The 11th installment of the Maryland Film Festival took place May 7th - May 10th. The festival keeps growing and this year was marked by the addition of many foreign films. The festival had a tradition of bringing the filmmaker to each screening but they were willing to sacrifice that for a wider selection of films.
I volunteered this year and I would highly recommend it. It felt like I got more out of it than the festival. Volunteers get a free t-shirt, a voucher good for one ticket to a screening and more. Joining the Friends of the Festival is also a good idea. For only $50 a year you get the chance to see about 30 films a year for free before they are released to the wider public, and help the festival.
Now on to the films I saw.
- It Was Great But I Was Ready To Go Home - I was kinda falling asleep through this so I can't judge it honestly but I liked that this had little dialogue compared to other "mumblecore" films (especially that aimless umm-ing). You get to follow two young women on a trip to Costa Rica and experience the realization that these trips are never quite as fun and full of spontaneous moments of excitement as you imagine. Nevertheless, there's always something to remember after the fact and a warm glow remains.
- Punching The Clown - this was really funny. Kind of like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" but with a very likable lead (he endears himself within a few moments) and not relying on embarrassment so much. The film follows a self-described satirical folk musician, the attempt to describe what he does being a running joke through the movie, during his stint in LA. Fictional but loosely based on real experiences of the protagonist who is playing himself. You get to see Los Angeles from a slightly different perspective than usual - the small, out of the way places that still feature the scrabbling for table scraps characteristic of this land of failed dreams.
- Mock Up On Mu - my neurons were firing like crazy during this. This really was something different and I am grateful to MFF for featuring such experimental fare. It's a very dense narrative about the hidden history (though "everyone in California knows this", according to the director) of the Beat culture of California. The story is conveyed through a furious collage of images from b-movies, classic films and newly shot footage with the audio barely coinciding with the images on screen. Hundreds of films and soundtracks are used as material and the film also functions as a critique of popular film-making. The filmmaker was a blast - talking a mile a minute and so enthusiastic about his work and cinema in general.
- Narrative Shorts 2 - my recollection of this is very hazy. "The Line" was good but almost too much. Very heavy.
- Daytime Drinking - a great comedy from South Korea. I was worried that the humor wouldn't translate but I laughed a lot, though who knows how much I missed. The film follows the misadventures of a recently broken-up young man as he makes an ill-advised trip to a pension somewhere in the mountains during the winter. A lot of drinking takes place.
- Modern Love Is Automatic - the one miss in the festival for me. Nevermind the blown out sound, this movie just wasn't engaging at all. The main character was a complete void. The film suggests that the action in it was just a strange, exceptional episode in the heroine's life so it cuts off the need to explain anything. Without context the actual happenings weren't very interesting. The protagonist's foil was somewhat engaging and pathetic.
- The Immaculate Conception Of Little Dizzle - I was worried about this, thinking it would be another "Blood Car". But I was wrong. This was hilarious. The characters were very dynamic. The movie concerns an anarchic crew of office cleaners who get involved in the testing of an experimental product (a self-warming cookie) that produces hallucinations and leads to some bizarre places later. The preposterous and not very funny main plot point didn't get in the way too much. And it looked great. There was some pretty overt subtext about morality and the search for God but I don't it's all that interesting even though it winds up denying any possibility of a divine justice. What I liked was the bittersweet realization that good times don't last and one has to move on.
- Nollywood Babylon - a documentary on the third-largest (by volume) film industry in the world. The actual "film" industry in Nigeria isn't that interesting. Or at least didn't appear very interesting from how the filmmakers presented it. I am not sure if it's present, but if there's a "mondo" element to the whole enterprise they should have definitely played it up because otherwise the films are just soap opera with third-rate visuals (actually the special effects are hilarious - think Flash animation done by a fifth-grader). The more interesting aspect of the film was the daily life in Nigeria, the glimpses of poverty and ruined buildings (from civil war), the consequences of IMF policy on the economy. But the most interesting aspect (and this is what infuriated me the most) are the ties between the film industry and evangelical Christians and how that ties in with the economic ruin, the urbanization and the struggle between traditional beliefs and the urban Christian religion. A lot of the films (or at least what we see) are financed by these preachers who have hundreds of thousands of followers all hoping to get rich by joining the church. Of course the only people to get rich are the preachers. The whole model is of course imported from America and it's very sad to see this virus spread.