The Boston Popcorn team is attending a whopping NINE films at the 2011 Independent Film Festival of Boston, and we’ll bring you coverage right here! Don’t forget to check out our parent site Popcorn N Roses’ weekly podcast Subject:CINEMA on May 8 for a complete wrap up of the Boston Festivals scene this spring!
Day Four, Film #1 – Convento
Convento is a look at a unique family living in an old monastery in Portugal. Mother Geraldine Zwanikken is a one-time ballerina who retired to Portugal a number of years ago, along with her late husband and her two sons, Christiaan and Louis. While the film shows a portrait of the whole family, it is artist and engineer Christiaan that is the primary focus – or rather, his unusual passion for reanimating the dead. Well, ok, not really the dead, but Christiaan takes the remants of animals, such as skulls and bones, and turns them into artwork, usually resembling the animal itself. It’s hard to describe, but using servos, computer programs, and such, he is able to reanimate the animals’ bones into a semblance of what they were in life. Wow. This family is very unique, the film is visually stunning if a bit short (not quite an hour), and the inventions are truly out there, but still incredible in their own way. Filmmaker Jared Alterman has capture the perfect look inside this truly unique experience.
On The Web: http://convento.tumblr.com/
Day Four, Film #2 – The Future
The latest from writer/director/actress Miranda July (Me And You And Everyone We Know) has been the buzz of the festival. A hit at Sundance back in January, the story follows 4 weeks in the lives of a couple who are planning to adopt an injured cat. They decide to put as much into those four weeks as they can, since once they adopt PawPaw, they know their lives will change forever. I know Ms. July is a film buff favorite – Boston’s Chlotrudis Society For Independent Film (of which Kim and I are both members) co-sponsored this screening – but quite honestly, she’s an acquired taste…and neither Kim nor I acquired it. Kim and I have been worried as of late that we’re becoming what we’ve always dreaded becoming – film snobs. But I don’t think that’s a danger any longer. While we were in line, one of the IFFB volunteers was handing out tiny little buttons that read “I have seen The Future”, to which I added after the screening “And you can keep it!”
On The Web: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235170/combined
Day Four, Film #3 – Beneath Contempt
This locally shot film follows the story of the aftermath of a drunk driving accident four years earlier which took the lives of three teenagers and left the one survivor – the driver – to take the consequences for the accident. Picking up four years after the accident when the driver is released from prison, the story follows his attempt to rejoin society, and the reckless and dangerous actions that the brother of one of the victims is now undertaking. Fantastic cinematography of a number of Massachusetts locations help enhance the story, and although there are a few plot holes, it’s still an intriguing and thoroughly well made, entertaining film.
On the Web: http://www.beneathcontemptfilm.com/
I have gone back through the last several days of films and added their official site links where they exist, and where they don’t exist, I have linked to their IMDB listing, so be sure to check them out.
Sunday is Day Five of IFFB, and our final day of participating because it’s back to work tomorrow. Today, we will be seeing three more films, so if you’re around, come seek us out – we’ll be at the screening of The City Dark at the Somerville at 12:30, and screenings of Project Nim and 12 Assassins this evening at the Brattle. And don’t miss complete coverage of the IFFB as well as the Boston Irish Film Festival, the Boston Underground Film Festival and the Boston International Film Festival on Subject:CINEMA #293 – “Boston Springs A Movie: The 2011 Spring Festival Wrapup” on Sunday, May 8th at our parent site, Popcorn N Roses!
