What a great way to spend Memorial Weekend! May 24th through 28th, the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival will be debuting it’s 9th annual event. Known for its eclectic and often cutting-edge mix of films, the fest offers a wide range of documentary and narrative features both domestic and international this year.
Held at three venues in the town of Mammoth Lakes, Calif., the festival is always warm and welcoming, offering inclusive and illuminative Q & A discussions, panels, and prizes. As always helmed by founder and festival director Shira Dubrovner, with programming director Paul Sbrizzi, subject matter on feature length films – the extensive shorts line-up has yet to be released – is both fresh and prescient.
According to Dubrovner, “It’s the artist’s responsibility to create change by holding up a mirror to society, inspiring audiences to self-reflection and taking action to better the world around us…”
Narrative features include a range of suspense, comedy, and dramas:
U.S. films include Free Time, focusing on a young man’s efforts to embrace life and actually find a life along the way; Pure Gesticulation, a mother/son story involving a mysterious new business begun by the son instructing strangers over the phone; I Said Daddy I Said, which tells the story of LaLa, whoses plan to leave her abusive boyfriend Daddy crumbles when she realizes someone is watching her every move; and Love Dump, a quirky rom/com about an antique shop owner’s search for her
missing father, who falls for a determined dog lawyer along the way. Viewers will also enjoy a highly inventive animated film, Unicorn Boy, in which a heartbroken young artist is sucked into a unicorn-run alternate dimension, and a mission to conquer a dark force in order to bring peace to the kingdom.
International Narrative Features include The Horse Tail (Poland), which details an aging sex worker’s return to a small and secretive town; Mad Cats (Japan), the story of a shiftless young man, his quirky new friend and an edgy, mysterious young girl, searching for his brother, kidnapped by a pack of vicious monster cats determined to execute unscrupulous pet shop owners. Nut Jobs (Canada), unfolds a far-fetched-sounding story told by a man to his ex-girlfriend about joining a leftist terrorist cell to
avenge her from being fired by an awful right-wing talk radio station. The Serbian film Where the Road Leads, tells the story of a stranger’s arrival in an isolated village, the girl who falls in love with him, and her commitment to saving him when he is endangered by townspeople who suspect his involvement in constructing a nearby highway.
Starring Jerry as Himself, above; Mississippi River Styx, below
North American Documentary Features include A Still Small Voice, the story of an aspiring hospital chaplain’s yearlong residency in spiritual care; Mississippi River Styx, which depicts an enigmatic drifter with terminal cancer living his dream of
floating down the Mississippi River on a ramshackle houseboat — until locals start to question his story; and Name of the Game, which reveals the untold story of black male exotic dancing in south Los Angeles. In Starring Jerry as Himself , a family re-enacts the unbelievable, twisting true story of how their immigrant father Jerry, a recently divorced and retired Florida man, was unexpectedly recruited by the Chinese police as an undercover agent in an international money laundering investigation.
International feature docs include Destiny (Iran), which offers a poignant profile of a smart and gifted teenage girl who desperately wants to go to college but has to face hard choices in the wake of her mother’s death and her
father’s need for daily assistance; Naked Israel (Israel), which offers an insightful look at Israeli masculinity through a series of interviews; and No Place For You In Our Town (Bulgaria), which depicts a soccer team’s success in a decaying ex-mining city in a changing world. From India, To Kill A Tiger presents the story of Ranjit, who takes on the fight of his life seeking justice for his 13-year old daughter, the victim of a gang rape.
Queendom, above
There are also three Spotlight presentation films which are not eligible for festival competition awards. The opening night film is from Russia: in Queendom, a queer Russian artist, stages radical performances in public that become a new form of art and activism—and put her life in danger. The festival’s closing film is Kokomo City , a U.S film in which four outspoken Black transgender sex workers explore the dichotomy between the Black community and themselves. The third spotlight presentation is a decidedly unconventional approach to musical film. In Burning Stone (U.S.), an ensemble of hypnotic instruments and choir weave together, intersect, and thread sonic and visual information.
The festival will also feature a Short Films Program of 38 Narrative Shorts, 24 documentary shorts and 17 animation shorts, as well as a program of music videos and a screenplay competition.
Having attended MLFF many times since its inception, one thing is sure: viewers will experience unique, exciting film at its best, in a wonderful environment where audience members can interact with filmmakers and explore ideas that will enrich, confound, involve and celebrate the human condition.
Get your tickets and passes here!
And note, this year, there will be an as-yet-unscheduled Best of the Fest series of screenings here in LA. But why wait? MLFF offers what just may be your best Memorial Weekend yet, movie-style.
- Genie Davis; images courtesy filmmakers and MLFF