AIFF2024: Cigarette Surfboards; Alaska Native Masks Out In the World

Two more days of festival.  Well only one more for us.  Not that long ago, the Festival website said the festival was Dec. 6-14 and we made our plane reservations for December 15.  Then the more recent edition of the website moved it to December 15.  

This festival has been filled with crazy good documentaries - Champions of the Golden Valley, Ultimate Citizens, Porcelain War, 76 Days Adrift, The Empathizer, Diving Into the Darkness - and I heard Unearth was also great.  And I thought Queen of the Ring was also quite good, but not quite at the level of those others.  

Today we saw two more:  So Surreal:  Behind the Masks and The Cigaret Surfboard.  The basic 'discovery' in Surreal, was how Yupik Alaskan Native masks along with Native Masks from British Columbia had a huge influence on the surrealist artists early in the 20th Century.  This was something I'd learned some time ago.  But the film combined a number of themes - the spiritual meaning and use of Alaska Native masks, the history of how the churches and white government banned the ceremonies in which masks were used and confiscated them, how the Surrealists discovered these masks and were inspired by them, and a detective tale of where some of the masks were today and how to get them repatriated.  The magic of the film is how seamlessly all these themes were intertwined.

Perry Eaton (center) and Drew Michael, both Alaska Native mask makers featured in the film, talk afterward about masks and the film.  

But I also was very pleasantly surprised by how good Cigarette Surfboard was.  I'm biased.  I grew up near Venice Beach, and while I was too lazy to lug a surfboard around (they were big heavy monsters back in those days, and none of my friends were surfers) I was an avid body surfer growing up.  
 

This film starts out with Taylor talking about how cigarette butts are the most numerous item when people are cleaning trash off the beach.  (I had encountered this once long ago when I helped pick up trash with a Covenant House mentee in downtown Anchorage.  So many cigarette butts.)

Not only is the tobacco full of chemicals, but the filters are not biodegradable.  So Taylor decides to make a surfboard using cigarette butts to draw attention to the pollution they cause.  The first one - in the photo - was two heavy.  But he got it down in weight and then got professional surfers to use the boards as a way to get the environmental message across.  The basic question people seemed to ask when they saw these boards was "It must take forever to collect all the butts."  They get told, "Not really, they're everywhere."

So this is an environmental movie and a surfing movie.  We see lots of people riding the waves on their cigarette surfboards.  

Taylor also visits surfers in different parts of the world.  In Ireland one former surfer decided flying around the world to go surfing, while fun, was not environmentally defensible, and he switched to sustainable farming that won't harm the ocean.  In southwest England, a group of surfers had successfully lobbied - with surfboards at Parliament - to end the practice of dumping raw sewage into the ocean.  

A fun film with a message.  

AIFF2024: Friday - Downtown Today

 I'm falling behind.  Last night's showing of Diving Into The Darkness  was fantastic, highlighted by the fact that the director and person highlighted in the movie were there - Nays Bahai and Jill Heinerth.  

But I'm swamped today and so I'm taking the easy way out by just posting a copy of the AIFF program for Friday,

AIFF2024: The Stranger's Case Was Powerful - Thursday Schedule [Video Added]

 It was a full house at the E Street Theater Wednesday night for The Strangers' Case.  The film is packaged with five chapters:  The Doctor; The Soldier; The Smuggler; The Poet; and The Captain.  They all converge in this story that starts out (after an opening scene in a Chicago hospital) in a hospital in Aleppo, Syria.  The doctor goes home to a birthday party and a bomb blast.  The soldier is upset when ordered to shoot a group of men accused of being terrorists, because it include a boy who wrote graffiti.  The smuggler sells spots on a boat from Turkey to Greece, cash only, no guarantees.  The poet is a refugee who is trying to get his family to Greece.  The captain is in the Greek Coast Guard who goes out everyday to look for and rescue boat people.  You can see the trailer in the previous post.

The only actor I knew was Omar Sy, the great French actor who's played in television series and many movies.  It was particularly poignant given that Assad's regime in Syria was overthrown just this week.  A film you should look out for.  

At the film was Ash Avildsen, whose own film, Queens of the Ring, plays tomorrow night.  I asked him for a quick intro to his film at after the showing of The Strangers' Case.  It's below.  At the end you can see his demonstration of appreciation for The Strangers' Case.

[I'll add the video tomorrow morning.  It's still uploading to Youtube and I need some sleep.DONE!]

I've seen so many really good films.  The documentaries are particularly strong this year, though The Strangers' Case is a narrative feature.  I'm hoping that having Omar Sy in the film will help it get wide distribution.  

Thursday's Schedule

9:00 AM: Sonic Storytelling: Music Licensing and Artist Collaboration in Film  Alaska Experience Theater

Moving to the E Street Theater now

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Coffee Talk/Panel

12:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Doc Shorts #2

• The Collector – 15:00
• Tentsítewahkwe – 17:21
• Designed by Disaster – 19:52
• Broken Flight – 18:00
• Signal Fire: Towards Reconciliation – 30:00

And now to the Museum

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Female Filmmaker Showcase Shorts 

A decade after high school, three old classmates reconnect and reevaluate their lives while hiking a mountain in Alaska.

• Vessel – 17:44
• Derive – 18:38
• Yazidi Women: From Victims To Survivors – 7:06
• The Icefield: An Expedition Memoir – 26:46
• Sunflower Girl – 13:08
• Julian – 6:53

4:30 PM – 6:30 PM: Alaska Teen Media Institute Presents After-School Special – Event Tickets

7:00 PM – 9:00 PM: Alaskan Feature: Uphill 

There's not a lot out there about this film.  It seems pretty new.  TMDB has the bare minimum - but it includes the image I'm using, the actors, and a budget ($15,000).

The DuckDuckGo search engine offers this under Plex.

"Uphill (2024) release date is Thursday, December 12 starring Adam D Boyer, Victoria Summer Felix, Matthew Rush and directed by Adam D Boyer. A decade after high school, three old classmates reconnect and reevaluate their lives while hiking a mountain in Alaska."

It doesn't actually say that if you go to the Plex link.  But if it's true, this is the world premier in Anchorage this evening.  

All this was still at the Museum.  

Now we move over to the Bear Tooth.

5:30pm  Diving Into Darkness

Screenshot from Press Page Photo

If you've gone to any of the AIFF films, you've seen Jill Heinerth swimming underwater in dark caves, and telling us it's the closest thing she can think of to being on another planet.  Wikipedia tells us:

"Jill Heinerth (born 1965) is a Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer and film-maker.[4] She has made TV series for PBS, National Geographic Channel and the BBC, consulted on movies for directors including James Cameron, written several books and produced documentaries including We Are Water[5] and Ben's Vortex, about the disappearance of Ben McDaniel. . .

In 1998, Heinerth was part of the team that made the first 3D map of an underwater cave.[8]
Heinerth became the first person to dive the ice caves of Antarctica, penetrating further into an underwater cave system than any woman ever[5][dead link] In 2001, she was part of a team that explored ice caves of icebergs[9] where she and her then husband Paul Heinerth "discovered wondrous life and magical vistas" and experienced the calving of an iceberg, documented in the film Ice Island.[10]"

The AIFF2024 program tells us that the 2024 Explorer's Achievement Award goes to Diving into the Darkness.   This is a new award, but I heard tonight that Jill Heinerth is in Anchorage and will be at the screening to receive the award.  

I'm conflicted over whether I should post the trailer here, just because it's been played before every single film/program I've been to at this festival.  Instead, here's a link to the film's website and you can go watch it yourself.  If you haven't seen the trailer, you should.  

Here's from the director's statement:

As our friendship deepened, I discovered that Jill's story was profoundly deep, both literally and figuratively, and how the personal side of her story was immensely captivating. Yet, this remarkable story had largely remained confined to short video formats. Given my unique position at the intersection of the filmmaking and diving realms, I found the call to tell her story irresistible. What followed was a year of intense collaboration, a creative partnership that would prove invaluable as we tackled the herculean challenges of principal photography.

I had no intention of being a passive observer while my colleagues risked their lives to capture the story on film, especially when it came to the underwater sequences. So I undertook the gruelling journey of

becoming a certified cave diver on a rebreather, something which had never been done before amongst

film directors. I descended alongside the cast and crew into the depths of the caves, well beyond the reach of recreational divers. It was an arduous yet exhilarating experience to dive, work, and learn alongside some of the world's most renowned cave divers. Despite the monumental difficulties and inherent risks in directing a crew of cave divers, I would embark on this adventure again without hesitation.

8:00 pm (still at the Bear Tooth)  Queen of the Ring 

From Collider:

"From writer/director Ash Avildsen and based on the book by Jeff Leen, Queen of the Ring tells the incredible true story of Mildred Burke (Emily Bett Rickards), a single mother from a small town who went on to become the first million-dollar female athlete in world history. Mildred was a woman determined to make a name for herself as a female wrestler at a time when it was illegal across most of the United States, becoming a three-time women’s world champion from the 1930s through the 1950s despite all the challenges. At the same time, her personal life was not without its challenges, especially once she meets promoter Billy Wolfe (Josh Lucas), with whom she falls in love, gets married, becomes aware that he’s cheating on her with several of the other female wrestlers on his roster, and decides to stay married as a business arrangement, so that she doesn’t get screwed out of her own money. Through everything, she perseveres, becoming a pioneer in the sport that she loved. . .

"How did this project come your way? Was this just an audition that came up?

RICKARDS: I received the script in my inbox. There was no audition, just a talk with (writer/director) Ash [Avildsen] and questions about whether I had wrestled. The answer was no. And how comfortable I was with physicality, which was very comfortable. I felt very capable of this woman. I’m really grateful that Ash sent me and gave me this opportunity because I wouldn’t have known who this woman was. And I had never gotten to go under such a physical transformation for a character before, one that was not only energetic, but had to have the body structure to find the energy. It has really opened up my eyes, in terms of my process and acting. It just makes me hungry for more. It’s a cycle."

 Grammar note:  I wasn't sure where the apostrophe should go in The Strangers' Case.  Before or after the final s?  I checked the program and put it before the final s.  But that makes it singular, which, after seeing the movie didn't make sense.  There were a lot of 'strangers.'  And I see now that the trailer spells it Strangers'.  So I've fixed it.

The program also misled me on this last film.  The title in the program is Queen of the Ring.  But the title on the trailer is Queens of the Ring.  Colider also has it singular. So I've changed it where I can find it, but it takes too long for me to upload video to YouTube to change it on the video tonight. 

[Update: Dec. 12, 2024, 11:52pm:  I saw Queen of the Ring tonight, and the title on the film was QUEEN, no S.  So I've changed what I could. Editing the video and uploading it again will take a bit more time.  Also, I left an 'l' out of Ash Avildsen's name.  But I've fixed that too.]

 [ACS has been promising fiber optic for two years now, but until then I'm stuck with painfully slow internet.]

AIFF2024: Wednesday: Omar Sy Plays A Smuggler Of Syrian Refugees

 There's just one picture on the schedule for tonight.  

E Street Theater

315 E Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501

8:00 PM – 10:00 PM: Feature Narrative: The Strangers' Case – Event Tickets

Whether you know Omar Sy from Lupin or Jurassic World or X-Men: Days of Future Past, you know this amazing French actor.  

And just a couple of days after Assad has been overthrown and has fled Damascus, we have this film about Syrian refugees.  

From Deadline: 

"Beloved French actor Omar Sy stars in the debut feature from longtime producer Brandt Andersen in The Strangers’ Case, a searing and international ensemble that is world premiering at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday. [That was last February]

Sy stars along with Yasmin Al Massri in the film, which is an extension of Andersen’s Oscar shortlisted 2020 short Refugee also starring Sy and Al Massri. It’s playing as a Berlinale Special Gala title later this week.

The film follows the chain reaction of events involving five different families in four different countries after tragedy strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo: a doctor (Al Massri) and her daughter, who come home following a chaotic shift at an Aleppo hospital; a soldier who witnesses heinous crimes towards men, women and children in the service of the Syrian regime; a smuggler in Turkey (Sy) who tries desperately to make ends meet for his young son while also trying to save enough money to afford his own escape; a poet from a Turkish refugee camp who barters for space on an overcrowded boat with his young family; and a Greek coast guard captain who spends his days and nights rescuing sinking lifeboats full of migrants."

From Guy Lodge, in Variety:

"The international scope and grueling human cost of the global refugee crisis lends itself to contemporary epic filmmaking of a particularly sober stripe, as seen mostly recently in Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border” and Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated “Io Capitano.” Shorn of their ripped-from-the-headlines urgency, such stories of humans crossing vast distances and facing hostile odds in pursuit of a better life are as old as time itself. A muscular, assured debut feature from U.S. producer-turned-director Brandt Andersen, “The Strangers’ Case” stresses the sprawling scale of the situation with a chaptered structure that pivots between multiple involved parties in the refugee’s journey, from warmongers to traffickers to rescuers to the displaced victims themselves. . .  

“The Strangers’ Case” is titled for a prescient, Shakespeare-written speech from the play “Sir Thomas More,” in defence of those displaced from their country and barred from others: “Would you be pleased to find a nation of such barbarous temper that, breaking out in hideous violence, would not afford you an abode on earth?” Brandt’s debut hasn’t quite the Bard’s poetry, but the plaintive conscience is present and correct."

 

AIFF2024: Monday's Offerings; Tuesday Is A Day Off

 Alaska Experience Theater

333 W. 4th Avenue (NW corner of 4th & C St. – enter on C), Anchorage, Alaska 99501

9:00 AM: Documenting Reality: The Truths and Trials of Non-Fiction Filmmaking

There are a lot of shorts programs today.  Sunday had some excellent shorts that I'll try to highlight in a later post.  I'll be doing my elementary school volunteer time in the morning so I'll miss the morning shorts programs.  

E Street Theater

315 E Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Other Worlds Shorts 

• At The Riverbank – 15:00
• Terms and Conditions – 5:59
• Into The Thicket – 12:13
• I Know There’s Something Here For You – 16:58
• Syncing Sinking – 17:55

12:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Cinematic Variety Pack #1 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Cinematic Variety Pack #1 – Event Tickets

• Nena – 15:00
• Neither Donkey Nor Horse – 28:29
• Buckets – 6:40
• Safety State – 15:37
• Seafoam – 6:00

Still at the E Street Theater

2pm-4pm  Documentary Feature  The Empathizer plus the short Bear Guardians 

 

From the Seed and Spark - what appears to be a crowdfunding site for films

"This project shines a light on the often fraught relationships and opposing perspectives that are still so prevalent between 2nd-gen Vietnamese and their immigrant parents. I was inspired to make this film after comparing my own connection to Vietnam with my mother's, who still refuses to go back. . ."

I find this kind of cross-cultural films fascinating.  Looking at the kids of immigrants going back to the country their parents fled from 30 or 40 years later.  Maybe because I went to Germany as a student 25 years after my mother fled Germany which was 30 years after my father had gotten out.  

Bear Guardians    -  "Bear Guardians is a portrait of a father and daughter wildlife rescue team that cares for sun and moon bears in Cambodia. Follow their work with two amputee bears who have lost limbs from being caught in snare traps."

Now switching to the Bear Tooth Theatrepub

5:30 pm:  SPOTLIGHT SELECTION SHORTS #1

• Ripple - 14:27
• Mecanica - 16:00
• Why Dogs Howl - 4:51
• Esperance to Fremantle  17:45
• The River 14:10
• Revenge of the Language Master 6:50
• Black Silk - 16:02

8:00 PM: Narrative Feature: The Way We Speak – Event Tickets

The teaser for this has been shown before a lot of the programs this weekend, and it's a bit cryptic.  It feels like it was put together by people who knew what the film was about, but it left me scratching my head and not sure I wanted to see it.  

So I've found this interview with one of the actors, Peter Fabian. (He was  Howard Hamlin in Better Call Saul.)

AIFF2024: From Iranian in Seattle, To Afghan Skiers, to Ukrainian Artists - [Updated]

  I'm going to post this quickly and try to catch up later.  This is the director and the person featured in the film Ultimate Citizens.  

Late for Sunday morning movie. More later.

[UPDATE Sunday night December 8, 2024: Yesterday, like every first Saturday of AIFF, was crazy hectic and wonderful.  I met Jamshid and Francine in the Museum atrium before the film, and they looked like they weren't from Anchorage so I started talking to them.  

We connected.  Then I thought about Gita, also an Iranian immigrant who lives in Anchorage and has been involved in the film festival over the years and wondered if she were coming.  Years ago we had an Iranian film maker who spoke no English and Gita had served as the translator for him.  

So I called Gita to see where she was - but I gave the phone to Jamshid and told him to speak to her in Farsi.  

She didn't answer and so he left a message.  I asked what he had said.  "Hi Gita, this is Steve.  I've learned Farsi so I can talk to you in Farsi.  Are you coming to see Ultimate Citizen?

Golden's Alishah Farhang, Ben Sturguleski*
and Katie Stjernholm at Q&A

Jamshid asked about what else was playing Saturday and I pointed out the Afghan skiing film  Champions of Golden Valley and Porcelain War.  Francine was going off to visit an Anchorage friend, so I offered to drive Jamshid to the Bear Tooth.  But after his film, two Iranian Anchorage women kidnapped Jamshid (they asked if they could take him to tea and they'd drop him off at the Bear Tooth).  

We met up at the Bear Tooth and we all loved  Champions of Golden Valley.  And afterward I 

Champion ski instructor Alishah Farhang talking 
with Jamshid Khajavi from Ultimate Citizen

found Jam talking to the Afghan ski instructor featured in the movie, who had fled to Germany when the Taliban took over.  He was part of the crush of people trying to get on planes as the Taliban had taken over Kabul.  Because he had taught girls how to ski, he was a likely target for the Taliban.  

After, Jamshid explained that Farsi and the main Afghan language are like dialects of each other and easy to understand.  

We went back to the Museum to see Demon Box, introduced by the Jewish Museum director, Leslie Fried (left) and Porcelain War. Leslie is standing a little atilt because, she told me before the film began, she'd fallen and broken several ribs and this was the first outing.  Like the trooper she is, she didn't mention that when she went up to do her intro.  

Demon Box was the film submitted by the Alaska Jewish Museum.  A short about the son of Holocaust survivors impressionistically presenting how the stories of his parents and their friends gave him nightmares as a child and guilt as an adult.  A unique collage of a film that comes at you from many directions.  

Porcelain War is a beautiful, horrible film about three artists -Slava Leontyev, Anya Stasenko, Andrey Stefanov, who stay in Kharkiv, near the Russian controlled territory.  Slava created little porcelain sculptures and his partner Anya painted them.  Ukraine, through their eyes, has beautiful natural areas, with exquisite pictures of flowers and birds and insects, all of which she paints in tiny detail.  

One of the magical parts of the film was the animation of Anya's miniaturist paintings on the tiny sculptures.  The image above is only a hint of the color and detail of the painting.  I really didn't capture the richness of the color in this screenshot from the film.  This part was animated exquisitely.  One of the objects Anya decorated was a drone.  

Slava is also in the military, training young recruits how to use their weapons.  The film won the Grand Prize award at Sundance and they are now hoping it will get nominated for an Academy Award in (I'm assuming) the foreign film category.  I would have preferred there was more Porcelain and less War, but obviously, making a documentary in a war zone is going to have to cover a lot of the war.  

By this time we were pretty tired and headed home.  As we approached Lake Otis and Northern Lights I thought we could stop in at Turkish Delight for something to eat.  I walked in, and there was Gita with a friend.  They were talking about the film festival - her friend had never been to one.  So I went back to the car to get the schedule.  Then I gave her my phone and she left a message on Jamshid's phone in Farsi.  Anchorage is a small town.  

So, this is just a catchup of yesterday.  I still have today - Sunday - to tell you about.  Some inspiring  shorts, and amazing feature length films.  Monday's schedule is up in the last post.  Tuesday is a day off and I'll try to get caught up.  

*Ben Sturgulewski, for the Alaskans wondering, is the grandson of Arliss, one of Alaska's most competent, dedicated, and principled politicians.  

AIFF2024: Sunday Schedule Overview

The Festival day begins at the Alaska Experience Theater at 9am for a conversation on  

The Art of Indie Acting: Bringing Characters to Life in Independent Cinema

333 W. 4th Avenue (NW corner of 4th & C St. – enter on C), Anchorage, Alaska 99501

head 1
The AIFF2024 Tab on  top has an index of all my posts on this year's festival.  Or here.

Everything else is at the Museum 

I apologize for not giving you more info on the shorts.  There are just too many of them.  But I love shorts programs.  If you don't like what you're watching, it will end soon and some magic may be ahead.  Also, shorts are how film makers start out.  If a short gains traction, it's easier to raise money for a longer version.  So do go see the shorts programs.  

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: is the Documentary Shorts #1  Program

• Swimming With Butterflies – 7:44
• Handwoven – 9:00
• I’m Still Here – 25:42
• How We Rise – 23:00
• Cone People – 11:27

12:30 PM – 2:30 PM: is Documentary Feature: 76 Days Adrift 

"From Executive Producer Ang Lee comes 76 Days Adrift – a profoundly immersive documentary that plunges you into the heart of one man’s extraordinary survival story.

Steven Callahan, the author of the New York Times bestseller Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea, recounts the night of February 4, 1982, when a catastrophic collision with a whale left his boat sinking in the dead of night. With the Atlantic Ocean surging into his vessel, Steven had only moments to grab what he could before launching himself into the dark, unforgiving sea in a life raft, clutching a basic emergency kit.

For an astonishing 76 days, that fragile inflatable raft became Steven’s entire world as he drifted helplessly across the vast expanse of the Atlantic. Forced to confront his deepest fears, limitations, and the raw power of nature, he discovered an inner strength he never knew he possessed"  From the film's website.  

An interview in the Lexington Observer with a high school friend of Steven Callahan includes how Ann Lee (who directed The Life of Pi) got involved in the film.

From 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Narrative Feature: Life’s a Bitch

From a review in CineEuropa:

"Life's a Bitch [+], the second feature film from Xavier Seron, . .

Beware of the dog! It all starts with Tom. Tom is the kind of man nobody remembers, someone you just can’t place, a poor sod ill at ease with both life and the people in it. One day, however, his radiant neighbour knocks on his door. Cécile has a very particular mission for him: to pick up the dead neighbour’s dog. This dog, however, might very well be Satan incarnate. Greta, meanwhile, tends to treat other people like dogs. Well, not as nicely as she treats her own beloved dog, Sophie. So when the latter passes away — and Greta is also forced to replace her personal assistant, severely injured in the accident that took Sophie’s life — Greta is at a loss. She struggled to cope with her absence — the dog’s, of course. The final trio to experience the human-dog turmoil is composed of Franck, Lola, and Perdita, and it forces the viewer to ask themselves: can a love story survive a person’s phobia for their lover’s pet? 

At this stage, you must already know the answer. Naturally, it is bleak and melancholy, yet brought about with humour and tenderness; it is also implacable, Xavier Seron once again exploring the unfathomable complexity of human relationships. Are we ultimately made to live with our fellow human beings? Wouldn’t it be easier to limit ourselves to our apparently simple relationships with our pets? Through these three intertwined stories, moving between different registers, from the (of course) biting comedy to the offbeat love story and the absurd tale, the Belgian filmmaker skillfully explores the themes he’s obsessed with, offering some of the best Belgian actors working today a wonderful playground and confirming his talent for directing performances in the process."

From  3:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Strange Love Shorts 

• Allergic to Love – 11:00
• Tacenda – 14:50
• Church Camp – 13:42
• The Ghost – 10:32
• Eat Surf Love – 9:03
• Things I Made My Roommate Do – 8:30

7:00 PM – 9:00 PM: Narrative Feature: Battersea 

We’ve always gravitated to filmmakers like Cassavetes, Ozu, and Kore-eda. Films like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Old Joy, and the Before Trilogy. The conversational film is a genre all in itself—one that challenges conventions and implicates the audience. In a panel discussion with the DGA, Richard Linklater said, “Most film teachers will say, ‘it’s a visual medium—show it, don’t talk about it.’ But I never approached cinema like that. I always thought people talking was so evocative.” We whole-heartedly agree.

From the film's website:

"Battersea is built on two long conversations, and the challenge, of course, is to make that dialogue work for the medium—to make it cinematic, to command the audience’s attention. It’s no small task, which is why this script took a decade to write, why we auditioned over 700 actors to play the two leads. To commit to such an undertaking in a debut feature, the pieces had to be right, which is, perhaps, another hallmark of our credo—an obsession with getting it right, killing darlings, starting over. Much like the conversations in this film, “getting it right” is a long negotiation of narratives and perspective, an upheaval, a series of mistakes and mishaps. It's a doomed and joyful excavation.

Which is how we find ourselves here, a decade later, overjoyed that after all that excavating, after hundreds of drafts, thousands of pages suffered over and deleted, darlings killed. After countless mistakes, humiliations, educations on the business and craft, cold emails, cold calls, crows eaten, dead ends, all our savings. That after one pandemic, all the Zooms, the Skypes, and the many dozens of meetings with the wrong people, we found two dozen artists as foolishly optimistic as we are—every one of them a perfect fit—all eager to help us make this simple but profound film about two people burdened by the past, who risk a great deal in telling their stories."

And finally at  

9:00 PM – 11:00 PM: Fistful of Suspense Shorts 

• Adjoining – 11:42
• The Bougie Man – 11:04
• Shark in the Dark 25:54
• Stigmata – 7:13
• Betty Bites Back – 3:21
• Pay Back – 17:40
• Endzgiving – 10:45 

AIFF2024: Opening Night, "Bob Trevino Likes It" Was A Crowd Pleaser

The Bear Tooth was packed.  The two new festival directors, Pat McGee and Adam Linkenhelt,  greeted the audience.  

Film maker Tracie Laymon was introduced, and then we saw Bob Trevino Likes It.

A 20 something woman whose mom was gone when she was young and whose dad, Bob Trevino, seems to be always disappointed with her.  

She looks up Bob Trevino on Facebook and befriends another one - not her dad.  The movie then focuses on their relationship.  He and his wife lost a baby years ago, and she needs a father.  He insists he is not her father, but they can be friends.  

On the one hand this was a small film - it looked closely at a few people and their struggles to connect with others and themselves.  But it was also a big film up on that screen.  Nothing pretentious, nothing glitzy.  Just a human story.  I didn't see any actors - the characters were real.  I heard more than one audience member say they would give it a ten out of five.  

Although the credits said it was purely a work of fiction, when Tracie got up on stage after the movie for Q&A, she let us know it was a fictionalized version of her own story.  Several of people said they 'knew' one character or another, that they were that character.  

This is the type of film that film festivals are for.  It was Tracie's first feature length film.  Below, she's talking with audience members after the Q&A was over. 

And here she's talking with three young film makers.  On the right is AIFF Board Chair, Rich Curtner.

I did an overview of the Saturday films schedule here.  

I'll try to get up something on Sunday tomorrow, but I'll also be watching more films.  

AIFF 2024 - Saturday Dec 7 Schedule

There's a lot to see Saturday from 9am until 10pm.  At the Bear Tooth, the Museum, and even coffee with film makers at the Alaska Experience Theater.  

The focus has been on the two films at the Bear Tooth Saturday.  One is an Alaska focused film on fishing in Bristol Bay and the other has skiing and mountains.  Both those kinds of films do well at AIFF festivals, which, I'm sure, is why they're at the Bear Tooth.  And Champions of Golden Valley is essentially sold out already.  Unearth has some seats left in the balcony.  

But for my money, the film to see will be Porcelain War, at the Museum at 6pm.  It premiered at Sundance and has won many awards.  It's a film about Ukrainian artists fighting the war with art.  There's a trailer down below.

So basically, I'm presenting Saturday as chronologically as I can - given that there is overlap between the Bear Tooth and the Museum at 12:30pm

Things start off early at  the first of the festival's "Coffee Talk and Panels" at the Alaska Experience theater.  

"Debut Dreams: The Journey of First-Time Directors"

SATURDAY December 7th at 9:00AM

Alaska Experience Theater 

First features are filled with passion, challenges, and the thrill of discovery. This panel brings together debut directors who dared to dive into filmmaking, sharing insights into their creative processes, struggles, and triumphs. Hear how they’ve shaped their visions into powerful first features and what advice they’d give to those taking their own first steps.

And then at 10am at the museum.   

At 10 am:    Ultimate Citizens

From the film website:  

ULTIMATE CITIZENS is the story of Jamshid Khajavi, an extraordinary 65-year-old Iranian American public school counselor who uses the sport of Ultimate Frisbee to help children heal. In an America where many families are quietly, barely getting by, Mr. Jamshid coaches an underdog team of kids on their way to compete in the world’s largest youth tournament. ULTIMATE CITIZENS is a celebration of resilience and belonging, and the third independent feature documentary from award-winning filmmaker Francine Strickwerda.

It first showed in May 2023, and has been at (and won awards at) a number of festivals this year.  The AIFF/Goelevant site says it was filmed at Seattle’s Hazel Wolf K-8 school.

Then come two shorts programs.  The first conflicts with Champions of Golden Valley at the Bear Tooth.

12:30 PM – 2:30 PM: International Gems – Event Tickets

Ivania – 12:00

Complications – 14:00

K.O.- 27:00

Pioneras – 14:30

Monte Clerigo – 27:30

Meanwhile, at the Bear Tooth:

Two Documentaries,

12 Noon:  Unearth 

Picture from Rogovy Foundation 

"Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has signed on to executive produce 
“Unearth,” a new documentary that will make its world premiere at DOC NYC   on Nov. 16.

Directed, produced and shot by Hunter Nolan, “Unearth” tells the story of two sets of siblings — the Salmon sisters and the Strickland brothers — who live in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Both sets of siblings are alarmed when they learn of and fight against advanced plans for a Pebble Mine — a massive open-pit gold and copper mine — in the vicinity of their homes. The Salmon sisters, Native Alaskans, work on the regulatory front, pushing the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block the project, while the Strickland brothers, independent fishermen, expose the truth behind what the Pebble Mine developer is telling the public. The 93-minute doc reveals systemic failures in mining and the balance between the need for materials and their environmental costs."  (From Variety)

November 16 wasn't that long ago, so AIFF audiences will be among the first to see this Alaska based film.  You can learn more about the film at the Rogovy Foundation website. 

As of Thursday night, there are some seats left in the balcony at the Bear Tooth.

2:30 pm Champions of the Golden Valley

Picture from Champions of the Golden Valley website

This film got front page coverage in the Anchorage Daily News yesterday so I won't spent much more time on it here.  From their website: 

"In the remote mountains of Afghanistan, a newfound passion for skiing attracts young athletes from rival villages to the slopes. With minimal gear and makeshift wooden skis, the determined  coach Alishah Farhang organizes a ski race like no other that unites the community in a moment of joy and triumph, just before the country’s collapse

Champions of the Golden Valley captures the spirit of a classic underdog sports story with the heartfelt portrait of a community finding hope amid disrupted dreams. Revealing a stunning unseen side of Afghanistan, it is an uplifting exploration of what it means to be a champion – in all its forms."

As of Thursday night, the Bear Tooth map shows one seat way up in the far corner of the balcony.  

 

For those who have tickets at the Bear Tooth, Golden Valley ends at 2:30pm, and you could make it to the 3pm Alaska shorts at the Museum.  But there will be a number of film makers at the conference.  If Golden Valley has representatives coming, there will surely be some questions and answers afterward.  But if you miss the first or second short, there are more in the program.  

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Made in Alaska Shorts #1 – 

The Gingerbread Man – 9:03

The Glacier Pilot – 10:00

Footprints on Katmai – 21:50

The Grace – 13:00

Mending the Net – 11:36

5:30 PM – 6:00 PM: Alaska Jewish Museum Presents – Demon Box –  This film is free at the Museum, it's not clear if you have to buy tickets in advance to be sure you get in.  The IMDB page says:

"After festival rejections, a director revises his intensely personal short film about trauma, suicide, and the Holocaust, and transforms it into a painful, blunt and funny dissection of the film and his life."

It also has a short trailer, that I don't see a way to embed here.  I'd note that Leslie Fried, the director of  the Jewish Museum in Anchorage has unfailingly nominated excellent films every year.  

There's still more on Saturday at the Museum

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Documentary Feature: Porcelain War  at the Museum

This is a Ukrainian movie and from what I can tell is one of the movies to see at the festival.  From the NYTimes: 

"The latest documentary dispatch from Ukraine, “Porcelain War,” brings a message of hope rooted in art. Making art does feel like an act of resistance during the Russian invasion, when Kremlin propaganda attacks the very existence of Ukrainian culture. But what’s intriguing is that the directors, Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, also celebrate Ukraine’s military defense, making for a jangly mix of idyll and warfare.

Slava, who appears in the film, is both a ceramist and a member of an Ukraine special forces unit who gives weapons training to civilians turned soldiers. His partner, Anya, paints the whimsical figurines he creates, and the irrepressible couple weather the war in bombed-out Kharkiv with their more anxious pal Andrey, a painter and cameraman."

From Deadline:

"The film has won 30 prizes around the world, including the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at Sundance. This past weekend, it earned the Grand Jury Award for Best Feature Documentary at the Woodstock Film Festival in New York, as well as the Best Documentary Editing Award. And at the Heartland International Film Festival in Indianapolis, it won the Documentary Feature Grand Prize, which comes with a $20,000 cash award."

8:00 PM – 10:00 PM: Narrative Feature: Midwinter   at the Museum

"Nadine is tired and her whole body aches with inflammation and she can sleep. Her son Goldie keeps her active beyond her energy level. Her husband Jack owns a large ad agency and has been a loving husband who has recently expanded his romantic life beyond his marriage to include co-worker Maeve...who happens to be the ex-partner of his sister-in-law Lena. Lena is a burgeoning music writer who, getting over a break-up, takes on an assignment writing about one of her favorite queer indie artists, Mia Hawthorne. Mia is out in the Berkshires, in search of inspiration, a bit frustrated with a high-class problem: the record label wants her to have a co-writer. The mundane poetry of life ensues.

Ryan Andrew Balas

Director, Writer"  (From TMBD) 

Midwinter is also streaming on Netflix and other streaming sites, so if it's been a long day already, you can watch it at home.   

No All Film Passes at 2024 Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF2024) And Other Issues

 I've been covering AIFF since 2006.  Pretty extensively for many years, less vigorously in recent years.  This year will probably be the sketchiest.  [After writing the rest of the post, I realized that because of huge gaps in the AIFF websites compared to recent years, I probably need to do more.  We'll see what my schedule and energy level will allow]

The festival board hired two film makers from California to run the festival ths year.  They've had films in our festival in the past and liked it here.  I was excited and ready to cover the films that are coming.  

I checked the website and had some questions.  

1.  Are there no all film passes this year?

2.  How do I search to find a list of countries different films come from?

There were some other issues - like finding easy links to learn more about individual films.  There is a giant mosaic with pictures from all - I think - the films.  When you click one, you get more about that film.  But I couldn't find any pattern - dates, types, etc.  While some have the film name in the picture, for most you're just randomly guessing based on that one picture.  And then shorts that were part of programs - when I searched by their names - just got me to the program, but nothing more than the name of the film.  

My first email to the festival directors got a warm, enthusiastic response, which confirmed that there were no all film passes.  Instead there are 'badges' if you donate $100 or buy $100 worth of tickets.  Well the first 100 people to spend $100.  

My second email which lamented, fairly strongly, the lack of passes, and which asked if the website person could switch on 'countries' so we can search films by the  countries they come from, and mentioned that I was having trouble finding information about individual shorts, was never responded to.  

So, regular film festival attendees, here's why I find these issues problematic.  

Passes

1.  Price:  There have been festival all-film passes since I started going regularly back in 2006.  The price has gone up slightly over the years, but has been a great way to see the films at the festival with minimum hassle and at a great price.  

The passes last year were, if I remember correctly, about $120.  That got you into all the films.  

Going through the daily events calendar this year, I count 43 events. (I see that Demon Box is free and I'm not sure how may others are).  And some are timed so you'd miss the end of one or the beginning of the next one. Or there are two films playing at the same time.  Not sure if any are shown a second time.  The directors did say that the last film was sold out already and they were looking to show it again.  So say someone goes to 35 events.  At $12 per ticket, that's over $400.  And that doesn't include a $1.50 booking charge (more than 10% of the ticket price) when you buy online.  

So, the most loyal AIFF fans, the ones who get all films passes, are facing an almost 400% increase in fees, plus the inconvenience of now having to book each film.  I'm hoping that, in fact we'll be able to get our tickets at the venue.  

2.  Time - Buying a pass meant you could just go to all the films.  You didn't have to individually buy tickets on-line.  You didn't have to look everything up in advance to figure out which movies you wanted to see.

Going thru and ordering tickets one by one online is a real time consumer, which happened when I bought tickets for the opening night feature at the Bear Tooth.  It appears that on Goelevent at least there is a chance to put films in your cart and buy them at a time in checkout.  Getting rid of the passes just adds hassle for the folks who are the biggest AIFF fans.  That includes people who come from out of town to 'do' the festival.

At the Bear Tooth, in the past, you also had to make specific reservations to be sure you got a seat.  At other venues there was always the chance a program was sold out, but that happened only rarely.  

3.  Festival Culture - I'm not sure how many passes were sold each year, but I'm guessing at least 100.  Those folks got to know each other because they ran into one another at so many films.  They populated films that otherwise would have had one or two, or zero viewers.  The new badges are being promoted as VIP status symbols. [And you have to click the popup to get rid of it each time you open the site.] I know for myself and most of the other regular all-film pass holders, the pass was merely a convenience, not a status symbol.  OK, for some maybe they liked others to see them wearing a pass, but for most of us, it was more like wearing a team sweatshirt than a status symbol.  

If money is the issue - though it seems that hasn't been a serious issue in the past - then the price of passes could have been increased.  Even to $200.  And most of us would have paid without a serious gripe.  But eliminating the passes raises the entry fee enormously for former pass holders, forces us to spend more time picking films and buying tickets each time, and is something of a slap in the face to the most loyal festival goers.  

I don't know who was consulted before this decision was made, but it's a huge change for a core group of loyal festival attendees.  

This is just a big change in the culture of the festival. 

Search Options

1.  Being able to click on a film name and get to learn about the films.  There were various ways you could do this in the past.  But not this time.  

First, you need to realize there are two different (but linked) websites.  One is the AIFF site.  The other is Goelevent AIFF pages.  Goelevent is a national organization that specializes in websites and ticket sales for film festivals.  

Below is the schedule of events for Saturday Dec. 7th. [This is on the Goelevent site] There are names of films, but they aren't linked to a page where you can see more about the film to decide if you want to watch it.  You'll have note the names of the films and go back and search each particular film.  

But there is no search function on the Anchorage International Film Festival site.  You have to switch over to the Goelevent page for AIFF to search and even get to the page above.   

You get there by clicking on Purchase Tickets on the main AIFF page.  

But that doesn't work for films in the shorts programs.  (Shorts are grouped into programs, so you see 5-10 or more film in one sitting.)

Here's the page for the Animation Shorts.  There's a list in tiny print of the films.  But no links.  And in the case of the shorts, if you search, say "Just Da Orange" under films, you get 

"No events found matching your criteria. Please adjust your search."

Notice how there really aren't any extra spaces between the words.  You have to guess where one title ends and the next begins.  For most, it's fairly obvious, but not all.  I'd note that in Thai, the words run together without spaces in between.  Kind of tough for people learning to read in Thai.  That's what this reminded me of.  

And there are no links.  

I could find no information on the shorts themselves.  

This takes us back to the dark ages when the festival website didn't tell you much.  But the festival director who was in change of the website in those days jumped on any suggestions I made to make it easier for folks to use the website.  

In those days, there was a lot more work for a blogger like me to do, to let people know about what films were available, which ones to see, when etc.  But a lot of that - including trailers of most of the films - were posted on recent AIFF websites.  I didn't have to gather all that myself any more, to post on my blog.  

And I got spoiled because I didn't have to work so hard.  But here we are again.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do this year.  

Searching by Country

Compared to the other issues listed above, this seems like a minor issue.  But for many people, the films are opportunities to learn about different cultures, to see films that take place in countries they've traveled to, or lived in, or come from.  There are over 100 languages spoken in the homes of  Anchorage School District students.  

Every year I've been doing posts that highlighted the countries that films come from.  That will be much harder to do this time.  Not sure I'll manage without the search by country plugged in.  

By knowing that there are films in their language, they can come to the festival and enjoy their own culture.  Granted that streaming sites like Netflix offer films from many different countries now, but it's different in a theater.  

Can't do this this year.  Two years ago I sent an email to John, the festival director who did oversight over the website, and asked why I couldn't search by country that year.  Within 20 minutes he emailed back and said, "You can now.  I turned it on."

That's it folks.  This is my film festival gripe post.  Actually, it's a feedback post to the festival directors on how to make the festival work better.  I realize it's too late to reinstate festival passes, but the fixes to the website are critical to making it easier for people to navigate, find out about the films, before buying tickets.  Past directors welcomed my testing the website so they could fix it, which is my purpose.  

But now I realize there's a lot of work for me to do to help fans figure out what films to see.  It's more like the old days.  But my life is busier than it has been for a while.  And I'm no longer willing to stay up until 3am writing posts each day.  

But the president of the festival board assures me there are great films to be seen and I'll do what I can to figure out which ones they are and let you know.