Storytelling Inspired by Short Films at a Film Festival
An optometrist was explaining in a radio interview how our eyes become dry and our brains confused, spending hours in front of the computer screen. Spend time outside, she advices, take breaks and look out the window.
My workspace is in front of a window. I find myself gazing at sky, wagging tails, the boxwood in need of clipping, high stepping feet.
We live in a three-dimensional reality, but many of us do our work on a flat screen. And for fun, we exchange photographs, videos and watch movies.
The Annapolis 2024 Film Festival took place April 4–7th
Earlier this month I spent an entire weekend watching movies. I bought a weekend pass to a film festival, the Annapolis Film Festival April 4–7 th. Now celebrating its 12 thyear, the festival is one of the Annapolis Arts Community’s signature events. With such so many movies, I had to take breaks and pace myself.
Because there was so much to contemplate, I decided to wait at least a week before writing about the experience. Which films would haunt me and which films would I forget?
Most plentiful, due to last year’s actor’s strike, were the documentaries. Feature length films I continue to think about were: “This World is Not My Own” about the late folk artist Nellie Mae Rowe and “Unbroken” about the seven Weber children who escaped Nazi Germany.
A SHORT FILM, runs under 40 minutes
But more provocative were the “shorts” films running under 40 minutes. As with a short story, within moments a plotline and characters must be quickly established. I grouped them according to whether they contained material easily be expanded into feature-length and those that were best suited to brevity.
I loved “A Symphony of Tiny Lights”, a short documentary that uses archival news footage, animation and more recent interviews to tell the story of John Francis (nickname Planet Walker) who elected to stop using oil powered vehicles and stop speaking in response to the massive 1971 Oil Spill in the San Francisco Bay area. Francis walked his way across the country and didn’t speak for 17 years while playing his banjo, earning multiple college degrees including a doctorate. Even more special, he was in the audience with us.
But eight days later it was the short documentary, “Eat Flowers,” that haunted me.
A dear friend of the narrator is diagnosed with a serious illness. She must accept the inevitable, that her friend, still in her thirties may die.
In each of our lives, Death is in the room with us or walking down the street ready to knock on the door. We can acknowledge or avoid the knowledge that life has an expiration date.
In “Eat Flowers” loss is embraced as the narrator, photographer/writer Cig Harvey, shares luscious and poignant images-a pile of decomposing dahlias, the reflection of a crystal creating a rainbow, white crisp snow- with her friend Mary. The filmmaker River Autumn FInlay brings the story into focus visiting each tiny moment. Simple but powerful, the images resonate.
Life is short. For some the length is cruelly brief.
I’ve found, however, that within my interactions with nature, time pauses. A gateway opens, providing a sense of transcendence. I write about the skinny stalk of asparagus poking out of the soil because my husband has been waiting weeks to see if the asparagus he planted will prosper and that one small stalk causes him to smile. I see the bees buzzing around a clump of yellow kale flowers and I am surprised and pleased to observe honey bees in the neighborhood and we’ve given them something to pollinate.
Painstakingly, frame by frame, this little film was a work of art. If the opportunity to view “Eat Flowers” presents itself, don’t miss it. Here is a link to the trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haSqkC0exXU
Film Festivals are taking place every month around the world. Famous ones coming up include the Tribeca Festival and the Cannes Festival, but there are plenty of smaller one. If you live in the Mid-Atlantic region, put the Annapolis festival on your calendar for next year. It is scheduled for March 27–30 2025.
Thank you for reading.
Originally published at http://nadjamaril.com on April 17, 2024.
