Forest Bathing Takes Root at Loft at Liz’s

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Memory Tree by Catherine Ruane, above

Through June 17th, take a walk in a forest of art with Forest Bathing, now at Loft at Liz’s. Curated by Betty Brown, the exhibition is a celebration of nature. Paying homage to the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku, the exhibition takes the idea of mindful discovery and peace through nature and transforms it into an experience in the gallery through paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photography, as well as mixed media installations. 17 artists create their own depictions of nature, and it is worthy of a long, deep forest-bath.

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Above, artist Catherine Ruane.

Catherine Ruane’s brilliantly realistic graphite drawing, “Memory Tree,” draws viewers within its massive, comforting branches.

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Lyrical and wondrous, the work feels tactile, as if the branches were embracing the viewer.

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Bibi Davidson, in contrast, gives us brightly colored trees in a surreal world that leads viewers into a dream-like state. Viewing her work is a fabulous adventure.

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Linda Vallejo’s graceful paintings of the oak trees around Topanga Canyon exude peace.

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Hung Viet Nguyen’s richly textured tributes to the trees of the Ancient Bristle Cone Pine Forest outside Big Pine, Calif., seem magical and beyond this world.

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His thick paint and vibrant palette add to the sensation of having entered a new realm.

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Speaking of a different world, Marthe Aponte takes over the Projects Room, with “Sacred Trees,” using drawing, embroidery, and paint and picote, a traditional, painstaking, and delicate form of French paper art.

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To enter the room is to step into a different dimension, a hushed and holy and strange place that glows. In the back of the room, a Joshua Tree of slightly different construction stands, as if watching over the viewers who enter the room, a guardian of a reverent place.

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Another mixed media work comes from Dave Lovejoy and Susan Feldman, who have created a contemporary grotto in one of the gallery’s stairwells, one made of wood and thread, shaping trees that are instantly recognizable as such, and yet deconstructing the shape of limbs and trunks. The use of lighting, the evocative green glow of this dimensional installation, make the work seem like a portal. It beckons, fecund.

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Also contemporary: Chenhung Chen’s 3-D tree constructed of electrical cords and wires: using this detritus of technology, she’s created a poetic and lovely reduction of the essence of “treeness.”

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Another true stunner is Samuelle Richardson’s white wood tree, occupied by cacophonus crows. You can almost hear them.

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Her fabric sculpture is evocative and haunting, but at the same time, she’s managed to convey a sense of whimsy in the work, as if one had entered a fairy tale.

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Above, glittering trees from Hermine Harman.

There are many other wonderful works taking root in the gallery forest as well. Exhibition artists include in all: Marthe Aponte, Chenhung Chen, Bibi Davidson, Barbara Edelstein, Susan Feldman & Dave Lovejoy, Renee Fox, Maria Greenshields-Ziman, Hermine Harman (whose glittering trees explode with color above), Joanne Julian, Sant Khalsa, Alberto Mesirca, Hung Viet Nguyen, Samuelle Richardson, Catherine Ruane, Jill Sykes and Linda Vallejo.

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Above, beautiful, elegatic photographic work from Sant Khlasa.

If the words dream, other worldly, mysterious, and haunting have come up in this review – and they have – it is because entering the gallery, one must give up a sense of the “real world:” the noise of the street, the crowds on the stairs at the opening, and instead embrace the sensory experience of stepping into a forest of art, one that is indeed all of those things.

From the most realistic to the most fantastical renderings, Brown has shaped a forest that embraces and explores natural beauty and our perception of it, soaking us in the shadows, serenity, and life force that is inherent in these artistic woods.  Emerge from this forest refreshed, yes, but also expanded: let these images of nature and wonder slip into your soul, and feel the better for it.

You’ll need to hurry in – but once you’re there, bask. Loft at Liz’s is located at 453 S. La Brea in mid-city. The exhibition closes June 17th.

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  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis, Susan Feldman installation photo courtesy Cheryl Henderson.

 

 

Final Day of Mammoth Lakes Film Festival Programming and Awards Ceremony: A Winner of a Day for a Winning Film Festival

 

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The final day of Mammoth Lakes Film Festival’s 5th year began with another strong set of shorts in Shorts Block 5. Who’s a Good Boy was a surreal take on man-as-dog; Pastel Noir,  below, was inspired by director Beau Bardos listening to a podcast from David Lynch who said “‘One day I was painting and I wanted to make a movie'”

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Bardos added “which I really dug, so I made a movie.”  He made it using images of some actors he would dearly love to cast: Bogart and Brando, plus a collage-like pastel take on a noir tale of a kidnapped heroine who stabs her would-be attacker and then hails a ride home. Squirrel was an ironic, delightful, and really rich story about a man whose inappropriate texting-while-driving caused an accident that left a woman a parapleigic — and his apology to her, and her attendance at his birthday party, and the way in which both of their lives was inextricably altered. And it’s funny.

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In License and Registration, director Jackson Ezinga, above,  stars as a police impersonator whose first arrest gravely misfires. Shot in Ezinga’s Grand Rapids’ neighborhood, this terrific character study offered drama, pathos, and humor with a strong script and directorial focus.  “I starred in it by default when my lead actor couldn’t make it, and everything was set up already,” he related, acknowleding that writing, starring and directing was “a lot.” Despite that, Ezinga multi-helmed a terrific, engaging piece.

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Directors Ryan Betschart and Rachel Nakawatase – Nakawatase also scored – produced A Collection of Attempt in Astral Travel. The abstract work was inspired by the books of parapsychologist D. Scott Rogo and uses colors that are liquid-based through the use of a multi-plane, upshooter camera. The married duo are planning to create a feature doc that includes this type of footage, but the process was paintstaking: it took two years to create the six minute animation.  023 _GRETA-S presents a young actress’ emotionaly devastating and manipulative audition experience; while from Iran, Like a Good Kid rounded out the shorts program with a tense depiction of a nanny tormented by her bratty 5-year-old charge when caught in a theft.

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The sharply hilarious and frightening short Hot Dog preceded the screening of narrative feature No Exit. Hot Dog gives us a very bad and ultimately halucinogenic day in the life of a brusque female cop. Director T.J. Yoshizaki, above,  says the idea for the project began when a rather rude female cop blocked in his own car. “Somehow I built a story around it.” The director joked in regard to a question about an extremely well-staged hit and run accident in the film: “Don’t worry, only one actor was killed.”  The smart short made a worthy opening to a fresh, eerie horror-suspense film set and entirely filmed in Kazakhastan, No Exit.

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This film was shot by writer/director Sarah L. Wilson who was teaching in Kazakhastan, and who started the project as a committment to the students she taught. A success both in terms of its realization, it’s insight into a location we rarely see, and its terrific use of first-time acting talent, the film works quite well as “just” a good horror film, while also touching on family relationships, life and death, and cultural tropes. “When I was asked to go to Kazakhastan to teach, I went. The country healed me after someone close to me committed suicide,” Wilson explained. “I’d made government commercials there when I was teaching and my students told me they wanted to make a feature film, so I agreed.”

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Her lead actor, Bexultan Sydykov, had a nightmare which he shared with Wilson, in which he dreamed he was trapped in his family’s house – this inspired the film.  “They’re a real family, and he’d recently lost his father in real life,” the director relates. “His whole family – two brothers, his mother, were in the film along with him. That’s their real house in the film. We shot for ten days, and we literally stole every location,  including the subway. When the security guards – who take themselves very seriously in Khazakhastan – would ask, I’d say I was just teaching, and they’d let us shoot. ” The project should have a rosy future:  Wilson and her students have a deal to do an eight- part television series based on the film with the Khazakhastan national film studio. “We’re going to pitch it to an American TV company to do a co-production, but I want it to stay in Kazakhastan.”

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Two documentary films rounded out the festival: the first,  Jawline, follows the odyssey of wanna-be social media influencer Austyn Tester, a 16-year-old newcomer attempting to become the next big internet crush. Also in the film: the fan girls who support him and so many others; a successful internet talent agent – just 18 himself – and a look at Tester’s family, home life, aspirations, dreams, and the sincerity that ultimately makes succeeding in this Internet world difficult. Of her thoroughly accomplished film with its visceral character arc, director Liza Mandelup says “I wanted to film someone who had a high stakes situation, someone who dropped everything to try something. I was told about Austyn – I was looking for someone like him – and that’s how the film began. Ultimately he didn’t have the superficial qualities to stay in the business, and really this is a commentary on the oversaturated post-social media gold rush. When I first started filming, I thought I was covering a rise-to-fame concept, but this is a more complex story.” The film will have an August theatrical release date as well as a release on Hulu.

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Bronwyn Maloney, the graphic artist who created an astonishing opening teaser for the festival featuring archaic images of regional fossils, was thanked by festival director Shira Dubrovner and program director Paul Sbrizzi, above, at the start of the closing film of the festival. Bittersweet to see the festival end, this final day was terrific, including the last screening, a solid telling of the Chelsea Manning story in XY Chelsea. The whistle blower’s story, from its political and social aspects to her own personal odyssy as a trans soldier and prisoner, are expressed well in a film with brooding insights over what it means to be a social activist – and what constitutes activism – in today’s America.

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After the last film, guests headed over to the Mammoth Lakes Polo Event Center for a lively awards ceremony and party. The warm, jubilant, and inclusive event echoes the way in which this highly professional yet intimate festival itself is run each year. Awards from both jury and audience were presented, craft cocktails from Devil’s Creek Distillery, Blue Moon brews, Black Box wine, and Bleu Handcrafted foods kept guests sated while prizes were announced.

Awards are listed below.

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Jury Award for Best North American Narrative Feature, with a $1,000 cash prize, $10,000 Panavision Camera Rental Grant and $10,000 Light Iron Post Production Package, went to A Great Lamp.

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Special Mention went to actor Max Wilde for his performance and animation in A Great Lamp.

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Jury Award for Best International Narrative Feature, with a $500 cash prize, went to Cat Sticks.

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Special Mention went to No Exit.

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Jury Award for Best North American Documentary Feature, with a $1,000 cash prize, went to 17 Blocks.

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Jury Award for Best International Documentary Feature, with a $500 cash prize, was won by Clean Hands.

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Special Mention went to Juan, above.

Jury Award for Best Narrative Short, with a $500 cash prize and $5,000 VER Rental Grant, went to Molly’s Single.

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Special Mention for strong editing, cinematography and acting was given to the terrific Enough Is Enough, above.

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Special Mention for choreographed storytelling went to Diva & Astro, the film’s astonishing direction and cinematography (director and cinematographer above) was impressive.

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Jury Award for Best Documentary Short, with a $500 cash prize, went to The Clinic.

Jury Award for Best Animation Short, with a $500 cash prize, received by the intensely moving Dani.

Special Jury Award for Bravery, with a $500 cash prize, was received by doc Midnight Family.

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Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature, with a $1,000 cash prize and $5,000 Panavision Camera Rental Grant, went to the impressive No Exit, above. 

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Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature, with $1,000 cash prize, was awarded to JuanThe award for this true labor of love film was even more important today than at any other time: a premiere in the director’s – and the film’s – country of origin, Venezuela, was cancelled due to current policial/social circumstances there.  It’s a beautiful film, and one that celebrates the heritage of the nation itself, as well as the work of its titular artist and guru, Juan Sanchez.

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Paul Rudder, festival sponsor, above with Shira Dubrovner. Rudder said “I want to thank Shira for this festival, and I want to than everyone for coming. We are glad to have you here in Mammoth Lakes. We’re a ski town,  where some people think culture is someone who left a book behind at a McDonald’s.  You, your presence, proves them wrong.”

Jurors included:

North American Narrative Features Jury: Mia Galuppo (The Hollywood Reporter), Sean McDonnell (A24) and Katie Walsh (Tribune News Service, Los Angeles Times)

International Narrative Features Jury: Shalini Doré (Variety) and Max Weinstein (MovieMaker Magazine)

North American Documentary Features Jury: Allison Amon (Bullitt) and Andrew Borden (1091 Media)

International Documentary Features Jury: Gus Krieger (Filmmaker) and Jacques Thelemaque (Filmmakers Alliance)

Shorts Jury: Delila Vallot (Filmmaker) and Harry Vaughn (Sundance Film Festival Programmer)

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To sum up the festival: it was terrific; and each of the films we saw are more than worth viewing, supporting, and celebrating. As always:  the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, program director Paul Sbrizzi, and festival director Shira Dubrovner (below) have created unique programming that’s rewarding to see, and a festival experience that’s a celebration of film, originality of vision, and community spirit. It’s no easy task, but it is an important one.

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  • Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke 

 

Saturday Films and Sierra Spirit Award to The Groundlings: Mammoth Lakes Film Festival 2019 Day 4

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What’s a Saturday morning without cartoons? As Day 4 of the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival 2019 began — with sun instead of snow showers — a screening of animated kids shorts began the day.

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Narrated by the ever-irrepressible Flula Borg, the shorts included the hilariously sardonic Troll Bridge, an Australian short about an old Barbarian named Cohen and his friendly encounter with a troll he was planning to annihilate, and the rather surreal and beautiful Swiss short: Autour de l’Escalier,  depicting a mysterious and fantastical town in which images and events repeat. As it concluded, Borg drew laughs saying “That’s Pittsburgh.”

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Borg also offered his take on the Shleep which disappeared as a man drifted off to slumber, quizzically asking “Where did they all go?”

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After this delightful start to the morning, festival filmmakers and press attended a panel on distribution and publicity among other topics, featuring Shalinni Dore; Andrew Borden, Katie Walsh, Gus Krieger, Mia Galuppo, and Sean McDonnell.

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McDonnell, from releasing and production company A-24 explained the importance of making one’s work known on the festival circuit; Dore discussed the ways in which she can be attracted to providing press coverage for an unknown auteur, among the other topics discussed over mimosas, coffee, and quiche.

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Shorts Block 4 included a charming but dark stop-motion animation depicting love, binary code, and a dissolving world in 11010; and the haunting cosmic images of Eyes at the Specter Glass from filmmaker Mathew Wade. Wade notes “This started as a project to see how far I could push my computer’s ability…I just started building these scenes and movements, I then wrote the score that I matched to it without even seeing the visuals again. At first I thought maybe this would just be a gallery piece, but then film festivals gravitated toward it.” Wade’s abstract vision of what appears to the creation of a universe or a space travel dream defies easy categorization; Wade himself replied to a question asking what the short meant, “I make up a different story each time someone asks me that. I don’t want to ruin other people’s take on it.”

Gone is a heart-breaking take on Lysistrata,  a beautiful, funny, sad, and terrible response to women abandoning men and boys for 5 months and counting. We see a men’s support group of one counselor and three men, each with their issues; and we see one woman leaving, making a decision that tears at her heart as well as the viewer’s. A profound film from UK-based director Emma Sullivan.

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Lemons, from Simon Werdmuller Von Elgg, was the director’s response to stories he’d listened to about child abuse and sex abuse. The film depicts a man who may or may not be a missionary revisting a childhood nanny who’d abused him. As writer as well as director, Von Elgg notes “When I moved to Nashville, the culture struck me as potentially being ripe for this kind of story about subtext.” He’ll be working with his lead actress and his producer again on future projects, asserting “We’re a team now.” The film has a gothic, tension-filled pace and palette that evokes a sense of dread in the viewer, even before its intent is revealed.

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In Diva & Astro, director Angel Barroeta and his astonishingly skilled director of photography have created  a work that “is really different. We wanted to do a piece all in one day. We shot using a telephoto lens from different locations.” Seen from a distance, the piece follows the parallel paths of the two title characters in a riveting street drama whose style as well as virtually silent story is a richly involving 9 minutes.

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For director Ariel Gardner,  the funny/sad take on dating culture in Los Angeles, Molly’s Single, became an exercise in practicality. “I shot on mini-DV because I wanted to stand out by making it look as dirty as possible. And I know how to use auto exposure and auto focus, not sure I wanted to learn on an AK rig.” He wrote out beats but allowed the actors to fill in their own dialog as he crafted a semi-autobiographical piece about a bad break up. “It was kind of a cathartic experience which began with me watching Somewhere over the Rainbow in a film clip on my phone.”

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The narrative feature A Great Lamp from director Saad Qureshi and his highly collaborative cast including Max Wilde, who also provided scoring and animated elements, was a beautiful black and white piece about three lost souls:  Max, a good-hearted,  cross-dressing street kid posting flyers about his late grandmother throughout the town; Gene, a drop out from the world of insurance processing who is lying to his father about leaving his job; and Howie, who fears a recurring dream and hopes to see a rocket launch through binoculars. Set in the dark and often derelict looking streets of downtown Wilmington, N.C., the lushly filmed, moody piece has an interesting back story. “I was having a very rough time,” Qureshi reports, “so since my friends and I all love each other, we all quit are jobs to make the movie.” Cinematographer Donald Monroe laid out the film and locations daily, cast and crew while minimal, shared fun as well as filming a work which the director calls “really a combination of ideas from three different minds.” Monroe adds “With no crew I knew I had one light and black and white was easier for me to make a cohesive language.” Qureshi sums up the experience “It was the best moment of my life to see my friends together. Life can be a sad thing, but the best way to survive is to be with your friends.” The film, which premiered at Slamdance this year, will be screening at the Arclight Hollywood July 8th.

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An Evening with the Groundlings, the renowned comedy theater troupe and school based in LA, offered a short documentary on the history of the group and its alums; Groundling Cheri Oteri’s hilarious  short Turkey’s Done, and a second viewing of Groundlings’ member Ryan Gaul’s poignant and funny Jack.  Oteri’s short was a straight-up hilarious revenge comedy of a cheated-on Philly wife on Thanksgiving; Gaul’s – discussed at length in yesterday’s review segment – is a sweetly humorous tale of putting a beloved pet to sleep.

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What followed was a pure hour of delight, in which festival director Shira Dubrovner presented the group’s managing director, Heather de Michele with the Sierra Spirit Award.

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Dubrovner, Sweeney, Sterling, above

Dubrovner conducted an absorbing hour-long panel celebrating Groundlings members “for life” Julia Sweeney, Ryan Gaul, Jordan Black, Mindy Sterling, and Cheri Oteri discussed how many years of Groundlings classes they took; current projects; working in a male-dominated world on Saturday Night Live – where many Groundlings alums found new homes; and the differences between the Groundlings rigorous Sunday Show, which the “best of the best” participate in following class training, before graduating to the Saturday company.

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Oteri, Gaul, Black, above.

As Gaul says “We are like a weird gang. We’re addicted to improv, we love it.” Sterling seconded that assessment. “You do it for the love of it.”

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The group discussed everything from the non-pay of Groundlings actors and their labor-of-love experiences in the theater, to performing on SNL, developing their characters, and more.

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A highlight: Black and Gaul performed a short-form improv with an audience member: a father-daughter talk about car ownership, below.

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To catch any of these performers live at The Groundlings — still located on Melrose Ave. in West Hollywood after all these years – stop by regularly: almost everyone on stage still drops by to perform. Black runs a regular monthly show called The Black Version, which he described as “long form improv. Audience members suggest a movie, and my cast and I do our ‘black version’ whether it’s the Titanic or whatever is suggested.” Sweeney, who just jubilantly returned to showbiz after a 15-year hiatus raising her daughter, is back doing improv regularly on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Gaul can also be seen performing in The Last OG on TBS weekly.

Full day, fun night – and more tomorrow.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Jack Burke

 

Friday Film Slate Rocks at Mammoth Lakes Film Festival 2019

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A wide variety of entirely unique film-going adventures marked Friday’s packed slate at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival 2019.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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  • Genie Davis; photos: Jack Burke, Genie Davis