You can learn something today
Here’s what’s going on at the Adirondack Film Festival today
By Ken Tingley
If you were thinking of skipping work to see a good movie, Friday is the day to do it.
You will be entertained, educated and moved by the collection of movies available.
If you are going to see any of the shorts, make sure the “Suspense Shorts” starting at 5 p.m. at the Wood Theater are at the top of your list. This collection of five movies kicks off with “One Foot In,” a tale of grave-robbing that is the perfect mood-setter for Halloween. It is followed by “Checking Out,” a story of a suicide pact with an unexpected ending, the poignant “Old Man Next Door,” and maybe perhaps my favorite short in the entire film festival - the British film “Headlights.” If you ever thought of cheating, this will make you think twice.
After being asked to be a screener for the film festival, I watched 115 movies over a three-week period. While there were clunkers, the number of movies that surprised and entertained - often in different ways - made up for it.
I’ll be attending the film festival all weekend and previewing my favorites before each day. Here is a sneak preview for Friday’s movies.
For the Intellectual
“Not A Tame Lion,” is the documentary version of the DaVinci Code about a real-life Yale professor and his ground breaking historical research into same-sex marriages centuries ago.
John Boswell became a Yale professor at age 30, read and translated 14 ancient and modern languages and was given full access to highly classified and restricted Vatican archives. The results were four award-winning books and some surprising conclusions about the evolution of same-sex marriage.
Boswell was openly gay at a time when that was rare. The documentary is not only about his historic research but about his extraordinary life. It is thought-provoking documentary that might have you rethinking the way you think about the same-sex marriage, especially in regards to religion.
The documentary kicks off Friday’s action at 10 a.m.
Wild Kingdom
If you are sucker for great wildlife photography, you can’t miss the documentary short “Trees With Orange Rings” which documents the efforts to save the habitat of gray owls in the Bridger Mountains of Montana. The footage is simply spectacular.
The documentary shorts will be shown at the library at 12:30.
Action movie
Even if you are just a novice mountain biker, you will love the wild and wooly exploits of these crazed mountain bikers in “Dancing in the Mountains.”
While the spectacular footage makes the movie, it makes you ask what makes some people able to take such risks for the sport of it. It is also part of the documentary shorts that start at 12:30 at Crandall Library.
Covid influence
Covid and the influence of the pandemic was everywhere among this year’s film entries, including in the documentary shorts with “Stopgap,” which looks at entrepreneurs who stepped in at the start of the pandemic to provide PPE for residents and medical professionals in New York City.
In another short with Covid influences, a teaching assistant tries to give his all with a series of one-on-one feedback sessions about the students’ personal essays. As he pushes them to find meaning in their own life, he begins to question his own.
“Idea” is among the stage to screen shorts that start at 1 p.m. at the Wood Theater.
Star Power
David Straithairn is one of those actors you can’t take your eyes off. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Edward R. Murrow in “Good Luck, And Good Night.” His performance in the stage-to-screen film “Remember This” is as compelling a performance as anything at this year’s film festival and will be shown at 11 a.m.
In a solo performance, Straithairn plays Holocaust survivor Jan Karski, a Pole who escapes a concentration camp, carries the first eyewitness reports of war-torn Poland to the western world and endures torture and mental anguish.
Regrets
If you’ve ever had regrets about the one that got away, then “A Love Song,” which closes the festival Friday night at 7:30 p.m., will have you transfixed.
Lyme Disease
“The Quiet Epidemic” is a must-see documentary for anyone who spends any amount of time outdoors. The Lyme Disease project was seven years in the making for filmmakers Lindsay Keys and Winslow Crane-Murdoch, who both graduated from Capital District high schools and met at a doctor’s office in Delmar. They started working on the project while living in Queensbury. It will be shown at Crandall Library at 2:30 p.m.
The two directors will be part of a panel discussion on the documentary and Lyme Disease along with SUNY Adirondack professor Holly Ahern at 4:30 p.m.
Opening Night
The Adirondack Film Festival kicked off on a rainy night in Glens Falls without 50 in attendance to see music videos and Blondie video/documentary by director Rob Roth. Another 150 had signed up to watch the festival virtually.
Roth was interviewed by Adirondack Theater Festival Artistic Director Miriam Weisfeld after the movie.
Roth talked about shooting the movie in Cuba as part of a cultural exchange program and his long relationship with the rock star Blondie.
