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Heard Film Festival :: STEVE WEISS
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ARTish The Magazine
http://www.artish.org/ARTishTheMagazine-SteveWeiss-Heard_Museum_Film_Festival.html
Heard Museum
by Steve Weiss
www.nofestivalrequired.com
www.candidlandscapes.com
Is it ok to confess here? I have never attended a film festival before this one.
When I look at the schedule for a film festival I'm daunted. How can I see that many films? How can I as a viewer absorb one film after another, feature-length after feature-length, and if I do decide, how to be fair?
An unusually busy week and weekend forced me to pick, so I went with a few choices that created blocks of festival scattered with a domestic life not far down the street.
Here's the entire schedule from the Heard Museum, whose facilities, though impressive in scale, had serious technical issues with the main theater's projection system. Filmmakers were apologizing for how the projection looked, saying they'd lost
saturation, or from what I could see, the color blue. Good sound and I can see it an as excellent stage, dance and lecture space, but the portable projector in the Encanto Room was a far superior balanced image. Please check on that projector, for the sake of the next festival.
I missed so much more than was screened, but attended the following
First the Heard description in bold and then my comments...
+++++++++++++
3:30 p.m. $7
EXPERIMENTAL FILMS BLOCK NO ONE UNDER 18 IS ALLOWED AT THIS SCREENING
Call Me Names
Director : Alan Natachu, Zuni
An examination of the power of words. United States, 6 mins
The entire film was a musically charged, incessant electronica beat text projected and spoken, rapped, sung image of every name that can be called to every race, creed or color. I'm still mystified by moon cricket, and there were others. It made a thundering point.
I think I was a little disappointed that the director hadn't done the music as well, only because it was such good music and it really was the film. His decision to use and actualize it did give me the chance to hear the incredibly talented composer, who goes by the name of Great Fox.
http://greatfoxmusic.com
Yellow Dust
Director : Shonie de la Rosa, Navajo
When the Navajo emerged from into the 4th World, the Holy People gave them a choice. They were to choose between two powders. One, a yellow dust from the rocks and the other was corn pollen. The Navajo people chose corn pollen and the Holy People were content. They warned the Navajo though, that having chosen the corn pollen, the yellow dust from the rocks would have to remain in the ground. If the yellow dust from the rocks were ever to be disturbed, it would bring evil. United States, 7 mins.
Well executed cross-editing of archival footage of nuclear testing and uranium mining tailings and mine sites. Perhaps a little longer than needed, and best explained as a subject by the filmmaker after the screening. One of the better explanations of the festival.
Hush
Director : Tazbah Chavez, Navajo/Paiute
An Akatubi student film from the Owens Valley Development Center, Bishop, California. A reenactment of personal interviews with young Native women who share intimate personal stories and the social effects of these experiences on their lives. 8 mins.
Certainly a good teen education morals tale, but to me not necessarily experimental filmmaking .
Pura Lengua
Director : Aurora Guerrero, Xicana
A young urban Xicana searches for ways to heal following cold deceptions of the heart. 11 mins.
Well filmed and close to well-acted. An unbelieveable lead-up to a beating is explained at the end of the film as based on a true story, which made me question my initial disbelief. High quality filmmaking, but the acting could have been more genuine at times.
From Cherry English
Director : Jeff Barnaby, Mi'k Maq
A surrealist allegory about the loss of language and identity to the anonymity of an urban wasteland. Canada, 11 mins. Sundance Film Festival 2005.
My favorite short of this set, a true nightmare, well-acted, shot, staged and with special effects to make you quirm. A hard, jarring ending. A visual roller coaster ride. There were others equally good for various reason in the festival, but this one was good AND technically amazing.
Al Keme 1345
Director : Shonie de la Rosa, Navajo
Addiction is a painful disease no what the addiction may be. Through music and symbolism, this film follows one man's journey back to reality. United States, 13 mins.
Lots of symbology and pharmaecuetical references. Kind of like a student music video, but with a really interesting consistent look...in the midst of the Navajo Red Rock country, they shot in a washed out black and white that made the landscape more ugly and blasted than warm and romantic. Showing a classic Navajo sand dune and then systematically destroying it, running across, tumbling down.
There was an anti-beauty to the filmmaker's message I found innovative.
Went home pondering and then came back for the 5:30 show.
+++++++++++++
Steele Auditorium
5:30 p.m. $10
Tsist'la Jighaah
Director : David Grotell
Executive Producer: Priscilla Chee, Navajo
Curvis defies his elders, desecrates his surroundings and decides to leave the rez to become a rap star in Los Angeles. He receives a visit from an elderly stranger with visionary powers and learns a few lessons about life from the perspective of those who have gone before. The title, in Navajo, means "walking around an enclosed corner, as in a rock formation, in which one is led back around to where one started." United States, 27 min.
Acted by Navajo school kids and presumably ad libbing a lot of dialogue, this film was a Navajo morals tale about deciding what's important. There is a suggestion that the wild father inspired the wild son. It is done in a flash back way with genuine locations and really great acting and directing. One of my favorite films of the weekend.
The Heard asked the filmmaker to bleep the f words in the dialogue, but he had forgotten to bleep the s words, which kind of made the screening a little more comical and the editing more obvious. A screening with the the dialogue intact is hopefully heading to the next season's No Festival Required!
Adjourn for the evening and get ready for Sunday.
++++++++++++++++
Sunday, 19 June, 2005
Encanto Room
*Please Note Time Change 11 a.m.
$7
Dot's Death
Director : Stan Wolfgramm, Tongan
Teresa, a white woman estranged from her bigoted mother, Dot, since marrying a Tongan man, receives word that her mother is dying. In keeping with his own culture, and against his wife's wishes, Willie decides to bring Dot into their home for her final days. New Zealand, 20 mins. Sundance Film Festival 2005.
Really bad print and many time unintelligible dialogue but who cares? Such a powerful and simply told story, with a change of heart that ends the film with a tug at your insides. For anyone who's lost someone, you can't walk away unshaken.
Kaikohe Demolition
Director : Florian Habicht
Northern New Zealand's most rock 'n' roll event; the people involved tell the Kaikohe Demolition Derby. The Car Club's event is a rough, violent spectator sport and is both innocent and positive. Kaikohe, a small town, made world news in 1991 when some of its children attacked Santa in the local Christmas Parade. New Zealand, 53 mins.
It may have been a lot stronger if it was maybe 10 minutes shorter, but no matter. It started great, it ended well, and there was much good stuff in the middle.
The description above pretty much tells it, it's demo derby New Zealand Maori style. Some really unforgettable characters. I especially liked the profoundly massive guy who talked of his work as a doorman, "not a bouncer" he insisted...and went on to talk about anger management classes he taught. Whew.
The accent was such that captioning was included and necessary, though after awhile you realized they were speaking English!
++++++++++++
Fast forward to 4:30 pm Sunday, and yes I skipped a bunch of screenings. I still think this is the hardest thing of a festival. I just had to balance life and priorities and hoping for seeing the thing I wanted to see.
Steele Auditorium
4:30 p.m. $10
$10 Includes Complimentary Wine & Cheese Reception Following Screening
5th World
Director : Larry Blackhorse Lowe, Navajo
A fresh take on a classic love story, this film explores how tribal culture and family beliefs can make or break a relationship. Andrei and Aria are on a road trip back home to the Navajo Nation from college. As they travel rural Arizona and New Mexico they slowly discover one another. The attraction around mutual attraction and common interests but from their shared roots, and the rare rush of recognizing the beauty in someone just like you. During a visit with relatives, Andrei's aunt and uncle regale the young couple with tales, recounted in the Navajo language, of their traditional, ceremony filled courtship and marriage. On the drive home, the young lovers' journey is interrupted. United States, 75 mins.
This was a take on a storyline I'd read in a Tony Hillerman novel. I'm not ashamed to say Hillerman at least introduced me to the Navajo culture, so I was already understanding the potential premise of the story and the ill-fated lovers. This left me to watch how it was revealed and how the film was executed.
Naturalistic acting by the main talent, believeable dialogue and generally interesting cinematography mixed with well-placed text descriptives made it a satisfying feature. Great use of Navajo dialogue and captioning.
And so ended my festival weekend. My press-supplied 3 day pass would have cost $100. I used the equivalent of $34.00 worth of tickets to see the 10 films I managed to see. I was visually exhausted by what was probably 1/4 of what was screened, but glad I had the opportunity.
:: Steve Weiss :: location scout, photographer, and No Festival Required founder.
contact Steve :: steve@nofestivalrequired.com
Steve Weiss's ARTish Gallery :: www.ARTish.org/artist-weissguy.html
