The Charles Theater

During this year’s film festival I once again realized how much I love the Charles Theater and the Maryland Film Festival. I always appreciated classic, independent or international movies and documentaries and was eager to see them on the big screen, but when I grew up I didn’t have easy access to them. My hometown in Germany used to have a hand full of screens for the big mainstream releases, and everything used to be dubbed in German, so if I wanted to see something the way it was intended I had to import videos from other countries, and make sure my vhs-player was able to handle the foreign video-formats. In those days it would have taken years to download a video. Occasionally I could tune to arte, a French/German tv-channel that sometimes presented movies with subtitles and original audio tracks. This channel helped me discover a number of interesting and unusual movies, but I also imported many of my favorite movies and directors from the UK, Belgium, Canada, and the US.

When we attended the Maryland Film Festival for the first time in 2002 I knew what a priceless treasure we had found with the Charles Theater — not only during the film festival, but also all year long. Where else would you ever get an opportunity to watch a dozen Ingmar Bergman movies on the big screen? Where else could an event like the film festival take place if not at the Charles?

Last week I thought to myself: “What if the Charles had to close one day?” Would there be a film festival? Would there be any alternatives? Other theaters, like the historical, famous and celebrated Senator had to struggle for many years. I can only hope the Charles will continue to do well. Baltimore would become a film desert without it. Or even worse, it would be the death of the city. It is really important to support this theater. If you are slightly interested in good movies, I recommend to check their schedule on a weekly basis. Some movies are only there for a week, so be sure not to miss them! But enough of my shameless blatant advertising insert.

Preparations

Eight years ago we attended the festival for the first time, six years ago we joined the Friends of the Festival sponsor program, three years ago we decided to attend the festival with All Access passes rather than buying so many single tickets. This year we increased the number of movies we were going to watch on a single day from previously three or four to a lot of five per day! We also broke with some of our old traditions and decided not to watch the classic 3D movie, the silent movie with live music, and the annual selection by John Waters. We also skipped the closing night this year in favor of Mother’s Day and a mother’s pleasure to have dinner with us and the rest of the family.

We kept the Opening Night of course, but on the other days we decided to focus on the amazing selection of new and international films in this year’s line-up. It was quite difficult for us again to come up with a weekend schedule. But I think we are getting used to it, facing the same problem every year. I just added the movies we were not able to see to our Netflix queue. Hopefully they will get released one day so we can catch up with them later.

So this year we were going to see:

• Opening Night Shorts at MICA
• Mundane History
• Beijing Taxi
• Dogtooth
• Funny People Shorts
• Daddy Longlegs
• Mama
• Faces
• And Everything is Going Fine
• Liverpool
• Until the Light Takes Us
• General Orders No. 9, and
• Earthling

I will write a little bit about them in this and my following blog posts.

The Opening Night

Jed Dietz opened the 12^th Annual Maryland Film Festival a few weeks ago on Thursday, May 6 at the MICA Brown Center with a series of seven short films all of which I enjoyed. I don’t remember the exact order in which these shorts were presented, but one of the first films was Bikini Lighters by Andrew Blackwell and Andrew Goldman. It was about a few kids who shoplifted a bag full of cigarette lighters to create an explosion in the woods.

We also saw Junko’s Shamisen by Sol Friedman which stood out as one of my favorite shorts that evening. A young girl in old Japan returns to her grandfather and finds him murdered. When she leaves to find another place to live she encounters the evil samurai who killed her grandfather. This film was a hybrid of live-action, cell, stop-motion and computer animation. Stylish, visually attractive, funny and dark… I can imagine watching a full feature created in a similar fashion. Thinking of hybrids…imagine Sol Friedman had added some of his creative magic to A Scanner Darkly a few years ago! I could have loved this film.

The Late Mr. Mokun Williams by Kenneth Price was about a letter that sends a farmer on a mission to help a girl in Nigeria. It didn’t take long to figure out where this story was going, but that didn’t matter at all. It was a great idea, and very funny. I can imagine a whole series of shorts to visualize certain mail or email pieces I received over the years.

Patrick Bergeron’s experimental short film LoopLoop can be described as moving photographic sculpture. Short films that withdraw themselves from a standard form risk to be misunderstood like some I have seen in previous years, but I was fascinated and impressed by this one. The film festival guide describes it as a sequence “[...] mimicking the way memories are replayed in the mind,” and if I think about it, it really did succeed with it.

Monroe St. by Durier Ryan is a film about finding the courage to open up — the story about a teen who is passionately capturing his neighborhood in Brooklyn with a borrowed video camera but keeps his creative ambitions a secret from his girlfriend.

Another remarkable short film was Slow Pitch in Relief by Mark Cummins which was set in 1957 and told the story of Bill Herman, a door to door salesman who meets Jolene, a working single mother. To impress her son he told him the story that he once played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. This film’s look and feel reminded me of something that really could have been produced in the 50s. Mark Cummins, who played Bill Herman looked as if he traveled through time and arrived straight from the 50s. I was fascinated and impressed. Mark Cummins is no newcomer. When I looked him up on IMDB I found that he’s been active as actor since the early 80s.

My favorite of the opening night was Voice on the Line by Kelly Sears. Voice on the Line was a brilliant collage of vintage archive footage, bit and pieces from many different sources, tied together to a unique fictitious document on the history of telecommunications since the cold war era. Brilliant from beginning to end! I loved how the animated wallpaper background served as a glue throughout. It was very inspiring. I felt invited to begin collecting media artifacts myself. During this film I was wondering if Kelly Sears had the story and narration first and looked for clips to support her story later, or if she started off with the clips and then added the narration & story to it later. During the Q&A she explained that she had all these telephone operators and thought she needed to do something with them, and the story kinda grew around these clips.

Left to right: Andrew Blackwell (Bikini Lighters), Mark Cummins (Slow Pitch in Relief), Durier Ryan (Monroe St.), Kenneth Price (The Late Mr. Mokun Williams), Festival director Jed Dietz, Patrick Bergeron (LoopLoop), Sol Friedman (Junko's Shamisen), Kelly Sears (Voice On the Line), Director of Programming Eric Allen Hatch, Programming Administrator Scott Braid

We concluded the opening night with a fine bottle of imported beer outside the crowded MICA hall and were ready for the 3-day movie marathon. Were we? Stay tuned, my next post follows shortly :)

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

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:

The winners are announced today at the awards ceremony and party that begins at 7pm. Unfortunately we won’t be able to attend because we had the car for only one day, but we watched all 20 candidates yesterday, most of which I enjoyed a lot. Before getting to my conclusion I can already say upfront that this was a fantastic little film festival with a really nice and diverse choice of short and medium length films. We both were glad we could come. All of the films were nice for one reason or another, so I will try to make it shorter this time. :) I especially liked the “deeply personal” and the “unusual funny” candidates of the following films we saw yesterday:

Cause

Documentary (57 minutes) by Denise Prichard – Washington DC

Meet four Americans who have dedicated their lives to a cause — putting their ideals on the line, every day, every hour.

Britt, the Minuteman, living his life out at the U.S.-Mexico border, defending his America from invasion; Kayla, the PETA Activist, exposing the plight of animals, while sometimes exposing herself; Dennis, the Pro-Life Minister, crisscrossing his way through the country spreading his truth about abortion; and Concepcion, the Peace Activist, maintaining her twenty-six year long anti-nuke vigil just steps away from the White House.

This film, entitled “CAUSE”, peels back the layers to uncover the personal histories and motivations that make these individuals who they are, and what drives them to behavior some would call extreme. Going beyond the labels and what initially meets the eye, their stories weave together to form a collective thread and reveal that they have more in common than one would think. (from the official website)

Vignette

Experimental narrative (17 minutes) by Dustin Thompson – Forest, VA

Quick Feet, Soft Hands

Drama (25 minutes) by Paul Harrill

Set against the backdrop of our national pastime, Quick Feet, Soft Hands follows a young couple trying to pursue the American Dream.

Greta Gerwig (Joe Swanberg’s Hannah Takes the Stairs) stars as Lisa, a young woman whose hopes of moving up are tied to Jim, a minor league baseball player.

As Jim falls deeper into a batting slump, the couple must cope with the day-to-day realities of being young and poor. And they must confront the prospect that they may never make it to the big leagues.” (from the official website)

I was quite amused to find that we actually missed only a minute or even less when we had to leave the screening back at the Maryland Film Festival. It was nice to see this film again, and I still have the same good impression. It’s a sad but very realistic slice of life applicable to many individuals, couples, relationships, hopes, dreams and failures.

Rogue Gnome

Animated music video (5 minutes) by Stephen Guidry – Arlington, VA

Richard Wants a Nickname

Drama (9 minutes) by Julie Haberstick – Arlington, VA

Nunna Mia e la Barca

Documentary (13 minutes) by Jacob Dodd – Richmond, VA

Nunna Mia e la Barca is a short film about an Italian grandmother, Nunna, who endured the sinking of the Andrea Doria in 1956. Despite living 50 years in the U.S., Nunna continues to preserve her Italian heritage. Through the act of preparing a meal and selflessly giving of her time, Nunna passes on the heritage to her grandchildren.” (from the official website)

Alchemy

Experimental (2 minutes) by Victoria Hanabury and Joshua Rachford – Charlottesville, VA

Birds

Drama (17 minutes) by Mark Betancourt and Marc Ryan – Washington, DC

I really liked this short film and its conclusion. They packed quite a large emotional spectrum into the 17 minutes. It was humorous and thrilling, personal and serious, and also very wise at the same time.

Mexico Painting

Video art (3 minutes) by Vin Grabill – Ellicott City, MD

Lustig

Drama (16 minutes) by John Black – Gainesville, VA

Lustig, set in the years after the end of WWII, tells the story of a man’s solitary journey for redemption. Carrying haunting memories from time spent in a concentration camp, the man seeks out the family of a friend he knew there. He brings a secret to their doorstep that only the strength and courage of the deceased allows him to reveal. In admitting his own cowardice, he creates the heroic legacy of a man. A man a young son will always remember.

The title “Lustig” is not the German word for “funny” here, but the name of the main-character in this film. It actually is a true story about Branko Lustig, a Croatian Jewish survivor of Ausschwitz, who produced a number of movies including Schindler’s List. He was the inspiration for this short film. I liked this film which was very moving, personal and very well made. John Black chose to have all dialog in German, but only the mother (played by Ilka Fischer) spoke German fluently without an American accent. While I could believe that the Croatian visitor wasn’t fluent, I didn’t buy her son’s and the Nazi commander’s accent. I found this a little distracting. That’s a shame because I really liked this film otherwise. I thought it might have been a better decision to keep the dialog in English instead.

Dance Party: The Teenarama Story

Documentary (57 minutes) by Beverly Lindsay-Johnson – Washington, DC

Untitled No. 9

Comedy (5 minutes) by David Butler – Annapolis, MD

This short film shows where you might end up if you let your life be guided the philosophy found in pop lyrics. Some of the philosophers quoted in this film include Paul McCartney and Wings, Janis Ian, Elvis Presley, Paul Simon, Don McLean, Bob Dylan, Three Dog Night, Melanie, Simon & Garfunkel, Don Henley, Carole King, Bread, The Rolling Stones, The Romantics, U2, The Beatles, Petula Clark, The Talking Heads, 10cc, Elton John, ABBA, Tracy Chapman, Bryan Adams, John Cougar Mellencamp, Jimi Hendrix, Harry Nilsson, Bruce Springsteen, The Drifters, Billy Idol, Rappers Delight and Baha Men.

Oh how I loved this film! It was one of my very favorites of the day. What a fantastic idea to tie all these song lyric fragments together to a “lyrical meditation on life”. And what a brilliant camera-work and delivery. I really liked Mark Redfield in this and would love to see more of him. It made me think of Bill Murray in Lost in Translation and Spalding Gray in Steven Soderbergh’s Gray’s Anatomy which I loved. But Untitled No. 9 was still different and very clever. I wonder what Untitled No. 1-8 may be like? David Butler’s site is butlerfilm.com.

My Best Friend Mark

Personal narrative (5 minutes) by Renee Shaw – Washington, DC

Las Historias Mas Sexy del Mundo No. 2

Comedy (15 minutes) by Eric Cheevers – Washington, DC

This was another of my favorites. Brilliant, funny, cool, hot, surreal, mesmerizing, fascinating, sexy…a kind of 70s Swedish soft-core porn meets Quantum Physics meets Matthew Lesko (the infomercial questionmark-suit-man played in this film) meets David Lynch’s red room meets a weird but great music performance by The Raveonettes. I read that the predecessor, Las Historias Mas Sexy del Mundo No. 1, won the Rosebud Film Festival in 2004 and I think No. 2 might win again this year. Unfortunately I didn’t find a clip on the web, but here is an an interview with Eric Cheevers and Scott Mueller, also also a few pictures. I loved it.

Unraveling Michelle

Documentary (85 minutes) by Michelle Ann Farrell – Bel Air, MD

I loved Unraveling Michelle. I haven’t read any reviews or watched any trailers before we watched it at the Rosebud Festival. I didn’t know anything about it at all. So the documentary started with a very funny guy working on indie-horror-comedy type movies. He just announced something like “I want to be a female filmmaker” and it sounded as if he wasn’t really serious about it. It could have been just another example of his wicked humor. The clips that portrayed the old filmmaker Joe O’Ferrell and his history looked too crazy and unbelievable to be true. There you saw the athlete, the addict, the film-maker and businessman, the dude and manly man. At first I wasn’t even sure if I was looking at the same person or just different actors representing him in his different life stages. I thought it was all staged, and that what we were about to see was a funny kind of mockumentary, but not a serious documentary about a sex change.

The first facial surgery approached. It was again very funny, in a similar dry Tom Greenish humorous kind of way, as he leaves the hospital looking painfully awful and his head wrapped in bandages, but still making jokes about it. When they lost their way he moved over to the driver’s seat in the state he was in, with bloodbags hanging off his face… and I still thought, that has got to be a joke… after all he is in the horror-comedy industry.

But as the story continued it became more and more clear that his/her journey was very real, and that the male Joe O’Ferrell was really about to become the female Michelle Ann Farrell. The documentary followed the transition from the beginning to the end and revealed so much in addition about her past and present life, the problems and challenges without losing a healthy sense of humor. I couldn’t believe how many really extreme changes she went through in her life. If I trace back my own life of the last 20 years I can find many drastic visual and physical changes that make it sometimes hard to believe the person from back then was really me. But Joe’s and Michelle’s roller coaster history exceeds everything I could ever imagine. I have to admire the strength and courage she was able to bring up and transform her life through all these stages.

This documentary was about a journey of a sex change, but there really was so much more. It was a very personal portrait of an extraordinary, interesting, humorous and very likable individual. It was also a milestone for both: Joe’s final masterpiece and best work in his filmography, as well as Michelle’s debut, marking the beginning of a great future. Very impressive — I just loved everything about this film… the film itself and its flow…it was really well done…the deeply personal portrait…the very unusual history with all transformations…the humor, and of course, last but not least, Michelle herself. :)

Headache

Experimental (8 minutes) by Robert Parrish – Arlington, VA

This film was entirely made with public domain clips taken from archive.org. I loved how cleverly it recycled old footage to tell a completely new and different story. We once saw a short film at the Maryland Film Festival that made use of public domain footage and thought it was such a great idea. Headache was very well done, but unfortunately I couldn’t find anything on the web.

Signage

Drama (12 minutes) by Rick Hammerly – Washington, DC

A receding hairline, the beginnings of crow’s feet, and a chance meeting with a young shirtless deaf man in a bar, force Lex to confront getting older in a youth-conscious world.

I loved signage — “when life calls the last shot” and the way it touched this internal battle of aging, self-doubts and insecurities that tend to increase proportionally with the gap between oneself and the youthful generation you still might like to be a part of or at least connected with. I loved how main character/writer/director Rick Hammerly made his story turn even more personal and internal, as there really is nothing wrong with him. He looks just fine and not old at all, and yet there are these self-doubts.

Freedom Dance

Animation (28 minutes) by Steven Fischer – Crofton, MD and Craig Herron – Baltimore, MD

A cartoonist keeps a diary in cartoon form during his adventurous escape from the deadly 1956 Hungarian Revolution. (from the official website)

tar guys

Video poetry (5 minutes) by Cathy Cook – Baltimore, MD

Widow’s Meal

Drama (8 minutes) by Arnon Shorr – Baltimore, MD

Conclusion:

When we arrived in Arlington Alice and I both were very surprised to find a very empty and dead-silent building. The garage was empty, all stores inside the building were closed, and at first we seemed to be the only visitors to a private viewing. Eventually a few more people showed up, but the theatre never filled up. I thought it was a real shame. The Rosebud Festival has already been around for almost two decades. The film selection was wonderful, and I couldn’t see why it couldn’t attract more independent film lovers. At only $8 for an all-day pass it was a real bargain and I’m already looking forward to Rosebud 2009. Thanks to everyone who made this festival possible, and thanks to Paul for the recommendation.

I’m curious to find out who won this year, but the winners haven’t been published yet. I will follow up with another blog as soon as I find out.

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.

In 1972, a flamboyant producer’s Hollywood party takes a strange turn when an uninvited guest comes for more than sex and drugs. Consider your mind blown! (from the filmfest-guide)

It was quite a shock to switch from the serious, moving, quiet and gentle narrative shorts program to something like Far Out. Bold, bright, sexy, stoned, funny, stupid, hilarious, bloody and tarantinoesque. I think that says it all. It was so bad it became really great because of it. This was far out, man, so far out! :-) [imdb

There's a Werewolf in my Attic

Sasha and Billie just moved into a great house right next to their favorite coffee shops and thrift stores. They soon realize why the rent is so cheap -- when a malnourished and feisty werewolf is found living in the woodwork. (from the filmfest-guide)

This was another stupid, but very funny short that made me laugh. It deserves extra kudos for the creature! I enjoyed this film.

The Animals All Are Gathering

When a father goes snooping with his camcorder during a family picnic, he captures an awkward and disturbing moment. (from the filmfest-guide)

How I loved the humor of this only 4 minute short film. Just brilliant! One of my favorite shorts this year.

Attackazoids!

When colossal war machines launch a merciless invasion, one woman struggles to survive in a world that isn't what it appears to be. This science-fiction nightmare combines live action, stop-motion animation, and sound design to create a haunting vision of an alien invasion. (from the filmfest-guide)

I enjoyed this film and thought it was very well done. I don't know if the filmmaker intended to hint at the WWII era, but the song reminded me of a nazi-anthem. But maybe I'm reading too much into this. [imdb]

Fantaisie In Bubblewrap

An animation/live-action hybrid in which the audience is offered a glimpse into the lives of a society of vocal bubblewrap. (from the filmfest-guide)

Does a sheet of bubblewrap have the potential to make you cry? You bet it does! This was so sad, so cruel… and so funny, so simple and clever, just fantastic! I loved this 5-minute piece, another of my short favorites this year!

Asclepius Fandango

To quote Voltaire, “doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.” This stream-of-conscious cartoon takes comedy writing to new levels, and animation to new lows. (from the filmfest-guide)

This cartoon took about everything to new lows. Phew… hm… to be honest, there wasn’t anything I enjoyed or understood about this short film. I neither got the comedy/humor in it nor any other message it might have tried to bring across. Perhaps it required a certain mindset, relationship or involvement, but I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

Karaoke Show

At the age of 14, Karl Tebbe badly wanted to be able to dance like Michael Jackson — but you either have rhythm in your blood, or you don’t. Now, 22 years later, stop-motion animation has allowed him to finally fulfill his lifelong dream. A mix between sauna and disco. (from the filmfest-guide)

Wow… I never thought I would be thrilled and intrigued about watching a naked man dance and “sing” in front of me and man sleeping on a couch. But Karaoke Show was so fascinating, mesmerizing, unreal, and at the same time so incredibly funny and cool/hot. His performance, his face, the music, this voice… the funny voice reminded me of the adult voices in the Peanuts, and even the sleeping man on the couch amused me. Everything was great. Bravo–what a wonderful film! Were we the only ones who liked it so much? The audience was rather quiet, and I am surprised that this film was accepted to the film festival despite its nudity. I’m very thankful I had the opportunity to watch this film and very curious what Karl Tebbe might create next. Another very favorite short-film this year. [imdb]

The Rambler

A stranger takes to the lonely highway with his guitar and traveling sack. Every rambler’s got a story; this one’s pretty strange. (from the filmfest-guide)

The Rambler was quite a strange trip, which in its peak moment it briefly reached the edge of tastelessness, but dosed very well without becoming a pure gore and vomit fest. This film reminded me a little of the earlier work of David Lynch including Eraserhead or The Grandmother. Not sure if Calvin Reeder was really inspired by Lynch, but I enjoyed it. [imdb]

The History of America

Centuries of campfire stories have spun America’s history into a fanciful tale filled with myths and half-truths. MK12′s History of America is here to set the record straight. Set against the warm sin of Las Vegas and the cold vacuum of space, this is the true story behind the story — one which chronicles the epic struggle between the Astronauts and the Cowboys as they fight for life, liberty, and justice for all. (from the filmfest-guide)

This really was quite a weird film… Cowboys versus Astronauts? Although this idea seems so absurd I really enjoyed the plot for about half the length of the film. It opened with very beautifully designed opening credits [extra kudos for the graphic designer], started in the dawn of cowboy-kind and jumped into the space of astronauts, which reminded me of the jump from prehistoric to present day in Kubrick’s 2001. At least until I realized that both astronauts and cowboys actually share the same space in time.

The film was executed very well, but eventually it started to feel too long and uninteresting, as if somebody too much fell in love with the beauty and technique and lost the focus on the story. If History of America was edited down to perhaps 15 minutes and if the stoned narrator was removed [I thought he was quite unnecessary], then it could have been a really good piece. [imdb]

Luke returns home to a small town in Pennsylvania to launch himself back into the lives of his ex-flame Hannah and her daughter Elise. A subtle and bittersweet ode to a man who’s only grounded when he’s in the sky, featuring stunt work by world-record-holding human cannonball David Smith, Sr. (from the filmfest-guide)

Haha, I can’t think of anything deep or significant to write about this little story except that it was told very beautifully. I liked the characters and enjoyed this film very much! [imdb]

Maine Story

Shelly lives in a small town and works in the local factory, going through the motions as if her life hasn’t yet started. When Alex, her high school sweetheart, comes back to town, Shelly is forced to confront the things in her life that she’s been avoiding, including Kyle, her 12-year-old son. (from the filmfest-guide)

Maine Story is a very quiet and gentle portrait of its main character and the town she lives in. A few moments including its open end managed to surprise me. I would like to watch it again sometime with the filmmaker comments in mind. I enjoyed this film. [imdb]

The Aviatrix

A gleaming silhouette rockets through the cosmos. She is The Aviatrix. And she exists in the mind of Anne, a young woman battling cancer. (from the filmfest-guide)

This film demonstrates very nicely how there still can be room for laughter despite the horrors of a disease like cancer, and how humor can help to remove the walls around a sick person. I liked the humor, honesty and realism of The Aviatrix. [imdb]

First Bass

Abbey Jacobs is a 12-year-old upright bass prodigy whose true love is baseball. On the afternoon before an elite music-school audition, Abbey tricks her mom into thinking she’s practicing and sneaks off to a Cubs game with the boy down the block. But when she leaves the safety of suburbia and arrives at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, she discovers a truth about her divorced parents that changes her relationships with her mother and her instrument forever. (from the filmfest-guide)

Anther enjoyable story in this narrative shorts program.

Quick Feet, Soft Hands

A minor-league baseball player and his fiancée struggle to pursue the American dream. Starring Greta Gerwig (Hannah Takes the Stairs, Nights and Weekends, Yeast) and Jason Von Stein. (from the filmfest-guide)

I was very interested in how this story would continue to unfold and end, but we had to leave the screening to be in time for the next shorts program “On The Edge”. I hope there will be another opportunity to see this film again sometime. One of the main characters was played by Greta Gerwig, probably one of the busiest actresses in the young indie-film scene. Just to mention a few, she also played in Yeast, Baghead, and Joe Swanberg’s LOL I saw during one of the last film festivals. I enjoyed what I could see! [imdb]

Directed by Kasia Kowalczyk

With Sarah Falkenburg, Nathan Mobley, Corin Rogers II, Tal Harris, Mary Lynn Owen, Kristen Garner, Rebecca Dutton

After Andrew’s parents die in a tragic Christmas tree accident, he leads an unremarkable life full of chronic disappointments — until one day, when everything goes horribly wrong and horribly right in the bread aisle of Pickles Grocery Store. (from the filmfest-guide)

A story about love, obsession and bread. I loved this charming, entertaining, beautifully crafted modern-day fairytale and its well acted characters.

The Listening Dead

Directed by Phil Mucci

With Peter Scriba, Sarah Hund, Karen Miller

In this gothic fable, an obsessed composer and his seamstress wife are haunted by the spirit of a mysterious young woman. One night, feeling ignored and rejected by her husband, the wife unknowingly inflicts him with a horrible curse. By doing so, she invokes the wrath of the unseen ghost, who takes matters into her own hands. (from the filmfest-guide)

If you love silent films like Nosferatu, you have to love The Listening Dead as a wonderful modern silent film. It was a creepy, haunting, chilling, visually stunning, somewhat lovecraftian ghost-story with a wonderful piano-score. It even featured a short musical opening with a sequence by Dead Can Dance. I’m very impressed by how well it turned out and how well the seemingly dead silent film genre works even today. I’m very glad I saw this film and would love to see more classic or modern horror stories or weird tales brought to film in a similar way—as silent films working with light and shadow, camera angles, environment, atmosphere and music. I think it’s the perfect medium for so many stories in this genre.

Replacing Delphine

Directed by Kasia Kowalczyk

With Amelia Hanson, Frank Roberts

Twenty-five years after losing his daughter in a house fire, Professor Paroux begins to lose his way in this haunting fairytale about love, loss and taxidermy. (from the filmfest-guide)

Another beautiful, but darker fairytale by Bread Squeezer director Kasia Kowalczyk. I enjoyed this film and thought it was very well done, but I wasn’t sure what it was about. I haven’t read about this film before I watched it, but it was only after I read about it when it began to make sense. Perhaps my cold and overall exhaustion affected my alertness… I wish I could watch it again to re-validate my first impression and make sure it wasn’t me who just missed something being too tired to follow the screen, but I still enjoyed it.

The Saddest Boy In The World

Directed by Jamie Travis

With Benjamin B. Smith, Kirsten Robek, Hailey Conner

Timothy Higgins, the saddest boy in the world, prepares to hang himself at his ninth birthday party. More darkly humorous and visually impeccable work from the director of The Patterns Trilogy. (from the filmfest-guide)

Maybe my cold didn’t affect me after all, because the saddest was also the funniest boy in the world. This short was one of the funniest I have seen on this festival. Superb!

The World Outside

Directed by Josh Lind and Kevin Phillips

With Ben Collins, Martha Allen, Lew Tate

A young lever-pulling factory worker finds reason to escape the tedious daily routine of industrial manual labor after meeting a bright-eyed young lady who works at the factory across the street. After deciding to make his move, he is faced with the task of tremendous complexity as he tries to disguise his identity, fool both factories, and avoid the watchful eyes of the building officials to get closer to the one girl he could love. Fans of Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton take note. (from the filmfest-guide)

This film really reminded of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which is one of my top-favorites for many years. Behind all the ridiculous machinery in a nonsensical system of factories, patents and competition you are there to witness how a quiet love story unfolds and overcomes the established borders of the systems or societies they were part of. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but the film’s satirical scope may even be wider with an underlying political message drawn in red and blue colors. It was beautifully made, entertaining and clever…I enjoyed it.

Directed by Sam Goetz

With Sam Goetz, Mike Goetz, Timothy Gannon, Carla Tassara

Bruno is the story of Derek Brown, an asthmatic youth who has one love: bicycling. He is nihilistic and angry at the world. He loves nobody and nobody loves him. He is a knife salesman, he hates women, and despises his cousin Bruno. Bruno cries while watching sitcoms, and quits basketball in favor of his true passion, classical piano. He passes out at the sight of blood and doesn’t understand how animals have sex. Together they co-exist, looking out for each other while navigating young-adulthood. (from the filmfest-guide)

Hahaha… I think that does say it all, doesn’t it? I haven’t laughed like that in a very long time. This definitely was one of my favorite short films this year. Very well done, and incredibly funny!

Cactus

Directed by Albert Birney

With Sam Goetz, Mike Goetz, Timothy Gannon, Carla Tassara

A man goes looking for love and finds nothing but strawberries. (from the filmfest-guide)

This was quite a hefty little psychedelic trip into the land of odd. To be honest, I had some difficulties in getting something out of Cactus. I personally didn’t like it very much, but I did recognize an artistic value I don’t want to give it a bad review. There were some things I did like about it, others I didn’t care about at all.

Chronicles of Impeccable Sportsmanship

Directed by Erika Tasini

With Julie Alexander, Alessandra Daniele, Jonathan Newhall

A little girl, her parents, a ball. The endless contentions between two competitive parents — seen through the curious eyes of a perceptive and enterprising little girl. (from the filmfest-guide)

It was a good little, simple, lightweight and amusing film. It does not only work in the given set of a girl and her parents, but also symbolically for so many other situations related to questions of sportsmanship, fairness, consideration or egoism you may confront at one point or another in life or relationships. It was good and I thought above average, but maybe not good enough.

Semper Jack

Directed by Jesse Rose-Smith

The next step in human evolution is discovered among a band of survivors in a post-apocalyptic outpost. Not for the timid. (from the filmfest-guide)

This one was well done and I enjoyed watching it. At first glance the idea may not appear very original, but it does have a twist you wouldn’t have expected.

The Wake

Directed by Matthew Byrne

In this Southern Gothic suspenseful drama, an old lady mysteriously starves a young boy. Her bizarre method is seemingly without cause — but all becomes clear in one stunner of a climax. (from the filmfest-guide)

I really liked this film. It was extremely well done, captivating and very scary. In the end it all came together. I remember that I once read about this bizarre method before, so I shouldn’t have been surprised… but this film managed to leave me absolutely clueless until the very surprising end. Great work!