AIFF 2025: Wild Horses and The World Outside And Much More Friday

 In addition to spending much of the day watching movies, we also have two film makers staying with us and so we talk when we get home at night.  Blogging suffers.  

Below is the Friday schedule from the AIFF website. (The link only takes you to the main schedule page and you have to click on Friday to get the details.)

Yesterday (really it feels like it was only this morning) I put up a video of our house guests talking about their feature narrative The World Outside.  This is a World Premier  The first public screening of this film.  Right here in Anchorage.  I haven't seen the film, but I've heard a lot about it from our houseguests, so go to the link above and watch the video of them. 

Waiting in the food line this afternoon at the Bear Tooth, before the documentary The Last Dive (which was worth seeing just for the wonder of watching huge oceanic manta rays) I met Carrie Lederer whose film Wild Horses At The Door plays in the Doc Shorts 2 program at 10:30 am at the E Street Theater. 

 [NOTE:  This has been moved from the museum as has the 1pm screening at the museum.  So this is different from the written program, but it was updated on the online program.]

Also, note that the online schedule is by venue first, then by time.  So there is a 10:30 film down at the bottom at the Alaska Experience Theater.  

The schedule formatting seems to have done weird stuff when I copied it from the website.  It's going on 1:30am now, so I'm going to leave it.  If it's too hard to read go to the AIFF website and pick Friday from the bar on the top of the schedule. 

Venue:

UPDATE: E Street Theater

315 E Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501

10:30 AM: Shorts Block: Doc Shorts 2 – Event Tickets

• Follow the Flower — Destyn Patera
• Brewer — Erika Valenciana
• Corteza — Simon Acosta
• Liam & Friends — Chad
• Loki Pete — BJ Bullert
• Wild Horses at the Door — Carrie Lederer

1:00 PM: Shorts Block: Is It Love? – Event Tickets

• The Wedding — Matt Latham
• Te Seguiré a la Oscuridad — Nicholas Luciano 
• Empano Gleasium — Joe Bowden
• I’m Not Sure — Mylissa Fitzsimmons
• Reminisce — Leslie Morris 
• Tango in Room 1310 — Colin Alistair Campbell
• Double Date — Hannah Wolf
• A King’s Curtain — Grant M. Johnson

Venue:

Anchorage Museum

625 C Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501

3:30 PM: Feature

• I’ve Seen All I Need To See — Zeshaan Younus – Event Tickets

6:00 PM: Feature

• The Long Run — Mylissa Fitzsimmons – Event Tickets

8:30 PM: Feature

• Lockjaw — Sabrina Greco – Event Tickets

Venue:

Alaskan Experience

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

10:30 AM: Feature

• Ashes of The Mountain — Joseph Lindley – Event Tickets

1:00 PM: Shorts Block: Arctic Shorts – Event Tickets

• Greenland – Living with the Inuit — Josefin Kuschela
• In Search of the Arctic Fox — Zach Hellmuth
• Let My People Go Skiing — Ellen Bradley

3:30 PM: Shorts Block: Alaska Doc Shorts – Event Tickets

• Iditarod: The Loneliest Road — Mason Quinn Schwarz
• The Story of a Slough — Dawson Brannan 
• Silver Rush — Kelsey Kroon 
• Hidden Roots — Brad Hillwig 
• Swift Current Swimmer — John W. Bushell

6:00 PM: Feature

• Comparsa — Vickie Curtis, Doug Anderson – Event Tickets

8:30 PM: Feature

• The World Outside — Katrine Eichberger, Nikolas Mühe – Event Tickets

AIFF2025: The World Outside [Draußen die Welt] World Premier, Friday, 8:30pm at Alaska Experience Theater

 As someone blogging the Anchorage International Film Festival, I try to be as objective as possible.  I try to help film makers get attention to their films but I also have to be honest with my viewers.  

In this case, I have not seen the film or even a trailer, so I have no opinion on how good the film is.  

But, I do need to let readers know that I first met the grandparents of Nikolas Mühe in 1964.  I was a student in Göttingen, Germany for a year and they invited me to visit them in Berlin because they were related to my step-father.  

Here's a picture of me then with Nikolas' mother.

Nikolas and Katrine have been staying with us during the festival and we're enjoying their company.  I've done a post about them here already.  I've been trying to put together a short video of them talking about their film.  We thought we had plenty of time to make the video and we (mostly I) fooled around too much.  

But here it is - you can see the filmmakers now and learn a bit about their movie.  Then you can meet them in person after the Friday night showing at the Alaska Experience Theater at 8:30pm. 

And this is a world premier!  The film was completed a little before the festival and this is the first public showing.  I'll let them tell you about it in the video.  

 

The title - The World Outside - hints at the main character's agoraphobia.  

From the Mayo Clinic:

"Agoraphobia (ag-uh-ruh-FOE-be-uh) is a type of anxiety disorder. Agoraphobia involves fearing and avoiding places or situations that might cause panic and feelings of being trapped, helpless or embarrassed. You may fear an actual or upcoming situation. For example, you may fear using public transportation, being in open or enclosed spaces, standing in line, or being in a crowd.

The anxiety is caused by fear that there's no easy way to escape or get help if the anxiety gets overwhelming. You may avoid situations because of fears such as getting lost, falling, or having diarrhea and not being able to get to a bathroom. Most people who have agoraphobia develop it after having one or more panic attacks, causing them to worry about having another attack. They then avoid the places where it may happen again.

Agoraphobia often results in having a hard time feeling safe in any public place, especially where crowds gather and in locations that are not familiar. You may feel that you need a companion, such as a family member or friend, to go with you to public places. The fear can be so overwhelming that you may feel you can't leave your home."

AIFF2025: Morning Venue Changes And Plunderer

 At Alaska Experience Theater shows Wednesday, they announced that the morning showings (10:30am and 12:30pm) at the Museum for Thursday and Friday were being moved to the E Street Theater.  And looking at the online program, the change is there as well.  

These changes are reflected online, but Plunderer: The Life and Times of a Nazi Art Thief, is not listed by name online, but as Jewish Museum Feature.  I've copied the online schedule below and fixed Plunderer. 

Venue:

UPDATE: E Street Theater

315 E Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501

10:30 AM: Feature

• K’etniyi: The Land Is Speaking — Rory Banyard – Event Tickets

12:30 PM: Feature

• One But Many — Janna Giacoppo – Event Tickets

Venue:

Anchorage Museum

625 C Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501

2:30 PM: Shorts Block: Comedy – Event Tickets

• May I Put You On Hold? — Ash Blodgett
• Performance Review — Lain Ewing
• Margaret the Brave — Danny Chandia
• Forever After in Love — Boris Schaarschmidt
• Bad Survivor — Alex Dvorak, Katie North
• Ts and Ps — Liam Fineout
•  

5:00 PM: 

• Alaska Teen Media Institute Afterschool Special – Event Tickets

7:30 PM: Feature

• Plunderer: The Life and Times of a Nazi Art Thief  (This film was submitted by the Anchorage Jewish Museum, and their picks have all been excellent in the past.)

Venue:

Bear Tooth Theatrepub

1230 W.  27th Avenue, Anchorage, Alaska 99503

5:30 PM: Feature

• The Last Dive — Cody Sheehy – Event Tickets

8:30 PM: Feature

• Blood & Guts — Carlye Rubin, Katie Green – Event Tickets

Venue:

Alaska Experience Theater

333 W. 4th Avenue (NW corner of 4th & C St. – enter on C), Anchorage, Alaska 9950

10:30 AM: Shorts Block: Music Videos – Event Tickets

• Begin Again — Ava Acres
• She’s Seen the Sun — Mykele Hill
• Ideal Distance — Danny Chandia
• Sky-Sky — Ilya Noyabrev
• Valerie June – “Joy, Joy!” — Taylor Washington
• Husse & Sugar Water “Sam” — HyunSoo Lim, Finn Benischek, Heung Joo Hunziker
• LOSER — Andie Arbo
• Thera – Stargazer — Steven Cornfield
• Salmon of Positive Energy — Ben Gordon
• THE DEEP ROLLING: MAGMA — Robin Scovill
• Soiree Music Video — Hannah Claire McDaniel, Degosh Reed
• Money — Tiumaluali’i Jody Hassel
• She’s So Heroine — Kelly Moneymaker
• Won’t Be Around — Terry Blade

12:30 PM: Feature

• Goddess of Slide — Alfonso Maiorana – Event Tickets

2:30 PM: Feature

• Inedia — Liz Cairns – Event Tickets

Sorry, but that's about all I can handle today.  I would note that Friday at 8:30pm The World Outside is playing at the Alaska Experience Theater.  That's the film our house guests, Nikolas and Katrine made and you'll be able to ask them questions and share feedback Friday night.  

Thank You Frank Gehry For Making The World More Amazing

 Here's an old post about the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles:

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Disney Concert Hall

I drove J1 to the LA Superior Court this morning and I got a chance to wonder around downtown LA. I'm one of those who thinks the Frank Gehry designed Disney Concert Hall is a great building. Well, I haven't been inside - well only in one lobby once - so I can't judge how well it works as a building, but visually it's enchanting.

Here are some notes from the tourist kiosk across the street about opera in LA and the concert hall.

This shot was from the 9th floor of the court building.

I took a couple of night shots in February 2007.

\

We went to a concert that we weren't particularly keen on, just to hear the acoustics.  

He also did a quirky house on Venice Beach

And in Paris we visited the Luis Voutton Museum just because Gehry designed it.  This one was harder to capture on camera.  

I never made it to Bilbao.  

From NPR:

"Swooping, swirling, gleaming, sculpted — Frank Gehry made buildings we'd never seen before. The architect behind the Guggenheim Museum in Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles transformed contemporary architecture. He died Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., after a brief respiratory illness, according to his chief of staff. He was 96.

Gehry won all the top awards — including the Pritzker Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1999, when the American Institute of Architects gave him their Gold Medal, Gehry looked out at an audience that included contemporary gods of building — Philip Johnson, Robert Venturi, Michael Graves — and said, 'it's like finding out my big brothers love me after all.'"

AIFF2025: Wednesday Starts At Noon Again

 And all at E Street again

12 Noon - five Narrative Shorts

2pm - six more Narrative Shorts

4pm - The Fabulous Gold Harvesting Machine - Alfredo Pourailly De La Plaza

This is a documentary feature from Chile.  It's my understanding that the filmmaker couldn't make it to Anchorage, so here's an interview with him about the making of the movie. 

From POV:

"Mining gold is hard work, but when you’re 60-years-old with a failing body and your method for harvesting the treasure is artisanal, the labour is brutal. So it goes for Toto, who, operating out of a small shack near the mine, extracts gold in Tierra del Fuego by hand–and it’s killing him. We can see why, as director Alfredo Pourailly de la Plaza’s camera follows Toto through his process, sometimes wading through ice-cold water to pan for gold, sometimes hacking through the land or snow to create paths so he can get better purchase to bang away at the dirt at the side of the pathways to get to the precious metal. At one point, a pile of dirt falls and almost buries him. The result of all this work is enough nuggets of gold to sustain Toto, but only barely.

Toto’s son Jorge can’t bear it. We meet him off the top of The Fabulous Gold Harvesting Machine as he’s trying to get his father’s ancient heap of a truck started, itself emblematic of the extent to which Toto can barely eke out an existence. Father and son bicker over Toro’s failing health, a constant source of conflict, though lovingly expressed, between them. Toto is recovering from a bad cold, which sends Jorge on an extended speech about how important it is to take care yourself, to dress warmly, take your medicine. Toto just waves him away, saying that medicine is useless, and colds have to just bloom and then fade away. It’s a conversation typifying their intergenerational differences.

When it becomes obvious that Toto will not stop working, Jorge devises a plan to build a modern trommel, a machine that can separate gold from the earth, in the hopes that it will at least ease Toto’s load. He says he can finish the project within the year, but the seasons pass, one year, then two, and as Toto continues toiling away, the film begins to gain a sense of real urgency. That suspense intensifies during a spectacular sequence in which Toto is hacking at the earth and gets felled by a stroke. Fortunately, Jorge is working with him and gets him to the hospital. But Toto goes back to work, insisting that “Just because you’re sick doesn’t mean you can’t work.” And the seasons go by, and the trommel is not yet finished."

[Everything is at E Street Theater today]

6pm - Sweet Störy — Sarah Justine Kerruish, Matt Maude 

From the Sweet Störy website trailer

From the film's website (which also has a trailer)::

"Sweet Störy - winner of Best Picture and Best Documentary at the LA Film Awards 2025 - was the Opening Night Film at the Sonoma International Film Festival.

The feature follows Miette Patisserie owner Meg Ray as she leaves behind her successful business in California to manage a cafe on a remote Swedish island in the Baltic Sea for the summer. Four hours from civilisation and operating without running water or electricity, Meg only has one week to get the cafe open in time for Midsommar.

With everything breaking and numerous challenges to overcome, will Meg have enough time to open? And what will she learn about herself along the way?

Filming in the Archipelago has been the dream of a lifetime for me and I've been lucky enough to direct, produce and shoot this feature documentary alongside the Peabody award winning filmmaker, Sarah Kerruish."

 

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.