Julie McLaughlin
$100 Film Festival marks its 16th year of shoestring filmmaking
As Hollywood film budgets soar to obscene heights the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers’ (CSIF) 16th annual $100 Film Festival gives filmmakers of modest means the opportunity to showcase their craft in a supportive setting while providing collaborative feedback. The budgetary guidelines have been bumped over the years due to inflation but the independent spirit remains the same: low budget high returns.
Each piece was shot entirely on Super 8 or 16 mm film and festival co-ordinator Melody Jacobson says festival organizers received a near-record number of submissions this year. She adds the festival is striving to retain the soul of film in a digital age and is among a dwindling number of festivals still screening works entirely on celluloid.
Some pieces reflect the skill and experience of seasoned auteurs while others exude the raw potential of those wading into the process for the first time. International submissions from Australia to the Netherlands provide a fresh glimpse into the world outside our city.
Whether it’s a scathingly funny stab at Calgary’s suburban shut-ins in Madeline in the Wrong Part of Town or the “Freudian wet nightmare” featured in A Room with Askew the works span a wide arc of human emotion and experience.
"I wanted to show the harmful attitudes towards marginalized people" says Farrah Alladin who co-directed Madeline in the Wrong Part of Town with Alex Mitchell. “That in itself is a form of violence.” Shot in black-and-white with a silent movie sensibility the film casts suburbanites in a decidedly unflattering albeit hilarious light.
While Alladin’s film lampoons some Calgarians’ ignorant and elitist attitudes Don Best offers a nostalgic yet humorous look at a lonesome cowboy’s search for a mail-order bride using “beaten up” footage in Buy’er Beware . “It’s about a cowboy who is lonely — nothing too profound” Best says modestly.
Employing hand processing and border tape Winnipeg-based Robert Pasternak’s Traffiiik is a frenetic exploration of the metaphysical while David Ratzlaff’s Evaporation is an animated film arising from the use of Zen paper (an old-school design tool) provoking a sense of dissipation and uncertainty.
Coda in G Minor explores the concept of finality borrowing from a classical music term and writer-cum-filmmaker Cara Mumford says she was inspired by the work of Deco Dawson the Winnipeg filmmaker who was CSIF’s director-in-residence last fall.
Brain Heart Super8 is Luke Black’s first foray into film from digital and is a pithy and laugh-inducing depiction of the battle between age-old arch enemies the heart and mind with intestines in a supporting role.
For the sixth year the festival will also pair local musicians including iblamerobot and This is a Death House with filmmakers to create short films inspired by new music. The results will be screened with the bands playing live in the theatre.
There will also be panel discussions delving into the festival selection process with programmers from Fairy Tales the Underground Film Fest and others giving filmmakers and audiences the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of how the festival selection process works.
