Little big fest
The Rhode Island International Film Festival is ready for its closeup
by Bill Rodriguez
'Big Eden'
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For a five-year-old, the Rhode Island International Film Festival certainly is
hanging out in grown-up company these days.
Say, isn't that the director Blake Edwards over there? And hey -- isn't
that his wife, Julie Andrews!?
Well, no one is going to mistake Providence for Cannes very soon, but for
Hollywood mainstay Edwards to be accepting a lifetime achievement award the
opening night of the festival (which runs through August 12) says a lot about
how far it's come.
Another indication is that the RIIFF is featured in The Ultimate Film
Festival Survival Guide, by Film Threat magazine editor Chris Gore.
The book recognizes about 650 of the more than 1000 film festivals worldwide,
so inclusion at all means that a fest is on the map. And most fests are merely
listed with contact information, as the Newport International Film Festival is,
rather than described, as RIIFF is.
"We were also listed in the guide as one of the top eight best-kept-secret
festivals -- which was rather significant," says George T. Marshall, its
founder and present co-executive director with Elisabeth N. Galligan.
The reference book touted it among such lesser-known but praiseworthy
festivals as those in San Diego, Portland, and Ann Arbor. "One of the most
exciting new festivals to come along, RIIFF aggressively supports its
filmmakers," the guide gushes.
Part of the festival's significance and contribution is that, unlike the
splashier Newport film fest in June, RIIFF has related events spread out over
several months. Panel discussions on such subjects as documentary filmmaking
and digital technology are scheduled before as well as during the festival.
Last month Japanese films were screened in conjunction with Newport's Black
Ships Festival. A summer camp program which fosters young Spielbergs culminated
in the KidsEye International Film Festival last week. Aspiring screenwriters
get the inside skinny in the annual "ScriptBiz" seminar (to be held October
20). Finally, as if to declare that independent filmmaking isn't just for the
black turtleneck and latte crowd, the second annual RIIFF Horror Film Festival
will be held October 26-28 at the Opera House in Newport.
The first festival in 1997 screened only five films -- four of which were in
French -- at a single Woonsocket theater. The following year it selected from
among 207 submissions; this year it could pick and choose from nearly 700.
"We've not had that kind of sexy allure in Rhode Island," Marshall says,
referring to the Newport festival, "but outside we're perceived as kind of a
working man's festival that's supporting filmmakers.
"What's amazing to me is that I'm getting stuff that goes to Slamdance and
even to Sundance."
Some 250 filmmakers, producers, and distributors will attend this year, from
across the country as well as overseas. Cast members from nine films in
competition will be here. And Dutch director/screenwriter Gert de Graaff, whose
The Sea That Thinks won the Berlin International Film Festival award for
best narrative feature, will fly over from the Netherlands.
Last year more than 13,000 filmgoers attended, and this year upwards of 15,000
are expected. There will be screenings at four Providence locations: the Avon
Cinema, the Columbus Theater, the RISD Auditorium, and Brown University's List
Auditorium. On August 13, there will be a "Best of Fest" screening at the Opera
House. Those films will also be shown August 22-24 at the South County Center
for the Arts in West Kingston.
"We're `The Little Engine That Could,' " Marshall says. "We're not hugely
staffed. We're certainly not hugely financed. But everyone believes in what
we're doing, and the people that are committed have made this festival the
reality that it is. That's pretty cool."
Through the Flickers Arts Collaborative, which Marshall founded as an offshoot
of the Newport Film Society, he attempted Newport's first try at an
international film fest way back in 1983, but it didn't survive to a second
year. RIIFF, on the other hand, has sustained its initial momentum, not even
stopped last year when a disgruntled associate established a competing
Providence/ Rhode Island International Film Festival, with Providence City Hall
backing.
"I look at our whole adventure as like going through four years of college.
We had courses that we excelled in, some courses that we were marginal in and
other courses where we needed a tutor. But we finally got the credits and got
the degree -- and now we're in grad school," Marshall says.
Call (401) 861-4445, or go to www.film-festival.org for complete details.
Featured features
This year, 676 films were submitted to the fifth annual Rhode Island
International Film Festival. Most of the 205 films accepted for screenings are
shorts and documentaries, from countries with strong cinematic traditions, such
as Italy and India, as well as from some in social and political ferment, such
as Yugoslavia and Russia. Forty-two world premieres are among the offerings, as
well as 20 U.S. premieres.
The 35 narrative feature films run the gamut in tone and subject, from comical
to dramatic, romantic to adventurous. Of course, reactions to movies are
largely personal tastes, as arguments under marquees attest. Nonetheless, here
are three of this year's selections that I have no trouble recommending.
The Girls' Room
August 9 at 9:30 p.m. at the Columbus Theater
Set on a college campus, this film's dialogue manages to be smart without
being self-conscious or making everyone sound like the same quirky English
major. Another bullet it dodges is its plot premise, which sounds like a
stretcher-case-study in Avoiding Cliches 101. To wit: two dorm roomies who
couldn't be more opposite -- one a Southern belle with her pert nose buried in
Brides magazine, the other a bitter and promiscuous Southern gothic
character -- make each other's lives miserable. over the course of these
exercises' each becomes more like her nemesis.
But first-time feature director Irene Turner doesn't get in the way of the
cagey work of first-time screenwriter Amanda L. Beall, who makes sure that
everyone we meet is too particularized to come across as merely a type.
Goody-goody Grace (Cat Tober) insists on being reimbursed ("It's best for both
of us") for a borrowed and lost mechanical pencil. Black-garbed Casey (Soleil
Moon Frye) wakes in a sweat after dreaming of her own white wedding. Their guys
are further catalysts for change. Grace's fiancé is Charlie, played
rather spacily by Wil Wheaton, the precocious boy-ensign in Star Trek: The
Next Generation. The frat mouse isn't made into a complete cipher, though;
he counts for enough to eventually attract Casey with his stability. Her
guitar-strumming friend -- not counting the jerk whom she uses for sex after
his dates with his real girlfriend -- is the gentle Joey (Gary Wolf). Casey
calls him "The Puppy," even before he turns down promotion from friend to
boyfriend because he wants sex with her to mean something to her.
The acting is good enough to help us ride undistracted over the occasional
bump in the plot, such as motivation that isn't entirely convincing. For
example, good girl Grace is incensed that Casey has borrowed a notebook --
carelessly, not maliciously as Grace assumes -- causing her to fail a mid-term
exam. So "to maintain balance in the universe," Grace decides to get even by
making a play for Joey. But this film tends to stay honest, so this exploitive,
out-of-character move by Grace peters out and she ends up getting
emotionally whipsawed. Similarly, while Casey is overwritten as Roommate From
Hell at the outset, we soon know of her repressed bridal envy, so we can
eventually accept any amount of softening as the natural course of things. By
the end, we have witnessed the kind of growth that is usually the most
impressive learning experience of such years.
Big Eden
August 10 at 7 p.m. at the Columbus Theater
Gay films with crossover potential shouldn't be a big deal. Whether
it's a sympathetic guy dying in Philadelphia or the Olympics sweating in
Personal Best, the real hook is the vivid human connections rather than
sexual ones. Big Eden has won more than its share of awards at gay and
lesbian film festivals, but it tells a story that wouldn't need all that much
adjusting to feature Julia and Hugh, although the writing would have to be
dumbed down.
This is a romantic comedy, with the romance mostly a matter of wounded eyes
and sexual tension -- except for the all-but-fireworks closing image -- and
with the comical aspects subdued to the point of wry smiles.
Late-thirtysomething Henry Hart (Ayre Gross) is a successful New York artist
who dashes back to his small home town in Montana on the eve of a big opening
because his grandfather (George Coe) has been hospitalized. Henry sticks around
when he sees that an old flame from high school has moved back with his two
small boys, after a divorce. Hmmm? Our hero's question too.
In turn, Henry has apparently been the object of a two-decade crush. Pike
Dexter (Eric Schweig) is the Native American proprietor of the local
cappuccino-dispensing general store. He takes it upon himself to learn gourmet
cooking and feed Henry and his grandfather, secretly, instead of delivering a
local widow's inedible fare nightly. The most delightful part of the film is
how the community avidly follows the shifting odds on how this romantic
Trifecta will pay off, from the craggy cracker barrel denizens to the widow and
her girlfriends, who adjust their matchmaking mode with the alacrity of rock
stars switching gender preference.
Yes, we have been cued that this is a fantasy by the title, which is the name
of the town. And yes, audiences gotta dream, don't they? But the skillful
storytelling is deflated at the very end by the gay film equivalent of the
porno flick climaxing money shot: Henry and his eventual lover lost in a long,
lingering kiss amidst the townsfolk -- nonchalant to a man -- at a dance.
Writer/director Thomas Bezucha promised us Eden, not heaven.
Morning
August 11 at 9:30 p.m. at the Columbus Theater
There's no way to talk about this film without giving away its early
whup upside the head. So maybe you'd better just take my word that it's an
interesting tale of inner growth and not read on.
But if you must know, Morning is about mourning. As in the previous
film, Trick (Kieran Mulroney) is a successful New Yorker who goes back home
after a couple of decades away; this is a way independent films cue us that the
characters' concerns will extend beyond the predominant off-screen
preoccupations of aspiration and ambition. Trick is a wildly successful ad
agency partner, pulling in a quarter-million bucks a year but rendered coldly
efficient by his demanding work. His beautiful girlfriend Lily (Annabeth Gish),
a sculptor, sees more in him than that, and eventually he does too.
But first he has to notice what he feels, and back in the little North
Carolina town where he grew up, the death of a childhood friend gives him
plenty to feel that his money and Top Dog people skills can't help him cope
with. The dead friend, possibly a suicide, was a disappointment to his wealthy
mother and grandfather, (Tess Harper and Pat Hingle) They want the body
cremated without a memorial service and the embarrassment forgotten. No amount
or style of persuasion will convince them otherwise.
Trick is aided by two friends he brought along and another he never knew he
had. He and Lily have driven down with King (Steven Schub), a fast-talking pal
who works as a deli clerk and is so unfamiliar with a meadow that he calls it a
"plant area." Trick is opposed, but the two make plans to steal the corpse and
advertise their own wake and farewell ceremony. Helping them is Emmanuel
(Darren E. Burrows, the apprentice shaman in Northern Exposure), someone
Trick looked through back in high school but who was closer to the dearly
departed than any of them. Debuting director Ami Canaan Mann, who co-wrote this
with Michael Hagler, weaves together nuanced performances that help us accept
Trick's eventual, inevitable, change of heart. That the transformation doesn't
come across as hokey is testimony to plenty of talent behind the scenes as well
as on the screen.
-- B.R.