Sedona Film Festival - Day 5, 6 & 7
/Thursday
Another Belgian film kicked off our day today with Marina, which doesn’t reinvent anything but is an endearing music biography of an Italian immigrant who overcomes obstacles toward becoming a musician. It played extremely well amongst the Sedona crowd.
We stepped out from the festival again, this time for a hike. A loop around where the airport is allowed us for some beautiful views, and a little bit of confusion on the trail. Nonetheless, it was the perfect length hike and allowed us another great change of pace.
In the evening we attended the program “Just Great Shorts,” four eclectic short films, including Figs for Italo by Bob and Laura. Another one, Winter Light, played in the same set as Don’t Tell My Mom at Laguna Film Festival! It was also shortlisted for the Academy Award nomination this year. The other two were Zero, a made-for-internet sci-fi piece produced by Ridley Scott, and a short environmental documentary about the Utah National Parks.
"Just Great Shorts" Q/A
For our reception tonight we would be at L’Auberge, which immediately from the title we knew would be something a class above. We realized at this point that every night’s party the venue got progressively nicer and more upscale, this one in a grand hotel with a pasta bar, oysters, and drinks of course. After a minor parking headache we made our way in and quickly ran into 4 Chapman alumni! Nico Agular, Tom Teller, Marie Cheng, and Zara Abraham had all driven up together to screen their two films, Hum and Volcano. Always fun to see some friends from the alma mater. Aside from that, we continued our nightly tradition of great refreshments and even better conversations!
Friday
First up was an Afghani doc Frame By Frame digging deep into the lives of numerous photojournalists who have risked their lives to properly tell the stories of their people. This is an example of substance over style with each sequence displaying how photography, something we take for granted that has saturated our day-to-day lives, is a rebellious and courageous act in this world. I am inspired by these individuals and hope to one day produce the same type of significant work.
At lunch we met two filmmakers in the “War Shorts” program which was perfect because that was what we were going to see next! James Paul & Jon Haynes were the filmmakers behind A Distant Shot which they fundraised themselves and shot in the Czech Republic! They’re also based in LA. The other filmmaker was Elias Matar, whose short documentary Flight of the Refugees documents his humanitarian trip all throughout Europe last year to aid the Syrian refugees. As many of you know this has been a world history event I’ve been following extremely closely, including my trip to Hungary to see the aftermath firsthand, so to meet someone who was directly involved and making a doc about it was truly inspiring. Like many of the filmmakers, I look forward to continuing the conversation with him long after the festival ends.
"War Shorts" filmmakers Elias Matar and James Paul
This set of films was a bit draining given the subject matter and that each one was a bit long for a short, but the order was especially well thought out, chronological with the exception of Refugees which started the lineup. Waiting for Dawn and Chronicles of Courage were about WWI. Prisoner, starring Frederick Lau from my 2015 favorite Victoria, was about WWII, and A Distant Shot took place in 1958 post-war. The most unconventional was Chronicles of Courage, which was entirely told using archival letters between two siblings in the war, and poetic, highly symbolic imagery that went with it. Of all these emotional shorts, this elicited the most personal reaction from me. That being said I was quite impressed with the lineup as a whole. As an added bonus we sat with Denise Strubbe, the shorts programmer who we had met last night. She selects all the short films, so she is the reason we were able to attend this festival!
Shortly after this program, and after congratulating the sets of filmmakers, we made our way over to the Media room where we had a press interview scheduled. DTMM Lead Actor Brendan Calton was driving up to attend an interview and tomorrow’s screening Q/A! He had just arrived when it was time for our interview, and we all got to answer some terrific questions for the Sedona media team – I’ll be posting the interview as soon as its live!
Our final party was at the Enchantment Resort, and by far and away the most upscale! We did less meeting of new faces and more spending time with all the great people we’ve gotten to know so far. We did however find out that two filmmakers, Annie Bradford and Emily Juliani, who were also staying at Briar Patch Inn without us even realizing! These parties were never quite long enough, given their target audience didn’t quite have as much energy as we did, but nonetheless we always managed to have a lot of fun, and at this one made a point to say our goodbyes to all of the wonderful people we’d met, especially Patrick and Liz who did so much to make this festival as fantastic as it was. The experience will not easily be forgotten.
Saturday
Our final screening was bright and early at 9am Saturday morning, and we hoped that our week of meeting filmmakers and hyping up the project would help make for a great audience. It seemed without our help, the screening was sold out: the crowd was primarily those we didn’t know, but every single seat was filled! This auditorium fit 140 people, significantly larger than our Monday screening. Truth be told, this was our best audience yet! Every single joke landed to large applause. At the end, we had one last great Q/A with terrific, thoughtful questions for Bryan, Brendan and me to answer. Once questions ended, I took one last opportunity to thank the festival for such an unforgettable experience. This is truly the best festival experience I’ve had to date.
On our drive back, Bryan and I basked in an incredible week and had plenty of time to mull over each of the films we saw as well as the great people that we met. If you’ve managed to read all this, please let me know – it’s definitely long winded but as you can see there was quite a lot to take away from Sedona.