A wide variety of entirely unique film-going adventures marked Friday’s packed slate at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival 2019.
Shorts Block 2 began our programming day with a mix of comedy, drama, and even a musical. From the U.K., Deadpan is an hilarious dark comedy about a stand-up comic’s true love: who can’t laugh, or she literally might die. Ready for Love was also brilliantly funny, a three-time approach by the mythical Amber Lee Weatherbee as she attempts to become a contestant on The Bachelor. Hastings quietly projects a disconnect – and a connection – between mother and daughter when one of several siblings flies home to celebrate her mother’s birthday.
Heirophany is an evocatively shot black and white work in which two teens plot to steal a backpack full of rabbits; one witnesses a dramatically beautiful falcon, and changes his mind. Director Kevin Contento explained that the short’s unique location in Bell Glade, Fla. was chosen in part because he lives 40 minutes south of that community. “Before I went to film school, I was into falconry and went to that area with an experienced falconer who lost his bird while we were there. He got it back, but I wanted to give the story more of an abstract feel but use the location and also include a simpler story about rabbit hunters in the sugar cane fields.” He chose black and white in part because he’s an Ingmar Bergman fan, but also because he felt the approach “allows you to give yourself more to the story.”
Difference, a cleverly constructed short from Iranian director Ali Asadollahi, follows the funny/sad story of three young men who accuse each other of hallucinating one of the three, insisting that each is correct and the others are wrong.
Rewind was a stunning film from Ying Liu Hatch. The Chinese/American short dazzles with its original music and a delightful, moving twist involving true love an A.I. The lush cinematography by Sean Odea contributed to the film’s magic. Hatch says “We shot in eight days, and my biggest accomplishment was the use of the metro in the first scene. I had to write a special proposal – and shamelessly used my crew’s credits – to get clearance. We had a four hour limit, and shot late at night. In the metro station we had to find a guy to turn on the escalator again, as it was turned off for the night.” The crew was able to add a second 3.5 hour session the next day, by convincing the metro’s powers-that-be that the film would be good publicity. Hatch’s passion project was the first production she’s shot in China.
Feature doc Buddy, from acclaimed international director Heddy Honigmann, crafts a moving story about six service dogs and their owners. The poignant story shapes beautifully realized portraits of each dog and their person.
Preceding Buddy, was a terrific stop-motion short, Dani. Director Elizabeth Hogenson, appearing with the real-life cancer survivor and titular character of Dani, says the film started after she overheard her roommate’s actual conversation with her mother, which Dani had taped for use in a podcast she created. “It moved me, so I asked if I could take her phone recording and turn it into a stop action animation, which I was studying in grad school.” She felt that the “use of stop action is so tactile and connected, it makes it more comfortable when dealing with something so heavy.” Dani, who just finished chemotherapy this February, had not listened to the recorded conversation since Hogenson first made the film. “It made me emotional all over again,” she attests – the same affect the short had on many members of the viewing audience.
Juan is an international documentary that touches on elements of magical realism in the story of director Adrian Geyer returning to the site of his parents’ transformative visit to iconic folk artist Juan Felix Sanchez’ mountain home. Set in the voluptuously beautiful mountains of Venezuela, the film offers a poetic view of the meaning of art and find in purpose in one’s life. “It was magical discerning the same steps my parents took. This is the third part of a project I’ve been working on about Sanchez. I did a short film, and an art installation. It was really complex to do it,” he says, touching on the months-long process of securing some of the interviews with those who knew the late Sanchez when he was alive, and the 8-hour rugged horseback trek to Sanchez’ former home the site of many of his carvings and chapel. With an altitude of 13,000-feet and absolutely no amenities available, Geyer rose to the challenge literally in terms of creating this insightful work.
Paired with this feature was Autumn Waltz, a palpably tension-filled depiction of an encounter between a couple fleeing a besieged village and encountering hostile soldiers. The Serbian film is edge-of-your-seat thrilling.
Rounding out the films viewed was something much lighter, the Nick Kroll-starrer Olympic Dreams, a loose romantic dramedy between a lonely volunteer dentist and a young cross-country skier athlete. The film’s setting was undeniably fresh and exciting: shot in the actual Athlete Village during the Winter Olympic Games, and featuring real Olympic athletes including romantic lead Alexi Pappas. Director Jeremy Teicher is an area local; the film had a strong improvisational flavor, doubtlessly attributable in part to Kroll.
The film was paired with the truly tear-bringing – yet also richly humorous – short Jack, in which lead and writer Ryan Gaul successfully culls humor and heart-felt poignancy from the necessity of putting a beloved cat to rest. Gaul says “I’ve watched it about 600 times and it still affects me. The genesis of it was a sketch at the Groundlings (comedy theater), but our decision was to make it more real.” Director Nick Paonessa adds “There was a little improv in it, but the script was pretty tight. I cut three minutes out of the film because I worked to find real balance between what was sad and what made you laugh.” Although the film took literally just five hours to shoot in its entirety, it took the cast and crew a year to set it up and make. “We purposely wanted to shoot something simple. It just felt meant to be. It’s really a film about this character’s unwillingness to confront the reality of this situation, and come to terms with it.”
Post-screenings, the festival hosted filmmaker and other screening attendees at Mammoth Rock n’ Bowl for pizza, beer, bowling, and talk about films, of course.
- Genie Davis; photos: Jack Burke, Genie Davis