Sedona Film Fest: Days 3 & 4
/Tuesday
Today we took a little more relaxed approach to enjoy the tranquility of Sedona. In the morning, we enjoyed another daily breakfast at the Briar Patch Inn, full of delicious homemade flavors! Quiches, eggs, oatmeal, fruit, and more – a highlight of every morning. Perhaps the most incredible treat were the figs served in orange juice. I have never liked figs but I figured they wouldn’t serve them here unless they were good and to my surprise, they were delicious – ate them every day!
Bryan had some freelance work to do after breakfast and I took the time to “zen out” at our pad, with the lodging’s CD collection of peaceful music and a book.
Bryan in the zone
After lunch at the VIP lounge, we made our way South of Sedona for our horseback ride. We met up with Carissa, our guide, and had 2 hours of peaceful enjoyment of some fantastic Arizona landscape. Could not have asked for a better way to experience this region.
Once finished with this ‘Only in Sedona’ experience, we went to see the mumblecore feature Echo Lake preceded by short film Temporary. Following this film, we attended the night’s party at Reds Lounge – we even got interviewed for a local radio station. Fortunately, Christa was at the party again so I was able to properly thank her for such a terrific excursion and a change of pace from the festival.
Wednesday
While Bryan found himself needing to complete yet another round of revisions for his freelance job (one of many recurring jokes during the week) I attended the Producing/Directing panel at Mary Fisher theater. Films represented on the panel: Benjamin Troubles, How to Survive a Breakup, Dating Daisy, Life and Death of an Unhappily Married Man, and 6 Angry Women. I had met Sridhar Reddy, director of 6 Angry Women, at the party last night. After hearing him speak both in person and on the panel about the process, I knew I couldn’t miss his film. As a modern antithesis of classic 12 Angry Men (which is a film that holds up extremely well), his feature is based on the trial of Trayvon Martin’s shooter, which had only 6 women on the jury. Reddy utilized extremely unconventional directing techniques: he worked with the 6 cast members individually for 5 weeks, not telling them what movie they were making, focusing entirely on character development. Finally, 2 days before shooting, he told them they would be playing a jury. The film had no script and was improvised based on themes and a larger trajectory, and was shot in 6 days. He also homages plenty of classic films alongside 12 Angry Men in its style. After hearing all this, I knew I had to see it for myself, and so we did later today.
Sridhar Reddy, 6 Angry Women director is 3rd from left
To start the day, Bryan and I split up to see different movies. I saw Mustang already a few weeks ago in LA and loved it, so wanted to make sure he got a chance to see it. I opted to see an Argentinean film How to Win Enemies, which is a fairly silly comedy about a man who’s been robbed and trying to find which one of his friends betrayed him. It has stylistic similarities to Wild Tales, another film from Argentina I have seen that is far superior. When Bryan and I reconvened, I was excited to hear he loved Mustang as much as I did: that film is truly a class above in so many ways.
Mustang (2015 foreign film nominee)
At lunch, we ran into filmmakers Bob Celli and Laura Delano who I met at Hollywood North Film Festival last summer! Serentipitous seeing them again. We also met another filmmaker who had crossed paths with Bob and Laura before, Katie Blair, director of Screambox, who we’d see through the remainder of the fest.
In front of every screening, a board member or festival staff introduces the picture, and for our next screening our friend Lew introduced the film and despite the fact that it wasn’t even our film, he threw us a shout-out to the entire audience. He’s a perfect example of just how welcoming the people here at Sedona have been.
Lew Hoyt, one of our biggest supporters
The feature film was Sundance alumni (T)error about an FBI informant chasing down a potential terrorist. The story displays the unfortunate reality of racial profiling and the ineffectiveness of a lot of the programs the FBI has set up. While this is a very good documentary, I personally preferred a short film called Entrapped which I saw at Sundance and you can watch online for free!
While I enjoyed this feature, the short film that played in front of it was my favorite short of the festival! Elle, is a Belgian 20-minute short that blends a mix of horror, comedy, and romance seamlessly together toward one great piece. Essentially, the film is about a one-night stand that takes a turn when it becomes clear the woman has something mysterious living in her apartment with her. It’s a near-perfect short and exactly the type of film that I love.
Elle (short film)
After the screening we met Steve Grant and Bob Loudin, who had been at our film screening earlier this week and gave us great praise! We enjoyed dinner with them at the VIP Lounge and talked about movies and working in film. We would see them throughout the festival and look forward to seeing them some time in LA.
Our last film of the day was the aforementioned 6 Angry Women. Again, I was definitely wary of if the film could live up to its unconventional approach, and sure enough the film did live up to the expectation. It’s a movie that speaks to today’s injustice in a profound way and manages to make sense of the bafflingly unjust result of the trial, and of many others. This was a fantastic film festival movie because by having the filmmaker there allowed for a conversation to begin and further understanding of the larger situation. This is not a film that can be seen in a vacuum. It was also especially cool because Bryan and I watched 12 Angry Men together in college, adding to the power of seeing this one together. The film also played with a short called Condemned, and the writer/producer was present for a Q/A.
Tonight’s party was at the Agave Sedona and we were able to talk with Sridhar a bit further, as well as enjoy some great food from Heartline Café. Another great cap to a fantastic day, as each one continues to feel increasingly fulfilling.