Snow Biker Anchorage

I see a lot more people riding their bikes this winter and I like to point that out whenever I can in hopes that others might realize that bike commuting is doable, even in the winter.  It helps if the distance isn't too far as is the case of this biker I saw when I was clearing the snow from the driveway on Tuesday. 

AIFF 2009 - Comments on Point Traverse and Birthday

We're sitting out tonight.  It's all stuff we've seen and we need a break.  But here's a comment from a festival passholder on Point Traverse, a film I missed.  It actually had its world premiere here Saturday night and I got to talk to the film maker, Albert Shin, Monday night as he was getting ready to fly back to Toronto.  You can see my short video of Albert here.  Lewis said he liked the film, so I asked him to tell me why.






I also found this comment on the ADN website that echoed my thoughts about the best feature. 

Alaska_Willie wrote on 12/14/2009 11:35:18 AM:

While admittedly, Hipsters was great, I thought the best film of the AIFF was Birthday. Birthday was completely robbed! Hipsters seemed like a big Hollywood-Moscowood- Bollywood blockbuster complete with a reported $22 million budget!
Birthday, on the other hand, was shockingly raw and intimate; the kind of film that film festivals exist for. Birthday pulled off what makes movies truly "worth freezing for". The suspension of reality and boundaries and masks for 104 minutes.

It's a shame Birthday didn't even get 2nd place or at least an honorable mention. Hopefully, the film will receive the recognition it deserves at another festival somewhere. Unfortunately, AIFF snubbed it and in so doing...snubbed Anchorage.

I don't know that they 'snubbed' Birthday as much as chose other films.  Hipsters, Bomber, and Son of the Sunshine, were all good films.  Different people will differ on which was best. But I think Willie's comments about Birthday being special and being a perfect festival film are right on the mark. It was my pick too for best film.

AIFF 2009 - Security Guard's View of the Festival

Here's the Bear Tooth's lead security guard, JP, who had a unique view of the festival.

Thai Internet: Getting Less, But Getting It Faster

On Dec. 14, Thaivisa had a story about Thailand blocking US websites:

The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is today blocking websites hosted in USA.

Example of blocked sites as of this morning: edition.cnn.com, facebook.com, finance.yahoo.com, flickr.com

MICT is redirecting the blocked traffic to their website http://mict.go.th, and instead showing a portrait of HM the King of Thailand together with well wishes for His Majesty's birthday.

Depending on the ISP some users do not face the reported problems. Discussion here: Internet forum branch

Using proxy servers and trying to circumvent government blocked websites is a criminal offense in Thailand. 

Today (Dec. 16 Thailand time) Thai Visa posted this announcement about broadband:

CAT Telecom will today open the Asia-America Gateway it has jointly built up with other 18 leading telecom parties. The gateway is a high-bandwidth fibre-optic submarine cable system that connects Southeast Asia to the United States.

Internet users throughout Asia should start to see a dramatic increase in internet speed for websites located outside of the region when the $US550 million Asia-America Gateway (AAG) comes into operation today.

The new 20,000km (about 12,400 miles) AAG - an optical fibre cable network stretching from Malaysia to the West Coast of America via Guam and Hawaii - is now open, according to CAT Telecom.

AIFF 2009 - Logo Artist Lance Lekander

Here's Lance Lekander, the artist who created the Raven logo for this year's festival. This was at an Animation program where his Snakes on the Brain, the shortest film in the festival (35 seconds), was shown.

AIFF 2009 - Tapped, A Time Comes, Dear Lemon Lima Tonight

At the Bear Tooth tonight at 5:30  there's a documentary on bottled war, Tapped.  Sounds dull, but it isn't and you'll never look at a bottle of water the same.  That was the director's goal.  It was the Documentary runner up.  A Time Comes won the best documentary award and tells the story of a group of global warming activists who stop a new British coal plant from opening.  

The 8pm slot has Audience Choice runner up Dear Lemon Lima, a feature about an
Alaska Native student in a Fairbanks private high school who learns about her Yu'pik heritage.  Savanah Wiltfong of Eagle River plays the leading role.  The scenery is a little strange for fall in Fairbanks (this was a low budget film shot in Seattle), but the story is a good one and the film has a lot of charm. 

Picture:  Savanah Wiltfong (left), her mom Wendy, and Circus Rosaire director Robyn Bliley  on Awards Night.

Winter Art

Ice Christoed Anchorage

the fog's cold fingers touched all
with white winter glaze

 

 

 

 

Then last night snow came

redecorating the trees

fluffy, soft, and light

Christo

AIFF 2009 - Loose Ends and Albert Shin on Point Traverse

The Anchorage International Film Festival 2009 went well.  A real step up from last year. There were very good films in all categories and I don't think there were any complete dogs.  But I still haven't figured what percent of all the films I saw.  Probably a reasonably high percent, but only because I saw so many of the shorts and animated programs.  There are lots of films I totally missed.  While I think that Birthday should have been among the feature winners and Prodigal Sons among the documentary winners, that's all a matter of taste.  The films that did win were good solid films.

But once the gala was over Sunday night, some loose ends started showing.  The website had problems - Rand mentioned at the Gala that they were having trouble posting the best of the fest schedule.  But when I looked Monday night, I could find only a few of the winners categories posted.  My list was much more complete, but I was trying to blog and video simultaneously and so I had a few gaps and one clear mistake.  I'm still trying to square the AIFF's website list of Snowdance winners with what I thought I heard in a couple of cases. 

Also, Monday night's showing of People of the Seal   AND Best Snowdance Shorts at 5:30 was replaced by Mount St. Elias.  Something was wrong with the compilation disk apparently.  There were a few unhappy film goers.   I found out after ordering some food to eat in the theater, but I really didn't want to see Mount St. Elias again, so I got some quiet time over dinner with my wife in the restaurant, took care of an errand, and checked out some books at Title Wave until the 8 pm showing. 


All the film makers I've talked, said they really have enjoyed the friendly nature of the festival and the enthusiasm and helpfulness of the volunteers. (I'll put up some video comments by three film makers later.)  This is not a fussy or pretentious festival.  It runs on the volunteer power and a few main folks who work non-stop for ten days plus prep.  So, a few kinks are probably the cost of having a low key, but high quality festival. 


And as we left Monday night, I got to talk to Don Chan who's been coordinating film makers' visits and Albert Shin, whose film Point Traverse had its world premiere Saturday night in Anchorage.  Had I known it was a premiere and that Albert was there, I would have stayed in the museum Saturday night instead going to see From Somewhere to Nowhere.  But that too was a good film that intimately took us into the lives of migrant workers in China.   All this is preface to the short video below where Albert briefly talks about his film.  As I  write this at 2:15 am, his plane should have just taken off as he journeys back to Toronto.

AIFF 2009 - Best in Fest Schedule Dec. 14-17

Here's the schedule for best in fest - the award winning films to be played again this week at the Bear Tooth,  two programs per night.

MONDAY, DEC. 14:

5:30 - People of the Seal   AND Best Snowdance Shorts


8:00 - Award Winning Short Films  and Mixed Live Action and Animation

TUESDAY, DEC. 15:


5:30 - Best Documentary Tapped and Best Short Documentary A Time Comes

8:00 - Runner Up Audience Choice Best Feature - Dear Lemon Lima



WEDNESDAY, DEC. 16:

5:30 -   Runner Up Best Feature - Bomber

8:00 -   Runner Up Best Documentary - Mount St. Elias



THURSDAY, DEC. 17:


5:30 - Best Documentary - Paddle to Seattle

8:00 - Best Feature - Hipsters


Here's the video of the end of the Awards Gala announcing the schedule:

 

AIFF 2009 - All the Winners In The Last Post

I hope  people weren't waiting for the next post. 

What I ended up doing was updating the last post over and over - so there were no new posts, just continual updates in the last post.  All the winners are now listed in the previous post. 

I'm going to try to get the film schedule for this coming week up soon. 

Then I'll catch up on the backlog of video and thoughts that I have about all the films as I can in the next couple of weeks.