AIFF2019: Opening Night Shorts - 6:30pm At Bear Tooth [UPDATED]

I'm finding the new website prettier than it is easy to use.

For instance:  I know opening night - tonight - is a shorts program.  But when I looked up the shorts programs from the website's schedule page, the first program listed is for tomorrow.  Nothing for tonight.

Using the calendar page, I was able to get to Dec. 6 Opening Night Shorts.  Well there are seven pictures, but they aren't linked to anywhere.  It does say at the bottom  “Sin Cielo” and “Wandering in the White.”  So that's two of them anyway.  But when I search for them in the Search Film section - I get "no events found."

The Bear Tooth will only host films this weekend, Monday night,  and for the Martini Matinee at 2pm on Thursday.

There seem to be fewer films overall - certainly in the Features categories - [UPDATE:  I thought at one point that it might be possible to see all the films because there weren't competing films playing at the same time.  But I was very wrong.  At the Alaska Experience Theater during the week there will be lots of films where you have to chose.]

Here's the trailer for Sin Cielo:






And for Wandering in the White:

Vaeltajat / Wandering in the White – Teaser from Side Stories on Vimeo.

Back Home To Snow And Moose

We left from the D Concourse at SEATAC which has my favorite art piece there - Michael Fajans' High Wire.  I posted about it back in 2008.  (Back then I wrote that it was in Terminal B, but it was definitely in D yesterday.  Maybe the old post was wrong.)

After a couple of gate changes, trying to get in as much of the impeachment hearings as I could, we were in the air above the clouds over Alaska.  It was late afternoon - Anchorage's official sunset yesterday was 3:48pm, but if it's not too cloudy, we have long twilights - and the orange glow was on the western horizon, while out my east facing window there were snow mountains.

And around 4:20pm it was still light enough to capture these exquisite winter scenes with only a slight blur from the long exposure time.  

And as we circled over Cook Inlet to land in Anchorage, the sunset was still painted on the western sky.  

I went out to get our passes for the Anchorage International Film Festival which begins tomorrow night and to pick up some groceries and just on 36th there was a moose crossing the road in the dark.

One of those amazing moments when out of the darkness you realize there's a magnificent

moose and there's no time to react.  Fortunately it was still in the oncoming lane as I passed.  No time to even take a picture, even if I hadn't left my phone at home.  What a great welcome home.




At my dentist this morning this moose was on the wall.  Not quite the same.  But I was sitting still and so was the moose.



















And I'm pleased to say that my studded tires worked like a charm as I rode over to the dentist and back.  I'm getting a little more confident that they aren't going to betray me.  Hoping my trust in them proves warranted.  I won't be reckless, but a little less cautious.









So, let's just leave this post as it is - on light subjects or art, travel, mountains, moose, AIFF2019, and biking in the snow.

Taking A Long Term Look At Why Humans Have Conflicts

This excerpt from a post called The Thinking Ladder at Wait But Why? offers as good a take on the conflicts between Trumpers and Non-Trumpers as any.  But it also helps explain why Non-Trumpers fight amongst themselves too.  Because everyone one operates using both the Primitive Mind and the Higher Mind, at different times and even simultaneously and to varying degrees.  At least that's my take on this.

"The Primitive Mind in every animal—humans included—has been optimized to near perfection at getting animals to survive long enough to pass their precious genes along to new containers.
Scientists aren’t positive about the timeline, but many believe that all humans in all parts of the world lived in hunter-gatherer tribes as recently as 11,000 BC. So 13,000 years ago—or, if we call a generation 25 years, about 500 generations ago.
500 generations isn’t enough time for evolution to take a shit. So the Primitive Mind—a hardwired part of us—is still stuck in the world of 11,000 BC. Which means we’re all like computers running on the highly unimpressive Windows 11000 BC operating system, and there’s no way to do a software update.
But humans have something else going on as well—cognitive superpowers that combine together into an enhanced center of consciousness we’re calling the Higher Mind.
The Higher Mind and his magical thinking abilities helped the human species transform their typical animal hunter-gatherer world into undoubtedly the strangest of all animal habitats: an advanced civilization. The Higher Mind’s heightened awareness allows him to see the world with clear eyes, behave rationally in any environment, and adjust to changes in real time.
So while our Primitive Minds are still somewhere in 11,000 BC, our Higher Minds are living right here with us in 2019. Which is why, even though both minds are just trying to do their jobs, they’re in a fight most of the time."

It comes with illustrations - both pictures and examples.

This just comes from the first less than 1% of a long, thoughtful post that's well worth the time to read.

Should President Be Removed By Impeachment Or Election? UPDATED

[UPDATE Dec 3, 2019 1pm (Seattle):  The Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence's "TRUMP-UKRAINE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY REPORT"  was released shortly after I posted this.]

Suppose you hired your CEO on a four year contract and the contract is up in 13 months.  But there's evidence of all sorts of abuses and crimes, both before and after you hired him.  And his personal style is nasty and arrogant, his policies even if they have some positive intent ignore the horrendous side effects they're causing, and your brand is deteriorating rapidly.  And he attacks anyone who raises any questions about his actions.

He does have some rabid supporters who ignore all the evidence and repeat your CEO's spurious allegations.

You're on the Board of Directors.  What do you do?  

There are few corporate boards that would wait until the contract ended to fire the CEO.  There's way too much damage he could still do before the contract expires.  The only way a Board of Directors would keep him on is if the board members were somehow dependent on the CEO for their future livelihoods and/or reputation.

That's the position Congress is now in.  There is a big difference though:  The board hired the CEO.  In Trump's case, he was elected by the shareholders, so to speak.

And using the 2020 election as cover, the Trump supporters are arguing that the timing is so close the Congress shouldn't "undo the 2016 election."  (Recognize that this implies that there is valid reason to impeach, but that it's just better to let the voters decide.)

There is a certain logic to that argument.

Elections are the will of the people and it's better that the people change the president than the congress.

But there are flaws here too:

1. Questions about the legitimacy of the 2016 election.
1.  Trump actually lost the popular vote in 2016 by nearly 3 million people.  While Trump argues that he 'won a landslide in the electoral college' that's not the measure that most Americans use to determine the voice of the people.  It's seen as a technical device, not the actual will of the people. And there is no doubt in any honest person's mind, that if the positions had been reversed (Trump won the popular vote and Clinton the electoral college) Trump's supporters would have been screaming about the election being stolen.  
2. We know now that the election was influenced by Russian interference.  We know clearly that Russians used Facebook to spread outrageous falsehoods in favor of Trump and against Clinton.  Without that campaign Trump likely wouldn't have won the electoral college.
3. We know that there was voter suppression by Republicans in 2016 and it's being used for 2020.  Various states purged valid voters from the voter registration lists.  Polls in black neighborhoods were in short supply in a number of states making it harder for people to vote.  Photo id cards were required to vote in some states.  
4. These problems combined helped Trump win the election.  And there's no guarantee that they won't be used again in 2020.  In fact there is strong evidence they are already happening.  Plus there is also the concern about tampering with voting machines.  We know of attacks on voting machines, but we don't know whether there was actually any successful operations to change the voting outcomes.  Without paper ballots as backup, such hacks will be hard to overcome without resorting to complete new elections. 
2. The Constitution gives Congress the power to remove the president when he's abusing the office and there is no question that that's happening.  
1. It's Congress' job to remove a bad president.  McConnell's made up rule about waiting for the election to put in a new Supreme Court justice in the last year of Obama's presidency was simply politics.  We know that if there is a vacancy before the next president is elected, that McConnell will scrap that rule, even if there are only two weeks left before the president leaves.  

So the argument about the elections is not nearly as strong as Republicans claim.  Plus there's a giant counterargument.

The damage Trump can do between now and January 20, 2020 (when he leaves office) is enormous.  Some examples:

1. There's clear evidence that many of Trump's actions benefit Putin and Russia to the detriment of the United States and the free world. (All his attempts to break up Western alliances from NATO to the EU to the Climate Agreement, to trying to lift sanctions on Russia.  
2. There's clear evidence that Trump is using the presidency to enrich his own companies and those of his children. 
3. There's evidence that Trump's business ties to countries like Turkey, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others are influencing foreign policy with those nations
4. Trump is dismantling regulations that protect the environment and public lands and public health
5. Trump has interfered with the integrity of the Justice Department
6. Trump has encourage public hate groups in the US 
7. Trump has unnecessarily treated would-be asylum seekers cruelly and in violation of international law
8. Given massive tax breaks to the very wealthy increasing the levels of inequity in the US and increasing the long term debt of the US 

If Trump were impeached by January 2020, it would cut a year off the time Trump had to inflict further damage on the US and the world.

In my mind, impeachment is the only proper action to take here to reestablish the standards of government the US has attempted to follow over the last 200 years as well has to minimize further damage to the US and the world.  Doing the right thing is usually a better long term choice than playing with lots of possible scenarios that give one future advantages.

That said, if Trump is impeached, Pence would become president.  There is no guarantee that Pence wouldn't carry out many of Trump's terrible polices.  And he's likely to give Trump and his family members absolute pardons for any crimes they have committed or will commit.  And Trump's supporters would punish in the primaries any Republicans Senators who didn't support Trump.  Leading possibly to much weaker Republican candidates in the general election.

So, taking a very long term perspective, Democrats might be best served by forwarding the impeachment to the Senate and letting the Senate acquit Trump.  (Well, they don't have much power over what the Senate does.  Unless public opinion is fired up by future revelations. it's unlikely the Senate will vote to convict.

The amount of abuse that has already come out and that is likely to still come out, will convince the US voters to not only throw out Trump, but to give the Democrats a majority in the US Senate, as a response to the Republican Senate NOT doing its duty to convict Trump.

But this all assumes they can overcome Republican voter suppression, Russian interference in the elections, and the Constitutional skewing of power in the Senate that gives small (often rural) states very disproportionate power in the Senate.  Because of this Democrats in the Senate represent far more people than Republicans, but the Republicans have the majority  From the Guardian:

"Among the most eye-catching was a statistic showing Democrats led Republicans by more than 12 million votes in Senate races, and yet still suffered losses on the night and failed to win a majority of seats in the chamber. 

Constitutional experts said the discrepancy between votes cast and seats won was the result of misplaced ire that ignored the Senate electoral process. 

Because each state gets two senators, irrespective of population, states such as Wyoming have as many seats as California, despite the latter having more than 60 times the population. The smaller states also tend to be the more rural, and rural areas traditionally favor Republicans."

And GovTrack further notes that because of rules changes that used to require supermajorities for  approving appointments (as a way to protect the minority in the Senate) the percent of votes needed to approve has gotten lower and lower and

"we might see nominations confirmed by a coalition of states representing less than half of the country’s population."

But I think a fired up electorate can overcome some of these problems.  There are still many disillusioned people who do not vote.  Trump's administration has been the best example of why not voting is a terrible  idea.

AIFF 2019 - Features 2 : Dying and Ghosts, Maybe He's Not, Tossing The iPads, Road Trip [UPDATED]

The Anchorage International Film Festival begins this Friday.

Here's a quick overview of the second half of the Narrative Features.  The first half is here.
[UPDATED Dec. 6, 2019 - I've confirmed that Those Who Remained will be showing - Thursday at the Museum at 7:45pm]

Laugh or Die

Director:  Heikki Kujanpää

Finland

103 minutes

Showing:  Sun, Dec 08, 2019 6:00 pm
Bear Tooth Theatrepub

"In a detention camp in 1918, a group of Finish actors are sentenced to death. When an important German general arrives, the camp’s vicious commandant forges out a cruel plan: The prisoners have to perform a play - and if they can make the visiting general laugh, they will be spared. Due to the brutal conditions within the camp, this goal seems to be impossible to reach. But after some time, even the commandant’s wife starts to sympathise with the prisoners, watching them rehearsing dressed up in woman’s clothes."

LAUGH OR DIE - TRAILER - TIFF 2019 from Tromsø Int. Film Festival on Vimeo.

---------------------------------------
Straight Up    [If we still had a gay-la night this year, this would be the feature]

Director:   James Sweeney

USA

95 minutes

Showing: Saturday Dec 07, 2019 8:00 pm  Bear Tooth Theatrepub

From Keith Uhlich at the Hollywood Reporter:

"Todd's truth is that he doubts he's the gay man he thought he was. Years of failed dating, and a disgust/fear of the bodily excretion that is the primary ingredient in a Dirty Sanchez, have brought him to this point. Clearly, as he tells both his sarcasm-prone therapist (Tracie Thoms) and his befuddled friend group, he must be straight. That in itself is another deflection, though it will take a feature film's length of time to identify the real culprit. (Hint: It's the L-word — not that one.) Until then, he'll work through his hang-ups with struggling actress Rory (Katie Findlay), with whom he meets-cute in a library and who proves to be in almost every way his soul mate. 

She's the Hepburn to his Tracy (don't you doubt that Katharine and Spencer get name-checked). And the duo grow closer as they play house in the sunlit California residences that they look after to make ends meet. The pair heatedly dissect Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" and participate in an uncomfortable "Truth or Dare" evening. They even go to a party dressed as Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman in the movie version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which begets an exegesis on the sublimated homosexuality of Newman's injured character Britt."

Here's a fund raising video link.  You'll either decide this is someone you want to spend 95 minutes with or not.


Straight Up - Seed&Spark from James Sweeney on Vimeo.

---------------------------------------

Team Marco   

Director:  Julio Vincent Gambuto

USA

90 minutes

Showing:  Saturday Dec 14, 2019 10:00 am

Anchorage Museum Auditorium

This film's world premier was October, 2019 at Mill Valley Film Festival, so we're seeing it pretty early on.  In the interview below it is touted as a great family film - it's showing Saturday morning at the museum.  

From silive

"The title character is obsessed with his electronics and hardly leaves the house. But when his grandmother dies and his grandfather moves in with his family, Marco’s life is turned upside down and he’s forced to play outside.
When “Nonno” introduces him to bocce and the neighborhood crew of elderly Italian men, Marco finds a connection to other people “in real life” -- and inspires a team of neighborhood kids to put the devices down and band together to take on his grandfather and his pals.
'This film is really about getting kids up and off their iPads and into the world," Gambuto said. "This is my love letter to Staten Island and all the communities involved in it. It is quite possibly everything I wanted from this experience.'"

Here's part of an interview with the director and other members of the film crew after the premier at the Mill Valley Film Festival in October of this year.

TEAM MARCO – Mill Valley Film Festival Q&A from Mill Valley Film Festival on Vimeo.

---------------------------------------

The Ghost Who Walks 

Director:  Cody Stokes

USA

100 minutes

Showing:  Tuesday Dec 10, 2019 6:00 pm  Alaska Experience Theatre - Small

For St. Louis fans, this is done by a St. Louis native in St. Louis.  It's also fairly new (this year) and hasn't been seen by that many folks yet.  From St. Louis Magazine:

"Just as writer/director Cody Stokes’ career began to take off in New York City—meaning that he was traveling a lot—his first child was born. The St. Louis native began thinking about what it means to be gone and miss things back home, from his, his wife’s, and his child’s perspectives. He knew he wanted to make a film about it. But rather than create a simple kitchen sink drama about fatherhood, he set it in a world beyond, made it exciting, turned it into a crime thriller. “I wanted people to feel like they’re going to watch some sort of Liam Neeson movie but by the end be completely moved,” Stokes says. And he shot it in St. Louis, having moved back home with his family. The Ghost Who Walks screens as part of the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase later this month."

---------------------------------------


Those Who Remained (Someone To Live For) 

Director:  Barnabás Tóth

Hungary
89 minutes

Showing:  Thursday, Dec 12  7:45pm
Museum

Another film only recently shown brings us a post Holocaust story of survivors.  

"Many films deal with the suffering of the Holocaust years, but far fewer focus on those who managed to return from the camps. The achingly tender Hungarian drama “Those Who Remained” fills that gap. Perceptively directed by Barnabás Tóth, it taps into a deep well of honestly earned emotion as it tells the story of two traumatized survivors whose relationship helps them to heal and provides them with someone to live for. Set in the period between 1948 and ’53, the period drama also takes on the purges of Hungarian politician Mátyás Rákosi’s Communist regime. Following its world premiere in Telluride, this exquisite, poignantly performed tale will be released in North American by Menemsha Films.
After the war, the gentle but haunted Dr. Aládar “Aldó” Kőrner (Károly Hajduk), 42, returns to his ob-gyn hospital practice. His wife and two small boys perished in the camps, and he lives alone, with only his medical journals for company, until Klára (Abigél Szőke), a 16-year-old force of nature, storms her way into his life."

---------------------------------------

Vanilla 

Director:  Will Dennis

USA

87 minutes

Showing:  Tuesday Dec 10, 2019 8:00 pm  Alaska Experience Theatre - Small

Everything about a film is how it's carried off.  Here's a snippet from one reviewer who thought it went well:

"We have an odd couple on the road, so funny stuff happens – and this is a funny movie.  Naturally, the audience is waiting for the two to jump into bed together.  But Vanilla is fundamentally a portrait of these two people, both comfortable in their ruts.  Elliot is posing as an entrepreneur, and Kimmie is posing as a comedian-in-the-making; something is going to have to shake up these two so each can grow.  Kimmie seems utterly intrepid, but we learn that she can be paralyzed by self-consciousness, just like Elliot.
Vanilla is written and directed by its star, Will Dennis, in his first feature film.  It’s an impressive debut, rich in character-driven humor."

Vanilla (Official Trailer) from Will Dennis on Vimeo.



---------------------------------------

Understanding Privilege - When Christmas Parade Becomes Winter Parade, It's a War On Christianity

Privilege is such a loaded word.  No one wants to believe they have 'privilege' that others don't.  At least not undeserved privilege.  People want to believe that they worked for their advantages.  But this case gives an example of how privilege works and also how those with it don't even know it.

From Friday's NYTimes.

So the newish mayor of Charleston, West Virginia wanted to make the holiday event more inclusive.  So the annual Christmas parade was announced this year as the Winter Parade.

The reaction was swift  and negative and within 72 hours, Charleston had its Christmas Parade once more.

Who Supported The Mayor?
The high school band coach, whose music only included secular music like Jingle Bells
The rabbi
The Muslim community

Why Is This Privilege?

I hope I can use this situation to help explain what 'privilege' looks like.  In this case it's most directly Christian privilege.

Here are some of the reactions quoted in the article:

1. “The new mayor needs to be voted out if she does away with the Christmas parade,” read one comment on the initial Facebook post. 
2. “Christmas is all about Christ, not some winter parade.”
3. A local lawyer and newspaper columnist, Mark Sadd, said he didn’t understand why the mayor needed to show the city as more welcoming. It wasn’t like there were a lot of complaints.
4. “A Christmas parade is about as inclusive as we can get,” he said.
5. Some people thought renaming the parade was an attack on Christianity and traditions held dear in a city of 48,000 that feels more like a small town.“

1.  The new mayor needs to be voted out if she does away with the Christmas parade,” read one comment on the initial Facebook post. 

Well, the parade had not been "done away with."  The only change was the name.  I'd note here, that as a government, Charleston should not sponsor and pay for events that celebrate one particular set of  religious beliefs.  A group of private citizens, a church or collection of churches, could sponsor a Christmas parade, but not a government entity.  (There's a lot of First Amendment law on this.)

In some future (I used to think in some reachable future, but not any more) where everyone respects everyone else's background and religion equally with their own, I don't think this would be an issue.  But in the US where Muslims and Jews (particularly) are being targeted for abuse because of their religion, this is definitely not the time for a government to favor the majority religion over others.  

2.   “Christmas is all about Christ, not some winter parade.

Exactly.  And this is why the government shouldn't be sponsoring such a parade.  And a number of Christians don't like the secularization of Christmas caused by turning it over to commercial interests and government interpretation.  

3.  A local lawyer and newspaper columnist, Mark Sadd, said he didn’t understand why the mayor needed to show the city as more welcoming. It wasn’t like there were a lot of complaints.

And this is why I'm labeling this privilege.  Christians, particularly Christians who live and have always lived in a predominantly Christian community, tend not to even understand how a "Christmas Parade" isn't welcoming to say,  Jews or Muslims, or Hindus or any other non-Christians. Christmas is such a warm and fuzzy holiday, how can anyone be offended?  (Look back up to #2)  That kind of ignorance is part of the privilege.  Living in a setting where your own point of view is not only coming from your family, but is echoed at school, and overall in the community IS the very definition of privilege.  

• The privilege of having your world view echoed everywhere you go.  
• The privilege of not having to pay attention to, let alone understand, people who disagree with you.  
• The privilege of having your religious view supported by your government.  (Like swearing on a bible to take office.)
• The privilege of being able to protect that privilege when it is threatened. (As when religious Christmas is replaced with the secular Winter).  
• The privilege of not even knowing that any of this is not 'the natural way it is' but rather a privilege that others don't share.  
• The privilege of  believing that those who don't share your view shouldn't share your privilege.  
• The privilege of being so powerful that no one else even dares complain.  ("It wasn't like there were a lot of complaints.")

4.  “A Christmas parade is about as inclusive as we can get,” he said.

Dear Hindus and Muslims and Jews, welcome to your own city's "Christmas Parade."  You're welcome to join us celebrating Jesus Christ with your taxes, but don't ask for the city to sponsor a similar parade celebrating your religions.  Inclusive?

5.  Some people thought renaming the parade was an attack on Christianity and traditions held dear in a city of 48,000 that feels more like a small town.

And this is the ultimate of privilege here - leveling the playing field so that no religion is favored with tax payer money over any other religion is seen as "an attack on Christianity."  No one here is attacking Christianity, only that taxpayers are supporting it.  

The privilege is believing that one is entitled to a privilege and when that privilege is taken away in the interests of fairness and equity, it is 'an attack on Christianity."  

People with 'privilege' rarely feel privileged.  They may even get insulted when others without their privilege (of skin color, religion, sex) having more benefits than they have.  What is critical here is when someone's privilege, such as skin color, religion, or gender or sexual orientation is backed up by institutional structures - laws, courts, algorithms (red-lining was just an algorithm for how to give housing loans, well before that word was used to describe formulas for computerized decision-making).

And recognizing one's privilege seems about as hard as recognizing any other kind of addiction.  Some people get it quickly and can give up smoking or alcohol without much trouble.  Others have a much harder time of getting past denial.  Giving up privilege, though, isn't an individual decision.  It's about dismantling the structures that give certain skin colors, religions, genders, etc. governmental and societal advantage (or disadvantage.)  

Basically, I think most of the Trump true-believers are addicted to their white, Christian, male privilege.  Because all the other advantages those privileges might have afforded them in the past are slipping away from them.  

The article talks about how change has hurt West Virginia, a state that is still synonymous with coal.  Just think.  These are people who are fighting for the right to work under the horrendous working conditions of coal mines.  Doing what's slowly killing you, for many, is better than facing the uncertainty of change.  This is a monumental failure of our education systems.  But then those who control coal mines don't want their supply of workers to realize they have better and healthier work opportunities in industries that aren't destroying the planet through climate change.   

Japanese Internment In WWII Is History, But We Can Still Change Border Internment Today

Esther Nishio, according to an LA Times story today, was a guinea pig, a test.  A white family friend, Hugh Anderson, had been fighting against the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII.  He'd gotten permission for one young Japanese internee - Elizabeth - to come get out of the camp in 1944 and begin Pasadena Junior College.

"When she arrived in Pasadena on Sept. 12, Esther was greeted enthusiastically by the Anderson family, along with the editor of the school newspaper and members of the Student Christian Assn.
She moved into the Andersons’ two-story home with a swooped roof on Roosevelt Avenue in Altadena and was the guest of honor that night at the Eagle Rock residence of E.C. Farnham, executive director of the Church Federation of Los Angeles.
The warm welcome was short-lived. The next morning, newspapers tipped off by the editor of the campus newspaper published articles about her arrival — including the address of Anderson’s home. The story was picked up by Stars and Stripes and published in papers around the world.
Local nativist groups began whipping up a froth. Menacing letters started piling up in the Andersons’ mailbox.
“The only kind of a Jap the people of Cal. trust is a dead one,” an anonymous correspondent from Los Angeles wrote.
Others railed against Anderson as being un-American.
'I have a son in the service who has just recently been discharged.' a Mrs. J.H. Wilson wrote. 'The boys wonder what they are fighting for when the government tells them to kill them and our citizens take them into their homes.'”

It seems appropriate to recount this tale now as the president and his henchmen (why is Stephen Miller still allowed to be working the White House?!) abuse legitimate and legal asylum seekers.  The details are a bit different, but this is a racist policy that intentionally and cruelly treats innocent human beings.  At least back after Pearl Harbor, in the pre-civil rights era, one can sort of understand how people might believe there were Japanese spies among the Japanese-American communities of the west coast.  But, of course, no similar program was set up for the German-American citizens.  And a number of white neighbors were able to profit from the rush sales internees were forced to have before being taken to camps.  

I would also note, that I first learned about the internment camps in 1956, when I transferred to a new elementary school and YF was in my new class.  And in junior and senior high there were a number of other Japanese-American students who had been born in internment camps at the end of the war.  

And as I write this I'm on Bainbridge Island and I've visited several times at the memorial to the Bainbridge Island residents who were shipped off to internment camps.  And I've seen the movie, The Empty Chair, about the how the valedictorian of a Juneau high school's chair was placed on the stage, empty, after he was interned before graduation.  I know that there were whites who essentially stole the property of interned Japanese and there were whites who kept their property safe and returned it to them when they got out.

But this is the first time I've heard about groups of white Americans fighting against the interment camps.  

Fortunately, today, there is a lot more opposition to the internment camps and family separations (which was not part of theWWII policy) that we have now.  Yet that doesn't seem to be ending the practice.  

And today we still have rabid haters who know nothing but their own anger projected out onto suffering people in support of the president.  

We can't send too many emails and letters, or make too many calls to our legislators.  You are right if you think one call doesn't matter.  But 50 people making one call on a topic does.  Particularly in a small population state like Alaska.  At the very least, you can show your grandchildren copies of what you sent and tell them you did what you could.  

This is Thanksgiving weekend.  It's a good time to try to make amends for what Americans have done to the people who helped them survive those first winters in Massachusetts.  (A number of the refugees are indigenous peoples of Central America.)

Thanksgiving On Bainbridge Island

Hoping everyone had a good holiday with family and friends.  

AIFF 2019: Questions (and Answers) People Should Be Asking About The Festival

This was originally posted in 2009 and then redone in 2015  and there have been minor changes since, but it's time to redo it.  

A lot of people don't even know what questions they should be asking.  So I'm listing them out here (with the answers) to help you find out what's happening at the Anchorage International Film Festival and how to take advantage of all the great films that will be in town Dec. 6-16, 2019.

Below are links to posts with general information about the Anchorage International Film Festival.

Q: Where's the official Anchorage International Film Festival website?  https://aiff.sites.goelevent.com  It's now hosted by  GOELevent which is described by Website Outlook  as:

Elevent is the first user-friendly, modern ticketing platform made for film festivals, zoos, national parks, museums, and other complex event organizers. Our cloud-based platform can be deployed and maintained with minimal effort, with an emphasis on ease of use & design. Built to withstand high demand, it's powerful enough to support the toughest ticketing scenarios.

This is a big change from last year's independent website linked to Festival Genius.

Q: What do all the categories mean?   Basically there are different film categories - 

• Based on Length -  Features tend to be over 55 minutes, Shorts are less than that.  Previous festivals have had a Super Short category, but not this year.  
• Based on Content - Fictional films are Narratives and films that tell a true story, faithfully, are Documentaries.
• Animated - are films that are drawn or painted, either by hand or computer   
• Alaskana -  are films with an Alaska theme, setting, or film maker.  These films might also be in one of the other categories too.  
• Children's - films particularly appropriate for children 
• 'Selected' - all films submitted to the festival and some of them are  selected to be in the festival by the programmers

Q: What  films are the best films this year?

We won't really know until we see them.  We used to have a category called Films in Competition.  These were films that the programmers identified as the best in their category.   This year the process has been different and all the 'selected' films are in competition to be  chosen for the Golden Oosiker awards.  Of course, individual programmers have favorites among the films they've seen, but they often don't agree with each other.



Q:  Short films are grouped together into 'programs.'  How do I find which short films are playing together in the same of program?

I'll try to get those listed here before the festival starts, but you can also check on your own on the festival website.  Opening Night will be a shorts program.  Here's a link to the overview for that program.

Where will the films be shown?

Bear Tooth, is the biggest venue, and where opening night will be.  It will play a smaller role in the festival than in past years.

1230 West 27th Avenue (West of Spenard Road) - 907.276.4200

Alaska Experience Theater
333 W 4th Ave #207, Anchorage, AK 99501 (907) 272-9076
There is a large and a small theater there

Anchorage Museum
625 C Street
The Theater is is off the old 6th Avenue which may be the easiest way to get in.  But you may have to go through the main entrance of the museum.  

Marston Theater (Loussac Library) Family Programming on 

Saturday Dec.7, 11 am
3600 Denali St.


Q:  What other events are there?
Workshops - some specifically for young film makers.  These are chances to interact with film makers and learn some aspect of the movie craft and industry.

Five Day Film Royal - A contest where local film makers are given five days to create a short film using a number of prompts.  The completed films will be shown at the Bear Tooth on Saturday night at 10:30pm.

Q:  What are your criteria for a good movie? When I made my picks for the 2008 best films, at the end of the post I outlined my criteria. The link takes you to that post, scroll down to second part.  I also did a post in 2012 on what I thought makes a good documentary.


Q:  Should I buy a pass or just buy tickets as I go?  

Tickets are still only $10 per film.  "All films passes" are only $99.  So, if you go to eleven films, the pass is cheaper. But there are other benefits to the pass.   You also get priority seating with your pass.    That means you go into the theater first at the Bear Tooth.  NOTE: You do have to get a ticket (free when you show your pass) for each film at the door and only a certain number of seats are held for pass holders.

And if you have a pass, you'll go see more films because you'll think "I've paid for them. I should go and get my money's worth."
All Films passes get you into Workshops, and discounts for a few extra events, like the opening night film (which is actually $30 a ticket) and the awards. These extra events also have food.

Another option is to volunteer and get a pass to a movie.

You can buy tickets at the venues.  You can also get advanced tickets at the venues.
You can also buy them online.  Tickets are already available.

Q:  What about family films? 
Kids A Bonanza  - Saturday, December 7, at 11am at Loussac Library - in the Marston Auditorium..  This is a free event.  This will include various shorts appropriate for kids.

Q:  Any free events?
Yes, there are.  Besides the family films (right above), Made in Alaska, and two of the workshops. 

Q:  Who Are You Anyways? - who's paying you to do this? does your brother have a film in competition? What is your connection to the festival? From an earlier post here's my  Disclosure:

 I sort of accidentally blogged about the  2007 festival  and the AIFF people liked what I did and asked if I would be the official blogger in 2008. They promised me I could say what I wanted, but I decided it was better to blog on my own and then if I write something that upsets one of the film makers, the Festival isn't responsible.

I probably won't say anything terrible about a film, but I did rant about one film in the past that I thought was exploiting its subject as well as boorishly demeaning a whole country. I mentioned in an earlier post that if I sound a little promotional at times, it's only because I like films and I like the kinds of quirky films that show up at festivals, so I want as many people to know about the festival as  possible so the festival will continue. Will I fudge on what I write to get people out? No way. There are plenty of people in Anchorage who like films. They're my main target - to get them out of the house in the dark December chill when inertia tugs heavily if they even think about leaving the house. But if others who normally don't go out to films hear about a movie on a topic they're into, that's good too.

I did a post a couple of years ago for Film Festival Skeptics who might be sitting on the fence and need to be given reasons to go and strategies to make it work.

Q:  How Does One Keep Track of What's Happening at the Festival?
Things are much easier this year.  There are no film playing at the same time.  No terrible choices to make.  But then, no films will play twice either - except maybe a few shorts that are in more than one program.  

Because there are no overlaps, the printed and online schedules are much easier to follow.  

I'll be blogging the film festival every day.   

The Golevent website is good.  You can look at the whole schedule here  or you can check it day by day here.

There should also be printed programs in the Anchorage Press you can pick up around town as well and go to the Festival Webpage.

My blog will update every day.  My Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF 2019)  tab on top will have an overview of what's happening each day.


Q:  Are there other Alaskan Film Festivals?  
There are some events called 'festival' that I know of in Anchorage, but they aren't major film events like this one.  There is another organization,  that puts Alaska in its name and used to rent a postal box in Alaska, but has no other connection that we can find to Alaska.  You can read about that at  Comparing the ANCHORAGE and ALASKA International Film Festivals - Real Festival? Scam?

There have been other festivals over the years.  I need to find out which ones are still happening and what new ones have arisen.  If you know, email me. (see upper right column).

AIFF 2019 - Features Part 1: Indigenous Women, Homelessness, Coming of Age, (Young and Old), Bi Polar

There are 12 films in this group and I've got six here and will do a second post with the other six.  We've got a film here with two indigenous women actors, two films with homeless leads, a return to the home country (Italy) to save the family vineyard, a bi-polar college student, and a coming of age film.  (I know it's hokey to try sum them up this way, but the topics may cause some people to be more interested.)

I'd also note that the new website is ready and my first impression is that it's an enormous improvement over past AIFF websites.  But I haven't explored it too closely yet.  It also looks like it's possible to see every film this year, because there aren't two competing films at any given time. I think that's the case but, again, I need to check more carefully.

So, here are the first six of the  NARRATIVE FEATURES

The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open  

Directors:  Kathleen Hepburn & Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers

Canada/Norway

Showing:  Sunday, Dec 08, 2019 2:00 pm   Alaska Experience Theatre - Small

From Imagine Native:

Two Indigenous women, unknown to each other, and from very different backgrounds, meet by chance. Áila is middle class, university educated and light skinned. Rosie is eighteen years old, poor, and has just been assaulted by her boyfriend. When Áila sees Rosie crying barefoot in the street, she makes the decision to help her. What follows is a complicated extended conversation between these two women as they navigate their similarities, differences and shifting power dynamics. Tense and affecting, the film employs long takes and masterfully executed handheld cinematography to unveil a story in real-time, a story that at its core is a testament to the resiliency of Indigenous women.

There are a number of interesting aspects to this film.  Not only is it about two Canadian indigenous women, it's also directed by an indigenous woman.  It also is filmed in real time:

"We had many conversations with our DP, Norm Li, and ultimately settled on shooting 16mm. This required that we develop a rather experimental process which Norm calls “real time transitions.” Once we had all of our locations, we carefully choreographed stitch points throughout the film where one of our camera assistants would have a camera pre-rolling to swap with Norm. This required five days of full crew rehearsal. We filmed the prologue scenes in three days, and filmed the continuous action sequence once a day over five days."

__________________________________________

Banana Split

Director:  Benjamin Ben Kasulke
USA
88 minutes

Showing  Sun, Dec 08, 2019 8:00 pm  
Bear Tooth Theatrepub

I read some descriptions and interviews and then saw the trailer which didn't match what I'd read at all.  Turns out the trailer was for another movie with a similar title.  

This excerpt  comes from  Sumbreak.  I don't want to say too much about the film.  Others have written that the basic description doesn't do justice to this film   So I've picked this part from an interview with  first time director, but experienced cinematographer Ben Kasulke.  They're talking about actress Addison Riecke who plays the little sister.  

"And yeah, with Addison, it was like you know, we saw the tape and I was like, ‘oh my god, this little girl’s great.’ And I didn’t know much about her. She has a really long history of acting. She’s a full-on child actor who works all the time, and so she comes out of the Nickelodeon World and she does comedy but she does comedy in a sort of very wholesome way. And you know I knew that she had done some comedic work.
But I knew that she had worked in The Beguiled, a Sofia Coppola film, so I knew that understood things that might have to exist as visuals or have a little more nuance to them. So she came from a good pedigree and then the word on the street was that she was just this like powerhouse actress, and that all proved to be true.
I was a little nervous. It was my first film and I you know worked with lots of younger actors and actresses as a cinematographer and spent a lot of time with director like Lynn Shelton and Megan Griffiths, who are really adept at making a set that’s conducive to safe, emotional space and getting good performances out of actors of any age, but in particular, children at times. And so I knew that I’d had some good role models as directors and people I’d collaborated with over the years.?"

Here's part of an interview with the director and writer/producer/star Hanna Marks.  It's an after the film Q&A at the Toronto Intl Film Festival.  I cut out the beginning, but it didn't offer me an option to end it early, so, if you're interested, watch as much or little as you like:

__________________________________________

Feral 

Director:  Andrew Wonder
USA
73 minutes

Showing:  Thu, Dec 12, 2019 6:00 pm
Anchorage Museum Auditorium

Mathew Monagle at Film School Rejects pushes films by former documentary makers who switch to narrative features.

". . .  these films ask us to simply exist in a series of moments with the main characters, exposing ourselves to their truths by seeing the world as they see it. And as of this weekend, you can officially add Andrew Wonder‘s Feral to this list of must-see narrative debuts. 

It would be wrong to say that Yazmine (Annapurna Sriram) lives on the streets, considering her actual home is a good hundred feet below them. When we first meet Yazmine, we walk alongside her in the abandoned tunnels and empty homeless camps that litter the underground relics of the MTA; with her as our guide, we eventually find our way into the long-abandoned power station she has converted into her home. But this underground life is only one facet of Yazmine’s existence. In her collection of sweaters and skirts, she can also pass among the fashionable parts of Brooklyn, moving alongside hipsters and bohemians and passing judgment on their hollow lives as she bums cigarettes." (emphasis added)

__________________________________________

From The Vine 

Director:  Sean Cisterna

Canada

94 minutes

Showing:  Friday, Dec 13, 2019 4:00 pm  
Alaska Experience Theatre - Small

This is a new film which had its North American premier in Canada in mid-October.  It's also been at the Napa Film Festival this month, which is fitting for a film on a vineyard.  But there's also not much out there about the film besides stock descriptions

Here's from a review from the  Devour! The Food Film Festival where you can read more:

"It’s the tale of a downtrodden man (Joe Pantoliano) who experiences an ethical crisis and travels back to his hometown in rural Italy to recalibrate his moral compass. There he finds new purpose in reviving his grandfather’s old vineyard, offering the small town of Acerenza a sustainable future, and reconnecting with his estranged family in the process.
From director Sean Cisterna, From The Vine is a delightful yet admittedly predictable affair about the need in life to not live for your work but to work for your life.
Cisterna is an experience Canadian filmmaker and with From The Vine he really does manage to get the most out of a well worn formula.  It looks great and as it launches into its story it’s always nice to see a Canadian film that isn’t overtly TRYING to be a Canadian film.  Cisterna has always had a good sense of story, it all has a genuine flow to it as we move along and it really has a strong sense of self.  That kind of narrative confidence not only comes from the script from the director leading the ship."

__________________________________________

GUTTERBUG 

Director:  Andrew Gibson

USA

100 minutes

Showing:  Wed, Dec 11, 2019 8:00 pm
Alaska Experience Theatre - Small

"Have you ever been walking around Allston and thought, “This place would be the perfect setting for a gritty drama about young, homeless street punks trying to find their place in the world, resisting the tedium of a forced 9-5 careerist lifestyle and simply surviving in a harsh world?” Well, so did Andrew Gibson, who’s gearing up to direct Gutterbug, a film that explores those themes listed above. Gibson is also the former head of video for Allston Pudding, so we’re excited to see him develop a full feature! The project’s synopsis, quoted from the film’s Indie GoGo  description, reads as follows: 
Stephen Bugsby, known by his street name “Bug,” left home on his 18th birthday. GUTTERBUG picks up three years later at his rock bottom. When the punk rock shows end and the drugs wear off, things feel quiet on his dirty mattress under the overpass. The suffocating atmosphere of the homeless environment and its toxic characters spark something in him he forgot he had… Before choosing death as the answer, Bug makes a choice even he didn’t see coming."

Here's an interview with director Andrew Gibson.  This film is focused on some homeless folks and the interviewer here lets us know he was once homeless.   I started it two minutes in when they began talking about the movie.

__________________________________________

Inside The Rain  

Director:  Aaron Fisher

USA

90 minutes

Showing:  Wed, Dec 11, 2019 6:00 pm 
Alaska Experience Theatre - Small

From WBOC:

"Facing expulsion from college over a misunderstanding, a bipolar student (Aaron Fisher) indulges his misery at a strip club where he befriends a beautiful and enigmatic sex worker (Ellen Toland) and they hatch a madcap scheme to prove his innocence.  Rosie Perez stars as a tough love shrink, Eric Roberts as an unhinged film producer, and Catherine Curtin and Paul Schulze as the long-suffering parents. The ultimate underdog film and proof that if you believe in yourself, anything is possible.
"'Inside the Rain' is an important film that deals honestly with issues of mental health, and manages to be at once humorous and poignant," said co-star Rosie Perez.  "I responded to director Aaron Fisher's script, and enjoyed working with him on our scenes together."
"Inside The Rain" has also attracted many film critics attention.  Westwood One states, "Insightful and audacious, with terrific cast…raw and heartfelt emotion." And Tribune Media Services said, ''Inside the Rain' is a captivating story where the brush strokes of life and the arts blend together beautifully.'"

__________________________________________