AIFF2016 Documentaries In Competition Tibetan Nomads, Tuvan Throat Singers, Slanty Eyed Mamas, Thai Boxing, And Those Ruby Slippers

Here are the documentaries in competition with descriptions below.

Docs in Competition	Director	Country	Length
Best and Most Beautiful Things	Garrett Zevgetis	USA	90 min
Drokpa	Yan Chun S	China	79 min
Goodbye Darling, I’m Off to Fight	Simone Manetti	Italy,Australia, United States	73 min
SHU-DE!	Michael R Faulkner	United States	85 min
Happy Lucky Golden Tofu Panda	Carrie Preston	United States	75 min
The Slippers	Morgan White	USA	min
The Cinema Travelers	Shirley Abraham	India	min

Best and Most Beautiful Things
Garrett Zevgetis
USA
90 min

Tuesday December 6, 2016 5:30pm - 7:30pm *** Warning - one showing only!!
BearTooth 


From the film's website:

"In 2009 director Garrett Zevgetis googled the word “Beauty.”
He had been working on a number of darker-themed documentaries and was determined to find an uplifting story for a future project. The search returned a poignant Helen Keller quote that led Garrett to Perkins School for the Blind outside Boston, a renowned institution where a feature documentary had never before been made. He began volunteering at Perkins. On the last day of his scheduled term, a bubbly student introduced herself – Michelle had found him.
BEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS is a celebration of outcasts everywhere, following a precocious young blind woman who disappears into quirky obsessions and isolation. With humor and bold curiosity, "

The Cinema Traveler
Shirley Abraham
India
96 minutes
Thursday December 8, 2016 5:30pm - 7:00pm **WARNING - Just one showing
BearTooth 

This film debuted at Cannes last May where it won a Special Jury Prize.  This seems to be one not to miss.  I did get see some films shown in rural Thailand on a sheet across a dirt road in Thailand in the 60s, it wasn't quite what this film seems to be documenting.  The annual visit by the Chinese opera troupe probably was more like this.  From the reviews, it sounds like the film captures the excitement of these events.

From a much longer article at the Guardian:

"In Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya’s understated documentary, we’re given intimate access to a unique experience: two travelling cinemas that travel across rural India sharing films with people who would otherwise have limited access. It focuses on the lives of the men who put the show on the road, faced with a changing medium and a demanding audience.
Shot over five years, we follow a set of men with different key roles in the process of the two companies. There’s the easygoing manager trying to provide for his family while on the road, the 70-year-old projector mechanic whose weathered hands have helped bring the joy of cinema to thousands and the many serious-minded cineastes who work around them."

From the Hollywood Reporter:

"The traveling cinema world, mostly based around Maharashtra, the vast state whose capital is Mumbai, has been bringing the magic of the silver screen to remote villages for some 70 years. Setting up tents in rural fairs that often are several hours from anything even approaching a local multiplex, the screenings draw hundreds, who line up to see the latest Bollywood hits, old Hindi classics and even the odd dubbed Hollywood title.
But it’s a tradition that is nearing extinction. "There are very few of these cinemas left," says Shirley Abraham, who together with her co-director Amit Madheshiya, has spent eight years tracking those remaining in the industry for The Cinema Travelers, screening in the Cannes Classics sidebar on May 15. 'It has been petering out over the years. I don’t think they’re going to survive the march of time and technology.'"

The film's website's press page has lots and lots of links to articles about the film.
The video below features a discussion with the film makers talking about the film. The video isn't great. I haven't found a trailer.

Screenshot from Dropka trailer

Drokpa
Yan Chun Su
China
79 minutes

Saturday December 3, 2016 2:00pm - 3:30pm 
Anchorage Museum
Saturday December 10, 2016 12:00pm - 1:30pm 
Alaska Experience - SMALL

The site only lists three other festivals in addition to AIFF so we're some of the first people to see this film.  From their website:

"DROKPA (Nomads of Tibet) is a portrait of the lives and struggles of nomads on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau. Through intimate individual stories, the film reveals the unprecedented environmental and sociopolitical forces that are pushing the nomads to the edge of their existence. "

Goodbye Darling, I’m Off to Fight
Simone Manetti
Italy
73

Wednesday December 7, 2016 8:00pm - 9:30pm 
BearTooth
Sunday December 11, 2016 2:00pm - 3:15pm 
Alaska Experience - SMALL


The trailer of this Italian movie is in English with Italian sub-titles. The trailer has the title in English, Italian, and Thai.  It's about boxing.  And that seems to be confirmed in the English description I found at DocsMX:

"After a painful break-up with her boyfriend, Italian actress and fashion model Chantal Ughi discovered that Muay Thai was the only way to confront the violence she suffered as a child. She went to Thailand to train for four weeks, but ended up living there for five years—training and fighting, becoming stronger than a man."

Happy Lucky Golden Tofu 

Panda
Carrie Preston
USA
75 min

Saturday December 3, 2016 1:30pm - 3:00pm 
Alaska Experience - SMALL 
Saturday December 10, 2016 6:00pm - 7:30pm 
49th State Brewing Company 

Where do I start this?  There's a duo called Slanty Eyed Mamas.  I'll let their own words from their website explain:

"TWO GOOD ASIAN GIRLS GONE BADASS.
Thoroughly modern, urban, sexy sounds from the very fresh, street infused Asian-American duo that always causes a stir...You've never seen anything quite like it--part hip hop, part rock, part electroclash, from two rock n roll asian chicks. Slanty Eyed Mama sees the world through the searing electric violin and beats of virtuoso Lyris Hung and the iconoclastic rants from Kate Rigg, aka. Lady K-Sian. Kate is also a Juilliard trained actor/playwright and a well known comedian, who has been on Fox's Family Guy, 2 seasons of the Dr. Phil show where she talked about the Asian American Experience to 5 million people, and has toured extensively as a stand up comic. Electric violinist Lyris Hung is also a Juilliard graduate who also has a metal band called HUNG, tours with The Indigo Girls and has played with Jay Z, Bono, Quincy Jones, and many others."

And the movie?  On her website, Kate writes about the movie:

"In addition to keeping busy with theater and TV work, 2016 sees the release of the thoroughly original, mind bending, but gusting, comedy music and spoken word mashup film Happy Lucky Golden Tofu Panda Dragon Good Tie Fun Fun Show- The movie. Shot on location in New York and directed by Emmy Award Winning actress Carrie Preston. The movie captures the downtown New York spirit with live portions filmed in an East Village Club, with musical numbers and sketches blown up and shot on location throughout the City. It examines the "East meets west experience" ways in which we see "Asian-ness" in the West through culture, media, commodities and familiar images-- Hello Kitty, Nail Salons, Chinatown bargain shopping, Pokemon, bowl cuts. Kate's Stand up weaves the show together, with sharp observational, political and outrageous out-there jokes."

 It premiered in New York in June, but I can't find much except their own promotional stuff.  Eclipse Magazine mentions it in passing when discussing what people will find at the SOHO film festival:

"intriguing oddities like Happy Lucky Golden Tofu Panda Dragon Good Time Fun Fun Show" 

Here's the teaser.

SHU-DE!
Michael R Faulkner
USA 
85 min

Saturday, Dec 3, 2016: BearTooth 6:00 PM Sunday, Dec 11, 2016:Alaska Exp - SMALL, 
4:00 PM

I remember first seeing live Tuvan throat singing 20 or 30 years ago at the Fly-by-Night Club in Spenard.  It's other-worldly.  So this one piques  my interest.

From the Shu-De website:

"Khoomei (hoo-may) or Tuvan throat singing, is an ancient vocal tradition originating in the remote Republic of Tuva, which is located in the center of Asia in Siberia, and now, part of the Russian Federation. Considered to predate modern linguistics, Khoomei, involves a remarkable technique for singing two or more pitches simultaneously. The sounds are said to come from the land and harmonize with nature itself. The Alash Ensemble are masters of this vocal art and have been touring the world, sharing their music with other cultures, for years.
Shodekeh, a beatboxer and vocal percussionist from Baltimore, with a vision for creating an "oasis of unity through musical collaboration," has spent his life mastering new sounds and using them, while fostering seemingly unlikely collaborations. SHU-DE! is the story of what happened when these artists came together, utilizing their common instrument: the voice and body."

The Baltimore Sun did a profile of the film maker, Michael Faulkner.  Here's a snippet from it:

" . . .The resulting film, "Shu-De!" – Tuvan for "Let's go!" — was one of the crowd favorites at May's 18th Maryland Film festival, where it had its East Coast premiere (its world premiere was a few weeks earlier, at the Nashville Film Festival). Its mix of local interest and exotic locales, not to mention its haunting melodies, proved a crowd-pleaser of the first order. It's since screened at several other festivals, and will be going on a seven-city tour in October
"It's amazing to see your work on a big screen — especially me being a cinephile, someone who loves movies and story in general," says Faulkner, a freelance location manager and film producer who moved from Kalamazoo, Mich., to Baltimore in 1998. 'I was really happy to notice — it's a real movie. It's there; it stands up on the big screen.'"

There's something very film-festivalish about this film, and I mean that in the best possible way.

We don't learn much about what the film is about in the trailer, but we learn a lot about what it feels like.

The Slippers

Morgan White

USA

90 minutes

Saturday December 3, 2016 4:00pm - 6:00pm 

Anchorage Museum 

Sunday December 11, 2016 12:00pm - 1:30pm 

Alaska Experience - SMALL

From Letter Box:

"THE SLIPPERS pulls back the Wizard’s curtain on the unbelievable story and cultural impact of Dorothy's Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz.  Through first-hand accounts and archival interviews, THE SLIPPERS will detail the life of the Ruby Slippers after their sale at the famed 1970 MGM auction. Discovered by costumer Kent Warner, it is unclear how many pairs were found and how many pairs exist. That mystery has only helped to propel the shoes to the forefront of the Hollywood memorabilia market. They have been bought, stolen, and coveted by many. They are considered the most important piece of Hollywood memorabilia and the catalyst for the creation of Hollywood memorabilia collecting."

From an interview with director White at Hammer To Nail:

HtN: So how about access? Did you have any issues there, interview-wise, or footage-wise?
 MW: Footage-wise wasn’t so hard. I spent a lot of time trying to collect stuff. So I became very obsessed with the idea that I should collect as much of the material that’s in the film as possible, because I’m making a movie about collecting. So a lot of the things that are in there come from 16mm prints that I bought, on eBay, or on the black market of 16mm-print collecting. Or I bought magazines and newspapers and articles and…whatever I could find on eBay. So in terms of that stuff, it was just me spending time looking for it. Access-wise, for interviews, I mean, everybody was pretty great. Michael Shaw, who was one of the owners of the shoes, he was a little bit complicated to get, because he’s a little bit complicated of a person…

From the interview, it's clear this is movie is about collecting movie memorabilia, not just the Ruby Slippers.

AIFF 2016: Features In Competition

Features are full length fictional films.  Films in competition are those chosen by the original screeners to be eligible for awards.

• a list of the super shorts in competition
• list of the programs where they appear and when
• description of each super short in competition in alphabetical order

I'd note that while these are the screeners picks, screeners don't always agree, so some would have chosen other super shorts as the best.  I often disagree with the screeners, but this is a good start.

Features in Competition	Director	Country	Length
Demimonde	Attila Szász	Hungary	1:25:00
Donald Cried	Kyle Martin	USA	1:25:00
First Girl I Loved	Karem Sanga	USA	1:26:00
Heredity	Carlos G Vergara	Columbia	1:40:10
Planet Outtakring	Michi Riebl	Austria	1:30:00
Youth in Oregon	Joel David Moore	USA	1:40:00

Demimonde
Attila Szász
Hungary
1:28:00

From Huniwood (Hungarian Film Festival Berlin):

"In January 1914, a horrific murder shocked the city of Budapest. Elza Mágnás, a famous courtesan, was strangled and her body thrown into the icy waters of the Danube. The film which is based on a true story chronicles the last four days of Elza’s life through the eyes of a naive maid, portraying Elza’s complex relationship with her housekeeper, her sugar daddy and her young lover. (HFM)"

 Director Szász's The Ambassador To Bern won the best feature at the 2014 AIFF.  It was an excellent film and I'm sure this one will be a contender this year.  I did a Skype interview with Szász then and part of it was about this film.  I'll try to edit it to focus on Demimonde.  But it's in sections with transcript so it is easy to find.

Here's what he said two years ago:

"Q: What's the new film about?
The assassination of a famous courtesan….Years ago that shook up the entire city of Budapest, everybody was talking about it because the courtesan was very famous, everyone knew about her and they were shocked because someone famous was getting murdered.
Q:  Was that before or after the Arch Duke got shot?
It’s before.  It takes place in January, so it’s maybe a couple of months before the assassination [of the Arch Duke].  It’s a style piece.  It’s the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy.  So it’s very difficult to recreate the era, because we have to start from scratch, the costumes, the props, set, everything.  And we have so little money again, but I just couldn’t refuse this chance because the script is again something I love very much.  I was warned, do you remember the first time you had to shoot in 17 days with so little money, you suffered and you were frustrated, and you want to do it again?  I said, yes, because it’s a good script and we have now, nineteen days so it’s two more days, - piece of cake - probably it's a bit longer,  the story. so it’s very difficult to shoot again, but hopefully next time we’ll have the backing of the film fund and we’ll have maybe three or four times the time and money, because it’s normal that Hungarian films are being shot in 35, 40, maybe 45 days and we had less than 20 both times."

Donald Cried
Kyle Martin
USA
1:25:00

From the Donald Cried website:

"Peter Latang (Jesse Wakeman) left working class Warwick, Rhode Island to reinvent himself as a slick, Wall Street mover and shaker. Fifteen years later, when he's forced to return home to bury his Grandmother he loses his wallet on the trip. Stranded, the only person he can think of to help him out is his next door neighbor and former childhood friend Donald Treebeck (Kris Avedisian). Donald hasn't changed a bit, and what starts as a simple favor turns into a long van ride into their past."

And interesting point from the director's notes from the same link:

"For me specifically it had a lot to do with the guilt of how I treated people in high school and the guilt I carried with me.  Jesse and Kyle  (co-writers) come from the same really small town in Northern California and brought elements of their experience going home. All the Rhode Island elements, the people the neighborhoods, were very specific to my experience growing up there in the 80's."

Donald Cried from Groove Garden on Vimeo.



First Girl I Loved
Karem Sanga
USA
1:26:00

From Variety:

"Anne (Dylan Gelula, from Netflix’s “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”) is a mildly quirky 17-year-old who lives with her single mom (Pamela Adlon) and exercises her arty side as photographer for the school yearbook. It’s in the latter capacity that she encounters softball-playing senior star athlete Sasha (Brianna Hildebrand), and is instantly smitten. "

Image also from Barranquilla

Heredity
Carlos G Vergara
Columbia
1:40:10

I was trying to find something on this film more than just the Bear Tooth blurb, but there isn't a lot out there.  I suspect this is pretty close to what the Bear Tooth says in English.  From Festival Internacionale de Cines Barranquilla

"Sinopsis:  Tati  y  Pedro  llevan  una  vida  rutinaria  hasta  que  él  amanece  convertido  psicológicamente en un niño. Buscando la cura Tati lleva a Pedro a donde él vivió su infancia,  allí Pedro se reencuentra con su familia y a ninguno reconoce, en cambio juega y es feliz como  cuando realmente era niño. Después de que su madre lo ve en una de sus crisis decide revelar  un secreto, esto hace que Tati lleve a Pedro a seguir las huellas de su padre. Encontrarlo para  que haga catarsis es la última esperanza."

Again, you can get this in English at the Bear Tooth link.

Screenshot from outtake on Planet Ottakring's website

Planet Ottakring

Michi Riebl

Austria

1:30:00

Bear with me on this one.  This some interesting background that will add depth to your understanding of the movie.  I couldn't find a good English description for this film, so I started with the German synopsis from the film's website:

"Eine Krise zieht ihre Kreise um den Planet Ottakring: Disko, der letzte Pate stirbt, Frau Jahn, Kredithai vor Ort, übernimmt die Macht. In dieser Situation gerät die Wirtschaft des Bezirks ins Strudeln. Sammy ein junger und nicht sehr überzeugter Kleinganove, aber Erbe Diskos, ist gezwungen zu handeln. Valerie – Wirtschaftsstudentin aus Deutschland – gerät im Zuge ihrer Masterarbeit ins Zentrum des Geschehens. Gemeinsam mit Sammy und seinen Freunden bilden sie eine Allianz gegen die heimtückische Vorgangsweise von Frau Jahn und finden dabei ein Wirtschaftssystem, von dem eigentlich alle profitieren können. Wären da nicht auch noch Gefühle mit im Spiel. David gegen Goliath in Wiens 16. Bezirk!"

Here's my translation with some help from internet dictionaries.  I was still a little uncertain, but checked with an Austrian friend, who confirmed I'd gotten the gist and then I was able to tweak it into more idiomatic English.

"A crisis erupts in the Viennese neighborhood of Ottakring.  Disko, the last godfather, dies.  Mrs. Jahn, a local loan shark, takes power.  The economy of this district then goes to hell.  A younger, and not very eager minor hoodlum, Sammy,  Disko's heir, is forced to act.  Valerie - a business student from Germany [it's an Austrian film] - while working on her masters thesis, finds herself in the center of the action.  She builds an alliance with Sammy and his friend against the malicious approach of Mrs. Jahn and through this finds an economic system in which all can profit. If only there weren't feelings coming into play.  David and Goliath in Vienna's 16th district."

Poking around with my sketchy German that is certainly no match for Viennese dialect, I did discover that the movie's ideas go back to an experiment in the 1930s in a place called Wörgl where they had a "money-experiment" to deal with the desperate economic situation.  This comes from a post about the film when it was shown in Wörgl.  

I did also find something on this in English at Lietaer.com:

"One of the best-known applications of the stamp scrip idea was applied in the small town of Wörgl in Austria in 1932 and 1933.  When Michael Unterguggenberger (1884-1936) was elected mayor of Wörgl, the city had 500 jobless people and another 1,000 in the immediate vicinity.   Furthermore, 200 families were absolutely penniless.   The mayor-with-the-long-name (as Professor Irving Fisher from Yale would call him) was familiar with Silvio Gesell‘s work and decided to put it to the test.

He had a long list of projects he wanted to accomplish (re-paving the streets, making the water distribution system available for the entire town, planting trees along the streets and other needed repairs.)  Many people were willing and able to do all of those things, but he had only 40,000 Austrian schillings in the bank, a pittance compared to what needed to be done.
Instead of spending the 40,000 schillings on starting the first of his long list of projects, he decided to put the money on deposit with a local savings bank as a guarantee for issuing Wörgl’s own 40,000 schilling’s worth of stamp scrip.   He then used the stamp scrip to pay for his first project.   Because a stamp needed to be applied each month (at 1% of face value), everybody who was paid with the stamp scrip made sure he or she was spending it quickly, automatically providing work for others.   When people had run out of ideas of what to spend their stamp scrip on, they even decided to pay their taxes, early."

The post goes on to say it was so successful that other Austrian towns wanted to copy it and the Central Bank clamped down.  They were sued, but the Austrian Supreme Court backed the bank and these schemes became criminal.

From the first post above, the writer also says that director Michi Riebl says that the Ottakring district no longer has the gangsterism in this form.

Image from Teaser-trailer.com

Youth in Oregon
Joel David Moore
USA
1:40:00

JDM**

There's something here for everyone.  Youth in Oregon is the directorial debut for Avatar actor (Dr.Norm Spelling), Joel David Moore.  It takes place in Oregon with acting greats like Frank Langella and Billy Crudup.  There's  Married... with Children's Christina Applegate and  Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman's Mary Kay Price.


From the YouTube description:

"When 82-year-old curmudgeon RAYMOND Ingersol tells his family that he has made arrangements to be euthanized in Oregon, his daughter KATE is determined to stop him. But when another family emergency arises, Kate’s husband BRIAN finds himself with the unlucky task of driving his father-in-law from New York to Oregon AND convincing the crotchety old man that he doesn’t want to die. The problem: Brian hates Raymond. And with Raymond’s wino wife ESTELLE tagging along for the journey, it’s just in-laws and the open road for the next 3000 miles."

Variety reviews don't pull punches.  But they aren't looking for film-festival flicks, as the last line of this quote suggests:

"Rarely has euthanasia seemed more desirable than it’s made to appear in “Youth in Oregon,” a torturous saga about a man dying of an incurable heart condition who sets out on a cross-country journey to Oregon, where killing oneself is legal. Maudlin and mannered, this contrived indie squanders another fine late-career performance from Frank Langella, dousing its treatment of the subject in affectations until it’s snuffed out any trace of genuine life. While it fits comfortably into the fragmented-family drama subgenre prized each year at the Tribeca Film Festival, its groan-worthiness is apt to get it buried at the box office."

But here's from a more sympathetic reviewer.   Mary Kay Place on her character from The Mary Sue   answering the question, "Did you feel their marriage had gone through a change before the film started that altered their dynamic?"

Mary Kay Place: I did, and I think that’s when she became a heavy drinker. Because he was withdrawing and becoming angrier and more isolated. And that was infuriating to her, because I image them being a solid couple and had been true partners. And that partnership started dissolving as he became more isolated and cranky. Well, I think he’s always been cranky, but now he’s become crankier than ever. And it’s been difficult on my character, because she felt as if she’d lost her partner before he died. He had already slipped away.

There's a note on this YouTube video - "This video is unlisted. Be considerate and think twice before sharing." - but this seems an appropriate place for it and I can't find any easy links where I could ask for permission. I can't find a website or FB page for this film.

**Screenshot from IMDB


Let me get this up so I can start on the Documentaries in Competition.  I don't usually get more than a few of these up each year as a preview.  Let's see how far I can get. I'll also try to add the times and locations for each of the film showings.   This one went pretty easily until I got to Planet Ottakring which took a while.  This looks like a solid group of films and there's still a bunch more other Features, many of which I'm sure are going to be well worth watching.

AIFF2016: All The Other Films In Competition

Generally, I've got posts on the films in competition for the major categories up this close to the festival opening, but only the shorts and super shorts categories have had those films 'in competition' marked on the AIFF website.  So I checked today and got the lists.

I'll put up fuller descriptions of each category's films in competition in the next few days, or at least as many as I can.  Shorts and Super Shorts I've already done.  For now, here are the lists:

FEATURES

• Demimonde (Hungary)
• Donald Cried (USA) 
• First Girl I Loved (USA)
• Heredity (Columbia) 
• Planet Outtakring (Austria) 
• Youth in Oregon (USA) 

DOCUMENTARY

Documentary Shorts

• I’ll Wait Here (Austria) 
• Pickle (USA) 
• Starring Austin Pendleton (USA) 
• The BlindSide (India) 

Feature-Length Documentaries

• Best and Most Beautiful Things (USA)
• Drokpa (China)
• Goodbye Darling, I’m Off to Fight (Italy) 
• SHU-DE! (USA)
• Happy Lucky Golden Tofu Panda Dragon Good Time Fun Fun Show (USA)
• The Cinema Travellers (India)
• The Slippers (USA) 

ANIMATION

• Murderous Tales (Czech Republic)
• Green Light (South Korea)
• A Space in Time (France)
• Adija (USA)
• Alike (Spain) 
• Arrival: A Short Film by Alex Myung (USA) 
• Hum (USA) 
• Just Like it Used to Be (USA) 
• My Life I Don't Want (Myanmar) 
• Pearl (United Kingdom, USA) 
• Red (Iran) 
• Under the Apple Tree (Netherlands) 

MADE IN ALASKA

• Alaska's Mind-Blowing Aurora
• Find Me
• I am Yupik
• Interior
• Speaking from the HeART
• Super Salmon

SHORTS

• Il Campione (The Champion) (Italy)
• Like a Butterfly (USA)
• Thunder Road (USA)
• My Mom and The Girl (USA)
• Gorilla (USA)
• Curmudgeons (USA)

SUPER-SHORTS

• How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps (USA)
• Death$ in a $mall Town (USA)
• 20 Matches (USA)
• A Reasonable Request (USA)
• A Magician (UK)
• On Time (USA)

AIFF 2016: Super Shorts In Competition - Matches, Magic, Weight Loss, And More

Super Shorts are under ten minutes.  Films in competition are those chosen by the original screeners to be eligible for awards.  Super Shorts are shown in programs so they can be hard to find in the program.  Below is

• a list of the super shorts in competition
• list of the programs where they appear and when
• description of each super short in competition in alphabetical order

I'd note that while these are the screeners picks, screeners don't always agree, so some would have chosen other super shorts as the best.  I often disagree with the screeners, but this is a good start.

Super Shorts in Competition	Director	Country	Length
20 Matches	Mark Tapio Kines	USA	10 min
Death$ in a $mall Town	Mark Jones	USA	7 min
How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps	Benjamin Berman	USA	7 min
A Magician	Max Blustin	UK	3 min
On Time	Xavier Neal-Burgin	USA	8 min
A Reasonable Request	Andrew Laurich	USA	9  min

Program (right)   Film (below)	HARD KNOCKS Saturday - 1st Dec 3, 2016 11:30am -1 pm - AK Exper Small Thursday -2nd Dec. 8 5:30-7:30pm AK EX Large	MARTINI MATINEE Friday. Dec 9 2-4 PM BEAR TOOTH	LOVE AND PAIN Wed.  1st Dec. 7 5:30-7 pm BEAR TOOTH Sat 2nd Dec. 10 5:45-7:15pm AK Ex Small	GLOBAL VILLAGE Sunday, DEC. 13  1PM-2:45PM AK Exper Large
20 Matches			√  √
Death$ in a $mall Town		√
How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps			√  √
A Magician				√
On Time	√  √
A Reasonable Request		√

As you can see, three of these films are only showing once, so you're going to have to work hard to see them.  In the past they've occasionally shown super shorts before features, so maybe they'll do that, though A Reasonable Request will need to be with a mature audience feature.  Fortunately you can see the whole film below.

202020202020202020202020202020202020202020202020

20 Matches

Mark Tapio Kines

USA

0:10:00

"A young woman (Nina Rausch) sits alone in a pitch black room and lights twenty matches, one at a time.
Her face illuminated only by the flame from each match, the woman tells the story of a Viennese serial killer who kidnapped and murdered twenty immigrant women – one per year."

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


Death$ in a $mall Town
Mark Jones
USA
0:07:00


Can't find much about this one.  From IMDB page:

"A mayor has a unique way to revive the fortunes of his small town that had been losing citizens, businesses and tourist prior to his taking office."

Based on these first two pictures, the team that chose the super shorts in competition had a thing about matches and the dark.


4444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444

How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps
Benjamin Berman
USA
0:07:00

Here's the guy whose story is told in the film writing on the film's Tumblr page:

“'How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps' is a short film is based on a true story from my life: I went through a bad breakup, then hit the gym as a way to get over the heartbreak - and ended up losing 90 lbs in the process. Then I did what anyone else in this glorious age of the Internet we live in would do:
I wrote a blog post about it.
Published on my small personal Tumblr as just a cathartic way to somehow make sense of my heartbreak and what I had gone through, The Little Blog Post That Could surprisingly went massively viral and struck a chord around the world with millions of people: It turns out (unfortunately) that there are a lot of people out there who have gotten their hearts broken, and almost all of those people turned to the gym to get over it. I wasn’t alone.
One of those people who had gotten their heart broken and stumbled across the “4 Easy Steps” blog post was director Ben Berman, who contacted me through a friend. He said “let’s make a film!”. So we did. "

It continues, including how the actor suggested that he actually lose weight during the filming.

There's also an SNL connection.

Here's the whole movie.  It's got over 4 million hits already on Youtube.  Who needs film festivals anymore?  If a film was in every festival in the US, it wouldn't get 4 million viewers.







MAGICIANAICIGAMAGICIANAICIGAMAGICIANAICIGAMAGICIANAICIGAM





A Magician  Global Village*
Max Blustin
UK 0:03:00

Image and description from Agile Ticketing;

"After witnessing a man behave violently towards his girlfriend, someone decides to intervene."

⌚️ ⌚️ ⌚️ ⌚️ ⌚️ ⌚️ ⌚️ ⌚️ ⌚️ ⌚️

On Time
Xavier Neal-Burgin
USA
 0:08:00

Image and description from the Bureau of Creative Works:

"'On Time' is a short form adaption of the feature length script 'Rough Around the Edges' written by Xavier and Tiara Marshall. The script made it to the first round of the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab. We can't wait to see this story unfold into a feature length film."

NOTNOTNOTNOTNOTNOTNOT

A Reasonable Request
Andrew Laurich
USA
0:09:00

If you let your child watch this, you might have some explaining to do.  I'd suggest you watch this on your own first.  Below is the whole movie.

Recycled Piano And Other Seattle Shots

Just outside the Bainbridge Island post office, there's an old piano for folks to play.  Above are some close ups.  Below is the whole piano along with the keyboard painted bench.  My granddaughter's fingers discovered many ways to make music.

Sunrise this morning.  At that point I wasn't sure if it was clear or cloudy.  It was cloudy.  After taking my son and his family to the airport for their trip home, we went for lunch at the houseboat of an old friend from Anchorage.

Americans Need To Take Election Hacking Seriously - Computer Experts Do And So Do Hackers

[NOTE:  I'm not claiming here that the election was rigged, that machines were hacked.  But I am saying that it's not all that hard to do and it easily could have happened.  The numbers needed to tip the election in swing states was low.  We have to take this seriously, test some key precincts in this election, and require automatic audits of all future elections.]

I'm constantly surprised at how skeptical people are when I talk to them about how easy it is to tamper with voting machines.  They don't want to believe it.  It's the underlying trust we have in our democratic system.  But if that trust is going to continue, we have to take this seriously.  But when the polls are way off, hacking is NOT one of the possible explanations most pundits discuss.  

I began  to seriously learn about this in 2012 when the Anchorage Municipal election had all sorts of problems.  It began with precincts running out of ballots and making up paper ballots from scratch for people to vote on.   But then we learned about more security issues.

• Security seals on the bags with the ballots could easily be opened and resealed (better ones are now being used)
• Voting machines got picked up the night before the election and were kept at the Precinct Captain's house over night (making access to computer cards in the machines easy)
• Voting machines were brought to election central by the precinct captain - there could be more people, but there weren't necessarily

I blogged it closely as did other local bloggers. 

While covering all this I began reading about how the voting machines worked.  It's clear from what experts post online that hacking voting machines is NOT hard.  What's also clear is that IF there are paper ballots that the machines count, then just counting the ballots and comparing them to the machine count will tell us the answer.  Yes, of course, this requires that the paper ballots have been kept securely as well, which is not necessarily the case.  But they should be numbered and tracked at the polling places (at least they are in Anchorage).  If they are not that is a sign.  

So, at the very least, every election should include procedures for manually checking some random precincts against the machine count.  Citizens shouldn't have to demand that and pay for such recounts (as happened in the Anchorage situation, though eventually, when all the problems were exposed, the Assembly repaid the citizens group).  Losing candidates shouldn't have to demand that.  It should be part of the process.  

So when I got an email from a Pennsylvania computer nerd in 2014 raising questions about the Alaska elections in 2008, I took it seriously.  NOTE:  'Seriously' means I decided it was important enough that it should get more attention, particularly from computer folks who could test what he was saying.  'Seriously' does NOT mean, 'believe it all without verifying."

You can read that 2014 post which outlines in detail what he was alleging, what kind of evidence he had, and links to websites that deal with hacking elections and links to my posts about the 2012 election.  I wasn't simply passing this on without thinking about it and doing serious background checking.  

But for those who aren't going to check that link,  I've checked these links to hacking elections again now and here they are: 

• Votescam -  large overview of electronic voting issues
• What Really Happened  
• There's a great HBO video - Hacking Democracy - the link takes you to the official site.  I can't find it free and easy online, but Amazon seems to have it and Netflix says they have it on DVD and you can poke around.  It will totally change your view of the security of our elections.
• Even conservatives are now using voting machine fraud arguments.
• How Many Ways Are There To Steal An Election? And Why Doesn't Anyone Care?
  This is a post I did in 2012 when I was covering the Anchorage Municipal election problems.  It lists different ways to rig an election outcome and has lots of supporting links.  It talks about hacking as well as things like voter suppression and other forms of impacting the election underhandedly if not illegally.

Here are some more links I've come across in recent weeks:

J. Alex Halderman, Prof of Computer Science, University of Michigan  Want to know if the election was hacked?  Look at the ballots

Wired:  Hacked or Not, Audit This election (And All Future Ones)

And for a different take, here's 538's counter:  Demographics, Not Hacking, Explain The Election Results - They've analyzed the votes and kinds of voting machines used and feel there's little likelihood that election was hacked.  But they conclude:  

"Maybe some irregularities at the county level in early Wisconsin vote-counting are signs of wider problems. Maybe we’d find something if we dug down to the precinct level, or if we looked at other states with mixed voting systems. But at a time when the number of voters without confidence in the accuracy of the vote count is rising, the burden of proof ought to be on people claiming there was electoral fraud. The paradox is that in our current electoral system, without routine audits, seeking proof requires calling for a recount, which in itself can undermine confidence in the vote."

Catch 22 - You need to have proof if you make the claim, but without an audit you have no proof.  But if you call for an audit, you undermine the integrity of the election.  So, as I said above, I think all the elections need to have audits built in.