Monday June 25, 2012-Day 7
(The festival officially ends on Sunday but each year the award winners and festival favorites are shown the following day.)
"The Waiting Roon" (*** 1/2 - 82 minutes)
Receiving a Special U.S. Feature Jury Mention is director Peter Nicks' “The
Waiting Room”. Who hasn't visited a hospital ER and spent an
interminable amount of time until you can go to your next
destination? Nicks turns his camera on such folks holed up in
the waiting room at Highland Hospital in Oakland, Ca and, without
commentary, focuses on a number of patients and, at times, the staff
that services them. The public hospital is the major trauma center for the greater Oakland area and provides most of the non-emergency medical care to uninsured
patients in Alameda County. The numbers are staggering: serving
250,000 insured and uninsured patients, it cares for 80,000 patients
annually while providing and juggling only 236 beds. The doc focuses
on several patients dealing with various issues and the overworked
staff that tries to satisfactorily resolve them. Shot over a two
month span in 2010, the film is a microcosm of our health care system as it clearly depicts, the tireless and thankless dedication of the hospital personnel who desperately work within the system to alleviate the pain, anguish, and frustration of their patients who sometimes have to wait up to 12 hours before being
seen by a physician. Simply presented, the doc is powerful and
unyielding, and truly unforgettable.
C.J. , a nurse at Highland Hospital
dealing with new patients in the ER
"Fame High" (****-97 minutes)
One of the more entertaining coming-of-age movies about the arts is this
gem from director Scott Hamilton Kennedy (2008's wonderful
Oscar-nominated “The Garden”). The institution is the Los
Angeles Country High School for the Arts (LACHSA), whose alumni
include crooner Josh Grobin and pop sensation Katy Perry, and actress
Jenna Elfman. Kennedy mainly focuses on four students
throughout the school year: two seniors (Grace Song, a dancer
and Brittany Hayes, a musician/singer) and two freshman (Zak Astor, a
pianist and Ruby McCollister, an actress) - each struggling to make a
mark at the prodigious school where passing the curriculum could
go a long way on jump starting their careers. As if the demands
of the school were not difficult enough, the students must also face
constant scrutiny and/or control by their parents. For example, Zak
is portrayed as a brilliant jazz protege, whose dad, an ex-boxer,
seems determined that his son succeed as a possible meat ticket out
of poverty. The father, whose drive seems greater than his son's, is
portrayed as a manipulative parent who is constantly demanding
practice and expecting perfection-while always stifling his praise of
Zak's talent. Then there is Grace's conservative Korean-American
parents, who show more concern for their daughter's dating habits and
relationships than for Grace's aspirations as a dancer. The pressure
increases when they claim their support only if Grace is accepted
into the exclusive Julliard School. Meanwhile, Brittany's attendance
at LACHSA puts a strain on the familial relationship when her mom
leaves her family in Wisconsin to move to L.A. And Ruby, whose
parents are in the business, tries to live up to their, as well as
her own, expectations. We see Ruby questioning her decision to
follow her dreams when she is starts to miss school and her friends
when she becomes an understudy for 41 days without ever performing.
A running theme throughout is how these folks must deal with grownup
decisions while foregoing the life of a normal teenage. As the film
progresses, you'll find yourself getting more and more emotionally
involved as we experience and witness their trials, tribulations,
failures, and triumphs that ultimately lead to a surprising and
moving climax. A tremendous crowd-pleaser.
High school senior Grace Song performing at LACHSA
"Only The Young" (*** - 68 minutes)
Winner
of The Sterling Award for Best U.S. Feature, first time feature
directors
Jason Tippet and Elizabeth spent a year and a half in their hometown
following three teens, slacking in depressed Santa Clarita,
California. The simple narrative will harken back to our days
as teens when life and decision-making seemed easy and simple. The
geography in which they live is stark and depressing, however the
teens make due as best they can working menial jobs and playing.
Skye and Garrison are friends and possibly a little bit more, but
tensions increase between the two longtime males when Kevin reveals
that he and Skye shared kissed. Meanwhile, it is interesting how
this event effects the camaraderie between Garrison and Kevin who
handle this in a surprisingly adult manner. Filmed in reality style,
we follow the three principals as they grope with their feelings
about themselves and each other in a way that feels more like a
narrative than a documentary. With little parental guidance, amidst
their skateboarding, video-game playing, and romantic relationships,
we wonder what future these young souls will ultimately encounter-now
and in the future. Despite the somewhat depressing locale, the
directors manage to paint an interesting visual portrait and have
added an appropriate punk soundtrack to the mix. A nice first
feature from two filmmakers who deserve watching.
Garrison and Kevin contemplating their future
"Trash Dance" (***1/2-67 minutes)
Winner
of the Feature Audience Award is this spirited, entertaining, and
inspirational account of choreographer Allison Orr's idea to bring
grace and beauty to a dance routine performed by a dozen Austin,
Texas sanitation workers and their equipment-including 16 trucks.
Orr is artistic director of the Austin-based contemporary dance
company Forklift Danceworks and is known for choreographing pieces
for non-traditional performers such as dogs and their owners,
firefighters, Italian waiters, and Elvis impersonators. When she
decided to try her luck using employees from the Austin Departing of
Solid Waste Services, she was greeted with general disdain, hearing
comments like “This lady's crazy” and “How you gonna make a
truck dance? Trucks don't dance!” Undeterred, she set out on a
year long journey to convince some of the skeptics to go along with
the program. This included eight months of on-the -job research
while getting to know those workers who agreed to participate.
Slowly, she, as well as the audience, come to realize that these
public servants ooze tons of character, personalities, and, in some
cases, untapped talents. Then, as the performance date nears,
budget problems, extreme temperatures, and a torrential downpour
threatens to sabotage the event. Director Andrew Garrison capably
follows the process from beginning to end which helps amplify the
humanity of these workers who perform an unappreciated, tireless, thankless job in order to make ends meet. The documentary also won the Audience Award at the Hotdocs Film Festival.
Choreographer Allison Orr with The Austin Sanitation workers taking their bows
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Saturday June 23, 2012-Day 5
AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED:
The Sterling Award
Festival Director Skye Sitney opens the Awards Ceremony
ONLY THE YOUNG, PLANET OF SNAIL and KINGS POINT
Receive Festival’s Prestigious Sterling Awards
Additional Distinguished Awards Go to ANN RICHARDS’ TEXAS, ¡VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS! ESCAPE FIRE: THE FIGHT TO RESCUE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE
Competitive Whole Foods/Silverdocs Green Grants Go to SEED and CAN’T STOP THE WATER
TRASH DANCE and SPARKLE Win Audience Awards for Best Feature and Short .
This year’s Sterling Award for Best U.S. Feature went to ONLY THE YOUNG directed by Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims. The film follows three teens stuck in a chaste love triangle in a depressed Southern California suburb, and explores different paths to maturity, independence and romance, portrayed with cinematic tenderness, unexpected beauty and nascent wisdom in a foreclosed wasteland. The prize is accompanied by a $5,000 cash award.
The Sterling U.S. Feature Jury noted: “We loved this film for its striking and beautiful cinematography and its innovative editing. But above all, we loved it for its sensitive and startlingly honest portrayal of adolescence. Neither saccharine nor snarky, the film captures the depth and absurdity of being a teenager without cliché or caricature.”
This year’s Sterling Award for Best World Feature went to PLANET OF SNAIL directed bySeungiun Yi. The poetry of the cinema merges fantastically with the poetry of touch, taste and smell when the filmmaker encounters the deaf and blind South Korean poet Young-Chan, who is unwilling to accept as limitations the world of sight and sound from which he is isolated. The prize is accompaniedby a $5,000 cash award.
The Sterling Award World Jury noted: “This film immersed us into the sensorial experience of love unbound. The poetic cinematography of life’s seemingly ordinary moments underscores the complexity of life itself. Seungiun Yi’s PLANET OF SNAIL is a tranquil meditation on the resilience of the human spirit.”
The Sterling Award for Best Short Film was given to KINGS POINT directed by Sari Gilman.
Inhabited by numerous transplants from New York who were lured by the promise of sunshine and palm trees, Kings Point is a place where retirees have begun a new part of their lives, for some the final chapter. The prize is accompanied by a $2,500 cash award.
The Sterling Award Short Jury noted: “For its bittersweet exploration of the universal needs and challenges of creating human connections - even within a seemingly close-knit community of peers - the jury recognizes KINGS POINT by Sari Gilman with the Sterling Award for Best Short.”
Notable Special Jury Mentions:
A Special U.S. Feature Jury Mention went to THE WAITING ROOM directed by Peter Nicks. The complexity of the nation’s public health care system is etched in intimate detail in this poignant vérité portrait of an American public hospital and the community of patients and caregivers that intersect with it. The ER waiting room in Oakland’s Highland Hospital serves as the backdrop to an encounter with a diverse community of largely uninsured patients alongside an indefatigable staff charged with caring for them.
The Jury noted: “The best documentaries immerse us in new worlds and connect us with people we’ve never met. This vérité film gives us a personal experience with patients and caregivers trying to navigate a complicated and flawed healthcare system. For a film that uses powerful and intimate moments to persuade, we are honored to give a Special Jury Mention to THE WAITING ROOM.”
A Special World Feature Jury Mention went to SPECIAL FLIGHT (VOL SPECIAL) directed byFernand Melgar. Who gets two years incarceration for a traffic violation? Undocumented immigrants! Even in tolerant Switzerland, the benign administration and guards of the Frambois detention center near Geneva can do little to alleviate the fate of those entrapped in its system.
The Jury noted: “This film patiently portrays what life looks and feels like inside the walls of injustice where a group of detained immigrants and their sympathetic caretakers are bound together by a complex web of inequality. Through his powerful vérité filmmaking and access, Fernand Melgar lays bare a life without freedom. SPECIAL FLIGHT (VOL SPECIAL) is a sometimes uncomfortable, always honest remark on society’s divided attitude towards migrants.”
A Sterling Short Honorable Mention went to MONDAYS AT RACINE, directed by Cynthia Wade. In the film, sisters Cynthia and Rachel, who watched their mother suffer the indignities and pain of struggling with cancer when they were younger, now own a beauty salon in Islip, Long Island. They open their doors every third Monday of the month to women living with cancer. With great compassion and support, the women undergoing treatment face their fears together and rediscover their beauty in a whole new way.
The Jury noted: “For its ability to engage the viewer on a raw, emotional level through the moving testimony of two indelible characters facing illness, the jury recognizes MONDAYS AT RACINE by Cynthia Wade with an Honorable Mention.”
A second Sterling Short Honorable Mention went to PARADISE by Nadav Kurtz. Three immigrant workers from Mexico make their living in a most unusual way: by rappelling down some of Chicago’s tallest skyscrapers to clean windows. PARADISE gives a hair-raising view of this precarious profession and the men who risk life and limb to do it.
The Jury noted: “For taking the audience to new heights in experiencing a unique perspective on immigrant labor through beautifully-lensed and adventurous cinematography, the jury recognizes PARADISE by Nadav Kurtz with an Honorable Mention. ”
The Sterling Award winners were chosen by an eminent Festival jury, including:
Sterling U.S. Feature Jury: Heather Courtney, Filmmaker (WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM);Marshall Curry, Filmmaker (IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATIONFRONT); Adella Ladjevardi, Grants Manager, Cinereach.
Sterling World Feature Jury: Charlotte Cook, Director of Programing, Hot Docs; Jigar Mehta,Filmmaker (18 DAYS IN EGYPT) and Journalist; Stephanie Wang-Breal, Filmmaker (WO AI NIMOMMY).
Sterling Short Film Jury: Lisa Collins, Filmmaker, (OSCAR'S COMEBACK, TREE SHADE); CaraCusumano, Programmer, Tribeca Film Festival; Basil Tsiokos, Film Consultant and ProgrammingAssociate, Sundance Film Festival.
Other Awards include:
The WGA Documentary Screenplay Award went to ANN RICHARDS’ TEXAS written by Keith Patterson. In a state known for outsized political personalities, a silver-haired lady from Austin became one of the biggest and boldest by speaking her mind and sticking to her guns. The high-energy ANN RICHARDS’ TEXAS celebrates her rise in the Democratic Party, her improbable turn as governor and her legacy as a feisty liberal icon. The Prize is accompanied by a $1,000 cash award and a five-yearmembership in the WGAE Nonfiction Writers Caucus.
The films ESCAPE FIRE: THE FIGHT TO RESCUE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE directed byMatthew Heineman and Susan Froemke and THE HOUSE I LIVE IN directed by Eugene Jareckiwon the inaugural React to Film Social Issue Awards at this year’s Silverdocs, which is given to two well-crafted and compelling documentaries on a critical social issue that has the greatest potential, through the medium of film, to have an impact on that issue through reaching the broadest audience, particularly young people. In ESCAPE FIRE, the filmmakers examine the nuts and bolts of the current battle raging over a healthcare system that is desperately broken. Drawing from harrowing personal stories and the ongoing efforts of those trying to make a positive difference, this hard-hitting film focuses on finding workable solutions. In THE HOUSE I LIVE IN, filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (WHY WE FIGHT) offers a sobering comprehensive view of contemporary drug culture and examines the troubling realities of a broken system whose very existence, he argues, is making the problem worse rather than better.
The Cinematic Vision Award went to ¡VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS! directed by Victor Kossakovsky. The filmmaker reveals the sheer kinetic and visual splendor of the corners of our planet when he explores four pairs of dry-land antipodes: Argentina and China, Russia and Chile, Hawaii and Botswana, and Spain and New Zealand. In the end, it is not the differences, but the uncanny similarities that are most striking. The prize comes with $4,000 in-kind services from the Alpha CineLabs in Seattle.
The Whole Foods/Silverdocs Green Grant went to SEED directed by Taggart Siegel for a project in development. SEED investigates the untold story of seeds, the basis of life on earth. As many irreplaceable seeds are nearing extinction, the film follows heroes working tirelessly to preserve agricultural security and seed diversity in an uphill battle against high-tech industrial seed companies and an impending global food crisis.
The Whole Foods/Silverdocs Green Grant for completion of a project went to CAN'T STOP THE WATER directed by Rebecca and Jason Ferris. The film tells the story of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, and the Native American community that are fighting to save their culture as their land washes away.
The prize is accompanied by a $25,000 cash grant to each filmmaker for a total of $50,000.
The Audience Award for Best Feature went to TRASH DANCE directed by Andrew Garrison. The film documents the creation of a beautiful dance piece inspired by the work of often-unnoticed public servants – sanitation workers. The Audience Award for Best Shot went to SPARKLE directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert. The film chronicles Sheri “Sparkle” Williams, a star dancer with a 40-year track record with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company as she returns to the stage at 49.
"Beauty Is Embarrassing" (***-89 minutes)
Director
Neil Berkely creates a lively profile of artist Wayne White who received his big
break creating visual work on the set of 1980's "Pee Wee Playhouse",
and is currently successful with word paintings where he humorously
places words across existing landscape paintings. The artist has
perform in multiple artistic disciplines throughout his career.
Besides painting he is equally adept at animation and puppetry,
(craftsman and performer) as well as banjo picking. He even created
the visual design for successful music videos from Smashing Pumpkins
(“Tonight, Tonight”) and Peter Gabriel (“Big Time”).
However, his success on the wildly successful “Peewee's Playhouse”,
for which the artist won three Emmy Awards, is deservedly given much
screen time. Berkely goes to great lengths to include White's
humorous take on the stuffy art world with his creations-which he
conveys through his work as a pop artist and also through his
seminars, which are inter-cut throughout the doc. However, the
success of the documentary for audiences will depend on one's
connection with the artist's off-the-wall, oftentimes, blue humor.
My biggest problem: despite the frantic editing, there was a
tendency of the filmmaker to scatter his ideas without a lack of
focus, which might cause the viewer to zone out for a while.
However, White is an interesting character and his life-story is
worth exploring. The film is due to open on a limited release
beginning September 7.
Artist Wayne White
(l to r) Artist Wayne White and Director Neil Berkeley
CLOSING NIGHT FILM: "Big Easy Express" (*** 1/2-67 minutes)
Director Emmett Malloy has created an unusual kind of concert film which is reminiscent of the phenomenal 2003 documentary "Festival Express" which documented a 1970 train excursion through
Canada featuring the top pop musicians of the day including Janice
Joplin, The Grateful Dead, and The Band. This time around, three
talented folk/roots bands (Mumford and Sons from England , Edward
Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros from LA, and Old Crow Medicine Show
from Nashville) travel eight days from California to New Orleans
entertaining inside the vintage train cars and outside at six
separate concert stops along the way. And the film's timing couldn't
have been more appropriate with the recent passing of the great Earl
Scruggs and Doc Watson, as this is a wonderful way to keep their
genre in the public's psyche. This rousing documentary will have you
tapping your feet while experiencing the joyous energy emanating from
the screen. Malloy wonderfully photographs the American Southwest
scenery along the way (which is almost worth the price of admission),
and has expertly recorded the music and the groups' dynamics, which
will assuredly leave you smiling by the end of its too
swift 67 minutes. The film won the Headliner Audience Award at SXSW
and, on June 26, became the first feature film to be distributed
globally in 50 countries for sale and rental on iTunes before a
theatrical release. On July 24 the DVD will be available ahead of
multiple subscription VOD outlets before it makes its way to
conventional TV sometime in early 2013.
The three bands play before a packed house in New Orleans
(l to r) Producers Bryan Ling and Mike Luba. and moderator Bob
Boilen, creator and host of NPR's All Songs Considered
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