Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Update
Thursday: A remarkable day.
I am exhausted from the riches of films I viewed. Highlights.
Montana State MFA Film Studies Students kicked the day off at the Wilma Theatre. 90 minutes of shorter films showcased innovation, beautiful natural-world cinematography, futuristic story lines, and good storytelling. A history of the Yellowstone River from its POV , Bison relocation efforts gone wrong, futuristic sci-fi DNA imprinting, reflections on mothering, the MSU dinosaur museum, and more. Bravo.
A Block of Shorts that Matter
40 Meters (Switzerland, Samuel Flueckiger, director) struck me as the most sensitive film I have seen in a very long time. It consists of a fourteen-minute interview with a retired Swiss railroad engineer, who recounts his experiences with suicides in front of his train. He mentions other engineers who have a count of 12, before it is fully revealed that he is talking body counts of suicide by train impacts. The viewer struggles with the engineer as he painfully relates both the speed at which he was traveling and the locations of the three deaths that occurred on his watch. Engineer Kurt Spori relives his long-standing trauma for the camera and states, “every two or three days a person commits suicide on Switzerland’s vast railroad network.” A sobering burden for us all because it happens in the US also. A global issue really.
I Am Still Here (Director Cynthia Matty-Huber) takes us into the life of John Hoiland, a nearly 92 year old rancher from Eastern Montana, who continues to live on his parent’s ranch, raising cattle and driving a tractor. He is a Norwegian descendant (who some claim is the oldest Norwegian Cowboy), John tells me post screening. He is a poster child of a rugged life in the sun– weathered and worn, but spunky. While signing autographs in the lobby he tells me he was in a truck ad in the 90s ( Ford, Chevy?). With his white beard and iconic Western Cowboy visage he looks the part. Here’s to 92 John!
El Desierto (Carly Jakins, Jared Jakins Directors) explores in quiet fashion the life of a modern day sheep herder. Living in a trailer in the Great Basin desert, we witness the cycle of sheep tending, loneliness, and migration of both sheep and workers. Sparse and dramatic in a silent fashion I found it haunting.
Blessed Assurance (Isabelle Carbonell, director) is a fishing biopic that is exposes the techniques used for catching Cannonball Jellyfish in the Atlantic. The film claims this is the only boat in the USA fishing for this species, a species that is exported to Asia as a seafood item.
In the Q&A that followed these film I noted the unique nature of the directors on stage: They were all female. Brava.
Valley of the Rulers is a tender look into life for the inhabitants of a Serbian nursing home. Efin Graboy, Director.
A Cultural View of Rural Iran and a Stubborn Woman Who Persists in the Natural World
Beloved, (Yaser Talebi, Director) is a powerful cultural portrait of Firouzeh, an elderly Iranian woman living seasonally in the mountains of Northern Iran with her beloved cattle. Hers is a life style choice, which at 80 pains her to consider giving up. Wearing a series of colorful headscarves as she climbs trees with a sort of machete to cut branches of green leaves for her animals, and calling to her beloved cattle with whom she has frequent conversations, we see a strong woman. She has weathered the injury and then death of her husband after she birthed 11 children. Universal elements of the film are female independence, strength of body and purpose, and the frustration of a mother with her children when they are not coming to see her and help her enough. One humorous and poignant scene shows the woman calling all of her children in turn to complain about their abandonment of her. She leaves tough messages to each one.
The landscape is stunning, with careful camera work and a tracing of the seasons as the film unfolds. Such beauty of place and culture! Such determination to live the way a woman wants! Unfortunately the director was prevented from traveling to the USA by our government, and the screening was preceded by the reading of a letter from the director bemoaning that fact.
A Legendary Ski Business
Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story,(Patrick Creadon, Director) took me back. A tribute film to Warren Miller, who many consider the father of skiing, because he popularized skiing through his entertaining and dramatic ski films beginning in the 1950s. The portrait traces his early family years through direct interviews with Miller. Poignant and powerful Miller recalls what drove him to succeed, and how he accomplished and built his brand at considerable risk to his young family. Interviews with many famous ski champions, who appeared in his films, are woven into the narrative. But what struck me in the gut was my recognition of his iconic voice and style evidenced in the old clips from his films. I too was influenced by his films. His trademark narration– with humor, jokes, and word-wide exotic locals–inspired generations of skiers throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond. Warren Miller passed away in 2018, and this film is a must see for those who knew him through his films. An iconic film of a legend. This is what documentaries do so well.
Big Sky Doc Film Festival is the place to see a remarkable film that can change your life. Or you can see a film that documents life-changing movements. Such is the film Fire on the Hill: The Cowboys of South Central LA. During the Q&A that followed the film the personalities of the actors (remember, this is non-fiction) burst through. Fresh off a flight to Missoula they burst into the auditorium, with cowboy hats and huge ear-to-ear smiles. The spotlight does them good.
The film is experiential, gritty, heartwarming. We are rooting for the rebuilding of the equestrian center that brings inner-city men out of gangs and into the art of horses. But it’s not all roses. Life is tough and we see it here. It’s a therapy film I guess, with a modern twist. It shows again, Saturday, February 23, at 6 PM at the Wilma.
A little after-screening-gathering blends the cowboys and the public.
Also last night:
Fast Horse, a 13 minute short. Beautifully shot and edited, revolving around culture and horses and the Calgary Stampede Relay race. It is astonishing that a young man can leap upon the back of a horse, ride a lap around the track, leap off and onto the next horse’s back and continue. We learn the cultural back story, see the training, see the race, see the pride. “Fast Horse follows the return of The Blackfoot bareback horseracing tradition in a new form: the Indian Relay. Siksika horseman Allison RedCrow struggles to build a team with second-hand horses and a new jockey, Cody Big Tobacco, to take on the best riders in the Blackfoot Confederacy at the Calgary Stampede.”
Showing again, Friday, Feb 22nd at 8:45 PM, @MCT
