And their website is slowly emerging too. I checked it this morning, and it had nothing. Now, there are film titles and some descriptions. Every time I refresh, I find new things like director names, film format, etc.
But still no schedules and theaters.
Here's my beginning International Films wish-list (with only a smattering of descriptions on MSPIFF's website yet). I hope none of them are showing the weekend of my and my partner's tenth anniversary of meeting. I'm including both MSPIFF links and IMDB links, just in case MSPIFF goes haywire again or takes down their website.
La Fine Del Mare (IMDB link)
Where Is Winky's Horse? (IMDB link)
Tuya's Marriage (IMDB link)
Still Life (IMDB link)
OSS 117: Nest of Spies (IMDB link)
Little Moth (IMDB link)
The Last Mistress (IMDB link)
Dry Season (IMDB link)
Ca Brule (IMDB link)
Bamboo Shoots (No IMDB link)
Bad Faith (IMDB link)
And Along Came the Tourists (IMDB link)
Watch for my Documentaries, American Independents, and Childish wish-lists later this week!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Operation Filmmaker
I don't think there's ever been a better metaphor for the US war in Iraq than the documentary Operation Filmmaker.
Filmmaker Nina Davenport says on the film website
We see almost immediately that both the filmmaker and Mohmed are unreliable in the literary sense--Davenport has no boundaries and Mohmed either intentionally lies to manipulate people or, if I am being generous, doesn't know what his truth really is. At first, this is annoying. I wanted Davenport to say no to Mohmed, even once, but over and over again she gives in to her documentary subject. In this, she herself becomes a subject of her documentary.
Davenport had also given cameras to some of Mohmed's friends in Iraq, and layers their footage of the war with news reports and her footage of Mohmed, so we can see a glimpse of the lives of Iraqis, not from an American perspective but from an Iraqi perspective.
Themes of immigration, power, media ethics, personal responsibility become the backdrop to the struggle between filmmaker and subject, between the subject and other Americans he meets who all project onto Mohmed their ideas of what an Iraqi person experienced and believes.
And just in case you don't get the metaphor Davenport is portraying in her documentary, the end title card before the credits declares:
I wanted a happy ending.
Now I'm just looking for an exit strategy.
We couldn't get ourselves to exit the theater. Ushers had to ask several groups of moviegoers to leave.
And if you don't believe me, you can read the comments of some people more qualified than I to give their opinion: film students and their teacher who also gets paid to review films.
Filmmaker Nina Davenport says on the film website
David Schisgall, a friend from college, had directed a piece for MTV about young people living in Iraq, focusing mainly on American soldiers. "True Life: I'm Living in Iraq" also featured seven minutes about a young Iraqi film student, Muthana Mohmed, who was desperate to go to Hollywood. After the show aired, the actor and director Liev Schreiber contacted David. Liev wanted to give Muthana an opportunity to come to the West, and he thought Muthana's journey might also make for an interesting documentary. David thought I would be the ideal filmmaker to document this story, so I was hired.But that only sets up the story. No one, not Schreiber, not Schisgall, and not Davenport, think through what it means to invite an Iraqi student to be an intern.
We see almost immediately that both the filmmaker and Mohmed are unreliable in the literary sense--Davenport has no boundaries and Mohmed either intentionally lies to manipulate people or, if I am being generous, doesn't know what his truth really is. At first, this is annoying. I wanted Davenport to say no to Mohmed, even once, but over and over again she gives in to her documentary subject. In this, she herself becomes a subject of her documentary.
Davenport had also given cameras to some of Mohmed's friends in Iraq, and layers their footage of the war with news reports and her footage of Mohmed, so we can see a glimpse of the lives of Iraqis, not from an American perspective but from an Iraqi perspective.
Themes of immigration, power, media ethics, personal responsibility become the backdrop to the struggle between filmmaker and subject, between the subject and other Americans he meets who all project onto Mohmed their ideas of what an Iraqi person experienced and believes.
And just in case you don't get the metaphor Davenport is portraying in her documentary, the end title card before the credits declares:
I wanted a happy ending.
Now I'm just looking for an exit strategy.
We couldn't get ourselves to exit the theater. Ushers had to ask several groups of moviegoers to leave.
And if you don't believe me, you can read the comments of some people more qualified than I to give their opinion: film students and their teacher who also gets paid to review films.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Second Weekend
Parting Shot (Pas Douce), which literally translates into "not soft," takes the viewer on a ride from desperation to joy, without adornment and apology.
The French title describes the main character Fred the way one lover describes her when he says during their lovemaking (if you can call it that), "Couldn't you be more tender?" She's hard to like at first, but as all good film does, she slowly transforms into someone I'd like to befriend.
Director Jeanne Waltz adeptly and starkly tells a story worth telling, of true redemption and forgiveness. A lot of the action takes place in a hospital, but it evokes images of what Americans imagined Soviet hospitals looked like in the 1980s. The sets were spare when they weren't decorated by mother nature herself. It allows, I think, the viewer to focus on the characters and story.
Worth going out of your way to see.
Faces of a Fig Tree (Ichijiku No Kao), directed by Kaori Momoi, is based on the popular serialized novel of the same name.
Momoi uses strange camera angles and clashing color themes to tell four stories of one family, perhaps as seen from a fig tree that follows them through the disjointed narrative. Both the fig tree and the art director's color choices were almost characters in and of themselves.
I almost walked out because it was hard to follow, but I'm glad I stayed. The film contained four separate stories, and once it got beyond the first one, the characters came alive.
Finally, It Happened Just Before uses a fictional technique to tell the true stories of women who survived human trafficking.
A male taxi-driver, a female diplomat, a female villager, and a male bordello bartender each narrate one woman's story as they go about their daily lives in Austria. The country-of-origin and location of enslavement were hidden, and the stories were told as if they had taken place in Austria and Germany.
The technique creates a narrative distance so the horrific circumstances might be easier to to take. And it allows the viewer to use his or her own imagination, which might be far more vivid than the filmmaker could recreate.
The most disquieting story was the one told by the bartender. I didn't realize it was a bordello until he hung a poster behind a stripper pole and cleaned the rooms upstairs. And I was surprised that the only story that made me cry was the one where the woman managed to escape her captors.
Director Anja Salomonowitz also layers the storytelling over more mundane sounds (in one, a chorus, in another, an herbal supplement party) to contrast the alarming stories to everyday life.
One note for English-speaking people: spoken German with English subtitles also creates further narrative distance, and it made me wonder what it would be like to see the same film produced in the US.
All of the cases in the film highlighted abuse based on immigration status, which can leave people feeling vulnerable. If you think this doesn't happen in the United States, you're wrong about that. US Immigration officials extort money and sex from immigrants in exchange for granting immigration privileges.
Tonight: Operation Filmmaker
The French title describes the main character Fred the way one lover describes her when he says during their lovemaking (if you can call it that), "Couldn't you be more tender?" She's hard to like at first, but as all good film does, she slowly transforms into someone I'd like to befriend.
Director Jeanne Waltz adeptly and starkly tells a story worth telling, of true redemption and forgiveness. A lot of the action takes place in a hospital, but it evokes images of what Americans imagined Soviet hospitals looked like in the 1980s. The sets were spare when they weren't decorated by mother nature herself. It allows, I think, the viewer to focus on the characters and story.
Worth going out of your way to see.
Faces of a Fig Tree (Ichijiku No Kao), directed by Kaori Momoi, is based on the popular serialized novel of the same name.
Momoi uses strange camera angles and clashing color themes to tell four stories of one family, perhaps as seen from a fig tree that follows them through the disjointed narrative. Both the fig tree and the art director's color choices were almost characters in and of themselves.
I almost walked out because it was hard to follow, but I'm glad I stayed. The film contained four separate stories, and once it got beyond the first one, the characters came alive.
Finally, It Happened Just Before uses a fictional technique to tell the true stories of women who survived human trafficking.
A male taxi-driver, a female diplomat, a female villager, and a male bordello bartender each narrate one woman's story as they go about their daily lives in Austria. The country-of-origin and location of enslavement were hidden, and the stories were told as if they had taken place in Austria and Germany.
The technique creates a narrative distance so the horrific circumstances might be easier to to take. And it allows the viewer to use his or her own imagination, which might be far more vivid than the filmmaker could recreate.
The most disquieting story was the one told by the bartender. I didn't realize it was a bordello until he hung a poster behind a stripper pole and cleaned the rooms upstairs. And I was surprised that the only story that made me cry was the one where the woman managed to escape her captors.
Director Anja Salomonowitz also layers the storytelling over more mundane sounds (in one, a chorus, in another, an herbal supplement party) to contrast the alarming stories to everyday life.
One note for English-speaking people: spoken German with English subtitles also creates further narrative distance, and it made me wonder what it would be like to see the same film produced in the US.
All of the cases in the film highlighted abuse based on immigration status, which can leave people feeling vulnerable. If you think this doesn't happen in the United States, you're wrong about that. US Immigration officials extort money and sex from immigrants in exchange for granting immigration privileges.
Tonight: Operation Filmmaker
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Truth?
Here are the words, directly from Al Milgrom's fingers, about the Oak, Bell and the upcoming Film Fest. I wonder where the Strib reporter got her facts.
Dear Minnesota Film Arts supporters and film friends,
Please note message of encouragement from your leader.
SPIKE OAK, BELL 'HORROR' STORIES IN RECENT PAPERS, SAYS LOCAL FILM GURU
As sure as the swallows return to Capistrano, the annual "Nightmare on Oak Street" stories surfaced again this year in the papers, not long before we launch the 26th Annual Mpls./St.Paul Int'l Film Fest Apr.17 - May 3, 2008
As per print, do we qualify for "arts whipping boy of the year" in this self-congratulatory arts-lauded Twin Cities? (Yours truly, with a near-50-year programming-track record, back in town for more than two weeks before certain articles and blogs appeared, missed being quoted in his own personal vernacular.)
Let me assure you faithful supporters and film friends, contrary to impressions left, both the Oak St. Cinema and Bell Aud. will be (and are) in business after the fest in May and who knows how long after? Expect programming to continue as before. Nothing is written in stone in this current real estate market, as you well know. (Yes, the Oak will eventually be sold. How else can we continue our mission given our current deficit?)
To switch to a positive note, the website is carrying some fest info now. We hope to have most of the program up around March 28, with more than l00 titles, over 40 countries. The venues include: Oak Street Cinema, St. Anthony Main's five screens, (easy day-long & night parking for only 50 cents total), spot satellite screenings Kerasotes Block E, and the possibility of a screen at the Riverview and AMC Roseville.
The Festival is set to include Oscar nominees (Katyn, Beaufort, others); Sundance titles: (Nerakhoon, the Betrayal, an epic Hmong story, and more), other top fest pics, expected visiting directors: China, Africa, Russia, Canada, Czech Republic and U.S.
Thanks for your continuing faith in the organization and your support.
Al Milgrom,
MFA Artistic Director & one time east-city-editor, Washington Post
Dear Minnesota Film Arts supporters and film friends,
Please note message of encouragement from your leader.
SPIKE OAK, BELL 'HORROR' STORIES IN RECENT PAPERS, SAYS LOCAL FILM GURU
As sure as the swallows return to Capistrano, the annual "Nightmare on Oak Street" stories surfaced again this year in the papers, not long before we launch the 26th Annual Mpls./St.Paul Int'l Film Fest Apr.17 - May 3, 2008
As per print, do we qualify for "arts whipping boy of the year" in this self-congratulatory arts-lauded Twin Cities? (Yours truly, with a near-50-year programming-track record, back in town for more than two weeks before certain articles and blogs appeared, missed being quoted in his own personal vernacular.)
Let me assure you faithful supporters and film friends, contrary to impressions left, both the Oak St. Cinema and Bell Aud. will be (and are) in business after the fest in May and who knows how long after? Expect programming to continue as before. Nothing is written in stone in this current real estate market, as you well know. (Yes, the Oak will eventually be sold. How else can we continue our mission given our current deficit?)
To switch to a positive note, the website is carrying some fest info now. We hope to have most of the program up around March 28, with more than l00 titles, over 40 countries. The venues include: Oak Street Cinema, St. Anthony Main's five screens, (easy day-long & night parking for only 50 cents total), spot satellite screenings Kerasotes Block E, and the possibility of a screen at the Riverview and AMC Roseville.
The Festival is set to include Oscar nominees (Katyn, Beaufort, others); Sundance titles: (Nerakhoon, the Betrayal, an epic Hmong story, and more), other top fest pics, expected visiting directors: China, Africa, Russia, Canada, Czech Republic and U.S.
Thanks for your continuing faith in the organization and your support.
Al Milgrom,
MFA Artistic Director & one time east-city-editor, Washington Post
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Rest In Peace, Soon
Kathie reported that the Oak Street Theater is going to be sold after this year's MSPIFF and I found confirmation on the Star Tribune website. I always loved the films they showed at the Oak, but hated the facility. The seats made incurable back aches, the mold made noses gush, and the stairs to the bathroom made great litigious fantasies.
With the Bell lease lost as well, I can't help but wonder if this year won't be the final Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. Hopefully, the money MFA gets for the Bell will reinvigorate the organization and we can continue to have truly independent film in the Twin Cities.
With the Bell lease lost as well, I can't help but wonder if this year won't be the final Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. Hopefully, the money MFA gets for the Bell will reinvigorate the organization and we can continue to have truly independent film in the Twin Cities.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Madonnas & Making Trouble
Saturday night's film, Madonnas (Madonnen), written and directed by Maria Speth, shows us the hard life of main character Rita who has five children by several different fathers. Watching the film was almost as hard as her life because Rita makes bad choice after bad choice until the viewer has no empathy for her and every ounce of compassion for her children and boyfriend and mother.
I came away wondering what the film added to our culture beyond portraying poor parenthood. Madonnas is well-done but the story lacked virtue.
Making Trouble, on the other hand, was well-worth the $8 ticket, long lines, crowded theater, late start and 85 minutes. Produced by the Jewish Women's Archive, Making Trouble is a documentary about Jewish comedians Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner and Wendy Wasserstein and features modern Jewish comedians Judy Gold, Jackie Hoffman, Cory Kahaney, and Jessica Kirson.
Making Trouble is funny, irreverent, and shows how some of the most famous funny Jewish women changed the comedy landscape for all women as well as Jewish women.
Go out of your way to see it. You won't be disappointed.
I came away wondering what the film added to our culture beyond portraying poor parenthood. Madonnas is well-done but the story lacked virtue.
Making Trouble, on the other hand, was well-worth the $8 ticket, long lines, crowded theater, late start and 85 minutes. Produced by the Jewish Women's Archive, Making Trouble is a documentary about Jewish comedians Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner and Wendy Wasserstein and features modern Jewish comedians Judy Gold, Jackie Hoffman, Cory Kahaney, and Jessica Kirson.
Making Trouble is funny, irreverent, and shows how some of the most famous funny Jewish women changed the comedy landscape for all women as well as Jewish women.
Go out of your way to see it. You won't be disappointed.
Opening Night and the Next Day
Friday's film, the world premiere of Older Than America, was introduced by the writer/director Georgina Lightning, writer/producer Christine Walker and actor Tantoo Cardinal, all Native American.
The film's story centers around a woman named Rain, her long-time boyfriend Johnny, her aunt Apple and her mother Irene, as well as several people from a northern Minnesota town located in a Native American Reservation. Rain spends the movie discovering that she shares the gift of "sight" with her mother, and comes to reveal atrocities done to Native American children at a local Catholic boarding school (cultural genocide, rape, torture, murder, physical and emotional abuse). While this movie is fictional, it is inspired by true events experienced by the director's family and accounts by other Native Americans of boarding schools.
Filmed in Minnesota, Older Than America shows off writer/director Georgina Lightning's gift for storytelling and film making. She uses music to highlight the tension and to move the story along to great effect (and occassionally the music is a little overdone). The acting, editing and direction are worthy of an award. I'm looking forward to more films written and directed by Lightning, and you should too. Older Than America will be showing at SXSW and film festivals all over north America, so see it if you get the chance.
Saturday was a mixed bag. The first shorts program befuddled me. At first I wondered if the curators had a hard time finding women directors skilled in making short films with a narrative arc. Then I wondered if the curators disdained the kind of storytelling that film is best suited--visual story. And then I wondered if wanting to be entertained made me shallow.
The first film, 5 Cents a Peek, directed by Vanessa Woods, was a film interpretation of a poem, but you don't necessarily understand that until the end when the credits roll. A flash of black and white images and edgy music kept me confused and looking for a story.
Then, with high hopes, I watched Labyrinth by Jila Nikpay and it had a similar feel and edginess as the first film. Once again, I didn't get it.
I almost walked out of the third film, Catalogue of Birds: Book 3, and I'm glad I didn't, but not because of this long, repetitive, modern "showing" of someone playing the piano. One description claims the film contains a lot of imagery, but once again, where was the story????
I eventually enjoyed Drum Room once the director got to the point of the whole film which, in retrospect, seemed to be a study in following one's passion in the middle of everyone doing the same thing. The filmmaker uses sound to tell a powerful story of hope.
Finally, Mirroring Cure was a nice blend of documentary and fiction to tell one person's story of personal healing.
The program redeemed itself by the end. But I couldn't help but wonder if the Women With Vision shorts curation could use a shot of main stream taste and a desire for storytelling. The shorts program of MSPIFF is always sold out, and there were only a handful of people in Walker's audience. Why produce a program that's only accessible to a few when you could expose women directors to broader audiences by tossing some of the "art" snobbery?
On the other hand, the Women in Film & Television Short Film Showcase demonstrated great cinematic storytelling.
The first film, made by a Minnesota film maker Jill Broadfoot and called The Pussycats, documents the journey of four middle-aged women traveling to the Corn Palace in South Dakota to see Tom Jones perform. The film was feisty and fun, and seeing the cream-stuffed penis-shaped cupcakes quivering was worth every minute of this film. It's a must for the fifty-something and older set.
In Chinese Dumplings, filmmaker Michelle Hung tells the sweet story of sisters who would do anything to get out of an hour of violin practice. In the end, it's about universal sisterhood and what it means to be an ally.
As if in counter point, One Hundredth of a Second shows us how harmful it can be to choose to not be an ally. Filmmaker Susan Jacobson unflinchingly reveals one moment in the life of a war photographer through flashback. This film isn't for the faint-of-heart.
Genevieve Poulette's award-winning short film Meet-Market.ca delves into the lives of two single women and their exploits on a local online dating community. It wasn't a memorable film, perhaps because of the blind-date cliches throughout, modernized for the internet age.
Orchids, directed by Bryce Dallas Howard and starring Katherine Waterston and Alfred Molina, introduces us to quirky Beatrice who loves taking pictures but never develops them until she meets a wealthy middle-aged recluse. Orchids demonstrates why it's important to have women directing films--it shows intimacy between a man and a woman without suggesting sex.
In Happiness, director Sophie Barthes follows one factory worker (who tests condoms) who tries to buy happiness in a discount store. Happiness premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. It's worth seeing if you have a chance.
Finally, The Betty Mystique, directed by Minnesotan Susan Marks, chronicles the many lives of Betty Crocker and the icon's impact on modern American culture. Cake anyone?
The film's story centers around a woman named Rain, her long-time boyfriend Johnny, her aunt Apple and her mother Irene, as well as several people from a northern Minnesota town located in a Native American Reservation. Rain spends the movie discovering that she shares the gift of "sight" with her mother, and comes to reveal atrocities done to Native American children at a local Catholic boarding school (cultural genocide, rape, torture, murder, physical and emotional abuse). While this movie is fictional, it is inspired by true events experienced by the director's family and accounts by other Native Americans of boarding schools.
Filmed in Minnesota, Older Than America shows off writer/director Georgina Lightning's gift for storytelling and film making. She uses music to highlight the tension and to move the story along to great effect (and occassionally the music is a little overdone). The acting, editing and direction are worthy of an award. I'm looking forward to more films written and directed by Lightning, and you should too. Older Than America will be showing at SXSW and film festivals all over north America, so see it if you get the chance.
Saturday was a mixed bag. The first shorts program befuddled me. At first I wondered if the curators had a hard time finding women directors skilled in making short films with a narrative arc. Then I wondered if the curators disdained the kind of storytelling that film is best suited--visual story. And then I wondered if wanting to be entertained made me shallow.
The first film, 5 Cents a Peek, directed by Vanessa Woods, was a film interpretation of a poem, but you don't necessarily understand that until the end when the credits roll. A flash of black and white images and edgy music kept me confused and looking for a story.
Then, with high hopes, I watched Labyrinth by Jila Nikpay and it had a similar feel and edginess as the first film. Once again, I didn't get it.
I almost walked out of the third film, Catalogue of Birds: Book 3, and I'm glad I didn't, but not because of this long, repetitive, modern "showing" of someone playing the piano. One description claims the film contains a lot of imagery, but once again, where was the story????
I eventually enjoyed Drum Room once the director got to the point of the whole film which, in retrospect, seemed to be a study in following one's passion in the middle of everyone doing the same thing. The filmmaker uses sound to tell a powerful story of hope.
Finally, Mirroring Cure was a nice blend of documentary and fiction to tell one person's story of personal healing.
The program redeemed itself by the end. But I couldn't help but wonder if the Women With Vision shorts curation could use a shot of main stream taste and a desire for storytelling. The shorts program of MSPIFF is always sold out, and there were only a handful of people in Walker's audience. Why produce a program that's only accessible to a few when you could expose women directors to broader audiences by tossing some of the "art" snobbery?
On the other hand, the Women in Film & Television Short Film Showcase demonstrated great cinematic storytelling.
The first film, made by a Minnesota film maker Jill Broadfoot and called The Pussycats, documents the journey of four middle-aged women traveling to the Corn Palace in South Dakota to see Tom Jones perform. The film was feisty and fun, and seeing the cream-stuffed penis-shaped cupcakes quivering was worth every minute of this film. It's a must for the fifty-something and older set.
In Chinese Dumplings, filmmaker Michelle Hung tells the sweet story of sisters who would do anything to get out of an hour of violin practice. In the end, it's about universal sisterhood and what it means to be an ally.
As if in counter point, One Hundredth of a Second shows us how harmful it can be to choose to not be an ally. Filmmaker Susan Jacobson unflinchingly reveals one moment in the life of a war photographer through flashback. This film isn't for the faint-of-heart.
Genevieve Poulette's award-winning short film Meet-Market.ca delves into the lives of two single women and their exploits on a local online dating community. It wasn't a memorable film, perhaps because of the blind-date cliches throughout, modernized for the internet age.
Orchids, directed by Bryce Dallas Howard and starring Katherine Waterston and Alfred Molina, introduces us to quirky Beatrice who loves taking pictures but never develops them until she meets a wealthy middle-aged recluse. Orchids demonstrates why it's important to have women directing films--it shows intimacy between a man and a woman without suggesting sex.
In Happiness, director Sophie Barthes follows one factory worker (who tests condoms) who tries to buy happiness in a discount store. Happiness premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. It's worth seeing if you have a chance.
Finally, The Betty Mystique, directed by Minnesotan Susan Marks, chronicles the many lives of Betty Crocker and the icon's impact on modern American culture. Cake anyone?
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