Also this issue:

Welcome to the World
Around the globe in 150 films.
-Sam Adams

Loaded Cameras
How the Philadelphia Film Festival's directors mix politics and art.
-Sam Adams

Fest Shorts

April 3- 9, 2003

cover story

The Long and Short of It

Jazzyfatnastees:InProcess

With a bunch of features and a ton of shorts, the Festival of Independents positively overflows.

by Sam Adams

Like the festival as a whole, the Festival of Independents keeps growing, both in size and scope. This year’s FestIndies slate boasts five features, nearly six hours of short films, and a somewhat dizzying array of parties, panels and miscellaneous gatherings. From Friday’s kickoff party at Artists@Work, featuring a performance by the Myra Bazell Dance Ensemble (Bazell turns in a fine supporting performance in opening-night film Invisible Mountains) all the way through April 15’s closing party/awards ceremony at The Trocadero, FestIndies lays out a near-nightly buffet of the region’s motley best. (A complete schedule is located smack in the center of this week’s paper.)

Given the increased numbers of features crammed into FestIndies' goodie bag -- the artist's coming-of-age tale Mountains, the detective story/documentary Stone Reader (see supplement), redemption noir R.T. Herwig's The Good Thief (not to be confused with the festival's other The Good Thief), the domestic two-hander The Quality of Light and the satirical The War Effort (see cover story) -- they'll be reviewed right alongside the festival's other feature offerings. Besides, while it's always gratifying to see local filmmakers taking a shot at the big time, there's something at least as exciting about the throngs who gather for the short-film showcases, with the progression of filmmakers eager to show off their two- to 20-minute would-be masterpieces, each with their own cheering section. It's at these screenings you can really feel the community come alive, intermingling and perhaps laying the groundwork for future film projects.

The short stuff gets under way with "In the Shadow of City Hall -- Phillytales" (Sun., April 6, 7 p.m., Independence Seaport Museum) which, with its multiple views of the metropolis we call home, offers the easiest range of pleasures. In Recovery Mural, Sloane Seale and Dorothea Braemer document the creation of a mural by recovering drug addicts, while Michael Dennis' Jazzyfatnastees: In Process looks at the behind-the-scenes struggles of the local soul duo. A pair of sample episodes reveal that the "Philly-" prefix has not outlived its usefulness: Aphillyated: Todd Marone profiles an artist who prefers to give his creations away, or failing that, just staple them to telephone poles, while Phillyblunt follows WYSP's Couzin Ed around town -- a tale that's perhaps more bittersweet than it intends to be, as it reveals the boisterous radio personality as a rather sad middle-aged divorcé who still drinks till closing on a weeknight. Special mention to UArts prof Karl Staven, who not only crafted PFF's nifty trailer, but co-directed the warped, delightful Sister Mary Joseph's School for Unwed Nurses, which animates creepy old photos to even creepier effect.

"Vive La Difference" (Mon., April 7, 7:30 p.m., International House) lives up to its name with a wildly varying selection. "I'm Only Human," by The Last Broadcast's Lance Weiler, tries to poke fun at infomercials but ends up more toxic than Cher's hair products, while Josh Cohen's langorous Visiting Hours and Leonard Guercio's Tiramisu boast vivid black-and-white cinematography (particularly in the case of Guercio's evocative views of South Philadelphia) but drag even at short length. Amy Olk's The Clock starts with an obvious joke -- a woman's biological clock appears, hands and all, on her belly -- but makes its broadness charming, while Liesje Kraai's Puppy Chow revisits "How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?" with an eye for the macabre. Two highlights: Alex Strang's Bag-a-hangaz is an ultra-low-budget music video whose sheer dementedness has to be seen to be believed, while Mary Sweeney's Phototropism is not only the most evocative piece in all of FestIndies, but one of the more eye-catching in the festival as a whole. Blending documentary with autobiography, Sweeney links her father's love of the art of bonsai with his stern, abusive parenting. "As bends the tree, so bends the tree. As bends the child, so bends the child," he proclaims, while Sweeney implies she might be the tree that got away.

"Pushing the Envelope" (Thu., April 10, 7:15 p.m., Independence Seaport Museum) is similarly up-and-down. Nathan Caswell's The Unbelievable Truth starts strongly, linking a photographer's images to important moments in his life, but climaxes with a literal-minded burst of bloody imagery that's more revolting than provocative. Melina Hammer's gothed-out Memoria Captive likewise overdoses on imagery, while Tal Sharon's documentary, Meet the Cheeks, which profiles a fundamentalist Christian family from Silver Lake, N.J., seems more concerned with making its subjects look freakish than painting a humane portrait. The best stuff here is both funniest and first. The program opens with a strong trio: Paul Haidle's funny stop-motion Heads Up, which uncovers the hitherto-unknown epidemic of babies born without heads; Mitchell Landsmann's The Fantastic Journey of Billy the Bullet, narrated by Frank X, a Seussian tale of a projectile who's not so fond of his assigned task; and Dreamscapes, by Sean McBride (That Special Monkey), which fuses a variety of animation techniques to accompany people's recollections of their nocturnal envisions.

"Reality in Question" (Mon., April 14, 7:15 p.m., International House) graces FestIndies' penultimate night with a strong evening of shorts loosely organized around a documentary theme. Nathalie Applewhite's Picture Me an Enemy gets another screening with its strong portrait of young women coping with the wreckage of the Balkan conflict, while Andrea Campbell's Fake Clouds examines fallout of a more literal kind, with its story of growing up in the shadow of a nuclear reactor. Jason Centano's The Anniversary is a heartfelt if on-the-nose memorial to the victims of Sept. 11, while Vanessa Briceno's Fading Away is a look at Alzheimer's disease whose urgent closing text is at odds with its ambiguous tone. Child Prodigies: Where Are They Now? is a product of a previous 48 Hour Film Project -- winners of a more recent editon will be screened April 5 -- while Nick Diulio's "GOD" imagines the creator as a bored, dissatisfied being who's just about had enough of the earth.

All this and more, including the Set in Philadelphia screenwriting competition, opportunities for aspiring actors to strut their stuff and aspiring filmmakers to both pitch nascent ideas and promote projects in the works, plus panel discussions on diversity in filmmaking, animation (including Hedwig and the Angry Inch's Emily Hubley) and aspects of production from sound to, well, producing. It's enough to make my typing finger tired. At this point, FestIndies has gotten so big all you have to do is stumble out your door and you'll run into something worth seeing. Take that step.