Northwest
Film and Video Festival
Guild
Theatre,
829 SW
9th Ave., (503) 221-1156 Thursday-Friday, Nov. 2-10
$6 per screening, $50 festival pass
The festival
concludes next week with repeats of the shorts programs
and a screening of the feature film Rollercoaster.
Check next week's listings for more information.
Festival judge
Todd Haynes, new to Portland, directed Safe and Velvet
Goldmine. Previous festival judges include Gus Van Sant,
Matt Groening and Boys Don't Cry producer Christine
Vachon.
The Northwest Film Center's 27th Film and Video Festival
is the annual fulfillment of a primary purpose: directing
attention to Northwest filmmakers' work of various styles
and genres.
In the case of the festival, "Northwest" means filmmakers
from Alaska to Montana and anywhere in between. Festival
judge Todd Haynes has selected one feature, documentaries
composing two programs and short films loosely divided by
theme into three programs--a total of 43 works narrowed
down from 300 entries.
Encompassing narratives, animation, experimental works
and documentaries of all descriptions, this year's diverse,
predominantly experimental, array requires an open mind
and at least a passing proclivity for underground film.
But the selection is expansive enough to offer something
for almost any taste or mood.
Friday, Nov. 3. 7 pm.
Shorts I: Of the Edge, DOUBLE FEATURE with 30 Frames
a Second: The WTO in Seattle--The highlight of Shorts
I: Of the Edge is Portlander Chel White's Soulmate,
an intense, intimate and recognizable depiction of devastating
loneliness and silent lives. Sarah Nagy's Eulogy,
also from Portland, explores the tenuous relationship between
life and art in the head of a young man who fantasizes about
fame through photography. Vanessa Renwick's Satan's Holiday
has as its subject a Portland Satanist named "Diabolos Rex."
Also screening is Sarah Marcus and Kate Hardy's enigmatic,
feminist Knuckle Down (Portland), Todd Korgan's The
Man with the Empty Room (Portland), James Yu's Poppa
(Portland), and James Diamond's The Man from Venus
(Vancouver, B.C.).
Seattle filmmaker/journalist Rustin Thompson's documentary,
30 Frames a Second: The WTO in Seattle, deals with
1999's notorious demonstrations against the World Trade
Organization. The film takes its title from Jean-Luc Godard's
famous assertion that "cinema is truth at 24 frames per
second." The more literal "documentary" bits are engaging
and disturbing, but it's Thompson's reflective queries into
the nature of "truth" in filmmaking that are truly fascinating.
Portlander Zak Margolis' Googlie Eye Movie, a short
documentary about a peculiar series of photographs, also
screens as the double feature.
Saturday, Nov. 4. 2 pm. Youthspeak--A selection
of films by younger filmmakers, grades K-12, who have chosen
to tackle complex issues through the use of video. Some
of the films that will be screened were selections in this
year's Young People's Film and Video Festival. This program
is free.
Saturday, Nov. 4. 7 pm.
Shorts II: Of the Heart, DOUBLE FEATURE with Shorts
III: Of the Spleen--Shorts II: Of the Heart includes
the gorgeously filmed, resonant Christmas, a Nabokov
adaptation you won't be able to take your eyes off of, directed
by Seattle's Serge Gregory. Another Seattle entry, Lynn
Shelton's sobering The Clouds That Touch Us Out of Clear
Skies is an experimental documentary in which women
relate the physical and emotional grief of miscarriage.
Other shorts in the evening's program include Vision
Point, an instamatic Canadian travelogue from British
Columbia by Stephen Arthur; The Day Stashi Ran Out of
Honey, a finely animated memoir of rural Japan during
WWII by Victoria, B.C.'s Sonia Bridge; the Warhol-esque
Eating My Words by Seattle's Rachel Lord; Israel
Katz's One Story (Seattle); and Portlanders Billy
Caliente's Yellow 40, Red 06 and David Massachi's
Slingshot.
Shorts III: Of the Spleen features British Columbia filmmaker
Josh Byer's Bob Appleby Is a Loser, a 10-minute
comedy about a go-nowhere welfare recipient, his crack-dealing
best friend and the little things that can make or break
a life. Thief of Souls, by Byer's fellow British
Columbian Clancy Dennehy, is an extremely unsettling tale
of random murder told entirely with hand puppets. Yet another
British Columbia selection, Steve Rosenberg's Watching
Mrs. Pommeranz, is a beautiful and colorfully shot story,
one of the festival's few dramatic pieces, chronicling the
everyday life and loves of a little boy who develops an
innocuous but overwhelming crush on the sexy mother next
door. Surely the best animated offering out of any of the
short programs, Fansom the Lizard, by Seattle's Evan
Mathers, is the story of a young boy who, to escape his
domesticated suburban milieu, dreams a tender, exciting
and sleazy life for his pet lizard.
Other films on the program include Portlander Joanna Priestley's
sculpture-morphing Surface Dive; Pendemonium,
a silent short by Martin Friedman of Seattle that's something
of a live-action Looney Toons episode; Bear Necessities,
the animated tale of a bear's jailbreak; and Destiny,
an anti-infomercial by Matt McCormick.
Sunday, Nov. 5.
Northwest Documents--Echo of Water Against Rocks,
a documentary by Ian McCluskey and Steve Mital of Eugene,
tells the story of geographical change wrought by the closing
of The Dalles Dam floodgates in 1957, a change that still
affects the region's native people two generations later.
Islas Hermanas, by Seattle's Mark Dworkin and Melissa
Young, details the intricacies of friendly bridge-building
between cultures, while still another Seattle entry, Frank
Abe's Conscience and the Constitution, dissects the
prosecution of Japanese-American pacifists during WWII.
Monday, Nov. 6.
Northwest Documents--The Last Angry Man: Oregon's
Senator Wayne Morse, by Christopher Houser and Robert
Millis of Portland, is a look back on the popular senator
from Oregon (1944-1968). Roll on Columbia: Woody Guthrie
and the Bonneville Power Administration by Michael Majdic
and Denise Matthews of Eugene will also screen.
|
