After arriving to the beautifully lit Astor Theatre, I hastly ran around the foyer looking for, well everything: Annie Helps, the marketing coordinator for SKFF; Anisha, the girl who was supposed to be helping me with the Awards forms; and the Inside Film box with everything I needed for the night. As well as this, I was extremely conscious of the fact that people were already queing for the first session and my window to hand out the forms was closing fast. Thankfully, at 7:25pm, I raced around hurriedly handing out forms left, right and center to everyone who would acknowledge, looking very red in the face and probably confusing a lot of people by trying to explain in one breath that "withoutanemailitsnotvalidandwhenyou'redonepleaseputitintheboxoutside." Hectic.
Then the blissful calm as I finally got to sit in on the session, my favourite part of the job. I missed the first and last films unfortunately as I had to pop back in and out of the theatre before everyone else did but here is what I did see:
2. Home - a bizarre story about a home delivery guy, Ryan, who is on the way to a delivery. In a character development which could have outrivaled Scorsese's Taxi Driver, the film finally arrives at Ryan's first delivery. Frank doesn't open the door which causes Ryan to go around the house to the backyard, discovering an unpleasant sight. The rest of the film deals with the idea of what could happen if you suddenly were able to completely acquire somebody else's life but personally, I don't think the filmmakers focused on the right aspects. The camera they used was very nice (a Canon Mark II 5D or something similar) but the shots were unimaginative and badly. All in all the film could have been a lot better I feel if they had either sped everything up or left our the last third of the narrative.
3. Stony Point - this was a really beautiful short and one that caught my eye in the program. The story focuses on two sisters visiting Stony Point, a small coastal town, in what we would assume is summer. There, the girls encounter a past fling and a disruptive, meddling city girl like themselves who enjoys playing with people's emotions. The film was just really sweet but not to the point where you would end up with type 2 diabetes at the end of it. Thanks to one of the characters, the film had an edge and suspense about it which had you thinking "what's going to happen next?!" The cinematography was also really beautiful with a nice coral colour scheme and great wideshots to show off the landscape which so many of us I think can relate to a past memory of family road trips to the middle of nowhere.
4. Minnie Loves Junior- I really didn't like Minnie Loves Junior and for that I am a little upset because I think the film had potential. For me, there was just too much of it I believe and had it been shorter, it may have been more entertaining. There were times for me unfortunately when I caught myself asking "when is this going to end?" I will say though that when it did eventually come to a close, the film finished really succinctly and with a super cute gesture which left the audience with the warm and fuzzies. There was a lot that could have been done with the setting in this film which I don't think was considered. A nice film but not my favourite by far.
5. I Make Coffee - This film was really interesting. Reading the blurb I had to stop myself from placing it in the "nobody-talks-to-me-so-I'm-going-to-make-a-film" category of filmmakers and I'm glad I did because it really wasn't that at all. The film was very character based which was great because our protagonist was hilarious. Using a unique form which crisscrossed between supposedly amateur film-making on a SD video cam and title cards matching to the dialogue, the film had a very fast pace about it which forced you to keep up. All in all it was just a really cute little spiel about a guy and his coffee shop and what was great was that him and his friends obviously had fun making it.
6. Beat - it took me FOREVER to work out who the lead actor was in this mini-short but I finally googled it out and it was none other than the prestigious Peter O'Brien (George Freeman from Underbelly for those of you who still don't know who I'm talking about.) I think it was because my brain was so preoccupied with trying to work out who Peter was that I subsequently did not follow the story properly and hence did not really get the film but I think there is another reason for this. The film opens in a seedy bathroom and two guys enter which automatically sets up a few thoughts. The film plays with these thoughts right up until the end when the twist comes in. However, it was the twist that threw me and it was only until just now that I managed to work out why the film ended the way it did (I'm not one for spoilers so let me know what your thoughts are when you see it) I think though the film needed to be just that little more clear about the ending and explaining O'Brien's character's unique talent so that the audience didn't leave the theatre completely dumbfounded (although I do feel really stupid for not having thought of my theory before now).
With all of these films, I just wanted to put it out there that these are just my own personal reflections and ruminations about the screening. There are a lot of factors that can influence someone's opinion about a film and I don't want my blog to be one of them. Go to the festival, see the films for yourself and hit me up with your thoughts. More to come on Friday.
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