Recently in PDX Film Fest 2007 Category
You don't have to have known Helen Hill to be fully affected and changed by her presence. There are always a few people in the community that are full of spirit, generosity, warmth and love; that always manage to make us feel alive and beautiful. They seem to ground us in the simple essences of life, always encouraging and nurturing us. Helen Hill is one of these people.
The screening program of Helen Hill Remembered was an incredibly emotional experience for me. Her films communicated a person full of spirit, warmth, love and excitement for life. The watercolor backgrounds, tiny ink and construction paper characters, sweet stop motion, organic tones and soft voices brought me into a place normally kept in childhood; a place of safety and intimacy.
I wasn't able to sit in the whole presentation and sharing that encompassed her memorial screening. The day before I went to a memorial of a dear friend in my community who died at the age of 29 to stomach cancer. The tactile quality of Helen Hill's films and the incredible affect she had on her community was too close to home.
We are lucky to have been touched by these incredible people, and it is absolutely heartbreaking to see them go. I hope that Hellen Hill's films become more accessible to people, so that her spirit might warm this world in communities that don't have the luxury of her presence.
The festival proved incredibly overstimulating for me, so I unconsciously allowed this two or so weeks to go by before writing any more reflections on the films and surrounding experience. I apologize for anyone counting on the blog for up-to-date incentive to participate in the festivities. For now, let this be yours for next year!
The Sunday Shorts Program #4: The Cult of the Mustache and Other Cultural Phenomena was an incredible series, touted by all those who saw it as perhaps the best program of the entire festival. Because of my thesis work I was only able to catch the last film; and kicked myself deeply for being so responsible.
The Light Is Waiting by Michael Robinson proved an incredible ballzout blowout of finale. The film was entirely comprised of episodes from Full House. The beginning starts us off like any other episode, but completely breaks down at the drop of a TV. Existentialism and intimate horror swirl in as we are taken into a truly psychedelic journey into the cosmic underbelly of Full House.
Made perhaps fully with the program Aftereffects, it facilitated a very deep visual jam of effects and tricks; a kind of post-modern mandala for the new New age. Tony Conrad's groundbreaking film Flicker came to mind as the images of the happy family on a vacation to Hawaii breaks into red strobing and slow motion morphs, keeping me dead in my seat. A large portion of the piece is a symmetrical morph of different vacation scenes akin to some kind of mash-up of Family Circus and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom injected with a little dose of Holy Mountain.
I had to let a laugh escape at the end when Jesse is singing to a sold out beach crowd, holding an Olsen baby. The mandala symmetry morphs Jesse into the baby, almost as if to name her the new postmodern leader.
Amy Bernstein at PORT writes a nice review of the PDX Fest's video installation exhibit HERE
"Upon entering the opening show for this year's PDX Film Fest, one encountered a shift in perception; the space-time continuum linear living was altered somehow, and the viewer suddenly found him/herself immersed completely within a realm of video..."
Shawn Levy, head movie critic at The Oregonian, blogs the Peripheral Produce Invitational:
"PDX Fest: Another Amazing Invitational
Posted by slevy April 30, 2007
It's a hazard of a job like mine -- banging the drum in public about this or that film or film event -- that people will actually take my advice and go spend time and money and wind up disappointed with what they see and, by extension, me.
But anyone who heeded my call to attend the 2007 Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival (AKA the PDX Fest) and, in particular, the Peripheral Produce Invitational on Saturday night, can't possibly have been anything other than tickled, entertained and uplifted by what they saw. I've attended four of the six invitationals and they're all like dim sum luncheons: full of delicious variety and impossible to prefer to any of the other similarly wonderful banquets you've enjoyed.
On Saturday night, some 400-plus attendees filled the main auditorium of the Hollywood Theatre to watch and vote on brand-new works from a dozen filmmakers chosen by PDX Fest honcho Matt McCormick from among previous Invitational winners, local talent, filmmakers who had other works in the five-day event, and through-the-transom submissions. The variety, wit, craft and spirit were all high, and the evening reached a crescendo at the award ceremony that nobody might have predicted. And choosing a winner -- each person in attendance was allowed to select one film for the top prize -- was no easy task.
After having a chance to gander at Devon Damonte's "Great Garbage Patch Kids" crafty installation on Sandy Blvd. (it was an old Toyota pickup turned into a multimedia projector delivering a message about global warming), the audience was warmed up by McCormick himself, who described the format of the evening and began an evening-long game of Pabst Bingo, which kept folks entertained (and treated to nifty prizes) through the occasional equipment changeover or mechanical glitch.
Then came the films. And they were good. San Francisco's Bryan Boyce kicked off the show with "Rumsfeld Rules," one of his patented remixes of dull speeches by powerful men. Recutting a CSPAN interview with Donald Rumsfeld so that the former Secretary of Defense said things like "I think the founding fathers of this nation were traitors....I would like to drop a nuclear weapon on them." It brought down the house.
Soon, Melinda Stone, another California filmmaker, had the audience singing along to her concertina and participating in a film about life and death on her farm, "Have You Seen the Duckalitos?" And yet another Golden Stater, Paul VanDeCarr offered the moody and luxurious "San Francisco Empty," a study of depopulated spaces -- natural and manmade -- in the city by the bay. Brad Hutchinson of Olympia, Washington, made a vivid impression with the (apparently) autobiographical "My Primary Colors," a study of his parents and home presented in overlapping images from three projectors.
There were fun works from Portland filmmakers as well. Vanessa Renwick, who won the very first Invitational, presented "Red Stallion's Revenge," her remixed, re-scored version of a 1943 western about a battle between a horse and a bear. Jeremy Bird's "Drums and Lines" was a sharply-cut study of sound and editing. And the duo known as Hooliganship did amazing and amusing things with confetti, musical instruments and impressive 3-D animation in a presentation called "REALER."
But the surprise of the evening was filmmaker George Andrus of Albany, Oregon, who presented the dazzling and puzzling "Dancing Rainbows," an excerpt from an hour-long film he's been working on for six or seven years. Andrus, wearing a natty sports coat and tie, introduced the film as a study of visual properties of Palmolive dish soap, which got the crowd laughing. As Andrus was by several decades the oldest person in attendance and spoke in a deep, grandiloquent tone, there was a sense that he wasn't necessarily who he said he was, that some young filmmaker -- perhaps Portlander Rob Tyler, who helped edit "Dancing Rainbows" -- was pulling the strings here and was using this polite, elegant man as a kind of Larry "Bud" Melman figure for our amusement.
Then the film began, and it was a jaw-dropper. This wasn't a phony; this was an undiscovered genius of an usual, folk-craft stripe. Using macro-zoom lenses, Andrus presented deliriously psychedelic abstracts of color, light and form, with patterns of soap film (sometimes augmented with mirrors) capturing the looks of natural phenomena, geometric patterns, jewelry and even human and alien faces. The images were accompanied by Andrus' droll and eloquent commentary. And the thing was a massive hit, creating enormous buzz in the lobby during the intermission and after the show, when attendees strolled a few blocks to the venerable Pagoda restaurant for drinks, food and the awards ceremony.
After announcing the runner-up awards (in venerable PDX Fest tradition, everyone but the winner once again tied for second place), McCormick presented first prize to Andrus, whose eyes an welled with tears as he thanked what he called "an extremely lovely crowd" for being "so vivacious and gracious and accommodating in every way."
Speaking a few minutes later, Andrus revealed that he's 91 years old and has lived in Albany since moving there in 1928 from Wyoming -- "just over the hill." He graduated from Albany College in 1938 and then went to work at U. S. Bank, from which he retired in 1979. His filmmaking came to the attention of Tyler when he and his colleagues in the Archipelago film collective made a documentary about George's brother, Jerry, a magician and inventor. As George revealed, "Dancing Rainbows" (you can see images and buy a DVD here) is his only film. And he was genuinely touched and surprised to be recognized for it in such a way and place.
They may have a big festival coming up in Cannes in a couple weeks. But I don't think there will be anything in the South of France quite like what went on in the Northeast of Portland the other night. If you missed it, you missed something. And maybe next year you'll finally take my advice and catch one of these once-in-a-lifetime shows."
Also viewed by this guy yesterday was the film "Growing Awareness" by Jade Ajani. This is the film you need to show to all of your friends and relatives whose eating habits might be questionable. It is a thorough examination of the evolution of Organic Farming in our region (although the concepts are universal).
By speaking to a wide variety of sources involved in Organic Farming, a story emerges of how small farmers, abandoned by banks who would no longer loan them money for operating costs (money which was always repaid), turn to a business model called Community Supported Agriculture.
From the festival program: "[In the CSA model] consumers buy shares of a local farm's harvest, receiving a weekly supply of fresh food throughout the season."
Essentially, local consumers replace the role of the bank by loaning the farmer enough money to operate the farm. Then they get their money back in the form of delicious food.
The film makes a strong case for CSA farms, citing their sustainability, the incredible quality of the organics they produce, the reduction of petroleum use due to local distribution and other factors, and, one might argue most importantly, the strengthening effect that such a model has on communities.
In regards to the quality of the produce, Ajani makes this more than evident with his beautiful cinematography. The rich, vivid colors of the vegetables speak to your stomach, while the thoughtful commentary addresses your reason. I believe this film was shot on video, but the quality is very close to celluloid.
Ajani keeps the musical scoring to a minimum, which I greatly appreciate. The moments when he does allow some music to come through are appropriate and well done.
One aspect of this film that makes it an appropriate pick for a "Documentary AND eXperimental Film Festival" is the repeated shots of large, industrial fields taken from a moving car. These shots are so hypnotic and fascinating in their stroboscopic nature that they could be extracted from the film and made into an award-winning experimental film in their own right.
Ajani's loose style of storytelling delivers many individual characters' experiences to us, while still making them adhere to a central, united narrative (the struggle and evolution of small organic farms). K Records' Calvin Johnson makes a brief cameo appearance that garners lots of laughs from the audience.
My only criticisms of this film are that it feels as though it could made a little tighter. The running time is currently 90 minutes, and that could be brought down to around 70-80 minutes without sacrificing much. Also, there is a derisive comment made about George W. Bush that seemed unnecessary. Republicans have a right to eat healthy and local too, even if some of us might disagree with...everything else they do?
This issues addressed in this film are extremely important to our society and it's hard to imagine someone else doing a better job at bringing them to the screen. See this film if you can, but more importantly, find a CSA farm in your area!
I'm going to finish blogging about today's films tomorrow morning, so here are some pics in the meantime:
The Face of the Fest
Full house for the Invitational
Lunchfilms is a series of films commissioned by Mike Plante. The concept behind the series is that Plante would buy a filmmaker lunch and then that debt would be repaid with a film for the same cost. A few rules were also agreed upon at each of the lunches, but judging from the results, they were not strictly adhered to.
I'm just going to cover my favorites from the bunch.
Bill Daniel's film was a trailer for a project that I hope he is really working on. It looked like he had discovered some kind of clan of nomadic van people and gained their trust. Their modified vans looked like what the more chilled out folks will have in the Mad Max future.
The rules for Cam Archer's film included "no irony," which I assume was meant to be ironic. Cam conducts a pseudo-academic interview of himself over some experimental footage. Both the questions and answers were hilarious. This was my favorite film of the series.
Ben Coonley is right. We do need to remember how funny cats are in these dark times.
The Zellner Brothers film "Pardon My Downfall" was like Hillbilly Noh Theatre. It was very beautiful and mesmerizing.
"Diamond Dave" by Elizabeth Skadden offered an interesting look into the lifestyle of a 50s recording star who lives in Hollywood on a property that includes a decaying movie set. Dave had the hustler's spirit and did a lot of name dropping, but in a very entertaining way.
I feel like I'm using the wrong verb tense in this post, but I'm very tired and I don't want to correct everything, so hopefully no one will notice.
The last of my favorites was "When the World's On Fire" by James Clauer. This experimental documentary, set in Tennessee, reminded me a lot of my home state of South Carolina. That being the case, I was very impressed by what Clauer did with that setting. He made the deep rural South feel very fresh to me, presenting it in a way I have never seen it before by using some intense psychedelic editing. This film also reminded me a bit of "Gummo," with its focus the weird events in a low-income community.
I wouldn't call this project a total success. Some of the films were unimpressive. However, there were some exceptional films in the bunch that might never have been made without this project. Seeing as how the whole series cost Plante $622.71 in lunches (plus tip) it seems like it was a worthwhile investment.
Hey youse guys! dalas here, checking in from PDXFF. I actually just watched three programs, but I didn't get to log on to the NET until now, so I will work on posting my reactions.
The first program of the day was "Friends & Neighbors," which was a showcase of experimental short films by folks from round these parts. I'll cut right to the chase and give you brief impressions of the films.
The first film was "Ring! Ring!" by Arman Bohn. In this film, a series of mysterious packages arrive on the doorstep of a musical composer. There was a very Lynchian tone to this film. Sort of an air of strange suspense. Also, watching Lost has gotten me in the habit of spotting books. The protagonist in this film was reading one called The Mysterious Island, and the chapter he was reading was "The Abandoned." LOST IS EVERYWHERE!
Up next was the first of Mack McFarland's "Kinetoscopes for the 21st Century." All of the films from this series were very entertaining. In the first one, the audience is squashed like an ant (from the ant's POV). Another features a very absurd puppet show of sorts. The one with the feather almost gave me an acid flashback. You can watch them yourself at kinetocast.com
We then watched "October of This Year," by Rob Tyler, which documented the Portland ice storm of 2003. I was not in Portland for this event, but it looks like there were some serious amounts of solidified water. This film had a very interesting aesthetic to it. I couldn't tell if it originated on on film or if it was video treated to look like film. All in all, it just reminded me of all the ice bergs melting. BUMMER.
"Invitation," by Morgan Currie was next. A very somber and meditative documentary about the impact of Hurricane Katrina. The opening shots of people working in the rubble gave me the strong impression of a wounded animal dragging itself back to its den to recuperate. Currie found some very interesting survivors to interview and their perspective was enthralling. I thought this film had the quality of a good Maysles documentary.
"Isi," by Chris Larson felt like a stochastic kaleidoscope of organic imagery. I can't explain it much beyond that.
Gordon Nickel's "Conquest Blues" lightened the mood a bit and was very well edited.
I'm hurrying now, because I need to get dinner before the 9pm show.
"Transit," by Melissa Gregory Rue was what we used to call a found footage montage, but maybe we're supposed to call it a "mash-up" now? Maybe not. An interesting spiritual journey nonetheless.
Jesse England got a big laugh with his film "Steve Winwood is Hungry for Breakfast." I've watched it several times before and I still find it funny.
UrHo homie E*Rock screened his music video "I Love Your Music." I Love Your Music Video, Eric. It helps that I really like it when computers sing in music.
"Dear Alphabet" by Marina Budovsky was like a Tool Video + The Residents' film "Vileness Flats" + an Edward Gorey book + Sesame Street. It was beautifully made.
Morgan Hobart's "Soft"? A sepia toned organic memory MICRO BLAST.
Grace Carter and Holly Anders showed their film "Nora," which was inspired by a theatrical project and the movie "Psycho." It felt like they were using a Matthew Barney-style ritual to reclaim the power that Hitchcock attempted to take away from women in his films. The film was very stylish and well produced.
OK, dinner time! I'll try to get my posts up regarding the other two programs I saw today ASAP.
Oh, and hey, there is plenty of room in this theatre, so please come down and watch these films!!
the pdx film fest opening night party takes place at audio cinema. there will be art there too.
