In these days of increasing homogenization and moviemaking-by-numbers, independent films are more important than ever. They bring imagination and experimentation to the medium. The Tampa Education Channel's Independents' Film Festival, now in its 10th year, is doing its part by providing an outlet for student and professional filmmakers who aren't part of the Hollywood machine.
The cable station transmitted more than 30 hours of films in July as part of the festival. Now they're screening the Best of the Fest on Sept. 19 at Tampa Theatre, beginning at 7 p.m. A panel discussion with some of the filmmakers will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, at Tampa Museum of Art.
The offerings cover the gamut from experimental and art films to documentary and feature forms.
Two of the best pieces are in the documentary category. Remembering the Manhattan Casino was produced by the multitalented Bill and Diana Leavengood. It's the story of a black nightclub on 22nd Ave. S. in St. Pete that was part of the chittlin' circuit for black musicians from 1927 till 1968. Everyone from Duke Ellington to BB King played the Coliseum for whites, then the Manhattan Casino for blacks. In St. Pete in those days, black touring musicians often had to sleep on their buses because few local hotels served blacks.
The Leavengoods interview musicians who worked with visiting stars as well as people who went there to dance and hear the most famous performers of the day. The piece is beautifully crafted, with excellent pacing and a respect for music often oddly missing in documentaries about musical subjects.
The best student documentary went to Martha Garzon for Cuba is Cuba, a very personal story of Jorge Suarez, an average Cuban guy who left his wife and daughter to come to the United States so he could earn money to send back to them. The young filmmaker uses clips from news programs to give a thumbnail sketch of the factors contributing to Cuba's current problems, from the abuses of power by U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista all the way through the economic devastation following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. But mostly the film centers around this young man, who is slightly uncomfortable in front of the camera, who does not want to talk about politics, who wants only a decent life for his family and who was willing to risk everything to get it. His personal story, told without rancor or accusation, provides the emotional core of what ends up being a very hopeful film.
Florida State University Film Conservatory students took three awards. Kevin McShane took a Florida Choice Award for Jimbo's A Comin', a very funny, highly polished, 16-minute piece about a motor-scooter-riding twerp determined to follow in the footsteps — or rather tire tracks — of his recently deceased Harley-riding, tough-guy dad. The wry, rubber-faced McShane stars in his own film. Fellow student John Thursby won the Mini Film student award for To Say I Love You. It's an extended music video with a sense of humor that also features McShane, this time as a hapless guy whose girlfriend has just dumped him and who is doing all the wrong things to try and win her back. Hunger, which won the student award for Short Film, is a dark piece with a wicked sense of humor about a German couple whose home has been taken over by a Nazi officer and his pampered cat.
Ron Anderson also uses Nazis and Harleys in the simple but effective American Dream. It's shot at a pro-war rally sponsored by a Clear Channel radio station in the parking lot of an Orlando Harley Davidson store. Anderson starts with this well worn but still applicable quote from Hermann Goering: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Soundtracks from Nazi speeches accompany footage of speakers and flag wavers at the rally to chilling effect.
The winner in the feature film category is John Aguirre's The Utopian Society, a sort of update of The Breakfast Club, in which six college students must work together on a class project to create a utopian society. The composition of the cast is almost stereotypically multi-culti: an icy blond sorority chick; a brainy and socially awkward Asian kid; a female black basketball player; a shallow fraternity party boy; an arty, intellectual Jewish girl and a rebellious son of a politician. You know from the beginning that, with an equal number of hormonal guys and girls, they're gonna pair up by the end. The question is how and with whom, and what will be revealed about each in the process. That portion of the film is well developed and is perfectly entertaining. The project the students are supposed to be working on is relegated to an undeveloped subplot. That's unfortunate because the film would have been much more interesting and the characters more deeply revealed if they had grappled with the question of what constitutes a utopian society instead of just who slept with whom (or was going to sleep with whom) or how to get more beer when you have no money.
Among the artier offerings are the gorgeous and mysterious Green Rose from Taiwan and Shudder, Helen Pau's nightmarish rumination on her father's suicide at the age of 39.
Other winners include animated works, an experimental film by artist Jeff Whipple that was also screened at the Ybor Festival of the Moving Image, a short drama featuring character actor Seymour Cassel and a short film shot in Tampa Theatre.
The films vary wildly in tone, form and even quality, but they all share a spirit of creativity and adventure often missing from more polished work.
Senior Editor Susan F. Edwards can be reached at [email protected] or 813-248-8888 ext. 122.
