AIFF 2012: Truth Dripped off the Screen from the Film Between Us

Between Us had a good audience in the tiny theater downtown.  I wasn't looking forward to watching two couples duking it out, but I quickly got pulled in.    Truth dripped off the screen as the four people  revealed secrets about themselves and about each other.  Sometimes they worked as couples, sometimes as individuals, sometimes the women teamed up, sometimes the men, as alliances shifted constantly.  It wasn't easy to watch, but these secrets weren't simply these four people's secrets, they were the secrets of all of us.  Powerful.  'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' came to mind and I even stopped at Blockbusters to see if they had a copy so I could compare them.  (They didn't.) 

OK, that's my first impression.  Let's let it settle and see how I feel later.


It plays again Friday at 8pm at the Bear Tooth.   


Here's an answer from an interview of director Dan Mirvish by Kerry at the Napa Valley Film Festival last month.

4) As both the film’s Director and Writer, how did you come up with the idea to write the script for “Between Us?”
There was talk on Broadway of turning my last film, “Open House,” into a play, but during all my meetings, I asked if anyone had any good plays that would make good film adaptations. I read stacks of them, turned down the one that became “Ides of March” and chose “Between Us.”  It seemed to fit where I was in life: married, with young children, and struggling for some sort of artistic integrity. I got together with Joe Hortua, the playwright, and he liked my ideas for a filmed adaptation. So we collaborated on the screenplay that kept most of the dialogue that made the play so successful but added elements and restructured it in a way that I think make it work cinematographically.

Longish Rolling Earthquake Hits Anchorage

I heard it, then felt the house shaking.  This was not a jolt, but a shaking.

The radio is saying it was 5.7.   The USGS says 5.8.

No damage, but it was long enough and shaky enough that I had time and concern enough to get up and go to a doorway.

AIFF 2012: Paddle To Seattle Guys Do the Ganges - Tonight at 8pm

Sunday  hunkered down and decided I needed a new strategy (well, actually a strategy period) for the festival.  It's now down to seeing as many of the films in competition in as many categories as possible.

So tonight (Monday) it's Between Us at 5:15 at Alaska Experience Theater.  This is a feature in competition.  The festival website blurb is:

In this darkly comedic drama, two couples reunite over the course of two incendiary evenings where anything can happen. Grace and Carlo are a newly married New York couple who visit their old friends Sharyl and Joel in their huge Midwestern home. But despite their wealth, the hosts are in a violently destructive marriage. Two years later, the couples reunite in New York, but now the tables are turned as the young couple struggles with their marriage, parenthood and financial woes, only to discover that their old friends are even more successful and much happier than they were before. Featuring Julia Stiles and Tay Diggs. Based on the hit Off-Broadway play of the same name. Adapted by original playwright Joe Hortua.

So, I go for marital discord while my wife is in Seattle and then maybe get some more light hearted fair with Go Ganges. (8pm at the Bear Tooth.) Paddle to Seattle won an audience award here in 2009 and it was a delightful kayak trip from Skagway or Haines to Seattle.  The guys didn't take themselves seriously at all and it was a great contrast to the testosterone filled Mt. St. Elias where 'every step could be your last' narration and belittling the American climber who decided not to go on to the top.  

This time they are in India and that should be fun.


Yesterday I ended up missing the morning and early afternoon programs.  I needed a break and there were things I needed to do around the house.

But I saw two worthwhile films which I want to write about at length later.  The first was a documentary in competition - The Road To Apartheid -  which compared the Israeli occupation of Gaza to Apartheid in South Africa.  While this was clearly a one-sided piece with some glaring omissions, it's a film about an important world issue that needs to be seen and discussed.  Unfortunately, the topic is one that many people don't want to hear, especially if the message counters their existing story about the issue.  I'll go into this more after the festival is over.  It plays again next Saturday at 1 at the AK Experience Theater.

The 8pm film was Shouting Secrets.  I was a little skeptical going in - family discord on the res was the image I had from the blurb.  But it turned out to be a fine film - the most enjoyable and satisfying film I've seen so far.  I have video of the director which I want to post before the next showing at 3pm on Friday at the Alaska Experience Theater.  I know it's when many people are still working, but how much do you get done on Friday afternoon anyway?

I think Alaska Natives will particularly enjoy seeing Native Americans portrayed like normal people on the big screen.  Yes, there is family discord, but it's simply human family discord, not Native American family discord.  In fact Swiss director Korinna Sehringer said that she originally wrote with a middle class white family in mind, but decided to change it to make it more universal and more interesting for her.  The result was a very moving film that happens to be about a Native American family that everyone can relate too. 

Democrat Kreiss-Tomkins Holds Lead After Recount

Jonathon Kreiss-Tomkins, according to the bio in the state elections booklet (pdf), graduated from Yale in 2012.  The 23 year old from Sitka took campaigning seriously and beat Republican incumbent Bill Thomas by 34 votes in the regular election.  The results of the recount today have been posted and while Thomas gained two votes, he still lost by 32 votes.

Photo from Jonathon for State House FB page

The left side (red numbers) are the original tally and the right side (purple) are the recount, which isn't totaled in the photo.  The absentee votes are missing in the whiteboard, but below is the final count from the Division of Elections website. 

This is the second Alaskan Native and third minority incumbent to lose due to redistricting, despite the fact that the redistricting board said over and over again that its main goal was to meet the Voting Rights Act requirements, which required that the districts continue to have the same number of native majority districts.  This district was not covered because of, well, it's fairly confusing, but with definitions of native majority districts shifting, this one was only a slight native majority originally, a category that no longer mattered by the time the board finished in spring 2012.  But the fact is, the Alaska Native presence in the legislature is now diluted by one more.  (We can talk forever about the legitimacy of measuring this way.  I would say in the big picture it does matter, but in any individual election, it may not.)

The Republican dominated (4-1) Redistricting Board did get approval for their plan from the Department of Justice, and clearly they were not trying to bump off a Republican incumbent, but that is the result. The redistricting plan that established the voting districts for the November 2012 election was approved as a temporary plan to be reviewed further by the Alaska Supreme Court. There just wasn't enough time to get a permanent plan approved. The plaintiffs who originally sued have challenged the plan again  after the election, so there is a chance that districts may yet change before the next election.

AIFF 2012: 16 Months In A Brooks Range Cabin - Tom Irons' Arctic Son

Tom was waiting to see Rousseau's Children when I met him.  His (and Jean Aspen's) film, Arctic Son, is about his family's 16 months in the Brooks Range. 




Arctic Son plays today (SUNDAY, DEC 2) at 8pm at the Alaska Experience Theater. And again next Saturday, Dec. 8, at 3:30pm at Out North.

AIFF 2012: Movie Overdose

Started at 11am downtown to see Native Tongue - four short films.  I had to take J to the airport by 1pm so it was iffy if we were going to see the fourth film.  They started about 20 minutes late and the fourth one - Lapse - didn't start.  We decided not to wait - it was 12:30 already and no movie is more important than getting my wife to the airport on time when I'm not going to see her for a week.

Mossadegh was very good.  I've posted on this at length, before I saw it.  I'm not going to give detailed reviews here because I saw way too much, my brain is fried, and I need time to let it digest.  But I do think Calcutta Taxi was the best of the three we saw this morning.  It told several different stories and neatly came back to the same critical scene and each time we had a new layer of understanding.  A very complex trick which gave the film  significantly more content than and richness than one would expect from a 20+ minute film.  Suddenly Zinat . . . held up well in my second viewing.  A powerful film.

Off to the airport, stopped for bananas, then home for lunch, then back downtown to see Confine.   I kept thinking, in the tiny Alaska Experience small theater, that this was not the best use of my time.  It was a very well made movie, but the story was not one I wanted to be watching - a model who had confined herself to her luxurious apartment in London after a disfiguring car crash, now a hostage to a psychotic woman who's taken over her flat.  Blood, gun, knives, canes.  But I'm also beginning to believe that this film is going to stay in my brain.

I was in a daze after that and ended up across the hall for the Snow Dance documentary Rousseau's Children about Yul and Ruth Kilcher's children.  A Swiss team filmed the first generation - now in their 50's to 70 - who grew up in their Swiss father's dream of raising them in Rousseau's  state of nature.  In this case Homer.  I've heard about this family since we got to Anchorage 35 years ago and met Yule once or twice, so it was interesting, but not great.

Waiting for Rousseau's Children I met Tom Irons the director of Arctic Son and did a video of our short chat.

Then back to the small theater to see People of a Feather.  Powerful.  Island in Hudson Bay people whose lives, historically depended on the eider duck.  Lots of great shots of the ducks, seal hunting, and the people who depend on these animals and the ice.  A global warming threat I never knew about was a factor in their lives.  Hydroelectric dams release fresh water into the oceans out of the normal season causing serious problems with the amount of ice, quality of ice, and the animals' ability to survive.

Then home for a quick dinner, phone call from my wife on the ferry to Bainbridge, and then off to Bear Tooth for Lad: A Yorkshire Story.  A very satisfying evening - maybe more when I've had time to reflect.

I stayed for the 10 o'clock shorts because one of the shorts in competition wasin the group, but it took forever for Cockatoo to be played.  But I did enjoy many of the shorts.  I'd mention That Which Once Was as particularly catching my attention.  The story takes place in 2032 at an orphanage for global warming refugee children and uses ice as a fitting icon for the title phrase.  The opening balloons took too long for me, but after that is was just right.  You can see the whole film at the link.

I also learned that Lapse was never shown.   Technical problem.  Bummer.

Seeing so many different kinds of films in one day forces my brain into trying to figure out how to distinguish different types of films and ways to evaluate them.  I'm sure that will perculate into a post before too long.

No idea what to tell people for Sunday, except look at the schedule and have fun. 

AIFF 2012: Dan Hartley On His Film Lad: A Yorkshire Story

I caught Dan after Deadfall in the Bear Tooth theater Friday night.  It shows there tonight (Saturday) at 8pm.  In the video he explains the source of the story and tells us a little about his life before becoming a film maker.
His film Lad: A Yorkshire Story is in competition in the feature catogory.
We were in front of the theater and they were setting up for musicians.  As we were talking they turned off their lights which you'll see at the end.


It plays a second time Saturday, Dec. 8, at 6:30 at the Alaska Experience Theater.

AIFF 2012: Vikram Dasgupta Talks About Calcutta Taxi

Gilles Guerraz, director of Lapse

I somehow latched onto the "Native Tongue" program and communicated with two of the four film makers.  There's a post with an overview of all four films.  And one with director Roozbeh Dadvand's (Mossadegh) email interview.  And I chatted with Gilles Guerraz* (Lapse)via Skype.  But I hadn't gotten hold of Calcutta Taxi's director and assumed it he wasn't coming.  But there he was.

They are all playing together

Saturday Morning at 

11 am 

at the Alaska Experience Theater.

And here's Vikram last night after Deadfall.  He was not excited about how close the camera was and when we tried to do it again at a quieter spot it wasn't as natural and he said ok.  He is right about the lighting.   But you get a sense of Vikram's energy and charm and the after film crowd at the Bear Tooth last night.  So, this is dedicated to his mom and his wife. 

*I have a lot of video of my chat with Gilles Guerraz. Too much video. I'll try to edit it and post a short bit of it before the film shows again next week.

AIFF 2012: What To Watch? (Most) Films In Competition Saturday

Here's a list of the films in competition I noticed that were being shown today.  I haven't checked the animated films and there may be more shorts I missed.  The Festival's hard copy guides are available and make finding your way around the conference much easier.

I'm putting these up in order of when they are being shown.

Four of the seven features in competition are being shown, but most of them will be showing at overlapping times.  You can see Confine (2pm) and one of the others.  They'll all be shown again.

Two of the four documentaries in competition are being shown.



Films in Competition marked with **  showing Saturday

11:00 AM:  Shorts: Native Tongue   [SHORTS]
Shorts Program | 88 min.

**Mossadegh | Roozbeh Dadvand 2011  Short In Competition
**Calcutta Taxi | Vikram Dasgupta 2012  Short In Competition
Naagahaan, Zinat… (Suddenly, Zinat…) | Navid Azad 2012
**Lapse | Gilles GUERRAZ 2012  Short In Competition


11:30 AM  First Peoples Program [SHORTS]
Mixed Media, Shorts Program | 60 min.
Day in Our Bay: A Closer Look
**Hunt | Jordan Tannahill 2012  Short In Competition
Wolf Dog Tales | Bernadine Santistevan 2012
Cry Rock | Banchi Hanuse
Alaska Experience Theater - Small Theater



2:00 PM **Confine
Tobias Tobbell 2012 | Feature, In Competition | 90 min.
Alaska Experience Theater - Small Theater
SHOWN AGAIN 8:00 PM     Wed, Dec 05 Alaska Experience Theater


4:30 PM **People of a Feather
Joel Heath 2011 | Documentary, In Competition | 90 min.
screens with...
River | Daniel Janke 2011
Alaska Experience Theater - Small Theater

Note:  The short River is about the Yukon and Daniel Janke should be there for Q&A.
 SHOWN AGAIN   6:00 PM     Sat, Dec 08  Anchorage Museum

5:00 PM Shorts: Expectations
Shorts Program | 86 min.
**Cockatoo | Matthew Jenkin 2011 Short in Competition
It's the 5th of 10 shorts in the 86 minute program of "Expectatioons"
Alaska Experience Theater - Large Theater
It's also in the Love and Pain program showing at 10pm at the Bear Tooth
And again later in the week.


7pm **Aquí y Allá (Here and There)Antonio Mendez Esparza 2011 | Feature, In Competition | 110 min.
Alaska Experience Theater - Small Theater
SHOWN AGAIN 8:00 PM     Thu, Dec 06  Alaska Experience Theater



7:30pm **GrassrootsStephen Gyllenhaal | Feature, In Competition | 97 min.
Alaska Experience Theater - Large Theater
SHOWN AGAIN 8:30 PM     Tue, Dec 04  Alaska Experience Theater



8:00pm **Lad: A Yorkshire Story
Dan Hartley 2012 | Feature, In Competition | 96 min.
Bear Tooth Theatre
SHOWN AGAIN 6:30 PM     Sat, Dec 08



8:30pm **Ping Pong
Hugh Hartford | Documentary, In Competition | 80 min.
screens with...
Cutting Loose | Finlay Pretsell, Adrian McDowall
Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center

The two features NOT showing today are:

**Between Us    Dan Mirvish USA 90m  Feature, In Competition | 96 min.
5:15PM  Mon, Dec 03  Alaska Experience Theater - small theater
8:00PM  Fri, Dec. 07    Out North
Alaska Experience Theater - Small Theater

**Shouting Secrets     Korinna Sehringer Switzerland/USA 88m Feature, In Competition | 96 min.
8:)) PM Sun, Dec 02  Bear Tooth
3:00Pm Fri, Dec 07  Alaska Experience Theater

AIFF 2012: Deadfall Better Than I Expected

I'm not the official blogger of the festival.  That allows me to say what I think without worrying about it reflecting on the festival itself.  And let me say the festival organizers have been kind to me, helped me out, and even given me a pass. I think it's a good thing that we have a festival and for that reason want to encourage people to see as many films as possible.  And while I'd rather focus on what I like, pass over the glitches,  my main obligation is to the audience, not to the festival. So sometimes I have to give some friendly, and I hope constructive, criticism.

People waiting for things to start at the Bear Tooth

There was a good crowd at the Bear Tooth tonight for Deadfall.  But at 7:50pm people were still  waiting to be let in out of the cold. By 8:15 people were in the theater, but there was still a long line at the pub.   You know they won't start the movie until everyone has had a chance to get their beer and wine.

The guy who introduced the Aurora film was appropriately respectful to the audience and worded his thanks politely and as though he'd given it some thought.  (I couldn't find reference to him or the film in the program. [12/6 - Met him Thursday night.  He's Todd Salat and the film is Catching Alaska's Light Waves and he didn't do the music.]) The film's shots of the aurora were beautiful.  The music was the  typical classical music that often accompanies nature films and I was thinking some Yupik drumming might have been a nice touch instead. 

It's important to acknowledge sponsors and volunteers and to give a nod to the film makers in the audience.  And I know the people running the festival are working 26 hours a day right now. But a friend I talked to after the film said he left his house at 8:05pm  figuring the film would start late and when he got into the theater they were still doing introductions..  For all the work that was put into the festival, it would be nice to keep the opening remarks short and gracious and start the movie within ten minutes of the scheduled time.  Or maybe the music and dancer, who played to a mostly empty house after the film while everyone else was in the lobby eating the big spread of pizza and desserts, should have been on stage before the film. 

Film Programmer Josh Lowman in Bear Tooth lobby

Deadfall itself was better than I expected.  I'm not into bloody chase films, triple flip car crashes, gratuitous shooting, etc.  Last year I put up with a lot in one late night film, but finally walked out when they started cutting off someone's ear.

But Deadfall turned out better than I expected.  There were lots of little things that worked -   scenes where I just enjoyed watching how the camera framed a face or Sissy Spacek nicely bringing her character to life.

As one film maker said afterward, it was as though they couldn't figure out which film they wanted to make.  The prison movie?  The boxing movie?  The caper movie?  The love story? The heist movie?  A comedy?  And the villain's Thanksgiving dinner guest role just didn't work for me.  Yes, bad guys often do have good sides, but I didn't believe his Thanksgiving dinner guest persona.  And while the script made sure the audience knew why Eric Bana didn't bleed to death from his missing finger,  I was thinking, while he was flying across the landscape on a stolen snowmachine in a blizzard without gloves, that frostbite would have been a much more serious concern.

The Quick Freeze Prompts were announced: Sunrise Duct tape Hostess

And what does it means when the crowd laughs at the seemingly serious sex scene?  Was it because the whole act started and ended in what felt like less than a minute?

It's late and I don't have enough to time to think this through.  This was quite different and a lot less satisfying than what we're used to for opening films at this festival.  And I know I'm being contradictory here because I complained in the past about using films in competition to open the festival and here they didn't do that. And I'm complaining again.

And making a film called Deadfall is like tempting critics to add an 'r' and switching out the 'a' for a 'u'.  But it wasn't that bad.  It wasn't a waste of my time.  But now that I'm focused here on the title, I'm not sure what it means in relation to the movie. 


Got to get ready for a busy day tomorrow.