AIFF 2017: Short Docs In Competition - Old Harbor, The Collection, Ten Meter Tower, Ghosts of the Arctic,He Who Dances On Wood, Family Rewritten, Perception, and Wildland

'Short Docs' are non-fiction films under 55 minutes. At least that was the rule in the past.  I mention that because one film in this category is 57 minutes.
'In Competition' means the programmers picked it to be in the running for an award.

The shorts (narrative and docs), because they're short, are grouped into programs.  To see all the short docs in competition you have to see three different programs, plus one more showing where the 15 minute short in competition plays with the 57 minute short doc.

To make it easier to find the times and locations of the films you want to see, I've grouped them and color coded them by program.

Short Docs 1: Stories of Redemption Mon, Dec 4, Ak Exp Theater Large, 3pm Fri Dec 8, Ak Exp Theater Small,  5pm	Short Docs 2:  Against The Grain Sat Dec 2, E Street Theater, 12:00pm Mon, Dec. 4, Ak Exp Theater Small  3pm Sat Dec 10, Ak Exp Theater Small, 12:30pm
Short Docs 3 Compelling Characters Tuesday Dec 5,  Ak Exp Theater Large 3:00pm Thursday Dec 7 Ak Exp Theater Small, 8:15pm	Unnamed Program (Old Harbor, New Hope)  Sat, Dec 9,  E Street Theater,  3pm

Short Docs in Competition	Director	Country	Length
Wildland	Daniel Steiner	USA	25 min
Perception: From Prison to Purpose	Garret Guinn	USA	40 min
Family Rewritten	Yasmin Mistry	USA	13 min
He Who Dances on Wood	Jessica Beshir	USA	6 min
Ghosts of The Arctic	Abraham Joffe	Australia	7 min
Ten Meter Tower	Maximilien V an Aertryck	Sweden	16 min
The Collection	Adam Roffman	USA	11 min
Old Harbor, New Hope	Joshua Branstetter	USA	15 min

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Short Docs 1: Stories of Redemption

Mon, Dec 4, Ak Exp TheaterLarge, 3pm

Fri Dec 8, Ak Exp Theater Small,  5pm

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Perceptions:  From Prison to Purpose
Garret Guinn
USA
40 min
Perception was selected as the Best Oregon Film at the Oregon Documentary Film Festival in November 2017.  Here's what their website says about the film:

"On April 14th, 2009, Noah Schultz was arrested for attempted murder in Portland, Oregon. This is the story of his transformation. During his seven years of incarceration, Noah took advantage of every program, workshop and educational service provided. He pushed himself not only to be better, but to challenge our perceptions of what it means to be an inmate."

Perception: From Prison To Purpose | Trailer from Perception Doc on Vimeo.

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Wildland
Daniel Steiner
USA
25 min

This is the kind of film Americans need to see regularly to better understand who the people behind bars are.  This film shows inmates at a juvenile work camp program that give them fire fighting skills and experience to make it outside the prison.

Here's a brief bio from Daniel Steiner's website:

"Dan Steiner has worked on impactful documentary programming around the globe for VICE, the National Geographic Channel, and Current TV (RIP). In addition, he has held numerous post-production positions at ad agencies like Wieden + Kennedy, JWT, and Venables Bell & Partners.
He received a Master’s degree in Journalism from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2016."

I couldn't find a trailer for this film, so here's the whole film, from his website:

WIldland from Daniel Steiner on Vimeo.


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Short Docs 2:  Against The Grain

Sat Dec 2,  E Street Theater, , 12:00pm

Mon, Dec. 4, Ak Exp Theater  Small  3pm

Sat Dec 10, Ak Exp Theater Small  12:30pm

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Family Rewritten
Yasmin Mistry
USA
13 min

A film about one person's experience with foster care.




“Family Rewritten” Trailer from Foster Care Film on Vimeo.



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He Who Dances On Wood
Jessica Beshir
USA
6 min,

This is an exquisite film.  The camera writes poetry in light and patterns.  Fred Nelson modestly but confidently voices wisdom.

"When the right thing comes along, something happens inside of us. . . There's a need to speak to God, but I think that everybody has their way of doing it. . .  I know I found my joy in, not Jesus, not Allah, it's a piece of wood."

He Who Dances on Wood (TRAILER) from BRIC TV on Vimeo.

The whole six minute film is here.


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Short Docs 3 Compelling Characters

Tuesday Dec 5,  Ak Exp Theater. Large 3:00pm

Thursday Dec 7 Ak Exp Theater Small, 8:15pm

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Ghosts of the Arctic
Abraham Joffe
Australia
7 min,

The photography, the landscapes, the caribou and polar bear shots are all incredibly beautiful.  But this film is more about how brave the film makers were under harsh conditions than it is about polar bears - the presumed title characters of this film.  I checked the amount of time that the filmmaker is in the image.  I got 3 minutes and 21 seconds out of a six minute movie.  There's also landscape.  And a small amount of time with caribou and bears.  Just read their own description of the movie at Untitled Film Works:

"Ghosts of the Arctic is the result of a passion project gone wild. Our goal was to venture out into the beautiful frozen expanse of Svalbard, in winter, to search and document polar bears. During the shoot we experienced temperatures that were never warmer than -20ºC and frequently plummeted down as low as -30ºC + wind chill factor.
Most days involved two hundred kilometres on snow mobile in very difficult terrain and conditions. We experienced three cases of first and second degree frostbite during the filming as well as several equipment failures as a result of the extreme cold. Each day involved 14-16 hours in the field.
The film was released with great reviews and write-ups on notable film blogs. The piece also received a converted [did yet mean coveted?] Video Staff pick of the Month."

In a movie about polar bears, the word 'bear' appears once in the description.  It's mostly about how they braved the elements under terrible  conditions.  As an Alaskan, I'd say that -30˚C (-22˚F) is cold, but not terrible, if you're dressed right.

It would be fine to make a film about how hard it is to film polar bears in the wild, but that's not what they say their goal is and it's not what the title suggests.

But the footage is spectacular.  You can judge for yourself.  I could only find the whole video online, not a trailer.







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Ten Meter Tower
Maximilien Van Aertryck
Sweden
16 min,
**Also Plays In Martini Matinee, Fri. Dec 8, Bear Tooth, 2pm

From the film makers in a NYTimes piece:

"Our objective in making this film was something of a psychology experiment: We sought to capture people facing a difficult situation, to make a portrait of humans in doubt. We’ve all seen actors playing doubt in fiction films, but we have few true images of the feeling in documentaries. To make them, we decided to put people in a situation powerful enough not to need any classic narrative framework. A high dive seemed like the perfect scenario."

After my comments about the previous film, I appreciated this comment very much:

"In our films, which we often call studies, we want to portray human behavior, rather than tell our own stories about it." (emphasis added)

Here's the trailer:

Trailer: TEN METER TOWER by Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck from Plattform Produktion on Vimeo.

Here's a link to the whole film.

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The Collection
Adam Roffman
USA
11 min

From Adam Roffman's The Collection website:

"The Collection is a short documentary about two friends, DJ Ginsberg and Marilyn Wagner, and their discovery of an astonishing and unique collection of movie memorabilia, comprised of over 40,000 printer blocks and 20,000 printer plates used to create the original newspaper advertisements for virtually every movie released in the United States from the silent period through 1984, when newspapers stopped using the letterpress format." 

This film should be shown before the full length documentary, Saving Brinton (it's the last movie in this post on the docs in competition.)

Here's the trailer:



THE COLLECTION - Official Trailer from Adam Roffman on Vimeo.
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Sat, Dec 9,  E Street Theater, *, 3pm 

(Note: There's a 57 minute film (Journeys to Adaka) before it)

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Old Harbor, New Hope
Joshua Branstetter
USA/Alaska
15 Min

The pre-opeining night showing is about preserving a language that is only spoken fluently by about thirty people.  This film is about resurrecting native dances among the Alutiiq people in the village of Old Harbor.  I'd note the Old Harbor Village Corporation was contracted by Shell  Shell to assist with its rescue operations in nearby Kiliuda Baywhen the oil drill  Kulluk broke loose from the tug in 2013.




If you can't wait, you can see the whole film here.

Seattle Day With Family and Friends, A little Wyeth Time, A Movie, and More Food

We took the 8:45 am ferry from Bainbridge Island into Seattle Wednesday.  The sun was sneaking past the clouds, it felt much warmer than it's been.  (A sign at one point said 66˚F.)

The day held promise.  My son and family were headed into Seattle to see an old friend and our other granddaughter was with us all too.  We were headed to see other friends.

The sky was mostly cloudy, but another ferry headed back to Bainbridge was sunlit.

We walked from the terminal.  Caught a bus.  Then took the monorail.  M is a big vehicle fan at 3 years old and hadn't been on a monorail.

Then another bus and a walk through the park to the Elliot Bay bookstore where we were meeting.  A lot of political stuff on the new books counter.

Our friends got us at the bookstore, the kids were at a story hour and we said good bye.

First to the Seattle Art Museum to see the Andrew Wyeth exhibit.

At first I was conflicted - I wanted to just talk to our friends, but I also wanted to absorb the Wyeth exhibit.  I must admit, I haven't been that big a fan of Wyeth.  The stuff was nice, but didn't really talk to me.  But I saw a lot of different styles and was much more impressed.  For instance, this early water color lobster is NOT something I would have identified as a Wyeth.

This picture of Siri is more familiar.  I couldn't help thinking about the current debates on sexual assault and also on child porn when I saw the nudes of Siri.  From a 1981 Time magazine article on Wyeth:

". . . teenage Siri Erickson, another Cushing resident, from 1967 to 1972. The paintings of her were also withheld, until she turned 21, and their release in 1975 caused a little of the same stir that the Helgas have. Siri, now 32 and the mother of two girls, recalls no embarrassment or awe about posing nude for Wyeth when she was 13. 'He would get totally involved in his work. It was as if you were a tree,' she says. 'He's a normal, everyday person. He does paint good, but he's just Andy.'"

By some standards, a picture of a nude 13 year old would be considered child porn.  By other standards it's great art.  I think we need to be much more discerning than we are at the moment about what we are seeing and how we classify it.  This CBC article talks about the fine line between sexting and child porn.  And this discussion of Wyeth's nudes is on the Catholic online forum Suscipe Domine.


Here are two folks regarding another Wyeth painting.

The exhibit was well laid out - with introductory posters discussing different groups of pictures.  My initial feelings of being overwhelmed lessened and I could wanter and view.  Sometimes looking at the descriptions of individual paintings, other times not.  While we ought to be able to appreciate a painting just by looking at, in theory, the background information helps me get a deeper sense of the each piece

But after two hours or so we were hungry.  And while I wished I could wonder around and look at other parts - like this modern section with this Andy Warhol "Double Elvis" . . . I too was interested in eating.






Someone wants to go to Boka to eat.  When we got there, we found out it is now All Water, in the lobby of Hotel 1000.  I was curious about the name All Water, when P pointed out this explanation on the menu.


Since the picture isn't that clear (but it is if you click on it), I'll help you out.

"In the 1880s the all water route would take prospectors from Seattle across the northern Pacific to the Alaskan coast.  In  the gold rush era this route created the trade in salmon and halibut industries. . . " 

It was a little after 2pm and we were told lunch was until 2pm and Happy Hour began at 3.  When I said, "So this is the unhappy hour?" we were told, "I'm sure we can get the kitchen to still do lunch."
It's only been open a few weeks.  We were all happy with our choices.





Then the group agreed to go see The Florida Project.  By this time, we'd had clouds, sunshine, drizzle, rain, more clouds, and more sunshine.  As we walked to the SIFF theater the sun was out and it was raining.  And a vibrant rainbow cleaned up the drab buildings.






 There was a lot I liked about The Florida Project, particularly the visual richness and the way the young kids had adventures.  I wandered my neighborhood like that with friends and wee also got into all sorts of mischief.  But the brashness of the mom, which got her out of some jams, made other ones worse, was painful to watch. Willem Dafoe's character Bobby was wonderful.  Justin Chang at the LA Times liked it a lot more than I did.

And finally we wandered down to "a Czech German beerhall."

Through these doors we walked into another world - a big warehouse like space with rows of communal wooden tables, a live band that was playing jazz (not polkas) when we walked in, and lots of beer.

Down the table from us the guys had 2 litre boots of beer.  (The two refers to the number of liters not the number of boots.)   Queen Ann Beer Hall is the official name, but doesn't really capture the mood for me.



Later J and I got in a good walk back to the ferry after rescuing our grandson's jacket from a restaurant where he'd left it.

A fun and busy day with family and good friends.

AIFF 2017: Shorts In Competition - The Robbery, Temporary, Must Kill Karl, Iron, Whoever Was Using This Bed, Game, Cold Storage, Temporary, Couples Night, Brain Storm, 8 A.M.

Shorts are fiction 10 - 55 minutes.  In competition means they were selected to be eligible for a festival award. Super Shorts are under 10 minutes.

Shorts are generally shown in groups, called programs.  The shorts in competition this year fall neatly into two programs.  The first is "Shorts on the Edge"  but it's also called "Opening Night Soirée."
The second program is called "Love and Pain."  I've color coded them to make it even easier.

BUT,  I've combined the shorts and super shorts on the chart below, since they are showing together in the programs.  The super shorts have an * after them.

To make it easy for you to figure out when and where to see these films, I've divided the list of shorts in competition into two groups so you can see what program they're in, and when and where each program is shown.

[NOTE: I try to be completely accurate here, but there's a lot of details and I can make a mistake.  To be safe, double check the times and locations before you go. If you see an error please let me know in the comments or via email - in right column above blog archive.]

The first program is:

Opening Night Soiree

Fri Dec 1  Bear Tooth  7 pm

Shorts on the Edge

Sat Dec 9  AK Exp Sm  9 pm

Shorts In Competition	Director	Country	Length
Cold Storage*	Thomas Freundlich	Finland	9 min
Game	Jeannie Donohoe	USA	15 min
Whoever Was Using This Bed	Andrew Kotatko	Australia	20 min
Iron	Gabriel Gonda	USA	17 min
Must Kill Karl	Joe Kick	Canada	12 min
The Robbery	Jim Cummings	USA	15 min
8:AM*	Emily Pando	USA	5 min
Brain Storm*	Christophe Clin	Belgium	6 min
Couples Night*	Russell & Robert Summers	USA	4 min
Temporary	Milena Govich	USA	12 min

Remember, the blue ones are in the program called:

Love and Pain

Which shows: 

Sat Dec 2 AK Exp Large  12 pm

Fri Dec 8 AK Exp Small  7pm

* means it's a Super Short.


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This first group of shorts in competition all are part of the Opening Night Soirée which repeats as the program "Shorts on the Edge."  I've done it this way to help you identify which films are shown together so you can easily find when and where to see them.  

If they are in red, they are together in this program.  

Also, both Shorts and Super Shorts* are together in the same programs, but they are eligible for separate awards.  The * marks the Super Shorts.  These are films under 10 minutes long.

Opening Night Soirée

  Fri  Dec 1 Bear Tooth  7pm

Shorts on the Edge

Sat Dec 9 Ak Exp Small 9pm

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Cold Storage* (*Super Short)

Thomas Freundlich

Finland

9 min

This one should appeal to all Alaskans, especially ice fishers, glacial archeologists, and dancers.

From the film's webpage:

"Thomas Freundlich is one of the leading practitioners in Finland’s vibrantly growing independent dance film scene. Mr. Freundlich’s work ranges from dance shorts, documentary work, performance videography and 3D projects to music videos and projection design for the stage. His work has been seen at dozens of film festivals worldwide as well as broadcast TV both in Finland and internationally. From 2012 to 2014, Mr. Freundlich was the co-artistic director of Finland’s Loikka dance film festival."

Cold Storage :: Trailer from Thomas Freundlich on Vimeo.

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Game

Jeannie Donohoe

USA

15 min

This story takes place during tryouts for the high school basketball team.  It's a very well made film.  To add a little moral crunch to all this, the Weinstein Company was involved with this film.  Just yesterday (Nov 20), I read an article from the Paris Review, "What Do We Do With The Art Of Monstrous Men?"  I suspect that the Weinstein Company, particularly Harvey Weinstein had little to do with the making of this film.  But it's something to think about as you watch this gem of a film.  I know this film is good because you can watch it online, and I did.   Below is a trailer.  I'd note, watching it online probably won't take anything from the experience of seeing it on the big screen opening night of the festival.  There's lots I'm sure I missed the first time.

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Whoever Was Using This Bed

Andrew Kotatko

Australia

20 min

Go to the the film's website.  Scroll through the credits and connections of the cast and the director and others.  This is NOT a film by new faces showing what they can do in hopes of making it.  But the fact that these aren't newcomers to the film industry tells us something about the competitiveness of the world of film-making.




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Iron

Gabriel Gonda

USA

17 min

From Iron's Facebook page

"Iron is a short period drama set in the Pacific NorthWest inspired by the true stories of women railroad workers during the early 1900’s.  

Lily Cohen escapes the the crowded tenements of New York to take on a demanding railway job. Determined to work on a steam engine, a position not traditionally held by women, Lilly faces the hostility of her fellow railroad workers while finding her own inner strength. 

While America is very familiar with the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter, the women laborers of the First World War are mostly forgotten by history. The American railroad represented freedom and adventure in a time when most women had very little opportunity for either. These opportunities disappeared when the soldiers returned home."

Iron - Crowdfunding Main from Lautaro Gabriel Gonda on Vimeo.

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Must Kill Karl

Joe Kick

Canada

12 min

I haven't seen the whole movie, but the trailer . . .   judge for yourself.  I had it up here for a day or two as I worked on the rest of the films.  I decided to take it down because I thought the thumbnail was gross and I didn't see any redeeming features that would make it worth keeping up.  I'm not censoring it - you can go watch it here.  Remember, the programmers thought it was worth being 'in competition'.  I'm waiting to be pleasantly surprised.

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The Robbery

Jim Cummings

USA

15 min

Cummings won the best Short Award last year at AIFF with his film "Thunder Road."  It also won at Sundance which led to a slew of opportunities which are described in this IndieWire article.  The article also includes a full version of of The Robbery.  I don't recommend seeing it now if you plan to see it at the festival.  I'm not sure how much it offers with additional viewings.

It's about a robbery that goes badly.  It's well made.  It spoofs our national (global?) cell phone addiction among other things.

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This second group of shorts in competition all are part of the program "Love and Pain."  I've done it this way to help you identify which films are shown together so you can easily find when and where to see them.  

If they are in blue, they are together in this program  Also, both Shorts and Super Shorts* are together in the same programs, but they are eligible for separate awards.  

The * marks the Super Shorts.  These are films under 10 minutes long.  

In this group, all but "Temporary" are Super Shorts.

Love and Pain

Sat Dec, 2  12pm AK Exp Large

Frit Dec 8  AK Exp Small 7pm

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8:AM*

Emily Pando

USA

5 min

Can't find much on this film, though it was at the festival in August 2016, the Cleveland International Film Festival and the Seattle International Film Festival's Shorts Fest this year if I'm reading the Facebook page right.  

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Brain Storm* (Remue-Meninges)

Christophe Clin

Belgium

6 min

(Also Showing at Martini Matinee - Friday December 8, 2017 2:00pm - 4:00pm)

Another film that's got few internet footprints.  From Augohr:

"What happens in our heads when we are about to meet someone on the street? Anguish, prejudice, expectation, surprise, disappointment … These few very brief moments are the nest of a real brainstorm!"

I had to look much harder to find Christophe's Vimeo page. (His Youtube page was blank. You really don't need a link to a blank Youtube channel.)  But it was worth the effort.  (Actually, if you only google his name, there's more, mostly in French.)

This is one of the most tantalizing trailers I've seen. It could be a super short all its own.

 
REMUE MENINGES (2017) - TRAILER from Christophe Clin on Vimeo.

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Couples Night*

Russell & Robert Summers

USA

4 min

This is a four minute movie.  What do you want?  A ten second trailer?  Christophe Clin found a way to do a trailer for a six minute movie (above) but . . . And why would you want a description?  This is part of a program of other shorts.  Just sit back and watch it.  I can give you one hint - it's been in some horror movie festivals.  

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Temporary

Milena Govich
USA
12 Min

The first few minutes of this probably tells you what you need to know about this film.  It comes from her Kickstarter page and I found the embed code at Vimeo.

  

Temporary - A film by Milena Govich from Troy Foreman on Vimeo.

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I'd also note there are other Shorts programs.  Global Village has a series of international shorts.
There are Made In Alaska shorts.  And Martini Matinee will play a mix of narrative shorts, short docs, and animation.  I'm not totally caught up (and probably will never be) with all these programs but I did want to give you an alert that the narrative shorts and super shorts in competition aren't the only shorts.

Popcorn at the First Thanksgiving?

From Popcorn! illustrated by Brian Lies

Popcorn! by Elaine Landau and illustrated by Brien Lies, has a section called "Popcorn at the First Thanksgiving?"

"Some people think that popcorn was served at the first Thanksgiving.  One story says that the Native Americans brought a deerskin bag of popcorn to the feast as a gift for the colonists, who had never tasted this food.  But people who study this stuff say it never happened.  They claim that corn wasn't grown in the area until much later."

But you can have popcorn for Thanksgiving.  If you do or not, I hope it's a happy gathering of people you love and you treat each other with compassion and respect.



The book was from the children's section of the library and has too many words on the page to keep my grand daughter's interest. no problem.  I'm thankful to have grandchildren, to know them, and to be together with my them and their parents this week.

2020 Presidential Race, Sculpting Pencils, Is Scientology a Religion?, Gender Issue Mapping

Working on a number of posts - film festival stuff and other stuff as well  But I don't want to put them up until they're ready. Also enjoying three grandkids all at once.   Meanwhile, here are a few sites I've encountered recently that might stretch your brain a bit.

President Coach?  The Popovitch Kerr ticket.

pencil art - This artist sculpts the lead of pencils, amazingly.







Scientology - This article challenges the notion that Scientology is a religion and not merely a scam that uses the constitutional protections for religion as a way to avoid taxes and scrutiny.  Talks about how other nations do not give it religious status.

Feeling Other People's Pain - A feminist comic tries to map out the gender landscape.

Dear Rep. Chenault: An Open Letter In Response To Your Commentary On Sexual Assault Of Women

Dear Representative Chenault, 

I read your commentary in the ADN  in which you said you'd raised four young women and you'd supported women's issues as a legislator, but you had had no clue how pervasive abuse was.  

"Yet until now nothing, absolutely nothing, has made me understand the prevalence of sexual abuse and the dehumanizing behavior that women routinely face. In the wake of this scandal, I now see and understand the magnitude of this problem and how women have been taken advantage of, exploited and shamed with little if any consequence to the men taking these unwanted liberties. 
Frankly, I am saddened and shocked that a country as enlightened and great as ours would tolerate and show such indifference to this cultural abhorrence.
As a father and a legislator, I had no idea of the extent of peril women regularly faced. I now understand that this issue that women have lived with is of epidemic proportion. Society has too long tolerated this behavior. This is unacceptable and must change.”

First, I want to thank you for writing this.  So thank you.  

But I want to push you a little further.  And I do this hesitantly.  You’ve done a pretty big thing and you deserve lots of praise for it.  What follows is not criticism, though it may feel like it, but rather strong encouragement to take another few steps in the same direction.  

Here's an overview of my basic points.   

1. What you did by publishing that commentary, was a big deal that doesn’t happen often to adults.   You thought you understood the topic of sexual abuse and harassment and now you realize you were missing a big part of it.  You’ve made an adjustment to your world view. 
2. When that happens, some people stop there and close down again.  Others continue to grow.  They ask, “If I missed that, what else am I missing?”  I want to encourage you to ask that question.
3. This whole process could be bigger than just the issue of sexual assault and discrimination.  It could expand to other issues.  It could also expand to how the legislature works, how legislators regard issues and treat each other.
4. You aren’t just anybody.  You have been Speaker of the Alaska House and are now the Minority Leader.  What you think and do is not just about you personally.  It affects everyone in the state and beyond.  If your world views are accurate, you can do great good.  If they aren't, you can do a lot of harm.  It’s critical that I take advantage of your commentary to reach out to you and encourage you to keep expanding your world view.

So I’m aiming big.  I do so at the risk of offending you by saying you could do more than you have.  I hope you can listen and accept my assurance that my intentions are the best.  

Part 1:  On the issue of sexual assault, rape, and the barriers women face.  

1. Your commentary is a big deal.  You’ve not only said how important this is, but more significantly, you’ve opened yourself up by revealing that there was an important public policy area where you had missed something critical. Even though Alaska is at or near the top in bad domestic violence and rape stats.  You’ve exposed a weakness publicly.  And I want to strongly applaud you for that.  And I go on in this letter with trepidation, because I don’t want you to think,  “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”  I want you to keep growing in your awareness.  So I continue.
2. In addition to the #metoo hashtag, there is also an #ihave hashtag where men talk about how they contributed to perpetuating the problem.  They go beyond saying, “This is bad” and after self-reflection, talk about how they have contributed to the situation.  Most men haven’t physically assaulted women, but they probably have passively stood by when other men acted badly toward or talked badly about women.  They may not have paid as much attention to women in meetings as they did men.  Or interrupted them more than they interrupted men.  They may not have questioned policies that made it harder for women to advance or that kept pay for women lower than that for men.  
3. In your commentary, you acknowledged the problem, but you didn’t acknowledge your contribution to the problem through action or inaction.  In your position as Speaker, you had considerable power.  Just by not making this a higher priority, you allowed this to continue.  I have no idea how you treat women in the legislature.  I have no idea of what conversations you took part in.  But I have to assume in the legislature, dominated by men who are attracted to power, there must have been testosterone tinged conversations where women were discussed as objects, where specific women’s body parts were discussed.  Did you think about your daughters in those situations and protest?  Did you chastise the offenders?  You haven’t discussed that.  If you stayed silent, like most men do in those situations, you helped support the abuse.  
4. There is one thing that you did that is on the record - you were an honorary co-chair of the Alaska Donald Trump campaign.  That announcement was in May 2016.  I can find nothing via google that says you protested his pussy grabbing comments in October 2016.  Perhaps you did and I missed it.  If you didn’t publicly denounce those comments, particularly since you had publicly endorsed him, you were part of the problem.  
5. I get that your view of the world has been shaped by your party and that loyalty is a key plank of the Republican party rules.  Your party severely punishes people who do not vote for the budget the party endorses.  But if you are going to actually do something about sexual abuse, you need to take a step beyond acknowledging its existence,  and acknowledge your part in the system that allows it.  I’d point out here that the kinds of pressures on you to lie low in these situations, are the same kinds of pressures on women to not report abuse.  Fear of losing job opportunities, income, social status.  It’s easier to say nothing and not rock the boat.  This code of silence is what keeps this sort of thing going. 
6. I’d also like to encourage you to think bigger when it comes to the legislative committee you propose in your commentary.  You write, 

“I will be sitting down with my colleagues in the Legislature and explaining that we need to provide awareness and sensitivity training and that we should have a zero-tolerance policy for such behavior.”

• This goes way beyond awareness training.  This is a structural issue.  
• What are the systemic pressures that keep legislators from criticizing their own party’s rules and procedures?  
• What are the economic and political pressures on legislators to vote a certain way?  
• Why do women get paid less than men?  
• How do organizations allow for women to take time to have and raise babies without career penalties?  

This is more than individual decisions by individual men.

What does zero-tolerance mean here?  I know you had limited space, but I’d point out that the legislature has - both in Alaska and the Congress - often exempted themselves from rules they apply to others.  It’s hard for legislators to police themselves.  The California legislature is setting up an autonomous body to look into sexual harassment and assault complaints.  I’d just like you to think bigger here than personal restraint.  It takes structural change to have an impact.  

Part 2:  "What other gaps are there and how can I work on them?"

You’ve significantly adjusted a part of your world view.  The logical next step is to ask:  “If I missed this, what else am I missing?”  It may be logical, but it’s emotionally difficult.  What you’ve done already is emotionally a big deal.  For some it’s scary and far enough.  Even too far.  But for others, it’s a chance to expand and grow as a human being.  I’m hoping you’re ready for that second option.  To get there, I’d ask you to reflect on these questions:

1.  Why didn’t you see this before?  

2.  What happened that caused you to see now, what you hadn’t seen?

Which I hope leads you to ask

3.  What else am I missing? and
4.   How can I learn from questions 1 and 2 that will help me with questions 3?

So let’s look at these questions in more detail.

1.  Why didn’t I see this before?

Confirmation bias is a theory that says people accept facts and arguments that support their beliefs and dismiss those that conflict with their beliefs and vested interests.   

You had a vested interest in seeing this, namely  your four daughters whose lives and careers are threatened by the sexist acts of individuals and the stacked system that gives men advantages over women.  

On the other hand, you probably have a strong belief in the fairness of the American system and a belief in the work ethic, that if you work hard you will get ahead.  Most successful men do.  It explains that we are successful because we worked hard and blinds us to the fact that there are barriers to success we don't face, but that other hard workers do - like women and people of color who work just as hard, but don’t succeed as much. That belief makes it easier to dismiss claims by women and others that the system isn't fair.

I’m just speculating here since I don’t know the reasons in your particular case.  You have to think these through yourself.  My thoughts are just an example.

2.  What happened that caused you to see now, what you hadn’t seen?

You write, “I had no idea of the extent of peril women regularly faced.”  But the only clue in your commentary about why you changed is this line:

“The names I see coming forward on Facebook are people we know — our neighbors, relatives and friends, and not just movie stars and Hollywood celebrities.”

I take from this that by seeing names of people you personally know who have been sexually abused, this became personal.   This issue now was directly connected to you.  I even wonder if one or more of your daughters sat you down and explained things.  That has the biggest impact on fathers.  And you are right not to identify people any more specifically than you did.  It’s their jobs to tell their stories, not ours.  

3.  What else am I missing?

Sexual assault against women is an issue you have a personal stake in because you have four daughters.  Yet you missed it. “I had no idea of the extent of peril women regularly faced.”

So now is a perfect time to ask, what else am I missing?  Particularly in those areas where I have a vested interest in NOT seeing things?  

This is the hard part.  Where do you start?  Point 4 addresses that.

4.  How can I learn from questions 1 and 2 that will help me with question 3?

I’ve speculated about possible answers to questions 1 and 2, but you have to do some serious self reflecting to figure out the specific reasons that actually apply to you. 

1.   What happened that caused you to see now, what you hadn’t seen?  

It’s hard to know what you don’t know.  The first step is to acknowledge that there is a lot you don’t know.  The older we get, the less often we think about this.  The more successful we are, the more we think we know everything.  After all, if we didn’t, how did we succeed?  We just have to walk into any library or bookstore to understand how much we still have to learn.  

Right now, you have stumbled upon a gap in your knowledge, so you recognize that you don’t know everything.  I’ve pointed out that vested interests and entrenched beliefs play a role in preventing us from seeing things that might alter our world views.  

Step one: try to articulate your world view.  What do you believe about how the world works?  Why some people do well and others don’t?  Why men occupy most positions of power in the US?   What do you believe about what’s right and wrong, good and bad?  

Few people ever do this, so they don’t really know what they believe in detail.  Just in generalities.  When you write it down, you start to see gaps.

Step two:  Identify how you know each point in your world view.  How did you learn it?  Did you just accept what authority figures told you or did you come up with it on your own?  How did you test it?  What proof do you have that it’s true?  

This is hard stuff, but again, if you do it seriously, it will lead to more questions than answers.  When we have questions, we are open to new information.

2.  What happened that caused you to see now, what you hadn’t seen before?
You suggest in your commentary that it was when you found out that sexual assault and rape happened to women you knew.  Before that, it was others - celebrities you didn’t know.  

Step one:  Make a list of the people who influence your world view most.  As adults, most of us hang out with people who think like we do.  It’s comfortable.  It reinforces our sense that we are right about things.  But it also causes us to be blind to what’s wrong with our facts and our logic.

Step two: Rank the list by who thinks most like you and who thinks least like you.  Which of these people do you tolerate because they are on your team, but have troublesome behaviors?  Who do you admire most?  Why? Is it because they are powerful, because they’re good, because they  are smart, because they win?  Because they listen?

Step three:  Open up authentic conversations with people you know who do NOT agree with your world view.  Ask them about their world view and why they believe it.  Listen.  Take notes.  Be humble.  Be respectful.  Your Democratic colleagues might be a good place to start.  You spend a lot of time together and there must be some that you get along with on a personal level, even though you disagree on policy issues.  Invite some to one-on-one discussions, over lunch, on a walk, playing golf, or whatever comfortable setting works for you.  

Part 3: The Conclusions

I know this is a long letter. The issues are complex and it's necessary to get detailed.   No one pays me to do things like this.  Do I have an agenda?  Yes, better civic discourse and better public administration and more equal treatment of all people.   I taught public administration at UAA for 30 years and retired as professor emeritus.  It was my job to work with my students - mostly public servants - and get them to think about things like this, to see the world differently on graduation than they did when they started.  

I hope you take this letter seriously and understand my intent is a better place for Alaskans to live. I believe that your awakening on this one issue, could lead to awakenings on other issues.  

In Congress now, as well as in the Alaska legislature, things have become a highly competitive game - the object is to win, to beat the opponent.  Positions are frozen and any softening by anyone is seen, at best, as weakness and, at worst, as treason.  

The pressures on individual legislators to conform to their party line is not different from the pressure on women to stay quiet about sexual assault.  They face lots of negative consequences if they speak up.  That’s the structural reality that women face and that all of us face when we feel a need to challenge the status quo, to take on powerful people. 

But all the legislators are in Juneau because they believe they are doing the right thing as best they can.  I’m hoping that you can build on your insights on sexual assault and be a leader in breaking the logjam, in brokering peace between the parties and the individual members, and finally to help lead to policies and legislation that will take this state where we need to go.    

Your commentary convinces me you are serious about this issue.  You’ve stuck your neck out and my intent here is not to cut it off, but to push you further in the direction that will help you be successful in this and in other issues. 

Sincerely, 

Steven Aufrecht

[I sent a copy of this to Rep. Chenault last Wednesday and asked him to correct any errors of fact or challenge any assumptions I'd made that he disagreed with.  I said I would post this on Monday (today).  I haven't heard anything back from him.]