Alaska Native Actor Savanah Wiltfong's Name Missing in Movie Publicity

Dear Lemon Lima (Lima like the bean, not the capital of Peru) first came to the Anchorage International Film Festival in 2007 as a lushly beautiful short film focused on teenagers who were real and interesting.  The color was vivid. The exchanges between the kids was  often the way kids talk to each other when they have serious things to say and there are no adults listening. And mostly the movie was anti-slick.  Hercules' parents seemed a bit arch, but I took it that we were seeing the world through the kids' eyes, so maybe that's how they looked to him.  It was maybe ten minutes and I guessed it was the first glimpse at what promised to be an interesting feature. 

[I've found - at video.nymag.com - what appears to be the short we saw in 2007 and some of the main characters, including Vanessa, are played by different actors. I was close, it's 11 minutes. The color on here isn't as rich]





And it came back to the Festival in 2009 as a feature length film.  And it got an audience award in the feature class that year. 

Suzi Yoonessi, the director, emailed me the other day to say the movie would be released VOD (she thought I was hipper than I am and it took me a while to figure out that means video on demand) on Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, and Verizon Fios in Alaska on March 4th. It will be released in LA that date too in theaters. Then March 11 in New York. If it does ok in those places, the rest of the world might be able to see it in theaters too.

But as I went to look for more information I found info on the movie, but the Alaska star's name wasn't included.  Savanah Wiltforng - an Alaska Native teen - plays the lead role of and assimilated Yup'ik who gets the Native scholarship to a boarding school in Fairbanks and because she has the scholarship people expect her to be expert in all things Native which she then has to become.

Here's an example from IMDB - where's Savanah's name?  It's not there.

Screen Capture from IMDB - so this is an image, the links won't work except IMDB

Here's the official poster:

Can you find Savanah Wiltfong's name on the poster?  Even though she's the star, you can't find her name among the four names on top.   It is on the poster.  It even says "Starring Savanah Wiltfong."  But you'll have to double click it to be able to read the purple on black small print. (hint, right side)

When I asked by email what happened to the star in the publicity, Suzi Yoonessi, the writer and director (can you find her on the poster?) wrote back, in part:

Savanah is included in the materials that our PR people send out, but it seems the popular teen sites are really focused on Meaghan Jette Martin or Vanessa Marano, since they have larger fan bases. This isn't a bad thing, since kids will make it out to see an indie film because of Meaghan's popularity in more mainstream material.

Maybe my readers are cooler than I am (or teenier) and recognize those other two names.  I get it though.  The point is to hook people to what they know.  I get it.  Let's see if it works. 



The director spoke after the short version in 2007 and surprised me by saying the story takes place at a boarding school in Fairbanks, but because it was so expensive to do it in Fairbanks, she was doing most of it in Washington State.  I posted about that and asked Fairbanks folks to contact her if they could help with housing and other services, but it didn't happen.

It came back to the Anchorage International Film Festival in 2009 as a feature length film.  I liked everything about it, EXCEPT that it purported to be in Fairbanks.  If Fairbanks residents want to see what there town will look like after 50 more years of global climate change, then check out the movie.  You'll be hanging around in your shorts and t-shirts on the grass mid-winter.  But Anchorage audiences voted it, as I said, an Audience Choice Award for what that's worth.

Suzi made this film as an independent.  That means she made every penny stretch as far as it could go - which didn't reach all the way to Fairbanks except for a few location shots as I understand it.  The State Film Board hadn't reopened yet.  Now that there are tax advantages for film makers on location in Alaska, let's hope this is the last 'green December in Fairbanks' movie until the weather has really changed that much. 

On the good side were great acting, interesting characters, and a good story about an assimilated Alaska Native girl discovering her Native roots.   It does use the underdogs in competition theme, but has a sweet - I'm tempted to say quirkiness, but it's only quirky for a movie.  These are real kids who just aren't the cheerleader types that most common in Hollywood type movies.   

And it starred a young woman from Eagle River - Savannah Wiltfong. 

So, Alaskans, check it out.  My first reaction to the Dear Lemon Lima website was it was waay to girlie for me, but it is original and it captures an aspect of the film. 

Here's the trailer.



(Think this is too promotional? Trust me. Like always, no one has paid me to write this. I just think pushing a film by an indendent director - and Indian-American woman if I'm correct - dealing with Alaska Native assimilation and then discovery of her Native culture, starring an Alaskan, with a (unfortunately fake) Fairbanks setting is the right thing to do. I'm just letting people know it's there.)

Alaska in the News in LA

The film Dear Lemon Lima (pronounced like the bean, not the city) premiers tonight at 7:15pm in Westwood at the Los Angeles International Film Festival. My plane leaves tonight at 8:50 pm so I'm going to have to miss it. I reviewed a ten minute or so short version [scroll down to the end of the post] of this film at the Anchorage International Film Festival in 2007. The story is set in Fairbanks and I chided the the filmmakers a bit for not filming it in Fairbanks. From the DearLemonLima website story page:

Vanessa believes that a victory in the Snowstorm Survivor championship is the only way into Philip’s heart. She quickly forms a quirky team with her fan base in the weight room. TEAM FUBAR prepares for the event, driven by Vanessa’s plight for her true love. Unlike the Native Olympics that brings together people of all sizes and shapes to celebrate Native Alaskan culture, Nichols’ Snowstorm Survivor simply perverts the traditional Eskimo games in order to foster an antiquated class system.

After the tragic loss of a beloved teammate, Vanessa discovers the true meaning of love and must embrace her Native heritage to reclaim the spirit of the World Eskimo Indian Olympics. After TEAM FUBARs sensational victory in the final dance competition, the Nichols community attempts to embrace a new wave of thinking.

I recall the snippet we saw being filmed in gloriously rich color and in just a short time I wanted to know more about the quirky young characters. The Fairbanks connection was not apparent in what we got to see in Anchorage. The screenwriter actually emailed me after posted and asked for suggestions on how to connect with people in Fairbanks and I posted an appeal to Alaskan bloggers to help her out. I never heard whether they actually did film any of it in Fairbanks, I can't find anything on their website to indicate they did.


Another news item was in the LA Times the other day and again in an editorial today:

In Santa Ana, the city has agreed to place locks on outdoor recycling bins for a dozen neighbors in the Wilshire Square district. The devices, as Times staff writer Tony Barboza reported, were designed to keep bears out of trash cans in Alaska, but there aren't any bears in Santa Ana. Nor are the locks intended to thwart native critters such as raccoons, opossums, ravens or coyotes.

Somewhere along the line, the city and the neighbors lost sight of the fact that the scavengers targeted by their locking-bin pilot program aren't animals at all but a much more vulnerable species -- homeless human beings, for whom discarded plastic and glass are a last-resort source of sustenance.

AIFF - The Real Place takes Cam Christianson back to Sundance

At last year's Anchorage International Film Festival, I wrote about my favorite animated film, Cam Christianson's "I Have Seen the Future."

I Have Seen the Future was a very classy animated tennis game in shades of green and yellow. The camera swept around, the tennis court warped, the main tennis player had an interesting face - not some standard look - and it all worked well with the song by the Canadian singer Chris Demeanor. (Who could forget a name like that?) An original look for the whole film(at least for me) and it all fit together nicely.

It didn't win here in Anchorage, but it went on to get picked for last year's Sundance Film Festival.

I just got an press release email that Cam had a second animated film accepted to Sundance for January 2009.

From the Calgary Herald:

For the second time in as many years, Cam Christiansen will be hobnobbing with North America's filmmaking elite in Utah after his animated short won a coveted spot at the Sundance Film Festival.

Earlier this week, the National Film Board announced Christiansen's The Real Place will show in late January at Robert Redford's celebrated festival, topping off an impressive year of achievements for the 38-year-old filmmaker.

His first film, I Have Seen the Future--which was made with Calgary singer-songwriter Kris Demeanor --played the festival last January, nabbed a top prize at the prestigious Los Angeles Film Festival, was selected by the Toronto Film Festival as one of 2007's Top 10 Canadian shorts and is among 36 films short-listed for a 2008 Academy Award in the best animated short category.

"It's fantastic," says Christiansen.

"It really felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity. But I guess this makes it twice in a lifetime."

The Real Place, which was directed and animated by Christiansen and written by Blake Brooker and uses motion-capture cameras and digital photography, is a beautiful and lyrical five-minute ode to Calgary playwright John Murrell.

Update - Tuesday Dec. 16: Here's a link to The Real Place Facebook page. One quote about the film that seems particularly poignant is from the subject of the film:

For me, your film is about my spirit. No one else -- no one -- has ever captured it so well" - John Murrell

Casting Call

It gets better. Suzi, the director of Dear Lemon Lima wrote back in answer to some questions I had:

I'm still trying to find the lead character (in the short, the blond girl). I would
like tocast a 13-18 year old Alaska Native actor. Any help spreading the word on that
would also be amazing.

Any female Alaska Native actors in the 13-18 year old range?

Calling Fairbanks - Let's Get this Movie Made in Alaska

At the Anchorage International Film Festival last December I saw Miss Lemon Lima. It was a short but with the intention to make it into a feature. I remember lush summer color and very compelling young characters. Some over the top controlling parents, and an ice cream cone that falls to the ground. In fact, I'm surprised at how well I remember it now - the images were so compelling that I can see them clearly.

Why am I seeing Miss Lemon Lima in my mind now? Because I got an email from the director:

Hi Steve - I hope this email finds you well. I am writing regarding my feature film Dear Lemon Lima - I believe that you saw a screening of the short during the Anchorage Film Festival. I am currently prepping to shoot the feature this summer and I am desperately trying to figure out a way to film in Fairbanks. I have accepted that filming the entire film is financially impossible, but am still trying to work out a way to film for 2 days. It has been impossible to find in-kind accommodations, so I thought I would touch base to see if you had any ideas of who might be empathetic with my cause. I've tried to call many bed and breakfast lodges, the tourism office and local hotels, and I'm hitting a brick wall. We are looking for someone to put up 15 people, 12 for 5 days and 3 for two days and hoping someone could lend us a truck, car and passenger van for 5 days. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciation * Thanks in advance for your thoughts, Suzi

So why is she emailing me about this? Because the story is set in Fairbanks. And I fussed in my review of it that the feature was going to be shot in Seattle. In the same post I'd written about a French movie where they actually came to Alaska and went from Valdez to Barrow with horses. Here's what I wrote:

The director - I think that was her role - was there after the film to talk. She also talked about a feature to be filmed next summer that is set in Fairbanks. To her credit, she's been to Fairbanks - after writing several chapters of the screen play - but it will be filmed in Seattle (did she really say Seattle? How can you do Fairbanks in Seattle?) because, you know, it's really expensive to do it in Fairbanks. You know, I think that people in Fairbanks and Anchorage would put the whole crew up in their houses to help you keep the costs down. If those other guys could walk their horses across Alaska, you can surely shoot your film that takes place in Fairbanks, in Alaska. Imagine a movie, "Crossing Alaska with Horses" filmed in the Alps, because, you know, going to Alaska would be so expensive.

To her credit, she's trying to do at least some of it in Fairbanks. Flying fifteen people to Fairbanks isn't cheap. Does she know that there are some really good film people in Alaska? I talked to some at the Film Festival. Maybe she can fly ten up and get five from here. Well, the actors will have to be the same actors. Anyway, let's put our heads together and get some of this done in Fairbanks!

So, to my Fairbanks blogger mates - can you help get a Fairbanks based story at least partially filmed in Fairbanks? It might be too much to get the whole crew in one place, but perhaps in four or five. And maybe you can't get her everything for free, but at least for prices equal to Seattle or less. And get them some salmon and make them tell everyone back home how fantastic it is to actually do the shoot in Alaska.

We've got this fantastic backdrop for films, let's try to get more actually made here. Especially when the story takes place in Alaska. There's an email link to Suzi in the link above to the movie.

Can Alaskan bloggers pull this off? I could handle this in Anchorage, but this is a Fairbanks film. My Fairbanks Life, Fiery Blazing Handbasket, Ester Republic, Fairbanks Pedestrian, Murphy Dome Diaries, Subarctic Mama, Radio Icebox can you folks help out with this?

Taxi Drives from Discovery Side to HBO

The good news is that Discovery Channel has worked out a deal with HBO who will air, Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF) feature documentary runner up, but Academy Award winning, Taxi to the Dark Side in September.

So my grim fear that Discovery Channel's link (through its Military Channel) to the Defense Department's America Supports You program that I discussed several days ago meant that their intent was to block it from being shown on television was wrong.

And in defense of AIFF judges, they chose a movie that had its own historical and Northern interest - The Prize of the Pole - about Robert Peary's grandson's quest to learn more about the Greenlanders that Perry took back to New York with him. Anchorage was an appropriate place for that movie to win an award as the movie examined how a Euro-American adventurer used Native peoples for his own glory with no apparent concern for the people whose lives he essentially destroyed. The legacy of similar ventures still plagues many Alaska Natives today.

AIFF - Orange Revolution

OK, one more, then that's it.

Orange Revolution has particular relevance for paranoid leftist Americans. Are the powers that lie behind the Bush administration going to accept defeat in the 2008 presidential election [I'm not predicting defeat necessarily, just a scenario] and allow for a peaceful transition to a Democratic president? They didn't in 2000, and there's been suggestion that they election manipulation in Ohio gave them the election in 2004. So, if you believe that they are capable of anything from tampering with votes, voters, voting machines, etc. or even declaring a national security emergency and postponing the elections indefinitely, this is a movie you need to watch.

The ruling party, despite dictating to the media what they can say about the election and the candidates, is still losing to opposition candidate Yushchenko going into the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Yushchenko even survives a poisoning that knocks him out of the campaign for a month and leaves his face disfigured. It's clear the government is manipulating the elections and the polling. According to the DVD blurb when Yushchenko is delcared the loser:

They come into the streets by the hundreds of thousands, from every part of the country. Their election has been stolen, and they have come to defend their votes. They march in protest, set up tent cities, and form human barricades around government buildings, paralyzing all state functions.

But this documentary, which has interviews with many people in Yushchenko's campaign, also shows that the campaign had been expecting this result and planning for these mass demonstrations well in advance. They had gotten the tents, had set up procedures for food, bathrooms, music and all the sound and video equipment with it, and on and on, including donations to pay for everything. So when the election results were rigged, the Orange party were ready for the hundreds of thousands who showed up, in a snow storm. And they had contacts in the government to find out what was happening and how to counter.

Americans have a lot to learn from Ukrainians about how to win back a stolen election. In 2000 perhaps Americans were too lulled into the belief that we have fair democratic elections. In 2004 we have less of an excuse. But if the election is stolen in 2008 there will be no turning back and we'll have no excuse for not being prepared. If the Democrats are not watching this film and talking with the participants in preparation for November 2008, then they aren't doing their job.

I would note that at the end of the film it says on the screen that Yushchenko's party fought amongst themselves and things weren't terrific. But it seems to me the point is that the party in power, who were using that power for their own ends rather than for the people's, were not allowed to steal the election and keep in power. Whatever problems Yushchenko had in ruling, were less serious than had the old regime stayed in power.

AIFF and Mental Health - A Summer in the Cage, Autism the Musical, Body/Antibody, Oil on Water

According to the National Institute for Mental Health

An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.¹ When applied to the 2004 U.S. Census residential population estimate for ages 18 and older, this figure translates to 57.7 million people.².... In addition, mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada for ages 15-44.³

Despite these statistics, we are, as a nation, dismally ignorant about the specifics of individual mental illnesses and the moral and ethical implications of how they work.

I didn't think I was going to write any more about this year's Anchorage International Film Festival, but I was able to borrow a few from the Festival office, and I just watched a powerful piece of movie making - A Summer in the Cage. It begins as a documentary about making a documentary about the basketball players at the Cage in Greenwich Village. But it turns into a film about one of the few white players, a guy named Sam, who takes over the director's life (and vice versa) and gets him to make the film about Sam, who is manic-depressive, also called bi-polar. It all worked for me - the photography, the story, the characters, the music, the lack of resolution. It had the magic.

And that got me to thinking. This was the fourth mental health themed movie that I saw through the AIFF. I guess if we aren't willing to talk about something, we leave it to the artists deal with it. And these films each did in totally different ways. The others were

• Autism the Musical
• Oil on Water
• Body/Antibody

Autism and the Cage were documentaries. For Autism, the movie making was low tech and succeeded because it didn't get in the way of the story. Cage was a very produced movie - it says "produced in association with the Sundance Channel - and it works well. The editor made good use of even the out of focus footage. Both delve deeply into the world of their mental health disorders to give us an intimate look at how the illness affects the individual and those around the individual. Each use the media of film to convey to outsiders what these conditions are like. Both films followed people with mental illnesses, not knowing where they would end up. Autism the Musical had more structure because it was focused on a musical being produced by a group of autistic kids. A Summer in the Cage was more or less a chance encounter that led the director, through curiosity and a growing sense of obligation (well, he told the story so that's what it looked like) to follow along for five years.


The two features were totally different. Oil on Water was ostensibly a feature film about the romance between an artistic young man and a beautiful model/writer. Only toward the end did it become the story of a schizophrenic. I left the theater with the sense that spreading the message about schizophrenia was the purpose of making the movie, and the interview with the producer Elle Matthews on the Writing Studio website seems to back that up.

On the other hand, Body/Antibody seems like a movie in which a character happens to be obsessive-compulsive. There's nothing preachy about the movie, this is not an 'educational movie,' it's just a good, dramatic comedy, that incidentally gives us a glimpse of what it means to be obsessive-compulsive. The director was at the showing and said he'd been fascinated by the disorder and had wanted one day to make a film that featured it. But it's the character who happens to have the disorder, not the disorder itself, that is the focus. However, the audience learns a lot about the disease. How, for example, can someone obsessed with cleanliness have sex? We find out. In addition to sex, it has that other essential ingredient of a successful 21st century movie - violence. Ultimately, I would expect that this movie will also serve as a greater vehicle for educating the world about mental health because it is basically entertainment whereas all the others are films about a mental health issue and they are troubling. This film could easily be released at the mall cineplex anywhere in the US and do well. The others will have a more difficult time getting that sort of audience. Autism, according to its website, will be shown on HBO and Cage was shown on the Sundance Channel.

For anyone who is teaching about mental health, I would highly recommend all but Oil on Water as excellent vehicles for getting the message across. They are real (including the language) and compelling and the basis for excellent discussion on the specific mental health issues they cover. Oil on Water has a more artsy look. I like artsy, but I had problems with the acting and pace in the beginning. It probably would be of interest to those with schizophrenia and their relatives and close friends.

Understanding about mental illness is critical in the United States and the rest of the world. In the US we have a basic story that says everyone is responsible for how his life turns out. Mental illness doesn't fit in that story. We'd rather believe that people are irresponsible, lazy, or evil when they don't behave appropriately. It's their own fault they don't succeed. What scientists are learning about mental health contradicts that story. One day there must be a showdown between our myths of autonomous man and the reality of mental health and illness.

These movies help show how powerfully, good movies can affect people's basic stories, by giving them an intimate window into the lives of people they otherwise would not know.

For earlier posts that touched on these movies see here and here for Oil on Water (I liked it better after seeing some other films), Autism the Movie and Body/Antibody are briefly mentioned in the first Oil link. Autism also has its own post. Body/Antibody should have had its own post, but I saw it late in the festival, so I hope I've done it justice in this post.

AIFF - Their Picks for Best Films, My Criteria

From the AIFF official blog:
Best Feature
The Clown and the Fuhrer

Best Short
Its a tie for first: Anonymous and Demain la Veille
Runner up: Dear Lemon Lima

Best Documentary
The Prize of the Pole

Best Short Documentary
Labeled


We were pretty close. My picks were

Clown and Führer
Anonymous
Taxi to the Dark Side (It wasn't clear, except for the shorts, which films were and weren't actually in competition for awards. If Taxi wasn't in competition, then the Prize or maybe Autism the Musical would have been my pick)
Labeled
I Have Seen the Future was my pick for animated, but that seems to have been rolled into shorts.


[December 28 - I just saw "A summer in the cage" and it would challenge the Prize of the Pole for the documentary award. It turns out that Taxi to the Dark Side was in the competition. I don't see how Prize beat it, and I think Summer in the Cage was a strong contender. Taxi wins on current political currency, but I think Cage was - cinematically a more interesting movie. Also, there were two other winners -

• Joseph Henry - Best Super Short

• La Flor Mas Grande Del Mundo - Best Animation

I haven't seen Joseph Henry, but I have since seen the La Flor. I still prefer I Have Seen the Future just for its technical innovativeness, though Flor does have more appealing content.
Based on Summer in the Cage I've added a new AIFF post.]

So what were my criteria? There are several factors.

• Technical Quality A continuum from.. shaky...no problems..very good..innovative. Some might have a combination of more than one of these which makes it harder to judge. Clearly Anonymous and I Have Seen the Future impressed me with their innovative technical styles.
  

• Content - There's a vague continuum from:
• Negative/disrespectful ...Boring...good story....originality...currency...impact
• I gave my only really negative review to The Dalai Lama's Cat because I thought it was a very negative and disrespectful portrayal. That doesn't mean a film can't be critical - I gave Taxi to the Dark Side lots of credit for being critical of the Defense Department's use of torture. But they provided lots of evidence. The Cat filmmakers began with what appears to be a bogus story about a cat, knew apparently little or nothing about the Dalai Lama or the Tibetan people, and then used Tibet, its people, and its holy shrines as the props for their ethnocentric humor. They used the Dalai Lama's name to sell their picture. It was simply rude and disrespectful to get a laugh and sell their movie. This is not about being politically correct. If you drop a kid on his head for laughs (which they did in the movie) that's not acceptable in my value system. Most depressing was how many people did laugh.
• Content is probably the most variable issue, since what interests me may not interest you. I thought Prize of the Pole and Taxi to the Dark Side both covered important social/political issues well, but that Taxi's was focused on a more current issue and had potentially more impact.
• Friends thought No Place Like Home was awful. I thought it had some editing problems, but there were a lot of things in there that I enjoyed.

• Use of Medium. Movies combine sight and sound and movement. The best movies are those that take advantage of the medium and tell their stories in ways that you couldn't tell it orally, in a book, etc.

• Whole Package. Even with weaknesses here and there, a film could pull it off by doing some things so well that the problems don't really matter. Autism the Musical seemed to use pretty basic video technology, but the story it told and how it told that story made it an excellent film. Just like parts of a face, individually, might be a little off, all together the face can be beautiful. So the same is true for the movie.

Anyway, those are the things, roughly, that go into my assessment of a good movie.

AIFF - Labeled

We saw the first two minutes or so of this film the other night. I learned today it was supposed to be the intro for "Crossing Alaska with Horses." But it was so crowded there and the [Horses] filmmaker was there to speak afterward, they pulled it to have more time for the Q&A.

But in those first couple of minutes I fell in love with the movie. The visuals of the paint being poured into the tray, cleaning the brushes, painting the rooms were just exquisite. And tonight after seeing the rest of the ten minute movie it was even better. Elaine Riddick was sterilized at age 14 after giving birth after being raped. Now a house painter, she tells her story against the beauty of the images of the paint, painting, and peeling wall paper. She says the painting has helped with her anger. Dan Currier, the film maker, has a great eye, and through the visuals turned a compelling story into an extraordinary short documentary.

And it won the best short documentary award at the festival. You can see the whole video at his website.

The video below shows a few seconds near the beginning of the movie and a bit of the film maker Q&A after the movie was shown tonight.

AIFF - My Picks [Final Version]

The Festival awards were given out last night, but let me identify my own picks first and then official award winners. I saw four more tonight and have added them into the revised documentary table. It was interesting putting these tables together and seeing what all I've seen. Here's my first go at this. I'll do a final version after tonight's movies. I heard it said there were about 175 films at the conference (many shorts) and you can see that I only saw a small percentage of that. But I had to make lists of the films I saw to figure out which ones I liked best. And that led to the tables below so you can see what my choices were from. There are still a couple I want to see and I'm hoping I can this week before all the dvd's go back. Those are: Henchmen, by the filmmaker I met last week and Horn OK Please. (I just saw that the second one is 90 minutes. I'd thought it was a short animation. Maybe I should put others on my list.)

The tables for each category show the films I've seen in that category and how I rated them. Many I have mentioned already on the blog. You can put the name in the search blog window at the top left if you want more on that film.

Feature films:


Animated (I wasn't that impressed with most. They were technically good, but empty.)

Short features:
[Before Dawn got left off this chart, I'd put it in the "Go Out of Your Way to See It" Column]


Documentaries: (It turns out I didn't see many short documentaries - both tonight - so I'm making one documentary category.)


I'll do more on the four documentaries we saw tonight. And, making these tables, I realize I should discuss the criteria that I used. Actually, the first step is my gut reaction. Then I go looking for reasons I responded that way. More on that later.

AIFF - Film Makers Forum 2

Today's the last day of the Festival and I got to Ship Creek Mall for the filmmaker forum only to find the doors locked, but there was a note - moved to Starbucks at 5th & F. There I found 11 folks around the table talking about making films.

A majority were local people and talk got around to how to improve the film making environment in Alaska itself - ways for people to keep in touch with like minded others, equipment rental possibilities, etc. People talked about projects and passed out their cards. There was even someone from Bristol Bay Alliance looking to connect to local film makers so they can make a film about Bristol Bay and the potential impacts of mining. He made it clear they want an all Alaskan project - funding, film makers, everything. And they want it something that talks to people in the middle, not the extremes. Here's a glimpse at the meeting.

AIFF - Shorts in Competition Catch Up

This evening we saw Body/Antibody at the museum and then back to the Fireweed for Cthulhu.

But I need to catch up with all the great shorts we saw at the Shorts in Competition showing Friday night. Was that only yesterday? This was a very strong field of good shorts.

I'll give you the Festival website blurb and my comments.

The Wine Bar
When blue-collar Henry orders a beer in a snooty wine bar he offends everyone and has to defend himself and the woman sitting next to him.
In Short Competition

This one I already liked the best last Saturday and did a short comment then. This one is just a very well made, funny, insightful, and you feel good at the end.

Dear Lemon Lima,
A lonely girl with a vivid imagination struggles to plant seeds of love after her narcissistic sweetheart breaks her heart.

Posted about this one already.

Boletos Por Favor
(Tickets Please)
A train, a pursuit, only one way to escape.

It's hard to write about shorts without telling too much. This one was like walking into a highly charged situation and getting to watch it close up. The ending wasn't as satisfying as it could have been.

Anonymous
New fresh kind of independent cinema.

This one blew me away. It had a quirky style, every now and then it got jerky, like stuttering visually, along with the sound of the turntable scratching back and forth. And it was just right for this strange little story of a writer, his typewriter, the woman in the apartment next door, and an elevator. This was my favorite. Though it might not be everyone's taste.

Security
Dark humor veers into tragedy in Security, a drama about an American Immigration agent at Newark International Airport whose private fears spill into his professional life when he confronts an Iranian mother and her son. Starring Chris Messina (Six Feet Under). Based on the play by Israel Horovitz.

This one had me so pulled in that I totally forgot about my camera. Powerful. Homeland Security is NOT the hero of this film.

La Parabolica
(The Parabolic Dish)
During the broadcast of the Pope's visit, Vicente’s television is broken. Desperate, he decides to make a homemade parabolic dish.

This was the weakest of the bunch. It was fine, but not up to the quality of the others.

Demain la Veille
(Waiting for Yesterday) (See the trailer)
Bob is a 30 year old man like all others: he walks backwards, looses his memory, his skills, like a good citizen. But one night, he wakes up in sweat realizing that the world that he lives in is not “normal”. As he starts behaving differently, he finds himself chased by mercenaries, trying to put him back on track. Little does he know what he is in for: fighting the abstract power that has taken mankind backwards.

This one was also amazing. Seeing the world go backwards - wine pouring out of the mouth into the glass, ink disappearing off the page into the pen - is a nice brain stretcher. Making the film go backward isn't that hard, but at times I thought the storm troopers might actually have been running backward. I'd like a copy of this to play over and over again. Not sure if this was that good or it was simply the novelty of everything going backwards. Definitely worth seeing.

AIFF - Your Beautiful Cul De Sac Home

Waiting at the Fireweed to get in.






Getting to talk to the director of this film, Cameron Kirkwood was an extra bonus after watching this film. There was excellent acting, complicated story lines, and hard issues - how to live in a compromised world. Bringing all of it together wasn't easy, and I still had questions about how Trevor connected with Ben. Cameron pointed to events in the film that did tie them together, but I just didn't know enough at that point in the film. He mentioned that an earlier version was even more vague and they'd debated about how much to make it all clear. I think leaving some things unspelled out can be a good idea. I was making the connections here, and I think in a second viewing things would all fall into place. As I ponder this issue, I think that the basics of the story line should be fairly clear at the end. There shouldn't be questions like, but how did that guy get in there? With the basic story line in place, there should be as many layers of story as you can get in for the viewer to discover in multiple viewings. There was also a 'lecture" toward the end. An older name sits Ben down and tells him what's what. The actor was very good and it worked. But it was on the edge of heavy handed and I'm sure for people who reject the message it would have seemed to have crossed the line.

The movie also did a good job of integrating the issue of domestic violence into script, and issue I have an interest in. We've gotten to see some really fine films showing peeks into different people's worlds in non-standard film languages. Thanks to all the volunteers who have put this all together.

AIFF - Most Likely To

I saw two very good Canadian films - both about young men at early career stage trying to figure out how to live in the world. They were both well made and had stories to tell.

The blurb for Most Likely To says:

The film was shot in a Danish style imploying many techniques found in Dogme 95 practice but specifically was inspired by murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh. 1) The film was shot with a rule of three - Shot in 3 days, with 3 camera's, 3 takes per scene, for 3 grand. 2) Without any rehearsal, the dialouge in the film is completely improvised.

Tony Sheppard, the Festival founder, said they did it for $5000. Five high school friends meet as they are at early stages of their careers, or should be. They are staying for the weekend at the home of the boss of the young attorney in the group. And he is worried that the party they are planning is going to cost him his job. Movie parties can be bad, but this one was filmed well - including split screen stuff. But things kick into high gear after the party. As they discuss whether to call the cops or not, I thought, this is the film that Alaskans should watch. So many people ask how Juneau got so corrupt. How is it Kott Kohring might not get that they did wrong. Here are five young men making a major decision based on the potential consequences to their lives. And they don't think about it twice. Good movie!

AIFF - Playing Cats and Moose

We were a little late to Out North so we had to sit on the floor to watch these two films.

The crowd, or at least parts of the crowd, loved the first movie - The Dalai Lama's Cat. The film festival's program blurb isn't too far off:

'Lonely Planet' meets 'The Office' at a dizzying 5000 metres.

But I had several other reactions, none positive.

1. This is another self promotion travel film. Last night we had Crossing Alaska with Horses, and earlier this year we had Asiemut. You go on a trip, take a video camera (and crew in the case of Horses), and pay for your trip by making a movie. Asiemut worked for me. The two from the festival didn't. This one not at all.
2. The movie has nothing to do with the Dalai Lama or cats. The title is premised on a story one of the travelers heard about the Dalai Lama's cats and reincarnation. They could find nothing about this cat story - in the book stores of Kathmandu or in Tibet.
3. The use of the Dalai Lama's name in the title is nothing but blatant exploitation of his name. People regard the Dalai Lama highly and drew many to the film. This film, while criticizing the Chinese in Tibet for disappearing any evidence of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, didn't show any understanding of the Dalai Lama himself. I'm sure though, the Dalai Lama would just offer a mysterious smile if he saw this, but I think he deserves a cut of any profit they make.
4. These 40 or 50 somethings acted like drunk frat boys and made ignorant fun of everyone and everything. I feel a little like a grump here, but when you visit the holy place of several religions, leaving your girlfriend's fluffy pink slippers and underwear as an offering, it isn't humorous for me. Acting like this at home is one thing, but when you do it elsewhere, it's just rude. Try this line: "He made friends with the locals by dropping a little kid on his head" and then the audience laughs at him playing with a little kid and dropping him (accidentally, I'm sure) on his head. I guess what gets me aroused is that this is rich white privilege at work. The Nepalese and Tibetans put up with stupid tourists for the same reason they put up with the Chinese - they have no choice. But if one of these Tibetans were to come to Britain or Australia (they said they were Brits living in Australia) or to the US and acted like they did, they'd probably run into serious problems, as we saw in a short film later in the evening called "Security" about an Iranian woman and her son who get special interrogation in a US airport on the way to visit her husband teaching at a US university.
5. They told us after the showing that they lied about their film making intentions because they wouldn't have gotten permission to enter Tibet and their guides could have gotten into trouble. Nevertheless, the were willing to risk their guides' livelihood and possible freedom for their own lark. Exposing others to such risks to document human rights abuses to the world is one thing, to have a laugh and possibly make some money that the risk takers won't share and have never consent to is quite another. I understand self centered 13 and 14 year olds doing this, but I expect more from adults.

Look, if I met these guys in a pub in Australia or in Anchorage, I'm sure we'd tell good stories and get on fine. But my overseas experiences have been attempts to learn the language where I was and learn about people from their perspectives, not to make fun of the people I visited. Many of the films in this festival have given us glimpses into the culture and inner worlds of people we would never otherwise meet. This film did give us insight into Mike and Peter's world, one that enjoys privileges the people they meet will never have. And they use those privileges not to learn, not to share what they've learned, or not even to be introspective, but to clown around with the backdrop a people in poverty. They don't laugh with the people of Tibet, but at them. This is a far different movie than, say Asiemut, where two film makers biked through Mongolia to India. They used the 'exoticness' of the people of Tibet and the cache of the Dalai Lama's name to pay for their trip to Tibet. They said they sent five copies of the movie to the Dalai Lama, but they didn't say if they make a profit they would share any of it with the people of Tibet.


Below the film makers talk after the showing.



Oh yeah, the title mentioned moose too. The second film was about local heroes Rick Sinnott and Jessy Coltrane, the wildlife biologists who help keep humans and moose (and bears and other critters) coexisting in Anchorage. This film was fun. Rick is well known and generally well liked in Anchorage and I even went out with him once to band magpies. Not an easy task. We like our moose walking the streets and his work helps to keep the moose and the people safe so that this can continue. That's what this film made for the BBC is about.

AIFF -El Pallasso i el Führer (The Clown and the Führer)

The Clown and the Führer is the best feature I've seen at the Festival. I wrote about it last night a bit. Here are some clips from the showing.

AIFF - Thursday Night Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts was a collection of short films. I wrote a little about them in the previous post. But I didn't write about "The Grass Grows Green" which you can see is well filmed. It's the story of two Marine recruiters on the day they learn one of the men they recruited had been killed in Iraq. While I liked most everything about this, the recruiters didn't ring true for me. Was it the acting? The script? Not sure. Besides, how many Marine recruiters do I know? Something didn't seem right about their roles for me. There was one more film in this showing - The Worlds Most Fabulous Object - but we came in partway after Crossing Alaska with Horses from the Fireweed.

AIFF - Thursday, A Good Day at the Movies

El Pallasso i el Führer
(The Clown and the Führer)

A first rate movie. From a play, presumably based on a true story (they did tell us at the end what happened to the main characters) from Spain (in Catalan I believe). So, I'm going to guess the clown was from Spain. 1944, invited, as the greatest clown in the world, to perform for Adolf Hitler's birthday. This was a film with many layers that somehow managed to tell a rich, complete story in movie time. Its theater provenance, I'm sure, made this much easier than had it been adapted from a book. I'd say this was the best film I've seen at the festival. Funny - in deeply ironic humor, not sitcom funny - layers of intrigue, subtlety, good acting. My favorite so far.

A Cheval à Travers l'Alaska
(Crossing Alaska with Horses)

I have a vision of a giant cross superimposed on a map of Alaska - the cross entirely made up fo horses. But while crossing Alaska from Valdez to Prudhoe Bay by horse was a fantastic adventure for the two Frenchmen and the Korean-American in the film, the film was not so fantastic. This is of the "let's make a movie about our adventure so we can pay for our travel" genre. Asiemut's story of biking from Mongolia to Calcutta was the same sort of thing, but they made as good a movie, if not better, without a film crew following them around. Perhaps this is because when you live in Alaska, Alaska is not exotic. And Alaskan love to see movies about Alaska and love to catch all the errors. Watching the DVD version may also have diminished the film. There was lots of (in French) "Gee, wow, magnificent, natural wonderland, traveling in the wilderness" gushing about Alaska. At least the travelers realized and told us that once they got here they realized that maybe traveling with horses across Alaska wasn't such a smart idea. Perhaps one of the more ironic scenes was when they met with a couple of the Pilgrim family sons in McCarthy and went with them to see the glacier. Last week in Anchorage the Pilgrim children testified in court how Papa Pilgrim beat them and raped the oldest daughter and he was convicted to 14 years in prison. In the movie the sons talk about the idyllic life living in the wilderness. Not everything is what it seems to be.

This movie was sold out. People came into the theater and had to leave because it was totally full, with even some people sitting on the floor. They've added a showing Saturday at 5:30 (check the AIFF website for sure) as well as the scheduled Sunday showing, or so they said.

The director came all the way from Paris and answered questions after the film. But no one turned the lights up and we had to get to the museum.

Then we rushed down to the museum to catch the shorts there. We figured that there would be at least one really good one - but the feature movie at the Bear Tooth and the one at the Fireweek, if either wasn't great, we were stuck. The shorts turned out to outstanding. I particularly liked

Il était une fois ... Sasha et Désiré
(Once upon a time ... Sasha and Desire) which took us to the day the daughter of Russian (Jewish it appeared) immigrants to Paris, met the cafe-au-lait descendant of African slaves and French colonists in Martinique. A beautiful film.

To Spiti me tis Elies
(House of the Olive Trees) another, very different young couple, in Greece. Interesting people in real situations. While we've previewed her stubborness in the opening shot of her baptism, we don't know anything about him. This felt like a excerpt from a feature film, but it had a sobering ending that left many possibilities.

Dear Lemon Lima, was another snippet, it seemed, from a future feature length film. Beautifully shot with good acting, it had lots of potential. Though I think the mother was a bit exaggerated. (I'm sure the writer will say 'not at all, I know her well'.) The director - I think that was her role - was there after the film to talk. She also talked about a feature to be filmed next summer that is set in Fairbanks. To her credit, she's been to Fairbanks - after writing several chapters of the screen play - but it will be filmed in Seattle (did she really say Seattle? How can you do Fairbanks in Seattle?) because, you know, it's really expensive to do it in Fairbanks. You know, I think that people in Fairbanks and Anchorage would put the whole crew up in their houses to help you keep the costs down. If those other guys could walk their horses across Alaska, you can surely shoot your film that takes place in Fairbanks, in Alaska. Imagine a movie, "Crossing Alaska with Horses" filmed in the Alps, because, you know, going to Alaska would be so expensive.

I've got some video, but it's going on 1am and tomorrow morning is the Kott sentencing. I'll get some up tomorrow.

I'll put this up now and check maybe do some editing tomorrow if it's terrible.

AIFF - I Have Seen the Future going to Sundance

Cam Christiansen, the director of "I Have Seen the Future's," email address was on the AIFF link to the movie, so I emailed Cam to say how much I enjoyed the short animation. I got back this email.


"Hey thanks.. thats great.. We just got accepted to sundance so.. very pleased"


Assuming it was "I Have Seen the Future" [it was] and not another film that got into Sundance, we can say we saw it first at the Anchorage International Film Festival.