AIFF 2009 - Documentaries in Competition

"Films in Competition," according to the AIFF website, are "the official selections that are chosen by our prescreening committee to be entered into competition."  Documentaries are the film version of "non-fiction."

There are eight Documentary films - 8 hours and 21 minutes of viewing - in competition.  Note:  The shorter ones (under 30 minutes) are grouped into "Programs."  As I write this it isn't easy to find which programs they are in on the AIFF website, but they are clearly identified on page 6 of the free newsprint AIFF guide.  I've also identified the programs of the three shorter documentary films in competition.  All the documentaries are showing either at   Alaska Experience Theater or the  Anchorage Museum and most have one showing at each.   Additionally, Circus Rosaire director Karen Bliley will do a documentary workshop at Out North Theatre.  In addition the award winning films in all categories will get extra showings between Dec. 14 and 17.  Those showings will be announced on the AIFF website.

Get to similar posts on films in competition for features and shorts by clicking the links.


A Sea Change  Norway/U.S.  85 minutes
Director: Barbara Ettinger

Sun.  12/6      5:30 A Sea Change  Alaska Experience Theater

Sat.   12/12    6:00 A Sea Change  Anchorage Museum
(Photo from A Sea Change website.)

Imagine a world without fish

It’s a frightening premise, and it’s happening right now. A Sea Change follows the journey of retired history teacher Sven Huseby on his quest to discover what is happening to the world’s oceans. After reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Darkening Sea,” Sven becomes obsessed with the rising acidity of the oceans and what this “sea change” bodes for mankind. His quest takes him to Alaska, California, Washington, and Norway as he uncovers a worldwide crisis that most people are unaware of. Speaking with oceanographers, marine biologists, climatologists, and artists, Sven discovers that global warming is only half the story of the environmental catastrophe that awaits us. Excess carbon dioxide is dissolving in our oceans, changing sea water chemistry. [From the film's full service website. So's the video below]

If you want to know more, there's a Washington Post reviewer who details what she liked and didn't like about the film:

A Deep Dive Into Troubled Waters
By Ann Hornaday
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The handsome, rigorously researched documentary "A Sea Change," playing Saturday at the Environmental Film Festival, calls for some tough love on the part of even the most sympathetic viewer. [more]

A Time Comes: The Story of the Kingsnorth Six UK 20 minutes (This is part of the Documentary Program Relentless Behavior which includes the films My Toxic Baby  and  Frequent Flyer.  Frequent Flyer is also in competition.)
Director:  Nick Broomfield
Sunday, December 6 – 4:00pm –  Anchorage Museum
Thursday, December 10 – Alaska Experience Theater

Director Nick Broomfield has made a 20 minute film celebrating the spirit of direct action. This Bright Green Pictures film tells the story of the Kingsnorth Six, a group of Greenpeace volunteers who scaled the 220m chimney at a coal fired power station in Kent in 2007 to protest against government plans to build new coal plants across Britain. 

The film features the music of Nick Laird-Clowes performed by David Gilmore of Pink Floyd among others.
Greenpeace wants you to see this, so they have the whole film up at their site and I've embedded it below freeing you up to see something else that night.  Or you can wait to see it on the big screen.  


A Time Comes - the story of the Kingsnorth Six from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.



Circus Rosaire  U.S.   90 min
Director: Robyn Bliley
Saturday, December 5, 2009 - 3:15pm   Alaska Experience Theater
Friday, December 11, 2009 - 8:15pm     Anchorage Museum

For nine generations, the Rosaire family has entertained audiences all over the world with their legendary animal acts. The circus industry is changing, however, and the Rosaires have fallen on hard times. Their poignant way of dealing with hilarious relationships and tragedy reflects the circus they call life.

The video, from the Dallas AFI 2008, includes clips from the trailer and an interview of 


There's  more at the Circus Rosaire website including these comments from co-producer and director Robyn Bliley (Sheila Segerson's daughter.)

I’ve known the Rosaire family since I was six years old and have been intrigued by their way of life in the circus and their devoted and loving relationships they have with their animal partners. Having a long and trusting relationship with the Rosaire family has allowed me incredible access to an otherwise very private family. . .

The domestication of wild animals and the use of animals in circuses is a hot button topic for many of us. And although I don’t support or condone all circus animal trainers, I believe the Rosaire family provides us with an incredible and unique example of how people can use animals in entertainment while treating them with respect, dignity and love.

By the way, Robyn is going to lead a workshop on documentary film making at the festival.

Get Real: A Short Course in Documentary Filmmaking
Sunday, Dec. 13, 3 PM / Out North Theatre
Robyn Bliley, director of the feature-length documentary, Circus Rosaire.
How does a documentary filmmaker choose subject matter, sketch out the story and stay true to real life? Find out the basics of directing, producing and acting in documentary films and fire away with questions of your own. (Robyn Bliley Photo from Circus Rosaire site.)

Frequent Flyer  U.S.    20 minutes (This is part of the Documentary Program Relentless Behavior which includes the films My Toxic Baby  and  A Time comes.  A Time Comes is also in competition.)
Director: Gabriel Leigh

Sunday, December 6 – 4:00pm –  Anchorage Museum
Thursday, December 10 – Alaska Experience Theater

"Frequent Flyer" is a 20-minute documentary about frequent flyer miles, the people who collect them, and the world of airports and airplanes that they inhabit. Fittingly, I traveled around 35,000 miles in the making of it, from Osaka, Japan to Punta del Este, Uruguay.

The result is a look at the world of miles and some of its most enthusiastic participants, examining how miles and points have become an important world currency and, in turn, an obsession for those who have figured out ways to earn them in the millions. [Photo and text from Gabriel Leigh's Vimeo Page]

Frequent Flyer from Gabriel Leigh on Vimeo.

Playground  U.S.   87 minutes
Director: Libby Spears
Sat.  12/5  3:15 Anchorage Museum

Sexual exploitation of children is a problem that we tend to relegate to back-alley brothels in developing countries, the province of a particularly inhuman, and invariably foreign, criminal element. Such is the initial premise of Libby Spears’ sensitive investigation into the topic. But she quickly concludes that very little thrives on this planet without American capital, and the commercial child sex industry is certainly thriving. Spears intelligently traces the epidemic to its disparate, and decidedly domestic, roots—among them the way children are educated about sex, and the problem of raising awareness about a crime that inherently cannot be shown. Her cultural observations are couched in an ongoing mystery story: the search for Michelle, an American girl lost to the underbelly of childhood sexual exploitation who has yet to resurface a decade later.

Executive produced by George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Steven Soderbergh, and punctuated with poignant animation by Japanese pop artist Yoshitomo Nara, Playground illuminates a sinister industry of unrecognized pervasiveness. Spears has crafted a comprehensive revelation of an unknown epidemic, essential viewing for any parent or engaged citizen. [This continues at the Nest Foundation website, where I also got the Yoshitomo Nara drawing.]

See Shadow Billionaire below and Luksus (in shorts in competiton) for other films touching on this topic from different perspectives. 

Shadow Billionaire - U.S.  86 minutes
Director: Alexis Spraic
 Sunday Dec. 6  7:45pm  Alaska Experience Theater
Saturday Dec. 12  3:15pm Alaska Experience Theater

“Shadow Billionaire” – Documentary Review
By Yuan-Kwan Chan

Alexis Manya Spraic’s debut film looks back at the surreal life of Larry Hillblom, the founder and ‘H’ in shipping company DHL who disappeared in a 1995 plane crash. At the time, the eccentric American was living in tax-free haven Saipan. It was here that the law school graduate’s name became entangled in a legal battle involving paternity tests, his sordid lifestyle and his shoddily written will – with his staggeringly lucrative estate at stake. Buoyed by first-person accounts and historical footage, “Shadow Billionaire” admirably tackles Hillblom’s story but doesn’t quite succeed in its execution. (You can read the rest of this review at meniscuszine.)

There's another interesting review at A Regretable  Moment of Sincerity, which also alerts us that this film, along two other films in competition - Luksus (features) and Playground - deals with sexual exploitation of children.

[Update Nov. 26:  Alexis emailed to suggest a couple of other reviews readers might want to look at:

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117940101.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=4282]

The Shadow Billionaire website is visually interesting, but is thin in content in some tabs.



Tapped U.S.   76 minutes
Director: Sarah Olson Stephanie Soechtig  (Sarah's the Producer)


Sunday Dec. 6  1:00pm  Alaska Experience Theater
Friday  Dec. 11  8:00pm  Alaska Experience Theater 
(Image from Greenzer.)


From Mary Vincent at the Examiner.com:

'Tapped' is a new documentary featuring the virtually unregulated business of bottled water and its lifecycle, including health, environmental, and human rights issues. Documentary interviews include community members, politicians, scientists, and government agency representatives. I'm grateful to have seen the Tapped documentary and interviewed Director, Stephanie Soechtig. I will share the Trailer and our discussion below including actions we as citizens, community members, consumers, business owners, and governments can take today. [You can read the interview here.]

Tapped's website: http://www.tappedthemovie.com is very slick and very user unfriendly.  It has its own scrollbar you have to use and content is not copyable. 

Trip to Hell and Back U.S. 29 minutes [In Documentary Short Film Program "Road to Redemption" with Girls on the Wall]
Director: Stu Maddux
Tuesday Dec. 8  8pm Alaska Experience Theater
Saturday Dec. 12  3:15pm   Anchorage Museum

From Trip to Hell and Back website:

World-renowned horse rider Trip Harting juggles his very public life of horse riding with his secret, crazed life of using and selling huge amounts of methamphetamine. He becomes one of the largest dealers in the Washington DC area.

DEA agents finally bust Harting in an upscale hotel lobby and charge him with crimes that will likely send him to jail for the rest of his life.

Now struggling to keep even more secrets to save his career he begins learning to tell the truth to save his life. The spiritual journey transforms him into a new person.

Two years later a judge asks a changed Harting for any final words before he is sentenced.  Those final words will reveal if he has changed enough to deserve a second chance.

Production:

Harting himself was willing to recreate the scenes necessary to put his story on film.  “If it can help just one other person, then any backlash is worth it.”

But as “Trip to Hell and Back” had its first screening in August, 2008, Trip suddenly found that everything he had gone through was preparation for an even greater challenge: a terminal illness. He died just three weeks after the film premiered.

Harting remained a profoundly changed person to his last day hoping this documentary would spread his message that ‘”truth is an incredibly powerful thing.”

Trip to Hell and Back - trailer from Stu Maddux on Vimeo.