AIFF - Three Filmmakers Talk about their Films - Bolton, Marion, Hulbert

After Vanaja, we zipped over to the Fireweed to see The Moon and Other Lovers(Der Mond Und Andere Liebhaber). Both this one and Vanaja took us into different worlds. Both are definitely worth seeing and I'll probably talk about them later. Both were about strong women making their way in the world - two very different women at different ages, one in Germany and the other in Southern India.



The Moon and Other Lovers plays again:
Sunday, December 14 at 2:30 PM - Fireweed Theatre

Vanaja plays again:
Saturday, December 13 at 4:30 PM - Fireweed Theatre

After the movie we ran into some of the film makers, two of whom reluctantly allowed me to catch them on camera. After all, these guys put the cameras onto others all the time, they deserve to be on the other side now and then.

First, James Bolton who directed the feature Dream Boy which plays
Wednesday night at 7:45pm at the Bear Tooth. This film was both an official selection and an invited selection.


Second was Annetta Marion who directed the short film Donut Heaven. It plays again
Saturday, December 13 at 8:00 PM - Anchorage Museum as part of Subjective Subtleties.



The last video I did Sunday of Ward Hulbert coming out of the Andrew MacLean workshop, and he told me about his short film The Oracle which plays
Saturday, December 13 at 12:45 PM - Bear Tooth Theatre

(Grrrrrrrrr. I'm still having trouble with the video. I'll post this one and try to get another version where the video doesn't freeze.)

AIFF - Audience Member Liked "Sky in December" and "Diamonds in the Rough"

Waiting to see Vanaja at the Bear Tooth this evening, the woman sitting next to me was excited about two movies she'd seen already in the festival -

Sky in December
Diamonds in the Rough

Sky plays again Thursday, December 11 at 8:00 PM - Fireweed Theatre

I don't see that Diamonds - one of the documentaries in competition - is scheduled again.

I realized this morning that my head got overloaded with all the weekend watching. I don't want to write synopses of the films or just say, "I really liked this one." So until I digest the movies a bit more, I'll just mention that I went and a general sense of the film. Some I hope to be able to discuss at length later.

When your video is a lemon - and the theater was really dark - go for the special effects.

AIFF - Andrew Okpeaha MacLean Workshop Video

Well, it turned out I needed to shut off my computer and reboot to get my iMovie and Quicktime back in synch. But I wasn't sure, so I only used a couple of clips from the workshop here. I try not to think about the fact that filmmakers might be looking at these videos. But that though slipped into my consciousness, so let me just say I'm doing these with a Canon Powershot digital camera that has a video option, built in mic, etc. And doing quick edits - when my computer isn't fussing - to get these up in a few hours. And I believe in available light rather than flash. I also see myself as shooting as a member of the audience rather than as a reporter moving up in front of the crowd. So that's why there are some pretty dark images in some of the videos. And while this one is a little dark, at least Andrew stood in the spotlight.

Andrew's film Sikumi, which won a Jury Award at Sundance, will play again on Saturday, 12/13 at 12:45 at the Bear Tooth as part of Snowdance Shorts. He showed two other short films he made as a film student. The first is about a father teaching his son how to hunt seal in Barrow. The second takes a traditional Inupiaq story and puts the main character, a mad shaman, in New York City, where Andrew was a film student. You can see the other upcoming workshops here.

AIFF - Busy Sunday - Andrew Okeaha MacLean

Started today at Fireweed to see shorts, then to Out North to see Andrew MacLean's film maker workshop. Then more shorts at the museum- the last part of that group. And now I'm at Bear Tooth for The Last Days of Shismaref.

Well, my video is having the same problem I had the other night - the video is freezing.

The shorts at the Fireweed were hindered by bad projection - the films were way to dark and the sound was low. It was hard to watch. There was a great short Canadian animation - Profile - of faces being identified electronically. It very simply portrayed the ominous dehumanization in the name of 'security.'

Susan Cohen's Open Your Eyes was next. I'd met Susan a couple of times at earlier showings. Her film takes a nugget of life as a way of conveying the psychological impacts of having breast cancer. A wedding shower - lots of women in low cut tops only emphasizing to main character - wearing a very high cut dress - how she is now cut off from normality. But the darkness of the projection seriously detracted. The next one - Cocoon - was totally messed up by the darkness. You couldn't see faces for much of the short film.

I took off then to see Andrew at Out North. He showed two short films he'd made - one a documentary the other narrative.

We just saw Last Days of Shishmaref which was stunning and compelling No time now. The director Jan Louter was here to talk about the making of the film.

Here for the Queer Duck the movie and Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll now. As you can tell, I'm getting tired and the video problems are frustrating me.

Democrats elect Republican First Vietnamese-American Congressman and Say No to Corruption

Despite predictions to the contrary, Louisiana Democrats ousted indicted, black Congressman William Jefferson, and elected the first Vietnamese-American Congressman yesterday in an election that was postponed by Hurricane Gustav. Actually, the Hurricane pushed the primary election to Nov. 4 and the final election to yesterday.

Contrast this to Alaskans who almost reelected Ted Stevens despite his being convicted. Alaskan Republicans voted for Stevens. But in an overwhelmingly black and Democratic district in New Orleans, voters elected Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao. Now Alaskan Republicans can say, "But Jefferson had $99,000 in cash in his freezer." My response would be that Stevens had $150,000 in improvements in his house. What's the difference?

WWLTV.com

Associated Press

Joseph Cao

NEW ORLEANS - In a stunning victory, a little-known Vietnamese-American Republican candidate defeated nine-time Democratic Congressman William Jefferson in a majority African-American district with a very small number of Republican registered voters.

Anh ‘Joseph” Cao received 33,122 votes, or 49 percent to Jefferson’s 31,296, or 47 percent in the race for the Second Congressional District seat from Louisiana. He becomes the nation's first Vietnamese-American Congressman.

[Picture from wwltv.com]

AIIFF - Chronic Town - Post 1

Chronic Town is the first movie I've seen in the film festival so far, where I felt completely satisfied. Maybe if I mull on it a while I'll come up with some quibbles. But it's 12:36am as I'm typing now, so I'll just say a little while I wait for the video of the before and after film discussion. Do watch the video. A crew member says very nice things about the people of Fairbanks (not the ones portrayed in the movie.)

After watching Chronic Town, it is easier for me to talk about the other films I saw today - AL's Beef, One-Two Punch, and Bart's Got a Room - and yesterday. It's sort of like when I would grade papers. Often, it was easier to show students a really good paper than try to explain why theirs wasn't an A. When they saw the good one, they could see how much better it was. Watching Chronic Town helped clarify for me what was missing in the others. (last year I wrote up the criteria I seem to use when evaluating a film - they're at the end of this post on winners and my criteria.)

At this point, what I can clearly articulate about the film is that all the characters were real, there was no separation of an actor from his role - I never thought about the acting or that these were actors. The story drifted along like real life, yet the filmmaker made it interesting and gave us genuine peeks into other people's souls.

More tomorrow after I get some sleep. Not everyone liked the film as you'll see near the end of the video.

AIFF - Tim Anderson - One Two Punch

Talked to Tim before the movie One Two Punch just showed. Will talk about it later. Bart Got a Room is starting.


Update: He said after it was shown again that they fixed the problems he was talking about.

AIFF - AL's Beef

I had a little trouble getting up this morning, plus I had a 2 o'clock meeting with the Healing Racism in Anchorage steering committee, so I was going to miss the afternoon showing of Streetsweeper. But I managed to get to Bear Tooth for the last of film of the Subjective Subtleties. Well, there was NOTHING subtle about AL's Beef.

And now I'm back at Bear Tooth - after my meeting - waiting for Bart's Got a Room, so I actually have a moment to blog and there's free internet connection here.

AL's is my idea of a student film or a prototype film where the film maker is demonstrating the ability to do certain kinds of cinematic events - in this case with a Western back drop - but the film maker wants to do it 'different' so it isn't just one cliche after another. The answer: spoof. So we see the spurs before we see the cowboy - but the feet are barefoot, and the cowboy turns out to be a cowgirl. There's a sheriff/preacher (I wasn't totally clear about all the preachers) who practices throwing knives into a tree, but none of them stick. And then there's all the shooting, and all the bullet holes (in people) and gurgling blood. Not exactly my thing.

But all in all, it was funny and reasonably well done.

UPDATE: I found a couple of the visiting filmmakers who'd been discussing AL's Beef. One question was whether it was serious or not. I left the theater certain it was a spoof. but they said it had one Best Drama at another festival. I'm saying that doesn't matter. How could you have someone barefoot wearing spurs in a serious film? And a little kid walking around beating a drum while people are shooting each other and washing the blood off? Then the question came up, why was she all bloody at the beginning? So I checked - it was the Cape Fear Independent Film Festival, formerly the Sometime in October Film Festival, where it got best drama.

AIFF - Opening Night Gala at Aviation Museum - Film makers speak

We eventually made it to the Aviation Museum - several old hangers with an old Alaska Airlines 707 in front. Inside people were spread throughout the museum, eating, drinking, talking, and looking at airplane parts.

Shortly after we got there people gathered in the first room and some of the film makers talked a little about their films. A few even had trailers shown on a wall with a propeller on it. My tiny Canon Powershot valiantly attempted to adjust to the dark room. I can just say, it's better than nothing. You get a little sense of what it was like.

Outside it was slightly above freezing, but the snow wasn't too messy.


[OK, I've got a new problem - second time it's happened - but this time there might be some filmmakers looking who can tell me how to fix it. The movie works fine in iMovie, but after almost a minute (in this case) the video freezes in Quicktime version I saved it to, but the audio is good. How do I fix it. First time it ever happened was last week. I cut out the clip that it froze on. It went further and froze on another clip. I cut that out, and it seems to be ok. Any ideas?]

AIFF - First Films Begin at Bear Tooth - Symphony and Camille

I wasn't expecting much from Camille, so I was pleasantly surprised. A good movie isn't about the plot - though a good plot helps - but about how it all fits together. If you know it's got a guy on parole, a girl with red, red hair, and a blue horse and Niagra Falls, that's all you need to know. For the most part the acting was solid and it kept my attention. If there were any deep messages, I missed them completely. Definitely needed some polishing here and there - when the lady pointed out that Dad had forgotten the wallet, for example, we all had a pretty good idea of what was coming.

The animated short that opening things - Symphony (pic above, head not part of movie) - was a beautiful black and white of some sea creature who just misses being someone else's dinner several times to all in synch with the symphony. With my own short animation due Wednesday, I couldn't help but wonder how they did this. [Update: you can see a trailer of it here. Well worth it.]