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NBFF

Newport Beach Film Fest underway

October 2, 2020 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

Each spring, I usually attend and cover the Newport Beach Film Festival. As with just about everything this year, the pandemic has affected many film festivals, including NBFF. The festival is now underway virtually. This year geography isn’t an issue for people who’d like to see the films that have been chosen for NBFF.

Like most film festivals, NBFF has sections for short films and feature films. Besides the obvious categories of narrative and documentary, NBFF also has a group of films about Art, Design and Architecture, Environmental films, Orange County local interest, Culinary cinema, and family films. You can check out the selections and buy tickets ($10 for individual films) at https://nbff2020.eventive.org/films.

During the next several days (the films are available between now and Oc. 10) I’ll be taking in a few of these films. Like all businesses during the pandemic, NBFF needs support. You can support them by picking a film or two that look interesting and watch something different than al the stuff on Netflix, Prime, Disney+, and the other streaming services.

Filed Under: Film Festivals, Newport Beach FF Tagged With: NBFF

Boundaries – Dysfunctional Family Takes to the Road

June 21, 2018 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

Road trips movies are inevitably about the forces that pull us apart and/or draw us together. Boundaries, from writer-director Shana Feste, uses this vehicle to look at three generations of a family in need of both distance and reunion.

Laura (Vera Farminga) has a problem setting limits, as is seen in the fact that she brings home every stray or injured dog or cat she finds. The one boundary she does keep is to never answer her father Jack’s (Christopher Plummer) many phone calls. But when her son Henry (Lewis MacDougall) is expelled from school for a nude caricature of the principal, she needs Jack’s help to pay for a special private school. Jack needs Laura’s help as well because he’s being kicked out of his retirement community for growing and selling marijuana. So a deal is struck and soon Laura is driving Jack’s ancient Rolls Royce down the Pacific Coast to deliver him to her sister Jojo (Kristen Schaal). What Laura doesn’t know is that the trunk is full of weed that Jack (with Henry’s help) is selling along the way.

Laura and Jack’s relationship is the key one in the film. The estrangement is based on Jack’s history of being a con man and years of broken promises. She is skeptical about letting him into Henry’s life (even before she eventually discovers Jack is using his grandson in the pot business). It is obvious that many of the woes in Laura’s life are rooted in her relationship with her father. She is the epitome of a people-pleaser and is often taken advantage of. Henry is obviously in need of more than she can provide, but Jack is hardly the influence she wants. Even her openness to strays is a search for those who can be relied on to return affection.

Although most of her life is devoid of boundaries, the discovery on the road trip is that the one fence she maintains is the one she has built around her heart concerning her father. As we should expect from a road movie, there will be times when the relationship is ready to crash, but in time, Jack and Laura may find the route that will take them to a new place—a place where they can find more in each other than they have known.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: christopher plummer, comedy, dysfunctional family, Kristen Sxhaal, Lewis MacDougall, marijuana, NBFF, road movie, Shana Feste, Vera Farminga

The Girl and the Picture – 1 on 1 Interview with Director Vanessa Roth

May 11, 2018 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

I recently had the chance to talk by phone with Academy Award winner Vanessa Roth about her new short documentary, The Girl and the Picture, that played at the Newport Beach Film Festival. The film tells the story of Madame Xia, who as an eight year old girl survived the Nanjing Massacre (sometimes referred to as the Rape of Nanjing). In that massacre she saw her family murdered by Japanese soldiers. She was seen on film made by John Magee, an American missionary in Nanjing at the time. In The Girl and the Picture, Madame Xia recounts her story for her granddaughter Yuan and great-grandson Yuhan. The film also follows Chris Magee, grandson of John Magee, on his trip to Nanjing to find a new connection with his grandfather, and to meet Madame Xia.

We spoke a bit about the idea of bearing witness, which is central to the film. She recounted about Xia telling her story long ago to John Magee, who recorded this in his journal and diary and later testified at a war crimes tribunal.

She then went on: Later we have Madame Xia telling her story to her granddaughter and great-grandson. And then we also have this stirring witness of her granddaughter writing her grandson who then can pass that down as well. So as much as it’s very specifically about this horrible moment in history of the Nanjing Massacre and this day that her family had been massacred. It is also very much about bearing witness and storytelling itself.

How did you come to this project?

I’d been approached by the USC Shoah Foundation in this past summer. They’d been working with Madame Xia on another project that they were doing with her about testimony. Madame Xia is one of only a hundred living survivors of the Nanjing Massacre left. So it’s very urgent to get as much firsthand storytelling of that moment in history as possible. The Shoah Foundation wanted to expand the work they were doing with the Nanjing Massacre and with Madame Xia in particular to have a film. So I think what I brought to it was that I wanted to do something different than had been done before. Madame Xia didn’t speak about her experience at all until she was in her sixties. But then since then she does speak about it a lot and has been interviewed by a lot of journalists. But I noticed in the footage I’ve seen, what she tells is the moment of the massacre which was very important, but what I really wanted to get into was the idea of family storytelling and legacy and history and how the much more much more personal kind of exploration of what historic moments mean to people.

That family storytelling, I think, is interesting because you structure your film that way coming from a couple different directions. With Madame Xia sharing with her granddaughter and great-grandson, and then with Chris Magee, the grandson of John Magee going back to where his grandfather was. I think the sharing shifts if you’re sharing a story with the world and if you’re sharing the story with your family.

Exactly. I think in families you’re able to ask different questions that a stranger is able to ask or a book is able to get at. Personal moment becomes relatable because we all have relationships with family that I think it’s given that there’s a certain human condition, no matter where we’re from or what generations we’re from, and that’s the kind of thing that can come out in storytelling like this. Grandchildren have different questions of the grandparents because that’s their grandparent. They’re not just looking at it with a lens of “tell me about this one moment”, but as a grandchild, a great-grandchild, you have a certain investment, because it’s you—your own story really. You’re hearing about your family.

With Chris it was a personal journey that he took into the footsteps of his own grandfather. The special think about Chris Magee is he’s actually a filmmaker himself. He’s a cameraman. I wonder about these family connections. How much do we carry with us—our own ancestors’ essence without knowing it. It’s just interesting to me what drove him to become a cameraman himself. He was able to go back to Nanjing and try to see more about his own grandfather.

It’s interesting his perception. For him John Magee was the grandfather. When he gets to Nanjing he is a great hero to be celebrated.

Actually that’s how Chris Magee had grown up, knowing his grandfather actually in that way. He’d been told as he grew up that his grandfather had all these historic films and knew his grandfather, John Magee, had testified at the war tribunals. And he’d known him in this way. And actually what was interesting is when he went back to Nanjing, that’s when he actually connected with him more on a personal level in an interesting way, where he’d kind of only known him through his films. Then when he went to Nanjing and walked in those same footsteps, I think he felt more affected. Then whe he met Madame Xia, I think that it made it even more personal.

How did you find and connect with Chris Magee?

There’s a woman in Canada named Linda Granfield who’s been working on the history of the Magee family. The Magee family is fascinating. She’s been working on that for years and years and years. So she’s really the historian of historians on the Magee family. Then the Magee family archives are actually at the Yale Divinity School. We reached out to both of them and said, “Who down the line in John Magee’s family would be somebody that we could speak with?” I specifically wanted a grandchild to talk to. So we’d been put in touch with one of John Magee’s sons—the last son still living, Hugh Magee. And Hugh put us in touch with Chris and said, “I think Chris is the person that would be a wonderful addition to this film because he’s a cameraman himself. He’s always been very interested in the Nanjing films. He has a deep connection to wanting to know about history and wanting to know Nanjing.”

In the process of making the film is there somewhere you had your own sense of growth or discovery?

Anytime I make any film. This film in particular I set out to make something that was to personalize a moment in history, For me, I really didn’t know about that history at all. I had to do a lot of research to even understand the context of everything. And also it’s another culture, another language. There’s always the self-reflection and the growth that has to has to happen. I wanted to make a film that anyone could relate to, that’s very personable, and to feel that the people in the film, that it was their voice. So for me that was just an extension of the positions I ended up putting myself in with the films I make, being in a culture and language very different from what I know or have known, and to make sure that I’m open to telling the story that presents itself to me and not the story that I go in thinking it will be. The main thing is that it all cemented even more with what I hoped I would have gotten out of making the film, which is this idea and conviction I have that we are all relatable to each other if asked the right questions and  we’re able to tell our stories and asked to tell our stories, and to kind of shatter this idea of otherness that gets created too often.

Filed Under: Film, Film Festivals, Interviews, Newport Beach FF Tagged With: China, documentary, Nanking Massacre, NBFF, short, World War II

Tuesday at NBFF

April 27, 2017 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

My movie choices at Newport Beach Film Festival on Tuesday were stories filled with humanity, love, and compassion.

From Ireland came Sanctuary, a film that features actors of the Blue Teapot Theatre Company who have intellectual disabilities. Larry, who has Downs, and Sophie, who has epilepsy, are in love. When the group from their sheltered workshop takes a trip to the cinema, Larry bribes their companion/caregiver to get them a hotel room so they can spend some private time together. While that happens, the others in the group begin to wonder where they have gone to and some set off in search. By the time the companion gets back, the group has gone several different ways. It is a comic disaster. But we discover that these people are really very like the rest of us. They love, they flirt, they want recognition, they want independence. Of course, there are consequences for all of this. Eventually some very severe consequences.

On October 30, 1938, Orson Wells and his radio theater company did a production of H.G. Wells’s story War of the Worlds. Many listening believed it a real Martian invasion and panic set in. All that is true. Brave New Jersey is a fictionalized story of what happened in a small rural town in New Jersey. The town has a group of zany characters who set out to protect their town. In the process people’s real nature comes out. Some step up, others run away. And some, facing the possibility of their last night of life, seek to make known the love they have kept hidden. It was a cute and fun take on the War of the Worlds legend.

As I’ve mentioned before the tag line for NBFF this year is “Go Deeper”. That is certainly what The Longest Road has sought to do. This documentary features a group led by Iraqi War veteran Richard Campos on a humanitarian trip to Kurdistan. Campos has been taking medical supplies to the region for several years, knowing the need that is there in light of ISIS and it’s violence. A Gold Star father who lost his son in Iraq asks to go along to honor his son. Filmmakers come along as well to document what faces the refugees here. We hear many horrific stories and see terrible living condition of both Kurds and Yazidi refugees. We also learn of the Kurdish soldiers who are seeking to protect their land and people from ISIS. There are many people of compassion and commitment who strive to aid those in such a dire need. I’m conflicted a bit about this film. It is always important for us to know about the needs of the very disadvantaged in places such as this. There needs to be more attention paid to the victims of the war that has been going on there for some time. This film certainly opens our eyes to these people we may have known nothing about. But at times the many, many stories of violence and need became a bit too much. Even as it shows humanity and hope, it also overwhelms us with the darkness of the situation.

Filed Under: Film, Newport Beach FF, News Tagged With: film festival, NBFF

Sunday at NBFF

April 24, 2017 by Darrel Manson 1 Comment

You’ll note I never give you a preview of what I’ll see the next day when I make my report each day. That is because one never knows what will be sold out leading me to figure out a plan B (or plans B throughout the day). But then that is part of the charm of film festivals—not knowing where the plot will take you, like in a good movie.

Yesterday started with the documentary The Resilient Heart, which follows the work of cardiologist Dr. Valentan Fuster, who seeks to prevent heart disease through public health advocacy around the world. He has projects in Columbia, Spain, Grenada, Kenya, and Harlem which seek to teach children and communities about healthy lifestyles. His is an ambitious task. The film, however, really doesn’t serve to educate about heart disease itself or about the lifestyle changes that people can and should make.

Another doc from yesterday was City of Joy. The Democratic Republic of Congo has been a place of war and violence for two decades—much of it led by militias funded by multi-national corporations that seek to control the mining of materials used in our smartphones and computers. Some of the most affected victims of all this violence are women, because rape and sexual violence is used as a weapon of the war. In Bukavu, a city now filled with refugees, is a compound known as the City of Joy where women are given refuge and training to return to the world. The program was started by Dr. Denis Mukwege, who has served these violated and often mutilated women; woman’s rights activist Christine Schuler-Deschryver, and playwright and feminist Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues. The film includes accounts of horrendous rapes and violence. It also shows the growth that can take place as these women heal and find hope and a voice.

The narrative film I saw is Heaven’s Floor. Based on a true story, it recounts the story of Julia, a photographer in L.A., who goes on a trek across Baffin Island in the Canadian arctic for which she is totally unprepared. When she finds herself alone on the ice, she is rescued by a young Inuit girl, Malaya. Malaya is orphaned and being raised by her grandmother. She seeks a mother. Julia is convinced to bring her to L.A., but her husband wants nothing to do with it. I found the film a bit on the passive side. Julia, especially, seem to let things happen rather that being actively involved. The conflicts that arise never quite give rise to the kinds of moral issues that really should be addressed.

Filed Under: Newport Beach FF, News Tagged With: Canada, Democratic Republic of Congo, film festival, NBFF, rape, war

Papa: Hemingway in Cuba – Great Man and His Flaws

April 29, 2016 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

“The only value we have as human beings is the risks we are willing to take.”

Ernest Hemingway, winner of a Pulitzer for fiction and the Nobel Prize for literature, may be as well known for his lifestyle as his writing. He lived–shall we say–boldly and with attraction to manly pursuits. He also suffered from severe depression, which finally led to his suicide. Papa: Hemingway in Cuba is the first Hollywood movie to film in Cuba since the 1959 revolution. Parts are even filmed in Hemingway’s home. It is based in an autobiographical screenplay by Denne Bart Petitclerc (although his character’s name in the film is Ed Myers) about how as a young writer he came to be a part of Hemingway’s life.

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Myers (Giovani Ribisi) is a young reporter in Miami. He has issues with abandonment that keep him from making a commitment to his girlfriend Debbie (Minka Kelly). But when Debbie finds a fan letter Myers has written but never sent to Hemingway (Adrian Sparks), she sends it and soon Hemingway calls Myers and asks him to come to Cuba for fishing. The two men begin to form a bond, giving Myers a father figure he has never had, but one with a very dark side.

Myers enters this relationship with a strong case of hero worship. He recounts how when he had nothing, he used Hemingway’s writing to teach himself typing, language, spelling—and what it means to be a man. As he spends time with Hemingway and his wife Mary (Joely Richardson) that worship never goes away, but it is tempered through seeing the destructive behavior Hemingway so often exhibits. He is already deeply suicidal. He can be explosive and cruel to the people around him. Yet, even in all this, Myers continues to pick up lessons from Hemingway about life.

This is a story about a “great man”, but it shows just how flawed and injured such a person can be. Do those flaws and injuries negate the greatness? We often think of those who have been important influences in our lives with glowing memories. Sometimes our admiration for who someone is can be destroyed when we discover the dark parts of their lives. Teachers, political leaders, pastors, mentors all bring blessings to our lives, but none of them are without fault. Do we abandon them because of their problems? In this film, Myers is not only willing to stand by Hemingway in his most trying times, he feels a loyalty to be there for him. It is, in fact, a bit of how Hemingway in his writings taught him to live.

Photos courtesy Yari Film Group

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: Bob Yeri, Cuba, Denne Petitclerc, Ernest Hemingway, Giovanni Ribisi, NBFF

Sunday at Newport Beach Film Festival

April 25, 2016 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

after 16

The Easter Rising of 1916 may be the Irish equivalent of America’s Battle of Lexington. It marks the effective beginning of the road to independence. To celebrate and commemorate the centennial of the Rising, the Irish Film Board curated “After ’16”, a collection of short films that look at those events with various styles and perspectives. The collection showed at NBFF as part of the festival’s ongoing connection with Irish film. The shorts give a nice introduction to the events. The first two shown were both memoirs. A Terrible Hullabaloo features the memories of a 90 year old who took part in the Rising as a child. As we hear his voice over, we see the actions in puppetry. A Father’s Letter shares the memories of a 102 year old Jesuit priest whose father was one of the leaders of the Rising. He recalls visiting his father in prison just before his execution and the letter his father sent to his family. My Life for Ireland is an entertaining story of a young man trying to get to Dublin to take part, but ends up taking over a small town post office instead. Styled like a 1940s film it has a great sense of comedy about the situation. Granite and Chalk is a documentary about two spies for the British who might well have short-circuited the Rising if they had been successful. Goodbye Darling is the most poignant and artistic of the films. As her husband is leading a group of volunteers in the Rising, a pregnant wife is in her well-appointed home playing the piano. It really is very effective. Baring Arms shows various Irish people getting tattoos to remember the Rising and its leaders. The Cherishing reminds us of the children who were killed in the Rising. As two boys go off to loot the candy store there is tragedy that will mark their families. Mr. Yeats and the Beastly Coins tells of the creation in 1926 of Ireland’s first set of coins. The committee chaired by poet W. B. Yeats worked to give Ireland a distinctive set of coins, but it was a convoluted road to make it happen.

There was a good crowd for the showing of the documentary South Bureau Homicide that focuses on the homicide detectives in one of Los Angeles’s most violent neighborhoods. It shows their desire to work with the community and forge bonds. Not only the detectives, but some of the neighborhood community leaders tell their stories on screen. Many reflect a religious foundation for what they do.

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Papa: Hemingway in Cuba tells the story of a young writer who connects with the author Ernest Hemingway during the late 1950s when Hemingway is living in Cuba. Although the relationship starts out as hero worship, a true friendship develops, even though Hemingway is in the midst of a suicidal depression. This is the first Hollywood film shot in Cuba since the revolution. The film opens in theaters Friday.

The Innocents (Agnus Dei) is set in the aftermath of World War II. A female French doctor in Poland finds a convent with several pregnant nuns—the result of abuse by both German and Russian soldiers. The nuns do not wish to be discovered by the authorities. They are reticent to have any outside help and believe their vows of chastity must still be observed even in giving birth. Questions of faith and loss of faith—and of the lies that are told and crimes that continue to be committed in the name of doing good–all come into play.

For romcom fans the festival has Alex and Eve, an Australian film about a Greek Orthodox math teacher who meets a Lebanese Muslim lawyer. As they fall in love, their families are both trying to fix them up with spouses from their own communities. The conflicts really arise out of cultural issues. The religious aspects are treated fairly superficially. It follows the typical sweep of a romantic comedy, and tries to see just how close they can come to missing each other before they claim their happiness.

Filed Under: Film Tagged With: Australia, documentary, Ireland, NBFF, Poland, shorts

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