Watch till you drop (or your eyes glaze over with bliss).
In its sixth season, the Santa Fe Film Festival has taken its game to a whole new level. "We had so many more quality submissions than in the past that we had to turn away some excellent films, films we probably would have taken a year or two ago," admits festival director Jon Bowman. The advancing caliber of the entrants can be seen clearly in the five-day roster of 80 feature-length films and documentaries that made the cut (plus a fistful of programs consisting entirely of shorts).
Overwhelmed? Understandably. At their worst, film festivals can be like those $5.99 buffets in Las Vegas where you feel morally obligated to eat as many lobster tails and as much bacon-wrapped filet mignon as possible, and end up feeling bilious and not a little depressed. Not to mention the fact that we inhabit a nation defined more by its relationship to excess than its acquaintance with restraint. Fortunately, the Screener has, like those scrubbing bubbles of porcelain-cleansing infamy, done the work so you don't have to (or in this case, watched a small armada of movies and spent hours with press kits and anxious filmmakers so you don't have to)-just follow our handy annual guide to get more bang for your festival buck.
Among movies about art, artists and experimental filmmaking in general, catch the world premiere of
Euphoria
,
a hybrid child of PBS documentaries and the paintings of Magritte. With his kooky, laid-back persona and spry visuals, filmmaker and narrator Lee Boot has translated some of the film's most alien concepts (dendrites, reward pathways, the limbic brain, dysphoria) into accessible animation and lovely loopy sequences, such as one in which frantic people shove shopping carts through wet sand into the ocean, trying to fill them with random consumer goods as they go.
Beautiful Daughters
,
another premiere, will inevitably have you snuffling and scrabbling in your purse for tissues-it's a record of the first-ever performance of Eve Ensler's
The Vagina Monologues
by a gutsy group of transgendered women who speak frankly about their experiences as gender outlaws. Cartoon freaks won't want to miss the
Parade of Animation,
with its 15 high-quality shorts; jazz aficionados should make sure to take in
Cecil Taylor: All the Notes
, a thoughtful documentary about the MacArthur-winning pianist's pioneering work; and the engrossing
Stolen
, with narration by Blythe Danner and Campbell Scott, follows the search of two real-life "art detectives" who hope to recover 11 paintings stolen in 1990-the largest art heist in history. Oh, and don't forget
The Life and Crimes of Ron English
, profiling the agit-prop Pop public artist and his often illegal Adbusters-style pieces.
The SFFF has long had a special focus on bringing different cultures to our front doorstop, be it from the steppes of Central Asia to the jungles of Chiapas. If you're a foreign film buff, you'll probably see them all, but for we lesser mortals, focus on
Kirin over Mongolia
, a surprisingly stirring account of the ancient art of falconry, taught to boys by men (with some hair-raising scenery);
High Ambitions in the Himalaya
, if you want to get your fix of mountain climbers going where they really shouldn't, pickaxing along with icicles in their beards, sherpas leaving them in the (snow) dust and bits of their faces occasionally sliding off; and
A Cry for Madiom
, which mercilessly personalizes the political-the child of the title is a 5-year-old Sudanese boy starving before our eyes. To recover, there's
The Last Bissu
, about a sect of sacred transvestites from a remote Indonesian island-and Saidi, their high priest, who's determined that their tradition should not die out.
We like the looks of
Stay Until Tomorrow
, making the festival rounds and attracting attention for its strong young actress Eleanor Hutchins and its sensual, dreamy direction, recalling that of Wong Kar-Wai.
The Sisters
will probably play to a sold-out theater; it's a fiery, no-holds-barred adaptation of Chekhov's play, with Maria Bello, Erika Christensen and Mary Stuart Masterson as the three siblings and Rip Torn as unofficial family therapist "The Doctor." There's finally a film about Japanese-American soldiers in World War II; Lane Nishikawa wrote and directed
Only the Brave
, about just such an infantry unit on a rescue mission in France, and he brings together a tight ensemble cast (some of whom will be in attendance), including a cameo from the late Pat Morita. Comedies in particular stand out this year among the indies: Alan Berger's
Halfway Decent
(see
), as well as
Jesus the Driver
(in which Mexican immigrant Jesus Hernandez, desperate for paying work, unwittingly accepts the position of driving the getaway car for two redneck criminals)-and
Love, Ludlow
, built along the lines of
What's Eating Gilbert Grape;
Alicia Goranson (yup, Becky from
Rosanne
) plays tough-talking secretary Myra, who lives with and cares for her disturbed brother Ludlow until she and a shy office-mate (
Sex in the City
's David Eigenberg) begin a cautious romance, threatening Ludlow's primacy in her life and opening up risky new possibilities for all.
Everyone loves a gala, and this year won't be an exception, as the lineup is unprecedented. Catch 'em all, if you can still get tickets to what will surely be sold-out houses, but above all make sure to take in the hotly anticipated
Brokeback Mountain
-yes, that's right, the "gay cowboy movie," based on Annie Proulx's short story, adapted for the screen by the Tributee team of McMurtry and Ossana and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as the Marlboro Men who fall for each other, and fall hard. America may not be quite ready for homos on the range, but Ang Lee hasn't failed us yet (
The Ice Storm, Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
) and
Brokeback
promises to be exquisitely made and not in the least redolent of cause célébre. The other one that's got critics salivating already is
Mrs. Henderson Presents
, with Dame Judi Dench as Laura Henderson, the enterprising society woman who founded the historic Windmill Theater. Thinking way outside the box, the savvy Mrs. H. lured London audiences away from moving pictures and back into music halls via a clever loophole in the British civic code: Nude women (and presumably men, but let's be realistic) were allowed to appear on stage as long as they didn't move (the better for impecunious art students to sketch them, presumably). Could it all be a metaphor for dwindling cinema audiences? Are naked girls the ticket to, well, selling more tickets? The inimitable Bob Hoskins co-stars and the entirety is helmed by Blighty's beloved director Stephen Frears. Fans of Stephen Soderbergh's work won't want to miss his curious
Bubble
, an unnerving mystery set in small-town Ohio (and cast primarily with non-professional actors). Literally last but certainly not least, the closing-night show will be
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
, directed by (and starring) Tommy Lee Jones and, most excitingly, written by Guillermo Arriaga (
Amores Perros, 21 Grams
), who netted the Best Screenplay award at Cannes for his work here (while Jones carted off Best Actor).
The names of this year's five awardees garner slow, comprehensive nods from film people; though many of us may never have heard of them, we've probably enjoyed the fruits of their labors without realizing it. To celebrate their achievements, there'll be films from cinema icon LM Kit Carson (producer of Wes Anderson's and the Wilson brothers' breakout
Bottle Rocket
, actor in the 1967 mockumentary
David Holzman's Diary
, writer of such screenplays as
The American Dreamer
,
with Dennis Hopper), the Texan dynamic duo of screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (
Brokeback Mountain, The Last Picture Show
), nervy Russian director Pavel Chukhray (
The Thief, A Driver for Vera
) and ethnomusicologist Robert Mugge, for over 30 years Mississippi's filmmaker in residence and documentarian of America's most precious musical traditions (
Deep Blues, Last of the Mississippi Juke Joints)
. Pick one tributee and watch the entire oeuvre, or take in one of each-either way, you win.
Gray is the new black, Sunday is the new Saturday, sleep is the new sex and documentaries are the new feature films. Gorge yourself on reality (or anyway its translucent simulacrum), particularly with
Edgar Cayce: The Beautiful Dreamer
, a look into the life of the medical intuitive which so involuntarily enthralled yours truly that she watched a good deal of it standing up, accidentally, caught en route.
Inlaws and Outlaws
relies on a pure interview format, with ample and hilarious footage of tiny children opining about marriage and moving on to adults, who discuss same-sex partnership and their own lives within and without the formal institution.
Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories
will be exactly that, the result of a two-month stint on the ground by Mike Shiley (who had no previous filmmaking or journalism experience). It sounds weird, but trust us: You want to see
Minik
, the true, and tragic, story of an Eskimo boy and his family who were brought to Victorian-era New York basically as exhibits of the Museum of Natural History. And you can feed your escapist fantasies with
Queen of the Mountain,
the unofficial title of archaeologist Theresa Goell, who in the '20s and '30s left husband, son and good-Jewish-girl life to pursue her own adventures among the ruins of Turkey.
With most of our "Hecho in New Mexico" entrants siphoned off proudly into their own special festival last week, the Southwest entrants are all so much the crème de la crème that it's hard to choose among them, but there are a few clear stand-outs. We recommend
Burning Man: Black Rock
, whose filmmakers spent 18 months among the notorious "gift economy" community (talk about doing the work so you don't have to…) exploring the dreams of its participants to take their show on the road, so to speak, spreading their subculture beyond an annual desert gathering. In addition, take in the
unclassifiable
Radiant
(maybe if Stanley Kubrick had made
Outbreak
, or Cocteau had filmed
The Andromeda Strain
), a desert-plague-apocalypse story with ethereal, disjointed imagery that will stay in your mind long after you've forgotten what the film's about. Finally, try to see Monty Lapica's autobiographical
Self Medicated
, with a harrowing performance from Diane Venona as the addict's mother;
Losing Ground
, based on the stage play and unfolding in a Las Vegas poker bar in real time; an edge-of-your-seat documentary whose title (
Dirt
) may sound dull, but this up-close and gritty look into the world of stock-car drivers is anything but; and
Formosa
, a vintage-dineresque comedy set in 1950s Albuquerque.
Festival Office
1616 St. Michael's Drive
Tickets for individual Films: 989-1495, Festival passes: 989-1958
Scottish Rite Temple
463 Paseo de Peralta
UA DeVargas
564 N. Guadalupe St.
Santa Fe Film Center
1616 St. Michael's Drive
The Screen
College of Santa Fe, 1600 St. Michael's Drive
Tipton Hall
College of Santa Fe, 1600 St. Michael's Drive
The Forum
College of Santa Fe, 1600 St. Michael's Drive
CCA Cinematheque
1050 Old Pecos Trail
Kathryn O'Keeffe Theater
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Museum Hill, 710 Camino Lejo
Auditorium
Museum of International Folk Art, Museum Hill,
706 Camino Lejo
Santa Fe Reporter