. And it's up to the filmmakers to decide how to tell their story.  It's just that they told a story that didn't sit all that well with me. Their story put happy makeup onto a situation that wasn't nearly so happy.

AIFFF 2015: When The Circus Leaves Town

Interesting, strange characters in a small dying (dead?) town in rural Turkey.  Beautiful shots.  And the end left me, and apparently others, perplexed.  My assumption is that Turkish films today, especially if they are sent to festivals abroad, have a political and/or social meaning that Turks would get, but that is more obscure to foreigners not paying close attention to Turkey.  The images from this film will definitely be floating around my skull for a while.

But this one will stay with me.

The Japanese Counsel-General is now introducing the film Lost and Found - a documentary about earthquake and tsunami debris washing up in the US and Canada and the search for the Japanese owners of some of the things found.

[The wifi at the Bear Tooth wasn't getting this post through when I tried to post it.]

AIFF 2015: Wednesday Choices All Good

Three venues today:  Bear Tooth, the Anchorage Museum, and Alaska Experience theater.

Everything tonight is worth getting out and seeing.

This is a Screenshot so links don't work, but go to the original here to see details of each film

The green represents documentaries and the blue is for feature films.  Grey is Alaska Made.

A quick overview:

AK Experience offerings:

Madina's Dream is video of the lives of Nuba people who have been forced out of their homes in southern Sudan's Nuba Mountains.  We see and hear from the women and children in a refugee camp in South Sudan (a new separate country) and their men still is the south of Sudan (the country South Sudan was split from) who are fighting the Sudanese government in an attempt to regain their land.  A powerful documentation of the kind of thing that is happening in too many places around the world.  

The Descendants is an Iranian film about a father who goes to Sweden because the family hasn't heard from their son who is there studying.  It looks at the problems of poorer student trying to study in Western countries.  It's a good film with strong acting.  One of my favorites so far among the features.  The audience Saturday enjoyed it too - here's a link to a video of audience reaction I did.

Storis: The Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast  - from the official description:

"STORIS: The Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast is a documentary that chronicles the nearly 65 year history of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter STORIS and examines the roles it played during World War II, the Cold War, and throughout the post-Cold War era. The documentary will introduce some of STORIS's many officers and sailors as they recount the STORIS's most famous mission that helped define the Coast Guard's mission in Alaska and beyond." 

The director Damon Stuebner will be there for Q&A - always a bonus.  

All three films are in competition for an award in their categories (documentaries and features and Alaska Made.)

Museum

Two more strong films.

Children of the Arctic - is a very well made documentary about some high school kids growing up in Barrow and the pull between maintaining a traditional lifestyle and going to college and becoming modern.  The director and some of the people featured in the film were in attendance the other night, as you can see in the picture at the right when they were answering questions.   Probably the best documentary I've seen so far, though it's close.  

Eadweard - a feature that looks at the life of the man who tried to stop motion with a camera in the 1880s.  He made the famous pictures of horses running to show there's  point where all the hooves are off the ground at once.  A well made and interesting film of his work and also his life, both of which, it's implied were impacted by his having hit his head badly in a coach accident.  Definitely worth seeing.  

Bear Tooth

The Circus Leaves Town - This is a Turkish feature which I haven't seen yet.  It should be good.  I've got more details and trailers of it (and The Descendants) on my overview of the features in competition.

Lost and Found - This documentary also promises to be good.  It's about debris from the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan drifting over to the US and people finding it, then looking for some of the owners.  See a trailer of Lost and Found and for Children of the Arctic and Madina's Dream at my post on Documentaries in Competition.

AIFF 2015: The Newtok Film We Are All Related Here

I mentioned this film earlier today and the lawsuit between the competing leadership groups in the village of Newtok.  Well, it's pretty clear the courts have sided with the new leadership and told the old leadership to clear the offices and make the village documents available to the new leaders.

The film didn't mention the conflict.  There was a fair number of folks (I'd guess 50-60) and lots of questions at the end.  Most were about technical issues about moving a village and which agencies are involved.  One question did get filmmaker Brian McDermott  mention something about political conflict, but since he couldn't figure out who was telling the truth, he decided to leave it out.  

I caught up with McDermott in the lobby and asked him about that decision to leave it out, and after pushing him a bit, he said he had put something in about the dispute in an earlier version and it killed the film.  One of his local advisors on this told him it didn't really matter because there were 180 villages facing this same problem and it's the bigger issue that matters.  

I guess it all depends on what your intent is as a filmmaker.  To be an advocate for a cause or to be a good journalist?  And it's reasonable to take either stand.  Personally, even as an advocate, I wouldn't want to do a film (or a blog post) that left out the proverbial elephant in the room, which would let opponents pounce on that omission.  

And to his credit, McDermott listened and acknowledged my criticism as fair.  I did suggest at least a note written at the end of the film that acknowledged the dispute, the difficulty in covering it in the film, and while it might have delayed things a bit, it wasn't the key factor that was preventing Newtok and 180 other villages from being moved.

I'd not that McDermott is from Pennsylvania, connected with someone from Newtok on Facebook and came up to make the film.  One could say that was gutsy or a little naive.   Having spent  a little time in Wales, Alaska, I think that McDermott at the very least gives non-Alaska a little sense of the living conditions and of the connection of the people to their land because of their subsistence lifestyle.  It does personalize what otherwise are rather exotic places that most people in the Lower 48 can't imagine.  

And he does have some of the characters in the lawsuits up on the screen so you can see who they are.  But this is a version of what local reporters call parachute journalism - where outsiders fly in for a few days, get their stories, and leave without really knowing the history and context of where they've been or the stories they're telling.  

And if you compare it to the time Nick Brandestini spent in Barrow to get Children of the Arctic filmed right, you can see the huge difference.  But Nick has more film credits and had a much bigger budget - enough to fly the subjects of the film to Zurich and Anchorage for the showings of the film.

People have to start somewhere, but telling a village's story is also a giant responsibility.  I think his intentions were good, I don't suspect this film will do much harm, and it may even do a little good.

I also think that the Anchorage International Film Festival needs to think long and hard about what Alaska movies it accepts.  Just because a film is about Alaska doesn't mean it should be in the festival.  Should this film have gotten in?  Probably.  Should it win any awards?  I think the omission of any mention of the local dispute is a big flaw.  It's such a huge factor of what's happening in the village, I just can't see how it could be ignored completely.  Especially since the title and some of the film content makes it all seem like 'we're one big happy family.'