Friday is Festival Time – 5 Film Screenings at Mammoth Lakes Film Festival

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It was a fabulous Friday at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival. The fest runs through Saturday with more great films ahead and the mountains are beautiful, too. Drive on up!

A Still Small Voice

An absolutely riveting, superb documentary following the residency of Mati, a hospital chaplain; her supervisor; and the courage and sorrows of the patients at Mt. Sinai Hospital. Such a strong and deeply moving film, it’s rare to see such a beautiful evocation of faith, loss, life, death, and personal struggle presented on screen.

Along with ministering baptisms, emotionally supporting suicidal relatives, and those dying of illnesses and age, Mati must deal with her own personal grief experience and a disconnect with her supervisor.

Glowingly photographed, incredibly intimate, and thoroughly absorbing, it’s a soaring, passionate, and at times devastating work.

Luke Lorentzen is a brilliant filmmaker who has made a compelling film touching on profound topics, and this is a must-see film.

The film was accompanied by a dreamy, gracious doc short about life in a small Southern grocery store, From Fish to Moon directed by Kevin Contento. 

Shorts Block 2

A mixed bag of experimental and more narrative delights. Highlights:

Chiaroscuro – Clair Obscura

Director Elias Djemil-Matassov works mainly with dance subjects, but was approached to work with a contemporary puppet theater for this beautifully shot film. Creating the  all music film involved puppeteers and a professional dancer to create the movements for this elliptical piece about the memories contained in each part of the body – including the life in the hands of the puppeteers.

The Actress

Filmmaker Steve Collins created an amusing story about a manic actress, her put-upon brother and his chef girlfriend. The sister’s surprise visit triggers an upheaval in the sparkly three-person cast, who clearly shared in the fun of their production.

Filling Holes

A Flatbush slice of life between two roommates, an a/c, and a boyfriend. Triangle? Dynamics of moving in and friendship and surviving romantic loss? All of these plus best friends supporting each other, finding family, a go-pro camera depiction of moving chaos,  and parental relationships in the mix.

Juice (Saft)

Viscerally animated slug-like creatures ooze green goo and absorb red bugs. Visually stunning look at acceptance.

Other shorts  screened included a statement of faith and race relations, Blind Color, and a wildly visual Fellini-esque film about two women and their relationship to a violent male photographer, I Love Pictures, awash in reds, blacks, and noir

I Said Daddy I Said

Filmed at Bombay Beach by the Salton Sea, (but passing for Texas) there’s a mysterious object in the water that might just cause time travel.  Living near it, there’s LaLa, who wants to leave her abusive drug-dealer lover, the massive hammer-wielding Daddy, but is hampered by the fact that someone’s watching her every move.

A tense, fresh score and smart direction  – both by Sebastian Karantonis, create the terrific vibe of this gritty thriller, where the frightening elements of being trapped in a terrifying relationship meets sci fi, and psychological horror.

Nut Jobs

Artfully shot in black and white, this French- Canadian film is both a noir comedy and a reconciliation love story.  In it,  a motley crew of “nice terrorists” try to take down a right-wing radio station using mind control to destroy the world. The reconciliation is the framework for relating the twisted tale of the attempted radio station takedown, which sounds like a crazy fantasy, but is definitely not. There’s a gorgeous cat named Harriet and a hypnotizing record involved in Alexandre Leblanc’s film, too.

The feature was paired with a comedy short, Carol & Janet.

Set at a jewelry warehouse, work friends Carol and Janet receive a truly surprising delivery from the UPS man who can’t tell them apart. The result is a bright nine minutes of friendship and laughs from Andrea Rosen.

Short film Mahogany Drive is an absolutely hilarious comedy about three Black men on a comedy tour who awaken in an Air B &B and discover an apparently dead white woman. As bodies pile up and one of the trio assumes the house must be cursed, the perfection of the comedy tension builds to a terrific surprise ending.

Originally a part of a network pitch for a comedic Twilight Zone, the three stars including director and co-writer Jerah Milligan  also have a podcast live in LA titled Black Men Can’t Jump. Los Angeles – do go see them at UCB Franklin June 4th, or the first Sunday of any month this year –  they’re brilliantly funny.

Love Dump

Parodying  Hallmark movies, this is a quirky and absurd romp about Jessica Dump, a junk shop owner, and Todd Barkley, a canine lawyer, who fall in love. The Chicago-set romantic comedy also include a dump owner who is Jessica’s long-lost dad. Along with bursts of dancing, dogs – that per the star and co-writer Jesse Kendall were a bit of a challenge for him and director Jason Avezzano – love gets played with crazy absurdist glee. 

A great day at the cinema and more to come tomorrow!

– Genie Davis; photos: Jack Burke and provided by the filmmakers and festival 

 

 

Always Exciting – Mammoth Lakes Film Festival Thursday

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The first full day of the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival included meaningful documentary shorts and the always stellar Mojave to Mammoth shorts line up. We saw two innovative features and their accompanying shorts with plenty more to come the next three days!

Starring Jerry as Himself

You know all along there’s a twist – the opening graphics say it’s almost completely true – but what that may be gets superseded by the very real horror of retired Chinese American engineer Jerry being scammed out of his life savings.

He believes he’s under investigation for money laundering at first and must prove innocence; then that he’s being recruited to help catch criminals – as an undercover agent helping police in Shanghai.

Law Chen’s film is billed as a documentary, but it is primarily a reenactment of a true and horrible occurrence starring the real and titular protagonist.

Living in Orlando, elderly, and parsimonious to a fault, despite three adult sons and his friendly but ex-wife being all a part of his life, he doesn’t confide his situation until too late.

And then another situation reveals itself – one I won’t reveal here, which is partially the twist, but ultimately Jerry has chosen to make this true story film both to warn other seniors about the dangers of being scammed and fulfill a lifelong dream of being an actor instead of the engineer he became. The story is a moving one, tensely and entertainingly told. 

The film was accompanied by an experimental short called A Throwing Forth, evoking haunting family memories via a single window, colors, and image.

Unicorn Boy

Animated feature six years in the making chronicles a break-up and a coming into acceptance by a struggling non-binary artist vaulted into saving themselves and a unicorn kingdom. All this unfolds while protagonist Matty survives a break-up, explores how to love and examines the reasons why the world can be a dark place. Lush animation using varied techniques and a vibrant palette of color is well-matched by a sweeping emotional musical score. Varied cameo voice actors includes turns by Maria Bamford and Patton Oswalt as the unicorn kingdom’s king and queen in this tour de force by lead, writer, and director Matt Kiehl. The message: let your freak flag fly through rainbow animation that visually dazzles.

The animated short that accompanied this film, Eclipsed,  is the short story of a world in which eclipses are the norm and the sun coming out is entirely unique. It well conveys anticipation and anxiety in its spaghetti-o’s-consuming and witch-like main figure.. Director Jamie Wolfe creates a bold experimental narrative.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Jack Burke and film stills courtesy of MLFF

Mammoth Lakes Film Festival Opening Night Begins Powerfully and Provocatively

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The setting is galvanizing from the moment the film begins. Queendom, set in the heart of Russia, is a compelling documentary from Agniia Galdanova.  The film profiles transgender artist Gena, as she navigates her life – in which she becomes a living art form and activist, wrapped in fabric, repurposed trash, and painted tape.

The artist moves in a snowy small-town landscape, navigating troughs of predjudice, and the confining love of her grandparents, who cannot accept her art or her rebellious nature, much less her gender transformation. There are conversations with friends, the abandonment of a school of cosmetic study in Moscow due to Gena’s acts of protest, and most of all the growing awareness – as she moves from the village of Magadan to Moscow, and by film’s end, Paris, that she can shine her artistic light on the brutality and cruelty of the Russian regime and its war with Ukraine, exposing both.

The imagery of the film – Gena’s amazingly created costuming, the icy and bleak backdrop of her home village, the harsh lines of Moscow, and the almost palpable sense of relief the viewer and the subject feel as she moves through the more gracious architecture of Paris, is deeply engaging.

If Gena begins the film as a misunderstood misfit in the unyielding winter of Communist Russian culture and politics, viewers watch as her work grows to embrace the power of artists. Artists, after all, are something of the canary in the coal mine, pointing out danger and distress. Artists like Gena can effectively call attention to brutality, inequity, and violent injustice.

The film starts with her building an Instagram following, creating set pieces with her fabulous, sculptural costuming for views, and follows along quietly and decisively as she turns her art into a potent weapon for political activism, at great risk to her own well-being – by birth gender, she might very well be drafted to fight in the war.

Over the course of the film, she moves from a somewhat self-serving personal view to one of force, bravery, and action; discovering that to use her art and truly be herself, she can become the focal point of an important movement that radiates beyond her personal desires.

Visually stunning and yet intimate and quiet in approach, the film makes an excellent opening night salvo in what is sure to be another exciting year at Mammoth Lakes Film Festival.

  • Genie Davis; images provided by the festival 

It’s Mountain Movie Time — Memorial Weekend Brings the 9th Annual Mammoth Lakes Film Festival to Screen

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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