A fine Friday unfolded at today’s Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, the third day of this stellar fest in the scenic Sierras.
First though, a quick take on a film left out of yesterday’s reviews, Unnamed, a short paired with yesterday’s evening screening. The vivid story profiles the challenging life of a trans volleyball pro navigating discriminatory Iranian life.
We began our morning today with another Iranian entry, Winter Threshold, a documentary feature depicting a pandemic period of stressful education and family life and a mother’s deep love for her son, Kasra. The film also turns inward to Mahsa’s dedication to her son’s education and the hope and loss embodied in her own marriage.
Directed with a careful eye for emotional detail by Soudabeh Beizaei, the reason’s for the father’s jail sentence are unclear as to political or criminal enterprise, but it remains an interesting view of Iranian life during Covid lockdowns.
The film was paired with a German- made lengthy short subject about the difficult journey to the U.S undertaken by a Guatemalan immigrant, in a visceral film from German director Alan Rexroth. The 32 min. short #WAY_Aurelio is part of a quartet of films about one’s place in the world.
Narrative Shorts Blocks 3 was a lively mix of themes. A stand-out for me was the beautifully shot and movingly realized story as a father, separated from his estranged wife, spends a weekend camping with his eight year old, emotionally precocious daughter. A Tidy House poignantly depicts the breakdown of her father and the young girl’s caring emotional support. Lushly shot and emotionally perfect.
The Year of Staring at Noses hilariously chronicles filmmaker and star Karen Knox’s nose job over a three year period, with directors Knox and Matt Eastman using a faux audition for The Bachelor as the impetus for alter ego Samantha’s nose job, undertaken as a quest to find love. Witty and wild, the film quotes and makes good use of the famous Goddard quote about the three elements to make a film: a girl, a gun, and a camera.
Gabriel Bellone’s 1 minute hand-cranked 16 mm piece is his emotional, double-time take on his own mother’s decision to call the police on him with a falsified story about his behavior – at age 10. The short piece Mom is conceived of as part of a broad story about policing, and is intense. Bellone not only shot on 16mm he edited on a Steinbeck for a raw, gritty look.
Directed and written by Louisiana filmmaker Arcos, Quilly is a richly involving story about a toxic and cyclical relationship that in part hinges on the couples relationship with a crudely handcrafted stuffed animal, their pretend-child. Funny, dark, and intimate, this is a short that makes viewers want to see even more. Arcos has presented other exciting entries at previous iterations of MLFF, and is consistently evocative and resonant as a filmmaker.
Jared Greenberg’s The Girl Who Cried is both a tacky laugh track sitcom, horror story about the gaslighting of a sexual assault victim, and a dog – picture the 2010s FX series Willardgone horror in a fun genre mashup.
The Mojave to Mammoth shorts series is a favorite of mine of MLFF, shaped by local area filmmakers. This year, entries featured three docs and two features.
Documentary screenings included the intense and moving 109 Below. Directed by Nick Martini, the film relates the hazardous stories of rescue volunteers who help climbers lost or in trouble on frigid Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. A rescue in 1982 changed two climbers’ lives, with one of those rescued losing his legs but going on to do incredible work at MIT developing prosthetic limbs. One of the rescuers tragically died saving him. The film Is a moving tribute to these heroes on the mountain.
Tracing History was also deeply moving and beautifully shot as a mother and daughter explore their heritage in the area between Reno and Mono Lake. Chinese American filmmaker Jalena Keane-Lee leads views on a journey of reclamation touring the railroad sites built under extremely hazardous conditions by their ancestors generations earlier.
In the thrilling Never Again, director and climber John Cramer takes viewers on a personal journey along a perilous new route up Mt. Morrison’s extremely dangerous north face. While Cramer and two friends initially claim they’ll never take that route again, they nonetheless return three times to challenge their ability to find a better way up to the peak. Amazing images in an adrenaline elevating tale.
Moving in to narrative shorts, Intruder, directed by and starring Cal Arts masters program student Abbs Stoiber, illustrates a literally present shadowy figure of anxiety and doubt tormenting a college student attempting to find her wings. Stoiber is not only a local filmmaker, as a pre-teen she attended acting programs taught by festival founder Shira Dubrovner.
Extinction Story Origin Story, shot in moody and loving black and white and directed by Terrie Samundra, offers a spooky story of a mysterious event changing the world in which two school friends live, as their LA playground becomes a haunted desert that includes footage shot near Fossil Falls. The production was a family affair featuring Samundra’s daughter and goddaughter, with her husband shooting the lustrous film on 16 mm.
The Other Profile from French director Armel Hostiou explores the idea of truth and lies, fake and real, and the myths of storytelling itself that arises when he pursues the creator of a Facebook account that purports to be him and invites women to audition for his next film, supposedly set in the Democratic Republic of Congo.When Hostiou goes in search of his double, he learns new layers to the real and the fake in a country in which the presidents and even the cemeteries are fake. In the bargain, his fake self becomes his co-director of the film the unfolds, creating a mind-bending take on what constitutes the truth. The film screened with a short that we didn’t have the chance to view.
The Complex Forms is an absolutely stunning film from Italian filmmaker Fabio D’Orta. If Antonioni and Fellini made a horror film together it would be this beautiful and dread-seeped story set in an ancient villa where desperate people have an opportunity to make a great deal of money by temporarily selling their bodies to mysterious entities in exchange. With escalating horrific appearances by these monstrous aliens, three roommates plan their escape. Eerie and gorgeous, D’Orta is a force to be reckoned with creating seamless digital special effects, shooting in richly evocative black and white on a Black Magic 4 that he has made appear like classic film. D’Orta and program director Paul Sbrizzi conversed and translated in Italian.
The feature was accompanied by a poetic short, Chrystel Egal’s Freerunner which was amazingly filmed on her iPhone also in black and white. Accompanied by a graceful narration, the film depicts Simon Nogueira, a French Freerunner, Parkour champion and poet. With “invisible wings,” he dances he dances on rooftops, in awe inspiring acrobatic moves. The piece is just one of many studies of unique individuals created by Egal.
The evening ended with a filmmakers bowling party at Mammoth Rock n’ Bowl for great conversation plus pizza and beer. Best fest indeed.
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– written by Genie Davis; photos by Jack Burke