Tacoma Film Fesival 2008 - Plus Picks

In less than a week, the Grand Cinema will kick off its 3rd Annual Tacoma Film Festival (Oct 2nd to Oct 9th). There are over fifty films in the festival this year ranging from 2 minutes to 2 hours in length. Screenings will occur all over downtown.

This is a great opportunity to see new films and the work of emerging artists, meet filmmakers, and rub elbows with your fellow Tacomans.

The biggest challenge every year is picking movies. If we’re just going to see a couple films, which ones should we see? We asked Philip Cowan, the Executive Director of the Grand, which films should be on our short list. Here’s his response:

From Philip Cowan

Crawford
I first saw this movie earlier this year when it played in Austin’s SXSW festival. It is a documentary of what happens to a town of 705 people when the governor of Texas and future president moves to town. The impact is about what you’d expect on a town that size. Watching the upheaval of people’s lives and the blacklisting of people who oppose Bush is pretty amazing. The peaceful little Texas town turns into one of demonstrations and daily media coverage. You get to know people in the community on both sides of the political spectrum and they spin VERY interesting tales. One spirited lady is essentially run out of town. I highly recommend this film for the stories it tells.
5:00 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4 at the Grand Cinema
4:15 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 5 at the School of the Arts
4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8 at the Grand Cinema

Comedy Shorts
This is a grouping of nine of the funniest films that were submitted for the film festival. Ranging in time from 2 minutes to 29 minutes, this is 1 hour and 40 minutes of fun. Watch as a 36 year old shoots for his dream to be a Cabbie…even though he can’t drive. In another you see an elderly man plot his escape from his nursing home. Together they make a fantastic package. Last year the comedy shorts sold out for its Saturday evening screening so this year we scheduled it for two screenings.
6:15 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4 at the School of the Arts
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8 at the Grand Cinema

Pat Martino Unstrung
The story of legendary jazz guitarist Pat Martino is very interesting and one I was not familiar with. If you have a Martino CD, you know what amazing music he has made. This movie tells his musical story but more importantly it portrays the medical issues that temporarily silenced him. The website for the film best summarizes it: “Through this remarkable story of his ascent from the depths of amnesia to the peak of artistry once more, the filmmaker explores the nature of memory, self, creativity and the brain systems underlying personal identity making some ground-breaking discoveries on the way.” Whether you are a fan of his music or interested in how the brain works, this is one you should see. It also features the likes of Les Paul, Pete Townsend, Carlos Santana and others.
1:20 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4 at Tacoma Art Museum
2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8 at the Grand Cinema

Opening Night
Instead of doing a single Opening Night film as would most often happen at a festival, we decided to present a combination of three outstanding films. Played together they are an amazing combination: a short drama, a short comedy and a feature documentary. The comedy tells the story of love, but not of the usual kind: how about a mouse falling in love with a woman? The 15 minute drama is an incredibly well put together film showing the simultaneous stories of people in four cities throughout the world, from Hong Kong to New York, as they learn the earth has only 8 minutes left. It reminded me in a way of the film A Night on Earth. Then finally comes the documentary On Paper Wings. It tells of the Japanese balloon bombs that fell from the sky on the Pacific Coast during WWII. Most of all, it looks at it from the personal side, interviewing both the Japanese women who made the balloons and the families of Americans who were killed by a bomb in Oregon, the only fatalities on U.S. soil during WWII. The filmmaker will be in attendance so this is an opportunity to see the film and talk about it with the woman who created it. For those who can’t make it opening night, these three films screen together again at the Grand on Saturday.
6:30 p.m. reception, 8:15 p.m. screening Thursday, Oct. 2 at the Grand Cinema
6:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4 at the Grand Cinema

The Ostrich Testimonies / In Times of War: Ray Parker’s Story
A nice pair of documentaries. The Ostrich Testimonies is another film I first saw at SXSW in Austin. Imagine you are an ostrich farmer making a nice living. If you are an ostrich, the one thing you fear the most is a hot air balloon (a genetic fear of huge creatures in the sky?). Now imagine hot air balloons flying over the ostrich farm. The result wasn’t pretty and the loss of hope in the U.S. system as the farmer tries to right his wrong is heartbreaking. The farmer is a character unto himself and very much worth seeing. As a bonus, the filmmaker will be in attendance to answer your questions after the screening. The second movie in this pairing is the inspiring WWII history of Ray Parker. He was captured by the Germans but found a way to print an underground newspaper for his fellow captives. He tells the story in his own words in this fascinating documentary.
3:00 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 5 at the Grand Cinema
5:00 p.m. Monday, Oct. 6 at the Grand Cinema

America Betrayed
A press release earlier this year on the movies summarizes it pretty well: “Academy Award Winner Richard Dreyfuss narrates the heavily anticipated documentary America Betrayed, from Eclipse Entertainment and filmmaker Leslie Cardé. The film, places the spotlight front and center on the specific ways our government contributes to and profits from disasters both here and abroad…from the way it shields itself from blame when all roads point to their culpability, to the friends in high places in corporate America who continue to benefit from the very disasters that leave the rest of us reeling.” I would add the question: How are we going to fix the problems unless we learn how they got to be problems in the first place? This powerful, well made documentary helps answer that question.
6:10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3 at the Grand Cinema
3:00 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9 at the Grand Cinema

JUMP!
JUMP! is a feature length documentary that follows several teams from the U.S. as they train in pursuit of the World Championship of jump rope competition. It shows as they push themselves to the limit, both physically and emotionally. The results on what they can do are amazing and you really get caught up in it rooting for your favorite person or team to win. I came away from the film with an immense appreciation for what they do, both as a sport and as an art form. Bring your kids to this one as well and encourage them to get fit!
4:00 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4 at the School of the Arts

Wiener Takes All: A Dogumentary
This is a fun movie on the world of competitive wiener dogs. Have you ever seen a dachshund race? Have you ever known a rabid dog owner? You’ll see them both, along with many other competitions including the Westminster Dog Show, in a funny combination here. Think Best in Show but in real life.
3:00 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4 at the Grand Cinema
6:45 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 7 at the Grand Cinema

Short Films from the Seattle Children’s Film Festival
This is a fun group of films from this year’s Seattle festival. It includes the films that won prizes for best short animated film, best live action short, and the most popular film in the festival. This group of nine films (69 minutes total) also kicks off the Grand Cinema’s Children’s Film Series for this fall. On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 11:00 a.m. during October and November, the Grand will host films suitable for the entire family. What is perhaps best is that children 17 and under are free with a paid adult for films within this series. Join us for these during the Tacoma Film Festival and beyond! (A complete children’s film series listing can be found here)
11:00 a.m. Friday, Oct. 3 at the Grand Cinema
11:00 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 4 at the Grand Cinema

Certifiably Jonathan
Did you know Jonathan Winters is an artist? I didn’t. This interesting film talks about him as an artist and also brings in the likes of Sarah Silverman and Robin Williams. You are in for quite a little ride with this film as you watch Jonathan be Jonathan.
8:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3 at the School of the Arts
5:10 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 5 at the Grand Cinema

Indestructible
An engaging look at a filmmaker as he battles ALS. We watch as he struggles to speak, stand and stay alive but most of all, as he struggles for hope. He travels the world to better understand, looking for a miracle cure along the way. One of the most interesting parts to me was when he approached a Chinese doctor who promised help through brain surgery. The doctor seems very shady but the filmmaker was searching for any help he can find and opts for the surgery anyway. The film shows a person pushed to the brink, the struggles it causes within a family, and the joy of being alive.
8:00 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3 at First United Methodist Church

More information at TacomaFilmFestival.com