The Mother’s Day weekend was dedicated to the Maryland Film Festival for as long as I can remember. I think only once it took place a week earlier or later. I have been lucky because my mother lives in Germany and six hours ahead of our time-zone. But not everybody is so lucky. Other people have mothers here, who may want to spend their day with their children, and who may not be interested in movies. This has always been a problem…it never felt right to ignore Mother’s Day in favor of our movie habit.

So this time we made a compromise: We skipped our first movie and had a nice Mother’s Day breakfast instead before we started our festival day in the early afternoon. We missed our traditional silent movie with live-music — this time it would have been probably the most important film of the silent era: Man with a Movie Camera — but I think we made the right decision and it all worked out very well. I have seen this film several times before anyway, with Cinematic Orchestra’s soundtrack being one of my all-time favorites.

Our first screening was a short film program called These People Have Issues [MFF] including:

• Butthole Lickin by Kanako Wynkoop
• Cold Turkey by Kyle Spleiss
• Countertransference by Madeleine Olnek
• FaceMouth by Dave Kratz
• Hungry for Love by Ruckus Skye
• Imminent by Randall Good
• Power Mini Ultra Flex Turbo by Better Hollywood

All of these short films were amusing to some degree. Some were funnier or sillier than others, some were darker than others, some were more dramatic than others, but I thought they all were solid and pretty well done. I did enjoy watching them to some degree, but I have to admit that I found none of them really that outstanding, extraordinarily great and groundbreaking. Something was missing in this short film program…but I’m not sure what.

Maybe the title promised more than the candidates were able to deliver? Maybe I expected something like the On The Edge shorts we saw last year or something more dark-comedic? I don’t know. The films presented in These People Have Issues had a few humorous moments, but they didn’t grab me that much. Compared to other short film programs we have seen in the past regardless of whether it was comedy, narrative, animated or documentary, this selection felt incomplete, unfinished or perhaps just uninspired. At the same time it wasn’t bad either! I have seen a lot worse before. Perhaps I just entered this screening with the wrong expectations.

Our next screening was The Overbrook Brothers, directed by John Bryant, starring Nathan Harlan, Mark Reeb and Laurel Whitsett [IMDB][MFF]. The screening took place in the large theater 1 of the Charles which usually finds a rather large audience. The Overbrook Brothers, however, didn’t seem to attract a large audience at all, which really surprised me. It’s possible that it was because of Mother’s Day, or a lot of people were already done with the festival, or those who were interested already saw the first screening on Friday.

The Overbrook Brothers are Jason, a sensitive writer and Todd, who is cruel, immature, abrasive, and pretty much the opposite of Jason knowing just how to push his buttons. When they find out why they have always been the least favorite children of the family they both go on a trip to find their true origins.

This movie is a feature adaptation of John Bryant’s earlier short film, Momma’s Boy, which screened at the 2006 Maryland Film Festival. I haven’t seen it back then but I would be very curious to find out how they compare. I loved The Overbrook Brothers, Todd’s character and the dynamics between him and Jason. I have rarely seen a character that is so sinister, manipulative and at the same time very cool and likable. The only one I could think of is Rob Lowe’s character in Bad Influence, but they don’t really have that much in common. Mark Reeb who played Todd was really wonderful bringing this character to life, but I kept wondering: “Is he somehow related to Eric Roberts?”. Haha, of course he isn’t, but I felt like there was a slight resemblance. With a really nice mix of dark comedy and drama I absolutely enjoyed The Overbrook Brothers! Unfortunately, there is no trailer for it yet.

Matthew Modine and Jed Dietz

After a short break it was time for the last movie of the festival and the closing night party. The movie and its director were introduced by Matthew Modine who played Pvt. Joker in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket back in the 80s. I saw him earlier in the filmmaker’s lounge — dressed in all white he lightened up the tent — but I couldn’t place him at all until his introduction when he spoke about filming Full Metal Jacket. Wow… that’s so long ago. After I checked his long film career on IMDB and noticed that I’m not familiar with any of the movies he was involved in since then… no wonder I wasn’t able to recognize him first! Hm, so I was in the same room with somebody who worked closely with Stanley Kubrick, the master himself? What an awe-inspiring moment!

But it was not him who was involved in the following movie, but Kathryn Bigelow who created with The Hurt Locker [IMDB][MFF] a war action-drama about a bomb expert and his work in the chaos of the Iraq war. Constantly living on the edge and having his hands on explosives that could go off any moment while often under sniper fire from insurgents, he not only remains calm, collected, curious and easy, but also develops a resistance against and an addiction to the unimaginable dangers that surround him on a daily basis.

I liked about this film that it mostly focused on an individual and the nature of his job, and how this war affected him or not. Thanks to an extraordinary camera and editing job it also illustrated how everybody lived in a constant state of alert and uncertainty, surrounded not only by bombs but also people in every angle who may or may not pose a threat to them. In the wide open landscape she managed to create a very claustrophobic atmosphere as if you were locked in a small room. This was captured very well and something I don’t think I have ever seen in a movie before.

Having said that, I felt it lacked some depth portraying the characters, especially Saff Sergeant William James. It fell a bit flat for me. I was hoping to get more insights about him, how the war affected him and how his brain works. I’m not a huge fan of war films, but I remember some great films with Oliver Stone’s Born on the 4th of July or Heaven and Earth that succeeded in this regard. But maybe there was not more than we were supposed to see. After all he was addicted to war and rather divorced from the normality of a safe and secure life.

Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow and the press

If I take this film as a war drama and action thriller I think it was a good and solid film for its genre. It’s not a movie I normally would have chosen to watch, but once I was in, I stayed interested from beginning to end and didn’t get bored. I liked that this film stayed non-political, non-propagandistic and not overly patriotic unlike some other movies or Army commercials. Kathryn Bigelow, by the way, also directed Strange Days and Wild Palms back in the nineties, both of which I loved.

After The Hurt Locker we spent a few minutes at the closing night party and headed back home. That was the end of an exhausting but very wonderful and exciting movie weekend.

It was a wonderful year for the Maryland Film Festival. The line-up included so many great movies. I especially appreciated the foreign movie choices even though we were not able to see all of them. I hope we will find such a nice selection again next year.

The filmmakers lounge was moved to the tent village across the Charles again like once before. I love this location. I liked this setup much better than the other venues of the past few years.

I loved the opportunity to purchase the All-Access passes at a lower price this year. Overall, this festival felt very close to what made me fall in love with it back in 2002 when I visited for the first time.

I like some of these equally as much, so it was nearly impossible to give them a fair spot in my list, but here it is! My top-11 of all the feature length movies seen on Friday and Sunday:

1. Modern Love is Automatic
2. Love Songs
3. Invisible Girlfriend
4. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
5. Strongman
6. The Overbrook Brothers
7. Stingray Sam
8. Lake Tahoe
9. World’s Greatest Dad
10. The Hurt Locker
11. Seventh Moon

The MFF2009 Crew

Last but not least I would like to thank everybody who made this festival possible! We had a fantastic time — thanks very much!!

Maryland Film Festival 2009

Our day started with Modern Love is Automatic [IMDB][MFF], directed by Zach Clark, starring Melodie Sisk (as Lorraine) and Maggie Ross (as Adrian).

Modern Love is Automatic was a dark and dry comedy-drama about nurse Lorraine who, bored with with her environment and the people in her life, detached herself emotionally and socially from everything. Controlling every detail in her life it doesn’t seem surprising when she finds interest in a dominatrix magazine. When she finds her boyfriend cheating she decides to look for a new roommate and becomes a dominatrix at night. She finds aspiring fashion model Adrian, whose emotionality and bubbliness very much is Lorraine’s total opposite. But just as opposites attract, they very slowly develop a friendship in the background of their individual lives and Adrian’s boyfriend Mitch who is uncontrollably obsessed with Lorraine.

Zach Clark, Maggie Ross, Melodie Sisk, Daryl Pittman

This movie was easily one of my favorites this year. I not only loved the great performances, cool sets, colors and costumes, but also the pace and quiet as well as Melodie Sisk’s facial expressions that said more than could ever be said with words. Modern Love feels like a nice companion to my other favorites from the last two festival years when I saw Ronald Bronstein’s Frownland and Mary Bronstein’s Yeast. In these movies I was able to identify with the characters and their paralyzed social lives and relationships to an unusual extent. What can I say, I loved everything about Modern Love is Automatic. Even the bursts of doom metal worked really well in there. Definitely a movie I would like to see again sometime, and one I can highly recommend.

David Redmon

Our second screening this Friday was Invisible Girlfriend [IMDB][MFF], directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, with and about Charles Fihoil, a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic who lives in Monroe, Louisiana with his parents and children. He is in love with his invisible girlfriend, the spirit of Joan of Arc, and decides that DeeDee, his pen pal and New Orleans bartender, might be Joan of Arc in the flesh. The filmmaker follows him on a 400-mile bicycle journey to find DeeDee.

This was a wonderful documentary about a man who may be a bit crazy, but also very intelligent, insightful and caring. During his journey through rural Louisiana, which lasted about 12 days, he met several generous, kind and very down-to-earth people who gave him a ride or shared food and stories with him. I found it interesting how this journey was accompanied by a number of moments of death and decay that foreshadowed what he would find at his destination. Beautiful, sometimes funny, but also very sad, this film managed to create a non-judgmental portrait of Charles Fihoil and the people he met on his way. I really liked this film. I was also very impressed by some of the music choices.

Another documentary we saw this Friday was Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, directed by Jessica Oreck. This film portrayed a part of Japanese culture I was completely unfamiliar with before: Japan’s love and fascination with insects that is inherent in the whole society and all generations from young to old age. Insects are collected like trading cards or comic books, are part of quite a significantly sized industry of collectors and breeders. Insects appear in shape of dolls, toys, video games, candy, but also inspire art and literature, dating back to the beginning of Japan’s history.

Jessica Oreck and Sean Williams

Beetle Queen was partially in English, partially Japanese with English subtitles and filled with a great amount of insight, history and poetry about an ancient and still mysterious culture that may mostly be known to the Western world for their car and electronic brands, fashion and pop culture, their tv-shows or cuisine. I can highly recommended it to anyone who is interested in learning more about Japan from a slightly different angle. The cinematography comes from Sean Williams who also shot Frownland and Yeast I mentioned above. I would love to see it again and follow the history and poetry in more depth than I was able to comprehend upon my first viewing.

I have to admit: A few days ago, if someone had told me to watch a romantic musical, I probably would have would have smiled and dismissed it without giving it a chance. The musical genre was not one I was particularly interested in before. The few musicals I have ever seen were entertaining to a degree, but they didn’t manage to grab me. Why? I’m not sure… perhaps it’s something I wasn’t properly introduced to growing up in Germany. About every movie made in Germany of the 50s and 60s was incredibly silly and featured a lot of bad German Schlager music. Television was practically non-existent, and eventually the popularity died off and no musical films were produced anymore for a very long time. I can’t really think of any musical film produced in Germany since the days of the economic boom.

In the mid to late 80s (stage) musicals became very popular with Cats. Many others including Starlight Express, Phantom of the Opera followed later, and they are still popular in Germany, but as far as I know, there haven’t been any movies to speak of. Every time I saw a movie with dancing and singing people they appeared very foreign to me. Something I couldn’t connect to.

Perhaps the setting and background were too artificial…perhaps the music was too methodical or constructed…perhaps I was thrown out of the story every time one of the actors starts to sing instead of keeping his character. How believable is the evil villain, mad professor or action hero who suddenly begins to dance and sing?

John Waters and Jed Dietz

Being a romantic musical I never would have volunteered to pick Love Songs [IMDB][MFF] if it hadn’t been the John Waters pick this year. The annual “John Waters Pick” has been one of our traditions since we started attending the film festival. His movie selections did never disappoint in the past few years. Most of his selections, including Story of Women, Dog Days or Head-On offered an extraordinarily realistic view on love, people and the complexity of their emotional, social, sexual, human interactions…reflecting what life is really like, challenging what most movies try to suggest as reality.

Love Songs was directed by Christophe Honoré and stars Chiara Mastroianni, Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier and Clotilde Hesme. It’s a romantic musical, yes…but one I actually enjoyed very much! It felt very current and natural, the songs and music were beautiful and were very elegantly woven into the story. So fluent, it almost felt as if these moments could have happened in real life… although I have never seen someone walking down the street singing, have I?

Everybody looked great, very natural and likable, the story was beautiful, so was the atmosphere and mood. I still find myself surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. Another contemporary musical film I saw a while ago (Sweeney Todd) left me with the same impression I had of other musicals before, not so Love Songs. Perhaps it worked so well because it was in French and playing in Paris? I don’t know, but I really enjoyed its pace and rhythm. I think I might have to correct some of my views I used to have about musicals. Perhaps there is more out there I would enjoy if I gave it a try.

After Love Songs we had our first break of the day and we used the opportunity to celebrate our 5th filmfest membership anniversary with a pitcher of sangria. I should have eaten something first, because the wine quickly made me feel a little fuzzy-headed.

Of course this didn’t help when we entered our fifth and last screening of the day: Seventh Moon [IMDB][MFF] directed by Eduardo Sánchez, starring Amy Smart, Dennis Chan and Tim Chiou. The story takes place in China where Melissa and Yul enjoy their honeymoon. Their visit coincides with the sacred Seventh Moon festival, celebrating the full moon of the seventh lunar month, which, according to a Chinese myth, is a time when the dead are free to walk the earth. The couple, drunk after celebrating, start a late night cab-drive to Yul’s grandmother’s house in the countryside. This trip will of course end somewhere lost in the middle of nowhere where the horror is about to take place.

Directed by Eduardo Sánchez who with Daniel Myrick also wrote and directed the Blair Witch Project, Seventh Moon felt a lot like Blair Witch Project including its shaky camera work. Even without sangria I got motion sick when I watched the Blair Witch on the big screen. The same happened Friday night during the Seventh Moon. I survived about three quarter of the movie, but I had to close my eyes because I felt increasingly dizzy. A few minutes before the movie was over I had to leave the theater to breathe some fresh air and get stable ground under my feet which made me feel better. Unfortunately I missed the ending of the movie and the Q and A afterward, but my stomach wasn’t ready for it. Next time I should probably take some pills for motion sickness before I watch another shaky movie.

The following list is in order from my top pick down for Friday, May 8:

1. Modern Love is Automatic
2. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
3. Invisible Girlfriend
4. Love Songs
5. Seventh Moon

PS: Sorry about the bad quality of these photos. My camera didn’t take the low-light too well. I hope I got all the names right. Please correct me if I made a mistake.

By the way, we are celebrating our 5^th red carpet membership anniversary supporting the film festival as Friends of the Festival! Amazing how quickly all these years passed. I still remember our exciting first festival in 2002 before we became members as if it took place just a few months ago.

MICA Brown Center

This year’s festival opened at the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Brown Center with an introduction by festival director Jed Dietz, followed by a selection of eight short films to celebrate the art of filmmaking in its purest form. Bobcat Goldthwait was the host tonight and launched the presentation with his own Goldthwait Home Movies in which the “cast” of an old home movie reunites to record an audio commentary for the 40^th anniversary DVD. I enjoyed this little funny film.

Jed Dietz & Bobcat Goldthwait

Next was The Bellows March by Eric Dyer. He uses the old pre-cinema zoetrope technique he first explored in 2006 with Copenhagen Cycles. This time he added a third dimension to his zoetropes by using digitally printed three-dimensional sculptures.

3-dimensional metallic concertina-soldiers march, dance, and burrow; rain falls on the fallen ones, who are reborn as colorful plants blooming in mock-timelapse. They dance in grassy fields, intertwining with each other in a colorful kaleidoscope of motion, until joining in ordered rows and devolving into their militaristic marching form.

I liked the aesthetics, rhythm and visual effects, the patterns, images, and especially its technical background. While watching this film I thought to myself “This is very unique, there probably is no other way to produce this look.” Having said that, there was something missing for me however. I had a similar experience when I saw Copenhagen Cycles before. I fully recognize and appreciate its artistry, but I’m missing emotionality in its mechanics. I can picture it being used as a music video, or in a context with another elements adding emotionality to the ever-progressing and pulsating images. But as a short film alone, it didn’t manage to grab me as much as it could have.

Somewhat inspired by Eric Dyer’s film was Michael Langan who created “a moving portrait of the bustle and permanence of a city” with Dahlia [IMDB] by taking several photographs of an object or similar objects in focus with a changing background scene. He took, for example, pictures of different parking meters in different locations with the same viewing angle and used them as animation frames. This reminded me very much of the video animation Noah Kalina with the pictures he took of himself every day for six years. I liked this film and thought the music worked really well to the images. It added to the film what The Bellows March was missing for me.

Andy Cahill, Jed Dietz, (Pat Clark?), Jay Zimmerman, Matt Cornwell, Jim Jacob (please correct me if I got anybody wrong.)

Jay Zimmerman’s Done In One [IMDB] was a funny and genius little short film taken in in a single shot without any editing. Very clever, I loved it!

Andy Cahill created with Trepan Hole [IMDB] an animation of “squiggling, spastic, rail-thin creatures with clay souls and throbbing heads bounce off each other for six minutes.” It amused me to some degree, but I found myself scratching my head for most of the six minutes. :-D

Mildred Richards by Marc Kess (“KESS!”) looked and sounded fascinatingly 1940s in every aspect. The sound actually recorded in the 1940 for a radio play. The film was newly created to match the old recording. I thought the Radio Film Picture was very well made. The new visuals looked very convincing and authentic, and you couldn’t really tell what has been done, except occasionally the lips didn’t sync 100%. I thought the story was fun, too.

Julia Kim Smith’s Grand Teton [IMDB] was my least favorite film this evening, quite a disappointment to be honest. It was a video portrait of a first generation Korean-American family who comes together for a group photo at the same spot after 35 years. The pictures showed a range of mixed impressions from silliness, happiness, gratitude, perhaps melancholy and sadness as well, but they were overshadowed by a distracting, ugly, overpowering and awfully disturbing soundtrack. Did she try to illustrate the degree of identity loss people experience in the attempt to assimilate? In that case this film would have been disturbing but successful. But I’m not sure if that really was intended.

The opening night concluded with About Film Festivals by Jim Jacob. That was very funny, I loved it! Let’s let him speak for himself:

This year’s line-up was fantastic. Not only the feature length movies turned out to be great, we also saw a lot of excellent short films. As in all the previous years we didn’t manage to watch everything we were interested in, but I plan to keep an eye on these films and rent them as soon as they become available on video. I was very interested in

• Beautiful Losers
• Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
• I Think We’re Alone Now
• My Effortless Brilliance
• Polis Is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place
• Row Hard No Excuses
• Strictly Background
• Woodpecker

Hopefully they will be available on video one day. Unfortunately, we also could not make it to the closing night screening & party, which has been another tradition next to the screening in 3-D, John Waters’ selection, the silent movie with live music and the opening night. The tent village schedule again included several interesting presentations, including topics like how to get your movie into film festivals, distribution tips, how to budget a film, documentaries and proximity to subjects, copyrights, how to get started with your first film, and much more. This year there also were two free outdoor screenings of Yellow Submarine and William Castle’s Strait-Jacket.

So many great things to see, learn and choose from, so many opportunities… this is what makes the Maryland Film Festival such a wonderful and exciting one. But this also is what makes it so challenging and difficult for us when we try to compile our weekend schedule every year. I should have gotten used to the impossibility of seeing everything that sparked my interest–but I haven’t; and sometimes I wonder if a duration of a full week could make it any easier. Hm, probably not…because a full festival week would include even more greatness and just make it even more challenging in the end.

As far as I am concerned, the Maryland Film Festival was a milestone of the year and a great success again, even without doing something special for its 10th anniversary. It was especially nice to offer the all-access passes at a reduced price, which was close to what we normally would have paid for single tickets. The all-access passes made it so much easier for film-junkies like us, because we didn’t have to print a whole stack of tickets ourselves anymore, had more freedom to make last-minute decisions about films we were going to see or not, and we didn’t have to wait in lines (most of the time) which was a plus, too. It felt as pleasant, casual and relaxed as in our first years of joining the festival.

Not only the festival weekend, but also the Friends of the Festival program throughout the year was very attractive again. It kept us in the loop of things and featured a number of very interesting screenings at the MICA, including Helvetica, Off The Grid and Everything is Cool, which we both enjoyed a lot. Many thanks and hats off to everybody who made this film festival and the program throughout the year possible!

My Top-5 festival favorites and films I definitely want to watch again sometime:

1. Yeast
2. Goliath
3. Momma’s Man
4. Baghead
5. and the latest version of I.O.U.S.A.

My Top-5 short films:

1. Salim Baba
2. Doxology
3. Karaoke Show
4. The Animals all are Gathering
5. Fantaisie in Bubblewrap

Our next film festival will take place in Arlington, Virginia on Saturday, June 14, 2008. The 6.5 hour Rosebud Nominee Showcase will present 20 films beginning at 12:30PM at the Spectrum Theater, 1611 North Kent Street, Arlington, VA. It is a showcase of the best work made in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. and will also include Quick Feet, Soft Hands by Paul Harrill. I’m already looking forward to this. I will probably attempt to write more about this event and the films later in June.

Again, thanks to the Maryland Film Festival, the Friends of the Festival, everybody who made it possible, and thank you for enduring my writings!!

When I first saw Frownland last year it quickly became one of my favorite films of the festival. It was very impressive how this film managed to involve me emotionally and create such an authentic, realistic, unpleasant reflection of a group of people with all their social ineptness and loneliness. It was as rough, ugly, unpolished, unpleasant and claustrophobic as life itself beyond the shiny and sugarcoated front one usually gets to see.

Yeast was a another very precise, uncomfortable, moving and authentic character study, this time of a group of friends and the painful dynamic that evolved from some point in their lives when they found together to distance and separation. Every image, every dialog and every non-spoken sequence contributed to a very dense and successful portrait of the complexity of friendships and how friends can treat or mistreat each other.

Although Yeast dealt with female friendships and how aggressive and physical they can become, I thought this film didn’t necessarily apply to female friendships alone. I experienced similar dynamics in our old clique and a similar course of outspoken and unspoken aggression, mistreatments before we all separated one day and continued our lives into new directions.

In the movie database entry for Yeast I noticed the keyword mumblecore which I haven’t heard before. Wikipedia defines it as

an American independent film movement that arose in the early 2000′s. It is primarily characterized by ultra-low budget production (often employing digital video cameras), focus on personal relationships between twenty-somethings, improvised scripts, and non-professional actors.

If other films in the mumblecore genre are anywhere as great as Frownland or Yeast, I will definitely have to watch more soon.

These films may be ultra-low budget productions with non-professional actors, and highly improvised, but they are some of the most intelligent and accurate psychological portraits I have seen in a long time. Frownland was great last year, but I thought Yeast was even more successful. Absolutely brilliant – I have to applaud Mary Bronstein and her husband. I sincerely hope they will continue producing many more movies in the future. [imdb]

Do you go to the movies for stories that distract you from the problems of life — light-hearted romps in which familiar, likeable characters share some laughter and good times as they topple the obstacles between themselves and their goals? If you answered yes, director Mary Bronstein’s debut feature Yeast is NOT the film for you.

Yeast comes from much of the same team that brought us 2007′s confrontational and claustrophobic Frownland – arguably the most controversial film from last year’s Maryland Film Festival. And as with Frownland, Yeast takes viewers outside their comfort zone with its often-unpleasant characters, its unconventional approach to storytelling, and its uncompromising aesthetics.

Yeast begins by throwing us into an awkward situation — a young woman, Rachel (Mary Bronstein) rousing her disheveled roommate Alice (Amy Judd) for a camping trip they’ve planned with Gen (Greta Gerwig, star of MFF 2007′s Hannah Takes the Stairs). Alice refuses to come, and at first we’re struck by her seemingly unmotivated surliness towards Rachel. But as Rachel and Gen venture into the woods, what slowly emerges is a warts-and-all portrait of a manipulative person who compulsively undermines the people in her life — and the also-imperfect friends who’ve decided they’ve finally had enough.

For that discerning viewer who will revel in an honest portrait of the vicious, grotesque little ways human beings mistreat each other, Yeast provides a special treat. It’s a bold and edgy film that probes complex psychological ideas we may have never seen onscreen before — and in doing so articulates a strong belief in the ability of film culture to keep moving forward. (Eric Allen Hatch)

About Mary Bronstein and the cast and crew of Yeast:
Director and star Mary Bronstein co-starred in MFF 2007′s Frownland. Yeast, which debuted at SXSW 2008, is her feature-film directorial debut.

Assistant director and editor Ronnie Bronstein directed Frownland.

Star Greta Gerwig also appears in the MFF 2008 features Baghead and Nights and Weekends (which she co-directed), and the short film Quick Feet, Soft Hands. (from the filmfest-guide)

The following is an short interview with Mary Bronstein, created by the CAmm Cage/Media Lab/Creative Alliance at the Patterson.

All screenings including the documentary shorts program would now begin late after this incident, and we would have had to leave early to ride to the UB Student Center and be in time for Out Late. So we decided to give ourselves a break after two long movie-days and skip the documentary shorts, although we both were very interested in watching them. Sometimes you just can’t have it all.

Out Late was a great companion to Bi The Way we saw earlier on Saturday. Bi The Way highlighted the “whatever” generation, young people who find themselves equally attracted to both sexes, and alternately maintain either heterosexual or homosexual relationships. Out Late focused on the older generation who lived in heterosexual relationships, hid their sexual identity for most of their lives before they decided to come out very late as senior citizens.

There is no doubt that today’s society is still not as accepting and tolerant as it should be, but I was wondering: If these seniors had grown up in today’s age, in which same sex relationships are much more, and much more widely accepted than 50 or 60 years ago — would they have defined themselves as a “whatever-generation”, too, or would they have come out as gay or lesbian early in adolescence? Or vice versa: if today’s “whatever-generation” had grown up 50 or 60 years ago, would they have lived in a straight relationship for their whole life and come out today, to openly live an identity they suppressed and hid for so long?

There are so many questions I could think of. Both documentaries leave a lot of room for discussion and illustrate how complex and individual everybody’s journey really is. Out Late was an excellent and thought-provoking portrait of a fascinating group of seniors who took the risk, managed to turn their entire lives around and redefine themselves so late in life. It presented facets of human life I was very unfamiliar with before.

Homophobia still looms large in our society, causing many gay and lesbian individuals to remain in the closet into college or beyond. But this documentary follows five individuals who waited until they were senior citizens to openly declare their sexuality to family, friends, coworkers and neighbors — and paints a vivid, sometimes painful portrait of these people and the many factors that caused them to wait this long.

Their stories are nothing less than extraordinary: many lived straight lives complete with marriage and children, and now face the challenge of beginning again late in life — often losing some love and support in the process, but infusing their lives with new levels of honesty and pride. Perhaps most dramatically we meet Elaine, who came out of the closet at 79, and finds herself decades older than the other senior lesbians in her support group; LeAnna, a former military man who became a woman at age 60; and Cathy, who didn’t see the need to come out until spotting an anti-gay political sign in the lawn of her neighbors and best friends.

Out Late tells these stories in unflinching detail, asking all the right questions: why wait so long? Why now? And… what now? Just as importantly, with stories captured across North America, it forces society at large to ask the question: why are we still making this so hard for so many people? (Eric Allen Hatch) (from the filmfest-guide)

I didn’t know about Underworld before and it took me a few minutes to get acclimated, but I soon got drawn into the course of the story and realized how significant this film really is for the genre of gangster movies. I couldn’t agree more with the festival guide summary quoted above.

Underworld was the precursor for movies like Scarface: it was shot from the gangster’s point of view and included many of the concepts used so often in the history of the genre: the lawyer closely collaborating with the gangster, the romantic triangle between the gangster, his girl and the lawyer, loyalty, jealousy, rivalry with other groups of gangsters, the gangster ball and its code, the overall helplessness of the police and their inability to get to him until much later during the climax of the story.

The first gangster movie was really well done, I enjoyed it very much. [imdb]

Josef von Sternberg is one of the seminal figures in American moviemaking. His casting of Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel elevated her to international superstardom, and the two maintained a close collaboration for several classic films thereafter. Before any of this, however, von Sternberg established himself as a force to be reckoned with which such silent classics as 1927′s Underworld.

Built on a script from legendary screenwriter Ben Hecht (he also wrote The Front Page and Scarface, and won the first Academy Award for “Best Writing” for his work here) Underworld crowned von Sternberg as the first king of the gangster film. Shot by legendary cinematographer Bill Glennon, who went on to make numerous films with John Ford and was a master of film noir, Underworld tells the story of a gangster, “Bull” Weed (George Bancroft), his lawyer, “Rolls Royce” (Clive Brook), and “Feathers,” the kingpin’s mistress (Evelyn Brent). It’s a love triangle, but when “Bull” shoots a man and is sentenced to die, he depends on his two friends to get him out.

Mildly regarded at the time it opened in 1927 (it “contains a good deal of sound drama,” wrote New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall), it gradually grew to be one of the biggest box office hits of the year, and inspired a slew of imitators. Indeed, a whole genre of moviemaking has been built on the artistic shoulders of Underworld. (Jed Dietz) (from the filmfest-guide)

There are hardly any films or characters I could say this about. Am I as emotionally stunted as the summary above described Mikey’s character? Is this a story many people share but would never talk about in public, perhaps because they feel embarrassed about it? Or is it really just such a coincidence that the story line matches my own experience very closely? But not only Mikey’s character and situation appeared so familiar to me, his parents’ gentle way reminded me of my own parents, too.

Before I moved to Baltimore I lived in Furtwangen for four years, which is a drive of about six hours from where my childhood home used to be. During this time I never felt nostalgic about not being with my parents anymore. We were still in touch and I had quite a few friends in both places. This suddenly changed when I moved to Baltimore. When I returned home for the first time in several years and found the remainders of my childhood, youth and early adulthood, I felt a lot of sadness, despair and nostalgia and just didn’t want to leave all this behind, my loving (and aging) parents, my old best friends, my family, my “stuff”…

I was in the same position that I could have and would have extended my stay if I have had the opportunity–just like Mikey in this movie. Whenever I visited home in the past few years I felt wonderful being able to connect with my past self as well as the familiar, supportive and friendly environment again, but it has always been difficult to face the many changes that occurred during the time of absence, and to leave it behind again later for a long time. Even after all these years I am not sure how to handle the emotional waves that break in on me when I visit the old place. Sometimes I feel it might be easier if I just didn’t visit it again.

All these impressions are very internal and based on love for my parents, my old home, my friends and the happiness of my childhood. How could anybody want to grow up? I never talk about this topic, and I never heard other people talk about similar experiences, until I saw Momma’s Man which makes this film very special and personal to me. May it be fictional, semi-fictional or real…

To describe Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man is to sell it short, for on the surface it is one of the most oft-told stories in the indie-film book. In this case, however, descriptions are deceiving, for in reality, Jacobs’ heartfelt drama is an unexpectedly resonant example of artistic expression at its fiercest and most deeply personal. Mikey (Matt Boren) is an emotionally stunted young man in his early thirties, who has left behind his wife and baby in California for a few days in order to visit the cluttered, cavernous TriBeCa loft in which he grew up. When his work is done and it’s time for Mikey to return to his new home, something prevents him from doing just that. As he continues to ignore his wife’s desperate phone calls, Mikey lounges around the loft like a kid again and reunites with a few old friends, to the rising concern of his loving, supportive parents.

Conceived initially as a love letter to his supremely unique childhood home, Jacobs upped the ante by casting his own parents in two major roles (his father Ken is a celebrated experimental filmmaker, his mother Flo a painter). However, whether or not one recognizes this going into Momma’s Man is of no importance, for the film carries itself with an undeniably personal air, elevating it beyond mere fiction and turning it into something much deeper. Momma’s Man is a profoundly touching, universal ode to that terrifying time when one must grow up and embrace adulthood once and for all. (Michael Tully) (from the filmfest-guide)

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This was the last screening on Saturday and I will conclude it with a few shots of the film festival created by the CAmm Cage/Media Lab/Creative Alliance at the Patterson.

Goliath was next and I just loved this film. I loved the main character and the story. I loved the movie’s full range from deep sadness to hilariously funny moments, from desperation, isolation, anger, pain, to luck and happiness. There were so many strong and wonderful moments. The divorce signing scene was brilliant in how it it portrayed both husband’s and wife’s state of mind toward each other without any dialog or interaction whatsoever. The electric can-opener… which was so sad and funny at the same time, especially when he took it out with a battery/generator to search for the lost cat. The silly looking tree-pruning tool he used as a weapon of destruction against the sex-offender in the neighborhood who he believed killed the cat. The whole fight scene produced such a set of mixed emotions, too: one could feel all the pain, desperation and anger of the main character, feel very sorry for the neighbor who really didn’t do anything, and at the same time laugh out loud about the ridiculousness of the whole situation and his neighbor’s helpless electronic larynx voice. Brilliant. Goliath was one of my favorites this year [imdb].

The unnamed, everyman hero of Goliath is struggling to keep his head above water. A messy and protracted divorce?– okay, he can handle that. A demotion at work, putting him back on the floor with a motley crew of jokers and slobs who’ve nicknamed him “Bitch Tits?” — that too he can stomach (barely). But when his beloved cat Goliath disappears — the most beautiful, most wonderful, most cherished cat in the world? Now you’ve crossed a line, Life.

Austin-based filmmaking team David and Nathan Zellner have staked out their own exciting comedic turf with a series of wildly inventive short films. Now with Goliath they’ve taken their unique brand of deadpan humor to the next level, crafting a feature that sustains a painfully hilarious mood as it mines the pathetic little insults of daily modern life — rocked by occasional explosions of ecstatic slapstick humor worthy of Jacques Tati.

Goliath comes to us after winning over crowds at the 2008 Sundance and SXSW fests, and stars writer/director David Zellner, with a hilarious supporting role from his brother, producer/editor Nathan, as one of the few people situated further down life’s totem pole than our star. The film’s wonderful supporting cast includes two-time Richard Linklater star Wiley Wiggins (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life) and Andrew Bujalski (director and star of MFF 2005′s Mutual Appreciation).

Goliath‘s hearty laughs come with little winces — and feel that much more cathartic for it. (Eric Allen Hatch) (from the filmfest-guide)

Some of the experiments in the Potpourri Shorts program just did not work for me. Now, experiments can succeed in science, art, music, film, where ever you step on unfamiliar terrain and explore new creative ideas, but they can also fail. There is nothing wrong with failures.

Untitled

A macro-experimental visual representation of color reactions in less than 60 seconds.(from the filmfest-guide)

It was quick and painless, probably well done from technical perspective. But although I can usually make up my own interpretation about an artist’s work, there was not much I could extract from Untitled.

Passage

An inquiry into memory, landscape, and departure, this work visually catches sight of experience as it moves past. In this work, the artists create a layered encounter with streams of imagery and sound. The music employs 19-tone equal temperament tuning, which provides many acoustically very pure melodic and harmonic intervals, but also ‘blue’ notes and intervals that tend to sound ‘stretched’ or ‘compressed’. The music is anchored by a slowly evolving flute-like theme that is threaded through an ever-changing landscape of harmonic, rhythmic and coloristic textures. (from the filmfest-guide)

May be something for somebody with an art and music degree, but not for an idiot like me.

Torn Asunder

This video creatively explores the increasingly frayed American national psyche. The young urban voices are two of Tampa Bay’s most popular performance poets. The art and post-production were handled by two baby boomers. (from the filmfest-guide)

I didn’t enjoy it at all–but I have to admit that I never was able to appreciate much “performance art”. I suppose the same is true for “performance poets”.

Anti-Narrative Number 4

A man’s life is examined; a narrator gives the audience insight into a man’s thoughts and feelings. The narrator eventually confesses that he is in fact the man in the film; the narrator is making a film about himself. (from the filmfest-guide)

This film was actually very refreshing after the first shorts. I enjoyed its humor.

Simulacra

In a world populated by machines, a robot discovers the joys of organic life. (from the filmfest-guide)

This short moved me. It was a very sad and very well done. The best I have seen in the Potpourri Shortsprogram.

Invoice

The soundtrack has been partly mined from an American military training video found on the Internet and altered. Thrown pennies represent ritualized violence, a body count, helplessness and absurdity. (from the filmfest-guide)

This thing really was absurd, probably the longest two minutes of my life.

Runa’s Spell

Runa’s Spell conveys a moment of connectedness with the sensual persuasions of an imaginary world. Image and music interact in a dramatic way to deepen and enhance the perception of enchantment and longing. The visuals consist of digitally interwoven and layered animated hand-paintings on 35mm film stock, animated objects and cut outs, and pixillation of live creatures. The music attempts to create a spiritual sense of journey through the fractional evocation of ancient Egyptian folk song. The sonorous texture of trembling and contorted sound-images illustrate the hesitation, solitude and endless dream-scape of the human mind. Runa’s Spell is a collaborative work by the animator and the composer, from concept through realization. (from the filmfest-guide)

I was so ready to leave the theatre at this point.

I really feel sorry because all these comments are so subjective and should not influence anybody else. Art itself is so subjective, too. One might be attracted to one piece of modern or experimental art, but then absolutely dislike another work. Sometimes art is created to purposefully shift the viewer’s emotions into a directions of love or hate. Art can be insulting, emotional, thought-provoking, inspiring or emotional. But sometimes it can also feel like a joke, as if somebody wanted to try what interpretation it takes to sell the joke to the audience. Sometimes the amount of words needed to describe a work of art feels reciprocally proportional to the amount of appreciation I can feel about a work. I don’t know if this and some of the other films were meant as a joke, how much thought, emotion, sweat, blood and work was put into them… some might have put a lot of themselves into the work. I will probably never know, but I surely was the wrong audience.

Death of a Matriarch

Based on an episode of “Kana’ti and Selu,” a Native American folktale, this animated story explains how the Cherokee Nation believes farming was brought to Mankind. (from the filmfest-guide)

This was quite a scary story with scary looking characters. Wikipedia provides some background information on this story and the Cherokee mythology which will help to appreciate this animation. Interesting. I have never heard about this tale before.

The Green Grass of Twilight

Three vignettes exploring the role of mortality in our lives. As a single time-lapse shot of cemetery headstones progresses to night, we are surprised to see the occupant step out to mow the grass and prepare for anticipated morning guests. (from the filmfest-guide)

Nothing much to add to this description.

And that’s when we left the theatre to get ready for our next film.