Sunday, December 19, 2010

Need a Break? Fireside Books in Palmer This Afternoon

Phil Munger has a post on a book signing this afternoon in Palmer: 
Sunday afternoon, you can go to Fireside Books in Palmer and meet the authors of one of the most honest and authentic books written by Alaskans about the Arctic regions of our state.

You can meet the author/editors, Susan B. Andrews and John Creed.
The anthology is  Purely Alaska: Authentic Voices from the Far North

John Creed reads What Do I Know?  and I met him in Juneau during the legislative session.  He teaches in Kotzebue.   I haven't read the book, so I can only say that others - like Willie Hensley - seem to think this is a good book.  Read more at Progressive Alaska.

If you can't make it to Palmer today, at least check it out when you're in a local bookstore. 

AIFF 2010: Intellectual Junk Food (Exporting Raymond) and a Real Meal (My Perestroika)

Exporting Raymond

Imagine watching a 13 year old savoring his Big Mac and fries, chock full of fat, salt, and sugar.   McDonald's has figured out how to attach taste to nutritionally inert material and deliver it in minutes.  It's like food porn - instant gratification with no long term substance.  And collectively Americans have been seduced into obesity and diabetes, while our fast food habits contribute to environmental degradation, and replace local foods around the world with trademarked exports. 

Most sit-coms have about the same intellectual nutrition as fast food.   I was uncomfortable throughout the movie as I watched this self-centered American (Philip Rosenthal, the writer, director, and star) making what appeared to be his first trip to Russia and complaining about everything he encountered.  It was the same problem I had with Lost in Translation.  A past-his-prime American star goes to Tokyo to make a Japanese commercial and finds everything in Japan defectively 'not like home.'  Japan was a prop to the characters' self-indulgence.  There was no attempt in either film to give a sense of what the Japanese and Russian characters around them were thinking.  It's all about 'me'.  It's like an intellectual std you don't realize that you've contracted from the background conceit that country X (in Translation's case Japan) is full of stupid people who do not indulge my American self-centeredness.

What really bothered me was that several of the people I talked to after the movie, people who I would have expected to get it, didn't.  They thought it was great.  He was only poking fun at himself in an alien situation.  And the official description of the film promotes that:
Lost in Moscow, lost in his mission, lost in translation, Phil tries to connect with his Russian colleagues but runs into unique characters and situations that conspire to drive him insane. The movie is a true international adventure, a genuine, “fish out of water” comedy that could only exist in real life.
Why don't I see it that way?  "Tries to connect?"  I saw the American expert exasperated because they didn't acknowledge his expertise.  "Conspire to drive him insane?"  Well, yes, if you are as self centered as Rosenthal was in the movie, you might think there was a conspiracy to get you.  You might not realize that your problems are self inflicted.  His trip preparations - as portrayed in this documentary - amounted to getting advice from friends to buy K&R (Kidnap and Ransom) insurance. The world is supposed to engage us on our terms, we don't have to do anything but show up and be admired.

I've spent enough time living in other cultures to realize that this movie shows us only the first stage of experiencing a new culture - the stage where one compares everything unfavorably to home.  It is only after learning some of the language and spending enough time to start seeing yourself from the Russian (in Exporting Raymond's case) perspective, that you start to appreciate what the new culture has to offer and see your own culture more objectively.

I'm calling this movie intellectual junk food because like a Big Mac it's full of cheap and easy sit-com type laughs which ultimately make us feel good because the movie reinforces our belief that the US is the greatest country in the world and, like in the movie, if they only would do it our way, the world will be a much better place.

What's wrong with that?  Like junk food, the benefits are short term.  When we eat junk food, we satisfy the immediate hunger without realizing our waistline is gradually expanding (our critical thinking abilities are shrinking) and our aortas are clogging and rain forests are destroyed to raise beef.  This comedy gives us easy laughs while keeping Americans from facing the fact that, while our country still offers some remarkable advantages in the world, other countries are doing better than we are in many areas.  It also doesn't reveal the damage American dominance in the world causes other cultures and other economies.  Ultimately, this movie satisfies with mass produced calories and makes us feel good about ourselves, when what we're consuming is intellectual junk food.

I understand that a lot, maybe most, of the people reading this will shake their heads and say, "Steve, lighten up.  This is just a comedy."   And it was funny.

Let me attempt another way to evaluate the movie.  Let me compare it to another documentary at the Anchorage International Film Festival that featured Russia for 88 minutes (two more than Exporting Raymond.)


My Perestroika looked at the lives of five Russians (in their late 30s I'd guess) who had gone to school together.  One couple are both teachers, a single mom works for a company that rents out billiard tables, there's a man who owns a high end French shirt shop, and a subway musician who dropped out of a famous Russian punk band.  This movie paints a picture of Russia through the stories of these five people who came of age during Perestroika, including old photos and home movies.  We get an image that is in sharp contrast to the stereotypes Americans have of the Soviet Union.   One woman, for example, tells us that as a child she'd see coverage of riots and murders in the US on TV and think, "I'm so lucky to be a Russian."  Ouch.  That's what we thought about being Americans. All of them talk about their childhoods with nostalgia and obvious pleasure.

We're seeing the stories of five Moscow residents who all went to the same school.  We don't see anything about life outside of Moscow, we don't see any families who had members purged.  But we have to consider whether our TV view of Russia wasn't just as biased as theirs of us.  We can't generalize from these five people to all of Russia, but these five people give us insight into a story about the Soviet Union (it was the Soviet Union for much of these people's lives) that Americans rarely get.

So why are these films so different?  Exporting Raymond, though it takes place mostly in Russia, isn't about Russia.  It's about an American who travels out of his comfort zone.  It's about him.  The Russians are just props in his sitcom.   My problem only comes up when another culture is used as the butt of most of the jokes and ultimately made to look bad in comparison to the US, offering no insights other than "traveling abroad is frustrating, but if you're persistent, you can help them save themselves with American superiority."  Sort of like how we are winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

My Perestroika was made by an American woman. Robbin Hessman, who spent years living in Leningrad and Moscow. She even helped adapt a very different American television show for Russian audiences - Sesame Street.  Even though she understands Russian and has lived there for years, she recognizes that there's a lot she doesn't understand. 

The film wasn't about her, but was pursued in an attempt to better grasp the Russians of her generation.  In an interview with IndieWire  she says,
. . . I decided to make a film about my generation of Russians – the generation that I joined, in a sense, when I went to live there for the first time at age 18. They had normal Soviet childhoods behind the Iron Curtain, never dreaming that anything would ever be different in their society. Just coming of age when Gorbachev appeared, they were figuring out their own identities as the very foundations of their society were being questioned for the first time. And then they graduated just as the USSR collapsed and they had to figure out a completely new life as young adults, with no models to follow. Although I didn’t grow up there and have no Russian family history, I shared their journey through the 1990s, adjusting to the evolving Post-Soviet Russia along with everyone else. It put me in a wonderful position to tell their story – as I am both insider and outsider.  After working on other films for PBS as a co-producer, I began to develop this film full time in the fall of 2004. . .

Exporting Raymond is intellectual junk food.  Raymond is easy; no work.  It's a hunger fix, which makes us feel good by massaging our brains with the satisfying conceit of American superiority.

My Perestroika is a serious, fresh, healthy, home made meal.  It takes more work, but ultimately that work helps connect us to more realistic views of the world and our place in that world.

Junk food now and then probably doesn't do much harm.  But we're constantly feeding on the same junk message about US exceptionalism, a message that contributes to why we're fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today.


[Examples of Americans writing about another culture critically, but with understanding of why things feel so frustrating, include  Bill Holm's Coming Home Crazy, which he wrote after teaching a year in China and Peter Hessler's River Town about his Peace Corps experience in China.]

Saturday, December 18, 2010

"And most days I don't think about the ax."



Catherine Doss Senungetuk's retrospective exhibit opened with a reception at 5pm yesterday (Friday) at Out North.  Lots of people came.









The walls were covered in Catherine's colors.   Most of the words below are Catherine's own from the exhibition brochure.



1971-1974 . . .Without having known it when I started at L & C [Lewis and Clark], Portland was one of the two cities in the US (New York being the other) where the revival of calligraphy was in full swing, thanks in large part to Lloyd Reynolds, who taught at Reed College across the river.  My teacher was Norman Paasche, a kind gentleman who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and walked with a cane, but this didn't dampen his love of letters and books.

Through him I was introduced to handmade books as well as small press books, such as those by Walter Hanady.  For me, it was like falling into a letter honey pot.  All my life I had been fascinated by peoples' handwriting, and here was a chance to actually study and practice lettering through the history of letter-forms, as well as the art of the book.


1979 My brother called and invited me to meet him in Paris, France. . . While in Paris I worked at Atelier Lacouriere, a printmaking studio.  Misch Kohn had given me the owner's name and encouraged me to go and introduce myself.  Misch had given me the location - "Down about a hundred steps from the Sacre Coeur" - but it was still quite hard to find.  The owner, Jacques Frelaut, opened the door when I knocked, he had just gotten back from England working with Marc Chagall, and the master printers in the basement were working on editioning Chagall's plates.  Monsieur Frelaut invited me to work there, told me where to go to get copper (which was in the Paris slaughterhouse district), plus for myself I had to go to Charbonnel for inks.  I did four copper etchings, which I've never editioned.

1987 Joe and I married.


1991 Visited Karlgeorg and Maria Hoefer in Offenbach, a suburb of Frankfurt.  Karlgeorg showed me stacks and stacks of his work - daily alphabets, writing, type design, more lettering.  It was breathtaking.  Maria was a fiber artist and her pieces also hung in their living room.  The next day we went together to the Klingspor Museum, a museum dedicated totally to the book and letter arts.  


2006 In October, I was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer which had gone to my lungs and bones, a shocking and severe diagnoses. As I would find out, it becomes an almost daily question, how to make sense of, and integrate, an illness into ones life, one which cannot be cured according to current medicine.

2010 Had to take a medical retirement from school nursing. Had major back surgery and chemo. Since I was young, I've always had the feeling that life is short, that every day is important. Now, living with an ax over my head, I see it really is. And most days I don't think about the ax.


The ax fell about 4am today.


On the back page of the brochure, after thanking the people involved in the exhibit,  Catherine wrote:

And not least, many many thanks to all our friends and family who pray for me, for us, and keep me in their thoughts for healing.  I believe Spirit is what keeps me alive.  I have also had wonderful doctors, caregivers, therapists and counselors.  Thanks to each of you, I thank my Creator for gracing me with a few more days, weeks, months on this most beautiful earth, and my steadfast husband, who has firsthand experience with "in sickness and in health."  Without him and without God, I would not be.

Previous post on this retrospective. 

UPDATE Jan. 1, 2011:  A Celebration of Catherine’s Life will be held in Anchorage at the Alaska Native Lutheran Church at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, January 14, 2011.  A reception will follow at the Out North Contemporary Art House.  In lieu of flowers, please offer a donation in Catherine’s memory to a charity of your choice.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Catherine Doss Senungetuk's Exhibit Opens Tonight


I posted about this retrospective art exhibit not long ago. It opens tonight (Friday) from 5 - 7 pm at Out North. Since I wrote that post, Catherine's health has taken a turn for the worse and she's back in the hospital. We visited on Wednesday. There were others there as well. The setting was pretty good for being in a hospital. The view out the window of the Chugach was spectacular.







And while we were there a harpist wheeled in her instrument and played beautiful music for half an hour or so.













But it was a hospital room as the equipment loudly proclaimed.



Do come to Out North for the opening.







[Update: Catherine left us after the exhibition.]



UPDATE Jan. 1, 2011:  A Celebration of Catherine’s Life will be held in Anchorage at the Alaska Native Lutheran Church at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, January 14, 2011.  A reception will follow at the Out North Contemporary Art House.  In lieu of flowers, please offer a donation in Catherine’s memory to a charity of your choice.

Young Musicians

We were invited to attend a concert at a local elementary school to see our friends' daughter play in the band. It's been a while since I've been at an event like this. These are mostly very new musicians and they achieved a number of the goals their teachers set out for them. It took me back to my junior high school days in the band and orchestra. When the music teacher visited our sixth grade class and encouraged us to pick an instrument if we didn't already have one, I chose the oboe - the duck in Peter and the Wolf. Since there was no other oboe player, I got the part. I even got to use a new oboe if I took private lessons besides. I never got very good, though I did learn how to make my reeds - a necessary skill for oboists.   Then in high school the required classes squeezed out electives like music. I'm glad there weren't home videos in those days so I don't have to listen to what we sounded like.



I also want to note that I was pleased to go to a concert at an elementary school in December where only one Christmas related piece - Jingle Bells - was played.  I realize that for some, this change is seen as what's wrong with the United States today.  But as a Jew, who was there as a guest of Hindu friends, it was the first time I felt like I was welcome as an equal at a December school event.   I felt like someone had thought about the feelings of non-Christians and decided to respect them. 

Christmas is a religious holiday.  In public schools, kids in minority religions definitely feel pressure to go along with the majority religion.  I can only ask Christians to imagine their children being in a situation where all the kids are expected to sing songs that proclaim faith to a deity of another religion.  It's very uncomfortable for the children and the parents.  I realize that many Christians feel that as the majority, they should be allowed to celebrate Christmas in school, that kids of other religions, or no religion, should just adapt. 

That makes me think of my Chinese students in Beijing who claimed there was no discrimination at their school against non-Han Chinese students.  One student said to me that he'd thought about what I said and he really believed that the Mongolian and Tibetan students in our class were treated like all the others.  I said he's probably right, except for one thing:  their education has all been in Chinese, not their own language, and they have spent all their school time learning a Chinese version of history and culture, not their own.

Another student told me everyone was equal in China.  I asked if a Tibetan could be president of China.  His answer, after a pause, was, "Vice President."  When I pointed out that if they couldn't be president, then they weren't equal.  His logical response was, "But 93% of the population is Han Chinese.  It wouldn't make sense for a Tibetan to be their president."  To which I could only say, "That may be true, but then they are second class citizens."

I do think that comparative religion should be taught in schools so that people know about various religions - including atheism.  But I don't think different religious holidays should be celebrated in school until all religions are treated with equal respect, and not with the attitude of, "OK, put in a Hanukkah song and then we can get back to the Christmas stuff." (I know that most parents are respectful really do want their children to be exposed to other religions.)

That said, there is some very beautiful Christmas music which I learned because I played in the orchestra.  I would not have learned them under today's policies.  That would be a loss for me.  It all boils down to respect and power.  As long as there are teachers and parents who believe it is their duty to convert others to their religion, celebrating religious holidays in schools is problematic.  And some Christians feel the commercialization of Christmas diminishes its religious significance and would prefer to celebrate it at home and in church. I recognize that it's hard to 'lose' something that you take for granted - like Christmas celebrations in public schools - and I hope those parents who feel strongly about Christmas can find ways to pass on these traditions with celebrations in their families and at churches, as non-Christians have always celebrated their religious holidays. 

Thursday, December 16, 2010

AIFF 2010: Tim Vernor, Director, Seattle True Independent Film Festival

Tim Vernor, Director of the Seattle True Independent Film Festival (STIFF) was here checking out the Anchorage festival.  On the video below he talks about one of the shorts (I liked) in the AIFF - Dishonesty - and IPF (Independent Feature Project) Seattle's Spotlight Award.  Alaska is part of the area covered by IPF Seattle, so Alaska film makers might want to check out their website. 


AIFF 2010: Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi and Beekeeper at Last Day of Festival

Andrew Thomas' Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi is a wonderful documentary about the jazz pianist who composed "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" and the music for the Peanuts TV specials.  Thomas told me (you can hear it yourself here) the movie is really about serendipity - and he's right.  Well, it's his movie, he should know.  It covers a wide range of topics from civil rights to the hungry i to the opening of the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.  Lots of archive film from the Guaraldi family that's never been seen before.  And so much good music!  It was runner up for best documentary at the festival and won the Audience Award for Best Documentary.  And because you happened to read this, you could go see the movie and meet someone who will change your life ( for the better.)  Or get an idea that points you in a new direction.  Or be out of your house when a plane crashes into it.  The power of serendipity. 

Do you think I liked this movie?  I'm going to see it again tonight.  5:30pm at the Bear Tooth.  

And Beekeepers  was runner up for Best Snowdance film and for Audience Award for Snowdance.  I haven't seen this one - it conflicted with Ashes - but I'll get to tonight at 8pm at the Bear Tooth.  This is an Alaskan made movie (that's why it's in the Snowdance category) that's supposed to have laughs, and - a plus for people in Anchorage - it's a movie with settings you'll recognize. 

I grew up in LA and it wasn't until I was a student in Germany for a year, that I understood how much of my environment was reflected in the movies and TV shows I saw.  There I was across the Atlantic and could go to the movies and see places where I grew up. 

Alaskans get a glimpse of that when they see Scandinavian films and it isn't dark at night (or light much in the day), or there are birch forests.  With Beekeepers you'll see Anchorage as the background. 

It's the very last night of the festival.  And, wait, I forgot.  There are two more short films to see - the winners of the Quik Freeze film contest.  I haven't seen them yet either.  They had five days to make the movies.  They play with Beekeepers. Fortunately, they're short. 

US Government Employees Banned from Reading What Everyone Else in the World May Read

In an AP article published in Wednesday's Anchorage Daily News, I read one unbelievable sentence after another.  For instance,

The Air Force is blocking computer access to The New York Times and other media sites that published sensitive diplomatic documents released by the Internet site WikiLeaks, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Let me get this straight.  The New York Times has been blocked on Air Force computers, because it published some classified documents from WikiLeaks.  So Al Qaeda members, college students in Denmark, Taliban insurgents, and most anybody in the world with access to the internet can read things Air Force people aren't allowed to read.  Doesn't that put them at a disadvantage if they don't know things about the US government and other governments that everyone else knows? 

Even though the documents are available around the world, they are still considered classified and thus can't be read.  I seem to recall something about horses and barns. . .

But there's more:
The White House on Dec. 3 formally reminded all federal employees and government contractors that anyone without a security clearance is not permitted to read classified documents, such as the diplomatic messages published by WikiLeaks, even on a personal computer at home outside work hours.
So anyone who works for the government is banned from reading any of the Wikileaks documents, even at home on their personal computers.  Is anyone else scratching her head about this logic?  What exactly are they afraid of?  That a government employee might:
  •  read their bosses' gossip? 
  •  know something everyone else knows?
  •  sell the document to a spy?  
  •  post the document on a website?
  •  actually know something about  a particular cable and challenge its validity?
Does anyone wonder at the government's bizarre logic on security issues?  How can something that is available around the world on the internet and in newspapers still be considered classified?  Isn't this like the Emperor's New Clothes?  Does anyone not understand why people might wonder whether this sort of logic underlies other security policies, like electronic strip searches at airports? 

Let's see now.  The US is against censorship, is for freedom of the press, believes an informed electorate is the basis of democracy, and lectures other nations when they restrict their citizens' internet access. 

Just last January, according to the NY Times, Secretary of State Clinton was chastising China for censoring the internet: 
In a sweeping, pointed address that dealt with the Internet as a force for both liberation and repression, Mrs. Clinton said: “Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government and our civil society. Countries or individuals that engage in cyber-attacks should face consequences and international condemnation.”[emphasis added]
. . . Mrs. Clinton also identified Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan as countries that constrain Internet freedom or persecute those who use the Web to circulate unpopular ideas. She pointed to an Egyptian blogger, Bassem Samir, who was in the audience at the Newseum in Washington for Mrs. Clinton’s speech and had been imprisoned by Egyptian authorities.

[Anyone else out there conjuring up an Egyptian newspaper writing, "President Mubarak
pointed to an Australian blogger, Julian Assange, who was in the audience at the Sphinx in Cairo for Mubarak's speech and had been imprisoned by British authorities"?]
. . .Mr. Malinowski [the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch] said: “I really thought this was groundbreaking. She showed no hesitation in naming countries, including U.S. allies, for suppressing speech on the Internet. She made a very strong case for connecting Internet freedom to core American national security interests.”[emphasis added]
OK, if you read the whole speech you can see that Mrs. Clinton does say there are limits to speech freedom
  • recruiting terrorists
  • hate speech
  • distributing stolen property (copyrighted material)
  • child pornography
but she also says,
But these challenges must not become an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the internet for peaceful political purposes.
She does go on to warn against hackers and cyber attacks:
States, terrorists, and those who would act as their proxies must know that the United States will protect our networks. Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government, and our civil society. Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation. In an internet-connected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all. And by reinforcing that message, we can create norms of behavior among states and encourage respect for the global networked commons.
 But she had in mind, at that time, China's attack on Google.  Again from the January NY Times piece cited above:
While the details remained sketchy, her remarks could have far-reaching consequences, given the confrontation between Google and the Chinese government over the company’s assertion that its networks had been subject to a sophisticated attack that originated in mainland China. 

There are two basic issues here:

  1.   Internet security and preventing hackers from 
    1. interrupting the free flow of information  and from
    2. stealing private or classified information

      Clinton's speech covers work the State Department is doing to protect cyber security:
      "We have taken steps as a government, and as a Department, to find diplomatic solutions to strengthen global cyber security. We have a lot of people in the State Department working on this. . . And President Obama has just appointed a new national cyberspace policy coordinator who will help us work even more closely to ensure that everyone’s networks stay free, secure, and reliable." 
       
  2. Protecting citizens from government censorship of things the government doesn't want them to know.

But it seems to me that if you have something that other people want, you have a responsibility to protect it well.  For example, if banks just stacked up their money on the counters, people would be blaming the banks as well as the people who pocketed the money on their way out of the bank. And what about people outside the bank who might be given money from the people who were in the bank? 

And if the US sets up a computer system full of classified documents that some army private can get into and download 250,000 classified and unclassified cables and send off into the internet, people ought to be raising questions about the government's security as well as blaming the people who walked off with the cables before they start fussing at the person the cables were given to. 

The third transaction I made with my Visa card last September when we drove to Vancouver was blocked by Visa because the card wasn't where they thought it should be.  But the US put their classified cables on a computer system where 250,000 could be downloaded and sent off to WikiLeaks.  Sounds like stacks of cash on the bank counter to me. 

And now that many of the cables have been posted online for the world to see, US government employees are told they can't even use their own computers to read them, on their own time.  

And the US is doing everything it can to get WikiLeaks shut down. 

Isn't this pretty much what Clinton was telling China and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Tunisia and Vietnam and Uzbekistan not to do?  Shutting down internet sites to prevent people from reading information the government didn't like?  Blocking their citizens' access to read what the rest of the world can read?

I understand there's a difference between classified documents and other news.  But WikiLeaks didn't hack into the US computers to my knowledge.  A US soldier  got the information and then passed it on.  I still don't understand how WikiLeaks is different from any other media outlet that publishes classified information leaked to them. The US government, to my knowledge, hasn't tried to shut off the New York Times' credit.   And what did they do when the NY Times published that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent?  They tried with the Pentagon Papers, but lost.  Why is WikiLeaks different?  

And even if you think the US should shut down WikiLeaks, how do you justify telling US government employees they can't read the published documents, even at home on their personal computers? 

Someone please tell me what I'm missing here. 

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

AIFF 2010: Best of the Fest - Wild Hunt Got Stolen

The Wild Hunt was awarded the Golden Oosikar* as the Best Feature in the Anchorage International Film Festival. (I don't agree with the choice, but that's besides the point.)

Stolen was awarded the Golden Oosikar as the Best Documentary. I didn't manage to see it during the Festival, so I was looking for when it was going to play in Best of the Fest.  It wasn't there.  I'm planning a post on my picks for the best films in the various categories, but how can I choose if I can't see the one that won best documentary?  (I'm pleased with some choices, disagree with others.)

Here's the explanation from Rand Thornsley:  There are only eight slots for Best of the Fest.  They have to make difficult choices.  Factors that were considered:
  • Audience votes
  • Number of times it was shown in the festival
Not only was Stolen missing - it was shown twice and it didn't do well in the audience voting - so was The Wild Hunt which won Best Feature from the judges, for the same reasons.  Exporting Raymond, which was runner up for Audience Choice Award also isn't in the Best of the Fest, though Full Disclosure is.  Both were only screened once.  However, Full Disclosure got Honorable Mention for Documentary both from the judges and from the Audience Choice votes.

Exporting Raymond was a special selection (invited to be screened) while Full Disclosure was submitted and selected as one of the Documentaries in Competition.  (Rand didn't mention this distinction, but it makes sense that submitted films should edge out invited films.)  I'll definitely have more to say about Exporting Raymond and I'm hoping to find a way to see Stolen before I pick my favorite documentaries.  Stolen is about human trafficking in Africa - not a warm and fuzzy subject, but Full Disclosure is also a difficult subject - Marines in Iraq.  But Americans feel more connected to that topic I think.



*The only reference online to Oosikar refers to the awards given at the Anchorage International Film Festival. An oosik, as every Alaskan knows, is the penile bone of a walrus. You can see these Alaskan Oscars in the picture.

AIFF 2010: Best of The Fest - Statehood

It's hard for me to write much of substance about the films I see during the festival.  I need a bit time to digest and time to write.  And then there are more films to see that day so serious comment has to wait.  So I will be commenting on some of the films in the next few weeks.  Last night we saw Empire of Silver and the various short films that won awards.  Tonight we saw Statehood, which got Best of Snowdance Audience Choice Award.

The premier of Statehood was Sunday, but I have to admit that a movie called Statehood didn't sound all that exciting it would have meant a lot more driving back and forth.  I'm glad it won the award, because it is a movie all Alaskans should see - and I hope a lot of school kids will see it over the years.

Laurence Goldin and Joaqlin Estus Before Statehood
Most interesting to me was the tension between the Outside corporations who were extracting Alaska's resources and giving nothing back and the portrayal of them as buying the legislature to keep their sweet deal.  The corporations had most newspapers locked up and attacked anyone who spoke against them - and talked about their great contributions to the territory.
It's easy for most people to get that when it happened 50 years ago, but when their own jobs are on the line today, it's easy to be frightened into supporting the corporations that are giving you a pittance on the dollar for your resources.

Ernest Gruening, Bob Bartlett, and to my surprise, Bob Atwood were the heroes of this movie.  Atwood, a strong Statehood supporter, backed anti-corporation candidates to the territorial legislature in his newspaper, which set up a legislature that backed Statehood and led to the Constitutional Convention.  It also reminded me it's time to reread Alaska history.

This was a surprisingly good film, mixing archival film and interviews with people who were there - Ted Stevens, Tom Steward[t], George Rogers, Katie Hurley, Vic Fischer, and a few more - plus some academic types.  Though my only real criticism of the way the film was made was the modern interviews were so incredibly sharp and detailed that they were pretty unflattering for most of the people and made the contrast between the old and new footage much harsher than necessary.

Here's film maker Laurence Goldin introducing the film.