We had a super Saturday indeed at Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, from morning ‘til the lively after party, replete with Tiki drinks.
Shorts Block 4
A strong block of short narrative films offered comedy, whimsy, and the tragic.
Vegeversary
Director Sarah Smith tested a brightly colored animated story in which on the anniversary of a bunny’s vegeversary she and her friends spend a weekend over indulging in tons of meat. Smith who is a long term vegetarian/pescatarian says she thought it was a fun idea to present a celebration with friends in this way especially as imagined vicariously through pandemic years.
Stuck
A smart and funny slice of Austin life as roommates in a large group house make a music video and a pesky mouse gets stuck in a glue trap before compassion prevails. Director Brittany Reeber says she created an existential autobiographical story. Great music by Austin band Neville, too.
Work Life
Brilliant comic gem as office workers discuss – or rather don’t discuss, but remember they’re eventful, and unbeknownst to them, connected weekends. Cambodian American director Kevin Ung says he wanted to make sure the film visual enough to understand by even those for whom English is not their first language. In the process he created a terrific film with both compulsive narrative and viewing appeal. Both he and DP Oscar Ramos created this as a USC grad project.
Baloney Beacon
Balloons as nature documentary in another dimension – that’s how director Max Landman describes this visually fascinating stop action experiment with animating balloons.
Landman works in the Bay Area as a balloon twister, but during the pandemic he created this super fun piece extemporaneously.
Wild Card
Director and co-star Tipper Newton creates lush neo-noir vibes in her second “serious” film short, as she describes it.
A desperate doctor is looking for a girlfriend, and joins a dating service that sends VHS tapes to its subscribers.
Dressed in red, the femme fatale who chooses him comes with plenty of baggage and her own needs for a “date.”
With a tense score and LA-setting, this damsel in distress film has gorgeous art direction and pitch perfect acting.
Wolf
A young Iranian boy follows his grandfathers advice to end the suffering of the lives of ailing animals – in this case the grandfathers own in this sorrowful story of the inevitability of death.
Documentary Shorts 2
Becoming Howard
This is a sweet and thoughtful doc following Howard, an autistic crossing guard in CA, returning to his Indiana high school reunion. There, he reconciles with those who weren’t that nice to him in high school. Today he writes a blog about bullying, and receives former classmates support.
According to thew project’s skilled filmmaker Matt Fuller, Howard came to CA following a passion for arm wrestling, but wonders what life would’ve been like if he stayed in Indiana.
Squid Fleet
Poetic and fascinating film about life on a squid boat in China. As beautiful as it is sorrowful. Ed Ou and Michael Hsu create both a very real and mythological world.
Animal in Ascension
Cocky young Floridian experiences other worldly sensations in another dimension. Director Ian Clark describes his lively film as living DMT in a non-DMT world – and exploring the margins of human experience.
Balloon Boy
Watching Balloon Boy unfold in real time, directors Brian Gersten and Arlin Golden describe their project as an early indicator of negative American emotional behavior.
During the pandemic ,the duo found and cut footage together of the hoax, from the moment it occurred to today’s current footage of the kids involved making a heavy metal song about it. The result is a lively, fascinating archival doc.
Ukarjo
Exploration of daily life in a pristine jungle habitat living in Indonesia. The message of natural peaceful lives is beautifully done by Cannelle Guhur.
Mississippi River Styx
Director Tim Grant creates a riveting feature film study of a likely con man navigating the Mississippi River on what were supposedly his final is beautifully done, but the subject is now living in Slidell, La.
Said to be dying of cancer, Kelly Phillips took his houseboat down the Mississippi from Wisconsin to the river’s end in Venice, La. Originally intended as a short, riding along was hazardous but so compelling an experience that directors Tom Grant and Andrew McMillan turned a four day filming schedule for a short into a feature, Grant’s first.
Is Kelly conning people? The filmmakers fairly present each side in a gorgeously scored, shot, and fascinating character study.
The danger of shooting in the river waters is palpable – Kelly was allowed to go down river only because of his story about his end of life journey, with the coast guard helping him despite standard safety restrictions.
Grant says “We didn’t make it an investigative film about Kelly’s diagnosis – we were more interested in presenting various perspectives and emotional reveals than justice.” The result was an incredible, harrowing film.
Requiem for a Whale proceeded the feature film, an important elegiac short from Ido Weisman, a beautiful rumination on life, death, and ecology.
Also viewed today: a twisted mother and son story in Joey Hirsh’s body horror Pure Gesticulation, which I was unable to view in entirety, and a dark depiction of highly symbolic outcasts in a terrifying Polish forest enclave in the beautifully wrought fable of The Horse Tail. With the former feature was a sweet gritty take on social anxiety in Zane Stein and Nate Pringle’s Super 8 short Hey Guys, How are You? which combines humor with pathos.
Many terrific films today – Mammoth Lakes Film Festival rocks on as truly a fest for filmmakers, innovative and fresh.
- Genie Davis, photos by Jack Burke