It’s Sunday afternoon and I’ve finally finished up my time at the Film Columbia Festival that ran from Thursday through today in Chatham, NY. It’s been a great time but I am thoroughly worn out by the experience. Over the last four days I’ve watched a dozen feature films and almost as many short films.
My terminal disorganization received a major jolt last weekend when I suddenly realized that the festival was the following weekend. I had lost track of the time and waited way too long to properly prepare for this. When I attempted to purchase an all event pass I discovered that there were no more for sale. They had sold all of the advance tickets they could for the Saturday night sneak preview and had thus pulled sale of the passes. I contacted Sandy Knakal, the president of the Chatham Film Club that organizes the festival to try and buy one anyway. She held her ground and wouldn’t cough up one of those passes but instead handed me a stack of tickets for all movies but that one sneak preview. I gave in to her brutal arm-twisting and accepted the offer. Yes, it was shameful to cave in to this sort of pressure but I do what I have to do to bring you the reviews.
Thursday morning I headed over to the Crandell Theater and settled in for the documentary Zeppelin! Or at least I would have if the film had ever arrived. It had not. So in to its place was slotted Paradise Now, a film that attempts to tell of a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv from the perspective of the Palestinian bomber. You can find my review of that right here. Next up was a small film called Mind the Gap. This would be one of my favorite movies from the festival. Coincidently, I would spend most of the festival sitting near the producer of that movie, Chip Hourihan, a fine fellow who had almost as much ability to absorb the punishment of sitting in fairly small seats for dozens of hours as myself. The movie itself is one of multiple stories that appear to be completely unconnected until the very end. Following that was Winter Passing a family drama with a touch of oddball comedy that stars Zooey Deschanel, Ed Harris and Will Ferrell. It was a bit too gloomy for my tastes, particularly considering its fine cast of lively actors. The last movie for the day was the first of three sneak previews, Breakfast on Pluto. This is the story of an Irish transvestite as he wanders through a very strange life. It stars Cillian Murphy in a startling performance that will have a lot of people talking when it is released.
Friday morning it was back to the Crandell for the documentary Loss of Nameless Things. This is about the playwright Oakley Hall III whose explosive early career was cut short when he fell from a bridge and suffered severe brain damage. Many years later he would miraculously start to recapture his mind and get back to work. That was followed by a Q&A with Hall. You would never guess what he went through to talk to him today. Amazing. Next up was Fateless, the tale of eventual Nobel Prize winning author Imre Kert’s experiences in the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. It’s a very well made film but it left me with a nasty case of depression after words. The scheduled next movie was Paradise Now, which I had already seen and so took the opportunity to grab some dinner. This involved escaping the clutches of Sandi Knakal, who was looking for people to fill up a sparsely populated party they had scheduled. Being the sort of person who tends to end up sitting in a corner at parties unless I’ve had entirely too much to drink first I did not want to be the first one in and so made my escape. It was the wise choice as it resulted in my only proper meal of the festival. These events are not good for a person’s eating habits. Getting to all the movies means not leaving time for proper meals, which results in a lot of consumed popcorn and candy with late night assaults on the fridge for whatever can be prepared quickly and easily. But again, I take the abuse to bring you folks the reviews. No thanks are necessary. Donations for a Weight Watchers membership would be appreciated though. I would like to commend the organizers for the idea to have coolers of food from local restaurants for sale at the front door. If not for my own dietary difficulties, this would have helped eat a lot better.
Sated by an actual meal at home, it was back to the theater for the next sneak preview. This one would turn out to be the French film Caché. This one is a mystery/thriller of sorts but not the sort of movie for people without much patience. It rewards those willing to pay close attention and give real thought to the details. Otherwise it will probably be a very frustrating movie. Last up for the day was the Canadian movie Stryker, about a young Native American boy who ends up in Winnipeg after torching a church and becomes a possible recruit in the middle of a gang war. This wasn’t my favorite of the festival but was still an interesting film to watch.
Saturday morning kicked off with a children’s program, which consisted of eight short films, most of them animated. These ran the gamut from gentle teaching to wild slapstick humor. For this I brought along my wife and two young boys. To my eye the best of the bunch were the outrageous animated Frog and the charming live action Strong Hold. My oldest son seemed to like A Slippery Tale the best, so clearly frog related material worked the best. My family headed back home, and it bears mentioning at this point that I will owe my wife for taking care of the kids solo for several days while I was off having fun. It was well worth it though.
The first movie of the day was Bee Season, based on the novel by Myla Goldberg. I haven’t read the book but did read a copy of the script a year or two ago. It was a great script with a frustrating ending so I was very curious to see how the final film turned out. The ending was actually very little changed but it was far more effective just for the presence of the actors who carried the moment brilliantly where the text of the script alone could not. Following this was Le Couperet (The Ax), a French language film based on a novel by Donald Westlake, who it turns out is a resident of this area. It is a black comedy with a unique look at those who have been downsized out of their job. That was followed by yet another black comedy, The Ice Harvest, starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton and Connie Nielsen. This movie got the loudest roars of laughter of anything in the festival; the sort of laughter that causes you to miss the next line of dialogue.
The night finished up with the final sneak preview, introduced by Focus Features CEO James Schamus. It was Brokeback Mountain, the latest film from director Ang Lee. Schamus and Lee have been longtime collaborators, so this movie’s presence was not exactly a big surprise. Schamus, a local resident, has been bringing his films to this festival since it’s first year when he brought Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which he referred to as “technically the US premiere.” Brokeback Mountain is the story of two cowboys who in 1963 Wyoming fall in love and then spend the rest of their lives trying to deal with that. It is a beautiful straight forward love story that will none the less probably be the target of much headline mongering by conservative pundits when it is released.
My final stop for the festival was Sunday morning’s showing of student films. Three short films were shown, all the product of local students, the third in cooperation with the Chatham Film Club. The first was a documentary by Max Stratton called Oro Negro. The film was shot during his trip to Ecuador in which he looked at the environmental damage being done by Texaco to the Amazon. Considering Max is an 8th grader, this is an astonishingly good film. If he keeps at this he could be a real name in the business someday.
The second film was Understudy, easily the best written of the trio. Chris Call’s script leads us to believe this will be a caper film, only to detour into a comedy about filmmaking and then detour again back to crime. The caper in question turns out to be a screen test for Justin (David Anderson) who is trying to nail down the lead in director Frederico’s (Frank Serpico. Yes, that Frank Serpico.) new movie. Problem is, Justin can’t act, making the director just a bit desperate. Director Auston Call showed a flair for comedy by shooting the film to match the zig zagging style of the script. His status as a first time filmmaker didn’t stop him from trying more complicated shots or using a variety of shots to carry a fairly simple moment. The Call’s are ambitious and clever and will hopefully continue to work in film.
Finally came Home Front, a war movie sponsored by the Chatham Film Club. This was a project with nine high school students from the area and Wes Jones mentoring. The crew included Kristin Anderson, Elizabeth Brutsch, Cleo Post, Minerva Campbell, Emily Groupp, Devin Leonard, Corey Stall, Caitlin Walsh and Matt Wilson. The movie follows a soldier who gets sick of the war and walks away, settling in with a farm family from the opposite side who mistake him for one of their own. It works on the idea of looking at life through the eyes of someone else to come to a great understanding. The program is clearly working well as the movie was easily the most polished of the trio, with a considerable amount of thought given to finding the most artistic ways to shoot a scene.
The student films, like the overall festival, greatly exceeded my expectations. Their efforts seemed entirely better thought out than I would think reasonable for first time filmmakers. The Chatham Film Club deserves a lot of praise for helping develop these students and give them a shot at getting into a particularly challenging industry.
Unfortunately, this was the end of my time at the Festival. I had cleared out all the available time from my schedule to attend 3+ days worth but that left me a bit short of seeing it all. Bearing Witness, the Animation Program, Go For Zucker, Four Lane Highway (which I have since discovered included one of my neighbors) and The Squid & the Whale all escaped my attention as a result. Next year I will have to plan better. By then the feeling may have returned in my butt.
The Film Club also deserves a lot of credit for putting an excellent festival together. Whether it be the programming choices of local author and Premiere editor Peter Biskind or the organization of Film Club President Sandi Knakal and Festival Director Calliope Nicholas, the effect was the same: to create a first class festival in a tiny little town in Upstate New York. Even the way the community and local businesses pitched in to bring this together was excellent. I’m telling you right now; if you are a major film buff or a festival junkie, leave your schedule clear for next year’s edition. It will be worth your time.
- John Shea
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