DFW.com review

At Sundance, the kids are definitely not all right

• Article online
  

Photo by Sebastian Mlynarski. A scene from 'On the Ice.'

By Christopher Kelly

DFW.com

Posted 9:07pm on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011

"If there’s a theme among the films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it seems to be the plight of the troubled teenager. On Saturday afternoon, I saw three films, all in the dramatic competition, and all of which concerned themselves with bullied, disenfranchised, wholly alienated youth. The estate of J.D. Salinger should perhaps considering suing for royalties.

What the late Salinger would have thought of these mostly earnest, overly self-serious crop of movies is another story entirely.

The best of them is On the Ice, a new twist on the old River’s Edge story, in which two teenagers accidentally kill one of their best friends and then try to bury the evidence. What makes the film striking is its setting, an Inupiaq community in northern Alaska, where the only diversions for young people seem to be sex, hip hop music and crack cocaine. First-time director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean coaxes excellent performances from Josiash Patkotak and Frank Qutuq, two young actors from Alaska; and while the movie is certainly a little rough around the edges, it at least suggests a promising young talent on the way to finding his voice..."

We're a "Must-See!" according to Eric Kohn at Indiewire!

5 Must-See Films at BAMcinemaFest

by Eric Kohn

Entering its third year, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) continues its intention of bringing many of the strongest sleeper hits of the American film festival circuit to appreciative crowds in Brooklyn. The opening night selection Thursday, June 16th is an interesting example: British director Andrew Haigh’s gay romance “Weekend” came out of nowhere to become the breakout hit of South by Southwest in March, but its positioning at BAM makes it one of the stars of the show. There are also plenty of mid-size productions that developed buzz out of Sundance, such as “Terri” and “Another Earth,” both of which will hit theaters later this year. However, the festival’s real strength comes from its selection of less widely acclaimed work that has slipped through the cracks or otherwise avoided the media spotlight. Here are a few memorable discoveries in that vein.

“On the Ice”

Although it played under the radar at Sundance in January, Inuit filmmaker Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s tense thriller about a couple of rebellious teens in desolate Barrow, Alaska announces a new filmmaker with a firm grasp on the genre. When a drunken night results in an accidental murder, two young men must harbor a dark secret while the authorities traverse the barren terrain in search of the missing body. The scenario isn’t exactly original, but MacLean’s script benefits from making its edgy characters into figures of sympathy: Qalli (Josiah Patkotak) dreams of attending college while his friend Aivaaq (Frank Qutuq Irelan) hopes to settle down with his girlfriend. Their dreams give the movie’s film noir ingredients a real sense of peril, the marriage of high stakes and teen angst put a Hitchcockian twist on the typical John Hughes scenario, and the icy climate introduces an existential creepiness no less unsettling than the empty vistas in John Carpenter’s “The Thing.”

Here's the link to it online.

Winner of FIPRESCI Prize for Best New American Film!

June 12, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Inquiries

SIFF Publicity Department

206.624.1179

press@siff.net

37th SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WRAPS WITH

2011 GOLDEN SPACE NEEDLE AWARDS

Jury, Audience Awards Given for Best Film, Documentary, Director, Actor and Short Film

SEATTLE – The 37th Seattle International Film Festival, the largest and most highly-attended event of its kind in the United States concluded today with the announcement of the SIFF 2011 Competition Awards and Golden Space Needle Audience Awards. The 25-day Festival, which began May 19, featured over 450 films from more than 70 countries, including 96 premieres (29 World, 42 North American, 25 U.S.) and over 600 screenings. Additionally, SIFF brought more than 300 directors, actors and industry professionals, including Tribute Honoree Ewan McGregor to Seattle, as well as hosted numerous digital Q&As via Skype with international filmmakers who were unable to attend in person.

“I'm gratified that Seattle audiences continue to embrace the Festival’s wide-ranging selection of films from around the world proving that Seattle filmgoers see more films per capita than any other city in the nation,” said SIFF Artistic Director Carl Spence. “For the second year in a row, we have surpassed one million dollars in ticket sales making this another record-setting year.”

SIFF Managing Director Deborah Person said, “2011 has been a monumental year for SIFF, as we've expanded our year-round exhibition programming at SIFF Cinema with record attendance and introduced the work of filmmakers from around the world to more than 10,000 students. With the exciting move into our new home at the SIFF Film Center, filmgoers will experience even more of the best in cinema which will carry on for future generations.”

SIFF 2011 FIPRESCI Prize for Best New American Film

SIFF is very pleased to announce its continued partnership with FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics. FIPRESCI, in existence for more than 65 years, with members in over 60 countries, supports cinema as an art and as an outstanding and autonomous means of expression. SIFF is one of three festivals in the United States to host a FIPRESCI jury, and this year, FIPRESCI presented an award to Best New American Film selected from the New American Cinema program.

FIPRESCI Prize

On the Ice, directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean (USA, 2011)

Jury Statement: “For presenting a universal, near-Biblical tragedy set in a little known culture recreated with compelling detail. A story told with outstanding naturalistic performances with a confident, compelling narrative.”

The FIPRESCI jury was comprised of members of the International Federation of Film Critics: Peter Keough, USA; Gideon Kouts, France; and Lucy Virgen, Mexico

Honorable Mention at Cine Las Americas

We were so happy to be a part of a co-presentation between Cine Las Americas and the Austin Film Festival where we won an Honorable Mention for Best Film! Here's the press announcement on their webpage: http://www.cinelasamericas.org/film-festival/14/609-2011-jury-and-audience-awards

SIFF TV

Here's an interview that Andrew did while in Seattle for the Seattle International Film Festival.

http://www.siff.net/sifftv/index.aspx?vid=161

Tickets on sale!!!

We are participating in a variety of festivals in June and many of them having tickets on sale now. If we're coming to your area, we'd love to see you!

Seattle International Film Festival
http://www.siff.net/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=44462&FID=206

Screening dates/times:
Saturday, June 4th at 9:30pm
Sunday, June 5th at 11am
Friday, June 10th at 9pm


Berkshire International Film Festival
http://biffma.slated.com/2011/films/ontheice_biffma2011

Screening dates/times:
Friday, June 3rd at 6:45pm
Sunday, June 5th at 1:30pm

Provincetown International Film Festival
http://www.ptownfilmfest.org/films/schedule.php

Screening dates/times:
Thursday, June 16th at 2pm
Sunday June 19th at 11:30am

BAM cinemaFEST (Brooklyn Academy of Music)
http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=3258

Screening date/time: Friday, June 17th at 6:50pm

LA Film Fest (LAFF)
http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2011/filmguide/Title/OO

This screening is free! You just have to make sure to come early enough to get a seat.
Regal Cinemas LA Live 10
Screening date/time: Sunday, June 19th at 6:45pm

Nantucket Film Festival
http://nantucket.slated.com/2011/films/ontheice_nantucket2011

Friday, June 24th at 12:30pm
Saturday, June 25th at 5pm

Inter Press Service article

AUSTRALIA
Indigenous Say It on Film
By Neena Bhandari


SYDNEY, May 25, 2011 (IPS) - From the Australian bush to Alaska’s Arctic wilderness, indigenous peoples’ stories and perspectives take centre stage at the Message Sticks Film Festival, the only annual event of its kind in Australia.

Message Sticks opened at the Sydney Opera House on May 13 and tours nationally until Aug. 24, through remote Aboriginal communities in the towns of Broome, Townsville, Cairns, Alice Springs and Yirrkala, besides screening to mainstream audiences in state and territory capitals.

"The festival has grown in terms of audience and the quality of works," said Australian indigenous film and documentary director Rachel Perkins.

"The pool of indigenous filmmakers has also grown with more access to targeted programmes for skills development. This, coupled with the means of production becoming more economically viable, has meant that there is more content to draw from," Perkins, who has been the festival curator for the past 12 years, told IPS.

A decade ago it was difficult to get an audience for an indigenous film, but interest in contemporary stories on native peoples has grown substantially.

In the 1970s, there were no feature films with an indigenous Australian in a key creative role. But the first decade of the 2000s has seen native filmmakers contribute to nine features and 16 TV dramas, according to Screen Australia’s The Black List, which catalogues the work of 257 Aboriginal Australians on a total of 674 screen productions.

The Sydney Opera House started Message Sticks in 2000 to commemorate "Sorry Day", a tribute to the so-called Stolen Generations—tens of thousands of indigenous children forcibly taken from their families between 1900 and 1970 under the Government Assimilation Policies to "breed out" Aborigine blood and supposedly provide them with a better life.

Although Message Sticks began in this context, Perkins said, it is now a niche festival showing the best indigenous films from around the world.

A standout film at this year’s event has been "On the Ice" by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean. It won the Crystal Bear and Best First Feature at Berlin, and demonstrates a filmmaker working at the top of his craft with an appreciation for storytelling, but strongly grounded in the indigenous and very contemporary world of filmmaking.

MacLean, who grew up in Barrow Village in Alaska’s Inuit (Eskimo) nation, said "My film is set in the aftermath of a murder and explores themes of morality. Even if one escapes, there is no real way of getting away from the crime, which ripples out into the community and impacts people on the periphery. In our village of about 4,000 people, everybody knows everyone so crime in the village, unlike in a big city, is not anonymous or impersonal."

The film is an extension of a short film MacLean, an Iñupiaq, made in 2008 called "Sikumi", which won the Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize on Short Filmmaking that year.

While technology is making it easier for indigenous films to reach out to a global audience, MacLean, who has a Masters degree from the New York University film school, said, "For small independent films with no great stars, there is no government funding and it is difficult to raise funds. It took three years from script to screen."

The festival opened in Sydney and Melbourne with Australian indigenous writer and director Beck Cole’s debut feature "Here I Am," which tells the story of a young woman’s difficult journey reconnecting with her mother and daughter after being released from prison.

Karen, the central character in the film, faces the difficult truth that shame is a powerful force, and sometimes the most important person to forgive is oneself. "It was my desire to tell a story about a family of women trying to mend itself and to give audiences an opportunity to enter a world they otherwise might not know about," Cole told IPS.

Aboriginal adults, who comprise around two percent of Australia’s total adult population, make up over 25 percent of prisoners, and Cole is hoping her film would help many of these adults forgive themselves and reconnect with family and society.

According to the 2006 census, Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders comprise only 2.5 per cent or 517,000 of the country's 22 million population. They have been one of the most marginalised populations in the developed world.

But their identity is evolving, said Perkins. "In the most positive sense, it is defined by having a consciousness about the original culture of Australia and an identification and connection with that heritage, whilst also embracing the experience of living in a contemporary Australian society."

Actress, writer and director Pauline Whyman, who hosts the festival tour, told IPS, "Message Sticks films often have the effect of drawing you into the sheer diversity of the story telling and the breadth of talent the filmmakers share that brings excellence in filmmaking to the world."

In recent years, indigenous filmmakers have achieved both critical and commercial acclaim. "Filmmakers have developed their skills over time. We are seeing filmmakers graduate from short form works to narrative movies. This has meant we have a wider variety of dramatic works to choose from," Perkins told IPS. The other films that premiered at Message Sticks include Native American director Billy Luther’s "Grab," an intimate portrayal of Grab Day in the villages of the Laguna Pueblo tribe in New Mexico; Mexican director Carlos Pérez Rojas’s "And the River Flows On," about the conflict between the Mexican government and the indigenous communities threatened by the La Parota hydro-electric dam on the Papagayo River in Guerrero state; and Australian director Ivan Sen’s "Shifting Shelter 4" which follows the lives of four young Aboriginal teenagers dealing with the harsh realities of life and raising their own families.

Perkins said the government has committed to supporting indigenous cinema as a contribution to Australian culture. "The immediate challenge is that demand for quality indigenous content has increased, so we must now focus on identifying and supporting new indigenous talent to take up this opportunity," she said.

Click HERE for the article online.