AIFF - Awards

It's Sunday morning, the next films start in about 11 hours. The Awards Ceremony at Middle Way Cafe waited for the crowd at Streetsweeper to get over there before things were announced. We already knew that Streetsweeper got best feature and Last Days of Shishmaref got best feature documentary. But I didn't know the others.


So here are the winners:
Best Short Documentary: Leave Her To Die
Best Super Short: Spider
Best Short: Open Your Eyes
Best Animated: Distraxion There's a short clip at the link, definitely worth it to get a sense of this delicious animated film.
Audience Awards were given for
Best Feature: Coyote
Best Feature Documentary: The Wrecking Crew

[Update: The official list, with runners up, plus the Snowdance (Alaska related films) winners are up at the link.]
Wrecking Crew will be shown Sunday at 5:30pm at the Bear Tooth
Coyote will be shown Sunday at 8:00 at the Bear Tooth

I really didn't see much in the way of short documentaries, but I wanted to see Leave Her to Die simply because it takes place in Thailand, and we're headed back in January for three months.

Best Feature: I finally saw Streetsweeper tonight. I was getting mixed reviews from people. I enjoyed it thoroughly. But it is easy to understand why some might not like it. I heard from one person whose taste I respect: "There's no there, there." So I was prepared to be sorely disappointed. But the was the there, just not the one he was looking for. But this deserves its own post. Later.

Best Documentary: I've already commented on Shismaref and posted over ten minutes of director Jan Louter at Saturday's workshop. Good Alaska movie.


Best Short Short: Spider Everything about this is well made. Including the surprises. But aside from being technically well made, does it have any deep lasting meaning? I think I ended up seeing it about four or five times because it kept popping up in places I didn't expect it. In this category, the one I instantly bonded to was: No Regrets. The music, the humor, the whole thing just worked for me.

Best Short Documentary: Leave Her To Die. I've got nothing to say about this category because somehow I didn't get to see any of these.

Best Animation: Distraxion. I loved this film. Kenny G is one of my pet peeves, and so I could totally relate to the poor put upon employee who was hounded by his boss' taste in music. And while I'm not a heavy metal fan either, I thoroughly love his getting revenge through Yngwie Malmsteen. When Mike puts this online, I'll put it up. This one did everything right. But there were just so many imaginative, creative animations. Definitely the most competitive category. Jeff Chiba Stearns' Yellow Sticky Notes was also great, and totally different. And his workshop today was outstanding. I've got lots of video of that coming eventually.

AIFF - Jan Louter Workshop

I liked "The Last Days of Shismaref" very much. The photography was stunning. The last scene - the all white screen and then two people walk off into the distance was a piece of visual art all in itself. The scenes with the families were real. I haven't been to Shishmaref, but I've spent a few days in Wales. Clearly Jan had gained the trust of the people in the film - not an easy thing to do. The Alaska Native villagers I've met are very open, trusting, and sharing. They have often given to Outsiders who didn't understand that giving was a two way process.

And I've written here in the past about the problems of Outside journalists trying to tell the stories of Alaskan Native villagers. So I had a lot of questions. I had a sense from the film what the answers would be, but I wanted to hear it from Louten himself. I was concerned when he said after the showing last week, that when he first read about Shishmaref, he knew there was a story there. And that Shishmaref was a metaphor for global warming.

The idea of him having "the story" before going to Shishmaref leaves the door open for him to use Shishmaref and its people to tell Jan Louten's story and not Shishmaref's story. To a certain extent, when he began today to say that he scripts his documentaries very carefully before he shoots, that concern wasn't mollified. But overall, what he said and the film itself, suggests to me that he did listen carefully to the people of Shishmaref. He said he took the film to Shishmaref and showed it to the people and told them if there was anything that they felt should be out, he would listen to their arguments. That they had nothing they wanted cut was reassuring.

He talked today about making documentaries almost like making a fictional feature - he does lots of research and then scripts it all carefully. He gave an example of a film he did on American writer, John Fante. He didn't want talking heads, so he had a person he was interviewing drive the car while he talked. This way he could get Los Angeles into the film. And they drove to the cemetary where Fante was buried. This way he could let the audience know Fante was dead without actually saying it. He simply showed the grave stone.

Here are some unedited clips from today's workshop. The film will be shown again tomorrow (Sunday) evening at the Bear Tooth at 5:30, for people who have not seen it.

AIFF - Yellow Sticky Notes Maker Jeff Chiba Stearns

I got to talk to Jeff last night at the museum, just before his video Yellow Sticky Notes was played at the Museum. But we spoke about a previous film - What Are You Anyway? - which is about his growing up half-white (and half-Japanese) in Kelowna, British Columbia. Since I'm on the steering committee of Healing Racism in Anchorage, I found the video a great tool for using in workshops looking at racism. Though I had a question about a part near the end where Jeff says his new girlfriend's behavior showed him that if he was proud of his heritage, the disturbing words and questions wouldn't bother him. I agree that is a good strategy if you are subject to prejudice, but in a training session with people of the dominant ethnicity, you need to discuss that this doesn't mean that the victim should be blamed. This perception on Jeff's part is good in unintended insults based on ignorance, but doesn't address the structural basis for discrimination built into society that causes people to have negative or just inaccurate preconceptions about people of different ethnicities.

You can see "What Are You Anyway" at the link. Trust me, it is well worth it - funny and informative.

Jeff explained that he made the movie as an expression of his own experiences and was suddenly called on to talk about the issues of people of mixed heritage by schools and universities, and that he's learned a lot about the subject. Anyway that's the context for the bit of video I got of our discussion.



Jeff will give the filmmaker workshop

TODAY (Saturday, Dec. 13) at OUT NORTH at 3pm








Here's a link to another YouTube of Jeff talking about making Yellow Sticky Notes.

AIFF - Martini Matinee, The Video

Here are a few clips (unedited so I could get it up quickly) from the afternoon session at the Mixed Grill in the Inlet Tower. People were all having a good time. I'm still having intermittent trouble downloading the video from iMovie to .mov, but if I do it at lower quality, it works. So the quality is even bad by my already shaky standards. But you can get a little sense of how it went.

AIFF - Friday

It's 10:18pm at the Bear Tooth for the 10:10 showing which is going to be way late. The line was long. We got in late.

Started the day's movies at the Mixed Grill where they had the "Martini Matinee". That too was jammed and we saw great animation. They also introduced some of the film makers there and announced that Last Days of Shishmaref won the best documentary. We'd already heard that Streetsweeper won the best feature. Though I'm hearing from some people that they were disappointed. I'll get to judge tomorrow night.

Then to the Museum, with a stop at the PAC to get tickets for Fiddler on the Roof Sunday afternoon. It's the last performance, it's in the middle of the film festival, but I want to see what Christian Heppinstall has done with it. At the museum we saw Rachel: A Perfect Life. It was good, if you like watching brain surgery. Well there was brain surgery, but it was good, despite that. But this is a rush post before the late shorts/animation begins. Then we saw one of my favorite films of the week - The Wrecking Crew. When I first saw it in the schedule I figured it had to be good if just for the music. The Wrecking Crew was the backup band for most of the big hits in the late 60s pop music in California. It turned out to be an interesting movie that filled in a lot of gaps - these guys and one woman - played in literally every big hit. It was sort of like a public television fundraiser oldies show, but much, much better.

Also got to talk to Jeff Chiba Stearns. I'll add some video later.

First Annual 30 Second (More or Less) Film Festival - Part 1

While the Anchorage International Film Festival has been going on, in Mariana Gonzales' Art 257 class - Computer Art and Design - we had our own mini festival. Actually, it was our last assignment. And Wednesday we saw everyone's videos - many of which included animation. So, for the next couple of days, I'm going to post a couple of the class videos. These are from art students (except mine) most of whom had not done animation or video before. I was impressed with the variety of things people did, though it seems for my fellow students, the music video is a pretty strong influence.







More tomorrow. Mine's not in this bunch.

AIFF - Sky in December Discussion

I guest lectured at a class at Wayland Baptist University this evening, so I missed the 5:30 films and barely got to the Fireweed to see Sky in December. The students seemed bright and I'm sorry I had to rush off. I don't have the energy, nor am I ready, to write about the film now. Suffice it to say, I'm glad I went. The black and white look was jarring in a new movie, but the characters were engaging, and a slow (by US standards) moving pace was a nice change. Peter Porco, writing for the Anchorage Daily News, does a good job of giving the basics of Sky in December.

After the movie I got a little of a discussion among three people with somewhat differing ideas about the film.

AIFF - Annetta Marion talks about short films

Monday night I met Annetta Marion and she did a brief video pitch for Donut Heaven. The next day I got to see Donut Heaven and briefly discussed it in a post that also talked about short films and why people do them. So last night after Dream Boy I ran into Annetta again. I'd also written that I wished I'd seen her after I saw Donut Heaven so I could ask her about whether the main character wore a fat suit at the beginning (she more delicately called it a prosthetic). So, yes, she did. And it was heavy and hot in Florida in July. When they took it off, water gushed out.

But she also answered some of my questions about why people make shorts. Here's a snippet of our conversation.



Donut Heaven plays again Saturday, December 13 at 8:00 PM - Anchorage Museum as part of Subjective Subtleties.

AIFF - How To Be and Dream Boy

How to Be didn't work for me. I'm sure there are people like the main character whose father doesn't pay attention to him and whose mother is constantly saying things like, "There was always something odd about you." The kid is trying hard to overcome this, but he's whiny, kicks things a lot, and just doesn't fit in anywhere.

Lots of people have made good movies about people like that. And the story line - the kid finds a book called "It's not your fault" and invites the author to move into the house and observe the family as part of his therapy - is original. But the film just didn't come together for me. There has to be (for me) some reason to sit and watch this basically decent, but thoroughly childish, character rant for an hour. That reason never came. I didn't get any real insight into what was wrong with him or what sorts of things might help. The self-help author was - in my mind - a total quack.

If this had been a documentary, documenting someone's psychological issues it might have worked. If we got some insight into something (more than the mother saying the boy reminded her of her obnoxious older brother) it might have worked. And I don't mind a plotless movie either, except then the parts have to be worth watching and these, for me, just weren't. There was scene after scene - the skateboard park, some of the bar scenes - where I have no idea what those scenes added to the movie.

But then we saw Dream Boy. This was a beautifully made film, lush as its Louisiana setting, about young gay love - sweet and genuine - in a hostile environment. I was immediately sucked into the story. At first I wondered if this could be told just with film. It seemed there was so much inside Nathan's head that we needed to know for this to work. But somehow the story was all revealed - only a bit through few flashbacks. [Dream Boy picture link -pictures rotate.]And James Bolton, whom I got very briefly on video the other night, answered questions after the movie. Some questions he addresses:
How has the film been received in Europe?
How could the 17 year old drive the school bus?
How'd you get Rickie Lee Jones in the movie?
Was the cast preselected, or did you open it up, or?
Were the lead actors gay?

Viddler was down, so I've uploaded this one on YouTube.





This YouTube clip I found has a couple of scenes from the movie.

AIFF - Streetsweeper named Best Feature at Festivial

I'd been hearing rumors while I was checking on the festival about which film had been chosen for the best feature award. The festival people were caught between getting promotion for people to see the best feature at the Saturday night showing and keeping it secret until the awards ceremony. Publicity won out. I knew the winner was supposed to be posted today, so I emailed to check. I had to decide if I was going to Dream Boy or Streetsweeper at 8pm tonight. If Streetsweeper was the winner, I'd go to Dream Boy. They were going to post the winner on the website at 6pm. I checked with Tony before the 5:30pm movie tonight so I'd know which movie to watch and wrote a post announcing the winner to go up at 6:15pm.

But after the first movie, How To Be, I checked the website and there was nothing there. So I took my post down. But I talked to Rand and he said he was so busy with visiting film makers and doing Bear Tooth business that it didn't get up. But apparently it will be in the ADN tomorrow, and he said to put it back up.

So Streetsweeper was named the best feature. That means it will show again Saturday night at the Bear Tooth at 8pm.

I understand the director Neil Mansfield was supposed to arrive from Australia today and should be at tonight's showing of the movie at 8pm at the Museum. But I'll catch it Saturday night, because tonight is the only time I can watch Dream Boy.

Congratulations Neil.