A Strong Lineup at the Virtual 2021 Dam Short Film Festival

Like pretty much every live event for nearly a year now, the 2021 Dam Short Film Festival was held virtually, rather than in its usual Boulder City location. So much of the festival’s appeal comes from the town itself that there was inevitably something lost in this homebound edition. But the festival organizers, led by executive director Tsvetelina Stefanova, put together a lineup just as strong as any other year, and replicated as many of the typical festival activities that they could. Sitting at home streaming short films doesn’t compare to spending a few days in the Boulder Theater and mingling with filmmakers and film fans at the Boulder Dam Hotel, but it was enough to hold me over until the full experience returns next year (hopefully).

I watched about a third of the short film blocks in this year’s lineup, not as many for me as in previous years, when I’d just hang out at the Boulder Theater all day, but enough to get a sense of the breadth of the programming. Although DSFF is a community-oriented festival with general-interest content, some of the best selections are often tucked away in the offbeat, more challenging film blocks, which in a traditional year would play later at night. This year, there were two blocks devoted to DSFF’s signature Underground programming, as well as one block labeled Avant-Garde.

Among the Underground selections, I especially enjoyed the surreal animated piece “Little Pirate,” in which a tiny pirate curses an aspiring actor to constantly talk in pirate slang. It’s a goofy premise that filmmaker Sam Osborn fully commits to, making the absurdity into something strangely poignant (but still funny). Also in the Underground program was “Oyasumi,” one of a handful of films from Nevada filmmakers that were featured outside of the main Nevada programs. Filmmaker Kristina McHale finds dark humor in the story of a woman finally driven over the edge by her inconsiderate boyfriend.

Nevada filmmakers were also in the Drama: Friendship Old & New and Avant-Garde programs, with Jesserey Tugas’ “All-In” in the former and Jacob Langsner’s “Starcrossed” in the latter. Tugas puts together a low-key drama set in a Las Vegas casino cafe, as a teenage girl waits for her deadbeat gambler father to return from the tables. It’s an understated piece with strong performances, including from the late Bill Paxton’s son James. Although “Starcrossed” was labeled avant-garde, it’s a sweet and fairly straightforward story about an astronaut exploring the streets of Paris as if they’re an alien planet, and finding love along the way.

Langsner had the strongest showing of any local filmmaker in this year’s festival, between “Starcrossed” and his documentary “Vultures, Hawks, and COVID-19,” which played in the Nevada documentary program. Using the resources at hand, including some unfinished footage from a documentary about a bird sanctuary, Langsner comes up with a melancholy but humorous rumination on the current state of the world.

The winner in the Nevada category was “Sword Of!,” from longtime local filmmakers (and DSFF regulars) Jerry and Mike Thompson, and it’s another clever, funny short from the talented brothers. In just three minutes, the Thompsons take on the divide between intellect and emotion, while also throwing in an epic battle against a dragon, and maintaining their absurdist sense of humor throughout. The Thompsons also worked on the simple and sweet rom-com short “So Close and Still…,” from writer/director/star (and, full disclosure, my friend and Awesome Movie Year podcast co-host) Jason Harris.

Sword Of!

When DSFF is held in person, the Comedy program is usually the most popular, often with a sell-out crowd lining up around the block outside the theater. The comedy audience award winner, William J. Stribling’s silly time-travel short “The Speed of Time” (which actually played in the sci-fi block), takes ideas from so many serious sci-fi movies and turns them into broad comedy. Stribling gets plenty of laughs from a nebbishy computer programmer discovering that his future self is a musclebound warrior who’s traveled back in time to avert a global disaster.

The Speed of Time.

In the comedy block itself, I enjoyed the perfectly executed single-joke premise of “What Do We Do?,” about cubicle dwellers who have no idea what their company’s purpose is; the elegantly constructed rom-com “Across the Room,” in which a couple flirts via only body language; and the faux-hard-boiled “A Piece of Cake,” about a father (Rich Sommer) who goes to great lengths to get the perfect dessert topping for his daughter’s birthday cake.

A Piece of Cake.

I didn’t get the benefit of hearing a whole audience’s laughter for those movies, and the community and camaraderie of the festival couldn’t quite be replaced by virtual Q&As or live-streamed receptions. But DSFF organizers proved that they could adjust and persevere, and missing out on those crucial elements just made me more eager than ever to return to Boulder City in the future to watch some more short films.

EMAV Film Review: Sin City Horror Fest 2020

A scene from 'Smiles' at Sin City Horror Fest, 2020.

Following in the footsteps of the Nevada Women’s Film Festival and the Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival, this year’s Sin City Horror Fest on October 22-25 transitioned to a fully virtual edition, hosted on the YouTube page of popular horror brand Kings of Horror. That opened up a much larger potential audience for the niche festival, which is run by a dedicated, enthusiastic crew but has attracted fairly small crowds in its three in-person events in Las Vegas. Kings of Horror has more than a million YouTube subscribers, and the SCHF live programs regularly had 100-plus people watching at any given time, from all around the world.

The numbers might have been even higher if the festival organizers had been less committed to replicating the live film-fest experience, but the ephemeral nature of the festival was part of the charm. Unlike many online festivals that allow attendees to view selections at their convenience over a period of 48 hours or longer, SCHF showed each selection only once, at a specific day and time, and anyone who missed the live broadcast was out of luck.

But that also helped engender a communal feel for the screenings, thanks to a running text chat that often included the filmmakers, receiving feedback in real-time. Festival co-founders Mike Lenzini, Darren Flores and Justin Bergonzoni also broadcast a live kick-off video at the beginning of each day, interacting with attendees and contributing to the vibe that we were all in this together. They returned on the final night to give out the festival awards from Lenzini’s couch.

Among the eight feature films, the top awards were mostly split between Joe Badon’s “Sister Tempest” (which won Best Film, Best Director and Best Editing) and Jeff Wedding’s “Tennessee Gothic” (which won Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Score and Best Sound Design). Both are artistically ambitious projects that are more than a bit uneven, but it’s easy to admire the efforts at creating something more sophisticated and complex than a basic slasher movie (which SCHF is also happy to program).

A moment from the film 'Sister Tempest'.

“Sister Tempest” is a surreal, experimental piece about a woman undergoing a mental breakdown following the disappearance of her sister, expressed via elaborate set pieces that range from horror to sci-fi to religious allegory. “Tennessee Gothic” is a more straightforward tale about a mysterious woman taken in by father-and-son farmers, but it also embraces a range of tones and styles, including slapstick comedy and explicit sex scenes. Both movies are clear auteur visions from uncompromising filmmakers, the kind of work that film festivals exist to support, in any genre.

My favorite film among the features was the slow-burn German thriller “Marlene,” a deeply uncomfortable story of stalking and abduction, which deservedly won the Best Actress award for star Cordula Zielonka. She plays the title character, an art restorer who moves to Berlin for a new job and attracts the attentions of her creepy but seemingly harmless neighbor Flo (Thomas Clemens). “Marlene” is an engrossing character study of a woman trying to start her life anew, even before it shifts into intense horror in its final act. Writer-director Andreas Resch builds a pervasive sense of dread even in the most mundane moments, and it pays off in a horrifying climax.

SCHF 2020 Best Actor winner, Cordula Zielonka in 'Marlene'.

Moving the festival online allowed SCHF’s organizers to program an expanded slate, including more than 90 short films in 11 different blocks. There were a handful of local productions among the shorts, including prolific local filmmaker Joe Lujan’s creepy doll story “Billy”; Heidi Moore’s bizarre gross-out semi-sequel “Dolly Deadly 1.5,” an epilogue to her 2016 feature film “Dolly Deadly”; and Christopher Styles’ “The Tunnels,” which takes advantage of the inherent scariness of the storm drain tunnels below Las Vegas.

Elsewhere in the shorts programs, SCHF succeeded with films that combined horror and comedy, since horror shorts are often essentially quick build-ups to punchlines, whether those are horrific or comedic. I especially liked the Spanish short film “Smiles,” which won the shorts award for Best Kill, and which depicts a family with grotesque yellow smiley faces in place of their heads, as a visit home for the daughter’s new boyfriend goes awry. It’s not easy to create moments that are equally funny and horrifying, and “Smiles” succeeds at that where so many other horror shorts only accomplish one of the two.

Heidi Moore’s film 'Dolly Deadly 1.5'.

Just being funny or strange is okay, too, though, as in “Shiny Shiny,” in which a seemingly dangerous killer kidnaps a woman just so he can have an audience for his peppy dance routine. Or “Unholy ’Mole,” which also played at the Dam Short Film Festival in February, and is essentially a one-joke premise about a man’s extreme devotion to guacamole over his pregnant wife and unborn child.

On the more serious side, I liked the unexplained creepiness of “Loop,” in which people turn homicidal after hearing a mysterious cassette tape. Too many horror shorts are built around a single jolt rather than an actual plot or idea, and “Loop” is a great example of constructing a fully realized story without having to explain all the details. I also liked the escalating, grotesque social media satire of “Clout,” and the claustrophobic tension of another Spanish short, “La Guarida,” which explores the insidiousness of mob mentality.

With so many shorts, there was really something for everyone, even the squeamish, and the festival organizers promised in their closing-day broadcast to include an online component in next year’s festival, even if it returns to a more traditional in-person format. Viewers from across the globe got a feel for SCHF’s eclectic taste at this year’s event, and hopefully that will bring more attention to the festival in its Vegas home base, too.

EMAV Film Review: "Jay Sebring....Cutting to the Truth"

A moment from "Jay Sebring....Cutting to the Truth"

When the general public hears about Jay Sebring, it’s almost always as a sort of afterthought in the story of the Manson Family murders. As the new documentary “Jay Sebring….Cutting to the Truth” points out, the Manson Family victims of August 9, 1969, are generally listed as Sharon Tate and “others,” with Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent lumped together under that dismissive label.

With “Cutting to the Truth,” Las Vegas filmmaker Anthony DiMaria, Sebring’s nephew, attempts to provide his uncle with the kind of full, complex biography that’s rarely accorded to murder victims, especially those targeted by notorious killers like Charles Manson. As DiMaria points out, there have been countless books, movies, and TV shows about Manson, but “Cutting to the Truth” is the first one about Sebring.

This is obviously a personal project for DiMaria, who was only a small child when his uncle died but retains strong memories of the man he loved. DiMaria spent years working on “Cutting to the Truth,” and the effort shows: This isn’t just a small-scale family affair, although DiMaria interviews his own parents (his mother is Sebring’s sister) and other family members.

Before being reduced to a statistic in the Manson saga, Sebring was a pioneering hairstylist who worked with nearly every major male star of the 1960s, and DiMaria lands big names like Quincy Jones, Robert Wagner, Paul Anka, and Nancy Sinatra, among others, for interviews in the film. It’s clear how long DiMaria spent working on the movie when Dominick Dunne and Dennis Hopper show up, talking about their friendships with Sebring, in footage captured before their deaths more than a decade ago.

An interview with Hollywood and TV star Robert Wagner is among several in the film.

It’s not just the big-name interviewees that mark “Cutting to the Truth” as an impressive production. DiMaria effectively weaves together interviews, archival material, and onscreen graphics to tell the story of his uncle’s life, from Sebring’s days growing up in Michigan to his stint in the Navy to his efforts to establish an entirely new brand of men’s hairstyling in Los Angeles. The movie makes a strong case for Sebring as an important style innovator, possibly the first person to treat men’s hairstyling with the same creativity and dedication (and price) as women’s hairstyling. Among other achievements, Sebring created Jim Morrison’s iconic look from the early days of The Doors, and styled Kirk Douglas’ hair for “Spartacus.” Fashion icons including Vidal Sassoon and Fred Segal praise Sebring’s skills in the film.

DiMaria paints a full picture of Sebring as a complex human being, delving into his personal relationships with family and significant others (including Tate, whom Sebring dated before she married Roman Polanski) along with his professional accomplishments. DiMaria rehabilitates the image that the media created of Sebring as a deviant and a coward in the initial weeks following the murders, and in the process, he delivers a strong statement about the treatment of all high-profile murder victims. Sebring is getting his movie thanks to his connection to celebrities and the dedication of his nephew, but most victims of notorious murderers aren’t afforded the same treatment.

DiMaria also interviews Quentin Tarantino, who created one of the only multi-dimensional portrayals of Sebring onscreen in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” in which Sebring was played by Emile Hirsch. “Once Upon a Time” is clearly an important catalyst for “Cutting to the Truth” finally being completed and reaching an audience, but of course in its way it’s just another sensationalized treatment of the Manson murders. DiMaria understands the prurient interest that may draw viewers to stories like this, but once he has their attention, he presents them with a thorough, heartfelt tribute to his uncle’s life and talent.

“Jay Sebring….Cutting to the Truth” is available on September 22 on all major VOD platforms.