|
|
![]() |
Woodstock Times - Features | 10/8/2009 |
|
| |
Making movies
Film Fest wraps with awards ceremony |
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
| | Uma Thurman makes a point at the Amazing Women in Film panel.
[ Dion Ogust ] | |
|
|
by Kate Heidecker
It's home-grown, and now it has grown-up. The 10th anniversary of the Woodstock Film Festival Awards gala celebrated, appropriately enough, the career of director Richard Linklater, whose early films like "Dazed and Confused" and "Before Sunrise" capture the angst of youth and whose most recent movie, "Me and Orson Welles," is receiving critical approval for its fine-tuned performances by Christian McKay and Zac Efron.
A packed house at Backstage Studio Productions in Kingston (a certified soundstage, festival producers eagerly told the industry-laden audience) listened attentively to Linklater's acceptance speech as the year's Maverick Award winner.
"When they first asked me to come here, I thought, 'Oh no, is this one of those old man awards telling you that you can't make films anymore?'" Linklater joked, adding that he was "paranoid" about receiving such an honor. "Wasn't Roman Polanski showing up for one of these and they threw the cuffs on him?"
In the end, Linklater expressed his gratitude to the Woodstock Film Festival for his award, with past recipients of the Maverick Award putting him in company with directors Kevin Smith, Barbara Kopple and Mira Nair and actors Tim Robbins, Woody Harrelson, and Steve Buscemi. Extolling Linklater's storytelling ability, film festival regular Ethan Hawke introduced the director.
"While he is completely an auteur there is no signature that makes a Richard Linklater film because movies are not about him, they are not about his ego, they are in service of a story," Hawke said. Linklater was equally complimentary of longtime collaborator Hawke, calling him "the living embodiment of what I love about this whole process of making movies."
Trailblazer
Ted Hope, independent film producer, was bestowed with the 2009 Trailblazer Award. Executive producer John Sloss, who has worked with Hope on many films, said his colleague is defined as much by the work he has produced as by what he has not produced.
"He's never come to me - even though it is much deserved - to beg for favor, and asked me to put in a piece a shit," Sloss said, adding, "He's a trailblazer because he has lived on the edge, because he has discovered and championed new talent."
For his part, Hope said that he appreciated the award, and used his acceptance speech as a call to action to unite the film industry and build community.
"The economy is the toilet, corporations are in control, the gates and access are closing down, but we still have these three things - film, Internet, and community - and I still believe they can change the world," he said.
"Don't Let Me Drown," directed by Cruz Angeles, took the top honor as the festival's Best Narrative Feature. The post 9-11 romance between two Brooklyn teenagers, Cruz's film also placed second in the audience award category for narrative feature.
The film "Junior," by director Jenna Rosher, won the Maverick Award for Best Documentary Feature. A glimpse into the life of Eddie Belasco, a 75-year old San Francisco native who is the archetype of old-school Italian, the film explores growing old in America.
"They taught me so much about life, love and growing old with grace," said Rosher at the awards ceremony, a tear in her eye as she waved to the hearing-impaired Belasco, who starred in the film along with his 98 year-old mother Josie.
Keeping it fresh
For Martha Frankel, a Boiceville-based author, who moderated Sunday's Actor's Panel with Lucy Liu, Vera Farmiga, and John Ventimiglia, moments like Rosher's acceptance speech are what keeps the Festival fresh after ten years.
"We see it every year and we can get jaded to it," she said of the decade-old event. But exposing new talent and recognizing films that would otherwise go unnoticed is rewarding, she said. "When there is a filmmaker up there on the verge of hysteria all my cynicism just dissolves. That is why we are here."
The Audience Award for best narrative feature was swept up by "Dear Lemon Lima," a coming of age story about a quirky 13 year-old Alaskan girl who struggles against her low-social rank as a "Fubar" by competing in her prep's schools snowstorm survivor contest. Inspired by writer/director Suzi Yooneesi's own experience as a teenager growing up in Buffalo, NY, the film first appeared as a short in the 2007 Woodstock Film Festival.
"It seemed more appropriate to our 'fubar' nature to come in at the last minute," said Yooneesi, whose award was not announced until after Saturday night's ceremony. For Yooneesi, the best part of participating in the Woodstock Film Festival was being a part of a Career Day panel at Onteora High School. "Younger girls get really excited to see something that let's them know it is all going to be okay."
Festival co-founder and executive director Meira Blaustein told the audience that the thriving film festival almost bore the name of another artsy Hudson River town.
"Most of you don't know it, but this was almost the New Paltz Film Festival," Blaustein said, detailing how just a decade ago, Blaustein and partner Laurent Rejto didn't know a soul in Woodstock. She championed the thriving core group of volunteers who have worked to make the film festival possible, and thanked the "new friends" the film festival had made in 2009, citing a legend about Woodstock's most famous hiking trail while inviting participants to come next year. "If you stand in the shadow of Overlook Mountain, you always come back." ++
Click here to discuss this article in our forum.
|
|
|
|
|
© 2010 Ulster Publishing, Inc.
|
