Two great things about MSPIFF.
1. Minnesota Films
This film festival has multiple opportunities for local filmmakers to show their work. Minnesota made feature films, feature docs, short docs, short narratives 1, 2 & 3, short animated, music videos. Most of the time the directors are present (or in the short doc case, a friend or the cameraman, or editor) and the Q & A is a special treat at a film festival. Some questions are technical (what camera? what lens? was that voice-over added later). Others are personal (what was your relationship to the subject?) In this short clip, they answer a question regarding how much footage they shot. How many hours of film did they have to edit down to make their film. These shorts were from 2 minutes to 44 minutes in length. Susan Marks, the director of last years popular Of Dolls and Murder (now available on netflix!!) moderatedt the panel (she is in the dark in the video).
Covering a range of subjects – a LGBT homeless youth program by Melissa Koch, a pig’s life and pig’s slaughter by Matthew Koshmrl, the calm of a winter day and beautiful shots of the Art Shanties on Medicine Lake by Horatio Devoto (a photographer by trade – nice shots), an essay, which is more free flowing, philosophical and contemplative piece on happiness, work, and unemployment by Cecilia Carnejo, and a narrative hommage to the old Uptown theater, before the renovations by Dan S. (played at the Big Sky Film Festival earlier this year.)
Keep an eye on the program or check out the links above to follow all the Minnesota Made programs. Check in here again for interviews with some of the filmmakers.
PREVIEWS: seen and not to be missed
Kon-Tiki – an interesting note, this film was filmed in two languages simultaneously. An interesting article in the New York Times addresses the issue, historically and in the present, of accessibility and languages in film. This film will definitely get a commercial release locally.
2. Travel the world
Go to this film festival and see films from 62 countries. More about this and film aesthetics in my next post…
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