Here's a thread to discuss the FESTIVAL portion of SF/38. So far, TWO films have been announced:


MARS ET AVRIL (2012): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1638277/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

EARTHBOUND (2012): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1709653/

More feature films and shorts to be announced shortly.

So far, it looks like Mars et Avril (which my Canadian friends seemed pretty impressed by when it played a festival up there) and three comedies which look to be attempting to get laughs by goofing on the genre.

Because attempting to emulate bad movies always has good results, right?

i need 2 guarantees before i will attend a festival event. 1. it won't play at the marathon 2. it won't be like folklore.

kirok wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2013 at 3:12pm:

i need 2 guarantees before i will attend a festival event. 1. it won't play at the marathon 2. it won't be like folklore.

1. There are no guarantees in (marathon) life

2. Speak of the devil, I think we may have found a sequel that just got booked for the fest: HISTORY OF FUTURE FOLK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoIha7xHKSo

I saw an ad  attached to an unrelated email that mentioned War of the Worlds: Goliath 3D appearing as part of the festival February 16

Rich Bartlett wrote on Jan 29^th, 2013 at 5:47am:

I saw an ad  attached to an unrelated email that mentioned War of the Worlds: Goliath 3D appearing as part of the festival February 16

WAR OF THE WORLDS: THE TRUE STORY is part of the Festival. The list of films announced so far can be found here: http://sf.theboard.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1353015608

RE: Guarantees
I know someone who does not like to attend events, or see films, or shows, or visit people unless she is guaranteed a good time, people she will definitely enjoy, and familiar stuff.  As a result she doesn't get out much and is bored to tears much of the time. :-/

Jon wrote on Jan 29^th, 2013 at 12:34pm:

RE: Guarantees I know someone who does not like to attend events, or see films, or shows, or visit people unless she is guaranteed a good time, people she will definitely enjoy, and familiar stuff.  As a result she doesn't get out much and is bored to tears much of the time. :-/

well that ain't me i can tell you that right now. i still want the guarantees cuz i have to drive a fur piece and pay 8 bucks or whatever.

So, of the feature films announced for the FESTIVAL, which one would you all like to see play the MARATHON as well?

Least??

Quote:

LA: So, of the feature films announced for the FESTIVAL, which one would you all like to see play the MARATHON as well?

Good question...almost too good. Maybe it's best to leave that up to you, Garen and the jury members who will actually see the films beforehand.

I take it the Gort winner will again be featured as well as a surprise. Any one of them could be a contender as far as I can tell now.

Like something else, everybody has an opinion.  ;)

Here are the Feature Films in the Festival so far:

MARS ET AVRIL (2012): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1638277/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

EARTHBOUND (2012): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1709653/

SPACE MILKSHAKE (2013): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1954843/

MOTIVATIONAL GROWTH (2013): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1754228/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

WAR OF THE WORLDS - THE TRUE STORY (2012): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2507628/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

EL XENDRA (2012) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2452800/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

THE HISTORY OF FUTURE FOLK (2012) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2245195/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1



P.S. For the record, because of distance, work & time constraints, I don't have much to do with the festival.

I saw an ad  attached to an unrelated email that mentioned War of the Worlds: Goliath 3D appearing as part of the festival February 16


WAR OF THE WORLDS: THE TRUE STORY is part of the Festival. The list of films announced so far can be found here: http://sf.theboard.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1353015608



The True story according to their facebook page is scheduled for showings on February 9 & 10. Goliath is advertising a February 16 showing. So that would be 2 different War of the Worlds movies.

Feb 8: US Premiere MARS ET AVRIL with director Martin Villenueve

Feb 9: Shorts Program 1
WAR OF THE WORLD: THE TRUE STORY, Festival Premiere
THE HISTORY OF FUTURE FOLK

Feb 10 World Premire! FOUND IN TIME
World Premiere! LOVE & TELEPORTATION
Shorts Program 2

Feb 11 Shorts Program 3
ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW (direct from Sundance)
US Premiere! WHEN TIME BECOMES A WOMAN from Jordan
Feb 12 Shorts Program 4
N. American Premiere! EL XENDRA (Honduras)
US Premiere! JUAN IN A MILLION (Chile)

Feb 13 Shorts Program 5
World Premiere! SIN Theory
World Premiere! DOUBLE HAPPINESS URNANIUM (N Zealand/Hong Kong)

Feb 14 Shorts Program 6
World Premiere! ETERNITY
World Prmeiere! 95ers ECHOES

Feb 15 Shorts Program 7
World Premiere! SPACE MILKSHAKE with George Takei & Billy Boyd
World Premiere! MOTIVATION GROWTH with Jeffrey Combs. Q&A with director & crew after show.

Feb 16 Shorts Program 8
US Premiere! EARTHBOUND (Ireland)
East Coast Premiere! WAR OF THE WORLDS: GOLIATH in 3D

Feb 17 The Marathon aka The 'Thon including DEATH OF A SHADOW, The Oscar nominated short from Belgium starring Matthias Scoendaerts.

a jeffrey combs and george takai double feature! is no question as to which night to attend.

If I understand Feckbook correctly,
both the 'festival and 'thon are playing

"The Ghastly Love of Johnny X"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umH1IhuWchY


It was Kevin McCarthy's last film and looks like a Larry Blamire film but isn't.

R_F_Fineman wrote on Jan 31^st, 2013 at 3:28pm:

If I understand Feckbook correctly, both the 'festival and 'thon are playing "The Ghastly Love of Johnny X" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umH1IhuWchY It was Kevin McCarthy's last film and looks like a Larry Blamire film but isn't.

I don't see it as part of the Festival, just the Marathon as quoted from Facebook: "I don't see "The Ghastly Love of Johnny X" listed on the schedule. Is it no longer being screened?
Boston Sci-Fi Fest : Ghastly is part of The 'Thon which has a different schedule, that will be out shortly."

And, I PRAY to Deity of your choice that this is NOT like a Blamire film - please, no!!!!!!!!!

But, looking at the trailer - no such luck....... :'(

L.A. Connection wrote on Jan 29^th, 2013 at 7:00pm:

So, of the feature films announced for the FESTIVAL, which one would you all like to see play the MARATHON as well? Least??

Having just looked them over to put them the database that the site I review for uses...  Ugh.  Mars et Avril, Escape from Tomorrow, and When Time Becomes a Woman are the only ones that look like they're getting much positive response at all, and they've all got issues:  Mars is in French, Escape might not want to go before a good chunk of its local audience before it gets an actual run, and Time looks very artsy indeed.

Least?  The History of Future Folk, which I really wish was playing on the 14th so I could skip out for Girl Crazy on the Somerville's big screen.  Space Milkshake looks terrible, but bright and glossy enough to maybe work for the crowd.

From a pure hype standpoint, ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW is a get.  It's probably the most controversial film to come out of Sundance this year, and might be headed for a prolonged legal dispute with Disney (almost all of it was filmed surreptitiously in Disney parks, and the subject matter is (ahem) naughty.)

According to the IMDb: "Space Milkshake" makeup artist Tracy George has 56 film credits and was nominated for a Gemini award for "The Englishman's Boy" (2008).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1954843/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

Notice the amazing job transforming George Takei for his role:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/Karen_Tom/Movies/GeorgeDuck_zps8cd47ae8.jpg

Or it could be just another of those internet myths that I'm creating now. ;)

It hasn't been officially tweeted/FBed/whatever by the Fest yet, but since the Somerville Theatre is closing at 6pm tomorrow, that means opening night is being rescheduled.  The Somerville Theatre's website says they plan to open at 1:15pm on Saturday, so I expect we'll be getting a Marathon warm-up as they try and cram Mars et Avril and The Final Shift in before 5pm.

Hmmm...  It looks like Escape From Tomorrow (the high-profile Sundance selection that was probably the most exciting thing on the program) has been quietly dropped from the schedule, replaced by a second screening of Found in Time.

Of course, it's not like this was announced, just like Garen hasn't bothered to say anything about when Mars et Avril and The Final Shift will play since the Theatre will be closed today, even though the theater's website points to the bostonsci-fi page for more information.  Got time to post goofy pictures on the account's Facebook page, though!

Quick rundown of what played today (which had a roughly 50% match to what was on the schedule at various times!):

The Final Shift:  A local production, and it's nice to have those as part of the festival, but...  It's pretty awful.  It's an action movie where almost no blows ever seem to connect, the acting is muted even when a little panicky overacting would be warranted, and a big sci-fi story just becomes a standoff in a diner.  I don't recommend going to Saturday's screening, because the director will be there, and that's always awkward after a bad movie.

War of the Worlds: The Untold Story:  If you look on IMDB, there's a 2005 version of War of the Worlds by the same director and cast that runs three hours long.  It looks like this is that movie cut down to mostly the special effects sequences (run through a filter to look old-timey), augmented with stock footage and an interview with the main character as an old man.  It's not painful, and the tripod designs are nice, but it's dull, without much in the way of highs and lows for pacing.

Found in Time:  After the previous two, downright capable!  That's damning with faint praise, but this movie, while it has it's problems (slow to get going, a time-changing plot that never really explains itself), has genuinely good performances, a mythology that looks interesting in part because it's not explained in a way that brings the the movie to a crashing halt.  Worth a look.

Earthbound:  While it's got a very familiar plot in "eccentric guy claims to be alien living on earth but it's all in his head or is it?", the execution is pretty good, with Rafe Spall (son of Timothy) and Jenn Murray a lot of fun to watch together.

Mars et Avril:  Bonkers.  I kind of love its future Montreal which is just one crazy thing after another, and while the whole thing does kind of seem like a bunch of weird artists' ideas that have been somewhat haphazardly stitched into a plot, it gets away with it by looking good and never delivering something totally random but also tending to be surprising and fun to look at.


Hopefully, now that the storm is over, things will get somewhat on track.  Of the five movies screened on Sunday, only two were what the schedule said they would be, when the schedule said they would be run.  Several of us came for Mars et Avril at 3:15pm, only to have it not screen until the 9pm slot, and the only information we had on what would screen next was what Dave did for testing between movies.

That is no way to run a festival that you are charging money for and selling individual tickets for.  Running the review screener for Earthbound, complete with "property of XXXX" warnings in the middle of the screen, may have been the best option, but allowing things to get to that situation is just bad.

I swear, I sometimes think Garen & company are more concerned with what goofy graphic they'll put next to an announcement than doing the simple, necessary work of keeping their customers informed of what will (or won't) play in a timely fashion.

"Love and Teleportation" seems a good choice for Valentine's Day showing.  I'm just saying... ;)

I missed all the Sunday movies.   :'(

I got to the Somerville Theater around 1 PM after a long hunt for a parking space, but they had not heard from Garen and didn't know when the films would start...if at all on Sunday.  So I was forced to go to a friend's house to play boardgames all day.  8-)

Here is the updated schedule as per the Main website (warning, it's PDF):

http://www.bostonsci-fi.com/files/scifi/Schedule%20SF38%20v%203.0.numbers.pdf

Jay Seaver wrote on Feb 11^th, 2013 at 12:39am:

Running the review screener for Earthbound, complete with "property of XXXX" warnings in the middle of the screen, may have been the best option, but allowing things to get to that situation is just bad.

     Well, actually, we were sent a DCP of Earthbound, but we couldnt play it, because (typical for these wave-of-the-future digital presentations) the KDM was invalid due to a screw up on the filmmakers' end (the KDM went looking for an invalid CPL).  So I was told to run the screener instead, because that was all we could show.  I did my best with what I was given.
     Do any of you think I'm exaggerating when I say the future is nothing but sucky digital?
     This is the crap that youre all going to be dealing with, folks: crap presentation, crap images, crap motion tracking, crap colour depth.  Suck it up, or start screaming loudly.   >:(

I figured as much from the previous day's announcements, but if that was the case, Garen should have just canceled the screening.  I mean, hell, it wasn't on any schedule for Sunday anyway, so it's not like anybody would have been specifically disappointed.

How was what ran Sunday decided/communicated?  Those of us in the theater had absolutely no idea what was going to run next, no matter what we checked on line.

David the Projectionist wrote on Feb 11^th, 2013 at 7:57pm:

Well, actually, we were sent a DCP of Earthbound, but we couldnt play it, because (typical for these wave-of-the-future digital presentations) the KDM was invalid due to a screw up on the filmmakers' end (the KDM went looking for an invalid CPL)...      Do any of you think I'm exaggerating when I say the future is nothing but sucky digital?...

I'll pay you to "accidently" lose the proper code if FOLKLORE II ever shows up at the Marathon..........

;)  :D

Any updates from folks who've attended the screenings?

With all the weather and schedule changes, what has been the ATTENDENCE been like?

Quote:

LA: Any updates from folks who've attended the screenings? With all the weather and schedule changes, what has been the ATTENDENCE been like?

Monday's attendance was consistently around eighteen despite some really nasty weather. "Mars et Avril", "Found in Time", and "When Time Becomes a Woman" all had about the same number of attendees. A show of hands revealed that most were going to the Marathon. Those of you who went -remember to vote.

I strongly advise parking at one of the outer Red Line garages like Alewife to the West or Quincy Adams to the south. Parking in Davis Square just isn't going to happen!

After Sunday, attendance has been OK, and the schedule non-random.  We would have been crowded if placed in the screening room again.

The films have been decent enough:

When Time Becomes a Woman:  Pretty for a movie made by a skeleton crew for not much money in Jordan (they've got a great location), but it feels more like a one-act play than a movie.  All talk.

Juan in a Million:  Seen worse takes on the mysteriously empty world concept, but few so frustratingly without payoff:  It takes until very late in the game for the main character to do or discover anything, so the movie ends roughly where it seems things should get started.

El Xendra:  Nicely ambitious story, decent cast, capable-enough execution.  Wouldn't mind seeing the sequel they're planning to film this summer later on, especially if it gives them the chance to go a little bigger.

S.I.N. Theory:  Someone needs to read Foundation to learn the practical limits of "math that can predict human behavior" both logically and as a story-telling device.  Likable cast, though.

We're getting a lot less unwatchable dreck than in previous years, for certain; I think Garen has finally figured out that nobody is impressed with attending the premiere of a terrible movie.

Well, you have to work with what you get.  I understand that, certainly.  And this year we got better, I think -- at least that's what seems to be the case.  (For what it's worth,) I'm liking it!
:)

How has parking been?

L.A. Connection wrote on Feb 16^th, 2013 at 9:28am:

How has parking been?

Can't speak for week days but on marathon  day there is lots of parking down the street from the theater just past the building next to the T stop.

L.A. Connection wrote on Feb 16^th, 2013 at 9:28am:

How has parking been?

Managed to get a spot in the lot last night for "War of the Worlds: The True Story". Sevveral of spots snowed in, bring a shovel!

Quote:

LA: what has been the ATTENDENCE been like?

Garen presented Friday's night's "Space Milkshake" and "Motivational Growth" to a pretty big crowd. Theater 2 downstairs was just under half full and featured an intro and doorprizes from two members of team- "Growth". :)

Almost done recapping the festival on my blog & eFilmCritic, with just Saturday night's stuff left to go.  For one-liners...

Love & Teleportation - Heart undeniably in the right place, but kind of a bland grind, and I really don't think the filmmakers get how science is practiced at all.

95ers: Echoes - Surprisingly good for how often the same names appeared in the credits (indicating a really small crew & budget), although I think a side-effect of that tight-knit group was not realizing that the audience doesn't already know what's going on.  Also, cut the group rehearsing A Christmas Carol please.

Space Milkshake:  I think it's indicative of something that Garen & company were pushing this as "George Takei plays a rubber duck!" when the on-screen cast is actually made up of folks who should be very familiar to people who have been watching sci-fi/fantasy TV/movies in the past ten years.  At any rate, better than I expected, thanks to the cast being pretty funny and the director balancing plot & jokes pretty well.

Motivational Growth - First time through, a little shaky but the bits that were good were pretty visible.  I found the flaws more prominent the second time through in 72 hours, but, uh, moving on...

History of Future Folk - Until a day or two before the screening, I thought this was going to be a filk documentary and wanted no part of it.  Turned out to be a fairly enjoyable little comedy.

War of the Worlds: Goliath - Kind of a huge mess that only briefly recognizes what the fun part is, when Teddy Roosevelt starts killing Martians personally.  Let's be honest - Erik Wells and his crew were boring, and this movie could have used a lot more T.R., Tesla, Red Baron, etc.  And while the action had a lot of stuff blowing up, it was a pretty mundane presentation.

Also, presenting WOTW:G on a screener DVD should not be acceptable, and I have to say that the story about Chinese New Year and the guy flying from Berlin to L.A. to Boston to get us that didn't impress me (if you're going to do that, at least have an un-watermarked Blu-ray to show for it!).

Well, the awards are in, and they are ridiculous.

Jay Seaver wrote on Feb 26^th, 2013 at 12:40am:

Well, the awards are in, and they are ridiculous.

Elaboration on your thoughts since you probably saw most of the films?

For the record, here are the official results:

FEATURES Films

Best Animated Film
War of the Worlds: Goliath, director Joe Pearson

Best Feature
Motivational Growth, director Don Thacker

Audience Appreciation Award
Space Milkshake, director Armen Evrensel

Jury Prize For Excellence
El Xendra, director Juan Carlos Fanconi

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order)

Earthbound, director Alan Brennan
Eternity
Ghastly Love of Johnny X, director Paul Bunnell
Mars et Avril, director Martin Villneuve
War of the Worlds: The True Story, director Timothy Hines

SHORT FILMS

Best of Fest
Death of a Shadow, dir. by Tom Van Avermaet

Audience Appreciation Award
Side Effects, dir. by Traven Rice

Jury Prize for Excellence
Asternauts, director Marta Masferrer
Rose, Mary & Time, dir. by Hardeep Giani
113 Degrees, director Sabrina Doyle

Best Steampunk Short
Doktor Fang, dir. by Owen Coughlan

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order)

8 Minute Deadline, dir. by Zina Papadopoulou, Petros Papadopoulos
21 Questions, dir. by Micah Troublefield
A Short Film on Conformity, dir. by Matt Willis-Jones
Europa, dir. by Bruce Hutchinson
Life and Death in the Valley, dir. by Alexander Graham
Life in a Glass House, dir. by Austin McKinley
Masters of the Seas, dir. by max resto
Perfect Match, dir. by Lior Hadar
Red Summer, dir. by Vanessa McMeekin
Temma, dir. by Anya Meksin
The Decelerators, dir. by Mark Slutsky
The Last 8, dir. by Keith Apland
The Phoenix, dir. by Carmelo Zucco
The Secret Keeper, dir. by Bears Fonte
Tunnel, dir. by Alex Dandino

Well, I can't speak to the shorts (other than thinking something had to be better than "Death of a Shadow"), but the (supposedly) juried feature awards corresponding so exactly to the movies where someone shows up in person tends to set off my B.S. detector; it's one of a number of reasons I no longer pay the Boston Film Festival any heed.

Then you've got War of the Worlds: Goliath being given a "Best Animated Film" award, and even if you like it more than I did, well, that's best out of a field of one.  Even if it's a genuinely excellent film, that just looks patronizing.

As to Motivational Growth, I was kinder to it than most, and it has problems.  Does it really belong ahead of Mars et Avril, Earthbound, 95ers, Space Milkshake and The History of Future Folk?  Some of those movies aren't exactly great, but Garen up and said during the marathon that it was getting a Gort more or less because he thought this would encourage people to come.


And I think that's wrong-headed.  Maybe Garen & company are like the Boston Film Festival people who clearly want to hang around with filmmakers and celebrities more than they want to bring great, potentially-unseen movies to Boston.

I look at it the same way I do premieres:  Being able to slap "World/[North] American/New England Premiere" on the website is nice, but nobody cares if the crappy movie they just saw was a premiere or not, and they're certainly not going to recommend the festival on the basis of "the movies are terrible, but you see them before anyone else!"

Awards, meanwhile...  Well, what good does giving out an award more or less for showing up do?  The folks making great movies don't need to come for that sort of award (they will get awards at Fantastic Fest, Fantasia, Sitges, etc.), and if the award doesn't have any integrity, what good does playing at the festival do for them?

I said it last year, and I think it still holds true:  The most valuable commodity a festival has is its good reputation, and giving awards for anything but making a great film hurts that reputation.  If Garen wants this to be a festival that gains a reputation beyond Boston, where studios sneak their spring movies and which independent filmmakers weigh against playing SXSW's midnight program, he's got to have standards, both in what the festival books and what it awards.

If the idea is just to provide a thin rationale for a more expensive pass (last year he mentioned that they sold more than would fit in the screening room to people who wanted to be let in early on Sunday), well, that's disappointing.

Thanks for your input. I really don't think that the jury has made a conscious decision to just want to "hang out" with the filmmakers (they are unknowns, mostly). Still, I take your point that you don't want to turn this into a "participation" merit badge kind of thing. Too bad we don't have an Audience choice award at the Marathon. Somehow, I don't think MOTIVATIONAL GROWTH woulda won that...........

As I noted earlier, I second Joe Neff's idea that inclusion of a recent film in the Marathon should be more dependant on a film's quality than whether it is a local "premiere".

I just really question the priorities.  I'm pretty sure that the current iteration of the Boston Film Festival gives awards as a quid quo pro for appearing with the film and going to the festival's party, and Garen pretty much said that Motivational Growth got an award because he wanted to encourage filmmakers to come.

That just seems like putting the cart before the horse to me - you get good filmmakers to come by building a good festival, but it doesn't work the other way around.

Interesting debate going down on IndieWire - should Festivals pay filmmakers to show their films at a Festival?

Our Fest is still too small for the idea to be viable, but, it's an interesting debate as Festivals are often the ONLY place many of these films ever see the light of a screen.

Here is the original filmmakers plea for 35% of the revenue:

http://www.indiewire.com/article/fair-trade-for-filmmakers-is-it-time-for-festivals-to-share-their-revenue

And, a Festival organizer's rebuttal:

http://www.indiewire.com/article/where-would-the-money-come-from-on-film-festivals-distribution-and-the-economies-of-change?page=1#articleHeaderPanel


Here's one quote that I think jives with much of the discussion here. Namely, is it more important that a film "Premieres" at a Festival, rather than it just being a good movie:

"Just look at the situation with premiere status.

When I started programming the Nantucket Film Festival in 2002, we would fight battles to ensure an East Coast Premiere or some other meaningless status, not because it mattered to the film, per se, but because it mattered in the perception of press and sponsors that the festival was seen as a place to premiere work. Today, that argument is pretty much dead; aside from the largest festivals, premiere status is irrelevant for most if not all festivals. 99% of festivals must concentrate on delivering value in a hyper-local world while establishing and maintaining a national presence in other ways."