AIFF - "Official Selection," "Films in Competition" - What Do The Film Categories Mean?

If you look at the program guide for the Anchorage International Film Festival, the films are divided into different categories. I get the

• Features - 'fiction' films over about 55 minutes
• Documentaries" "non-fiction" films over about 55 minutes
• Shorts - 'fiction' films under 55 minutes
• Short Documentaries - 'nonfiction' films under 55 minutes
• Animation - Animated films - these can be feature length or short, and while most are 'fiction' I guess you could have an animated documentary - a biography of Mickey Mouse maybe? No, this would be a interesting challenge.
  

But there are other distinctions I didn't quite understand, so I've been emailing and talking to several of the people running the Festival (Rand and Tony and a one of the documentary coordinators from last year) to find out what these terms mean exactly and how it all works. All the highlighted terms will be explained, though some show up before the explanation. Patience.

• Pre-screening Committees - Committees are selected early on to view all the movies submitted to the Festival in the specific film categories. So, there is a committee for documentaries, for features, for shorts, and for animations. These committees select the films that will become official selections. There are five to ten people on a pre-screening committee. They've completed their work some time ago.

• Official Selections - An official selection is any film that was submitted to the festival, was accepted by the appropriate pre-screening committee, and paid the entry fee.

• Special Selections - Special selections are films that the festival invites or solicits after the submission process has ended to round out the program, usually they have to pay a screening fee for these films and often times these films are already in theatrical release and this category applies to classic films as well, such as Chinatown that will be shown next week.

• Films in Competition - The pre-screening committees are given a rough guide about how many films they can accept as official selections. Of those, they pick what they consider the best. These are then the films in competition and get sent to the jury panels. These films are the contenders for the Golden Oosik Awards. Now, there is some negotiation between the coordinators of the pre-screening committees and director of the film festival to insure that ultimately there is a good balance of genres (they'd rather not have every feature be a comedy for example) and national representation, etc. They have to narrow it down so that the jury panels have time to watch the films and make their choices.

• Jury Panels - Once the Films in Competition are selected the pre-screening committees are done and the films are given to jury panels. The jury panels get together as a group in a theater and watch them all together. I think these also tend to be five to ten people who haven't been involved the selection process before this. They choose the best films for each category. I think they're supposed to have this done by the middle of the next week. These best films win the Golden Oosik awards at the Saturday night awards ceremony.
  

• Audience Awards - All feature length films (over 55 minutes) are eligible for the audience award which is voted on by . . . well, you know who. This is new this year. The best audience award feature film and documentary will be screened on the last day of the festival, they will be announced at the awards party on Sat. December 13. I'm not quite sure the logistics of how people will vote, but we'll find out. Other film festivals must have figured out how people who don't see all the films can vote reasonably fairly.

Last year I didn't understand any of this. When I was picking my own favorites, I hadn't taken into consideration the category of films in competition. I'm pointing this all out here so others can understand it. Before the Festival begins I'm going to first focus on making it easier for people to know what the Films in Competition are for each category and what the schedules are so you have a chance to see as many as possible. I'll post the schedule for the Feature Films in Competition soon.

But other people will be more interested in films of specific genres - comedy, drama, etc. Other people will just want to see shorts or animation. And some will be interested in films from certain countries or about specific topics. They won't care if the films are in competition or not. And there are the special presentations which have been invited and may prove to be better than the films in competition. But I'm going to start with the films in competition, then, if I have time left over, I'll go onto some other focus. Once the festival starts, I'll report on what I go to.


Check the tab on top - Alaska International Film Festival 2011 - for an overview of posts I do on the festival this year.  The 2010 tab is also still up if you want to check on last year's festival. [UPDATE:  And now there's a  AIFF 2012 Tab]

[UPDATE:  October 17, 2016 - This year's selected films are up at the AIFF2016 website.]

[UPDATE: October 5, 2016 - This year's Festival website says the selected officials will be announced on October 14, 2016.  I've started a page the 2016 Festival, which you can see in the tabs above.]

OK The Film Festival's Complete Website is Now UP

Rand has been working pretty hard to get the 'real' website up. From what I can gather, the person who was going to do it, didn't, and so Rand ended up creating it in the last couple of days. It's a big improvement over the early abbreviated version. It isn't as aesthetically pleasing as we might like, but all the information you need is there, with easy navigation, and lots of links. And if you find any important glitches let Rand know.

Here's the AIFF Main Link. On the other pages, for now, you have to go all the way down to the bottom to get back to the links.

The eagle-eyed might notice that this blog is linked on their main page. What's up with that? Well I blogged the festival last year and they liked what I did and asked if I would be the official blogger. They promised me I could say what I wanted, but I decided it was better to blog on my own and then if I write something that upsets one of the film makers, the Festival isn't responsible. They also threw in a free pass for me this year.

I probably won't say anything terrible about a film, but I did rant about one film last year that I thought was exploiting its subject as well as boorishly demeaning a whole country. I mentioned in an earlier post that if I sound a little promotional at times, it's only because I like films and I like the kinds of quirky films that show up at festivals, so I want as many people to know about the festival as possible so the festival will continue. Will I fudge on what I write to get people out? No way. There are plenty of people in Anchorage who like films. They're my main target. To get them out of the house in the dark December chill when inertia tugs heavily if they even think about leaving the house. But if others who normally don't go out to films hear about a movie on a topic they're into, that's good too.

And maybe if enough people come in from the Valley, they can work with the organizers to have a Valley venue too next year.

Anchorage International Film Festival -Special Workshops

There will be four special workshops at the Film Festival - all on the weekends. The workshops, from my experience, give you a chance to hear directly from the film makers and get a behind-the-scenes view of the movie. Sort of like the extra material on DVD's except it's real life and you can ask questions. Going to a workshop may mean you miss films playing at the same time, but catching up via dvd or even Youtube in the future is probably easier than getting a chance to interact live with the film makers themselves.


The workshops are $7 each. If you have an "all films and events" pass, you're covered.

Sunday, December 7, 2pm, Out North:

[All images can be enlarged by double-clicking on them.]

Andrew MacLean, an Inupiaq filmmaker, a local boy with a Sundance Prize, will talk about how he made the film Sikumi. The film itself will be shown

• Saturday December 13 at the Bear Tooth at 12:45 pm in the program "Snowdance Shorts" - a collection of Alaska related short documentaries.

I would hope that Alaska Native parents especially can take advantage of this opportunity to bring their kids. Role models are really important and there aren't that many opportunities to see prizing winning Alaska Native film makers (or any prize winning film makers for that matter.)

Photo of Andrew McLean from Native Works. There's also a bio there.




Friday, December 12, 8pm Out North:

Local talent time. Lots of people now have video cameras - even if it's just the one on your digital camera. So spend some time and make a short video during the conference. What can you lose? Watch for the instructions one week from today - Friday, December 5 - on the AIFF website.


Saturday December 13 11am, Out North:
I haven't seen any of the films, so I can only go by the titles and descriptions. But "The Last Days of Shishmaref"* sounds like a film that all Alaskans should watch. I bumped into a woman Monday who is studying the moving of Alaskan villages due to global warming problems and this sounds like an issue we haven't even begun, as a State, to understand. The movie itself will be shown twice:

• 12/7 Sun 6:15pm Bear Tooth
• 12/13 Sat 12:30pm Fireweed Theatre

So, if you go to the first showing, you'll have questions to ask Jan Louter, and can still catch the second showing if you want to see it again.


*The picture of Loutan is from the site linked above. The website is worth checking out, almost a whole project of its own, including blog excerpts like this one:

This makes me think a little about the criticism I read about Claude Lévi-Strauss:

It is perfectly true that an experienced anthropologust, visiting a "new" primitive society for the first time and working with the aid of competent interpreters, may be able, after a stay of only a few days, to develop in his own mind a fairly comprehensive "model" of how the social system works, but it is also true that if he stays for six months and learns to speak the local language very little of that original "model" wll remain.

The awe and amazement one feels on coming into a completely foreign environment can have one filling in the missing details with our own preconceptions; the quote from Jan's blog does have that amazed and dazzled tone to it. On the other hand, outsiders see things others don't see, and so they also can contribute meaningfully to the conversation. And relatively few urban Alaskans have been to Alaskan villages so this film should give us a peek at Shishmaref through the eyes of a Dutchman.

Saturday, December 13 3pm Out North

I was wondering if this might not be interesting for kids so I googled Jeff Chiba Stearns and got to his MySpace page. [The picture on the right is from his meditating bunny site.] These links took me into many different directions. Jeff has a number of incarnations including snowboarder. If I understood it right, he's a neighbor - he lives in British Columbia. Here's the trailer for one of his animated films, What Are You Anyways?



At the film festival, his short animation, Yellow Sticky Notes, will be shown in a late evening collection called "Love and Pain, Short Films for Adults"

• December 12 Fri 10:10pm • Bear Tooth [Not sure where I got this, the right times are below]
  

• Wednesday, December 10 at 5:30 PM - Anchorage Museum

• Saturday, December 13 at 12:30 PM - Anchorage Museum (Jeff will be at this showing)
  

I've sent Jeff an email to see if the workshop will be appropriate for kids. When I hear from him, I'll let you know.

[Update Saturday Morning: Jeff emailed back that yes, children are welcome:

"The animation workshop is geared toward all ages. So, yes, suggesting it would be great for kids is good. I always gage the direction of my workshops by the range of ages in the audience. I think the kids should be over the age of 8 since I will get a bit technical and really young kids will get bored. The workshop is geared towards teenagers and adults, too."

There's an interview with Jeff at Vancouver Animation where he talks about Yellow Sticky Notes, the film showing in Anchoage.]

Lots to keep us all pretty busy.

Anchorage International Film Festival - New Website Coming Soon

I talked to Michele at the Anchorage International Film Festival today. I was concerned about the website. Yes, she knew, and they are feverishly working on the new website. The current website will disappear and the new one will take its place Wednesday or Thursday. So be patient.

I also learned why there were blank pages in the program guide. That's what they sent to the Press and the blanks were for advertising. So, the complete program is already available as a downloadable PDF at the current AIFF site, or in readable form in my last post, and when the next Anchorage Press comes out, probably Thursday. That gives you a week to plan what movies you want to see.

Anchorage International Film Festival Program Guide and Tickets

This week's Press should have the whole AIFF program in it. But for those of you who want it early, there's a peek below. Of course you can get your PDF copy from the website I downloaded it last week and again today, but I can't seem to get the bottom of page 11 or pages 12, 14, or 16. Fortunately, the critical page is 15 which has the week's schedule.


Ticket Prices:



The price is $7 for most screenings.(See the program guide for special prices on classic movies, family matinees and Snowdance shorts.)

A six-pack punch card good for any six screenings is also available for $36.

Special event tickets for the opening night gala, Martini Matinee and the Golden Oosikar Awards are available at the venues the day of the event.

Passes:
All Events Pass is $75 includes all the films and special events.
All Films Pass is $60.

Advance Passes Punch card Purchases
Purchase your festival passes or punch cards in advance or during the festival at the Bear Tooth Theatrepub, AMIPA or www.anchoragefilmfestival.org.

Note: AMIPA is on the 3rd floor of the UAA Library. I can't find the link on the website for purchasing tickets.

The Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center and Regal Fireweed will also sell passes and punch cards during the festival's run.


Note again: Pages 11, 12, 14, and 16 are missing. You can enlarge the pages with down arrow on the right. You can also print the pages full size. I'm posting the top of page 11 (I had to delete 11 for it to work with Scribd] below.
Anchorage International Film Festival 2008 Online Guide

Get your own at Scribd or explore others: Culture Alaska Movies

Top of Page 11 - Double Click to enlarge

A lot of people have done a lot of volunteer work to make this film festival possible so go through the program and find something you like. If you're going to see at least ten films (that's one per day, or several bunched up on the weekends) then get the All Film Pass for $60 (and save $10).

There's also stuff for kids.

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the Festival. They liked how I blogged last year's festival and they've given me one free All Film Pass. They may even link to here, but I otherwise I'm just a film lover who's pushing the festival in general so that we have enough attendance that this becomes a regular event.

Anchorage International Film Festival Selections - Documentaries

Here's the list of the Documentary Features and Shorts for the AIFF. The Festival site doesn't have links up yet, so I've done what I could to fill in a bit of information on the films.

The program guide is available in PDF form. The website also says the program guide will be in the Press on November 26.

It would be nice if they had information on getting tickets on their site and prices. There are ads in the Press and ADN that say tickets are available at Bear Tooth, but that's what the website is for. If the info is there, I can't find it.

There are three focusing on Alaska - one on moving the village of Shishmareff, one on Pebble Mine, and one on a junk trip from Washington to Valdez. Another fish movie is about an Oregon tribe's battle to remove dams and bring back the salmon.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURES

A Nashville State of Mind • John-Martin Vogel • 88 min. USA
The alternative music scene in Nashville.


A Powerful Noise • Tom Cappello & Scott • 91 min. USA
"A documentary film about women changing the world. "

Ballou • Michael Patrei • 83 min. USA This film is about a marching band.

Crawford • David Modigliani • 74 min. USA



Junk Dreams • By Skye Borgman • 73 min. USA


Rachel: A Perfect Life • Fiona Cochrane • 91 hr/min Australia This is one where the topic might cause some people to pass (single mother, brain surgery, epilepsy) but one reviewer (?) writes:

"This film's appeal lies in the personality of its subject, Rachel Ouchirenko, and her truly brave and forthright approach to solving her biggest problem."

Secrets to Love • Tracie Donahue • 63 min. USA

"Director Tracie Donahue searches for the answers to finding (and maintaining) a healthy, happy love, by asking real couples and relationship experts the most important questions."

The Last Days of Shishmaref • Jan Louter • 88 min. Netherlands
This is a Dutch film about an Alaskan village. It looks like an important movie for urban Alaskans to see


The Wrecking Crew • Denny Tedesco • 98 min. USA
About a group of studio musicians in the late 60's who backed up the hottest groups of the late 60s in LA. The music will be good at least, based on the songlist.

Upstream Battle • Ben Kempas • 97 min. Germany

Native Americans on the Klamath River fight for their fish – against an energy corporation. Their struggle may trigger the largest dam removal project in history.

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS

Leave Her to Die • Antonia Thomson • 49 min. Canada

"A 2 year old baby girl lay alone on a bamboo mat in a government orphanage in Northern Thailand"

Red Gold • Travis Rummel • 54 min. USA

Produced by Felt Soul Media and Trout Unlimited Alaska, Red Gold is a one-hour documentary film on the proposed Pebble Mine told through the voices of commercial, subsistence and sport fishermen of Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Reefer Madness • Steve Hanson • 23 min. Canada
Can't find much on this one - Canadian freight train graffiti artist Fatso's trip across Canada.

Splitting Hairs • F Stone Roberts • 28 min. USA
The synopsis begins:

Facial hair championships began 30 years ago in the Black Forest of Germany. “Beard Clubs” organized social gatherings that gradually became competitive. Over time, the championships drew competitors from across Europe, but it was not until the early 1990’s that American pioneers Bruce Roe and Phil Olsen discovered the event.

Anchorage International Film Festival Selections Available

The 2008 Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF) selections have been posted on the AIFF website. You could keep pretty busy December 5-14 just watching movies. Here's a list of the selected features:

FEATURE FILMS
Butterfly Dreaming • Director Rufus Williams • 84 Min. Seattle/Australia

Bart Got a Room • Director Brian Hecker • 80 min. USA

Carrot Cake Conversations • Director Michael Wang • 97 min. Singapore

Chronic Town • Director Tom Hines • 94 min. Alaska/USA

Coyote • Director Brian Peterson • 95 min. USA

Half-life • Director Jennifer Phang • 116 min. USA

How to Be • Director Oliver Irving • 85 min. England/UK

Jar City (MYRIN) • Director Baltasar Kormakur • 93 min. Iceland

Moon And Other Lovers (Der Mond und Andere Liebhaber) • Director Bernard Bohlich • 102 min. Germany

Offside • Director Joffre Silva • 82 min. Brazil

The Project • Director Ryan Piotrowicz • 82 mins. USA/NYC

Resurrection County • Director Matt Zettell • USA

Skid Marks • Writter Don Rearden • 85 min. • USA

Sky in December (Jyunigatu no Sora) • Director Hiroshi Toda • 83 min. Japan

Streetsweeper • Director Neil Mansfield • 72 min. Australia

Vanaja • Director Rajnesh Domalpalli • 111 min. India

The Festival website itself has all the rest (about 150 films total) including about 40 animated films. This is a great chance to see interesting movies (and a few duds) before the rest of the world gets to see them. And in many cases you can talk to the director and other members of the cast and crew.

Last year's entry, Taxi to the Dark Side, went on to be the Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary. To whet your appetite the 2007 AIFF's best feature - The Clown and the Führer - can be seen on YouTube. [Whoops, it's just the trailer. I thought it was strange to have the whole, but I read 1:42 as an hour and 42 minutes.]