Jeff D

Unity College

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All in all I would say that CIFF was a success.  I saw 9 films that make me so hip because I saw them before everyone else.  Also, a weekend of watching documentaries is pretty cool.  Camden and Rockland were pretty cool towns that I got to know some ins and outs about.  

Mot Enjoyed (In Order):

Wild Home The Search for General Tso Point And Shoot Shorts 1 Growing Local Shorts 2 Iron Ministry  The Overnighters Bugarach Sad I Missed (Not in order): Virunga Seeds Of Time Happiness Rich Hill Two Raging Grannies Shorts 3 Shouts out Ben. Shouts out Miners. Shouts out that Magician Kid! Shouts out Alex. Shouts out Growing Local Farmers.

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Ya Boy.

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I was super excited to see the the Miners showed up to the viewing for a Q&A!!  This honestly made the film so much better.  It also showed how genuinely made this film was.  No skew.  Just story. It was also the best Q&A session that I was able to sit in on at CIFF!  All in all, Wild Home should definitely be one of the most talked about films at CIFFx

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Dirigo Shorts: Growing Local

These three shorts were up to par!  MFT definitely had a strong role, but it was well done with tying in the education for the audience.  As a major in Sustainable Agriculture, these films were really intriguing.  I truly believe it is important for states, especially one like Maine, to start assigning land specifically for agriculture and MFT is playing a big role in the preservation of agricultural lands and the proper use of said lands.  I loved how the three films all aimed at the production of different food groups.  This was a really great way to get the audience thinking about how much labor it actually gets to get great produced foods on peoples table.   The one movie out of these that stood out to me was Seeding A Dream.  I once visited Sheepscot General Store and Uncas Farm one year in one of my classes.  I loved their farm but I mostly loved their passion for farming.  I remember them specifically because they had so much passion behind them I doubted mine would be strong enough to farm.  They are an amazing inspiring young couple on the cusp of a great business. I think the documentarians did a great job of catching just this.

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Wild Home

Best movie at CIFF that I viewed.  Hands down.  Not only did this film show me how awesome Maine really is, but it also gave me hope that there were still awesome films being shown at CIFF.  The Miner's are an amazing couple doing amazing things as they grow their D.E.W. exhibits.  The film makers did a phenomenal job making this documentary.  It really engaged us in the daily life of two amazing, hard working, passionate people.

Another thing I enjoyed about this film was that Bill Miner was an uneducated man, not only living his dream but succeeding in it. Me being in college and dreading most seconds I sit in class, it was assuring to see someone without an education doing it.  There are a great amount of things that this documentary sheds light on, but is not too much for the audience to take in.  

I definitely plan on visiting their land and view the animals so I can put myself more into the world that they live, simply to get a better idea of the magical land they built up together.

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The Overnighters

A film which most people thought was going to give a cultural view on the workers around fracking, was not that at all.

The Overnighters was a film about a pastor struggling to serve the Lord, continue his church and beat the press.  When people who couldn't find jobs in ND after traveling there, the pastor would take them in and house them, leading many of the towns people to anger and confusion as crime rates went up.  Many locals wanted the church to stop supporting all these men and families, yet the pastor continued.

Other than the fact that it wasn't why I sat down for the movie, it still told a good story and the film was well made.  

Until the last 15 minutes.  This went from the film I previously describe to being about all the secrets pastors have to keep to serve the lord, even if its keeping the fact that you're acting on homosexual tendencies.  Like a bomb that was dropped in the film, leaving me with a bitter taste for the movie because there was NO NEED WHAT-SO-EVER TO HAVE THE LAST 15 MINS OF THIS MOVIE.  It made the rest of the movie irrelevant.  And it made the pastor go from respectable to asshole in a flash.

Leaving the movie I only could ask myself "What the hell did I just sit through?"

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Burgarach

Burgarach was a film of a small town who gained reputation of the place very likely to survive the apocalypse.  The film maker could have ran in any direction with this, yet he chose a boring and confusing plot.  

What threw me off the most with this documentary was the fact that a great amount of it seemed scripted... like it wasn't a documentary.  Honestly, it seemed like a mockumentary.  All the characters were odd or outcasts.  There were definitely scripted lines, for example when the crazy dude called the kid to meet up.  It just seemed not real.  Nothing was raw that was captured.  At one point I didn't know if the magic tricks being performed was one smooth clip or if it were edited to make it seem like the kid had some skill. It almost seemed like too much money was invested in the film, and when they couldn't get a good story line going, the made one up.  Maybe this would have been better as a short.  Maybe this was just genius and actually deserved a night spot at CIFF.  All I know was the only reason why this was intriguing is because I really wanted this to be an awesome well-made film.

Not what I expected.

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The Search For General Tso

This documentary was one of my favorites that I watched.  The film answered every question that I had once wondered about this iconic meal.  I once watched a short about Asian food and heard that the plate we know as General Tso's is unrecognizable to the original chef.  I was super excited to see that at CIFF there was a film that investigated the true story.  Not only that the story was investigated in depth.  So many angles of the dish were brought to light, from the history to the innovations made. It was really interesting to see that a film makers take on the tale.  The way the documentary was done was hip, and flowed very well.  It was not only comical but very informative.  I gave it a 5 out of 5. 

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Shorts 2

The Shorts didn't disappoint once again for another great start to a day attending CIFF.  Though a quite sad string of shorts, the presentation left the audience aghast. 

Three mentionables out of these eight films were The Murder Ballad of James Jones, The Animated Life of A.R. Wallace, and The Lion's Mouth Opens. The Murder Ballad of James Jones was a CRAZY story told by James Jones himself.  As Jones is telling the story, he is sitting on a stump in the middle of the woods with an old mic in front of him recording his words.  The imagery was creepy alongside Jones' story.  The raw language and crazy tale was definitely right up there with The Notorious B.I.G's famous song I Got a Story To Tell.

The Animated Life of A.R. Wallace was a great breather in between these other intense films.  What I found really exiting about this doc. short was it was paper puppets performing a biography of one of the coolest guys to ever live.  A.R. Wallace is more of a man than the dude from Point to Shoot without any doubt.  I really hope this wasn't dramatized to any extent. Last of the worthy of mentioning is The Lion's Mouth Opens.  I cried. Not ashamed either.  One of my worst fears is getting Huntington or Alzheimer disease.  This story told one of an amazing person.  It's really a crazy concept to think about.  The footage is so raw it's unbearable.  Pure emotion one hundred percent of the time.  The only time you didn't look at the film is when you were blinded by the tears and your fingers wiping across them.  Crazy. Top of the shorts presented to me at CIFF. 

[bournehype]

Point And Shoot

Point And Shoot was one of my top 3 films I got to see at the film fest.  The story was amazing and honestly that dude is a badass.  I really felt like it was a crazy story and left his personality very open still at the end.  I really don't think that the film made him seem righteous, hero-like, wimpy nor dependent.  It left one to judge for themselves if the like the character in the story. He wasn't a protagonist nor an antagonist.  I would like to think if my whole life I sat behind a silver spoon I would feel like I would need a drastic change as well.  Though, I found it very funny he never really got a job.  Sure, maybe now he is making money because of this film but in reality his mom needs a standing ovation.  His mom sent him so much money. SO MUCH MONEY!  How are you going to travel and live with all these poor people and not realize the amount of money you have at your disposal!!  I found this a huge flaw in his character and in my eyes he totally lost many people points.  

On the other hand he is fighting every day, living, sleeping, eating war.  Really an astonishing character.  It proves to me a complex of a person I've never encountered.  The story enough was so enthralling all we needed was some footage of his trip and news reports and an interview and any audience will stay intrigued.

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Iron Ministry

This film was probably one of my least favorite at CIFF. Let me explain: I had an awesome first film and was looking for a great follow up.  This film held so much potential at the beginning and then just dropped off.

The positive things I did take note of was the skill of the director.  The camera work was amazing and very careful at points. The type of shots were vast and interesting.  Also the way the story (which wasn't that solid by the end) was told - in silence - was impressive. In the end it was definitely bottom 3 of the 9 films I sat in at CIFF.

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Shorts 1

The first film I attended at CIFF was the first round of shorts.  I was absolutely enthralled the whole time.  The set of shorts had an obvious theme of labor and labor issues themes.  It as also obvious was very carefully put together.   The first film was just two camera mounted telling the story.  No voice what so ever. No context, nothing.  The actions of the people said enough in the film. 

The second film did something similar, but with adding text on the screen it told a whole other story.

The third film was my favorite.  Hacked Circuit was a single shot in and out of a studio for film sound FX.  There was nothing but the conversation and banter between the two artists working.  The shot was so fluid a story simply fell right in front of you.  Not only was the work of the artists amazing, but the camera man and director did a jaw-dropping job getting every frame.

The fourth film used many different techniques to tell a story, including interviews and dialog between people.  

The fifth was in a different language with subtitles.  But the subtitles told a whole sub-plot and story than the frames of the empty city.  Cathedrals was a very intense film that totally had me a the end thinking "What the hell did I just watch!?!" The last was a heart-pulling story of labor and/or lack there of in Vegas.  It was a crazy cultural documentary that finished the set that left the audience with a crazy vibe to watch more and more movies. Well enjoyed and very memorable.