AIFF2025: Tuesday Doesn't Start Until Noon

 Everything today is happening at the E Street Theater.  

12 Noon:  International Shorts

2pm:   Respecting the Earth Short Docs

4pm:   Among Thieves — Trevor J. Wallace, Gino R. Caspari 

From the film's website:

"DESTRUCTION OF HERITAGE

THE ISSUE

The looting and destruction of archaeological sites is a global issue that destroys our shared heritage. Cultures known from only a limited number of sites are especially vulnerable, as each loss significantly impacts our understanding. In recent years, the problem has intensified due to growing demand and a corresponding surge in market prices. Yet despite this escalation, little is known about the illegal trade in antiquities or the underlying structures and dynamics of the black market. A broad public with a strong interest in archaeology often remains unaware of the critical differences between grave robbing and legitimate archaeological research - an issue compounded by popular portrayals that lack nuance."

Anchorage will be one of the first places this film is shown.   

6pm:  Honeyjoon -  Lilian T. Mehrel

Image from Cineuropa

From Hammertonail:

"In Honeyjoon, find ourselves in the paradise that is San Miguel island, the Azores, Portugal. Stark blue waters mirror the cloudless sky above as honeymooners bask in the sun, hand in hand, enveloped by the romantic allure of the island. It’s a scene taken from a Renoir painting. For Honeyjoon’s main characters, though, it’s more like Dante’s Inferno.

In her debut feature film, director Lilian T. Mehrel paints a landscape that traverses the human experiences of tragedy, comedy, and joy. Mother and daughter, Lela (Amira Casar) and June (Ayden Mayeri) embark on a trip to San Miguel on the one year anniversary of their husband/father’s death. Although a veil of grief is cast upon their trip, they find themselves surrounded by happy couples, trapped in saccharine claustrophobia. Mehrel captures the waves of loss, joy, and relief June and Lela feel by having them, and the viewer, bend to the will of San Miguel’s mercurial nature. . ."

There were good films yesterday and I'll try to catch up - but I really liked The Collaborator and Rosemead, two excellent, but very different narrative features.

The film makers are off on an excursion today - to walk on a glacier I think.  

AIFF2025: Sunday Highlights And Monday Schedule

 The calendar has caught up with me.  I was ready for you all up through Sunday and would love to highlight today's offerings, but I also want to say something about two good films I saw yesterday. 

You're No Indian

I'd seen In the Wake of Justice Delayed and Remaining Native on Saturday.  Both are good films which tell important stories about being Native in the United States. They do an excellent job of conveying the emotional impacts of the abuses Native peoples have suffered and the lasting impacts. Their films mention court cases (in Justice)  and historic abuses of boarding schools  (in Remaining.)   Their both solid, important films.

I was wary about You're No Indian because it was about disenrollment.  I co-authored an academic article on Native American Law and I know that topic gets complicated quickly and that there is so

Ryan Flynn and Santana Rabang left

much that most people have no idea about.  How can someone make that into an interesting movie?

They managed to do it.  You're No Indian  powerfully highlights both the emotional and cultural impact of disenrollment and also collects a pile of evidence to show that the disenrollment process in many tribes - particularly those with lots of casino money - is aimed at reducing the number of people with whom they have to divide casino profits and at getting rid of opponents to their power in the tribes.  [Blogger doesn't recognize the term disenrollment and underlines it in red each time I type it.]

They offer shocking evidence of tribal leaders denying the validity of members' documented birth records, and in one case, where the tribal leader's ancestry includes the same ancestors as the people he disenrolled.  

They include those records. They include a historian of Indian records hired by the tribe to do research.  When the expert they hired gives them conclusions they don't want to hear, they reject it.  There's also a Native attorney who is banned from coming into the hearing to represent his client. 

The part that will leave most viewers who are not well-versed on Native American law still scratching their heads, is the lack of a way to appeal the disenrollment decisions.  Essentially, Native Americans have fought over the years to have sovereignty over their own affairs on Indian country.  There are rules about who has jurisdiction over different kinds of cases based on where the infraction occurred (Native land or not), who was involved (Native or non-Native), and the type of crime.  Natives have accomplished a certain amount of autonomy on Native land, which prevents the state from meddling in Native affairs, but this documentary shows how that victory has left holes that allow  tribes to commit serious offenses against fellow tribal members.  

The film and the discussion afterward mentioned that the film makers have received cease and desist orders to stop them from showing the film.  Film festivals have also received such threats (including the Anchorage International Film Festival).  Some festivals are wary of being sued and have not shown the film.  Fortunately AIFF showed the film.  My thought is that when you get such threats, it means you're hitting a nerve.  If they had legitimate legal claims, the opponents of the film would file those claims in court.  

This was the movie I said, yesterday morning, that I hadn't seen yet - the movie that works for me on all levels.  And as I say this, I also acknowledge my own bias for a strong rational argument, which this film presents.  They've simply made a very strong documentary on an important topic.  While some might say this is a pretty esoteric and small group, the film does a good job of pointing out the significance.  

They say 11,000 people have been disenrolled in tribes around the country.  They further point out that the living and future offspring of those 11,000 people have also been effectively disenrolled.  

Compounding this is the destruction of Native culture in the affected tribes.  Money, not cultural traditions, win out.  And the number of Native Americans dwindles.  They also point out that disenrollment was used by the US government to eliminate Native Americans as part of their campaign to assimilate (as in the Boarding schools), remove (from their land to reservations), or eliminate (kill) Native Americans.  In this case, it's Natives doing this work.

A powerful and well documented movie that keeps the audience's attention throughout.  The museum was packed and there were lots of questions and comments at the end.  

A Little Fellow:  The Legacy of A.P. Giannini.

The other movie I want to point out is A Little Fellow:  The Legacy of A.P. Giannini.  I don't have time now, but I will get back to this film which tells the story of the founder of the Bank of Italy in San Francisco, a bank focused on the small businesses and everyday people, who were excluded by most other banks.  There are many amazing stories about Giannini in this film, and about the bank that eventually became, under Giannini's leadership, The Bank of America.  (Though, since 1998, when Bank of America was bought out, no longer practices those principles Giannini set up for his bank.)

It's a generally unknown story, told well in this film.  More later I hope.  

I'm headed out to the Alaska Experience Theater for Uncensored Shorts at 10:30, then The Collaborator at 1pm and then for Female Filmmaker Showcase at 5:30 at the Bear Tooth and then Rosemead at 8:30.  

J took our guests to the 9am meetup and pitch session.  There's also a film maker pizza party later and their meeting the Austrian Honorary Consul General - Katrine is Austrian - and the Consul has been supportive of the film.  

AiFF2025: Witty Youngman, Saturday Thoughts, It's Cold!

 Friday night (really went into Saturday morning) I was too tired to upload my video of Witty Youngman, especially knowing I was getting up early Saturday.  

Witty played after the movie Burt.  She'd been asked to play an original song from the movie Burt but said she got it fairly late and what she got wasn't too easy to listen to, so she made her own adaptation.  

But then she went on to play for another 40 minutes or more.  The combo of her exquisite voice and guitar work was enchanting.  I couldn't help but capturing some of it for you.  (And for me.)  So far, she has been the highlight of the festival for me.  

It's Sunday morning and I dropped our film maker houseguests off at the Alaska Experience Theater for bagels, networking, and the morning filmmaker panel (anyone can go to these.)  Yesterday I stayed because the panel was for first time feature makers and Nikolas and Katrine were on the panel for their

Katrine, Nikolas, Richie, Emelio

film The World Outside (Draußen die Welt) (the ß is a German letter for double ss).  The other two panelists were Richie James Rollin, whose film Crystal Cross plays tonight (Sunday) at 8:30pm at the Museum, and Emilio Miguel Torres, whose film The Ladder plays at the Museum at 6pm.  I think the moderator, on the left, was Joe Burke, who made Burt. 

This link gives more background on all the features being shown today (Sunday).

I have a bit of time to reflect on the Festival so far before I head back downtown.  

1.  This is the coldest festival I remember.  While the temperature yesterday wasn't terribly low - around 14˚F (-9˚C), the strong and constant wind made it feel (according to my weather app) like -6˚F  (-21ºC).  But at one point we took a bus home and waiting in the wind was brutal.  Fortunately Katrine and Nikolas are much younger and enjoyed the adventure of being in Alaska cold.  But I have to say that -6˚F without a wind is not as cold for me as it was yesterday.

2.  So far I haven't seen a movie that blew me away.  I enjoyed  Brut  on opening night very much.  It's quirky, the characters are great. I liked a lot of the images.  Even though views of cars driving along highways are pretty common in movies, there was one shot of the car going along a winding road that was just exactly right.  

 SPOILER ALERT:  The story is one that happens to a lot of people, particularailly older people (not the specific details, but the idea of a scam).  A plot flaw, in my mind, was Sammy's car.  He was supposed to have come to LA for a few days from New York.  It's unlikely he would drive his own car to LA for a few days.  But if he did, he would have had a New York license plate.  And even Burt would have noticed that he had California plates.  

2.  In The Wake of Justice Delayed was a well-made and effective film focused on the impacts of violence against Native women in Alaska.  Survivors  talked about the impact on them  of losing someone this way.  We joined them in their own space to share that impact.  

Remaining Native was another important film that followed the great grandson of a survivor of Indian Boarding schools.  There were two related stories.  The first was about the boarding schools ("No school should have a cemetery.") and how his great grandfather had run away three times.  The third time he ran 50 miles home.  So Ku Stevens decides to set up a 50 mile run for people to remember their ancestors who had been in boarding schools.  The second story was Ku's own life as a long distance runner on his rural tribal land high school, and trying to get the attention of college recruiters.  While the two stories are clearly related, I would have liked to see them better integrated in the movie.  That said, I don't have suggestions so I don't know how to do it better.  

Both these are important movies.  But I'm waiting for the films about what motivated the school teachers and administrators to treat the Native American kids so badly.  And what causes the men to commit terrible violence on Native women?  Because I think those stories would help us understand what motivates people to join ICE, and a lot of the people who support Trump.  What happened at the boarding schools is happening today to immigrants, transgender folk, women,  and everyone else who doesn't support those in power.  And what kinds of childhoods did the men who torture women have that led them to their evil deeds?  

That isn't the responsibility of the filmmakers of In the Wake of Justice Delayed and Remaining Indian, but I'm hoping someone steps up to address those questions.  (Yeah, I know, I should do it.  I'll put it on my todo list.)

3. Drink And Be Merry:  I'm not a fan of movies that feature alcoholics and bars.  I don't drink more than a glass or two of wine and that not very often.  Watching alcoholics drinking and doing stupid things is like watching a kid playing much too close to a cliff or someone driving a car way too fast.  I'm uncomfortable the whole time.  But Nikolas and Katrine thought it would be better than most such films and so we went.  I could have skipped it. But if that topic is your thing, then you might well have enjoyed it.  My cynical self thought, "The Bear Tooth is playing it because people watching others drink will sell more wine and beer in the theater."

4.  Nikolas and I went to the Alaska Experience Theater to watch Fucktoys.  I'd looked it up and thought it might offer us some insights into people's sexual hangups, but I didn't catch any insights.  We didn't learn anything about the motivation of the men who were paying to be sexually hurt and humiliated, for example. And it seems the curse was never lifted.  But then she substituted a goat for a lamb and I'm not sure it was ever sacrificed.  

5.  Finally, the Thriller shorts.  Again, this is not my genre at all and I should have stayed home.  Most, if not all, appeared to be scenes of a future feature film.  None told a whole story.  The acting in Confidential Informant was strong, but I wasn't thrilled watching a female cop coercing a reluctant informant by threatening to place her child into foster care.  It seemed abusive and while that technique may yield some names (it didn't get that far in the short film), it causes a crisis for the child.  Do cops have the moral right to do that to mothers and their children?  Maybe getting people to ask that question will be the point of the feature film if it gets made.  I like Charon because as I was watching I remembered that Charon

 "is the boatman who ferries the souls of the dead across the waters of Hades to the judgement which will determine their final resting place." (From World History Encyclopedia)

6.  I got to talk to Tony Sheppard- the man who started the Anchorage International Film Festival 25 years ago.  He's here until Monday.  I should have taken a picture and if I see him again, I will.  

At film festivals you see so many movies and meet so many new people from all over that time warps.  Already yesterday (Saturday) the opening night movie seemed to have happened a week ago.  And so not having seen my favorite dilm yet isn't a big deal.  It's only been one day plus an evening show.  

But Witty Youngman's guitar and voice stand out as my highlight so far.  

AIFF 2025: Great Opening Night With Film Burt

The Bear Tooth was full on opening night to watch Burt on opening night of the Anchorage International Film Festival tonight.                      The clip above is from a brief audio Q&A with the leading character, Burt.                                               This was a truly unique film.  The main character played himself - a 69 year old guitarist with Parkinson Disease.  His remote Steve played himself.  Though the story was fictional.                       The film makers say they filmed this in seven days for $7000.  

In the Q&A director Burke said all his previous experience let him just go with the actors/characters with different cameras and that gave him enough to edit it into an absorbing film. He also credited Burt and Steve as natural actors who made this sort of film possible.  In the clip above Burt (facing us) is talking with the man who walks into his life claiming to be his son.

It's going on 1am and I have to get up early tomorrow.  I want to say a bit more about this film.  But for now, here is a bit of the Q&A with the film's director Joe Burke.  The audio isn't as clear as I'd like, but it is understandable.  He did take pretty fast for most of the Q&A.

And the post wouldn't be complete with my mentioning Witty Youngman, who played guitar after the movie - starting out with a song Burt sang in the movie.  She had a hauntingly lovely voice that kept people in the theater much longer than normal.  

AIFF2025: Nikolas and Katrine Are In Anchorage for the Film Festival

 

We picked up Nikolas and Katrina at the airport Wednesday night and brought them home.  Thursday we did a tour of AIFF sites (sights?) in Anchorage.  Above they are at the Baar Tooth with the poster for their German language film The World Outside, which will be shown next Friday - December 12 - at the Alaska Experience Theater at 8:30pm.  

Then we stopped at the museum to see the auditorium there and did a quick hello the pink polar bear.

Today we went to the Campbell Airstrip and walked through the snowy woods.  

T

Then we stopped to visit Dr. Margritt Engel who has just moved into a new apartment in Chester Park.  It's still full of boxes.  Dr. Engel is a Professor Emerita of German at the University of Alaska Anchorage.  And we had a lively conversation.  My brain was taxed (nicely) as they spoke in German and I did my best to use my rusty German as well.  There were lots of words I haven't heard spoken in a long time.  

When I was a student in Göttingen, German in the 1960s, I visited friends and relatives of my parents who were still alive.  My step-father's cousin invited me to visit them in Berlin, which I did several times during the year.  They had two children - Claudia was ten at the time and Stefan was 7 (I think.)

Long story short, Nikolas is Claudia's son.  I'd met him at his mom's house in Berlin about 15 years ago.  He'd worked on a film and we went to the premier.  Afterward I told him to apply to the Anchorage International Film Festival.  

While we were in Turkey recently, I got an email from Nikolas saying his new film which he made with his girlfriend Katrine, was accepted at AIFF and they were coming to Anchorage.  Naturally, we invited them to stay with us.  

So all that is to let you know I'm probably  a little biased here.  I haven't seen the film, but we've talked about it.  And I plan to do an interview before it is shown next Friday (December 12).  

It's about a woman with agoraphobia - fear of going outside.  But she gets an invitation to a good friend's wedding.  For me that sounds a little depressing, but they've assured me they endeavored to help people learn about and better understand agoraphobia and how it affects people, but in a way that is compelling and even funny at times.  I'm looking forward to seeing it - especially since Katrine is the main actor.  Nikolas gave me this still from the film which he likes much better than the one the Festival folks picked.

They are here for the whole festival, so look for them or for me and talk to them.  They are very friendly and their English is excellent.  And they are both lots of fun.  

And if you know any German speakers, or people with an interest in mental health issues, let them know about this film.  Again:

Friday, December 12 at the Alaska Experience Theater at 8:30pm.    The World Outside or in German Draußen die Welt.  (The ß is the German letter for a double S.)

See you tonight at the Bear Tooth for the opening film, Burt.

AIFF2025 - Sunday's Features

I'm trying to cover the Feature films showing at the Anchorage International Film Festival.  Here are the features - both narrative and documentary - playing on Sunday Dec. 7. 

Hide — Ian Sciacaluga

This is a UK film.

From Letterboxd:

"Angie, an illustrator, is focused on a new assignment - a graphic novel of magical realism. She uses her work to escape the reality of her fractious marriage to Edward, whose behaviour has become erratic under pressure from his failing business. Unexpectedly, Angie’s estranged mother dies. Inflamed by her death, Angie’s sister, Molly, makes an explosive revelation about the sisters’ family past, conjuring up memories of a childhood trauma that torment Angie’s mind and invade her illustrations. Her real and fictional worlds ominously fuse and come alive in the nightmarish woods of her horrific childhood. It’s up to her creative mind to release her from her damning past."

From an interview with director Ian Sciacaluga at Art Film Awards:

"What inspired you to pursue a career in filmmaking?

I was mesmerised by Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounter sof the Third Kind” when I saw it as a 12 year-old back in 1979 (it came out in 1978). It was a magical and, almost religious, experience for me and the first time that I felt I was being manipulated by a person behind the camera. It was a realisation that this medium called film could make true any story of imagination you could muster for a big audience and you could turn dreams into a celluloid reality with incredible worlds and unforgettable characters. As I grew older and acquired a Braun 561 Super 8 camera, I learned about, not only techniques, but the importance of themes and subtexts, character arcs and mise en scenes to convey narratives, which made the medium of film all the more fascinating and arousing."

Sunday, Dec. 7, 1pm Alaska Experience Theater

Also at 1pm is You're No Indian, at the Museum,  I touched on that here.  

A Little Fellow: The Legacy of A.P. Giannini — Davide Fiore

From Collective Eye Films: 

"Before banks in the U.S. had a branch on every corner, they were an exclusive service for the wealthy. For the poor, working, and immigrant class, saving money was as unreliable as stashing it under a mattress. But at the turn of the 20th century, Amadeo Peter (A.P.) Giannini, son of Italian immigrants, revolutionized the industry with his small Bank of Italy in San Francisco.

As a first-generation Italian-American, his goal was to serve “the little fellow” and breed prosperity within his immigrant community. But, by building trust and giving loans on a simple handshake, he created one of the largest banks in the country – Bank of America.

A Little Fellow tells the story of a man who struck fear into the heart of Wall Street while having everyday people in mind. Known as “People’s banker,” he gave a friendly face to a greedy industry. As one of the first investors in Hollywood, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hewlett-Packard, his forward-thinking helped the country through two World Wars and the Great Depression."

From an interview with director Davide Fiore at Adobe Blog:

"How and where did you first learn to edit?

Back in high school, I had this little side gig — pranking my teachers. Nothing too crazy, just a couple of cameras, some staged scenes, and a whole lot of sneaky fun. It was my version of "no harm, no foul." I'd film the whole thing and then dive into editing. Honestly, editing was like a game to me at first, just figuring out what crazy stuff I could create.

Fast forward to college, and I decided to level up. I did 3 years of Virtual and Digital Design. I got my hands on Adobe Premiere and After Effects — those were my new toys. That’s when I first met motion graphics. It was 2008, 2009, and I was like, “Wait, this is magic, right?” That’s when I realized editing wasn't just about cutting footage, it was about making the impossible look cool." 

Sun, Dec 07 2025 3:30pm  Anchorage Museum 

The Ladder is at 6pm at Museum.  I posted on The Ladder here.

Crystal Cross - Richie James Follin

From Letterboxd:  

Synopsis

SOMETIMES LOVE MEANS NOT KILLING YOURSELF.

A quirky Christian singer and a suicidal dad drive cross-country, forging an unlikely bond through bad decisions, bizarre roadside attractions, and an all-original soundtrack. “Crystal Cross” is a hilarious, bittersweet road trip about two lost souls finding comfort (but not salvation) in each other’s messes.

Reviewer  Movieswithame at the Austin Film Festival begins:

In Richie James Follin’s Crystal Cross, you can actually sense the joy of making it radiating through the screen. It’s a road movie, a love story, a dark comedy, but more than anything, it’s a film that feels handmade in the best possible way. There’s a rawness to it that can’t be faked. Every frame, every imperfect camera wobble, every sun-flared highway shot carries the energy of a filmmaker who’s figuring it out as he goes, and somehow, that ends up being the film’s greatest strength.

Sun, Dec 07 2025 8:30pm  Anchorage Museum

Also at 8:30 pm - at Alaska Experience Theater - is The Mariana Trench which I posted about here

I'm getting a bit sleepy, so if anyone finds some errors - particularly when and where a film is showing, please let me know.  Thanks.  Just two more days to go.  

San Francisco Housing - Sunset District

Many, many San Francisco houses are attached, one to the other, block by block.  

My son's family lives in the Sunset District which is south of Golden Gate Park and stretches down to the ocean.  As we walk the neighborhood, I'm struck by how these houses were, for the most part, built up against each other.  There are minor cosmetic differences - window shapes particularly - but most have steps up to the front door and a tiny garage.  Many of the steps have been covered over, so they are now inside with an iron gate. And some use color to make their house more distinctive. 

Here are some examples:

A 2013 report by Mary Brown  for the San Francisco Planning Department - SUNSET DISTRICT

RESIDENTIAL BUILDERS, 1925-1950  Historic Context Statement - tells us:

"The vast majority of construction activity in the Sunset District occurred between 1925 and 1950. The mid-1920s witnessed the introduction of the form and massing of residential buildings constructed in the neighborhood for the following 25 years: a stucco-clad, single-family house, with integrated garage at the ground story and living spaces above. The houses were tightly packed on 25-foot-wide lots, giving the appearance of small-scale attached row houses. The end date of 1950 was chosen to mark the slowing down of the frenzied construction activity that occurred following the end of World War II and the shift from single-family houses to multi-family complexes and residential towers. Major factors that influenced design and construction of residential tracts during this 25-year period included infrastructure development, such as the construction of streetcar tunnels and graded streets to cross the sand dunes, the mass adoption of automobiles, the Great Depression and resultant federal government intervention to stimulate building and increase home ownership, population shifts associated with the defense industry, and the postwar population boom."

This is just one paragraph from the 115 page report, which includes lots of photos of houses, and descriptions of the different styles and architectural features.  

The missing house below was a meth lab that blew up in February 2023..  The two next to it were badly damaged and many of the houses on the block had windows blown out.  \

Here's what it looked like a couple of days after the explosion.  You can see moe pictures of it here (below the Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Oak Park).

I'd note that this house is not far from Golden Gate Park which has bison in one area.  

AIFF 2025: Features Through Saturday Dec. 8 - From Burt to Fucktoys

Shorts are important at a film festival.  They're often the draft first chapters of feature length films.  

But the features - the longer films - are what many (most?) filmmakers are aiming for.  So I'm going to try to highlight the features being shown at the festival.  I'll try to cover those shown at the beginning and get others later.  

Burt - Joe Burke

This is the opening night movie.  That means people at the Festival really liked it.  

Friday, Dec 5, 2025 -  7:30 PM: Opening Night Film - Beartooth

From the filmmaker's webpage: 

Burt, a 69-year-old street musician living with Parkinson’s, has his life turned upside down when Sammy, a wayward young man from New York, shows up claiming to be his son. Having always dreamed of being a father, Burt embraces Sammy and invites him to stay for the weekend at his home, where he lives with his grumpy landlord, Steve.

Inspired by the real-life of singer/songwriter Burt Berger, who stars in the film alongside actor Oliver Cooper; this movie blurs the line between reality and fiction with disarming authenticity. An instant laugh-out-loud-and-cry indie darling. The movie is a powerful love letter to Burt, his music, and the filmmaker’s own father, who also lives with Parkinson’s.

The LA Times headline for its review of the film:  "They shot the film in seven days for $7,000"

[Editorial Comment:  But the page has a pop up that requires me to agree to arbitration and a class action waiver and all their cookies.  No opt outs.  So the headline is all I'll see of the review because I can't agree to that.  Folks, be good consumers - there are millions of websites out there.  If the site opt out options are onerous, don't just agree.  Delete the page and find one that's more user friendly.]

​Here's an interview with the two film makers on YouTube

 

In The Wake Of Justice Delayed  -   Mary Katzke

Saturday, Dec 6 , 2025, Alaska Experience Theater (AKEX)  10:00 AM

From the Alaska Beacon

"A new documentary profiles two Alaska Native families as they seek justice for their murdered loved ones, diving into the generational trauma of families and communities grappling with violence, barriers within the criminal justice system and years of grief and unanswered questions.  

The new film, “In the Wake of Justice Delayed,” follows five years in the families’ search for justice – in two cases of murder of Native women, one more recent murder in Palmer in 2019 and one decades ago in Point Hope in 1985 – and a diving into the interconnected grief and impacts of violence in the ongoing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, particularly women, in Alaska.

The documentary opens with the statement: “Native women and girls experience a murder rate 10 times higher than the national average,” by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

'Women are not just statistics. They are not just numbers,' said Alice Quannik Glenn, a journalist and podcast host from Utgiagvik featured in the film. 'They’re real people that influence the other people around them. They influence their communities. So when one of us isn’t safe, it makes us all vulnerable.'”

 

Sgt. Stubby: An Unlikely Hero — Richard Lanni

I'm not sure why this film is being shown at the festival this year.  All the reviews I've seen are dated 2018, which is much older than films are supposed to be to get into the festival.  

Saturday, Dec 6 , 2025, Alaska Experience Theater (AKEX)  3:30pm

From a Deseret News review in 2018. 

“'SGT. STUBBY: AN AMERICAN HERO' — 2 stars — Voices of Logan Lerman, Helena Bonham Carter, Gerard Depardieu, Jason Ezzell; PG (war action and some thematic elements); in general release

Based on a true story, Richard Lanni’s “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero” follows the animated adventures of a dog that served in the U.S. Army during World War I.

For a brief moment, we see a small mutt deep in the trenches in France during March 1918, then we flash back six months to the United States, where a contingency of U.S. soldiers is training to enter World War I."

F*cktoys — Annapurna Sriram 

I'd note, from what I can tell, the film itself doesn't have an *.  

Definitely the most provocative title in the festival.  

Saturday, Dec 6 , 2025,  Museum  6:30 PM

From PurpleHour:

"The five of cups, the hanged man, and the sun—even if you don’t know how to read tarot, that’s fine, because Annapurna Sriram’s boldly titled Fucktoys tells us that the combination is plan ol’ bad luck. Our hero AP (Sriram herself) begins her journey in the middle of a huge swamp, where a tarot reader (iconic genderfluid bounce artist Big Freedia) tells her frankly, that she’s been cursed. Those teeth that have been falling out? Yeah, that’s black magic. Capitalism, of course, is her way out: the only way she can undo the magic is by gathering one thousand dollars to have the tarot reader lift the curse, involving a ritual slaughter of a baby lamb. If not, then bad, bad things will happen.

What else is AP to do but hop on her crystal blue moped, adorned with a sparkly unicorn, and begin to gather the money—a delightful fairytale-like starter to Sriram’s debut feature. . . "

IndieWire has a piece on this film titled, "Why the F*ck has Nobody Bought F*cktoys?" (*s in the original).  Basically, the answer is she hasn't gotten the right offer yet.  The last line of the article:

“I would never let a client talk down my rate,” she said. “Why would I let a distributor?”

Remaining Native — Paige Bethmann 

I've already spotlighted this on November 18.  

Saturday, Dec 6 , 2025,  Bear Tooth  12:00 pm

Drink and Be Merry — Adam Volerich

Saturday, Dec 6 , 2025,  Bear Tooth  3:00 pm

From the Tallahassee Film Festival: 

"Set at a struggling New York dive bar in the days leading up to Christmas, 2019. Its protagonist, Chet (Jefferson White), is a beleaguered bartender in a state of extended arrested development, who must balance taking care of his misanthropic, aging regulars — who have nowhere else to go, and rely on him for far more than pouring drinks — with his naive desires to muster some Christmas spirit."

I can't find much more than this on the film.  There are reports that they wrapped up filming in February of this year, so it hasn't been to many festivals yet.  I guess. This isn't a topic I enjoy watching, but there have been excellent films about alcohol addiction.  It's playing at the Bear Tooth, so someone thought it would get a good crowd. 

The GOP's Despicable Demonization Of Transgender People

[Introduction:  As I watch people posting charts and citing statistics to make various cases online, I also realize that only 37+ percent of adult USians* have four year college degrees.  That means that many, if not most, only have the sketchiest grasp of how to read graphs, or even to understand basic ideas like percentages.  The same is true of a lot of words - they are not in many people's vocabulary and they have a vague or even wrong understanding of many words.  Of course that's not true of my readers :), but sometimes I feel the need to get more basic in my explanations just in case someone wants to use something I write to expand a friend or relative's understanding about a topic.]

I've been thinking about a post like this for a while.  A post somewhere this morning saying it was Transgender Awareness Week, seems to have pushed me to write this today.  Though there's probably enough reminders today and I'd be better off putting this up another time.  But, here are my thoughts on this.  I'm trying to give people as many links as possible to expand their knowledge on this topic.  

The current administration makes a habit of demonizing groups of people its base has little or no actual contact with.  They made up stories about Haitian immigrants who were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.  (A subheading of that Psychology Today story says the immigrants were 'mistakenly' accused.  There was no 'mistakenly.'  The campaign saw an inflammatory story and ran with it, intentionally adding another log into their firestorm of hatred.)  

The campaign constantly talked about immigrants who were criminals, drug dealers, murderers, and rapists.  Those who didn't know it was all flagrant falsehoods to stir them up to vote for their criminal rapist candidate, are now shocked when ICE comes after the immigrants who look after their children, grow their food, clean their cars, build their houses, and even are their relatives, their spouses. 

They also attacked non-Christians, especially Muslims, even though their presidential candidate was chummy with the Middle Eastern prince who chopped up an American journalist.  Again, there was no danger to USians from non-Christians that was greater than the danger from Christians themselves.  It was just another fictional class of villains to scare voters.  And there are campaigns against "anti-Christian bias"  which seems to mean any criticism of Christian values enacted into law to govern the behavior of non-Christians in this predominantly Christian nation.

Among the relatively unknown minorities in the US are transgender folks.  By 'unknown' I mean few people actually know someone who is transgender.  And the campaign made transgender folks a major campaign target.  This is my focus today.

Targeting transgender folks gains traction for several reasons:

1.  The idea of a clear cut dichotomy between male and female just seems so natural.  We ask whether new babies are girls or boys.  The difference between a vagina and a penis is pretty convincing.  

The idea of the world being flat makes perfect sense for someone living on what appears to be and feels like flat ground.  But from different perspectives, with greater information, it eventually becomes clear that the earth - like the round moon in the sky - is a sphere.  

And with greater context and from different perspectives, it's also clear that the dichotomy of male or female is also a gross simplification.  

Some societies have long recognized there were people who didn't fit into that either/or category.  See:

PBS - A Map of Gender Diverse Cultures

Anthropology Review - Non-Binary Gender Identities in Different Cultures

2.  Most people have little or no personal contact with a transgender person.  A PewResearch study says 42% of US population say the know someone who is transgender, with the percent higher among the youngest.  But it doesn't clarify what exactly 'know' means.  Have they spoken to the person?  About transgender issues?  Have they had them over for dinner?  We don't know.  Our schools do little or nothing to help students understand anything about trans people, and Evangelical congregations do their best to demonize them.     

• About 10% of the population are left-handed. 
• About 2 million men per year beat their partners, according to the F.B.I.  (That's not a percentage, but that's more than all the transgender people in the US. according to the study below, though others offer a higher number.)  
• Approximately 1.5 million people attempted suicide in 2023.  49,000 successfully.
• 804,926 Americans were arrested for suspected DUI in 2024, representing 11% of all arrests nationwide.  12,429 people were killed by drunk drivers.
• New data on violence against transgender people in the U.S. shows there have been at least 399 cases of fatal violence against trans people since 2013, including 27 murders in the past year alone, with no indication the trend is slowing.
• 86% of people don't fact check news on social media  and here's a related study showing people are not that good at spotting fake news, and it differs for Democrats and Republicans
• 10% of US population believe the earth is flat. Another 9% aren't sure

I was just trying to find some numbers to put the number of transgender people into context.  Raw numbers without context, without other numbers, don't mean that much to most people.  You can look up other numbers that might be more relevant.  

Bur my basic point is that transgender people are simply not a major danger to anyone compared to other things we ought to be spending time and money on.  

3.   People don't know that much about the science of gender, even people who support transgender rights.  This is hard to prove, but this study by PewResearch seems to support it:

"When asked what has influenced their views on gender identity – specifically, whether they believe a person can be a different gender than the sex they were assigned at birth – those who believe gender can be different from sex at birth and those who do not point to different factors. For the former group, the most influential factors shaping their views are what they’ve learned from science (40%) say this has influenced their views a great deal or a fair amount) and knowing someone who is transgender (38%). Some 46% of those who say gender is determined by sex at birth also point to what they’ve learned from science, but this group is far more likely than those who say a person’s gender can be different from their sex at birth to say their religious beliefs have had at least a fair amount of influence on their opinion (41% vs. 9%)."  .  

If 40% rely on science, that means 60% do not.   And exactly what science are the 'gender is determined by sex at birth' crowd reading?  

This map is interactive online

From World Population Data where this map is interactive.  While it gives percentages for each state, it doesn't give percentage for the United States as a whole.  It does give a US total of 1,337,200 transgender people in the US but no percentage.  Further, that number is probably low because it is hard to identify transgender people - particularly those who haven't publicly identified themselves as transgender.  Using a US population figure of 347,999,881 from Worldometer, I get a total percentage of .0038 for the United States. I'll use that as a rough estimate, given the total population is more recent than the study itself.  A further complication is that the number I used is of people 18 and older.  The site says that younger people identify as transgender at a higher percent of the population than older transgender folks.  In any case, the number of transgender people is quite small.  

What do we learn from this map?

1.  Less than one percent of USians* identify as transgender.  That means for a group of 100 randomly selected people, there maybe one or no people who identify as transgender.  The Alaska number was .7% of the Alaska population.  That means out of 100 people .7 identify as transgender.  But, of course, we know, we don't have any .7 people walking around.  If we double the sample size from 100 to 200, then we'd double the number of people from .7 to 1.4.  Again, there are no .4 people walking around.  So let's go up to 300.  That would yield 2.1 people.  So, essentially 2 people for every 300 people.

 

That means most people don't know, or aren't aware they know, a transgender person.  And if they do, most of the 300 people have never had a heart to heart talk with that person to gain an understanding of what being transgender means to that person, how the person figured out they were transgender, or anything else other than the fact that the person is transgender.  

One can also learn about transgender people through other sources:  books, movies, media.  There are a number of books written about transgender people - fiction, biography, science.  

OVERCOMING IGNORANCE

Mayo Clinic:  Transgender Facts - basically a list of definitions

American Psychological Society - Understanding transgender people, gender identity and gender expression

The above two are basically sciency definitions.  The next one is similar, but adds a bit of human experience into it.

Advocates for Trans Equality - Trans 101

The ones below  offer books by trans folks themselves.  

19thNews - 21 books bringing transgender visibility to book lovers

GLAAD - Eight Books from Trans Authors to Read for Trans Awareness Week

*USians is a term some people use instead of Americans as a way of recognizing that all people who live in the Western Hemisphere - from Canada to Argentina - are Americans, not just people in the United States.  

AIFF2025: Festival Passes, Nazi Art Thief, Remaining Native Or Not - UPDATED

 The button on the film festival website is now working and you can buy all film passes.  Last year the new  directors of the AIFF Pat McGee and Adam Linkenhelt did away with all film passes altogether.  There was some pushback and some were made available.  I was told there will be a limited number of passes this year.  The price is $200 each, considerably more than in the past.  That's still a lot cheaper than buying tickets one-by-one if you're going to as many films as you can.  There are a number of folks who have been doing that for many years.  It's still not clear on the website  a) how to buy individual tickets for events, or b) how much they will cost this year.  [UPDATED: Nov 19, 2025 - You can purchase tickets for individual showings for $12.  So if you're going to see more than 16 events a pass is the way to go. And you don't have to buy tickets each time. In the past you did have to get tickets at the Bear Tooth by showing your pass. (You could do one Friday, five on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday each.  There are more showings than that, but they are at the same time.)]

But if you want a festival pass, I suggest getting on the website and scrolling down until you see the link to buy passes.  

This year there are a lot of films showing at the same time.  If you have a lot of programs (showings of a feature film, or showing of a block of shorts) this will, inevitably happen.  But looking at Monday's programming, both the Alaska Experience Theater and F Street Theater have 10:30am and 1 pm showings.  Bear Tooth has a 5:30 showing.  So one of the downtown venues could have started at 10:30am and the other at noon, with a 2:30 or 3pm showing.  Then there would have only been one overlapping event.  The second Saturday, they have spaced things out so there is no overlap. 

I'd also note that on Thursday, December 11 in the online schedule as of my writing this, at 7:00 30 pm in the Museum it says:  "Jewish Museum Feature."  I'm guessing that was a place holder until the webmaster got the name of the film.  I spoke to the director of the Jewish Museum here in Anchorage and she said the film was:

Plunderer:  The Life and Times of a Nazi Art Thief - Hugo MacGregor.  

Image from 7th Art

From MFABoston: 

“'It’s not every day that you meet an old Nazi.' So begins historian Jonathan Petropoulos, recalling the day in 1998 when he first met Bruno Lohse, Hermann Göring’s art agent in Paris during World War II. Once an obscure art dealer, Lohse rose to prominence in Göring’s inner circle, personally orchestrating history’s most infamous art theft ring for Hitler’s right-hand man.

Filmed over five years and in seven countries, Plunderer: The Life and Times of a Nazi Art Thief unfolds as a detective story with Petropoulos detailing Lohse’s role in stealing countless masterpieces from liquidated Jews across Europe, and the web of postwar complicity that shielded the Nazi criminal from meaningful justice. This compelling tale exposes the art market’s disregard for provenance and confronts the enduring human cost of these crimes. It also raises questions about the ethical consequences when a writer falls prey to a source and becomes a part of the story. Produced by John Friedman under the aegis of the National Center for Jewish Film."

[UPDATED NOV 19 - It's still listed as Jewish Museum Feature and if you search that, you can get tickets now.]

And here are a few more film previews:  Remaining Native and You're Not Native.  It seems these two really should be listed together.  

Thursday, December 11  7:00 pm in the Museum

Remaining Native - Paige Bethmann

From Variety:

"Director Paige Bethmann’s technically polished and utterly absorbing film skillfully forges a link between past and present by focusing on Kutoven “Ku” Stevens,  a 17-year-old Native American determined to earn a University of Oregon scholarship in track — despite his living on the Yerington Paiute reservation in Northwest Nevada, a place rarely if ever visited by college scouts, and being the only cross-country runner at a high school that lacks a track coach.

Ku’s parents strongly support his pursuit of his daunting goal — especially as they attend track meets where Ku runs so far ahead of his competitors he appears to be moving into a different zip code. And he’s lucky enough to be spotted by Lupe Cabada, a running coach who recognizes Ku’s formidable abilities, and guides him toward competing in meets where the young runner can be seen by the right people.

But there’s more to Ku’s obsession than his O of U dreams. As he runs across the rural Nevada landscapes, he is driven by stories he has been told about his great-grandfather, Frank Quinn, who at age eight fled from confinement at an especially brutal Indian Boarding School by literally running away — 50 miles away, to be precise — after two failed attempts at escape.

“Maybe they got tired of chasing him,” Ku speculates. Many other students, however, weren’t nearly so lucky. Indeed, as “Remaining Native” progresses, and the first waves of accounts about unmarked graves discovered at former Indian Boarding Schools hit the news, the horrors are exposed and the estimated death count escalates."

You're No Indian - Ryan Flynn

From ITC:

"Directed by Ryan Flynn, the film gained the support of Wes Studi and Tantoo Cardinal who joined the project as executive producers.

Cardinal, a celebrated Métis actor with Cree, Nakota and Dene heritage, told ICT: “‘You’re No Indian’ is a powerful story that needed to be told. Our people are being erased, by our own tribal governments, and that truth struck a nerve. The stories in this film lit a fire in me. You see families broken apart, identity stolen, communities suffering in silence. I couldn’t ignore that. Many are too afraid to speak up, knowing they could be next. I joined this project to help lift their voices.”

Why has disenrollment become such a major issue?

“Disenrollment is not new,” Cardinal says. “It’s a modern-day extension of the same forces that have tried to erase Indigenous identity for generations. More than 11,000 people have already been disenrolled, and many more were never acknowledged at all. Their stories speak to a crisis hiding in plain sight. ‘You’re No Indian’ confronts that silence, revealing just how widespread, and devastating, this injustice truly is.

'It’s about the money,' director Flynn told ICT. “It’s unfortunately underreported – entire families and histories are wiped out with no recourse. We created this film to shine a light on this practice and amplify the voices of those affected. One person gets disenrolled and it wipes out the whole lineage.'” 

 Sunday, Dec. 7, 1pm at the Museum

I haven't seen any of the films I've featured in this post and the two previous posts.  They were simply selected based on the screenshots up on the AIFF 2025 website and the titles.  Or, in the case of Plunderer,  which I've added because it isn't on the website yet at all.  This is a way for me to find out more about what is coming and to share with you.  These aren't necessarily recommendations.