For film listings, schedules and tickets, go to www.ashlandfilm.org
Stories:
Awards ceremony tops off festivities
The seventh annual Ashland Independent Film Festival celebrated the completion of half a week of films with an awards dinner Sunday night at the Historic Ashland Armory.
Filmmakers mix with locals at festival bash
There was a lot of "badge" checking at the opening bash of the Ashland Independent Film Festival Thursday evening at the Ashland Springs Hotel.
Blue badges were for festival volunteers, pink indicated very important status (media, in other words) and the really, really big badges identified you as a filmmaker and the name of your movie.
Homegrown talent shines in Locals Only shows
Films featured at the Ashland Independent Film Festival's two Locals Only events may not be Oscar contenders, but that doesn't mean they are short on talent.
The 11 films were produced in Southern Oregon or made by local filmmakers. Subject matters range from "poopy pants" jokes to manufacturing biodiesel to life-ruining oranges.
AIFF has rich documentary lineup
The Ashland Independent Film Festival, running from Thursday, April 3 through Monday, April 7, has garnered a national reputation for attracting some of the finest documentaries being made, and this season is no exception.
It's a diverse and compelling lineup from engaging political documentaries to those that span the globe and offer an opportunity to spend, however briefly, time with cultures and people that would otherwise be inaccessible.
The truth is in the filming
The Ashland Independent Film Festival is bestowing its lifetime achievement award on Albert Maysles, dubbed by the New York Times as "the dean of documentary filmmakers."
This is only the second time in AIFF's seven-year history that the award has been given.
Feature films add flare to festival
Of the 87 films to be screened at this year's Ashland Independent Film Festival, many are feature films. It's always a dicey endeavor making movies, using the medium of film to explore the human condition while conveying a narrative that is compelling and capable of drawing the audience in. Find below a sampling of the features which will be screened from April 3-7.
AIFF 2008
Early spring in the Rogue Valley is about more than blossoms and the promise of warmer days ahead. The 7th annual Ashland Independent Film Festival returns once again featuring a rich and varied panoply of films: 87 documentaries, features and shorts.
AIFF breaks attendance record
The sixth Ashland Independent Film Festival held its Awards Celebration on Sunday Night at the Historic Ashland Armory.
By Sunday evening more than 15,000 tickets had been distributed, with a day of sales remaining. Last year's record total hit 14,000 tickets.
Film festival highlights locals
The Ashland Independent Film Festival features movie makers from all over the planet. It also often highlights the productions of local film makers.
This year there are at least a half a dozen movies that were directed by members of the Ashland community, ranging from Ryan Rambach — who made a movie about one of his classmates' garage door mural that became a statewide news story — to Claudine Jordan, who is a professional film maker from Europe, who this year made a movie about Sharon Mehdi's book about grandmothers standing in a park as an attempt to save the world.
Crowds fill film festival events
If one word could describe the events on the opening day of the Ashland Independent Film Festival it's this: packed.
Local residents and out-of-town visitors sampled Rogue Creamery cheeses, Rising Sun Farms tortas and other specialty foods paired with Southern Oregon wines and ale during Thursday night's sold-out Opening Night Bash at the Ashland Springs Hotel.
The gala gave more than a dozen local companies wider exposure as people from around the country and even the world descended on the hotel.
"It's a chance for people from out of the area who may not have tasted Lillie Belle Chocolates or Rogue Valley wines to try these things," said Jesse Longhurst, owner of Red Letter Event Planning and the organizer of the gala.
His name is Bruce
Few Rogue Valley residents have as much blood on their hands as Bruce Campbell. For that matter, no Rogue Valley resident has spent as much time as Bruce Campbell has fighting the undead.
All in a day's work, it seems.
Campbell, 48, has spent the last three decades shooting zombies, chopping through vampires, thwarting sorcerers, stomping aliens and finding various other ways to douse himself in the slimiest substances Hollywood magic can create. And he's not done yet.
AIFF documentaries sport local impact
First came "The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering," a sweet little book, written by local author Sharon Mehdi, which tells the tale of a growing number of women, residents of a small town, many of them grandmothers, who come together and stand silently for peace. The locals begin to take notice, some watching through the window of the Beever Brothers Café.
As it turns out, these silent few (at least a few in the beginning) begin to cause more than a ripple in town, many folks asking, "What are they doing?" A small girl speaks up, saying, "They're saving the world." And so they were, in their own quiet, immutable way, and what was a mere ripple became a cresting wave as grandmothers worldwide stepped forward and stood for peace. And on that day, that one singular day, there was no fighting anywhere in the world.
Short documentaries illustrate American horticulture
Everywhere there are lawns. Strips, squares, rectangles, some tidy and trimmed others looking like they've had a bad haircut.
"Gimme Green," a nifty documentary, takes on this icon of landscaping, pointing the finger at its verdant presence in communities across the country, wondering if it is truly worth the time, money and 30,000 tons of pesticides required to keep the residential eye candy green and growing.
The film points out that Americans use roughly 50 percent of household water on yards. What's involved here is potable, usable, water dumped on front yards, only to run off into the gutter and down storm drains.
Film Festival short films packed with big issues
"Reporter Zero" is a profile in courage which tells the story of an intrepid reporter, Randy Shilts, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle during those early years when the AIDS epidemic was thought of as a "gay disease," and not a worldwide epidemic that knew no sexual orientation or gender.
Shilts was openly gay, and worked tirelessly on the story when most other major publications and political leaders refused to acknowledge its increasing and lethal presence. Shilts went on to write the national bestseller, "The Band Played On," the title of which, better than a thousand words, captures what occurred for far too long. It proved to be a prescient work, and detailed what lay ahead, and the failure of institutions to respond when they had the means and the evidence to do so.
Short films pack big entertainment
"Matters of Life and Death," written and directed by Joseph Mazzello, is a remarkably polished and tightly constructed film. This is excellent filmmaking and it's one not to miss. The portrayals by Mazzello, along with Daniel Gillies, Nick Heyman and Rachael Leigh Cook are top drawer.
The film follows the lives of three siblings — two brothers and a sister — whose parents are abruptly killed on 9/11. The opening frame shows the three seated in the office of the family attorney who is reading their parents' will. They sit in stoic silence as the terms are delineated, too stunned to comment, all in the grip of a grief that threatens to unhinge them as individuals and as a family.
Though the film is only 29 minutes long, it fills every moment with a genuine intensity, the dialogue spot-on, with a nice backstory scene starring David Strathairn as the father, playing baseball with his two sons. It's a wonderful moment, both joyous and sad, for the audience knows what awaits them only a few years away.
AIFF documentaries showcase bonds between individuals
"The Edge of Eden: Living with Grizzlies" asks the audience to make a shift in point of view, which, actually, is what all well-crafted documentaries should do. The shift is how grizzlies are perceived by man. Charlie Russell, a Canadian bear expert, lives six months of the year on the rim of Russia's most western wilderness where he rescues and raises grizzly cubs. It is a stunning setting, the cinematography spectacular.
Over the course of one season Russell becomes the surrogate mother for two young cubs, watching over them not as if they were cute pets, but with the goal of releasing them into the wild. There is much the cubs must learn if they are to survive. After years of living with grizzlies Russell demonstrates, in scene after scene, that grizzlies are neither aggressive nor are they killers; rather, they are surprisingly gentle creatures, unlike the preconceived ideas nurtured by folklore.
Nevertheless, grizzlies have been hunted relentlessly with little understanding of the possible relationship that could exist between one of nature's most spectacular creatures and man. The loss is ours, as this truly wonderful film demonstrates.
Les Blank: Independent filmmaker
Vincent Van Gogh once said, "The secret to life is to love many things." The documentaries of Les Blank pay homage to Van Gogh's admonition. Blank finds interest and joy in the esoteric, and through the power of filmmaking expands and explores what might be casually overlooked. His interests, meaning the direction in which he points his camera, have created, over the years, a panoply of different films. Narrow in focus perhaps, at least initially, each is beautifully photographed with a loose and engaging narrative style.
A perfect example of what catches Blank's eye is "Gap-Toothed Women," which will be screened at the Varsity Theatre along with "Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers." Who hasn't, in passing, noticed women among whose front teeth are gapped? And who would've thought to make a film about such women? And how many folks out there would happily pay good money to watch? Or a film that trumpets the wondrous properties and curative aspects of garlic? No matter. Like all of Blank's films, these are small celebrations of life. Such as it is. There is beauty and interest and even a certain allure to be found in women who, when they smile, reveal what is a provocative, whimsical, let's say enchanting gap. Who would've thought? But recall Sandra Day O'Connor, Lauren Hutton and Cleopatra, and you get the idea. And, as Blank shows in "Garlic," there is a bevy of pilgrims out there who worship at the shrine of the odorous rose, fully prepared to wear it, crush it, spread it liberally on meats, drop it into huge pots of soup, make hats resembling it, and happy to sing and laugh and cook while so engaged.
Films document humanity
In the AIFF program, the documentary film "Beyond the Call" is described as being about "three irreverent, middle-aged men, former soldiers and modern-day knights," who travel the world delivering humanitarian aid directly into the hands of civilians and doctors.
These men are all that and more. Characters to be sure, who at great risk and personal sacrifice have decided to cut out the middleman, so to speak, and take medicine and money directly to the people. Nothing is diluted or lost in transit, the donations not reduced by administration fees or salaries. From Afghanistan, Albania, Chechnya, Cambodia, Burma, to the Southern Philippines and Rwanda, these men arrive with cash and supplies. It's no small thing. As this well done documentary shows, it gives each of their lives purpose and meaning.
But there is a subtext to this film, never explicitly touched on, but ever present.
Two documentaries focus on crime in the United States
"Prison Town, USA" is a raw look at how Susanville, a small town in Northern California, population 17,500, is transformed when the locals agree to the construction of a prison nearby. Initially, most believed that the prison would bring a much needed economical boost to the community; local industries, such as the mills, had been in decline for years and the people of Susanville were struggling.
What this fine film examines are the lives of various residents as they adjust to the presence of the prison and the enormous footprint it has left on the character of the town. One resident comments that Susanville is now, in the main, made up of "cops and cons."
The documentary follows a dairy farmer as he hustles to maintain his milk contract with the prison something that he was initially promised but is now slipping away. And there's a recently released husband and father, who was incarcerated for stealing $40 worth of groceries to feed his family, was arrested and served 16 months at the prison. He must remain, with his wife and children, in Susanville until the end of his probation. His demoralizing search for work in a town that has few options, especially for a man just out of prison, is wrenching.
AIFF films clue locals into foreign cultures
The truth is that we in America live with such abundance that we simply are clueless about the rest of the world. We may feel we know, but it's an abstract knowing. "Recycled Life," nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary: Short Subject, lifts the shade and opens a window and offers a glimpse into a world that is beyond our imaginations.
In Guatemala is a city dump that encompasses over 40 acres. Living and working at the dump are almost 2,000 "guajeros" who scavenge the trash that is brought in daily by an endless stream of trucks. They crawl over the mounds of garbage for anything that can be eaten, worn or recycled. Many are second and third generation, people who know nothing else. The dump is where they live, raise their families, and struggle to keep themselves barely above the Plimsoil line of life.
What is also a reality is that the site is toxic, dangerous and exacts a terrible toll on the "guajeros." To step off the streets of Ashland and watch this documentary is jarring and disturbing. The third world is, in the main, an abstraction. But when its realities are brought to the screen in a finely crafted film, the result can be unsettling.
Two films demonstrate America's artistic abilities
"Emile Norman: By His Own Design" is an extraordinary film, a celebration of a life lived (and still lived) with passion and commitment and courage.
Not only is Norman's art testimony to his vast reservoirs of creativity, unafraid to explore a variety of media, from sculpture to painting to lovely mosaics, what is remarkable is that his life is as much a work of art, rich and full and inspirational, as the spectacular mosaic window and statuary that grace the facade of San Francisco's Masonic Auditorium.
"By His Own Design" touches on Norman's early years growing up in the San Gabriel Valley of California, a place that did not embrace a young gay man who wanted only to produce art. Undeterred, he went first to New York where he met Brooks Clement. The two would be together for more than 30 years, returning early on to Big Sur where Norman and Brooks would settle, finding the artist colony welcoming and embracing of a life style that was still considered well beyond the norm (during the late '50s).
It is one thing to say, "Follow your passion." It is another to craft a life that mirrors that admonition. But this is what Norman has done, and done exceedingly well. He is quoted as saying that he has never worked a day in his life. A wonderful way of saying that what he has created during those many days in his studio was never work, but necessary, and came from a wellspring of creativity that he traces back to his youth and something which ultimately defies explanation.
AIFF documentary and film shed light on hot button issues
If "An Inconvenient Truth" can be considered one bookend, then "Everything's Cool" can definitely stand as the other. This is an important documentary, and, in many ways, a profile in courage.
Through compelling interviews, "Everything's Cool" makes the oft forgotten point that there have been researchers, activists and scientists who have worked for decades to make the world aware of the possible consequences of global warming, with, until now, little effect. For many it felt like a long, Quixotic journey, an uphill charge against ubiquitous windmills, with the message falling on disinterested ears. Or, more malevolently, falling on ears that heard and understood, but out of corporate greed and governmental self-interest, distorted the message in order to cast doubt on its efficacy. The effect has been to keep global warming open to question, thus prolonging the moment when any action might be taken.
We see men such as Rick Piltz who courageously left his job as Senior Associate at the U.S. Climate Change Science Center when he discovered that the Bush administration was redacting scientific papers to conform with the administrations wish to make what was unequivocal equivocal. Meanwhile, the planet has continues to grow hotter.
