MSPIFF 2017 Faves

Thanks again to all the wonderful volunteers, projectionists, cleaning staff, box office staff, and programmers who made the 2017 Minneapolis/St. Paul a wonderful experience yet again.

Where were the Scandinavian films this year MSPIFF? I learned to love Scandinavian film at MSPIFF and really missed it this year, with few choices in the program. Will it come back next year? Here's one person hoping it does.

My three favorite films were directed by women:

The Sounding, written and directed and acted by Catherine Eaton. I'm really hoping and praying this gets a theatrical release of some sort, but I've seen no indication of that. If you do get to see it in the theater, stay to the end of the credits for this song. Sign up on her website for updates.

If you've ever been the outsider, if you've ever been pathologized for being who you are, if you have ever been silenced or muted against your will, see this film. I saw this one twice and now want to own it so I can see it again. And again.

Memories of a Penitent Heart, a documentary by. A shortened version of this 75 minute film will be on PBS's POV in June but the director says it will be available on DVD.

Sami Blood, directed by Amanda Kernell, a Sami woman herself, answers this question from the director: "Many older Samis left everything behind and became Swedish and I’ve always wondered; what happens to you if you cut all ties with your culture and history? And can you really become someone else?" I love Sami film and this one felt vividly real in ways Sami film hasn't in the past.

Most of the rest of the films I liked were directed by women (*) too.

Boundaries*: Three women from three countries try to reach across social boundaries in the face of sexism.

Untouchable is a documentary about the unintended consequences of sex offender laws.

Center of My World could only be made in a place like Germany. It tells the story of one gay teen's coming of age in a dysfunctional family. I'd like to see it again sometime. The film is available on DVD & BluRay but only in German right now.

Little Wing* is another coming of age film I'd like to see again. This one, about a girl who tries to find her absent father. It's surprising, and I won't spoil it for you. I don't know if you'll be able to see this one.

Dispatches From Cleveland* is a story about justice for Tamir Rice, as told in three parts.

There's a big dose of girls bullying each other in The World of Us*. Still, it's a satisfying film.

Whose Streets* documents activist lives in Ferguson, from their perspective, instead of the perspective most Americans got about it on CNN and Fox.

Signature Move* is a sexy and fun queer romp about two women trying to get together and do so over professional wrestling.

First Daughter and the Black Snake* documents Winona LaDuke's fight against Enbridge and for her people. And for the earth.

Fanny's Journey* tells the true story of a teenage girl leading over 30 children out of Nazi occupied France. The film demonstrates the full humanity of these children, including their ability to live in the moment in playing, even in the face of terror.

Dolores* is a documentary about Dolores Huerta, the woman you've never heard of who worked as Cesar Chavez's equal.

Starless Dreams documents seven years in a prison in Tehran. It's the kind of film you only find at MSPIFF.

The animated film Window Horses* follows one girl's quest to find her father in Iran after she is invited to a poetry festival there. The film is visual poetry. I'd like to see it again.

Tesoros* is a delightful kids adventure in a new place.

I knew nothing about Marie Curie* until this film, which humanizes her, except that she received two Nobel prizes for her work. I sure hope this becomes available in the US.

I don't usually say negative things about films I saw, but don't bother with You Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice and Aida's Secret. The first film is 3 hours of court tv in Canada, without any social or historical context. The second film should have been directed by a woman because if it had, you would have actually found out what her secret was and have it be centered on her experience and other women's experiences in Bergen Belsen. The film is all about her two sons and their hand-wringing about who their father is. Fuck the patriarchy.

MSPIFF 2017: My List

I'll see 40-50 films in 2017, over half of which are films directed by women. They're listed below, in no particular order, with links to the MSPIFF site for tickets and trailers and websites and better descriptions than I could ever write. See you at MSPIFF?

Lipstick Under My Burkha
I love films that show clearly what a particular culture's social contracts are. This one promises to show how women are changing those rules. #DirectedbyWomen

The Sounding
At the cross-section of two subjects I'm interested in: language and rebellion. #DirectedbyWomen

Childish Shorts
I'm forever a kid at heart. Some of the best stuff at MSPIFF is in the Childish program. Some of the films are #DirectedbyWomen

Let’s Get the Rhythm
Ever wonder about where the clapping games we played as children came from? Not the grownups in my life, for sure. #DirectedbyWomen

The Rehearsal
I remember liking director Alison Maclean's 1999 film Jesus' Son. All I remember about it was that it was a redemption story. #DirectedbyWomen

Mixed Match
A documentary about the challenges facing mixed race blood cancer patients with a seemingly impossible search to find bone marrow donors. I'm a white bone marrow transplant and blood cancer survivor I want to see this film.

150 Milligrams
Inspiration from a woman who successfully challenged a pharmaceutical company. They are thieves. The drug I take that keeps me in remission from leukemia costs more than $15,000 per month. #DirectedbyWomen

Little Wing
MSPIFF helped me discover how much I love Scandinavian film. And coming of age stores. And films #DirectedbyWomen

In Between
I love films directed by women where women are reaching across difference and seeking greater independence. #DirectedbyWomen

Wolf and Sheep
A coming of age story in Afghanistan. I love films with kids. And coming of age stories #DirectedbyWomen

Chocolate Case
A documentary about child slavery in the growing and production of chocolate.

Center of My World
A dysfunctional family with a queer kid in it. Sounds familiar.

Wedding Ring
Love versus familial obligations and it is #DirectedbyWomen

Shorts Program 7: a shorts program with three of the four films by and about Black people.

Untouchable
I saw a documentary at MSPIFF in 2015 that might be related: Pervert Park. I'll be curious to see how they're different, how an American handles this subject as compared how the Swedish and Danish filmmakers handled it in Pervert Park. Patty Wetterling being present for the Q&A has me suspicious--I love docs made about American things/institutions directed by people who are not from here fascinating. They can see and say things Americans can't.

We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice
How First Nations people sued the Canadian government for the right to decide the fate of their children. #DirectedbyWomen

Boundaries
Women facing "chauvinist condescension, petty macho in-fighting, and constant reminders of their neglected personal lives." Another one that sounds familiar. #DirectedbyWomen

Dispatches from Cleveland
The fight for justice for Tamir Rice including interviews of his mother. #DirectedbyWomen

The World of Us
Kids connecting across difference, and then something happens. #DirectedbyWomen

Shorts Program 4
Shorts are fun because if you hate what you're watching, it'll be over soon. Some (both good and bad) will be #DirectedbyWomen

93 Days
Based on a true story about the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria.

Ethel and Ernest
I picked this one because we're going to England this fall. And I like animated films.

Whose Streets
The protests following the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, from the point of view of the people in the community. Some people I know are in it. #DirectedbyWomen

Signature Move
Women pro-westling, queer Muslim women. In English, Urdu, and Spanish. #OnlyAtMSPIFF #DirectedbyWomen

Tesoros
Kids finding treasure in each other and adventure. #DirectedbyWomen

First Daughter and the Black Snake
Winona LaDuke vs. Enbridge. #DirectedbyWomen

The Hippopotamus
I needed something funny in my film list. MSPIFF is a little short on humor this year for some reason.

By the Time It Gets Dark
I saw a documentary about the Thammasat University massacre last year. #DirectedbyWomen

Fanny’s Journey
Courageous kids escaping Nazi Germany. I think I like films about the conditions of Nazi Germany because I need to undo all the images I have in my head from my childhood because I watched Hogan's Heroes.

Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge
There's a lot I don't know about Marie Curie other than what everyone knows: that she researched radioactivity and died from the cancer she got from it. #WomeninScience #DirectedbyWomen

Divine Divas
Another story about transgender people challenging social mores. This one in Rio. #DirectedbyWomen #OnlyAtMSPIFF

The Ornithologist
I'm feeling iffy about whether I'll go to this one. It might be too weird for me.

Shorts Program 8
Shorts are fun. See the previous listing for Shorts Program 4. Some will be #DirectedbyWomen

Dolores
I've not heard of Dolores Huerta, and I'm curious to learn her story. It should have been #DirectedbyWomen

Quest
A documentary about a north Philly family. I'm from the mid-Atlantic. It will feel familiar.

Austerlitz
In November last year, I went to Pulse Nightclub to see the memorial that people have built at the site. I took pictures, but nothing felt right about sharing those pics, and my unexpected feelings about what I saw. So I'm curious about this documentary on Holocaust tourism.

Starless Dreams
Women in prison in Tehran. I'm glad it's been made, but I wish it would have been #DirectedbyWomen

Anatomy of Violence
I love everything Deepa Mehta has ever done and will go to anything she makes. #DirectedbyWomen

Memories of a Penitent Heart
I think I'll need to bring a whole box of tissues to this one. I hope lots of young people see this--the world is so different today. #AIDS #DirectedbyWomen

Sami Blood
I saw my first film about the Sami people many years ago at MSPIFF and it blew my mind that there were white indigenous people. Of course that makes sense. And even they are oppressed. I see every Sami film MSPIFF brings to us. #DirectedbyWomen

Window Horses
Animated coming of age story, with poetry. #DirectedbyWomen

Mr. Frog
The teacher is a frog. I must see this film. #DirectedbyWomen

Aida’s Secrets
Family secrets, Nazi Germany, Canada, Israel. #OnlyatMSPIFF

MSPIFF 2017

I'm still working out my final MSPIFF schedule, but here are some of the films I'm excited about:

First Daughter and the Black Snake: Winona LaDuke believes Big Oil is the black snake that was predicted in Native American prophecy and that will bring about the destruction of the earth. This doc is about her fight against Enbridge. #Directed byWomen Website. Trailer.

Sami Blood: A narrative film about a Sami (indigenous Swedish people, reindeer herders, formerly known as Lapplanders) girl's life in the 1930s, when Sweden decided Sami were inferior and treated them the way Native Americans were treated in the US. She is shipped off to a Swedish school and beat if she spoke her native tongue or dressed as her family dressed. An interview with the director. Film Clip. Website. #DirectedbyWomen

Starless Dreams: A documentary about a teen girls' detention center in Tehran. Website. Trailer.

In Between: Narrative coming of age story of three Palestinian Israeli young women. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen

Lipstick Under My Burka: Narrative film about four rural Indian women finding their personal and sexual power. Website. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen

Anatomy of Violence: Deepa Mehta's latest film, a genre-crossing narrative film about a true story of a woman who was gang raped on a bus that comments on rape culture in our society. Website. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen

150 Milligrams: The story of a French doctor who fought pharmaceutical companies to take a drug off the market that was killing women primarily. Website. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen

MSPIFF has a new program this year, Black Cinema: Under the Skin. All five films are directed by Black people, one by a Black woman.  I will do my best to see all five.

There are three films (that I've found so far) that are about Black people but directed by white people.

I rolled my eyes when I saw the blonde white woman featured as the director of Dispatches From Cleveland, a documentary about the movement for justice for Tamir Rice, featuring his mother Samaria Rice. But a visit to their website revealed that most of their team was comprised of Black people. This one might not suffer from the problem films directed by white people but about black or brown people suffer from: the white gaze, films created for white audiences that reinforce stereotypes and white supremacy. Their blog is an interesting read.

Step, a documentary about three teen Black girls in Baltimore striving to go to college, is directed by a white woman. It was bought by Fox Searchlight at Sundance this year, and will be released in early August. The description at Fox screams white gaze. I'm going to see it just so I can say for sure one way or another but if something better is showing at the same time, I'll wait until August.

The film Quest, a doc about one Black family in north Philly, is directed by a white man, edited by a white woman, and produced by a Black woman. I will see this one. I'm from Delaware and Philly feels like home to me.

I am like FINALLY, a documentary about the hand-clapping games I learned as a child, from my peers: Let's Get the Rhythm No adult taught me these games. How do they get spread and why haven't they been studied before? Website. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen 

Oscar's Short Docs Program

If you want only laughs and happy endings, don't see this year's Oscar Short Docs program. This year's selections include three films about people in or leaving Syria, a film about people dying, and one about a Holocaust survivor's violin. To gauge how intense these films are, the one about the Holocaust survivor and his violin was the most upbeat one.

I wanted to scream obscenities about the Oval Office trash fire during most of the films. But the one that really got me going was 4.1 Miles, about the Greek coast guard that fishes dead people out of the ocean and saves many lives every single day, several times a day. The film laid bare the absurdity of our arbitrary national borders. We could simply provide transportation to people fleeing war-torn lands but instead we let them risk their lives in a 4.1 mile stretch of salt water because of the border between Turkey & Greece. This one is my favorite for winning this years short documentary Oscar.

Four of the short films are streaming online. The White Helmets, about the people who rescue fellow Syrians after bombings from their government or Russia, is on Netflix, as is the film Extremis, which follows doctors & families caring for patients near death. You can see 4.1 Miles on the New York Times website, about the coast guard on the Island of Lesbos in Greece rescuing people fleeing war in Syria. The New Yorker is hosting Joe's Violin.

To see Watani: My Homeland, which follows one Syrian family over three years, check out a local showing near you.

If you want to see all five films together, find a showing here.

Joe's Violin and 4.1 Miles were directed by women.