Art by Zee

It’s one of the longest film festivals anywhere, but for some reason it always seems like a surprise when the last day of SIFF finally arrives.

This year’s festival offered an excellent selection of film, so when it came to announcing the winners of the Golden Space Needle, it’s no surprise that there were tight races in every category. The SIFF Grand Jury winners were The Reverse, by Borys Lankosz for Best New Director and Marwencol, by Jeff Malmberg, for Best Documentary. In the Short Film category, the winners were Little Accidents, directed by Sara Colangelo for Best Narrative Short; White Lines And The Fever: The Death Of DJ Junebug, directed by Travis Senger, for Best Documentary Short; and The Wonder Hospital, directed by Beomsik Shim for Best Animated Short.

The SIFF 2010 FIPRESCI Award for Best American Film went to Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us.

The Youth Jury Award for Best FutureWave Feature went to ReGENERATION by Philip Montgomery. The Youth Jury Award for Best Films4Families Feature went to From Time to Time. Remember by Scott Calvert of Anacortes won the WaveMaker Award for Excellence in Youth Filmmaking award who also won FutureWave Shorts Audience Award.

The Golden Space Needle Audience Awards went to:

Best Film Golden Space Needle Award
The Hedgehog, directed by Mona Achache (France, 2009)

Best Documentary Golden Space Needle Award – the voting resulted in a tie so this award went to two winners
Ginny Ruffner: A Not So Still Life, directed by Karen Stanton
Waste Land, directed by Lucy Walker

Best Director Golden Space Needle Award
Debra Granik for Winter’s Bone

Best Actor Golden Space Needle Award
Luis Tosar for Cell 211

Best Actress Golden Space Needle Award
Jennifer Lawrence for Winter’s Bone

Best Short Film Golden Space Needle Award
Ormie, directed by Rob Silvestri

Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision, Presented by Women in Film/Seattle
The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, directed by Leanne Pooley

For a full list of winners and jury statements, see

By Mike Caccioppoli

Going South (France, 2009)

Directed by Sebastien Lifshitz

Going South is about a man in search of answers from his troubled childhood. It’s also about four beautiful young people who travel the French countryside on their way south. Both stories are worth telling and director Lifshitz makes sure to populate his film with beautiful bodies and a sexually charged atmosphere to go along with them. Sammy is the guy who drives his friends south before heading the Spain to find those answers that have to do with the death of his father. Before getting there he and his friends hit the beach where they explore their sexual desires and find new romances. I wish the film had found a way to make both of these story lines come together but it really doesn’t. The result is a pretty good film instead of a possibly great one.

Hipsters (Russia, 2009)

Directed by Valery Todorovsky

Hipsters is a joyous, good spirited film packed with memorable musical numbers and an impressive set design. It takes place in Moscow in 1955 when the country’s Soviet ideology was in full force. A group of young rebels known as “Hipsters” were challenging convention by dressing in bold, wild costumes, with pompadour hairstyles while they “boogie-woogie” the night away. The film centers around 20 year old Mel, who goes from a “square” who harasses the hipsters to actually becoming one of them after falling in love with one of the hipster girls.

There are so many pleasures in Hipsters that I can’t begin to talk about all of them. From the bravura musical sequences (a saxophone number the begins in Mel’s dreary bedroom is magically transported to a building high atop New York’s Times Square, a convention of “squares” turns into a highly charged Stalin rally, the past and present meet in a march through the streets of Moscow) to the intimate, personal story of a young man’s coming of age, Hipsters never hits a false note. Director Todorovsky isn’t interested in preaching about Western values vs. Communism, as one former hipster tells Mel,”There aren’t any hipsters in New York, if we tried dressing this way there they would put us in a mental hospital.” Instead his film is ultimately about “group think” vs. individuality. Happily the latter wins out both in his story as well as with his own dazzling artistic achievement.

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within (USA, 2009)

Directed by Yony Leyser

A great doc about the famous beat generation writer, and drug addict. While I knew some things  about Burroughs, I didn’t know that he had a fascination with snakes, loved his cats, dabbled in “shot gun art” and struggled mightily with his relationships (and I’m not just talking about the bizarre killing of his wife). Director Leyser uncovers so much intimate and personal information about Burroughs that a man who was always  somewhat of a mystery instantly becomes a living, breathing human being that was even more complex than we previously thought. Would Burroughs be happy about a film that finally humanizes him? His final words in his journal give us a hint that he would be.

I Am (Russia, 2009)

Directed by Igor Voloshin

This autobiographical film about a drug addict who checks into a psychiatric institution in order to avoid going into the army is a real “director’s” film. It’s hallucinatory style will impress some people and turn off others. Count me as the former. While we mostly can’t tell what’s reality and what’s dreamed up through the protagonists drugged out imagination, it doesn’t really matter. As flashbacks from childhood interact with grisly and disturbing images from a poorly run mental hospital, we can’t seem to look away no matter how much we might want to. If this is indeed director Voloshin’s life story it’s a miracle that he’s still around to tell it.

The Two Horses of Genghis Khan (Germany, 2009)

Directed by Byambasuren Davaa

Mongolia is the setting for this poetic and heartbreaking film about a woman who is in search for a lost song of Genghis Khan. She made a promise to her grandmother that she would repair her horse-head violin and find the song that was partially inscribed on the violin’s neck. As she travels through outer Mongolia in search of anyone who can help her she encounters several people who try to remember the song but most cannot. This film is about much more than the search for a song, it’s about the past leaving its mark on the present, and it’s about a woman trying to reconnect with her roots. It envelops you like no film I’ve seen in a very long time. Sit back and allow it to work its magic, as before you know it the story hits home and everything comes together like a finely tuned symphony such as the one the violin gets to perform in at films end.

Father’s Acre (Hungary, 2009)

Directed by Viktor Oszkar Nagy

A father returns from prison and his son gives him a chilly reception. The father decides to buy an acre of land to plant a vineyard and he wants his son to help him in order to reconnect with each other. The son wants no part of the vineyard or his father. The tension between the two is at the heart of Father’s Acre, a film that uses very little dialogue and long takes to tell its story. It’s easy to tell a story with lots of words but what this film does is much more difficult. It conveys hatred, love, frustration and ultimately some sort of mutual understanding through expressive performances, rich cinematography and a soulful score.

Disco and Atomic War (Estonia/Finland, 2010)

Directed by Jaak Kilmi

There was a huge cultural war between Soviet Estonia and Finland that went on for many years and I didn’t know a thing about it until seeing this film. The war was not fought with weapons but with television signals. While people in Finland were watching all of the American television shows including Dallas, the Estonians were subject to drab state run shows that weren’t very entertaining. Of course the Estonian government didn’t want the people being “brainwashed” by those evil shows from the West. Playful and entertaining, this documentary uses archival footage as well as dramatic recreation (which is shot with deadpan hilarity) to show the Soviet’s paranoia which was trumped by the Estonians downright brilliant resourcefulness when it came to watching those television shows.

8: The Mormon Proposition (USA, 2009)

Directed by Reed Cowan & Steven Greenstreet

When it came down to making sure California’s Prop 8 was passed, the Mormon church held no prisoners. They funneled in millions of dollars to run television ads and get the word out. When I say “the word” I talk about the lies that were told (gay marriage would be the end of mankind) in order to further the Mormon church’s anti-gay agenda. This film will make you very angry when you see how one organization (that is tax exempt because they aren’t supposed to be “political” or pushing an “agenda”) was able to take rights away from millions of gay men and women. Delving deeper and deeper into the church’s dark past, the film is at once able to expose the church’s hatred and homophobia while also putting a human face to an issue that hurt so many people and divided families in the process.

Maybe you missed Bass Ackwards when it screened back in May during the SIFF‘s first week. Maybe you caught a screening but would like to see it again. Maybe you downloaded it from the iTunes shop but want to catch it on the big screen. Whatever your situation, you’re in luck – Bass Ackwards kicks off a five day run at NW Film Forum on Saturday, June 12.

Writer/director Linas Phillips (Great Speeches from a Dying World, Walking to Werner) makes his fictional feature film debut playing an imagined version of himself. Instead of making films, this Linas takes a trip across the US, something the real Linas and cinematographer Sean Porter did in order to film this movie. After being booted from his friends’ apartment and dumped by his girlfriend, the fictional Linas takes a job tending alpacas. Adorable as the alpacas are, Linas still isn’t completely satisfied and so when he discovers a modified VW bus, he decides to head east to his parents’ home in Boston to decide what to do with himself.

Along the way, Linas discovers America in bits and pieces and encounters a variety of characters who offer him both company and opportunity for reflection. Bass Ackwards moves at a slow, contemplative pace. There are no wild rides here; as Linas and his van travel down the road, life happens at a leisurely pace, allowing Linas and his viewers the chance to savor every morsel.

During SIFF, Linas returned to Seattle to talk about Bass Ackwards.

Linas Phillips: I barely even knew I wanted to make a movie but I had these ideas and I wrote a few scenes and we wrote scenes together and I was writing a little bit with the cinematographer. It was very natural, just slow-building.

Did you have the script before you started to film or were you building it as you went?

LP: Kind of as we went. Before we went on the road trip section of it we didn’t have anything written for that. I had a few ideas for when my character got to New York but it changed later. We shot for three weeks here [Seattle] in 2008 and then we got to New York and then we basically took a year off. I was writing new scenes. So a lot of stuff, even that takes place on the road, we just went a couple hours out of New York City and shot it so it was kind of weird, the shooting schedule.

How long did it take to put it all together?

LP: A year and a half – not working on it the whole time.

Are you happy with the way it came out?

LP: Yeah. I’m pretty tough on myself, but yeah.

Was there anything specific that you were trying to accomplish with this story?

LP: World peace. I guess I’m hesitant to say because maybe I’ll sound like a dummy, you know, like “this is my message” but I like art that tries to do that. I’ve always liked the way that Bob Dylan talked about Woody Guthrie when he said, “Those were songs that could teach you how to live.” I liked that idea in general. With this film I had certain ideas – I was thinking about relationship and life isn’t fair. The character I play has the psychological kind of…what goes into that and how someone feels so bad about themselves. I think it’s some kind of message to remind people to love themselves and that things can get better. And you can meet other people and hopefully be open enough to be in the bosom of their glow, their light that they have. You just have to try to be open to that. Often you’re not because you’re depressed, but what’s nice is that I think we show that the character gets to be in a place where he’s not like that.

Obviously every artist puts elements of their selves into their work, but are there autobiographical elements to the character Linas?

LP: Well, you can put yourself into a work so many different ways. You can have some experience of loss in your life and then do a film that’s about loss in a totally different way and put yourself into it in that way. This was putting myself into it in ways that were kind of across the board. Sure, I’d has experiences of loss but I wasn’t feeling that at the time I made the movie. There were things that were still interesting. I did have a relationship that was similar to the one in the movie and so we kind of dramatized it and that’s my real dad and at times in my life I’ve felt that sort of pressure from a very traditional mother/father to…that I would be accepted and loved more if I had a girlfriend. We don’t hit it too hard in the movie but I think that I can relate to that. It’s not the only thing that I think about when it comes to my parents but it’s just one issue that I thought would help for this story.

Bass Ackwards screens at 7:00pm and 9:00 pm daily June 12 – 17 at NW Film Forum.

By Mike Caccioppoli

The Tillman Story (USA 2010)

Directed by Amir Bar-Lev

If you’re not already incensed about the way the U.S. government has handled the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq I can tell you that after seeing The Tillman Story you will be. Tillman, the NFL star who decided to enlist in the military was killed in action on April 22, 2004. At first the military told his family that he was killed by the enemy but it was later revealed that it was friendly fire. As Tillman’s family and the soldiers that were there with him when he was killed are interviewed we become aware of a huge cover up that traces all the way up the ladder to George W. Bush. The Tillman Story will make you incredibly angry at the way our government spins a story to fit their own needs and in the process does not return the loyalty and respect that our soldiers give to it in spades. You will also get to know the real Pat Tillman once and for all. An infuriating but great film.

Run If You Can (Germany, 2010)

Directed by Dietrich Bruggemann

There has been a lot of talk at the festival this year about the recurring “3-way” theme that we’ve seen in several films. Run If You Can is the latest film that skirts this theme but in a different way than other films I’ve seen. It’s about Ben, a wheelchair bound young man who along with his new aid Christian, falls in love with pretty cello player Annika. Ben has lots of issues especially since he can’t perform in bed the way he used to before his accident. Director Dietrich Bruggemann has a compelling story to tell and his actors do a fine job especially Robert Gwisdek as Ben. The film goes on a bit too long though as some of the same notes (Ben’s jealousy of Christian, his own psychological issues) are played out in at least one scene too many. While the film could have benefited from some editing it’s still a more than worthy first effort from Bruggemann.

Angel at Sea (Belgium/Canada, 2009)

Directed by Frederic Dumont

Outstanding film about a boy who is obsessed with the well being of his mentally ill father. When Bruno (the always superb Olivier Gourmet) tells his 12 year old son Louis (Martin Nissen) that he’s going to kill himself, the boy can’t stop worrying about him and it begins to take its toll on him emotionally and psychologically. Angel at Sea is a film that truly understands the torment that a family must go through when a loved one is mentally ill and how we know so little about how to deal with it. It’s also a moving portrait of a boy who loves his father so much that he feels his pain and makes it his own. Stunningly shot and brilliantly acted.

Double Take (Belgium/Germany/Netherlands, 2009)

Directed by Johan Grimonprez

It’s hard to describe this film because I don’t think that it even knows what it is exactly. Archival clips from  Hitchcock movies, interviews with the great director, old Folger’s coffee commercials and the “kitchen debate” between Nixon and Khrushchev are mixed in around a fictional account of Hitchcock meeting his “doppelganger” back in 1962. There’s also a real Hitchcock look alike thrown in as well. The old clips are great if you are a Hitchcock fanatic and the coffee commercials are a blast. Even the cold war stuff is interesting but the sub-plot involving Hitch and his double is a real buzz kill and doesn’t go anywhere. I think much was on the mind of director Grimonprez and it gets kind of exhausting trying to figure out where he wants to go with all of it.

Imani (Uganda/Sweden/Canada, 2010)

Directed by Caroline Kamya

The first film from Uganda to arrive at SIFF isn’t a very good one. Following several different characters as they go about their daily lives the film does show us a part of the world that we haven’t seen much on screen before but there isn’t anything of interest going on in the script as dramatic tension is no where to be found. The three story lines don’t go anywhere so it’s hard to really have any interest in these characters lives. I’m glad Uganda is on the cinema map now but I hope their next effort is more involving.

Cherry (USA, 2010)

Directed by Jeffrey Fine

Cherry is a coming of age story that kind of misses the mark at being a great film in that genre but is still a worthy entry. When Aaron heads to college he finds himself in the odd situation of falling for an older female student as well as her 14 year old daughter. His unique relationship with them is at the heart of the film and while there are a few interesting scenes in which Aaron is forced to confront his desires, instead of delving deeper into the possibilities and complexities of such a relationship the film heads in the more mainstream direction of other coming of age films as Aaron must deal with his smothering mother and a demanding professor. The performances are solid and Kyle Gallner is extremely likable in the lead role. But when Aaron embraces both mom and daughter at the films end and one of then says to him “This is what you always wanted isn’t it?” I wanted to scream out..Yes!

Undertow (Peru, 2010)

Directed by Javier Fuentes-Leon

Miguel is a married man who is about to become a father but he’s also involved in a side affair with Santiago. Living in a small town he is afraid for anyone to know about his “other” side. When Santiago drowns he mysteriously remains in town as a ghost that only Miguel can see. Undertow is at its most fascinating when it makes parallels between Miguel’s paranoia surrounding his homosexuality and his ability to see and interact with his dead lover who he can now do things with out in the open since nobody else can see him. There is a sense though that the film could have done much more with this idea but there aren’t enough scenes between the two lovers and too many scenes involving the townspeople’s intolerance of Miguel’s situation, all of which we’ve seen before. However the cinematography is outstanding and the heart of the film shines through because of the performances of the two leads.

Gordos (Spain, 2009)s

Directed by Daniel Sanchez-Arevalo)

This film about a group of obese people trying to lose weight is sometimes touching and often very funny but in the end there is just too much going on with too many characters and sub-plots for the film to hold together. As they all struggle with self image and their partners range from grudgingly supportive to downright obnoxious, the film makes some smart observations about how our relationship issues can effect our eating habits. The main problem is that the film is ambitious to a fault, as it begins to become increasingly difficult to figure out what the filmmakers really are trying to say. The biggest accomplishment is by the actors who seemingly lost tens of pounds instead of opting for make-up in order to give the film a more realistic feel.

I Killed My Mother (Canada,2009)

Directed by Xavier Dolan

Hands down one of the best films of the festival. Dolan wrote the screenplay when he was 17 and acted and directed it at 21. Hubert (Dolan) is a gay teen who simply doesn’t get along with his mother (the brilliant Anne Dorval). It gets to the point where their screaming matches become so intense that it wears both of them out. When his mother has had enough of Hubert she decides to send him to a boarding school even though he’s about to turn 17.

The mother-son struggles are so fiercely acted out by Dolan and Dorval, their chemistry so electric that it’s as though they are truly mother and son. Dolan scripts these arguments with a bravado that is both funny and achingly cutting at the same time. What’s truly amazing is how Dolan, at such a young age, wrote characters so full and rich and ultimately true to life. It would have been easy for a 17 year old to turn the mother into a domineering bitch, and while she can be that at times, she’s also loving and willing to forgive her son’s many transgressions and insults. She’s also given of the most heartfelt and emotionally devastating lines I’ve heard in a very long time. When Hubert, on his way to the bus that will take him to boarding school yells at his mother, “What would you do if I died today?” she says after pausing for a moment, “I would die tomorrow.” Hubert, as with much of what his mother has to say, doesn’t hear her.

With all of the shouting that goes on throughout the film (some have said it’s “too loud” but if you’ve ever had a real argument with your mother you will understand that this criticism is ridiculous) it ends on a very quiet note that shows how two people could understand each other so well that sometimes words aren’t necessary. Even when they are necessary it’s not the words that really matter but the emotions beneath them.

Xavier Dolan has made a remarkable first film and it leaves us in awe of what he may accomplish in the future.

Run If You Can is the debut feature for director Dietrich Brüggemann who co-wrote the screenplay with his sister Anna Brüggemann. Run If You Can tells the story of wheelchair bound Ben, his assistant Christian, and Annika, a woman Ben has been watching for years from his window, and the emotional sparks that fly when the three come together.

Zee: Was this your first movie?

DB: It’s my first real financed feature. I did one before which was my exam film at film school. It was also feature length but it didn’t have the big festival run and it wasn’t released in cinema, but audiences generally loved it. It was very experimental, it was made with only nine long shots which we staged like little theater plays. People liked it and it got me in the position to make this film which is my real debut one.

Zee: How did this movie get started then?

DB: It started with this producer seeing my other film and asking me if I would do something with him. It really started way earlier. In Germany we still have a compulsory military service for every young man but most people decide to object for conscientious reasons which is the normal thing to do. So every young man has this civil service where you normally end up pushing around someone in a wheelchair and doing some service stuff for one year. It’s in the process of being abolished right now but I did it like 12 years ago and I was with this guy who had cerebral palsy and was bright and witty and intelligent and had this kind of brutal sense of humor and I really enjoyed the time, I really liked this guy. We never had a love triangle or anything, but just fooling around with friends one day back then this story just popped into my mind. Let’s do a love triangle with someone in a wheelchair, his caretaker, and the girl. Over the years I always thought about this story and how it had to take shape sooner or later.

Zee: How long did it take you to write it?

DB: Oh, that took a long time. We started with this story back in 2006. We tried to get funding for the script and then we wrote in 2007 and 2008 and shot in early 2009, so roughly more than two and a half years of writing.

Zee: How long did it take to put the movie all together? How long did you shoot?

DB: We shot 28 days which is not so long, but it’s always a lengthy process. Financing started like a year before shooting, we applied for all the first funds and then slowly all the money comes in and then parallel you start casting so overall it was a production period of three or four years.

Zee: How much of that time was spent in post?

DB: Not so much. We went pretty fast in the editing room and we didn’t make lots of changes in the editing. We edited just the way it was scripted and it worked so we didn’t have to change much. We just left a bit out because otherwise it would’ve run three hours.

Zee:
What do you think was the biggest challenge in making Run If You Can?

DB: The biggest challenge was being truthful to this subject matter of people in wheelchairs and this problem we addressed: what if you’re disabled and still want to make love? Not only want to get laid but want to really love someone as a person, body and spirit and mind. It’s a huge question and I can’t really answer it, I can only try to address it in a truthful and honest way and that was our main concern in making the film. It seems to have worked; people in wheelchairs attended our earliest screenings quite frequently and they mostly liked it. The expert group gave us the stamp of approval.

Zee: Your actor isn’t really in a wheelchair himself. What kind of research did he do in development of that role?

DB: We teamed him up with an expert team. We had three people. One was more of a technical adviser, she worked with actual disabled people after accidents, so she was good with technical stuff – which models he can use, how does he move his arms and what does he do to work around things he can’t do. There were two guys in wheelchairs, they were totally different from the way of life that they lead. I wanted him to meet both of them to approach the thing from two angles. He spent quite a time practicing in a wheelchair and hanging out with these guys and just trying to get it right.

Zee: Are you happy with the film?

DB: Yes, I am. It was really hard making it and we had to fight some fights with people who were trying to tell us we had to do this some other way. We had to fight our way to some test screenings to prove that we were actually right, but in the end I’m quite happy. I still enjoy seeing it once in a while with an audience.

Zee: And you’ve had generally positive responses?

DB: Oh, yes, people generally love it. I’m very, very anxious to see it [here in Seattle] because this is going to be our out of Germany premier, its first time with a non-German speaking audience, and I’m really curious to see how the subtitles work and if the humor translates.

Comedies often don’t travel. Sometimes they do – I mean, there are worldwide successful comedies, but every society has some fundamental vibration which it a bit different and it’s interesting to see if a film works its way into the hearts of a people.

Zee: There are a lot of films in this year’s festival that involve threesomes in some way, films from all around the world. Do you have any feelings on why threesomes are such a popular topic in film?

DB: Threesomes – there’s always a conflict between love and friendship. I think friendship may be the big subject nowadays because family bonds tend to weaken and we all form new families made up of friends. If I see my parents and compare my parents’ generation and my generation, our generation tends to form strong friendship bonds, more reliable than the generation before. I think maybe that if you take it and weigh it you’ll end up with that threesome thing where you always act out friendship against love. That’s my guess.

Imani is the first feature film from Uganda to appear at SIFF. It’s also the first feature film for its director, Caroline Kamya, who edited and produced as well from a script by her sister, Agnes Nasozi Kamya.

Imani tells three slice of life stories all set in a day in modern Uganda. Olweny is a 12 year old former child soldier being reunited with the family he hasn’t seen in years. Mary is a maid for a wealthy woman whose sister is arrested for a crime she hasn’t committed. Armstrong is a break dancer struggling to put on a performance in the old neighborhood he may not have left behind as thoroughly as he thought. Director Kamya’s background in documentary work serves the film well – she allows the characters’ stories to play out in a naturalistic way and uses the visually stunning background of Uganda’s landscape, both rural and urban, to excellent effect, placing the viewer fully into the setting. Strong performances from a primarily non-professional cast add to the realism on screen. Young Stephen Ocen especially shines as the troubled Olweny, who rarely speaks but communicates the depth of his weariness and trauma with his expressive face and body.

Kamya was inspired to produce this film by her own background, creating Imani “through sheer wanting to communicate.” Born in Uganda, Kamya moved to England at age 12 and soon found “the content I saw on screen did not reflect where I came from. There was that need to communicate to people and the media [of film] just seemed to work.”

Uganda has very little in the way of filmmaking tradition, Kamya had to create it as she went. “There are no casting agencies in Uganda,” she says, so she held an open call to find actors for the film. Several hundred people showed up for auditions; from there she selected 40 who attended an acting boot camp with an acting coach from Kenya. From this group, she selected the cast for Imani.

It wasn’t just the cast who were inexperienced. Over 80 percent of the crew had never worked on a film and had to learn their jobs as they went along, a challenge with a positive outcome – having completed a feature film, the crewmembers are now experienced enough with filmmaking to help push Ugandan film further along. The absence of a major film industry in Uganda also meant there weren’t experienced wardrobe or set designers; all designed pieces had to be individually manufactured. This was more time and expense on a film as tightly budgeted as any independent film anywhere, but, again, this process helped train a whole new group of craftspeople on the requirements of producing designed pieces for film.

Despite the difficulties in the filming process, Kamya is justifiably proud of her film. The characters and their stories have a simple universal appeal – you needn’t be in their exact shoes to be able to relate to the difficulties each faces – but with a distinctly Ugandan flavor. This is important to Kamya who titled her film Imani because it means “faith”. Imani represents her faith that Ugandans can communicate clearly their own stories in their own voices. She plans to continue telling these stories; Imani is the first of a planned trilogy.

Candy Darling was born in Queens as James Lawrence Slattery but she had aspirations far beyond the cookie-cutter conformity of the suburbian into which she was born. She loved the movies of old Hollywood and was particularly enamored of the elegant Kim Novak, her role model. Escaping into Manhattan, she eventually became part of Andy Warhol’s Factory. After a small role in Warhol’s Flesh along with Jackie Curtis and Joe Dallesandro (portrayed in a documentary that played at SIFF 09), she took a central role in Warhol’s Women In Revolt, playing beside Jackie Curtis and Holly Woodlawn in a story about a socialite recruited into political activism.

After those films, she went on to a few more independent films and appeared in Klute with Jane Fonda and Lady Liberty with Sophia Loren. She also appeared on stage taking roles in plays by Jackie Curtis and Tennessee Williams (at Williams’) request and others. The mainstream fame that Candy Darling desperately desired eluded her, however, and she died of leukemia in 1974.

Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar (June 13, 6:15 pm at SIFF Cinema) tells the story of Candy’s life from birth to death with the help of wonderful archival footage; interviews with people who knew her, including close friend Jeremiah Newton, keeper of her legacy; Fran Lebowitz, Julie Newmar, John Waters, Holly Woodlawn, and many others who knew her appear in current interviews; deceased members of the factory speak of her in archival materials. Chloe Sevigny reads from Candy’s diary in voice over, adding an extra level of intimacy to what is a carefully constructed portrait of an interesting, charismatic, and charming woman who would’ve been able to become the star she dreamed of being in a fairer world.

Director James Rasin recently spoke about his film in Seattle.

What made you want to do a film about Candy Darling?

JR: Well, I’ve always been very interested in that time period and that scene in New York and Warhol and the Velvet Underground, so she was obviously always on my radar screen. And then Jeremiah asked me if I was interested in doing it, so it was a combination of being interested in her and her story knowing that it was a very interesting story, a kind of American dream story. I’ve always been very attracted to those stories in real life and in literature, the kidn of classic American mythology of someone transforming themselves and going on a journey of discovery and usually ending up tragically.

It was probably easier for you that there was so much archival material available. Was it hard putting it all together?

It was pretty hard putting it together. That was one of the things that appealed to me, besides from her story, the background her story plays out against: New York in the 60s and 70s, Max’s Kansas City, the Factory, Off-off-Broadway and Lou Reed…just from a filmmaker’s perspective I was like, “Wow, this would be an interesting challenge”, how to put together Jeremiah’s audio interviews, his audio diaries, Candy’s diaries, the photos, the archival footage, my interviews, so much material to stitch together to create a tapestry of a story. Thanks to my editor Zac Stuart-Pontier who’s a young guy, we sat side-by-side and figured it out together like a jigsaw puzzle.

How much storyboarding did you do in advance?

We didn’t even start putting things up on a wall like that until fairly well in the editing process. We just started organizing things and I said to Zaz at one point, “We’re not really going to have any kind of outline here, we’re just going to let the story evolve and let the structure evolve”. We just thought of this as a dinner conversation, like a bunch of really interesting people having a conversation about someone they used to know. The way a conversation goes, it goes here, it goes there, it goes back on itself, and the film evolved from there and obviously got more structured and more film-like quality but that was the genesis, the beginning of it, and then as we started really finding the structure and the pacing then we started putting up yellow legal pad pieces of paper on the wall and started moving them around and it started coming into focus.

How long did it take to put the whole thing together?

Well, I started going through all of Jeremiah’s tapes and audio interviews and boxes of stuff four and a half years ago. We shot the interviews about three and a half years ago. Jeremiah wasn’t originally going to be in the film, it wasn’t really a part of the original idea but then after I shot the interviews and we started cutting it together, I always knew I wanted something more. You know, this will still be a good film but it’s still kind of a talking head, archival footage and I had the diaries there and other things but I thought it would be great if we had something else to make it more. We have Jeremiah here, he’s got her ashes and he’s going through this whole process, and you talk to all these people that knew her and they knew her, of course, but they didn’t really know her like Jeremiah knew her or they didn’t remember her as strongly and as deeply and weren’t as affected by her life and her death as much as Jeremiah was and I said that’s a story onto itself. So instead of just having him as another talking head, I introduced him as the cinema verite story unto itself, his own journey of coming to grips with her memory and hopefully his story brings the film into another place where, yes, it’s all about Candy and her life but it’s also about Jeremiah and their relationship and their friendship and loyalty and time.

How challenging were the interviews? Were people generally receptive to talking about Candy?

Yeah, everyone was very receptive. Everyone we called up and they all knew all knew Jeremiah or knew of Jeremiah and some of them we found otherwise, they all had…”Oh, I love Candy, I was so sad whe she died, I always felt so sad that she didn’t get more attention, she wanted fame so much and she worked so hard.” People had a real connection to her because she wasn’t someone like Edie who was self-destructive or a pain in the neck or dug their own grave, she was someone who was really genuine…she could be a diva, but she was someone who worked hard, who was a good person and really had a tough break so they were very happy to hear that someone was making a film about her and they were very generous with their time.

In certain ways, at least looking backward, Candy almost seems naïve. The kind of woman that she was, she wanted to be a movie star. It would be hard enough for someone in her position to achieve that goal today, let alone back then.

It’s an amazing thing. It’s kind of an odd thing. Paul Ambrose said in one interview, “Candy just arrived in New York and dressed like a movie star and acted like a movie star and expected everyone to treat her like a movie star and so everyone did.” She willed it. It was a lot of work involved, but the way she behaved and the way she looked and in some ways it was kind of an odd thing because what she wanted to do was such a throwback. You’re talking about the late 60s early 70s when the idea, the style in those days was to be “real” and…the more unkempt you were, the more honest you were and the whole idea of superficiality and imagery was really very not cool. So she was like behind her time and ahead of her time and stuck in this one little moment. I remember asking Penny Arcade – Penny Arcade was around in those days and a little more political, well, very political and a feminist and I asked, “Well, how did you feel? I mean, here you are women in those days especially fighting to be seen as not a superficial, not that image, that you’re a real person, that you can be taken for your own worth, for your brains, for what you can accomplish. And here’s a ‘guy’ who shows up and says ‘I’m going to be a woman’ and ‘he’ perpetuates this stereotype of the blonde superficial bimbo. Wouldn’t that be so insulting, wouldn’t that piss you off?” And she said, “Well, no. Normally it probably would, but Candy was just so radical in what she was doing that everything else just faded into the background because it was so revolutionary and so subversive and so radical that you couldn’t really pigeon-hole it that way.”

Do you think that Candy’s life would’ve been substantially different if she was born later?

Who knows? I don’t know. She was there at that time. I don’t know.

Do you think then that she was a product of those times?

Well, I think that she was certainly a product of, in an odd way, post-World War II suburbia. Watching the Million Dollar Movie where they would play the same movie every day or twice a day for a week and watching old Hollywood movies and she would memorize the lines and practice the lines. I think that for a kid and it probably still holds true today, I mean, I guess kids today can go online and obviously there’s so much more available to you but when you’re a kid, you’re only about 30 miles outside of New York City but you may as well be a million miles and you make that journey sitting in your bedroom reading movie magazines and watching the Million Dollar Movie and dreaming this incredibly almost unachievable dream of becoming Kim Novak. For a ten-year-old boy in Massapequa dreaming of becoming Kim Novak, it’s just an odd thing. But she really believed that she could do it and she did.

What has been audience reaction to the film?

The audience reaction has been incredible. There’s a cross-section of people that knew her or knew a lot about her and they find it very interesting but what is really interesting are the people who didn’t know anything about her or even necessarily about Warhol but somehow or another they ended up in the audience and I take it as a great compliment that they walk away saying I didn’t know anything about that and yet she’s so interesting, and she’s so compelling and she’s so human and the movie’s so compelling, and I think it really kind of takes them by surprise because they were expecting to see something that it’s not. So people are very moved by it and very thoughtful about it. I think it raises a lot of questions about gender and identity and who we are. You don’t have to be a transvestite or transgendered or gay or straight or male or female. It’s just a simple question of who am I, really, and what do I have to do to become myself and everybody deals with that question in one way or another.

Beyond Ipanema : Brazil’s most successful export just may be its music: samba, bossa nova. tropicalia, and baile funk are heard worldwide both directly through the work of its homegrown artists and indirectly through the countless musicians all around the globe that Brazilian music has influenced. Beyond Ipanema offers a close up look at these heady sounds throughout history and today. June 4, 5:00 pm – Kirkland

Imani : The first film from Uganda to appear at SIFF tells the stories of a child soldier returning home from war, a woman trying to liberate her wrongly-accused sister from jail, and a dance troop leader fighting to get through a hometown performance, all set in a place not often seen on film. June 4, 7:00 pm – Harvard Exit, June 6 4:30 pm – Harvard Exit, June 11 4:30 pm – Harvard Exit

A Tribute to Edward Norton : Friday night at 7, SIFF presents a Golden Space Needle Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting to Edward Norton at a special tribute that includes a screening of his new film Leaves of Grass. Tickets are on rush only, so if you want to attend, get to the Egyptian early for any day-of-show tickets that may come available. Norton is also scheduled to appear at the midnight screening of Fight Club at the Egyptian, introducing the movie that sealed his status as a film icon. Leaves of Grass screens again on June 6 at 1:30 at the Egyptian; 25th Hour screens at 10:00 pm on June 5 at the Neptune. Norton is scheduled to attend both of those screenings as well.

Ondine : Colin Farrell is an unhappy fisherman who one day nets a nearly-dead woman from the sea. His daughter Annie is convinced that Ondine is a selkie – half-woman, half-fish. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t, but her presence has a magical effect on the strained relationship between father and daughter. June 4 7:00 pm – Kirkland, June 6 9:00 pm – Uptown

Centurion : A platoon of Roman soldiers in second century Britain battle the harsh Scottish countryside and the fearsome Picts bent on revenge against the invaders in this brutal action packed thriller. June 4 10:00 pm – Neptune

Filmmaker panels: Four free panels for filmmakers provide instruction on essential component of the movie making process. At 10:00 is Music and Sounds: Getting the Best Audio for Your film. Character Arc: Fact and Fiction is at noon. For the Love of Money, a panel on funding your film, takes place at 2:00 and Using Media to Move Your Mission is at 4:00. Panels are free but stop by a box office or phone 206.324.9996 to reserve a ticket. Digital Media Lab at Seattle Center.

White Lion : Letsatsi is a white lion, revered by the Shangaan people, but an outcast within his own pride. Gisani is a young Shangaan who finds his calling by making Letsatsi’s survival his mission. The gorgeous South African scenery and scenes of wild animals are enthralling for the whole family. June 5 11:00 am – Harvard Exit, June 6 7:00 pm – Harvard Exit

Blessed : Four working class mothers in Melbourne, Australia, and their children appear in a series of interconnected stories told first from the viewpoint of the children and then from the viewpoint of the mothers. The shift in perspective is more effective for some of the storylines than others, but strong performances from an excellent cast, particularly Frances O’Connor and Miranda Otto, more than make up for it. June 4 6:30 pm – Pacific Place, June 5 4:00 pm – Pacific Place

The Last Campaign of Governor Booth : After two terms as Washington’s governor, Booth Gardner decided to retire. A year later he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. In 2006, Gardner became heavily involved in Washington Initiative 1000 – the Death With Dignity Act even though, ironically, his own disease wasn’t covered by it. Director Daniel Junge focuses on the campaign’s final six weeks leading up to the 2008 election – the fierce debates it engendered, the toll it took on Gardner’s health, and the very serious issues of advocacy and autonomy tied to serious chronic illness. Dean Sandra O. Archibald of the Evans School of Public Affairs at UW moderates a screening discussion panel that includes Gardner, Arline Hinckley, and Duane French. June 5 4:00 pm – SIFF Cinema

Morning : Joseph Mitacek’s debut feature, filmed in and around Seattle, is an unflinching look at the aftermath of a young child’s untimely death and the terrible toll it takes on the already shaky marriage of his unhappy parents. Although the story is often extremely bleak, the city has never looked better on film; Mitacek uses actual, unadorned Seattle to great effect. June 5 6:30 pm – Harvard Exit, June 6 11:00 am – Harvard Exit

The Wild Hunt : While Erik Magnusson spends his days caring for his ailing father, his older brother Bjorn spends his pretending to be a Viking chieftain in a large and active live action role playing community. Erik’s not happy with this situation and it gets even worse when Erik’s girlfriend Evelyn decides to take a break from their relationship by joining Bjorn’s world where she gets to be a princess. Determined to fix their relationship, Erik ends up reluctantly joining the game as well, much to the unhappiness of the dedicated LARPers upset by his refusal to take any of it seriously. Before long, Erik’s arrival upsets the elaborate fantasy world’s careful balance, leading to serious real world danger. An exciting, credible thriller must-see. June 5 Midnight – Egyptian, June 7 9:30 – Neptune

I Killed My Mother : Writer/director Xavier Dolan stars as a gay teen at war with his mother in a coming of age drama with an acidic comic twist. Hubert hates his mother’s gauche manners, but she is thoroughly unsympathetic to his complaints. At the height of their war she sends him off to boarding school – can their already damaged relationship survive? June 6 7:00 pm – Egyptian

Skateland : a coming-of-age drama about 19 year old Ritchie Wheeler (Shiloh Fernandez), an aimless young man content with his small town Texas life as the manager of a local skating rink in the early 1980s. He spends his days at work or hanging out with his friends, including girlfriend Michelle (Ashley Greene). Life seems settled for Ritchie until the closing of the rink and a series of personal tragedies force him to have to think about his life in a serious way for the first time. June 6 8:00 pm – Kirkland

Animation for Adults : Cartoons aren’t just for kids – from traditional to computer generated animation, these shorts are designed with grown up tastes in mind. “Santa: the Fascist Years” is not to be missed. June 6 9:30 pm – Neptune

By Mike Caccioppoli

Leo’s Room (Uruguay/Argentina 2009)

Directed by Enrique Buchichio

Leo is having trouble coming out of the closet. In fact most of the film takes place in his room where he surfs the internet looking for boys. It takes Leo several attempts before he’s actually able to go through with a hookup and even then he’s a nervous wreck. When he tells his therapist “I just don’t want to disappoint” he’s talking about his homosexuality and how people will react to it. The therapist quickly responds “Disappointment would be if we were still doing this in 20 years without you telling me what’s really going on with you.”

When it focuses on Leo’s troubles with his identity, Leo’s Room is totally engaging mostly due to the fact that lead actor Martin Rodriguez makes Leo’s crisis so real and vital. But I think the film didn’t have enough confidence in this story line carrying the film so it throws in a sub-plot involving a female childhood friend of Leo’s who is having an emotional crisis of her own. The problem is that is distracts from the real story and seems to belong in a totally different film.

Waste Land (United Kingdom/Brazil, 2010)

Directed by Lucy Walker

This is truly an amazing documentary about New York artist Vik Munoz known for his photographs of portraits made from an assortment of materials. Munoz traveled to his native Brazil to photograph the world’s largest landfill..the Jardim Gramacho. There he befriends a group of garbage pickers who end up helping him create the art that he wants to bring to London to auction off. He wants to give the money to them so they can improve their way of life. Never did he expect to develop such personal relationships with these people.

One of the many wonderful things about Waste Land is the way director Lucy Walker lets her film take its natural course.. never knowing exactly where it will go. Going into this project with an open mind allows that to happen as I don’t think Munoz knew what the result was going to be either. The people we meet are “the working poor” as they put in long, tough hours while having to live in rat infested “apartments.” Because they are able to take part in the art work makes them feel responsible for something beautiful for once in their lives. The result is both cathartic and deeply moving. One of the best films of the festival.

Life During Wartime (USA, 2009)

Directed by Todd Solondz

Todd Solondz’ films are very difficult to describe and I don’t think he would have it any other way. I personally am a fan of his work, many people are not. That holds true for his latest film Life During Wartime, which can only be described as a kind of sequel to his 1998 film Happiness. Hopefully that means something to you. We once again follow the Jordan sisters but they are now played by different actors. They are now living or at least attempting to live in Miami. They are either looking for love, or trying to get over a suicide (or two) of a lover. The film contains those trademark Solondz scenes where the characters talk about things that should probably remain in their own heads and never be talked about. Such as when Allison Janney talks to her 11 year old son about her latest date and let’s just say that her intimate details would make a 30 year old blush.

The dialog is often so absurd yet perfectly delivered that it’s downright hilarious. Well hilarious and uncomfortable at the same time. Solondz needed a grounding force in the middle of all of his lunacy and he finds that in Ciaran Hinds (brilliant and frightening as usual) as a father who molested his son and has just been released from prison. Solondz’ great talent is the ability to follow one over the top scene with a sobering one and so on and so forth. Never has that talent been more on display than with this film. He seems to be saying something important about America and post 9/11 paranoia, exactly what  Imust admit alludes me. No matter though because with Life During Wartime a genuine and eccentric talent is once again on display. Solondz hasn’t changed a bit, and there is a lot to be said about that.

Marwencol (USA, 2010)

Directed by Jeff Malmberg

When Mark Hogancamp was brutally beaten outside a bar in his hometown of Kingston, N.Y. he was literally left for dead. He survived however and after having to relearn almost everything because of the severe brain damage he suffered he began to build the town of Marwencol in his back yard. Using G.I Joe and Barbie dolls he built an entire fictional town straight out of a WWII movie, Nazis and all. We see that he did this for many reasons most importantly though it was a way for him to deal with the attack, much of which he doesn’t remember.

Mark uses the Nazis to take out a lot of his pent up anger around the group of teen boys that put him into a coma. When the “good guys” in his town beat up some nasty Nazi soldiers who want to take over the town we see how that is really Mark getting some revenge on his attackers. Marwencol is an extraordinary film because it really takes us into the unique mind of a man who has rebuilt his entire life. An alcoholic before the attack Mark doesn’t even care to look at a liquor bottle now. As his town becomes more popular (a local artist discovers Mark as does a magazine) he has to decide if he wants to open up his work to a larger audience (he is offered a show of his photographs at a New York gallery). The mind truly is an amazing and mysterious place, and after watching Marwencol the adjective “beautiful” could be added as well.

The String (France/Belgium/Tunisia, 2010)

Directed by Mehdi Ben Attia

After the death of his father, Malik returns to Tunisia in order to spend some time with his mother. When he looks at the family’s handyman Bilal, he gets turned on. The problem is that his domineering mom can’t deal with the fact that her son is gay. Malik has an odd complex, when he gets anxious he seems to get entangled by a string that is attached to his body. That string is a Bunuel like device that the film uses to signal the attachment that Mark has to his mother, and that when he’s able to overcome his fears the string goes away. At least that’s my interpretation of it.

Nothing that happens in the film is groundbreaking in fact much of it (sans string) is stuff we’ve seen before. However the performances are solid and the chemistry between Malik and Bilal is palpable. The setting is also unique as Tunisian films are rare to begin with, throw in the homosexuality theme and it makes it even more rare. The beaches and small towns of the Northern African country are also stunningly shot.

One of the great things about SIFF is that they don’t simply screen movies; they actively promote the development and appreciation of great film in a number of ways. Their educational outreach includes hooking up students and filmmakers for the sort of classroom learning you just can’t get from a textbook both during the annual festival and throughout the year.

Two recent participants in this program were Skateland writer/director Anthony Burns and the film’s director of photography Peter Simonite who were in Seattle to talk about their film.

Skateland is a coming-of-age drama about 19 year old Ritchie Wheeler (Shiloh Fernandez), an aimless young man content with his small town Texas life as the manager of a local skating rink in the early 1980s. He spends his days at work or hanging out with his friends, including girlfriend Michelle (Ashley Greene). Life seems settled for Ritchie until the closing of the rink and a series of personal tragedies force him to have to think about his life in a serious way for the first time. Unlike a number of nostalgia-driven films, Skateland doesn’t just throw a few 80s pop hits on the soundtrack and dress its characters in “quirky” 80s fashions; Burns and his crew do an amazing job of genuinely recreating the look and feel of the times for a story that could have been set anywhere and anytime but manages to be respectful and honest of the time and place within it.

Burns and Simonite spoke to a class of film students from Pierce College eager to learn about the movie making process. Their practical advice included telling students who want to make money to avoid going into film, but they also shared stories from their careers and details about what it’s really like to make a movie.

Burns spoke of how he got involved with Skateland: “I was brought in by some friends of mine that I grew up with. I live in LA and they had a project they hired me to write and we wrote in Austin, Texas, because that’s where we’re from and it caught fire. By the way, 90 percent of this whole film thing is luck. It’s cool to be good, but it’s really about luck and timing, finding that perfect storm and that’s what happened with Skateland. We wrote it and then sent it out to casting agents in LA…and then we got Ashley Greene and all this great talent, which brought in more money.

“It was a summer time film on page but we were going to shoot in late summer and the fall in Shreveport. It gets really cold and so we adjusted the script about a month out in pre-production to make it where it ends around Christmastime, after Thanksgiving. This happens all the time. We were going to push and go shoot in the spring of the next year but we were going to lose crew, we were going to lose the rates we got on our cameras which was crazy because there was a pending SAG strike and the economy went to shit so no one was working, movies were falling apart, so we got this great crew at [a good rate] so it was a perfect storm. We roughed it out and then had about a year of editing. That’s how long editing usually takes, about six months to a year.”

An obviously key element of making a movie is the actual process of filming. Simonite on working with the director as the DP and what he wants from the director for the optimal working environment:

“The main thing is that the director cares about the way it looks. They have some idea of what they might want it to look like and whether that’s still photography or fine art or something that’s original or whatever it is…mainly that they care. And some directors don’t.

I just backed out of a project because after three weeks of prep in talking to the director I realized that she didn’t – the look of it was something that she didn’t care about. It was a comedy so she didn’t really care about contrast and color and at the end of the day I felt like it would just be undermining what I wanted to do.”

Getting a film from concept to completion can be tricky, no matter what one’s level of involvement can be. After a student asked Burns what else he’s written for the screen, he shared a “horror story”:

“I sold a script called ‘The Birthday Party’, it has Kelly Garner in it. She was in Lars and the Real Girl. I sold it and I really needed the money, I was living on my ex-girlfriend’s floor at the time and they’re like, ‘We’ll give you this X amount of dollars if you’ll sign away your rights.’ It was my favorite script at the time, this crazy thriller horror film about a guy who tells a story and you think he’s the good guy but he’s the bad guy. I sold it, they changed the name to Red Velvet and then rewrote the script.

“It’s horrible. With my name on still on it.

“So they sent me the Blu-Ray DVD when it was made because I never went to the opening screening and I threw it on the grill and lit it on fire.”

On satisfactorily completing a film: “The key is that we worked with a really great executive producer that believed in the film and the material. We told him what we needed and we didn’t get everything we wanted but he believed in us.” This, he says, isn’t common, at least not working with the major studios, because movie-making involves so many different people fighting for control of each project.

What makes independent film great is that it allows more freedom but, per Burns, “It’s very risky.”

In fact, he adds: “In this economy, film is risky across the board. If you’re trying to get jobs as director or writer, you’re going up against big time directors. It used to be that there were so many projects that you could get decent jobs and now on studio films it’s almost impossible. Independent film – you can get your film done the right way, but at the same time it’s a good chance that it will never be seen.”

Students also wondered about the educational pathways into movie making. What do you need to study to become a writer or director or camera operator, for example? Per both Burns and Simonite, a career in film really is all about luck and timing. Burns started writing in high school but because he wasn’t initially interested in film, he didn’t seriously start working on screenplays until after college. Simonite started working on films right after completing college but in retrospect wishes he’d taken up the Duplass Brothers’ offer for a job on a film they were working on as PAs in Austin. Going to school does have its advantages: “Your background doesn’t matter at all,” however, says Banks. “It’s what you believe in, your passion and your love for filmmaking.”

Modern technology has done a great deal to democratize movie making. It used to be that to learn about movie making you would go to one of a few select schools or work your way up from the bottom at the studios, but “you can shoot movies for nothing. You can be educated and watch films on your computer. You can take classes everywhere.” Adds Simonite: “You can get yourself a [Canon] 5D [camera] and Final Cut and distribute it online.”

Once a script’s been written and a film’s in the can, so to speak, there’s still more to be done with it. The two spoke of the post-production process and the various roles the director and crew play in completing a movie. The cinematographer’s most important job is to capture all of the scenes and angles that the director and editor will need to put the film together. The editor can be the true hero of any film, poring over footage to construct the story that the director wants to tell. Another key element of film production is the colorization. Skateland was sent to DeLuxe for color work. There the negative was scanned for color processing very dependent on the quality of the original film, another reason for the director to clearly communicate his vision of the film’s visual feel to the camera crew. In tribute to the time the movie is set, Skateland appears on screen in bright, vivid hues.

Simonite talked about the difference between shooting on 35 mm film and shooting digital and why this movie was shot on film: “It’s kind of counter-intuitive, but when you’re shooting on film it’s actually a little bit easier because you have more range. “ Digital formats have improved since their initial introduction, he says, and continue to advance, but film still allows for greater contrast and more detail even when the film will later be edited digitally.

Adds Burns: “It was an early 80s film so we felt like it was wrong to shoot it digitally.”

Post is perhaps the most complex part of movie making, but pre-production has its own challenges. For example, says Burns, “Location scouting, by the way, is the worst thing ever.”

Filming isn’t exactly simple either. There are a number of negotiations that have to be made every day, including working with a crew who have very specific ideas about their roles and responsibilities. Crew members are very often specialists whose primary interest is their own particular role. The same can be said of the cast. The director has to manage any disagreements or difficulties that arise on set between these various groups, including at least one fight between crew members which required Burns to break it up by physically by literally inserting himself between two combatants.

Talking about getting to the point where one will be making these sort of decisions, Burns reiterates that a vital component of being able to make a film is being in the right place at the right time. Getting to know people who are in the business already and can help you find your way in is important as is the simple, but crucial, fact of being in a place where films are being made. Burns tells the story of how Simonite just happened to be in LA on one particular day when someone he knew from shooting another movie called him up and asked him to come do some work on a new film, giving him a credit on a major film simply because he happened to be available on that one particular day.

This luck played a role in Skateland‘s creation, but it was more than luck that turned it into a great film. Burns and his entire cast and crew have managed to put together an engrossing, entertaining story that looks and plays well.

Skateland screens next at SIFF on June 6 at 8:00 pm at Kirkl