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."