Maintaining its title as the longest continuously-running
short film festival in the world, the Rochester International Film Festival
reaches its whopping 60th year this week. The latest installment of the annual
local festival — also known as Movies on a Shoestring — will be held this
Thursday through Saturday, April 26-28 at the Eastman Museum’s Dryden Theatre
(900 East Avenue).
This year,
RIFF will be screening 28 films from 15 different countries, presented in four
distinct programs spread across the festival’s three days. As is typical, the
films offer a sampler platter of genres and styles, with films that run the
gamut from comedy to thriller, animation to documentary, and everything in
between. Parents should note that the Saturday matinee program features films
that tend toward the family-friendly. In addition to the films themselves, a
number of the filmmakers will be in attendance to participate in Q&A
sessions following the screenings. Admission to the festival is free, though
donations are accepted.
What follows
is a preview of just a few of the films from this year’s lineup. For more
information on the festival as well as a complete schedule of films, visit
rochesterfilmfest.org
Thursday, April 26 8 p.m.
The doc “You Are Here” offers a fascinating portrait of Irish
musician Tony Rogers and his life as a small-time farmer by day, and rockstar by night. Nicholas Jones beautifully captures how
the contrasts in Rogers’ daily life make for a singularly satisfying existence.
In the tense
Canadian thriller “Asleep,” a wounded journalist in Syria makes some desperate
attempts to ensure his efforts weren’t in vain.
The charming
animated film “Dog Clog” comes from RIT School of Film and Animation alum
Maggie Miller, and follows a hapless canine who seeks to get back on track
after his life suddenly goes down the drain.
A couple
seek the spiritual guidance of “The Monk” to save their marriage, but find the
solution to their troubles isn’t quite so easily achieved in DanilGrinkin’s lovely drama.
Omar Al Dakheel’s touching and well-acted “Ablution” finds a young
Muslim man struggling to reconcile his personal life and family commitments
while caring for his ailing and deeply religious father.
Friday April 27, 8 p.m.
In the comedic “The Dinner Scene” from Nicholas Thurkettle, a frazzled screenwriter struggles to put pen to
paper and create a crucial sequence in their script. Having had some experience
as frustrated writer banging their head against a coffeehouse table in public,
this one spoke to me on a deep, personal level.
A misanthropic
young woman learns that apocalypse isn’t everything she’d hoped it’d be in the
sweet and funny “Waltzing Tilda” from Australian director Jonathan Wilhelmsson.
In ErmaoZhong’s enigmatic “Smiling From the Grave,” a widow in rural China hopes to find peace
by setting out to fulfill the deepest and most hidden wishes of her late
husband.
A troubled
young man must reckon with his actions and the hurt he’s causes in Michael Langman’s tragicomic “Wake the Riderless
Horse,” featuring “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” co-stars Pete Gardner and Scott Michael
Foster, as well as the always great Beth Grant.
Saturday April 28, 4 p.m.
German animator Julian Friedrich’s simple but striking
animation style conveys deep reservoirs of emotion in telling the story of a
young refugee boy in “01.”
Kyra
Zagorsky’s wonderful “The Prince” blends drama and dance to tackle issues of
Islamophobia and prejudice in the heartfelt story of a young girl paying
tribute to her beloved uncle.
Based on the
story by O. Henry, Ekaterina Uvarova’s “The Last
Leaf” finds an aging painter bringing hope to the life of a young woman who’s
battling depression.
Saturday April 28, 8 p.m.
A brass band hopes to save the world in “The School of Honk,”
as director Patrick Johnson documents the titular Massachusetts community
street band.
In the
Canadian film “The Immaculate Conception Photography Gallery,” a photographer
faces an existential crisis after he starts caving to the whims of his clients
when they ask him to alter his images of their most cherished memories (a much
more difficult proposition in the days before Photoshop).
Sex, love,
and politics collide as the relationship between a photographer and his fashion
model girlfriend gets complicated in the amusing French comedy “Comme Les Roses,” from French director K. S. McMullen.
A Syrian
refugee must seek assistance in navigating the confounding Swiss bureaucracy
when he faces the task of burying his Muslim wife in Jan-Eric Mack’s moving
“Facing Mecca.”
This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2018.
