The abundance of rich cinematic viewing continued Sunday to Sunday, and while we still have screeners to view, here’s a look at more of what we viewed and enjoyed at the festival. Regrets? That we didn’t see every last film.
Another fine shorts block brought us a festival grand jury award winner, and a haunting, quite wonderful work it was. Fly By, from writer director Jesse Mittelstadt, a young couple meets, falls in love, grows old together, and grows apart — unrecalled by the film’s protagonist, affected by the proximity of an earth-circling meteor that affects and disrupts time.
Mittelstadt is currently working on a horror film that expands the world so beautifully portrayed, in part through visual effects that took two years to produce. A riveting winner.
Sonnet is the story of a friendship and a suicide pact, a desperate but lovely quest for life in the face of personal destruction. The piece was written and produced by Alessandro Nori, Charlotte Rothwell; directed by Jeff Bomberger. It’s both eliptical and involving.
Rooster and the Queen from writer/director Aaron Weisblatt is a gritty character study about a man and the woman that got away only to come back again – and again. Weisblatt notes “We’re turning it into a TV series and I’m writing it now.” The rich portrayals and smart dialog make this working-class-set story shine.
Americano from writer/director Tim Viola, tells the story of a refugee/hacker caught up in a brutal political campaign. The Philadelphia setting, Viola says “is full of stories like this that contribute to the national dialog.” The film has the sensibility of a political thriller with a message of inclusion.
The Talk is the briefest and darkest of dark comedies, as a dad has a talk with his son about sex and experiences a heart attack. Writer/director/producer Kevin Alejandro found sound to be a challenge on a windy night at his location; currently directing some episodes of Lucifer, Alejandro’s assured hand in this witty short drew laughs and gasps.
Scars, based on a short play by writer Jeff Locker, tackles a subject he says he often takes on “I usually write about mental health, but this was the darkest thing I have written.” The piece, set in a mental hospital, was directed in balletic style by Nicole Jones-Dion.
Moving into features, a deliciously creepy horror thriller added chills to its afternoon screening slot Come Said the Night (above) on the festival’s first Sunday. Director Andres Rovira said “Childhood inspired this film – all the terrifying parts of being a kid: repression, breaking free, becoming your own person in a very dysfunctional family.” And then there was sleep paralysis which Rovira, like his main character, teenage Alma, also suffered from as a child. Without giving too much away, this was a film that was filled with “slow tension, I’m a fan of that,” Rovira noted. “The Shining is my favorite film.”
The spine-tingling feature follows thirteen-year-old Alma “Sprout” Grady, i coming-of-age, and on vacation with her family to their secluded forest retreat. On the anniversary of her sister’s death, she believes a monster is haunting the nearby woods: even at that, things are not at all what they seem. According to Rovira, the film delved deeply into Greek mythology “because we got to play with monsters and gods, and it’s just fun and different.”
Chance Has No Empathy was an entirely different type of film, a character study of an artist/serial killer from writer/director Gabriel Saint. The LA-based story evolved out of several different attempts to “make a film, fail, and fix it,” Saint says. The main character’s profession as an artist was a fit for Saint, who is also an artist and “I had all the props.” Hopefully, not the knife.
While we didn’t see every shorts block, we returned for more of a good thing with the Fusion Shorts presented on Wednesday afternoon, and a fine batch of films were unsurprisingly on hand.
The darkly comic Art is Dead depicts the pushy, wanna-be artist who drives his friend crazy with his self-aggrandizement. “It started with a Facebook friend who was furious that noone showed up at an art fair he was in,” director and writer Tyler Nimmons laughed.
More comic flare was on hand with Bonded, a cos-play anniversary present for the BDSM crowd gone all so wrong. Writers Kristina Denton, Tim Martin Gleason, and Jay Blairriter put together one hilarious film. Gleason also directed. Denton said she “wanted to write something with three actors and one room.” Blair and Denton co-starred.
An Aspirational Space makes uncluttering into a nightmare. After her relationship abruptly ends, a woman isolates herself in a new apartment in an attempt to get rid of the old and on with the new. Writer/director GG Hawkins makes us love our clutter drawers.
The Amateurs (above) was one of our favorites; richly funny and a sweet female buddy film besides. According to writer Pamela Mitchell, the story of a woman’s discovery of an exes revenge-porn photos was “loosely inspired by events with a dear friend. One of the goals of the film was to show that your friends support you through tough times in life. I didn’t want to make this too dramatic or horribly traumatic. Director Cat Rhinehart said she hadn’t preveiously directed someone else’s words before, loved doing it, and found it to be a “big responsibility to be entrusted.” The faith was well placed.
The False Mirror, from writer/director Johnny Coffeen, presents the lives of a drug-muddled fellow given to impersonating priests and psychiatrists as merged with that of an impotent husband. “I had this idea for a film ten years ago, and rewrote it as a short. I liked the idea of casting the same actor in two different parts,” Coffeen related, explaining that he is dealing with “duality in all ways, including comedy and drama.”
A movie about making a movie with a nihilist sensibility is what Jens Joseph has created in semi-road-trip comedy Getting There (above).
Violet’s New Life is a terrific scifi/relationship story from writer/director Kim Ray, who took the idea of living forever from a documentary she was working on about science and technology and ran with it, shaping an intensely compelling story about a woman whose essence – mind and soul – was integrated into a brand new body. “I saw this as an exploration. What if you were 75 and unwell and you went into the body you had when you were 30?” Ray said. “Personally, it’s appealing. I don’t want to die.”
The imminent death of the two protagonists buried up to their necks in sand hangs over Miracle Desert from writer/director Mark Hosack. The dark comedy is pitch perfect and packed with surprises which we won’t reveal here.
Originally created as a feature 15 years ago, the short is actually the end of a feature film about the hapless Casper and Henry. Making the short included, Hosack says, having “my nephew Brad spend 24 hours digging a hole for the actors. It was 4 x 5 feet and fitted with little seats.” Shot in the western Mojave desert, the heat was intense enough that the cast could only shoot for 15 minutes at a time.
One of our favorite narrative features of the festival was the off-beat, beautiful story Wade in the Water (above), which recieved the audience award for narrative feature, a well deserved prize. Brilliant acting and a gem of a script touching on the trauma of child abuse, the meaning of friendship, and the acceptance of personal responsibility, writer Chris Retts says he’d been writing with director Mark Wilson and doing well in contests with big budget scripts, when they “realized we were waiting for permission to make a movie. So I told Mark I’d take the time and write a script we could do ourselves. We wanted to make something raw and honest.” Leads Tom E. Nicholson, and Danika Golombek were a perfect pairing of awkward chemistry. Golombek said “It was a dream to be a aprt of this, as an actor and collaborator.”
Nicholson added “Everyone showed up with their A game.” Indeed.
Child abuse and it’s outcome was also the subject of 90 Feet From Home, above, writer/director Brett Bentman’s story of a troubled, former major league ball player home to take revenge on his nasty stepfather and see his estranged brother, now a cop. Childhood scenes were gaspingly riveting. The strong cast includded Shawn Michaels, Adam Hampton, Thom Hallum, Steven Michael Quezada, and Alexandria DeBerry.
“It’s based on a true story,” Bentman says, speaking of a friend who did play pro ball for three years as did the character in the film. Calling Michaels, a pro-wrestler, his childhood hero, Bentman says he was wonderful to work with. Michaels returned the compliment, calling Bentman “an actors director.”
Gutterbug (above) was the grand jury award winner, with director Andrew Gibson offering a poignant, well-acted story based on the life of street people he observed while living in Alston, Mass. Based on Gibson’s short story, screenwriter Chris Tobin crafted a compelling story of a homeless bipolar man on the eve of his 21st birthday.
Gibson says “The film was all shot within a two-mile radius. The cast spent hours on the streets together, forming ensemble camraderie palpable throughout the film. Coincidentally, the character’s birthday in the script, June 18th, was just a day off from Gibson’s own birthday and the date of the film’s screening. Recieving the grand jury award was a very good present to receive.
Dakota is the story of a talented but aimless singer/songwriter and her varied, not-so-great relationship choices. Writer/director Roberto Carmona and his beautifully appealing lead – who also wrote the songs for the soundtrack, filmed the project ten months to the day of its premiere screening.
Star Phoebe Ryan says the lovely soundtrack will be coming soon, and fans can follow dakotamovie.com to find out just when.
Chameleon (above) is, as writer/director Marcus Mizelle explains it, a “criminal as hero story. I got out the things I feel about LA when I wrote the story,” he laughed. He describes the four-person-crew shoot as being a thriller to match the story line, even shooting at times through a backpack at iconic locations. The story depicts an ex-con and his volatile accomplice scamming trophy wives.
Another of our favorite features was Yes, the emotionally intense story of a washed-up, scandal-ridden childstar turned drama teacher and his promising new student. Writer Tim Realbuto
and director Rob Margolies told viewers the project was originally a “two person play performed in New York.”
Realbuto added “I was inspired by the human character. I love writing about flawed characters in a room together.” Asked if Realbuto, who played former-star Patrick Nolan, was a predator, he replied, “I’ve never told anyone.” Margolies noted “Our biggest job was to make him acceptable.” The student was played by Nolan Gould, of the TV sitcom Modern Family, stretching his acting chops in a big way.
Killbird was inspired in part by the Patriot Act and Edward Snowden., according to its creators. The cabin-in-the-wood political thriller was shot in twelve days by writer/director Joe Zanetti, who crafted the script with Jessi Thind.
Secret data bases, corrupt government officials, and the CIA hover in the background of a two-hander script involving a birder and a loner – who are not what they seem.
Dosed, the sole doc that we were able to take in this year, was a powerful one with a potent message about the use of natural treatments for depression and addiction. Insightful and fascinating, the depiction of a young woman successfully but harrowingly getting help for both her addiction and depression, the project started with the filmmakers’ desire to help her as a friend. Writer/director Tyler Chandler and co-writer Nicholas Meyers offer compelling evidence about the success of using psilocybin in the treatment of depression and the African root iboga to end substance abuse.
The film is a must-see; and for more information on the subject, visit and support www.maps.org. MAPS is working to have life-saving psilocybin legal within five years; current FDA trials have moved up to phase 3 in a long process. The filmmakers shot over 400 hours of intimate footage of their friend. “We were trying to keep it an honest process. We almost stopped filming several times; it was tough to balance not interferring with the process with the difficult task to get the information out.”
Writer/Director Dave Hill crafted a poignant, lovely dramedy in Flying Cars, above, the story of a filmmaker stuck at a dead-end office job and his secret obsession with radio-controlled car racing – and the girl who agrees to coach him – all just weeks before his wedding. Hill said “My brothers and I played with RC cars as hobbyists; I wanted to write something doable and where do you go with that? Getting to know the whole RC scene was important.” So was the casting, with three brilliant lead performances lending heft to the story: Jeremy Schuetze, Regan James, and Mackenzie Lintz. A delight.
Closing the festival was Adolescence, starring Mickey River in a gritty, LA-set coming of age story based loosely on River’s life. Written by Cal Barnes & Mickey River and Chris Rossi and Ashley Avis, and directed by Avis, the story was both “personal and universal” River said; with Avis adding “They embodied those characters…it was so human.”
Performed by a stellar cast, which also included India Eisley, Romeo Miller, Michael Milford, Elisabeth Rohm, Tommy Flanagan, Jere Burns and John Driskell Hopkins. Miller, as River’s best friend, gave a star turn in a film that touched on first love, dysfunctional family dynamics, and the nightmare of addiction.
And there you have it – as far as what we saw in the theater. We have several more films to view as screeners, and will offer capsule reviews for these projects later in July. Dances with Films – take a bow.
– Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke