FilmClick

A year after befriending her wheel-chair bound neighbors, film student and first-time filmmaker Hannah Guggenheim, began to shoot them as subjects for her master’s thesis project at SFSU. She continued to pursue the story for years after finishing her degree.  The result is Benji and Judah, an emotionally powerful story centered around twin brothers born with spina bifida, (a birth defect that involves the incomplete development of the spine during pregnancy) and their mother, Jeanette, who struggles to find a home for her physically-challenged sons and seven other children. The film screened at this yearʼs  Mill Valley Film Festival as part of the Home In the Heart series.

Benji & Judah

The film chronicles the twinsʼ lives from infancy to teenage years and begins with Jeanette explaining, how while pregnant, she had been given the grim news of their condition. She was advised to terminate the pregnancy but chose against it. Soon after the boys were born, she and her husband divorced, leaving Jeanette a single mother of eight. As the documentary unfolds, Jeanette is illustrated as the rock of the family, whose quest to provide a safe environment for her children inspires independence and strength in her sons. The family, living in limited-term government housing,  face eviction and Jeanette exhausts every possible resource to find a wheel-chair accessible home.

Much of Benji and Judah is filmed from the twinsʼ perspective. Guggenheim taught the brothers to use cameras, realizing that their story would be better told with their assistance. Four years of footage was slimmed down to just thirty-one minutes of joy, struggle and persistence.

With camera in hand, Benji and Judah come alive with the silliness of teenage boys, making faces at the camera and picking on each other as siblings do. But they also allow us an intimate view into the ups and downs of their experience. We are invited to their 17^th birthday party, bowling excursions, senior prom and long hospital visits. The bond between the brothers is evident but we are also provided insight into the different nature of each twin: Benji who exudes quiet strength and Judah, whose hard shell masks a lifetime of frustration and pain.

Benji and Judah is a story about defying the odds. An inspiring story of the determination of the human spirit, it will certainly find a home in your heart.

by Arami Reyes, FilmClick.com

Here’s a preview of the eclectic collection of short film programs at this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival’s (MVFF).

Lost Souls & Malcontent Beasties

Photo courtesy of plymptoons.com

In its tradition of showcasing adult-alluring animation, the 2008 MVFF promises a delectable array of shorts in its internationally diverse, eighty-five minute collection entitled “Lost Souls and Malcontent Beasties”. Highlights include an official selection of Annecy, the animation industry’s leading international competitive film festival, by Australian director Dennis Tuppicoff; Chainsaw (24 mins), combines 2D, 3D, and rotoscope to portray an interwoven story of love, celebrity, and the dangers of wielding a rotary saw. The 25-minute adventure spans six decades, using a chainsaw literally and figuratively as a metaphor for the dangerous character of romance. In The Tale of Little Puppetboy (13 mins), Johannes Nyhlom, a self-proclaimed “eccentric” Swedish animator shares three installments that portray his own relationship with his quirky clay-animated protagonist, Puppetboy, which recently screened at Cannes. Recipient of the special award at Annecy Jury,in My Happy Ending (5 mins), German director Milen Vitanov brings MVFF the heartwarming comedy of what happens when a dog chases, and actually succeeds in catching his own tail: they become best friends. Veteran 2D animator Bill Plympton’s Hot Dog (the six-minute sequel to academy-nominated Guard Dog) chronicles the chaos that ensue when its friendly canine hero works for the fire department.

My Date from Hell, photo courtesy of computerarts.co.uk

Two graduates of Germany’s Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Time Weinmann and Tom Bracht, use 3D animation to tell the story of an overweight devil who searches for the perfect companion when he becomes bored with running the underworld. In this fourteen-minute short, My Date from Hell, Beelzebub struggles with video dating, personal adds, and blind dates.

Saturday October 4, 6:00 PM, LOSL04R, Rafael

Tuesday, October 7, 9:15 PM, LOSL07R, Rafael

Bank of Life: A Collection of Swedish Shorts

Photo courtesy of MVFF

In this eighty-six minute collection of Swedish Short animations, narratives, and five music videos, the MVFF screens the work of these international artist who share the perspective that action, or failure to act, are the decisions that shape identity . In world premier Erik Rosenlun’s twelve minute silent animation Checkoo, an underperforming office drone risks everything in order to fit in, but find that it might not be enough, and looks to a wonder drug for assistance. The Games of Night tells the story of a young boy who fantasizes about how to get his alcoholic father to return from a bar while he waits for him to come home. Director Dan Levy Dagerman adapts the twenty-three minute film from the short story his grandfather, Stig Dagerman, wrote entitled “Nattens Lekar”.

Photo courtesy of bobfilm.se

In Magnus Holmgren’s Tile M for Murder, Dave, a disillusioned husband, attempts to escape the boredom and monotony of his marriage by attempting to kill his wife through the board game Scrabble. Mats Olof Olsson’s My Uncle Loved the Colour Yellow shares the story of family and mental illness as Martin celebrates his 12th birthday with his Uncle Helmer, who always gives him a yellow-colored birthday present. Karolina Johnsson’s The First Day depicts an elderly man’s revelation when he is sent to a nursing home. Håkan Wennström’s animates Thomas Tidholm’s narration of his own poem Outside Life. A series of five music videos from renowned video director Magnus Renfors that explore heartache, mystery and yearning, will act as interludes throughout the shorts.

Saturday, October 4, 3:30 pm, BRIN04R, Rafael

Thursday October 9, 9:45BRIN09R, Rafael

Décopage Digital: V(ision) Fest Shorts

Ranging from ostentatiously expressionistic to achingly poetic, V(ision) Fest’s experimental short films program will reach the hearts and minds of anyone who has sought inspiration in a dream. Both Mosaic Mecanique (Tiffany Doesken-Polos, US 6 mins) and Murmur (Peter Bryne, Carole Woodlock, and Michaela Eremiasova US 6 mins) venture through the porous membrane between reality and virtual imagery and sound. In There Is No There There (US 4 mins), Samuel Stout pays homage to the late Stan Brakhage, an experimental American film maker. Delhi Hankerchief (Steve Friendship, UK 8 mins) and Through Your Eyes (Baba Hillman, US 8 mins) are lyrical story-fragments that connect women with the cycles of nature. A Song For Everyday ( Welseley Wetherington, US 4 mins), ONeHeADWOrD PrOteCtiON (Igor and Invan Buharov, Canada 7 mins), and Pure (Jacob Bricca US 5 mins) are montage based films that offer social commentary and satire. The Secret Apocalyptic Love Diaries (Enid Baxter Blader, US 12 mins) , Ella and the Astronaut (Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck, US 8 mins), and Through Trackless Waters (Elizabeth Henry, US 13 mins) explore the difficulty of human relations, ranging from those more intimate to the intergalactic.

Saturday October 4, 1:00 PMDEC04T, 142 Throckmorton

Saturday, October 11, 6:30 PMDEC11T, 142 Throckmorton

Presented by the California Film Institute, The Mill Valley Film Festival celebrates the best independent and world cinema from October 2-12, 2008 at the CineArts at Sequoia, the Christopher B. Smith San Rafael Film Center and other venues throughout the Bay Area.  Tickets and more information are available at www.mvff.com.

by Lily Saltzberg, FilmClick.com
http://filmclick.com/lilsaltz

September 12, 2008

I had the opportunity this week to sit in on a briefing about this year’s 31st edition of the Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF).  Luckily, I’m the one who gets to cover this event, since it’s right in FilmClick’s backyard, the San Francisco Bay Area.  For those of you who haven’t heard of the it, or for those who are contemplating a visit to the area during the festival (the weather is great here in October), the Mill Valley Film Festival is a non-competitive event presented by the California Film Institute with events in Mill Valley and San Rafael and a few other venues throughout the Bay Area.  It is generally regarded as a top showcase for independent and world cinema, and, for local film-lovers, it’s a don’t-miss event.  As usual, Mill Valley is showcasing a wide variety of films, events, niche presentations, concerts and more.  I’ll be detailing these events in the weeks leading up to the festival.

The first thing that caught my eye this year is a new endeavor they’re calling Active Cinema.  “I’ve lost count of how many times people have come up to me after a particularly inspiring screening wondering how they could put the film’s message into action in their daily lives,” says Zoe Elton, MVFF’s director of programming.  This reminded me of a few experiences at festivals, most recently opening night at LaborFest after the Ken Loach film, It’s a Free World.  People were talking after that film, just like people were talking after The 11th Hour.  The 11th Hour gave a website to join groups that would take action.  I wonder how that went…I’ll have to investigate.

MVFF’s idea is a program called “Active Cinema: A Creative Social Action Network”.  They hope to provide a catalyst that connects social, environmental and human rights films with the audiences that are inspired by them and the organizations that work on the issues addressed in the films.   The idea is about turning ideas into deeds through activity.  They’re sponsoring a tree planting in relation to two films showing at the festival, Children of the Amazon and Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai.

Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

In total, there are thirteen films which will seek to inspire viewers to become doers, including Tim Disney’s American Violet, Makoto Sasa’s film Fire Under the Snow, and Archeology of Memory by Quique Cruz and Marilyn Mumford.   There’s also a panel discussion called the Active Cinema Roundtable on October 5, which will look at the funding and creation of socially conscious or issue driven films.  Check out Mill Valley’s website at www.mvff.com for more information.

This year’s edition of Cinemasports is also supporting the Active Cinema theme.  I’m thinking of fielding a FilmClick team, if anyone’s interested.

Presented by the California Film Institute, The Mill Valley Film Festival celebrates the best independent and world cinema from October 2-12, 2008 at the CineArts at Sequoia, the Christopher B. Smith San Rafael Film Center and other venues throughout the Bay Area.  Tickets and more information are available at www.mvff.com.

by Christopher Potter, FilmClick.com producer, http://www.filmclick.com/cspotter,  cpotter@filmclick.com