AIFF 2009 - Today's Films While Awaiting the Awards Ceremony

We started out at 12:30pm today watching Pachamama - a Bolivian film that took us on the salt caravan.  The llamas carried blocks of salt through the mountains to villages that are off the road system.  The man leading the caravan said several times, that this might be the last caravan since trucks are much more efficient, but he was going to these villages the trucks couldn't reach.  It was like going to off-road Bolivia for 90 minutes.  Last night we were in China the same way, traveling with migrant workers and seeing glimpses of their lives as they went from the villages to the larger cities in search of work. 

From there I went to the Alaska Experience theater to Neil Mansfield's film maker workshop.  I loved Neil's film last year and hearing him talk about the tricks of the trade was fascinating.  I've got some video of the workshop and will get that up.  I did feel a little self conscious though making my hip pocket video of this guy talking about how to really make film. 

Then to Out North where I got to say hello to Robyn Bliley, who filmed Circus Rosaire, and who had just finished her workshop.  Then I got to watch Vincent.  An interesting film about this Chicago character who wears flamboyant colorful suits and does little shows for the tour boats in downtown Chicago.  The movie took us past the stories that various people had made up to explain Vincent to show us who he really is.  I love it when we get past the facades like that. 

Now I'm at the Awards Gala.  I'll stop here and start a new post. 

AIFF 2009 - Getting Ready For the Awards

Here's a list of the films in Competition.  At 8 tonight is the Award Ceremony.  I'll try to cover that live. 

My favorite among the shorts is Luksus and then The Capras Tide.

I'd go with Birthday and Hipsters.  They're both really

different and it's hard to compare them.

Topi is my animation pick.

My favorite documentary ISN'T on the list - The Prodigal Son. 

Of the ones I've seen on the list, I'll pick Trip to Hell and Back.

We'll see soon. 

AIFF 2009 - Brief Chat with Jennifer Burns and Vincent P. Falk

We skipped Vincent Saturday because it conflicted with another movie we wanted to see and it plays again on Sunday, Dec. 13 (today) at Out North at 5:30.  But I did get to meet Vincent and Jennifer (the director) Friday night at the Bear Tooth.  Here's a brief video of our chat.

AIFF 2009 - Cedric Sanders Talks after The Least Among You

It's exciting for a small town like Anchorage to see one of their own on the big screen with established Hollywood actors.  Not just on the screen, but the lead.  After the Anchorage premier of The Least Among You, he took questions from the audience.




And I caught him for a couple of minutes in the lobby afterward too, a little closer:



The movie was solid.  Sanders plays the first black student at a seminary after the Watts Riots in 1965.   Here are some audience reactions after the movie.

AIFF 2009 - Picks for Saturday

Some of the best films we've seen are on again today.

Documentary:  Prodigal Sons plays at 1pm at Alaska Experience Theater.  This was a real surprise and my favorite in the documentaries that I've seen. 

Features:  Hipsters at 7:30pm   and Birthday at 10:15pm at the Bear Tooth


I'd try to get tickets in advance for the two features. I suspect they'll be sold out. They are both outstanding - though very different - films. The Least Among You is at the Bear Tooth at 3 and is worth seeing. The lead actor - Lou Gosset Jr. is also in the film - is an Anchorage East High graduate and he'll be there to answer questions after the movie.

We're going to try to catch up on ones we've missed: Supershorts 2 at 1 at Out North, Shadow Billionaire at 3:15 at the Alaska Experience, and uncertain about after that. And there's the film workshop at Out North at 3pm, but we can only be at one place at a time.

We also want to see Vincent, but that plays again Sunday.

AIFF 2009 - Too Many Movies Mind's Going Fast

On the way to the Bear Tooth, there was a moose on one of the busiest intersections in town - Northern Lights and A Street. 


At the Bear Tooth, the Martini Matinee had five shorts scheduled in the program and two were added, so that's seven. 

Supershorts at Out North had 14.

Then back to Bear Tooth we saw "The Least Among You." (Something coming soon.)

Finally,  the shorts program "Love and Pain" which had 10. 

So that's 32 films yesterday.  So it's ok that I can't remember them all. 

For this post I'll just talk about two films from Super Shorts 1:  The Eclectic Collection - The Burger and Shave - and one from the Martini Matinee - Fat Bike. 


(The projection booth at Out North.)

All three of the films hit home.  Shave was a kid talking about his dad who always had a mustache until one day his dad came out without his mustache and the kid freaked out.  It wasn't his dad.  He'd only known the dad with a mustache.  On my first trip back to Thailand after serving in the Peace Corps there, I decided I needed to shave my beard.  Facial hair just wasn't cool in Thailand back in those days (today it is).  So I came out of the bathroom in Tokyo with a naked face, not thinking that much about it.  But my son, about 12 at the time, looked at me stunned.  "This is a trick isn't it?  Put your beard back on."  This was from a smart kid, so it must have been a real shock. It had been about eight years since he'd seen me without a beard and after watching the film, I understand his reaction better.


The Burger should be shown to all men before they get married - or maybe earlier.  It's about a woman who suggests that her husband (boyfriend?) order a burger at the restaurant.  He doesn't understand why she doesn't order one herself.  Women, you can explain it to the men in your lives.  Or better yet find a copy of the movie. 

Fat Bike was about riding bikes all winter in Anchorage.  They use very fat tires to ride through snow.  The picture is of the Susitna 100 mile race.  They had to walk their bikes a lot because it was snowing a lot during the race.  There was even a glimpse of friends - Yvonne and Scott - among the racers.  It is wonderful to ride your bike any time and when there's snow out, there's a particular bike high you get. 

AIFF 2009 - Mansfield Anchorage Film to Show at Martini Matinee

Last year's AIFF best feature film winner Neil Mansfield made a short film when he was at the Festival last year.  It is scheduled to be shown at the Martini Matinee this afternoon (Friday) at the Bear Tooth at 2:30pm.  The AIFF website says:

Permafrost Alaskan Vodka will give out a big cash prize for their video contest. Also, a movie trivia contest with some great prizes will be part of the afternoon’s festivities.sponsored by PermaFrost Vodka..Bear Tooth, 2:30-4:45 PM, $10 or all films and events pass.

Other films that will show include:

Manifestations, Red Revenge, Undercurrent, Sap Sucker, and Fat Bike.

AIFF 2009 - Thoughts on Reviewing the Movies - Son of the Sunshine

What in the world do I think I'm doing here reviewing movies?  And what's the purpose of a review?  And why should anyone pay any attention to what you say?

I think about these questions every time I write something that includes any sort of judgment.  I try to couch things in terms of my perspective rather than Godlike judgments, recognizing that different people have different criteria for a good movie.  So I try to be as objective as I can, citing aspects of a movie that cause me to make any general statements.  But there are lots of factors that go into writing about films at a festival.

For one thing, festival movies are NOT usually Hollywood movies.  Those follow more closely formulas for what is likely to sell.  They have a plot lines and structures and topics that have proven to sell well in the past.  When they do venture onto new ground, it is very incrementally.

Festival movies are often made because the filmmaker wanted to make that movie.  They are often very low budget (we learned Saturday night that Bomber was made for about $30,000 - with any future profits divided among the cast and crew.)  And the best try out some different formula or film language that challenges the audience.  Last year's feature wnner, "Streetsweeper" got panned by some because there was no discernible plot - beyond some man comes out of the sea in the early dawn, finds his streetsweeper cart, puts on his clothes, and then sweeps his way across the city of Newcastle, Australia.  Neil Mansfield, the director, was making a film using a different concept of film than many are used to.

It was exactly the kind of movie I come to a festival for.  In my review last year, I offered some alternative ways to think about the movie.  The first was to think about it like a visual  concert, where there is no verbal content, just the music and the images.

The ADN reviewer this year had trouble with Son of the Sunshine.

I found it all very long, slow and -- aside from one scene in which Sonny carries his mother out of the hospital and deposits her in a situation that may help her get her act together (I'm skeptical) -- possessed of no obvious story.

No obvious story.  Why does it have to have an obvious story?  Does Joyce's Ulysses have an obvious story?  There are other film languages than Hollywood formulas.  An essay by Harley Hahn helps us think about abstract art:

Abstract paintings are different. They have designs, shapes or colors that do not look like specific physical objects. As such, abstract paintings are a lot harder to understand than representational paintings. Indeed, when you look at an abstract painting, you often have no idea what it is you are actually seeing. Let's see if we can make sense out of this. . .

A second type of abstract painting, sometimes referred to as "pure" abstract art, is even more obtuse. Such paintings do not reflect any form of conventional reality: all you see are shapes, colors, lines, patterns, and so on. Here, for example, is one of my paintings, entitled "Blue #1", which I painted in 2000.

As you can see, nothing in this painting is recognizable. There are no people, fruit or even water lilies.

When you look at such art, it is natural to wonder why anyone would bother to create such paintings in the first place. What could the artist possibly have in mind?

Films at film festivals get to push beyond the normal conventions and into new forms, cinematic equivalents to non-representational art.   Let's go back to one of Hahn's sentences:

"[A]bstract paintings are a lot harder to understand than representational paintings"

Movies like Streetsweeper and, in a milder way, Son of the Sunshine are a lot harder to understand.  They don't walk us through a story the way most movies do.  They're about something other than a typical narrative plot. Son of the Sunshine for me was more about feelings than about story.  It was about someone's life -  not so much about events organized into a story but about events organized around conveying what things felt like.

The film centered around Sonny. I felt like I could see the world from his point of view.  The other characters were more problematic, but that's probably how they looked to Sonny.  But that's how I see it.

Movies like this involve the audience more.  You can't just passively view it, you have to work.  It encourages the audience to discuss it afterward, to participate in determining the meaning of the film. And in those discussions, we reveal things about ourselves and how we see the world.  Others get insights into how we think.  And we get to know the others better.  And we may even get to know ourselves better.

Is it good to have the movie ambiguous?  Doesn't that mean that the director failed to get his message across?  I guess that depends on what the director's intent was.  Was the movie intended to get a specific message across?   Perhaps it was simply the filmmaker's personal activity that he now allows others to watch. Perhaps it was intended to make us think. 

That said very few people have written books like Ulysses that worked, and just putting random shots together into a film doesn't make it a good film.  Ryan Ward, in the brief video conversation below says, "The story is the story, and the story holds up..." so maybe I'm reading way too much into this.  Ryan Ward was the writer, the director, and the lead actor.  Perhaps having a different director and/or writer might have led to more discussion on the set about aspects of the film  and Ward would have had to think out and explain his vision more and those discussions would have resulted in a 'better' movie. Who knows?

And so if you have a movie that is 'in a different cinematic language' how do you know if it is good or if the filmmaker is just playing a joke on the audience?  (I suspect someone has a whole blog dedicated to the study of what is good as this one is loosely dedicated to how we know things.)

There is no absolute way to determine if a movie is good because 'good' is a subjective determination.  Some people like asparagus and other people hate it.  The same is true with movies.  But just as we can discuss qualities of asparagus - health aspects, texture, color, taste - we can discuss qualities of a movie.  And as we become more knowledgeable about movies in general, we learn to see nuances that we hadn't seen before.  Salmon fishers see immediately the difference between reds, silvers, kings, etc.  The average person can't see those differences without careful inspection. 

It's the same with films.  One gains an understanding of the different film conventions by seeing lots of films, discussing them with experts, and reading different knowledgeable reviewers.  One may have to watch a movie several times to pick up details that were missed.  Knowing something about the filmmakers themselves helps us, just as knowing that Picasso could paint a beautiful representational portrait if he chose, and that he didn't paint abstracts because it was all he could do.  It might also help to let go of worrying about whether someone is able to fool you.   When someone does make a joke, it can be a very good joke. My favorite film joke, De Düva (The Dove), is itself a brilliant little film. But you have to have seen at least one Bergman film to really appreciate it.

Son of the Sunshine plays again today, Friday, Dec. 11 at 5:30pm at the Bear Tooth, so you can judge for yourself. 

Here's a short video of Son of the Sunshine writer, director, and lead actor Ryan Ward in the Bear Tooth lobby right after his Q&A following the showing of the film  The Q&A is much longer but was in a very dark theater - you can only see shapes - I wasn't sure I even wanted to post it.  But after writing all this, I think that it's fair that you listen to what he has to say. 

AIFF 2009 - Audience Comments

Here are some audience comments on:  Adopt a Sailor, Circus Rosaire, Son of the Sunshine, Birthday, Against the Current, Shadow Billionaire, Paddle to Seattle, American Primitive, and Godspeed. 

There's one commenter who got filmed in the still dark theater.  Can any Alaskans recognize her voice? 



[Photo:  back row at the Bear Tooth]

Hipsters and Paddle to Seattle Acknowledged Outside

Screen Daily announced that AIFF opening night film Hipsters was included in the 69 films listed for the Golden Globe Foreign Language Award.  Hipsters shows again Saturday night at 8pm in the Bear Tooth.  Definitely worth seeing.

A National Geographic news release tells us that Paddle to Seattle won Best Documentary at the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival:

We are so pleased that you have been able to follow along on our adventure.  We are honored to announce that last weekend Paddle won Best Documentary at the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival!  To date, the film has completed 3 festival screenings winning major awards at each.

Josh is in Alaska this week screening at the Anchorage International Film Festival.  On Monday people were turned away at the door for the sold out show at the Bear Tooth Theatre.  At a capacity of 420, Josh said there was a line extending out of the building.  This Friday, the film will play simultaneously on two screens, again at the Anchorage Festival, to accommodate the anticipated interest.

I checked with Rand - the AIFF Programmer - and here's what's happening Friday.  Paddle to Seattle is already scheduled for Alaska Experience Theater at 5:45pm.  The second showing will be in AET's second screen at 6:05.  That way the director can do Q&A after each showing. 

I've heard of several sold out performances at the festival this year and I suspect that tickets for Saturday night's Hipsters at 7:30 pm and Birthday at 10:15pm will be sold out.  You can buy tickets in advance at the Bear Tooth to be sure you get a seat.

And there will be extra showings of the winners in the different categories next week at the Bear Tooth.

AIFF 2009 - Playground and Other Documentary Thoughts

It's been somewhat foggy all day.  Here's 4th and C as we head for the Alaska Experience Theater.

If we sit in the back row the large, close screen is bearable.

Again, we chose to go with a documentary - Playground - instead of a feature.  This was one of the documentaries in competition, but so was the feature, Against the Current. 

It's clear why we'd rather see entertainment than go to class, but this is another topic everyone should know.  This was about child prostitution.  After a brief introduction that talked about the issue overseas, the movie zeroed in on the US.  Did you know that Atlanta is the 13th most frequent destination for people arranging to have sex with kids? 

I can understand that a lot of public policy issues are  hard to grasp.  I don't really know whether the bank bailout put the brakes on the recession or not.  And while I'm convince global climate change is real and is serious, I can understand that someone who doesn't want to believe that can point to experts that support their position. 

But child prostitution?  There's nothing to debate here.  The movie makes it clear that these girls (it mentions boys, but focuses on girls) are not doing this voluntarily.  In one interview a girl explains how she's trained to act like she enjoys it, and when she considers telling the client he smells and she doesn't want to do this, she thinks of the money she'll lose and the beating she'll get. 

The movie says while this used to be thought of as a low income problem, with the internet, that's no longer the case.  One mother talked about how her wonderful middle class daughter got caught up in drugs as a teen and is still on the streets at 22. 

And there was discussion of situations where a known sex offender was in a motel room with an underage girl, but since they were both dressed, nothing could be done.  Or a father who was told when he snatched his underage daughter off the streets, that he could be prosecuted if he didn't let her go.  Or the issue of privacy violations that prevent publishing pictures of kids being bought and sold - even though their pictures are up online in sex acts.

If the anti-abortion crusade but a quarter of their time into this issue, actual living kids might be saved from physical and mental torture that drives them to death, drugs, and/or lifetime psychological issues. 

Why don't we want to see this sort of movie?  Why don't we want to take an hour to educate ourselves on these horrific events happening in our own towns?  I don't know. 

As a movie, this was more in the educational documentary mode like Tapped, the one the other day on bottled water.  Not like Mount St. Elias which was basically an action film, or Prodigal Sons which was almost a reality show with the lead character - it appeared - videotaping part of her life.  Prodigal Sons is still my favorite so far among the documentaries I've seen. 

   It's clear that we deal with this sort of subject through feelings easier than through logic.  The interviews told far more than the statistics, though both are needed. The special part of this movie was the exquisite animation by Japanese animator, Yoshitomo Nara.  These animated interludes were brief timeouts from th heart rendering realities. 

I also caught this quick video with one of the AIFF volunteers at the desk before we went into the movie.



Then we went over to the Bear Tooth to see American Primitive.  I'll talk about that one later. 

AIFF 2009 - Know Your Mushrooms and Trip to Hell and Back

A couple of movies that are NOT in Snowdance (the movies made by Alaskans or in Alaska) but maybe should have been played Tuesday night.

Part of Know Your Mushrooms included scenes of mushroom hunting in Alaska. As I said in the previous post, it was a fun movie, but nothing great. If you are interested in mushrooms - and the movie makers think everyone should be because of their importance in the world - you might check it out. A couple of viewers give their impression of the movie.



Unfortunately, there was only that one showing of Know Your Mushrooms.


[Video about Trip to Hell and Back removed at the request of the person in the video]




Trip to Hell and Back is paired with Girls on the Wall in the Program Road to Redemption and plays again Saturday, Dec. 13 at 3:15pm at the Museum.

AIFF 2009 - Brief Post on Know Your Mushrooms and Son of the Sunshine

The Canadian Consul hosted a wine and cheese party after the Canadian film Son of the Sunshine tonight. It got late, so I'll just post a minimal post. Know Your Mushrooms was not a great film, but it was fun and lots of information on mushrooms - their contribution to the decomposition on earth, relationship to religion, health aspects, and psychedelic aspects. A very laid back movie.

Then there was a fairly long break so I got this video so that people who didn't make it to the festival can see the main venue for the feature films - the Bear Tooth Theater and Pub.






I'm still digesting Son of the Sunshine.  Below right is Writer, Director, and lead Actor of the movie talking one of the film goers.  It was a difficult movie, in part because so many of the characters were not terribly likable and we only really got to know enough about the main character to get a sense of his strangeness.  Plus, he could be extremely sweet and caring.  But the others - Ariel, the mom, etc. - were there but we didn't, at least I, didn't know who they were enough to fell sympathetic towards them.  But difficult doesn't mean bad, it just means you have to work harder to process it.  And I'm not there yet.  

Australian Neil Mansfield's film Streetsweeper was last year's best feature. It too was a difficult film because it didn't follow any of the conventions of film making. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but others thought it was awful. While Son of the Sunshine was difficult, it had a much more traditional structure. Perhaps it was easier with Streetsweeper because it was so different, whereas with Sunshine, it's close enough to standard film genres we know, that some people may think that's what he was doing, but it didn't quite work. He wasn't doing that. He wasn't telling a story as much as conveying a feeling, a feeling that wasn't always comfortable.

After the wine and cheese and most of the people were gone, some locals and some visiting film makers moved into the Bear Tooth Grill for more conversation.

When I left it was already 1am and the earlier fog had left all the trees frosted.

So, please excuse this sorry post. It's late and I'm past my bed time and hoping to get up early tomorrow morning.

AIFF 2009 - Tuesday Picks

The 5:30 shows include Know Your Mushrooms at the Bear Tooth.  Snowdance 2 at the Alaska Experience Theater - a mix of Alaskan made and/or made in Alaska.  Out North has Snowdance 3 which includes People of the Seal and Unalaska along with in competition animation Hugo in the Land of the Lemonshark.   Given my interest in mushrooms, I'm headed to the Bear Tooth


Animation 1 at Out North at 7:45pm  tonight is full of good stuff, including Peter Dunlap Shohl's Frozen Shorts.  Also Calypso and the Mouse that Roared.  And Topi, which I'm expecting great things from - I missed it because I had to leave early on Saturday to get to Hipsters.  There's a lot of good stuff in this mix and if there's one you don't like, well it will be over soon, and the next one will be up.

But I saw most of this one, so I'll be at Son of Sunshine, one of the features in competition, at 8pm  at Bear Tooth.

The other 8pm showing, at Alaska Experience Theater, is two shorter documentaries, including Trip to Hell and Back, which is in competition, about horses and crystal meth.  Looks like a very interesting picture.

AIFF 2009 - Natalie Eleftheriadis and James Harkness Celebrate "Birthday"

Hipsters was stunning.  Then Bomber took us for a quietly brilliant road trip into family relationships.  And Monday night, Birthday seemed to eliminate the medium altogether absorbing us into the lives of a few Australian sex workers and their clients.

This was an intimate film.  We saw characters alone in their rooms physically and emotionally naked.  Their faces filled the screen.  Sometimes in duplicate as they examined themselves in the mirror.   Somehow, the camera took us right through their skin into their souls. There was no place to hide, for the characters or the audience.  We were right there in the middle of it as the characters exposed themselves.

We didn't just watch them.  We lived their lives with them for the 104 minutes of the film.  By the end of the film it felt like I had known each of the characters for years.  The actors simply disappeared into the characters.  Natalie Eleftheriadis was M.  Richard Wilson was Joey, an incredibly nuanced character.  There was no cast, the characters seemed to play themselves. 

This film plays again Saturday at 10:15pm at the Bear Tooth.  So, if you missed Hipsters too, you can see a double feature Saturday night starting with the giant cast and loud, busy backdrop of Moscow at 8pm then move to the intimacy of the almost completely interior brothel and church scenes of Birthday.  (Photo from the Birthday website.)

 

I'm guessing we got this world premiere of the film Birthday, in which two of the characters have birthdays, here in Anchorage partly because Monday was also director James Harkness' birthday.  I'll stop here and let you listen to  James Harkness and Natalie Eleftheriadis tell you about the film themselves.   (The silhouette is not some hot new film style, just the necessity in the dark Bear Tooth.  You see it more or less the way we saw it.  With the occasional flash.)

Here's your study question for the video.  Who said,  "I hate being a lawyer, I'd really like to go back to being a sex worker"?



I started, last night, to rant about why this wasn't listed among the films in competition.  But I decided to check with Tony Sheppard, the feature film programmer, first.  I got an email back this morning saying Birthday is, in fact, in competition.  I've updated my Features in Competition post and linked it to here. 

[No, I'm not paid by the Festival - except for a media pass.  We've just had some amazing films.  And maybe if I see the film a few more times I'll find some flaws, but I'll probably find more to praise as well.]

[Update,  2pm:  As someone concerned about intimate partner violence who has identified other films in the festival dealing with human trafficking, I probably needed to comment on the portrayal of sex workers in this film.  I'm not an expert in this area, maybe slightly more informed than the average person.  The film makers, in the video, say they visited many brothels and talked to many of the workers.  They would have a better sense than I about what the lives of these women are like.  My sense is that there are sex workers and then there are sex workers.  The brothel in the movie shows large, lushly furnished rooms, including nice, en suite bathrooms with full shower/bath.  The clients were charged something like Aus$300 for half an hour.  I'm willing to accept the filmmakers' word that the image portrayed in this film is accurate concerning this particular brothel.  But it is important to also note that many sex workers are in much different conditions, tricked into the trade, and virtual slaves against their will.  Probably going to see the documentary Playground (Wednesday, Dec. 9 - tomorrow as I write - at 5:45pm at Alaska Experience Theater)  would be an important contrast the way sex workers are portrayed in Birthday.]

AIFF 2009 - Prodigal Sons (Wow!)

I'd more or less decided to go to see Adopt a Sailor after Birthday.  But I hadn't counted on the fact that the filmmakers (director and co-producer/lead actor) were there and would talk about the film using up all the spare time we had to get to Out North. (That's not a complaint, just an explanation why we didn't go to Adopt a Sailor which started at 7:45,  Prodigal Sons didn't start until 8.)  I'll talk about Birthday in the next post.  Right now I'm waiting for the video of their after film discussion to download from the camera. 

But all that is preface to our decision to follow our friend C over to the Alaska Experience Theater to see Prodigal Sons.  When I quickly copied from the description earlier today, I did wonder why it was Prodigal Sons since it was about a daughter returning to her high school reunion in Montana.  I should have read the whole description. 

We were a few minutes late, but it quickly became clear that the daughter, Kim, had left this town as a son, Paul, years earlier and this was her first trip home as Kim.  It took me a while to unravel the other relationships (and since very few of you are likely to ever see the movie, I'll take the liberty to discuss more about the story than I normally would, BUT it does play again on Saturday at 1pm at the Alaska Experience theater and it was a really interesting story.  So, if you think you might go, and you should, stop now, and read this later.) Actually, knowing all this doesn't matter.  It's just the skeleton.  The film itself fills in the flesh. 

So I sit back thinking ok, this is going to be about this transgender woman dealing with the people from her life as a male.  The friends at the reunion seemed to be accepting. (She was the high school football quarterback.)  But, of course, that's just me trying to label it, compartmentalize it, and move on to other things.  It soon becomes clear that there are a lot more identity issues.  Younger brother, Todd, came out in high school, but it seems he still has some issues with the third brother Mark. 

Mark, who was adopted and who had a severe head injury in a car crash at 21, has to deal with the different identities that reside inside his damaged brain, trying to ressurrect the Mark that died in the crash by living in the past when that Mark was still alive, and warding off the newer, violent Mark with meds he hates to take. There are the identity issues from not knowing his birth parents and why he can play the piano beautifully, but can't read a note.  All this on top of normal adult sibling reconciliation challenges.  There's also Mom.  Lucky Dad has already passed away.  No, these are all good people, and Dad's presence may well have helped.   

There's a lot here in this documentary to mess with everyone's ideas of normal and abnormal and to tear holes of doubts in our well constructed stereotypes.  And to raise questions about our own unanswered issues.  Good stuff.  

Kimberly Reed, you made a really outstanding film.  This is one more amazing movie in town because Tony Sheppard and some others decided Anchorage needed a film festival.  People are filling up the venues.  50% full for an 'obscure' documentary on a Monday night is pretty good I'd say.   The Bear Tooth was pretty much full for Birthday and we walked past a long line of folks waiting to see Paddle to Seattle. 

AIFF 2009 - Monday Recommendations

We have a lot less to choose from today - just two slots at three venues - but we still have to choose.

I'm headed to the Bear Tooth for the 5:30 World Premiere of Birthday.  The Australian director is scheduled be there.  This is a feature film that I haven't seen, but the ADN did a review today.  I try not to read those reviews because they usually tell the whole story.  I'd rather learn it from the movie itself.

The other options at the early slot are From Somewhere to Nowhere.  This too looks like an interesting film - a documentary about migrant workers in China.  The documentaries give us windows into worlds we often know little about and I'm sure this one will give an atypical view of China.  I remember the migrant worker housing at People's University where I taught for 3 months in 2004.  It was pretty sketchy.  And my students, it turned out, never talked to the migrant workers, even though they shared the same campus, though they were there for very different reasons and they passed each other often.  This one is 5:45 at the Alaska Experience Theater. 


Then, there's Allusions/Delusions, one of the Shorts programs.  This one includes two that are shorts in competition - The Capgrass Tide and Free Lunch.  Capgrass has some Alaska like landscapes - particularly the mudflats where people go clamming, and sometimes don't come back.  The production values of this short, tight story are terrific.  Free Lunch is about a rich kid in LA who rejects the family to run a lunch wagon in the poor sections of LA.  I found that in the other shorts programs  the other films turned out to all be quite good.  I'm tempted to go see this program too.  At Out North at 5:30.

Then I'm still undecided about whether I stay at the Bear Tooth for the 8:15 Paddle to Seattle - what looks to be a good kayak movie; head to Out North for Adopt a Sailor,  a feature about New York couple that take in a sailor during fleet week at 7:45pm (Birthday's 104 minutes, so I should have enough time); or head for the Alaska Experience Theater to see Prodigal Sons, about a woman going to her high school reunion in Montana at 8:00pm.

I'm leaning toward Sailor, but we'll see.

AIFF 2009 - Mount St. Elias (Audience Reactions) and Tapped

 Mount St. Elias tells the story of climbing up, then skiing down  Mount St. Elias, the second highest peak in the United States (and Canada - it's on the border) at 18,008 feet (5,488 meters).  However, because it is so close to the sea, it is the highest vertical mountain in the world from bottom to top with snow most of the way.  This led the mountaineers to the goal of climbing to the top and skiing down.  Actually, part of the ski trip was done earlier from the base camp.  The rest done from the peak to that base camp six or seven weeks later.  Here's what some of the audience thought:



This was my second documentary of the day.  It was testosterone heavy.  We kept hearing phrases like "testing myself,"  "proving to myself and to the world," and  "any misstep would be fatal."  This was about seriously goal-oriented men who took enormous risks to achieve their goal.  I think that people should do what they do well.  But I've also learned that people who become obsessive - workaholics, for example - are often using their obsession to avoid dealing with other parts of their lives.  These men were driven.  And obviously skilled skiers.  But was something missing in their personal lives that risking those lives in such a punishing environment was so attractive? 

And I couldn't help think about the people in "Tapped" the movie I'd seen in the earlier in the afternoon, who were fighting what politically seems equal odds - against Nestle's, Coca Cola, Pepsi - who bottle water -  and the petroleum industry that makes the plastic bottles.  It was hard to go to a documentary that I knew would be telling me about the problems of bottled water.  It's not that I disagree, but did I really want to sit through that?  Fortunately, none of the other venues had a must-see film.


[photo - cleaning the Bear Tooth theater between films]

It turns out I did want to see this movie, though the big screen is really close in the Alaska Experience Theater.  The film was well done.

I think Alaska would be significantly better off if the people who went to Mount St. Elias had also gone to Tapped.  In the same amount of time, they would have learned a lot about the negative impacts of buying bottled water.  I covered the details in an earlier post - also with audience comments. (And two of the Tapped commenters certainly aren't wimps - they met working in Antarctica.)


In Tapped, people were working hard for the public benefit.  In Mount St. Elias, people were working equally hard, but focused on very personal goals.  I think we all have to deal with figuring out who we are as individuals before we can reach out to help others.  And some of the people in Tapped also articulated personal events - a sister's cancer death in one case - that made them so tenacious in their fight for clean air, the right to water (and preventing privatization of water supplies), and the end to plastic bottles.

Both films showed people giving their all to meet their goals, it's just that the goals were so different. 

Homeboyski has several posts on the mountain and the film.

AIFF 2009 - Tapped, Audience Reactions

Tapped is one of those documentaries that everyone should see, but I really didn’t want to go be taught the evils of bottled water.  For one thing, I thought I knew the subject pretty well.  Second, a good feature movie would be more entertaining.  But I did the ‘right’ thing and went to the Alaska Experience Theater.  Wow.  This is a movie that should be played in all schools.  Sure, it’s an advocacy movie for the anit-bottled water folks, but as the movie makes clear, the bottled water industry makes billions a year and posts very rosy, misleading advertising about bottled water that all kids and adults see over and over again. 

Basic parts of the movie:

• Bottled water trying to get control over public water sources and when there are droughts, they still bottle water while townspeople have to cut back.
• Bottled water is largely unregulated and their claims to be ‘safe’ and ‘pure’ suggest that tap water isn’t.  But in truth, tap water is much more regulated than bottled water.
• Bottled water has lots of chemicals that come from the plastic that the FDA is not protecting us from.
• Plastic bottles are a major environmental scourge in the land fills and the oceans.
• Making plastic bottles is a huge environmental health issues near the factories.

Here are a few comments from people who saw it:


One Day in Cochin was not a great movie, but turned out better than I expected from the trailer.

At the Bear Tooth now after dropping J at home, she has a book club meeting tonight.  Getting ready for Mount St. Elias.  The place is packed.

AIFF 2009 - Sunday Films, What To Do?

I can't decide either.  I think I spent too much time looking at this that I'm overloaded.  I do have a warning for folks.  I did get a sneak preview of Godspeed which plays tonight at Bear Tooth.  It was made in Anchorage and Wasilla, and it is always nice (because it's so rare) to see our own landscapes on the big screen.  However, if you don't like graphic scenes of someone getting his skull smashed in with a rock I'd advise checking out the other venues at that time. 


Shadow Billionaire is a documentary about one of the founders of HDL who moves to Saipan and lives, apparently, a dissolute life.  If you are interested in understanding the problem of human trafficking for prostitution, this is one of several films that deal with that subject.  I've only seen the trailer, but it is one of the documentaries in competition.  7:45pm tonight (Sunday) at the Alaska Experience Theater 1.

Helter Skelter - 8:15 at at Out North is a mix of 'live action' (actors) and animation shorts.

I need to quit here so I can get to one of the 1pm movies.  I haven't decided between Adopt a Sailor (a feature about a couple that take in a sailor) at the Bear Tooth and Tapped, a documentary on bottled water at Alaska Experience.

Check the program guide for what else is on today.  Sundays are big days. 

Mount St Elias at 5:30 at the Bear Tooth should be a biggie.  About a mountain climbing accident a couple of years ago.