With just a little over a week before the film festival starts, they've finalized their schedule. Sort-of. Here's a link to the schedule and here's one to the program for you to download if you don't want to read the schedule on their website.
Before you balk at the $10 ticket price, consider that most of these films won't make it back to the Twin Cities on the big screen or on DVD. In addition, your $10 could get you a chance to meet the director at some of the films. I love director Q&As.
If you go, get your tickets early, and arrive early. Since the St. Anthony Main theater is hosting the entire festival, and they have small theaters, shows are likely to sell out.
Here's my schedule:
Thursday, April 17th, Opening Night
The Visitor, USA, 2007, 103 minutes, director present (also opening at Landmark on April 25th, without the director present)
Friday, April 18th
4:45 And Along Come Tourists, Germany, 2007, 85 minutes
7:30 At the Death House Door, USA, 2008, 98 minutes
9:40 The World Unseen, South Africa, 2007, 103 minutes
11:10 Time Crimes, Spain, 2007, 88 minutes
Saturday, April 19th
4:45 La Fine del Mare, Germany/France/Italy, 2007, 107 minutes
7:00 Family Motel, Canada, 2007, 80 minutes
9:45 Ca Brule, France, 2006, 111 minutes
10:15 Triangle, Hong Kong, 2007, 93 minutes
Sunday, April 20th
12:30 Traveling with Pets, Russia, 2007, 97 minutes
2:30 Still Life, China, 2006, 108 minutes
5:25 Monastery: Mr Vig and the Nun, Denmark, 2006, 84 minutes
6:15 Tuya's Marriage, China, 2006, 96 minutes
9:40 Sons, Norway, 2006, 103 minutes
Monday, April 21st
5:15 Postman in Shangri-La, China, 2007, 93 minutes
7:00 Woman on a Beach, South Korea, 2006, 127 minutes
9:40 Just Sex and Nothing Else, Hungary, 2006, 97 minutes
Tuesday, April 22nd
5:20 Alexandra, Russia, 2007, 95 minutes
7:00 Bamboo Shoots, China, 2007, 104 minutes
9:20 Happy Family, Netherlands, 2007, 90 minutes
Wednesday, April 23rd
5:10 Bad Faith, France/Algeria, 2006, 88 minutes
7:30 Mondo Bondo, US, 2007, 95 minutes
9:00 A Man's Job, Finland, 2007, 101 minutes
Thursday, April 24th
5:30 The Planet, Sweden, 2006, 84 minutes
7:00 Dry Season, France/Belgium/Chad, 2006, 96 minutes
9:10 Kicks, Netherlands, 2007, 112 minutes
Sunday, April 27th
5:30 Paula's Secret, Germany, 2006, 100 minutes
7:15 American Teen, USA, 2008, 95 minutes
Monday, April 28th
5:00 My Mexican Shiva, Mexico, 2006, 102 minutes
7:15 Up the Yangtze, Canada, 2007, 93 minutes
9:20 Jar City, Iceland, 2006, 93 minutes
Tuesday, April 29th
5:00 Ten Lives of Titanic the Cat, Norway, 2008, 74 minutes
7:00 Minnesota Shorts
9:35 Through Thick and Thin, USA, 2007, 72 minutes
Wednesday, April 30th
5:30 Cabul in Kabul, Afghanistan/France, 2007, 87 minutes
7:15 Wind Man, Russia, 2007, 98 minutes
9:30 Extras, Poland, 2007, 115 minutes
Thursday, May 1st, Closing Night
7:00 Encounters at the End of the World, USA, 2007, 99 minutes
Friday, May 2nd
5:00 Imprint
Monday, April 14, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
MSPIFF is Coming! MSPIFF is Coming!
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!
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!
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.
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