16th Annual AT&T St. Louis
International Film Festival
Documentaries
Afghan Muscles
Andreas Dalsgaard, Denmark, 2006, 58 min.
Farsi and English with English subtitles
Monday, Nov. 12, 5 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
In post-Taliban Afghanistan, the extremely popular sport of bodybuilding is an island of normalcy in an ocean of lingering chaos. Seeing the aficionados of the sport pour their passion into a pastime that barely registers in the rest of the world is somehow desperately compelling; the conditions under which practitioners train reveal just how far a little hope and faith can go in the wake of more than three decades of conflict. The film focuses on Noor and Hamid, the strongest men in Kabul. Last year, they were both champions in their category, the first competition since the Taliban came to power. They are modern men – educated and trendy – but still as humble and polite as the Afghan code of conduct demands.
Director Dalsgaard will attend.
America the Beautiful
Darryl Roberts, USA, 2007, 105 min.
Monday, Nov. 12, 7:15 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
In a society where “celebutantes” such as Paris Hilton dominate newsstands and aspiring models who weigh less than 90 pounds die from malnutrition, the lofty and mostly unobtainable standards we have placed on the concept of the ideal female body image is one of the more dire problems facing both men and women of all ages. “America the Beautiful” probes our national cultural obsession with beauty and arbitrary cultural definitions of what the human body, the female in particular, should look like. Director/producer Darryl Roberts illuminates a variety of important, relevant issues: child models, plastic surgery, celebrity worship, airbrushed advertising, and potentially dangerous cosmetics.
Director Roberts will attend.
An American Opera
Thomas McPhee, USA, 2007, 91 min.
Friday, Nov. 16, 7:30 p.m., Webster University
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, America suffered the worst domestic animal crisis in its history. Tens of thousands of beloved house pets were left to perish in neighborhoods all across the Gulf when the owners were forced to evacuate. Director Tom McPhee traveled to Gonzales, La., just knowing he needed to help somehow. He volunteered at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center and found himself photographically documenting thousands of rescued animals. Through all the chaos, it quickly became clear that everyone wasn’t working toward the same goal. For the next 16 months, he would document this historic event as it unfolded, trying to understand where it all went wrong.
Director McPhee will attend and participate in a panel on the issues the film raises. Other panel members include Ken Foster, resident of New Orleans and author of “Dogs I Have Met” and “The Dogs Who Found Me,” and Chris Green, producer of “Low and Behold” and animal-rights attorney.
Gold Camera Award at 2007 U.S. International Film and Video Festival; Gold Award at 2007 WorldFest Houston
Sponsored by Animal Farm Foundation
Banished
Marco Williams, USA, 2007, 86 min.
Sunday, Nov. 11, 7:15 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
Leave or die: This was the choice white majority residents in a dismaying number of cities gave African-Americans between the end of the Civil War and the Great Depression. “Banished” reveals a shameful, hidden chapter in American history, told through the stories of three towns: Pierce City, Mo.; Harrison, Ark.; and Forsyth County, Ga. The echoes of racial injustice during the past century still reverberate in these communities, which forced out their entire African-American populations and remain all white to this day. Filmmaker Williams traveled to each town, conspicuous as the only African-American, and interviewed historians, civic leaders, residents, and the descendants of families who left their communities and property behind as they fled for their lives. His conversations sharply highlight the way these towns confront or ignore their legacy, and the roadblocks he encounters point to the difficulties facing reconciliation and reparation.
Director Williams will attend.
Call of the Wild
Ron Lamothe, USA, 2007, 105 min.
Saturday, Nov. 17, 7:30 p.m., Webster University
An experiment in reflexive direct cinema, this film retraces the travels of Chris McCandless, a 24-year-old “aesthetic voyager” who starved to death in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992. Over the course of his journey, which takes him through 30 states, two Canadian provinces, and Mexico, filmmaker Ron Lamothe (“The Political Dr. Seuss”) encounters an entire cast of McCandless-inspired characters – some who knew Chris, some who didn’t. He also keeps running into Sean Penn, who’s in the midst of making “Into the Wild,” the recently released Hollywood adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s best-selling book about McCandless’ story. In Alaska, the film uncovers never-before-seen evidence that sheds new light on the case and directly contradicts Krakauer’s interpretation of McCandless’ death.
Director Lamothe will attend.
Chicago 10
Brett Morgen, USA, 2007, 103 min.
Saturday, Nov. 17, 4:45 p.m., Plaza Frontenac
Director Brett Morgen (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”) brings us this stylish, provocative dramatic reconstruction of the violent events surrounding the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention. With the Vietnam War in full swing and Lyndon Johnson sending more conscripted troops to the increasingly unpopular conflict, a group of radicals and hippies envisioned a peace march to coincide with a national political rally. The film uses a deft mixture of archival footage, re-creation, animation, and music to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were famously put on trial facing multiple charges of “civil unrest” that resulted in a showdown between the forces of government and nearly 15,000 protesters. Among the actors who provide the voices during the animated trial-transcript sequences are Liev Schreiber, Nick Nolte, Roy Scheider and Mark Ruffalo.
Darius Goes West: The Roll of His Life
Logan Smalley, USA, 2007, 94 min.
Saturday, Nov. 10, 12:30 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
Darius Weems, a 15-year-old living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, had never left his hometown of Athens, Ga. In the summer of 2005, he and a group of young college students traveled across the country in a wheelchair-friendly RV to test handicapped accessibility in the United States. Their ultimate goal was to reach Los Angeles and convince MTV’s hit show “Pimp My Ride” to customize Darius’ wheelchair. Along the way in this multiple award-winning film, they found joy, brotherhood, and the sweet knowledge that life, even when imperfect, is always worth the ride.
Audience Awards for Best Documentary Feature at 2007 Cleveland International Film Festival, 2007 AFI Dallas International Film Festival, 2007 Atlanta Film Festival, 2007 Boston Independent Film Festival, 2007 Jackson Hole Film Festival, 2007 Omaha Film Festival, 2007 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and 2007 Palm Beach International Film Festival
Documentary Shorts Program
98 min.
Wednesday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m., Webster University
A sampling of documentary shorts with local connections:
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“Czech Daze,” Anne Moore, USA, 2006, 36 min.
Narrated by the old-timers of Clarkson, Neb., “Czech Daze” takes a comic but heartfelt look at how a small Midwestern community has kept its Czechoslovakian traditions alive.
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“Death By,” Joe Leonard, USA, 2006, 12 min.
Leslie Andrews is obsessed with death, specifically her own. Inspired by the crime-scene photos her dad showed her as a child, she started taking photographs of her dead self in various fascinating, morbid, and often beautiful ways.
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“The Journeys We Must Take,” Gerry Mandel, USA, 2007, 30 min.
The compelling story behind the Lewis and Clark sculpture on the St. Louis riverfront, featuring the internationally renowned sculptor Harry Weber and the people who made the project happen.
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“Never the Less,” Pier Marton, USA, 2007, 4 min.
In the shadow of silence, Dr. Avivah Zornberg, a renowned Torah scholar, explores the edges of speech. What is it we never hear?
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“90-Love,” Pat Scallet, USA, 2007, 16 min.
Meet the 90-year-olds (and “olders”) who are competing for the coveted gold tennis ball medal in the USTA Men’s 90’s National Grass Court Championships at Longwood Cricket Club outside of Boston.
Directors Leonard, Mandel, Marton, Moore, and Scallet will attend.
Sponsored by St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission
Election Day
Katy Chevigny, USA, 2007, 84 min.
Sunday, Nov. 11, 4:30 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
Capturing people from all walks of life and many locales, including St. Louis, “Election Day” follows an eclectic group of voters over one day — Election Day 2004 — from the early morning until well after midnight. The film presents a glimpse of the real-life stories behind the complex electoral process and gives audiences a portrait of American elections that is expansive, revealing, and intimate. The film offers an entertaining and sometimes unsettling tapestry of stories about citizens who are determined on one fateful day to make their vote count.
Director Chevigny will attend.
First Saturday in May
Brad and John Hennegan, USA, 2006, 90 min.
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2:30 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
Some 40,000 baby horses are born each year, but only 20 eventually make it to the Kentucky Derby – racing’s Holy Grail and the most exciting two minutes in sports. Just to get a horse to the gate in the world’s most prestigious race defies the odds. “First Saturday in May” follows six Derby hopefuls, including racing hero Barbaro, one of the most famous horses of the last 60 years. Whether you are a casual fan or an inside “race-tracker,” euphoria and heartbreak inevitably result when the legendary bugle call sounds on the first Saturday in May.
Director Brad Hennegan will be in attendance
Winner Best Documentary and the HBO Films Producer Award at 2007 Savannah Film Festival
Follow the Second Line
Valerie Shields, USA/France, 2007, 73 min.
Non-public screening as part of Cinema for Students
Among the many devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina was the displacement of the musicians who pump so much life into N’Awlins nightlife. “Follow the Second Line,” a documentary work-in-progress, traces the path of two accomplished musicians - clarinet player Evan Christopher and pianist Tom McDermott - from their pre-Katrina days to Paris and back to the U.S.
Director Shields will attend, and McDermott, a St. Louis native, will perform.
Hear and Now
Irene Taylor Brodsky, USA, 2007, 85 min.
Saturday, Nov. 10, 4:30 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
Sunday, Nov. 11, 4:30 p.m., Tivoli Theatre (fully captioned for hearing impaired)
In this deeply personal memoir, filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky documents her deaf parents’ complex decision to leave the silent world they had known and undergo a dangerous surgery to get cochlear implants, the only mechanical item that can restore any of the senses. At the age of 65, Paul and Sally Taylor decided they wanted to hear their first symphonies, hear their children’s’ voices, and talk on the phone. How will this operation transform them, their relationship with each other, and the deaf world they might leave behind? This is a story of two people taking a profound journey from silence to sound. The question is, what will they make of it, and what might they gain – or lose – forever?
Director Taylor Brodsky and subjects Paul and Sally Taylor – both former students at St. Louis’ Central Institute for the Deaf – will attend.
Audience Award for Best Documentary at 2007 Sundance Film Festival
Sponsored by Central Institute for the Deaf
How to Cook Your Life
(Wie man sein Leben kocht)
Doris Dörrie, Germany, 2007, 100 min.
Sunday, Nov. 18, 1:15 p.m., Plaza Frontenac
Filmmaker Doris Dörrie (“Men,” “Me and Him”) turns her attention to Buddhism and that age-old saying “you are what you eat.” In “How to Cook Your Life,” Dörrie enlists the help of the charismatic, mischievous and charming Edward Espe Brown – Zen master, priest and best-selling food author – to explain the guiding principles of Zen Buddhism as they apply to the preparation of food and life itself. Brown isn’t above cursing at an uncooperative bottle of oil, and punctuates his culinary lessons with wry bits of Zen wisdom. Dörrie captures him surrounded by clearly adoring disciples, at Austria’s Scheibbs Buddhist Center and, in California, the San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara Mountain Center. The latter venue is where a younger Brown began his enlightened cooking career as a self-described “arrogant, bossy, short-tempered know-it-all,” and from where he first conceived and wrote his landmark “Tassajara Bread Book.”
Sponsored by Sauce Magazine
In the Crease
Matthew Gannon and Michael Sarner, USA, 2006, 90 min.
Non-public screening as part of Cinema for Students
“In the Crease” follows the Bantam AAA California Wave for the last month of their season leading up to the national tournament. For the boys, it’s their last season and their last chance to play together as a team. The film allows viewers a unique glimpse behind the scenes of a youth sports team as it pursues a championship. From the practice ice to the locker room to the tournament itself, the challenges the players face will resonate with any child or family with a child in a competitive sport.
Co-director Sarner will attend.
Meeting Resistance
Molly Bingham and Steve Connors, USA, 2007, 84 min.
Arabic and English with English subtitles
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 7 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
“Meeting Resistance” is a unique, horrifying, compelling, and insightful verité-style documentary set in the streets, alleyways, and ubiquitous teashops of the Adamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad. It enters the physical and psychological heart of the insurgency against the American-led occupation. The film focuses on eight people, each with his or her own tale and reasons for opposing the American-led occupation, who within days of the fall of Baghdad were arranging themselves into resistance cells, finding the money and weapons to fight against the American military. Co-directors and photojournalists Steve Connors and Molly Bingham spent 10 months among the people there learning about their lives, motivation, and goals. Their unsurpassed access and visually stunning cinematography makes this film a one-of-a-kind, and it’s required viewing for audiences around the world concerned with a deeper understanding of the current situation in Iraq and with the human condition of resistance.
Co-directors Bingham and Connors will attend.
Golden Award at 2007 Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival
Orange Revolution
Steve York, USA, 2007, 105 min.
Ukrainian, Russian, and English with English subtitles
Thursday, Nov. 15, 7:15 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
This fascinating documentary by native St. Louisan Steve York explores the story behind Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. From the beginning, Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election seems a foregone conclusion. Even though the opposition presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, holds a commanding lead in opinion polls, Ukraine’s post-Soviet regime has an iron grip on the police, the military, the media, and the electoral machinery. No one expects the election to be fair. Six weeks before the November 2004 vote, Yushchenko is poisoned. He barely survives, campaigning in pain, his face severely scarred by the toxin. With tensions mounting, Ukrainians head to the polls to make their choice, already convinced that their votes won’t be counted. When the blatant electoral fraud becomes clear, the people of Ukraine arise in a nonviolent revolution whose consequences are still playing out today.
The Paper
Aaron Matthews, USA, 2007, 78 min.
Thursday, Nov. 15, 7:30 p.m., Webster University
“The Paper” takes an inside look at the pressures and problems of modern journalism as faced by the staff of a university newspaper embroiled in controversy. Following a year in the life of Penn State’s Daily Collegian, the film features first-time journalists struggling with the greatest challenges to the field: plummeting circulation, barriers to investigative reporting, and criticism of coverage. “The Paper,” directed by SLIFF alum Aaron Matthews (“A Panther in Africa”), is both inspiring and astonishing in its exploration of tomorrow’s journalists wrestling with key questions facing today’s national media. Do you lure newspaper readers by entertaining them or offering them hard news? How do you deliver the news when you are obstructed by wary public officials and misleading public-relations campaigns? What is your responsibility to serve the public interest?
A panel on the issues raised by the film will follow the screening.
Participants include former St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor Richard Weiss and St. Louis University professor Avis Meyer.
Sponsored by Richard and Josephine Weil
Punk’s Not Dead
Susan Dynner, USA, 2007, 93 min.
Friday, Nov. 9, 9:15 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
“Punk’s Not Dead” takes you into the sweaty underground clubs, backyard parties, recording studios, stadium shows, and shopping malls where punk-rock music and culture continue to thrive. Thirty years after bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols infamously shocked the system with their hard, fast, status-quo-killing rock, the longest-running punk band in history is drawing bigger crowds than ever, “pop-punk” bands have found success on MTV, and kids too young to drive are forming bands that carry the torch for punk’s raw, immediate sound. Meanwhile, “punk” has become a marketing concept to sell everything from cars to vodka, and dyed hair and piercings mark a rite of passage for thousands of kids. Can the true, nonconformist punk spirit still exist in today’s corporate logo-laden culture? The docu features interviews, performances, and behind-the-scenes journeys with the bands, labels, fans, and press who keep punk alive.
Director Dynner will attend.
Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story
Jeffrey Schwarz, USA, 2007, 80 min.
Wednesday, Nov. 14, 7:15 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
“Spine Tingler” chronicles one of the last great American showmen, filmmaker William Castle, a master of ballyhoo who became a brand name in movie horror with his outrageous audience-participation gimmicks. Castle, whose films included “The Tingler” and “House on Haunted Hill,” was the inspiration for the outsized film promoter in Joe Dante’s “Matinee.” Among those featured in the film are Dante, Roger Corman, John Waters, Stuart Gordan, John Landis, Leonard Maltin, Forrest J. Ackerman, and Marcel Marceau.
Director Schwarz will attend.
Strange Culture
Lynn Hershman Leeson, USA, 2007, 75 min.
Saturday, Nov. 17, 6 p.m., Steinberg Auditorium at Washington University
The surreal nightmare of internationally acclaimed artist and professor Steve Kurtz began when his wife, Hope, died in her sleep of heart failure. Police who responded to the 911 call deemed Kurtz’s art suspicious and called the FBI. Within hours the artist was detained as a suspected “bioterrorist” as dozens of federal agents in Hazmat suits sifted through his work and impounded his computers, manuscripts, books, his cat, and even his wife’s body. With a federal case in progress, and Kurtz himself unable to discuss certain topics, the film employs actors – Thomas Jay Ryan as Steve and Tilda Swinton as Hope – to explore the issues, both as their characters and as themselves. This dynamic, experimental approach effectively illuminates the vital issues in the case.
Director Hershman Leeson will attend and receive the Women in Film Award.
Taxi to the Dark Side
Alex Gibney, USA, 2007, 106 min.
Saturday, Nov. 17, 8:15 p.m., Steinberg Auditorium at Washington University
“Taxi to the Dark Side,” which won the Best Documentary Feature prize when it premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, was written, produced and directed by Alex Gibney, an Oscar nominee for “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.” This powerful film examines the death of an Afghan taxi driver at Bagram Air Base from injuries inflicted by U.S. soldiers. In an unflinching look at the Bush administration’s policy on torture, Gibney takes us from a village in Afghanistan to Guantanamo and straight to the White House.
Director Gibney will attend and receive the Contemporary Cinema Award in Documentary.
Twisted: A Balloonamentary
Naomi Greenfield and Sara Taksler, USA, 2007, 79 min.
Saturday, Nov. 17, 7 p.m., Saint Louis Art Museum
A flying octopus, a Trojan horse, two 100-foot-tall soccer players – all made out of balloons. “Twisted: A Balloonamentary” is a story about eight people whose lives are dramatically transformed through their work with balloons. Subjects include a 20-year-old woman who grew up in a trailer park and took up balloon twisting to get off welfare and pay for college; a former felon and substance abuser who found God through balloons and who now works as a balloon-twisting Gospel minister; a British balloon superstar who travels the world teaching and lecturing about balloons; and a businesswoman who paid for her home with balloon-twisting money and entertains with provocative balloons at adult parties. This hilarious and heartwarming documentary is about passion, salvation, love, death, race, religion – and a whole lot of balloons.
Co-directors Greenfield and Taksler, both former Washington University students, will attend.
A Walk Into the Sea
Esther Robinson, USA, 2007, 75 min.
Sunday, Nov. 18, 12:30 p.m., Saint Louis Art Museum
Virtually unknown today, Danny Williams was Andy Warhol’s lover, the lighting designer for the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, and a promising young filmmaker. The discovery of 20 never-before-seen films that Williams made during his time at the Factory reveals a luminous talent and fills a major gap in the historical record. Director Esther Robinson, the niece of Williams, takes us on a personal inquiry into the truth behind her uncle’s mysterious 1966 disappearance. Combined with Robinson’s intimate interviews of surviving Factory members, the film gets beyond the icons and quietly dismantles the Warhol myth-making machine, allowing a deeper examination of the human fragility on which Warhol’s empire was built. Williams’ haunting, poetic images include appearances by Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Paul Morrissey, Brigid Berlin, and Billy Name and perhaps the earliest known footage of the Velvet Underground.
Teddy Award for Best Documentary at 2007 Berlin Film Festival
A Walk to Beautiful
Mary Olive Smith, USA, 2007, 84 min.
Amharic and English with English subtitles
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2 p.m., Tivoli Theatre
Anyone moved by “The Oprah Winfrey Show” episode devoted to the work of Dr. Catherine Hamlin will find “A Walk to Beautiful” essential viewing. This devastating film follows five Ethiopian women who’ve suffered from a horrendous childbirth injury called obstetric fistula. Shunned by neighbors, unable to work or even live indoors because of their condition, thousands of women in rural Ethiopia suffer from this tragically common consequence of obstructed childbirth in developing countries, where doctors are scarce and obstetric care is practically nonexistent. The film follows the women on their journey to Dr. Hamlin’s hospital in Addis Ababa, where they find solace and a dignified place to heal for the first time.
Audience Award for Best Documentary at 2007 San Francisco International Film Festival
We Are Together
(Thina Simunye)
Paul Taylor, UK/South Africa, 2006, 88 min.
Zulu and English with English subtitles
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2 p.m., Saint Louis Art Museum
“We Are Together” tells the inspiring story of 12-year-old Slindile and her remarkable friends at the Agape orphanage in South Africa. As they come to terms with a series of painful setbacks, including the loss of loved ones to AIDS, their spirit stays strong and they sing their way along a journey they could only dream of. Filmed over three years, with unforgettable kids, soaring music, and a plot full of surprises, this uplifting documentary film will undoubtedly touch your heart and soul.
Audience Choice Award and Special Jury Mention at 2007 Tribeca Film Festival; AllRights and Audience Choice Awards at 2007 Amnesty International Film Festival; Audience Choice and First Appearance Awards at 2007 Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival; Audience Award at 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival
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