AIFF2021: Award Winners

 This year I did not go to the Award Ceremony - I was busy watching movies and also getting ready to fly south.  But the Festival Facebook Page put up the winners.  Like always I agree on some, not on others, and some I didn't see so I have no opinion. 

Actually, I tend not to like the idea of awards, so at the bottom I'm just going to list my favorites because each film will connect with the viewer for reasons that have nothing to do with film.  

Jury Awards: 

Documentary Feature

1st place - 80.000 Schnitzels, Hannah Schweier

2nd place - The Form, Filip Flatau

3rd place - Not About Me, Kelly Milner

Narrative Feature

1st place - Tall Tales, Attila Szász 

2nd place - Americanish, Iman Zawahry

3rd place - Lune, Aviva Armour-Ostroff & Arturo Pérez Torres

Documentary Shorts

1st place -  Hunger Ward, Skye Fitzgerald

2nd place - Aguilucho - Dance of the Harpy Eagle, Daniel Byers

3rd place - Myrtle Simpsons - A Life On Ice, Leigh Anne Sides

Narrative Shorts 

1st place - Sinking Ships, Andreas Kessler

2nd place - Ala Kachuu - Take and Run, Maria Brendle

3rd place - Synthetic Love, Sarah Heitz de Chabaneix

Short Animated: 

1st - Eternal Igloo, Mostafa Keshvari

2nd place - Johnny Crow, Jesse Gouchey and Xstine Cook

3rd place - The Farmer and the Lightning Storm, Danielle Browne

Made in Alaska Feature

Newtok, Michael Kirby Smith & Andrew Burton

Made in Alaska Short

1st place - Pinguat, Joshua Albeza Branstetter

2nd place - The Kathryn Treder Story, Aalina Tabani

3rd place - Keepers of the Shy Place, Gianna Savoie

Screenplay: 

1st place - Racing the Wolf God: by Alessandra Bautze

2nd place - Uphill: by Adam D. Boyer

3rd place - Midday Black Midnight Blue: by Samantha Soule & Daniel Talbott

Audience Awards: 

Documentary Feature

1st place - From the Hood to the Holler by Pat McGee

2nd place - Not About Me by Kelly Milner

3rd place - On These Grounds by Garrett Zevgetis

Narrative Feature

1st place - Tall Tales by Atilla Szasz

2nd place - 18 ½ by Dan Mirvish

3rd place - Americanish by Iman Zawahry

Made in Alaska Feature

Granted: A Wish Story by Dan Redfield

Made in Alaska Short

1st place - Trailbound Alaska by Max Romey

2nd place - Pinguat by Joshua Albeza Branstetter

3rd place - Keepers of the Shy Place by Gianna Savoie

Short Animated: 

1st place - Pottero by Lindsey Martin

2nd place - Mni Wiconi - Water is Life by Jeremias Galante & Miguel Antonio Genz

3rd place - Goodnight Mr. Vincent Van Gogh by Lindsey Doolittle

Documentary Shorts: 

1st - 15 grains of sand by Rachel Handlin

2nd place - The Black Stonefly by Cody Lewis & Mark Rotse

3rd place - Why are you black? By Julie Skaufel

Narrative Shorts: 

1st place - Ala Kachuu - Take and Run by Maria Brendle

2nd place - Sinking Ships by Andreas Kessler

3rd place - Like the Ones I Used to Know by Annie St-Pierre

WHAT DO I KNOW? Favorites

Documentary Feature:

1st Place   - Captive

2nd Place - The Art of Sin

3rd Place - Not About Me and Sexplanation

[Didn't see Scrum, Newtok, On These Grounds, Underdog, Outloud, I'm Wannita]

Narrative Feature

1st Place - Tall Tales

2nd Place - Lune

3rd Place - Landlocked and Tiger Within

Documentary Shorts

1st Place - The Hunger Ward

2nd Place - Why Are You Black?

Narrative Shorts

First Place - Ala Kachuu 

2nd Place - The Manila Lover

3rd Place - Al Sit

[I didn't see many in this category]

Imagine That Alaska Only Had One Polling Place In November 2020 [And AIFF2021 Recs]

 I just watched From The Hood To the Holler online via the Anchorage International Film Festival.  It's about Charles Booker's 2020 Democratic primary race against Amy McGrath in Kentucky.  She started the race with $29 million and he had $300,000.  But the Louisville protests over Breonna Taylor helped spark his campaign from the West End of Louisville through the Hollers of Kentucky.  

What struck me the most was this tidbit from the movie:  In Louisville, Kentucky, a city of over 700,000 people, there was only one polling place in the 2020 primary!   [Note: most of the facts here come from the movie, but I did check on the population of Louisville.  Here's what Wikipedia says:  

The city's total consolidated population as of the 2020 census was 782,969.[4]

Consolidated is the key - it's all of Jefferson County.  The Currier confirms:

"For the commonwealth's June 23 primary elections, Jefferson County offered voters only one polling location, at the Expo Center."]

The state of Alaska has roughly the same population as Jefferson County.  Imagine.  Just one polling place!  One of many ploys Republicans are offering to suppress votes.  

The movie was like a campaign film for Booker, rather than a documentary, and perhaps a bit too long, but well worth watching.  

Some other suggestions for people in the last couple of days before the Festival ends.  You'll note the documentaries are a strong category.  I recommend all of these.  

Documentary Features.

Captive - So far this is my personal favorite.  We can debate what makes a good film.  I spelled out what I consider important in a 2012 Film Festival post.  Captive is the story of western journalist of Asian descent going to Nigeria to interview girls and young women who had been kidnapped by Book Haram.  It's an important and well told story.  I posted about Captive already.

The Art of Sin -   Ahmed Umar, a refugee from Sudan who is now a Norwegian citizen, is an artist and a gay man.  The film tells his story of coming out - the first Sudanese of any fame to do so.  We see him in Norway and then on hist first trip back to Sudan after ten years away.  A powerful film.

The Form - The form in the title is an application to nominate someone as Righteous Among Nations, a recognition given by the yadvashem foundation to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from Nazis.  A young Frenchman is asking his mother to fill out the form for the people who hid her in Poland in WW II.  His mother has refused to talk about those experiences and doesn't want to fill out the form.  The son wants to know about that part of his mother's life.  

A Sexplanation - The title seemed exploitative. (Ya think?)  But it turns out to be accurate.  A 36 year old gay Asian man from San Francisco wants to learn more about why he had so much trouble finding out about sex and the shame he felt over masturbation and being gay.  He talks to a number of experts and also interviews his parents.  A fun and informative movie.  

Run Raven Run - I wrote about this film opening night.  Good movie.

Narrative Features

Tiger Within - Not entirely believable, but a good story anyway.  A Holocaust survivor takes in a runaway girl with a swastika on the back of her jacket.  Ed Asner plays the role of the old man.  

Lune  and Tall Tales - I wrote about these here (Lune) and here (Tall Tales).  Tall Tales is just a good story told well by a Hungarian film maker who has won best narrative feature  twice already at AIFF.  

I still have a bunch of features to watch.  I will note that I dropped out of The Wanderers about midway.  I tend to like off beat films, but this one just wasn't working for me. I finally gave up waiting for whatever it was that got this picked by the reviewers.  Given the relatively few narrative features, maybe it seemed good compared to others they watched.   And it's easier to move on to the next film when you're watching online than when you're in the theater and you'd have to wait for the next film to start anyway.  

Narrative Shorts

These films aren't too long, so I'm just going to list them and let you decide which to watch.

• Absurd Man
• Al-Sit
• Ala Kachuu - Take and Run
• Dualba - This one is odd, but it's Iranian and shows an unexpected side of that country - the location and the fact that someone made this film.
• Manila Lover 
• Synthetic Love
• The Women's Hour - Homage to old films

Documentary Shorts

I realize that I haven't seen many of these.  Here's one I'd recommend:

• Why Am I Black - Another African immigrant to Norway film.  A Somali this time if I remember right.  

AIFF 2021Lune- Fascinating Film Covering Many Issues

 The Bear Tooth was practically empty today.  The film was huge.  It quickly expanded from a mother/daughter relationship into mental health, race, art, parent/child relations in general, money wealth and love wealth, South African elections, dance, Judaism, Palestinian/Israeli conflict.  I'm sure I'm missing something.  I think a great editor could have trimmed it back a bit - it says it was 113 minutes, but seemed longer.  The actors were outstanding - all of them.  Watching someone off their meds is disturbing, but the actor was so good!

The only thing that bothered me, may not be an issue except my ignorance. The main actor was a white, South African who'd emigrated to Canada.  She sounded a lot more than a woman I know from London than a white South African woman emigrant to the US.  But perhaps whites in South Africa have different accents.  

I want to reiterate that there are quite a few films that will be shown live this week, as well as the whole online array of films.  I know.  We've all gotten comfortable with our various streaming subscriptions and the comfort of staying home to watch.  And it's cold out, etc.  

But seeing the last two films on a big screen was great.  And it's really safe if you're fully vaccinated.  Everyone is masked (except when eating).  They block out the two seats on both sides of your party when you reserve online at the Bear Tooth.  Far more space from others than we just had on the airplane from Seattle.  And the ceiling is much higher than in a plane.  And the food is better.  Though I was disappointed to learn that if you order from the restaurant, they no longer bring it to you.  They treat it like any other to go order.  They text you that it's ready.  Really that's what they said.  They are getting lots of take out orders and it takes up to 45 minutes they say.  But who wants their phone to ping during a movie?  Who wants to get up and leave the movie to pick up their food?  Only the person who was dragged to a movie she hates and would love the excuse to leave.  Otherwise, no one.  

This is a customer service and management inflexibility problem that's easy to fix.  They can text the Bear Tooth Theater food staff and have them pick it up and deliver it.  It's not hard.  

But other than that, pick a couple of films and get yourself out of the house and into a theater.  If you've already bought a pass for the online, still do it.  Yes, it will cost and extra $10 plus service fee, but just do it.  

And now that there are no 'films in competition' it's harder to figure out which ones you want to see.  Even then, there were films I thought were better than the films in competition.  In any case I invite, implore, folks who are watching films at home to share your favorites so others can find them.  Use the Festival's FB page or even leave comments here.  

And with all the trees decorated with ice today, it was worth being out in such a magical natural wonderland.  

OnThese Grounds is playing at 6pm tonight at the Museum

80,000 Schnitzels is playing at 1pm at the Bear Tooth tomorrow (Sunday)

For Ticket Information: www.anchoragefilmfestival.org.  That's really not that helpful.  For the Bear Tooth, go to their site and you can buy tickets online or at the theater.  For the Museum, not sure you can get them online.  Same with  E Street.  Just go.  

Run Raven Run - Roma Musicians Open AIFF2021

 Lots of firsts lately.  First plane ride in almost two years and tonight we were at the Bear Tooth for the first time in two years at the Anchorage International Film Festival Opening.  The Festival is both live and online.  

Masks are required except while eating and drinking and two spaces are left open between your party and the next.  We decided to try it because when I went online to buy your ticket I could see there were mostly empty seats.  

And a pass to the online festival doesn't get you into the theater free, so I'm guessing lots of people are staying home.  But if you're fully vaccinated I'd encourage you to come.  The big screen was a great change.  And while everything seems new and different, it quickly seems like normal again.  The biggest shock was that the Bear Tooth orange cones are a thing of the past.  With reserved seats, the wait staff doesn't have to go looking for your cone.  They have your seat number.  

And there are lots of films that are scheduled live.  And they have printed programs at the Bear Tooth.  Here's a couple of pages so you can see there are live films all week.  Some at the Bear Tooth, the museum, and the E Street Theater.  

The Festival directors and some board members were on stage to greet folks.


Run Raven Run took place mostly in Romania as film maker Michael Rainin takes us into the lives of different Gypsy musical traditions.  We skip around from one family to another with bits of history and geography thrown in.  That probably sounds a bit tedious, but the people in the movie pulled us into their lives and their world view.  Credit has to go to the film maker, but even more so, I'm guessing, to the people who took him into their homes and shared their lives with him.  We went from traditional oriental Gypsy music to violins to rap.  We saw beautiful rural villages and horrible Bucharest slums.  We traveled to Europe from Rajasthan, India.  We encountered Nazi concentration camps, and see Ceaușescu's trip to North Korea and his overthrow.  We even see some American jazz musicians and a great Louis Armstrong imitation.  

Ida Theresa Myklebost, Festival Co-Director
interviews Run Raven Run Director Michael Rainin

The director of the film, Michael Rainin, talked about the film and making it at the end.  Part of the discussion was about the acceptability of using the word Gypsy.  As you might assume by its use here that he felt the people in the film used it and didn't seem to have any objection to its use.  

Go online and check out the long list of films.  Tomorrow Lune plays at 1pm at the Bear Tooth, A family Shorts Program plays at 4pm at the Museum, and A Sexplantion plays at the Museum at 8pm.

Or just watch it all whenever you can online with a festival pass.  Or pay to watch individual films.  

But do try to go to at least one live event.  

There Are Still Flowers Here South Of Canada

After what seems like a week of grey and rain, the sun came out this afternoon and it felt warm.  I'm guessing low 60s.  

Some pictures while picking up my granddaughter from school this afternoon.  I got the sun behind a branch of this tree before taking the picture.

Flowers are still blooming on Bainbridge Island.  Wednesday we head back home for the Anchorage International Film Festival which starts Friday.  I'm afraid I'm not giving the festival the attention it deserves this year, but redistricting posts are taking up all my blogging energy right now. I'm working on a third one that looks at how the court might consider gerrymandering.  It should be ready in a day or two.  Meanwhile I'm enjoying the flowers and the bushes and trees that still have green leaves.

Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF2021) Dec 3-12 - Hybrid Live/Online

There are lots of details here that make it difficult to  report this clearly and painlessly.  And there are various loose ends that need to get mentioned somehow.  I've been working on this for close to a week now.  My approach is to do this on several levels of detail.  Sort of a USA Today synopsis, then maybe a Daily News type overview, and then a trip into the basement where you can see all the moving parts.  I'm hoping that will allow people with different attention spans and different levels of interest to get the gist, if not the grist, of what happened.

There's now an AIFF page where ticket holders and members can log in.  But it doesn't say how to get tickets or become a member. 

OK, I put in the email address I used last year and it got me to a page where I could buy passes. If you didn't get a pass last year, you might try clicking the forgot button and see if it will get you in. There's a household pass (which I bought) for $150 and what I guess is an individual pass for $100.  Both say for online viewing only, not for in person events.  

Then I was able to go back to that page (above) and sign in and get to the AIFF page 

And I've also gone to the Facebook page.  (Wear a mask there)  Just to wet your appetite, I found the list of the features.  Features are longer films (generally over 50-60 minutes).  Documentaries are non-fiction and Narrative are fiction.  

The FEATURE FILMS you can watch at the festival in December are:

DOCUMENTARY FEATURES

80.000 Schnitzel • Hannah Schweier • Germany

A Sexplanation • Alex Liu • USA

Captive • Mellissa Fung • Canada

From the Hood to the Holler • Pat McGee • USA

I'm Wanita • Matthew Walker • Australia

Newtok • Andrew Burton & Michael Kirby Smith • USA

Not About Me Documentary • Kelly Milner • Canada

On These Grounds • Garrett Zevgetis • USA

Out Loud • Gail Willumsen • USA

Run Raven Run • Michael Rainin • USA

Scrum • Thomas Morgan • USA

The Art of Sin • Ibrahim Mursal • Norway

The form • Filip Flatau • France

NARRATIVE FEATURES

18½ • Dan Mirvish • USA

Americanish Film • Iman Zawahry • USA

Atlas • Niccolò Castelli • Switzerland

Christmas Freak The Movie • Sean Brown • USA

Culpa • Ulrike Grote • Germany

Everything in The End • Mylissa Fitzsimmons• Iceland/USA

Landlocked • Tim Hall (Timothy Hall) • USA

Lune • Aviva Armour-Ostroff & @Arturo Perez Torres • Canada

Tall Tales • Attila Szász • Hungary

The Wanderers • Hwang Lee • Korea

We're All In This Together • Katie Boland • Canada

Just looking through the list I see two familiar names:

Dan Mirvish - 18 1/2 - had a film - Between Us - in the 2013 festival.  He didn't come to the festival but I interviewed him via Skype and ended up with a rather long (for me) 17 minute video which you can see below.  In 2017 he came to the festival and did a stimulating workshop.

 

 

Another film - Tall Tales - is by Attila Szász, who has had two gorgeous films in prior festivals.  The Ambassador to Bern in 2014 and Demimonde.   both won the top prize for Narrative Features.  Below is the Skype interview I did with Szász in 2014.  I'm looking forward to the new film.

 

This is much more fun and much easier than the Redistricting Board.