21^st Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival

"View the introductory title by animator Mike English and Screaming Pixels who have generously donated the dynamite animation that was used before every feature and awards ceremony this year at SBIFF. Thanks to Mike English, Mark Sylvester and Joseph Matheny for making this happen. You may download it here (10.49 mb- M4V format)." Streaming videos of other events are available at the festival's podcast site.

A few selected films from the festival as rated by us from 5 (outstanding), 4 (excellent overall), to 3 (well worth seeing, but with some glitches): 

***** Live and Become by Radu Mihaileanu (France) French w/ English subtitles. A starving Christian Ethiopian kid escapes to a camp in Sudan where he is helped by a Falasha mother and taken with her to Israel in Operation Moses. Story of his life briefly with her until she dies, then with with an adoptive family as he comes to grips with a new culture, his deception, and ultimately becoming an adult. This is a wonderful film which explores race, religion, and relationships with depth and sensitivity. Winner of a well-deserved Special Jury award at the festival.

***** TSOTSI /n. thug, gangster, hoodlum by Gavin Hood (South Africa). Starring Presley Chweneyagae. Adapted from a novel by Athol Fugard and set in the Johannesburg area. The central character, Tsotsi, is a street survivor who uses brutality fear to control his small niche in Soweto. He is a robber and a thief who steals a car with a baby inside. The experience of the baby and trying to care for him changes Tsotsi - a little. He relies on threats and intimidation, yet there is a spark of redeemability in him. The film was just released in South Africa and is doing great business. Director Gavin Hood remarked that many township viewers commented that this one finally lets the more affluent look at the realities of their lives rather than displaying the lifestyles of the better-off. One group of children lives in stacked draining pipes stored in the middle of a filed. During one screening a kid jumped up and shouted, "That's me!" It wasn't, but he could finally identify with someone leading a life like his own. Winner of Best International Feature award.

**** Paradise Now  Hany Abu-Assad (France) Arabic w/ English subtitles.  Two friends in Nablus are told their time has come to for a mission - as suicide bombers in Israeli territory. The film follows them through the preparations, the night before, and the day of the slaughter. As their handler and his group manipulate them to readiness for self-sacrifice, doubts arise and get dealt with. The film follows the underemployed guys who'd been working at a wrecking yard through the preparations, including ritual shaving and a botched video shoot of their martyr statements; their contact with a French woman who has returned with a more multiplistic, solutions-oriented view; the night before with families and friends; and the day of the slaughter. An important film that neither preaches nor excuses, but helps to explain why ordinary people get caught up in desperate movements. Both Palestinians and Israelis approved of this film which has had broad acceptance to help build understanding. Would blend well in a trilogy screening with Munich and Syriana. 

**** Nuestra Familia produced by Oriana Zill de Granados and reported by Julia Reynolds and George B. Sanchez. (US)  Nuestra Familia (NF) is one of the most pervasive Latino gangs in Northern California. With Salinas as its Mecca, NF operates with military precision. Its Generals issue orders from prison through a chain of command that now stretches nation-wide. The gang provides an organizing structure and becomes a family tradition rooted in crime. Its members pay a percentage of their incomes to support the gang. rules for kids as an underground structure. While some of the leaders have been prosecuted under RICO statutes, the gang has spread because of relocations of inmates from California prisons to facilities in other states. In the words of Harry Whittington, recipient of stealth Vice President Dick Cheney's bird shot and former member of the Texas Board of Corrections, "Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants." (As quoted by Molly Ivins.) The communication network out of the prison headquarters is elaborate if slow, one reason that orders, once given, are difficult to retract. With the madness of de-funding libraries and youth programs in cities like Salinas while millions go into law enforcement and prisons, the NF provides young people something to do and a reference group. The purpose vacuum, filled by this gang, is one of the great national catastrophes. Because of it, the gang problem is growing rather than fading away. The documentarians see little happening to slow it down. Nuestra Familar will be shown on PBS in the fall.

This report is all the more important as tensions between Latino and African American gangs increase. Recent inter-racial riots in Los Angeles county jails underscore the tensions as a surging Latino population occupies niches formerly the province of African American populations. Although Nuestra Familia only suggests a link with extended family and a trans-generational structure, the sociology of the well-connected Latino family could be an element in the strength of this gang. Competition between the two groups is increasing in sections of L.A. like Compton and Watts, and the vast majority of hate crimes now fall to one of these groups rather than whites who used to be the principal perpetrators of overt racist aggression. As inter-ethnic rivalries increase, there is a simultaneous realignment of former intra-racial enemies. Bloods and Crips find cause to join together against Latino rivals, and Latino gangs align in their own efforts to conquer 'other.' 

The tragedy of all of this is that it's only a tiny piece of society which is responsible for the vast majority of violent crimes, whatever the ethnicity. Certainly illegal drugs and dealing play a large role in both fostering conflict and presenting a common threat; that is especially the case with the addictive methamphetamine epidemic. But the peer pressure within groups of young males to act out is also a drug - the control of turf, payback for disrespect, and the absence of purpose beyond enhancing an image of tough capability within the band of bro's. Group-think can outweigh good sense. Trivial slights become life-or-death confrontations. Individually, the majority of those involved in violent gangs express regret and see the dead-end nature of their actions. In Nuestra Familia, the desire to break set on behalf of the future and the recognition of waste for now is clear in most of the interviews. Yet the absence of safe alternatives and ways to break out perpetuates the gang lifestyle; there is no way to exit without disgrace and repercussions. Fear and intimidation become normalcy after a while. To effect change, holistic approaches seem to work: get everybody involved together and into agreement that the gang situation must end, then follow through with collective resolve and action. That means rival gangs, law enforcement, families, community social services, business, and government in the same psychological space with a shared objective: cut violence and make neighborhoods safe again. With that kind of supportive climate and common goal, change is possible. However, such an effort has not been tried in Salinas, or in California. The adversarial approach - gangs versus law enforcement, gangs vying for dominance - continues. Prisons are profitable business, so they win over schools and libraries and rec centers, especially when the dominant mindset focuses on punishment instead of prevention. It is past time to focus on alternatives which stretch beyond BO, CP, and DQ because the race-war climate is hardening. At a deeper level is the whole question of cultural dominance, realignment, and confluence among black, hispanic, white, and other ethnic sub-groups, a crisis which bubbles beneath America's ER-painted society. 

*** Caught in the Crossfire (a work in progress by Mark Manning and others)* (US)  The message here is simple: the U.S. destroyed the city of Fallujah in Iraq and nobody seems to care. Film maker Manning and some Iraqi colleagues worked inside Fallujah prior to the American assault and returned after the city had been emptied and lay in ruins. (See Dahr Jamail's first-hand reports at http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/ for more.) Now, all residents are required to be retina-scanned and assigned a bar code; these ID's permanently mark them as terrorists, and they are confined to Fallujah. Dressed as an Iraqi, Manning traveled the city and photographed its total destruction. Yet the people told him that things are not at all hopeless. Their city was destroyed once before by the Americans and it took them a year to rebuild. They are convinced they can do the same thing again, once the Americans leave them to do it. They also explained that the opposition was 2,500 to 5,000 when the U.S. occupation began; now it's expanded to 200,000, the vast majority local people being framed as 'insurgents.'  (*This film has no credits out of solidarity to Iraqis whose lives are at risk because of their involvement in getting out this production. One of the camera men has been held in Abu Ghraib twice, and other participants would become targeted if identified. When all the crew can speak openly and without fear for their safely, credits will then be added. A longer version of this 20 minute report is being cut and will be ready soon.) 

Another lesser but longer film, Between Iraq and a Hard Place by Rex Pratt ran with Caught in the Crossfire. This film is being re-cut and we cannot recommend it until screening the next version. The cut we saw tracked a small group of US Marines in Iraq and looked at the trauma they must deal with. The father of one of them, a Marine Corps chaplain, also appears in the film and was its military adviser. The intent was to show how stress impacts warriors and how much needs to be done to help them deal with the post-war consequences of the experience, and how much that effort is being neglected by the government which sent them to war. This is an important message since tens of thousands of Americans will be returning to civilian lives while carrying the burdens of combat and death as unresolved crises in their minds. The film visited with two psychologists who suggest therapeutic interventions which help to process the emotions and shift the memories from frontal consciousness to deeper storage. We do not recommend the film because it comes across as a Marine Corps recruiting piece and simply accepts the premises under which the Bush administration initiated the Iraq invasion in an effort to be non-political. In our view, in these times, that is not legitimate. Between doesn't adequately discuss the impact of post-traumatic stress crises on families, the effects on injured troops who will with disabilities forever, nor does it even acknowledge that there are Iraqi casualties who will carry similar traumatic burdens, both physical and psychological. The film is built from some live interviews and compiled video shot by a Marine while on duty in Iraq, is incredibly one-sided and tends to glorify war and the virtues of combat which it frames more as a video game adventure than killing, maiming, and dieing. Even the deaths of two members of the squad on their last mission on their very last day in Iraq is discussed in talking-head narrative and overly clinical descriptions that follow the path of dissonance reduction. The glory goes on; the tragedy is glossed over. There's a 'lived happily ever after ending' which is to be replaced by a more accurate and honest one which will show how much suffering and dysfunction the experience caused the Marines and their families. Overall, way too much Semper Fi!, far too little attention to the fallout. While well-meaning and expressing genuine concern for a serious issue, the filmmakers turned out a propaganda piece rather than a documentary and we look forward to a better version.

***** Sophie Scholl: The Final Days  by Marc Rothemund (Germany) German w/English subtitles. The last week of three members of the White Rose organization which was organized in Munich by students to oppose Hitler. Sophie, her brother Hans, and their friend Christoph Probst prepare the sixth anti-Nazi leaflet and distribute it at the University of Munich. They are caught and tried by the regime in a sham 'public' trial, then executed by guillotine. Following in the footsteps of The White Rose (1982), this excerpt of history is a brilliant study in courage, as well as how 'decent' people can do indecent things when caught by lies and obedience. Julia Jentsch delivers a great performance as a principled young heroine caught up in a self-rationalizing horror show. The police state which was determined to purge dissent and squelch disloyalty under it's iron fist of conformity, and the bravery of these students to stand up against it and speak their truth, is a study in today.

**** King Leopold's Ghost  by Pippa Scott and Oreet Rees / Linden Productions (US)  Based on Adam Hochschild's book, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, this wonderful documentary explores the history of the Congo from its early exploitation by Henry Morton Stanley and colonization by Belgium's avaricious monarch, Leopold II,  through the present day tyranny which occupies this resource-rich central African land. It was in reference to the Belgian Congo that the term "crimes against humanity" was coined in the 1890's by journalist George Washington Williams. Narrated by Don Cheadle, Alfre Woodard, and James Cromwell, this film compiles contemporary reporting with archival images and a great music track. This entry was chosen as best documentary in the Santa Barbara festival. 

*** Sisters-in-Law by Florence Ayisi and Kim Longinotto (Cameroon/UK)  Located in Kumba, Cameroon, Vera Ngassa (a prosecutor) and Beatrice Ntuba (a judge) are bringing change under the law to their mostly Muslim community. For the first time, a legal system addresses family violence and women's issues, child protection, and abuse in the face of entrenched customs. It is both amusing and inspiring to watch as this bewigged court in a ramshackle court room seeks to make good decisions, sometimes with procedures and rules of evidence which would make an American lawyer wince, and a defense which could not keep from giggling. Yet it's a serious and profound work about a huge move to a new kind of community that shows how two sincere and tradition-busting women can effect positive change to a long-entrenched social system that's ready for transition in some respects, fighting change in others. Winner of Social Justice Award.

*** Estamira by Marcos Prado and Jose Padilha (Brazil) We're reluctant to recommend this film unconditionally because it needs to be tightened and reworked to satisfy most audiences. Previous films co-produced by Prado, Bus 174 and The Charcoal People, are gripping documentaries. In Estamira, as a director, he loses his grip along with his schizophrenic subject, an onscreen disconnection which mirrors the world she inhabits. Estamira 'works' in the massive garbage dump of Rio de Janeiro, Jardim Gramacho. She gathers food and materials from the discards of the city as part of a sub-community of gleaners. She lives in a shack that is tidy and is a great cook, using mostly scraps gathered at Jardim. She is also a philosopher and teacher, the hub of a self-created world that is both brilliant and mad, sometimes both in her quest for truth. Often she is sharp and lucid, but sometimes speaks in her own language, a dialect created in her mind among the Punsters.

At 63, Estamira has raised a son and two daughters. He is a devout Seventh Day Adventist who can barely deal with his mother. The daughters are more understanding, knowing that their mother's mother also had mental problems and empathize with her history of traumas in life rather than judging her. Estamira's younger daughter, a teenager who has lived with a foster family since age eight, loves her (and her comfort food spaghetti) and wishes her mother were well enough that she could return to live with Estamira, but also recognizes the impossibility of sharing the chaos of her life. Estamira is under psychiactric treatment in the Brazilian health system at the time of filming, and the drugs seem to deepen her condition. There are some frightening, other-worldly scenes as workers scramble around the tracks of huge earth movers with flashlights as they compress the dump, a Dante-esque hell of rot and burning methane. Yet even the flares serve since they provide warmth to huddle beside. Many people will find this film disjointed and a confusing mix of emotions, yet that is precisely the world its central character inhabits - "I am Estamira."

**** Transamerica by Duncan Tucker and starring Felicity Huffman (US). This is a terrific little film with a performance likely to grab the Oscar for Huffman. She plays a man (Stanley) in transition to becoming a woman (Bree), and does it with grace, wit, love, and a pinch of residual machismo. During the process, s/he discovers a teenage son (Kevin Zegers) who has been working as a male prostitute in New York after the death of his mother, Stanley's ex-wife. The 'trans' in the title refers both to gender and America as they make a road trip across the country toward LA, meeting the abusive step father, the wonderful Graham Greene as a New Mexico rancher (who, we suspect, will re-enter the story in an imaginary continuation), and Fionnula Flanagan as Elizabeth, Stanley's unremittingly critical mother who falls instantly for her grandson. This modestly budgeted was film made thanks to Tuckers and his family willing to take out mortgages for his idea. Bree's mother's house in the film is also Mother Tucker's in real life, and part of the loan package that made Transamerica possible.  

Huffman is unassuming and utterly charming. Trained at the Royal Academy and a student of David Mammet's in New York, she was mostly a stage actress until being cast in Desperate Housewives. She's also the life partner of William H. Macy, an incredibly versatile actor, writer, and director in his own right. Her approach to becoming a man seeking to become a woman was a tour d' force of the actor's art. The voice change and the understanding of 'the walk' are subtle genius. To make herself more attuned to Stanley's character, Huffman bought an artificial penis contrivance which she named 'Andy' at a sex shop near Times Square in New York. She said he was of medium proportion and she wore him every day of shooting to remind herself to feel more male-like. He actually appears in one brief and critical scene, but is now lost, just another prick floating around somewhere in Hollywood. 

**** Aurora Borealis by James C. Burke with Joshua Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Louise Fletcher, and Juliet Lewis. (US) This independent film came as a surprise. The director advised the screening audience that "it's OK to laugh - some of it is meant to be funny." He felt obliged to say that because the theme involves a young man whose grandfather is declining due to a combination of Parkinsonian dementia and Alzheimer's. Both the script and the performances are outstanding. Sutherland read it and wanted to be part of the project, and Lewis made time in a hectic career to do this speculative piece because she liked the story so much. Louise Fletcher is familiar from her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a character ranked as the #5 greatest film villain of all time in the AFI's listing. In this film, she is the wife of a man whose faculties are fading, and who knows it all too well. 

*** Mozart & the Whale by Peter Naess. (US) OK, first one about Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, now a love story with Asperger's Syndrome (also Autistic Psychopathy). People with Asperger's have social interaction problems and idiosyncratic behaviors (see http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html for more). The extent to which the condition impacts their lives varies from slight inconvenience to extreme disability. In the film, Donald (Josh Hartnett) leads a support group which he founded. He is fascinated by numbers and is compelled to make calculations, in addition to being clumsy in social interaction. (Missing non-verbal cues is a common element of Asperger's.) A beautician named Isabelle (Radha Mitchell) joins the group; her issue is clattering metal which sets her off. Both are animal lovers in the extreme. The film revolves around the emergence, collapse, and revival of a relationship for two challenged people. The stars are a little too pretty and 'the group' a little too stereotypical, but it's an informative little film that's more than entertainment - it can build some understanding for a syndrome that's often misdiagnosed or unrecognized. 

***** Building Green, a new PBS television series created by Michael Mattioli and Kevin Contreras. The producers compiled the first three episodes of their new TV show to introduce their work with an hour-long video. With Contreras as host, this weekly program will explore sustainability and green building by following the construction of the Contreras family's 4000 sq. ft., 2-level straw-bale home in Montecito, CA. Relying on local contractors and expertise, it becomes a case study in how to renew, reuse, and recycle, whether one is constructing new or refurbishing an existing structure. They deal with everything from energy management to rainwater capture (something familiar to Australians), alternative construction methods, and zoning. Since UC Santa Barbara is moving rapidly to being a green campus with one of the first LEED Platinum level buildings now in use, the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, there's a great resource pool of sustainability and environmental expertise in the area. Based on the preview, this will be a popular and mind-shifting show.