Shorts screening from Women's Film Institute and workshop

http://reelwomen.org/2010/03/31/rw-presents-the-womens-film-institute-wfi-short-tour-workshop/

(A few docs in their line-up, as well as experimental docs. I guess check back on their website for exact time closer to the date. -dzm)

SATURDAY & SUNDAY, APRIL 24 & 25 — at the Picture Box Studio, 701 Tillery, Suite A-7, Austin 78702. Films by Women that Entertain, Inspire & Motivate. Women’s Film Institute (WFI) presents the WFI Shorts Tour. Out of 300 inspiring entries, 11 films were selected to be premiered. The diverse selection of shorts at the tour celebrates the exceptional contributions of women in the world of cinema and represents a convergence of films from around the globe, including the U.S., Italy, France and China. The tour includes an Academy Award winning short and a cross section of socially conscious films that will entertain, inspire and motivate audience-goers to take action. The films explore the search for self-discovery, the pain of love and loss, and the struggle to meet society’s expectations of beauty. As well as a range of current political and social topics–from the growing threat of climate change, to the plight of an orca whale forced to live in an aquarium, to education for undocumented immigrants. http://www.sfwfi.com

Asian American Studies Conference Screenings

Because I am tragically old and school wears me out I sometimes take a nap on Friday afternoon. This past Friday was on of those days. As I napped I dreamt of a yellow tabby cat trying to escape. Apparently it was my responsibility to capture it. The cat was fast and elusive, but I kept after it. When I awoke I realized the cat was a symbol for an opportunity, an outside event that I could blog about. It represented one of those elusive events that were rapidly getting away without my participation. The Asian American Studies screening at 7:30 that evening had become my dream cat.
The dream made me think of Eisenstein's montage theory. When you put two images next to each other you create a third thing, a different thing. My subconscious had worked like Eisenstein's montage. I had a goal, to attend a screening event. I also had an opportunity, the AAS screening. The two together became a dream cat.
What I'm getting to though, is not dream cats, it's Krutie, one of the most interesting of the short films screened Friday night. It was probably the film closest to documentary of the six presented. It was not experimental, it was more like a performance piece. The reason I associate it with dream cats is because of montage; a montage of the filmaker, Krutie Thakkar, in different guises, affecting different voices, sitting on a green couch. Accompanying Krutie and the couch were titles of both Sanskrit and Russian definitions for the word Krutie, a floating crouton and banana-rama-fo-fama type rhymes scrolling across the screen. Independently the images seemed to make no sense, but together they created a third thing. No, not a dream cat, but the concept of a young woman searching for identity.
Of the other five films screened, there was a good one, a bad one, and three that were so-so. The bad one was Texas Girl , about the Korean wife of a marine adjusting to life in his west Texas hometown. The distracting element of the film was that the woman, who supposedly just moved from Korea, had a Texas accent. She actually used better grammar than her husband. Another problem with the film was that it exploited every scene to make the marine husband look like a crude racist redneck. He became a one dimensional cliche undermining the story.
The good one was North of Ojinaga. A Japanese woman and Mexican man are smuggled across the border and abandoned by their coyote in the west Texas desert. They can't speak each other's language but begin to communicate using iconic American objects and advertising phrases. This film, unlike most of the others, had a logical structure and actual story. The photography was also a step above the others.
So, now I'm wondering why the cat in my dream was a yellow tabby when I prefer the darker calicos. Well, perhaps another day, another dream.

Cine Las Americas Festival in a few weeks

Tons of docs on tap:

http://www.cinelasamericas.org/film-festival/72-13/228-2010-films-by-program-section

April 21-29.

Austin Jewish Film Festival on now

The Austin Jewish Film Festival starts today and runs through next week. There are some screenings on campus and around town-- fiction and documentary. Check out this link for the schedule; the best way is to download their pdf of the schedule which tells you whether it's a doc or not:

http://www.austinjff.org/Alpha%20Flm%20List.html

Waltz With Bashir

It was appropriate that I watched this film the week after our experimental documentary conversation, because it made me think more about the definition of a documentary. The film is based on real interviews with Israeli soldiers who fought in the Lebanon War, and it tells the story of the director’s search for the truth about what happened during a massacre in Beirut that he has repressed his memory of.

Ari Folman said in an interview that it was a mistake for him to have called the film an animated documentary, because no one knows what that means and they have a hard time categorizing it in their minds. I can see what he’s saying, because just like with Chicago 10, it’s difficult for me to accept this as a truly documented story when all of the visuals are created by artists. Waltz with Bashir felt less like a cartoon than Chicago 10 to me though, maybe because the subject matter was so dramatic and the animation had a more stylized look to it.

I really enjoyed the film, and thought it did an effective job of telling a complex story. The storyline revolves around this hallucination/partial memory that the director has of the war, and he is trying to piece together where it came from by talking to other soldiers who were there with him. The hallucination scene, and many others in the film, have a dream-like quality that partially give the film that stylized look. In a lot of the scenes, especially the flashbacks or the dream scenes, the characters are moving in slow motion, which amplifies the surreal feeling of the film. In one of the special features on the DVD, Folman talks about the process of making the animation, and said that part of the reason the characters moved slowly was that it was cheaper that way. So whether or not the technique was intentional, it certainly added a moodiness that worked well.

I think one of the hardest things about documentary is trying to visually illustrate an event that has already happened, or a concept that you don’t have actual footage of. We’ve seen this done with archival footage like in Wide Awake, or with re-enactments like in A Thin Blue Line. I assume part of the reason the director chose animation for this film is because almost the entire storyline fell under things that already happened or ideas that there was no footage for (like the hallucinations). Considering those restrictions, I think animation was a creative way to be able to tell the story without having to narrate the entire film. I’m still not sure you can really classify this as a documentary, but I’m definitely starting to broaden my perspective on what that genre means.

Quest for honor

US Documentary Feature Films
Kurdistan/U.S.A., 2008, 60 mins., color

I thought about this movie all night long after I watched it. Yes, I called it a “movie”. For it has so much tension and climax going on and you wouldn’t even believe it’s actually a documentary. Even the way it started with a CNN news clip that makes you believe more you’re watching some kind of investigation murder movie.

The story line of this project is very well-organized and chronological. We followed Runak Faraj, the editor from Women Media Center, to experience the fight for human rights in Kurdistan. In a men-dominant society where women are usually powerless, they have to be so obedient that it seems their lives are worthless as well. And Women Media Center become where local women would go when they are under death threat or feel under pressure.

The more you watch, the more your heart sinks. That is probably why the director actually inserted lots of empty shots/landscape shots that sort of gave you relief moments because the story itself was too sad to handle at one time. The sound quality is very good that we can hear every single word when they spoke, especially at the outdoor scene where they found the body of Nesrin. The story ended in a way that there seemed no progress neither in their investigation nor in human rights, but it actulaly made it to raise people's awareness in helping those victims. However, things should be taken more slowly just like what the mayor implied. It's really a good idea to start with media, say, the newspaper publication that Runak Faraj works with.

One interesting thing I've noticed is that in this 60-minutes intensive documentary project, you can see how subjects were comfortable in front of the camera(just like a movie!), which probably means a certain amount of time that the director Mary Ann Smothers Bruni had spent with them before she started to shoot. After a 30-second CNN news clip at the very beginning of Quest for Honor, it went straight right to the phone call – about a woman’s death. How coincidently it was! Because sometimes the moment you want never comes, I wonder how they made it.

I admire her courage because she might be taken as an intruder from local perspective. Anything could have happened to her in the name of HONOR. However, I’m not quite sure if the project is based on western point of view to look other cultures. For some of the most bizarre cultural phenomenon in this world, there are a lot of times that western countries take these cultures as “wrong” based on what they think is “right" especiially when it comes to human rights.I'm not saying that killing somebody else by one's wish from other culture is none of our business. But as an audience, I would like to know more about how they get the idea of being “honor” and “dishonor” and how they develop this way of thinking. If we can take a more in-depth approach to find out the origin of this problem, the solution might be come up as well. It would be much more balanced and informative in terms of journalistic perspective if the director found out more about the belief of these men and women.

SWINGERS - Progress Report

So - it seems that all of the fun, open, vocal swinging couples in Austin are either gone or going to the hospital soon. I haven't heard back from K and O in over a week now, so a couple of days ago, I posted a 2nd ad on craigslist looking for subjects.

I got a very quick and positive response from a new couple - we'll call them R and R - they are a married couple, ages 29 and 28, respectively. R number 1 is a white, bisexual woman and R number 2 is her white, straight husband. They've been married for almost a year and have been exploring swinging and polyamory for about the same amount of time.

They believe they are in a very healthy relationship with strong, open communication, trust and understanding. They both said they would be willing to speak comfortably about the details and realities of their lifestyle. They have one semi-permanent male partner who R1 claims will be open to talking to us as well, which would be awesome. R2 also has a semi-permanent female partner, and they are also developing what could become a steady relationship with another female partner. R1 says she dates a few women here and there on her own and that she and her husband correspond with other swinging couples together as well.

So, in case K and O never appear again, it looks like we may be shifting our focus to this new couple. R1 sent me an online album of their beautiful wedding photos, but per her request for discretion up front until they feel comfortable with us, I will not post those photos just yet on the blog. They are both working professionals and R1 says she works for UT and isn't sure yet if her participation will have any negative consequences.

Any thoughts?