12 Months

Best of Cinequest

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Photo caption: Jennifer Levinson in TRUST. World premiere at Cinequest. Courtesy of Menemsha Films.

After a pandemic-driven hiatus, Cinequest returns in-person for the first time since March 2020. Beginning on August 16, this year’s festival will be live at downtown San Jose’s California Theatre, Hammer Theater and 3Below. On August 25, the program moves to Campbell’s Pruneyard Cinemas through August 29.

I’ve already seen almost twenty offerings from Cinequest 2020, and here are my initial recommendations. As usual, I focus on the world and US premieres. Follow the links for full reviews, images and trailers. I’ve also included some tips for making the most of the Cinequest experience under “Hacking Cinequest”.

MUST SEE

This year’s festival Must Sees are the first features from three female filmmakers: writer/actor/producer Jennifer Levinson with Trust, documentarian Nira Burstein with Charm Circle and co-writer/actor Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber with 12 Months.

  • Trust: Writer-actor Jennifer Levinson’s absorbing exploration of family betrayal must be the best screenplay at Cinequest. Kate (Levinson) is rocking her college experience when her mother unexpectedly dies. Kate returns to her hometown for the funeral, and apprehensively re-engages with her estranged family. They just might cringe their way through the funeral until an estate planning blunder explodes. Often darkly hilarious, Trust is elevated by Levinson’s textured characters. Kate’s strait-laced, conflict-averse brother is clinging onto functionality by his fingernails. The oldest sister is a flamboyant hot mess, but her astonishingly bad behavior seems to stem from some undiagnosed disorder. Their nogoodnik of a father hides a profound weakness and desperation behind his sleazy gloss. Kate herself has the decency that evades her nuclear family, but she’s immature and too prickly. How will Kate find closure when she has no control over the motives of the others? World premiere. Trailer at bottom of this post.
  • Charm Circle: You think YOUR family has issues? In this superbly structured film, writer-director Nira Burstein exquisitely unspools the story of her own bizarre family, a cautionary and ever-surprising chronicle of mental illness. Bay Area premiere.
  • 12 Months: This uncommonly authentic film traces the year-long span of a romance, using vignettes that are snapshots of the relationship’s evolution. Just like a real life relationship, 12 Months has moments that are playful and moments that are searing. 12 Months is entirely improvised by its director and its stars, who are extremely keen and perceptive observers of relationship behavior, and they don’t hit a single wrong note. World premiere.

INTERNATIONAL CINEMA

Lidia Vitale and Ludovica Mancini in Gabriele Fabbro’s THE GRAND BOLERO at Cinequest. Courtesy of Cinequest.
  • The Grand Bolero: Early in COVID’s devastating assault on Northern Italy, a middle-aged organ restorer is locked down in a centuries-old church; a salty curmudgeon, she cruelly resists the assistant forced upon her – a runaway young mute woman with no place else to shelter. But the young woman’s unexpected musical gift unlocks passion in the older woman. Passion evolves into obsession, propelling the story to an operatic finale. The Grand Bolero is the most visually beautiful film that I’ve seen in some time, and the music is powerfully evocative. It’s a remarkable first feature for director, co-writer and editor Gabriele Fabbro and his cinematographer Jessica La Malfa. Bay Area premiere.

DOCUMENTARY

Charlie Morgan in OUT IN THE RING. Courtesy of Ryan Bruce Levey.
  • Out in the Ring is Ryan Bruce Levey’s encyclopedic yet irresistible history of LGBTQ professional wrestlers. Out in the Ring chronicles straight wrestlers like Gorgeous George who pretended to be gay, and the many gay wrestling stars like Pat Patterson who were forced to stay in the closet. It’s also a showcase for today’s panoply of queer wrestling stars. Both unflinching and uplifting. World premiere.
  • Tell Me a Memory is a simple, yet engrossing, LGBTQ+ oral history. One or two at a time, individuals from Memphis (did you know they call themselves Memphians?) tell their own stories. The subjects are impressively diverse – in age, gender, race and identity. Coming Out in the Bible Belt is a common thread. This is a gentle and emotionally powerful film. World premiere.

AND TWO I HAVEN’T YET SEEN

Jim Gaffigan and Rhea Seehorn in LINOLEUM. Courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment.

Of the Cinequest films that I haven’t been able to screen yet, the most favorable buzz comes from Linoleum, the Jim Gaffigan science comedy that opens the festival, and the political satire Land of Dreams. Both have distributors – they’ll be in theaters, but you can see them early at Cinequest.

HACKING CINEQUEST

Cinequest recovers its Downtown San Jose vibe, with concurrent screenings at the 1122-seat California, the 550-seat Hammer and the 257-seat 3Below – all within 1600 feet of each other. This year’s beer garden is across the street from the California.

At Cinequest, you can get a festival pass for as little as $179, and you can get individual tickets as well. Take a look at the entire program, the schedule and the passes and tickets.

As usual, I’ll be covering Cinequest rigorously with features and movie recommendations. I usually screen (and write about) over thirty films from around the world. Bookmark my CINEQUEST page, with links to all my coverage.  Follow me on Twitter for the latest. And here’s the trailer for Trust.

The best of Cinequest 2022

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Photo caption: Michael James Kelly and Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber in Clinton Cornwell’s 12 MONTHS, world premiere at Cinequest. Courtesy of Cinequest.

Cinequest’s online festival CINEJOY begins on April 1 and runs through April 17. Here are my top picks:

MUST SEE

  • 12 Months: This uncommonly authentic film traces the year-long span of a romance, using vignettes that are snapshots of the relationship’s evolution. Just like a real life relationship, 12 Months has moments that are playful and moments that are searing. 12 Months is entirely improvised by its director and its stars, who are extremely keen and perceptive observers of relationship behavior, and they don’t hit a single wrong note. It’s the Must See at this year’s Cinequest. World premiere.

INTERNATIONAL CINEMA

  • The Grand Bolero: Early in COVID’s devastating assault on Northern Italy, a middle-aged organ restorer is locked down in a centuries-old church; a salty curmudgeon, she cruelly resists the assistant forced upon her – a runaway young mute woman with no place else to shelter. But the young woman’s unexpected musical gift unlocks passion in the older woman. Passion evolves into obsession, propelling the story to an operatic finale. The Grand Bolero is the most visually beautiful film that I’ve seen in some time, and the music is powerfully evocative. It’s a remarkable first feature for director, co-writer and editor Gabriele Fabbro and his cinematographer Jessica La Malfa.

DOCUMENTARY

  • Tell Me a Memory is a simple, yet engrossing, LGBTQ+ oral history. One or two at a time, individuals from Memphis (did you know they call themselves Memphians?) tell their own stories. The subjects are impressively diverse – in age, gender, race and identity. Coming Out in the Bible Belt is a common thread. This is a gentle and emotionally powerful film.

AND TWO MORE

  • 18 1/2 is the festival’s Opening Night film, a dark comedy that sends up the paranoid thriller genre. A low-level government clerical worker (an excellent Willa Fitzgerald) finds herself in possession of the infamous 18 1/2 minute gap in the Watergate Tapes. Of course, co-writers Daniel Moya and Dan Mirvish had to devise a way to get this MacGuffin in her hands; given the paranoia, deviousness and clumsiness of the Nixon White House, their solution is surprisingly plausible. Double crosses and red herrings escalate, as does the dark, dark humor. Richard Kind and Vondie Curtis-Hall sparkle in supporting roles.
  • Alpha Male, from Poland, is another dark comedy. A feckless young man has been dispatched by his girlfriend to a smoking cessation self-help group. Given the chaos of the community center, he ends up in the wrong room, among a men’s support group headed by a charismatic instructor. He hangs around anyway – and even returns – because this group has better food. The group focuses on their resentment of women, which seems silly and harmless at first, but descends into a paranoid fixation on an imagined organization of women seeking to emasculate them. Both the misogyny and their submissiveness to their bullying leader are taken to absurd levels.

This is the twelfth year that I’ve covered Cinequest, and, as usual, I’ll be covering Cinequest rigorously with features and movie recommendations. Bookmark my CINEQUEST 2022 page, with links to all my coverage (links on the individual movies will start to go live on Thursday, March 31st). Follow me on Twitter for the latest.

12 MONTHS: an authentic relationship evolves

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Photo caption: Michael James Kelly and Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber in 12 MONTHS. Courtesy of Cinequest.

The uncommonly authentic 12 Months traces the year-long span of a romance, using vignettes that are snapshots of the relationship’s evolution. Just like a real life relationship, 12 Months has moments that are playful and moments that are searing. It’s the Must See at this year’s Cinequest.

Ellie (Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber) and Clark (Michael James Kelly) share a first date, which leads to another, and things get serious. Both Ellie and Clark are decent, smart, sincere and vulnerable; each has quirks, but neither is a bundle of red flags. Each deserves to find a partner, and, so, are they a fit?

Directed by Clinton Cornwell in his feature debut, 12 Months is entirely improvised. Cornwell is credited for the story, Hirsch-Tauber as executive story editor and Kelly as contributing writer. 12 Months is an especially promising calling card for all three.

12 Months soars in recognizing that relationships are rarely symmetrical. The two people involved generally experience different levels of attraction, security, commitment, confidence, comfort and maturity – and at different times.

And 12 Months understands that what a relationship can survive isn’t always predictable, whether it be depression, a sexual proclivity or an out-of-town work assignment.

Clearly, Cornwell, Hirsch-Tauber and Kelly are extremely keen and perceptive observers of relationship behavior (whether from their own or those of others). They don’t hit a single wrong note in12 Months.

Clark’s and Ellie’s best pals are played, respectively, by Christopher Mychael Watson and Lindsey Rose Naves, and they are hilarious.

Movies like 12 Months are why we have film festivals. Cinequest hosts the world premiere of 12 Months, and you can stream it at Cinejoy. View the trailer.

Michael James Kelly and Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber in 12 MONTHS. Courtesy of Cinequest.