Love Is All You Need?

Cinequest 2016: Festival Wrap-up

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Andrew Jenkins in Chris Scheuerman's brilliant debut LOST SOLACE
Andrew Jenkins in Chris Scheuerman’s brilliant debut LOST SOLACE

We’ve completed a strong Cinequest 2016, and I’ve seen 36 feature films.   All of my features on this year’s fest , along with recommendations on over twenty Cinequest 2016 films are on my CINEQUEST page.  Here are the festival highlights (and lowlights).

PERSONAL FAVORITE:  I loved writer-director Chris Scheuerman’s brilliant debut – the highly original psychological thriller Lost Solace.

THE MEMORY OF WATER
THE MEMORY OF WATER

BEST OF THE FEST: The Memory of Water: This Chilean drama explores grief, its process and its impact and was the most masterful filmmaking achievement at Cinequest 2016. Exquisite.

BIG MOVIES: The selection of this year’s Spotlight Films, the prime-time movies shown at the California Theatre, may have been Cinequest’s most successful ever. Cinequest programmers led off with a home run with the Opening Night rouser Eye in the Sky, the thriller-meets-thinker from Oscar-winning director Gavin Hood. The screening was preceded by Cinequest co-founder Halfdan Hussey’s interview of Hood, which was probably also the best ever on-stage interview in festival history.

The Cinequest audience also loved the next Spotlight Film, the Norwegian disaster movie The Wave.  Arnaud Desplechin’s affecting coming of age film My Golden Days was also popular.  I liked James Franco and loved Ed Harris in The Adderall Diaries. Cinequest’s Closing Night feature, the Australian drama The Daughter, packed a powerfully emotional punch.

Alan Rickman in EYE IN THE SKY
Alan Rickman in EYE IN THE SKY

BIGGEST SENSATION:  The hard-hitting and often excruciating Love Is All You Need?, the exploration of homophobic bullying and hate crimes, will be the Cinequest film that gets the most national attention.

MOST IMPRESSIVE DEBUT: Along with Lost Solace, I was also impressed by Chris Brown’s The Other Kids and Lori Stoll’s Heaven’s Floor.

BEST FOREIGN FILM: Along with The Memory of Water, I most admired Magallanes, a Peruvian psychological drama about those wrongs that cannot be righted. Magallanes won the jury award for international cinema. I also enjoyed the sex, intrigue and murder in the operatic Hungarian period drama Demimonde.

COMEDY:  There really wasn’t a Can’t Miss comedy this year, but fans of absurdist deadpan comedy had The Modern Project and Lost in Munich.  My Guilty Pleasure was the deliciously low brow A Beginner’s Guide to Snuff.

BEST ROMANCE: We don’t always have an extremely strong romance at the festival, but the Hungarian Fever at Dawn was just that – an urgent period romance between Holocaust survivors, with an unexpected nugget at the end.

BEST DOCUMENTARY:  If I had to pick just one, it would be Chuck Norris vs. Communism, but I also liked Dan and Margot, The Promised Band and The Brainwashing of My Dad.

WORST OF THE FEST: Thankfully, there were not many stinkers at this year’s fest, but Remember Me was a disappointing clunker and The Blackcoat’s Daughter was utterly wretched.

See you at Cinequest 2017.

MAGALLANES
MAGALLANES

Encore Day at Cinequest

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LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED?
LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED?

My picks for Encore Day, Sunday, March 13:

The Other Kids 11 AM Hammer Theatre Center
A completely fresh and authentic coming of age film – and a triumphant directorial debut.

Love Is All You Need? 1 PM California Theatre
This is the Cinequest film that will be the most talked-about across the nation. It’s a vivid and sometimes excruciating examination of the impacts of homophobic bullying, hate speech and hate crimes.

The Promised Band 4 PM Camera 12 – Screen 10
This documentary is a successful exploration of the effects of mutual isolation and a very explicit snapshot of the barriers to travel and social integration between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Daughter 6:45 PM California Theatre

This emotionally powerful Australian drama is Cinequest’s Closing Night film.  Top-rate Aussie cast includes Geoffrey Rush and Sam Neill.

OR

Magallanes 6:45 M Camera 12 – Screen 10
This Peruvian psychological drama seems to start out as a lovable loser heist film, but turns out to be an exploration of PTSD. Mexican actor Damian Alcázar brings home the jarring climax. emotionally powerful. Along with The Memory of Water, the best foreign film at Cinequest 2016.

MAGALLANES
MAGALLANES

Cinequest: LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED?

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LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED?
LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED?

The hardhitting drama Love Is All You Need? has been the biggest sensation at Cinequest, and is sure to be the Cinequest film most talked-about nationally. It’s a powerful and often excruciating examination of the impacts of homophobic bullying, hate speech and hate crimes.

Writer-director K. Rocco Shields uses the novel approach of inverting gender and sexual preference roles, so the world of Love Is All You Need? is 90% homosexual, with the heterosexuals as the despised minority. Shield has expanded her 20-minute short of the same name by adding additional story threads. At the Cinequest debut, Shields said that teachers have been disciplined for showing the short in their classes.

The story is set in a Midwestern college town dominated by a conservative evangelical Christian pastor.  A 12-year-old girl is questioning her sexuality, and male and female college students are exploring their own sexuality.  None of them are treated well in the local community.  Shields has taken actual hate speech from sermons from the despicable Westboro Baptist Church and put them in the mouth of homosexuals trashing heterosexuals.  (I don’t the word “gay” in this post because in Love Is All You Need? it’s used by homosexuals to describe heterosexuals, along with various homophobic epithets.)

The emotional and physical brutality keeps piling on itself, right up to a reenactment of the Matthew Shepherd murder.  It’s unrelenting to the point that the audience is battered and exhausted, not unlike 12 Years a Slave. Because it’s such a grim film-going experience, I’m not seeing Love Is All You Need? as a hit with general audiences, but I do expect it to become a cultural sensation.  It’s uniformly well-acted, and young actress Kyla Kenedy is particularly convincing.  It’s quite an achievement by K. Rocco Shields, and well worth watching.

Cinequest at mid-festival

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LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED?
LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED?

We’re halfway through Cinequest 2016. What are the biggest hits and the most delightful surprises?

BIG MOVIES

Cinequest programmers hit a home run with the Opening Night rouser Eye in the Sky, the thriller-meets-thinker from Oscar-winning director Gavin Hood.  The screening was preceded by Cinequest co-founder Halfdan Hussey’s interview of Hood, which was probably the best ever on-stage interview in festival history (at least that I have seen).

The Cinequest audience also loved another Spotlight Film, the Norwegian disaster movie The Wave.

 

INDIES

Film festivals are very important to first-time directors, and Cinequest 2016 has hosted some world premieres of two wonderful debuts:

  • Love Is All You Need?: The hard hitting exploration of homophobic bullying and hate crimes is the most sensational film at Cinequest.  COme to think of it, “hard hitting” is an understatement.
  • Lost Solace: Highly original psychological thriller and a brilliant directorial debut – my personal favorite so far at this years festival.
  • Heaven’s Floor: Absorbing and character-driven autobiographical drama about a most complicated woman and the choices that indelibly affect several lives.

 

WORLD CINEMA

As usual, Cinequest is screening some real gems from other nations. The best have been:

  • The Memory of Water: This Chilean drama explores grief, its process and its impact and might just be most masterful filmmaking achievement at Cinequest 2016. Exquisite.  Probbly the best cinematic achievement at this year’s Cinequest.
  • Demimonde: Sex, intrigue and murder in this operatic Hungarian period drama.
  • Magallanes: A Peruvian psychological drama about those wrongs that cannot be righted.
  • Fever at Dawn: Urgent period romance between Holocaust survivors, with an unexpected nugget at the end.

 

DOCUMENTARIES

The usual solid batch of Cinequest docs:

  • Chuck Norris vs. Communism: The subversive impact of movies (ANY movies) on a culture-starved society.
  • Dan and Margot: A very personal look at schizophrenia from the schizophrenic’s point of view.
  • The Promised Band: A group of Israeli and Palestinian women seek to fight through the cultural, legal, political, military and security barriers between them by forming a girl band.
  • The Brainwashing of My Dad: Personalizes the effects of right-wing media on mood and personality as well as on the political culture.
  • Gordon Getty: There Will Be Music: Insights into the quiet passion and creative process of a most unusual classical composer.

WOMEN FILMMAKERS

This year, Cinequest presents the world or US premieres of sixty features and sixty-nine shorts. And of these 129 premieres, 64 were directed by women! These include Love Is All You Need?, Heaven’s Floor, The Brainwashing of My Dad, Dan and Margot and The Promised Band.

STILL TO COME

I’ve only seen The Daughter so far, but these upcoming films look promising:

  • February (Shipka Kiernan from Mad Men, Emma Roberts) March 12; and
  • The Adderall Diaries (James Franco, who will be making a personal appearance) March 12;
  • The Little Prince (already spoken of as a contender for the 2017 Animated Feature Oscar) March 13.
  • The Daughter: Based on an Ibsen play, this Australian drama is Cinequest’s Closing Night film and packs a powerfully emotional punch. March 13.

Bookmark my Cinequest 2016 page, with links to all my coverage. Follow me on Twitter for the latest.

THE MEMORY OF WATER
THE MEMORY OF WATER