Movies on a Shoestring: RIFF 2005

This year I managed to attend every screening of the Rochester International Film Festival, organized by Movies on a Shoestring. That’s 8 hours of shorts in 3 days, for those of you keeping track.

It was a good time — I met plenty of filmmakers and saw some excellent work. I’m more determined than ever to get some of my projects out of the idea stage and actually submit them to festivals.

My associate Dave Puls got some great responses to “Parallel Worlds.” He has some strong opinions, and he’s not afraid to present them to strangers. I wouldn’t have the courage to share my thoughts and emotions the way he does. I applaud him for it.

I met some interesting directors from all over the country. I spoke with Michael Vaingauz about the potential for his film, “The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle.” It’s very well done, funny, clever, and true to the stories of Sherlock Holmes in a twisted way. I can see this being a great short for VOD and indie cable stations.

Kristina Jessica Doyle directed “Juliet,” a sick little horror short with a great look. I found some of it truly disturbing, plus I’m a sucker for any scary scene that takes place in a basement. I could see Juliet winning some awards at horror festivals. Kristina is planning to enter plenty, but says competition is pretty fierce at some of the high end ones in L.A. She’s got some ambitious thoughts for a whole series of horror shorts, which I won’t give away here. The point is, she’s in it for the long haul. She’s doing horror cuz she loves it.

John C. Lyons, director of “Hunting Camp,” actually knew of our Animatus shorts through my posts at Indieclub. His “film” was shot on video, and it looks great. It doesn’t try to look like film, but it doesn’t look like your typical backyard home movie either. There is an aesthetic to video that can be very attractive if done correctly. The editing his short is very accomplished, as is the use of rock music (check out the soundtrack on the Hunting Camp website). He’s from Eerie, Pennsylvania, which has a film fest this fall that I should plan to attend. Not that far away, and it looks to be a good show.

As someone who sometimes couldn’t come up with ideas for paintings, I found “Sophie Matisse, a New York Painter” extremely interesting. Sophie is the descendant of THE Matisse, famous French painter. How does one overcome that and carve out an identity? Well, she takes famous works of art and copies them, but leaves out the people. You’re left with the background of the Mona Lisa, for example. (The title? “Back in Five Minutes.”) It’s a great gimmick, and made for a fun documentary. Filmmaker Christine Lombard was a real character, too. A real treat to talk with.

If you want to know even more about this year’s films, check out Jason Olshefsky’s Haiku Summaries.