Rounding up the unusual suspects

Eclectic array of pros, amateurs hit town with films

By Matthew Barrett

Daily Film Editor

Let's face it, these days the prospect of going to the movies seems pretty bleak. You've already seen all the Oscar-nominated movies and are now forced to satisfy your movie cravings by either seeing "American Beauty" or "Magnolia" for the fourth time (which could be worse) or bide your time sitting through tripe like "Mission To Mars."

Well, this week, the Michigan Theater has the cure for what ails you - the 38th Ann Arbor Film Festival. The festival, which kicked off this past Tuesday and continues through this Sunday, provides a forum for filmmakers to showcase their 16-millimeter work.

According to Vicki Honeyman, who's in her 13th year as festival director, the Ann Arbor Film Festival is a place for "16-millimeter experimental filmmakers from around the world." (The festival includes filmmakers representing England and Germany this year.)

Honeyman was part of a screening committee of five which, every night for six weeks, viewed the 380 short films aspirants submitted to the festival. Eventually, the committee voted on the films for the festival, settling on 114 different films (most of them short films of length less than your average sitcom) that will be screened throughout the event.

Although many films didn't make the screening cut, all entries are eligible for the awards that the festival hands out, which range from Best of the Festival to Most Promising Filmmaker. Several awards are sponsored by individuals or companies; these include the Lawrence Kasdan Award (Best Narrative Film), the Michael Moore Award (Best Documentary Film) and the Tio's Red Hot & Spicy Award (presented at the judging panel's discretion). Honeyman also said it's not uncommon for the jurors to select a film that's not being screened for an award.

Choosing the awards won't be easy, but it's left up to the festival's jurors - Portia Cobb, Ann Marie Fleming and Matthias Muller, all of whom are respected filmmakers in their own right.

"I've been doing this for a long time, so I know who the makers are out there. So I look for people with strong reputations, who I think would be interesting in a group together and would have interesting impacts on what's awarded," Honeyman said. All the jurors have a good deal of experience working in 16-millimeter. The films selected for awards will be shown at three separate screenings on Sunday.

Along with the varied slate of films submitted by more experienced filmmakers, the festival will be screening films made by local middle and high school students as part of an outreach program to the community. The students, who shot and edited their films on 16-millimeter film, were helped along by Alfonso Alvarez, a filmmaker from San Francisco.

Alvarez spent six weeks teaching students the ways of film production and then helping them along with their work. There will be two special screenings for the students' work - Thursday at 11:45 a.m. and Saturday at 11 a.m. Now Alvarez has another reason to be back in Ann Arbor - he has a film of his own showing at the festival. "Flip Film" is a flip-book style animation piece which Alvarez directed along with Ellen Ugelstad.

Honeyman said the festival provides viewers with a rare chance to see some non-mainstream films on the big screen. "It's a totally unique experience to see works of moving art on the screen. You don't really have an opportunity to see these works elsewhere," Honeyman said. "We've got animation, experimental, documentary, narrative and there's a couple world premieres this year.

"We've also got a couple of really fun screenings - one film is being shown in Cinemascope, another film is with live organ accompaniment, another film is in 3-D (3-D glasses will be distributed at the theater). So it's just a really fun experience and totally different than going to Showcase."

Honeyman is also excited for the future of a festival which in the past has showcased the early work of directors including George Lucas, Brian DePalma and Gus Van Sant (who went on to direct "Good Will Hunting").

"16 (millimeter filmmaking) is not disappearing. It's a really, really strong and viable medium for artists to use and what I see happening is that people are really excited by being able to still use it, even though there's all this new technology that's available," Honeyman said.

"They're able to mix the new technology with the old and it's really exciting because there's a lot more available to work with," she continued. So those who take advantage of a special film festival in their own backyard and head over to the Michigan Theater this weekend will be in for a completely different film experience.

Courtesy of Relah Eckstein

From left, Kent Moorman, Lucy and Allie Eckstein in a scene from Relah Eckstein's short film "Lucy's Dream."