Top Three:
Finger Two Dots and Me
Love at Last
The Man at the Counter
Winners:
Honorable Mention: Man at the Counter
Runner Up: Finger Two Dots and Me
Winner: Love at Last
Sunday, December 11, 2011
AIFF 2011: Awards Shorts
Top three:
North Atlantic
I'm Coming Over
Two legged rat bastards
Winnners:
Honorable Mention - I'm Coming Over
Runner Up: Two Legged Rat Bastards
Winner: North Atlantic
North Atlantic
I'm Coming Over
Two legged rat bastards
Winnners:
Honorable Mention - I'm Coming Over
Runner Up: Two Legged Rat Bastards
Winner: North Atlantic
AIFF 2011: Awards Ceremony Started - Animation Awards
Teresa Scott is thanking everyone and talking about all the people who helped make this work.
Starting with Animation. Rachel and John.
Still here - Patrick Neary, Landscape with Duck, and Richard Cunningham
Top Three:
Not in order
This is Not Real
Year Zero
Something Left, Something Taken
And the winner is:
Honorable Mention: Year Zero
Runner Up: This is Not Real
Winner: Something Left, Something Taken
Starting with Animation. Rachel and John.
Still here - Patrick Neary, Landscape with Duck, and Richard Cunningham
Top Three:
Not in order
This is Not Real
Year Zero
Something Left, Something Taken
And the winner is:
Honorable Mention: Year Zero
Runner Up: This is Not Real
Winner: Something Left, Something Taken
AIFF 2011: Awards Gala Part 2 - Still Chatting
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| Peter Pasyk - The Pole |
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| Super Shorts Film Makers |
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| Whittier By Wheel Film Maker - Kristopher Peck (left front) |
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| Animation Film Makers and Programers |
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| Jeremy Lansman, KYES, Greg Hamilton (The Movement), Dean Franklin, AIFF Board Member |
AIFF 2011: The Awards - Eating and Chatting So Far
The Inuk crew.
Amanda Jane of The Wedding Party and Travis Betz of The Dead Inside.
The Wifi was out, but it's back on. Nothing has happened yet. I'll post this and start a new one.
AIFF 2011: Sunday Tips and I'll Live Blog Awards at 5pm
There's lots to see today. Here's a link to the Sunday schedule. I suggest going to "Print Schedule," (light blue) then in the drop down window hitting "Print Filtered Schedule" which will get you just Sunday. It's a little more than a page.
11:00am - Living River - a movie on the Ganges in India. Out North (Haven't seen it) I might get to this if I can post fast enough.
11:45am - Give Up Tomorrow - Alaska Experience - a very compelling Filipino film on a criminal misjustice. I saw this one, it's very good. A contender for best documentary. Focuses on Paco who has 40 witnesses he was in Manila at the time of the murder in Cebu.
12:00 Shorts 3 Program: Native Tongue - Out North - I'm headed to this for sure. They're are four films - Japanese, Belgian, German/South African, and Korean. I'm not sure about the title of the program. It looks like they aren't in English. But I haven't seen enough shorts yet and this one fits in my schedule. Check out more yourself here.
1pm Allensteig Alaska Experience Theater - This is one of the documentaries in competition about a German military base. It says:
2pm Smoking Fish Out North - This is an Alaskan documentary. Sounds interesting.
3pm Shorts 4: Dark Reflections - Out North - look it up. (despite the 4, there are only 3)
3:30pm Super Shorts 2: The Hipsters Almanac - Alaska Experience - I'm headed for this one. Check Details here.
4:30 Cast Me If You Can - Out North - a Japanese film about an actor. A comedy I'm told. Details.
4:30 Short Documentaries: On the Edge - Alaska Experience Theater - Four shorts. Check here.
5:00 pm The Awards Ceremony - Organic Oasis - I checked and they have wifi, so I'll try to live blog the awards.
8:00pm The Dish and The Spoon - Bear Tooth - Bad scheduling here. This is a feature in competition, but it's playing the first time AFTER the awards ceremony. I mentioned this to Tony. Then I said, "How can you do the Audience Favorites when the audience hasn't seen one of the films yet?" The Feature favorites may be delayed until Monday night.
Monday night you ask?
There's more. There will be three best of the fest nights at Alaska Experience Theater Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at 7pm. More on this later. Check the Festival Website Schedule for those days. (Link goes to Monday, you can find Tuesday and Wednesday)
11:00am - Living River - a movie on the Ganges in India. Out North (Haven't seen it) I might get to this if I can post fast enough.
11:45am - Give Up Tomorrow - Alaska Experience - a very compelling Filipino film on a criminal misjustice. I saw this one, it's very good. A contender for best documentary. Focuses on Paco who has 40 witnesses he was in Manila at the time of the murder in Cebu.
12:00 Shorts 3 Program: Native Tongue - Out North - I'm headed to this for sure. They're are four films - Japanese, Belgian, German/South African, and Korean. I'm not sure about the title of the program. It looks like they aren't in English. But I haven't seen enough shorts yet and this one fits in my schedule. Check out more yourself here.
1pm Allensteig Alaska Experience Theater - This is one of the documentaries in competition about a German military base. It says:
A portrait of the Allentsteig military training area, the last blank spot on the Austrian map. The Nazis evacuated 42 villages-driving more than 7000 people from their homes-to set it up in 1938. Allied forces and the Austrian state continued to use the facility after the WWII. Today, residents of the adjoining village live happily along the soldiers, so long as no shells land nearby.An appropriate film for a military town like Anchorage. I'll probably leave Native Tongue early to go see this one.
2pm Smoking Fish Out North - This is an Alaskan documentary. Sounds interesting.
Cory Mann is a quirky Tlingit businessman hustling to make a dollar in Juneau, Alaska. He gets hungry for smoked salmon and nostalgic for his childhood. He decides to spend a summer smoking fish at his family's traditional camp. It's a story of one man's attempt to navigate between the modern world and an ancient culture.2pm Corridor Alaska Experience Theater - Horror buffs should go. I saw this the other night late. It's a group of young men meeting at the cabin in the snowy woods in Canada for the first time since one of them went mental and stabbed another in the group. He's on meds now. But the others aren't. And there's strange stuff happening in the woods. I don't normally like horror flicks, but this was had believable characters and some clever plot twists. I left after the scalping, but I really wanted to know what happened.
3pm Shorts 4: Dark Reflections - Out North - look it up. (despite the 4, there are only 3)
3:30pm Super Shorts 2: The Hipsters Almanac - Alaska Experience - I'm headed for this one. Check Details here.
4:30 Cast Me If You Can - Out North - a Japanese film about an actor. A comedy I'm told. Details.
4:30 Short Documentaries: On the Edge - Alaska Experience Theater - Four shorts. Check here.
5:00 pm The Awards Ceremony - Organic Oasis - I checked and they have wifi, so I'll try to live blog the awards.
8:00pm The Dish and The Spoon - Bear Tooth - Bad scheduling here. This is a feature in competition, but it's playing the first time AFTER the awards ceremony. I mentioned this to Tony. Then I said, "How can you do the Audience Favorites when the audience hasn't seen one of the films yet?" The Feature favorites may be delayed until Monday night.
Monday night you ask?
There's more. There will be three best of the fest nights at Alaska Experience Theater Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at 7pm. More on this later. Check the Festival Website Schedule for those days. (Link goes to Monday, you can find Tuesday and Wednesday)
AIFF 2011: JT Hood, Workshop Participant, Tells Us About His Stuff
[Here's Sunday's schedule.]
Just after Travis Betz's workshop ended I got a chance to ask one of the younger and more inquisitive members of the group some questions. I think the chance for young film makers to hear real film makers talk about their trade and to be able to ask questions is a great opportunity we get from the film festival. We're going to see JT's videos at the festival before long I'm sure. He stayed for Richard Cunningham's workshop too.
[I'm not as careful about getting names of people I catch on video as I ought to be. I figure they're agreeing to talk to me. And if they have a problem, I'll take it down. But kids are different. JT was there with his grandfather and I got his permission to post the video.]
Just after Travis Betz's workshop ended I got a chance to ask one of the younger and more inquisitive members of the group some questions. I think the chance for young film makers to hear real film makers talk about their trade and to be able to ask questions is a great opportunity we get from the film festival. We're going to see JT's videos at the festival before long I'm sure. He stayed for Richard Cunningham's workshop too.
[I'm not as careful about getting names of people I catch on video as I ought to be. I figure they're agreeing to talk to me. And if they have a problem, I'll take it down. But kids are different. JT was there with his grandfather and I got his permission to post the video.]
Saturday, December 10, 2011
AIFF 2011: The Dead Inside - Travis Betz and Year Zero -Richard Cunningham
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| Year Zero showing at workshop today |
I spent all day at two Film Festival workshops. The afternoon workshop was Animation with Richard Cunningham's workshop and video. I'll do more on the workshop later.
The Animation group is showing at 6pm at Out North, and if you haven't seen it, GO! I think this is the strongest category at this year's festival and I think Cunningham's Year Zero is the best film in the festival. (My opinion, take it for what it's worth.) It has a look and feel that, for my Anchorage eyes, is original and spectacular. Watching the whole thing for the second time today it was even better. The sound too is amazing. And the detail. This is, for me, great animation. But everything else in the program is good too.
World Animation
6:00 pm
Out North
Today - Saturday Dec. 10
All the animated films in competition are in the second half of the show, so you can get there late and still see enough to be worth while. Year Zero is almost at the end.
Travis Betz did the first one. I have lots of video on my sound card, but there's no way I can edit it before I leave for more festival. We saw various examples of work he's done and discussions of how it was made and how YouTube was helpful in getting an audience and making contacts. The movie tonight is The Dead Inside.
Today (Saturday Dec. 10)
The Dead Inside
8pm
Bear Tooth
[Portrait from Travis' business card.
You can compare that to what he looks
like on the video.]
It's a zombie musical. We saw the trailer. This is real film festival stuff - a young, hungry, passionate film maker who's made a low budget film and one day you'll be able to say, Yeah, I saw The Dead Inside when he was unknown in 2011.
AIFF 2011: Corridor and Amigo
The Corridor
I'm not a horror movie fan. I look away before the blood flows. But I stayed in the Bear Tooth Thursday night to see the beginning of The Corridor. I don't want to say anything about the story in case you see it - it's playing again Sunday Dec. 11 at the Alaska Experience Theater at 2pm.
But I did want to say I thought it was a good film. The characters - four young men who had been friends a long time and were starting to go off in different directions - were interesting and real. The story had a very satisfying ironic twist to it. The special effects in this low budget Canadian film worked well. And Alaskans will appreciate the familiar look of a remote cabin in the snow. I found the movie genuinely scary and I stayed most of the way through until one nasty bout with a big knife. But even as I walked out, I really wanted to know what was going to happen.
Amigo
Tonight we saw John Sayles' Amigo, which takes place in a small Filipino village after the Americans win the Spanish-American War and are finishing up their takeover of the Philippines. This film was brought in at the last minute to fill the hole for a film that would have been a North American premier. But at the last minute the film got accepted in a much more prestigious festival where it would get much more attention, but only on the condition that it was the North American premier. So, we lost it. But Amigo was a good substitution and it was nice to see members of the Anchorage Filipino community there to see Joel Torre, who, I was told, is a major Filipino film star.
The film focused on a prosperous village whose head man followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and who owned most of the land which others farmed. Then the painfully young American troops come in, and despite the local American commander's decency, things do not go well. The characters in the movie speak their own languages - English, Spanish, a Filipino language (not sure which one), and a Chinese dialect that had a Cantonese ring to it.
I couldn't help but think about the young American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was also struck by how much the technology of war has changed since those days of horses, swords, and simple guns. I'm glad I got to see it.
I'm not a horror movie fan. I look away before the blood flows. But I stayed in the Bear Tooth Thursday night to see the beginning of The Corridor. I don't want to say anything about the story in case you see it - it's playing again Sunday Dec. 11 at the Alaska Experience Theater at 2pm.
But I did want to say I thought it was a good film. The characters - four young men who had been friends a long time and were starting to go off in different directions - were interesting and real. The story had a very satisfying ironic twist to it. The special effects in this low budget Canadian film worked well. And Alaskans will appreciate the familiar look of a remote cabin in the snow. I found the movie genuinely scary and I stayed most of the way through until one nasty bout with a big knife. But even as I walked out, I really wanted to know what was going to happen.
Amigo
Tonight we saw John Sayles' Amigo, which takes place in a small Filipino village after the Americans win the Spanish-American War and are finishing up their takeover of the Philippines. This film was brought in at the last minute to fill the hole for a film that would have been a North American premier. But at the last minute the film got accepted in a much more prestigious festival where it would get much more attention, but only on the condition that it was the North American premier. So, we lost it. But Amigo was a good substitution and it was nice to see members of the Anchorage Filipino community there to see Joel Torre, who, I was told, is a major Filipino film star.
The film focused on a prosperous village whose head man followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and who owned most of the land which others farmed. Then the painfully young American troops come in, and despite the local American commander's decency, things do not go well. The characters in the movie speak their own languages - English, Spanish, a Filipino language (not sure which one), and a Chinese dialect that had a Cantonese ring to it.
I couldn't help but think about the young American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was also struck by how much the technology of war has changed since those days of horses, swords, and simple guns. I'm glad I got to see it.
Friday, December 09, 2011
AIFF 2011: Break Back Skiing, Learn Again - The Movement, Sat in Anchorage, Sundance Later
How much can I get into one title? I left out the rest of the title (One Man Joins An Uprising). I talked briefly with film maker Greg Hamilton who was particularly excited about being notified last week that the film was accepted at Sundance.
I don't know much more than what he told me in the video below. It plays tomorrow (Saturday) at the Wild Berry Theater (down the road from the Peanut Farm on Old Seward and International Airport Road). This is a great little theater. I've seen live plays there, but never a movie. 2pm. The film is about a skier who has to relearn to ski - in a skichair - after breaking his back. I think this is the third festival it's shown been shown in. They submitted a rough copy but tomorrow the final cut will be shown.
But get it straight from Greg:
I don't know much more than what he told me in the video below. It plays tomorrow (Saturday) at the Wild Berry Theater (down the road from the Peanut Farm on Old Seward and International Airport Road). This is a great little theater. I've seen live plays there, but never a movie. 2pm. The film is about a skier who has to relearn to ski - in a skichair - after breaking his back. I think this is the third festival it's shown been shown in. They submitted a rough copy but tomorrow the final cut will be shown.
But get it straight from Greg:
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