CIFFX

This was a short series of 3 little films about various local farms and them trying to raise awareness with the public. They want the public to learn where their food comes from and how supporting local farmers and growers is more beneficial to the economy and their personal health. It showed the struggles of farmers and how commercial businesses lower the costs of things, making farmers earn less money than what they spend on equipment, food, supplies, etc. It’s a poor lifestyle but a very important niche in our human community. These films were very personal and powerful.

First blip of Q and A for Wild Home

I loved this movie. It is definitely one of my favorites from the weekend mostly for its content. The two owners of DEW Animal Kingdom are the main characters and they are not only intelligent and insightful, but also a riot. The film did a nice job with telling their story. Starting with why they started this and all the different aspects of running the place. It showed all the cute cuddly moments of the animals, but they also explained how they still are animals and dangerous and showed clips of the animals being the complete opposite of cute and cuddly. It was a great balance that I’m glad was portrayed.

Introduction of Wild Home by Ben Fowlie, Maine Film Office, and the two filmmakers.

This film was highly entertaining. The story was all over the place and each of the characters were very interesting. Some other students believe the entire film was fake or photoshopped, but I still enjoyed it. It was different kind of documentary that was showing a different view of the “2012 end of the world” phenomenon. I also think this documentary did a great job at showing how the media can blow things out of proportion and the word can spread so quickly. Media is highly influential and many people don’t realize how much media influences their lives.

Introduction to Bugarach.

Things I’ve learned this weekend: theater seats are very uncomfortable and hard on the body after awhile. Sitting behind tall people sucks, especially when there are subtitles. And speaking of subtitles, subtitles would be useful at the top of the screen, especially for people sitting behind the tall people.

Taking place in the slums of India, we meet a small community of people who have very strong art ties. There are a wide variety of artists, from puppeteers, to acrobats, magicians and more. Unfortunately, their community is on land that had been bought out by developers who want to get rid of the slums and make multistory buildings that are cleaned up. This movie is an introduction to this ongoing problem for the artists community.

This short film followed a young lady and her life pertaining to Huntington’s disease. Her father got it when she was young and she made plans to get tested for the mutation to better prepare herself for her future. Her cousin and sister tested positive for the mutation and in this film it shows her finding out she also has tested positive. But this young lady is strong and has a great support group of friends and is planning to make the best of her life. This was a very inspirational movie.

All of these shorts made for quite the emotional roller coaster. During this segment I watched the funniest movie of the weekend called ‘One Year Lease’. It was a film with audio clips of the needy and overbearing landlady asking ridiculous things of them. There were also some really moving shorts about diseases that are far too familiar for some. One was called ‘A Marriage to Remember’ and was following a family’s story of the mom who has Alzheimer’s and the daily struggles for her and her family.

Marshall Curry sharing a bit more about Point and Shoot.

This film is worth of so many amazing adjectives that I can’t even think of which one to start with. There were many levels to the story in this film from the adventure and finding himself, to the life at home, the war story, the questioning of how people change when they have a camera pointed at them. All the questions he asks himself make you think about them on a personal level. It was very intriguing and inspiring. The war story hit a little close a home but I loved this movie and the personal connection made me love it a little more.

Introduction of Point and Shoot by Ben Fowlie and Marshall Curry.

Taking place in Romania, this documentary covered a family that is being taken care of by the oldest siblings. Their mother had to leave the country to find a job that made enough money to support her kids. It shows the struggles and happiness they go through as kids. And they wait for their mother to get done with her job and come home in August. This was a pretty awesome movie.

Theodora, the filmmaker of Waiting for August, speaking before the film.

So this movie was very very different. It was comprised of a million shots of Chinese people sleeping, smoking, and abstract shots on a train. There weren’t very many discussions with people in the movie, but of the few conversations, they were all very informative and funny. Especially the child. This movie was mainly about getting a glimpse of the Chinese culture. But overall the documentary seemed very redundant and over the top.

Help Donnie with his farming project at occupyyourselfag.com!! He is in the process of turning an abandoned house into a multiple story greenhouse.