Psalms 115:16 is Just Alright with Me

“The heavens are the Lord’s heavens; but the earth He has given to the sons of men.” 

Whatever that means.

On this particular Earth Day, nestled this year in a most high Christian holiday weekend, I choose the environmentalist interpretation: God expects we be stewards of His creation.

Even the most casual Christians know the Genesis story. In the beginning there was nothing, then God made the heavens and the earth. Immediately thereafter, seeing a planet without form, God summoned the light, and He saw the light was good.

I mean, it’s right there on page one.

But looking down now, I wonder, would He still feel the same?

Cut

So I did it, almost the best I could.

Four days I volleyed between the Connecticut Film Festival in Danbury and the Litchfield Hills Film Festival in New Milford. There were just about 150 events aggregately. I traveled just about 150 miles aggregately. All that, and I still only got to about a dozen movies and workshops.

The mission was simple, seemingly. Find out if one movie lover could adequately balance two concurrent festivals between a city and a town one Brookfield apart.

Perhaps I failed to maximize the experience, but with a waft of dissatisfaction I did find an answer. In the words of Gov. Dannel Malloy, who Wednesday night opened the Danbury event and Sunday afternoon closed the New Milford one, the independent affairs could conceivably work in concert, “but it’s unfortunate they overlap.”  

Unfortunate indeed, a miscalculation chalked up to miscommunication.

It is very possible to get a nice sampling from both, and fairly I did. But by Sunday I regretted that most advantage was not fully taken from either. I didn’t get to see “What If” in Danbury, a second-chance story in the spirit of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but starring muscle-bound Kevin Sorbo in the James Stewart role. I didn’t get to see “The Fiction” in New Milford, the story of an author driven to madness by an impenetrable case of writer’s block.

Unfortunate indeed, there’s too much I didn’t get to see. Regardless, of what I caught there were a number of standouts, nothing much regrettable, here’s a chronological recap.

Frank and Patrice Galterio’s Litchfield Hills Film Festival actually opened Thursday afternoon with “Ninja Zombies,” a low-budget first feature project for New Haven director Noah Cooper. Imagine if the flesh-hungry undead were armed with Samurai swords, imagine making a movie about it for only $2500. A labor of love, rough around the edges, but according to Mr. Cooper still technically unfinished. Deadlines can be obstructive, that I know.

Tom Carruther’s Connecticut Film Festival didn’t hit stride until Friday. So after checking out a few exceptional shorts in New Milford, including a middle-aged woman’s droll monologue about the tribulations of dating younger men, Christine Elise McCarthy’s “Bathing & the Single Girl,” Friday night was spent in the Hat City.

 “Patti Smith: Dream of Life” had filmmaker Steven Sebring follow and compile 11 years worth of footage on the elusive underground rock pioneer. Far more than some one-note “Behind the Music” career summation, the avant garde outcome yielded work worthy of the punk poet’s sonically eccentric arc. It was at times humorous, like her father admitting he’s now deaf in one ear thanks to her obliterating music, “Gloria” and the likes. It was at times dark, one scene had Ms. Smith under red sensor ominously performing at CBGB’s, the cinematography so reminiscent of the swelling “Apocalypse Now” climax I thought she was going to slaughter a cow onstage.

 At a couple of Connecticut Film Festival workshops Saturday morning, I learned just how unfortunately unlikely it is for an actor or a screenwriter to hit success. According to Reno Venturi, who ran the acting class, maybe one in every 200 actors actually makes it a living. Peter Fox relayed commensurately discouraging news for screenwriters. Your movie can be made, but getting past studio gatekeepers is comparable to getting past the Sphinx, if you know your Greek mythology.

Believable news but for a few hours, that afternoon I saw “Director’s Cut” in New Milford, and suddenly it seemed that passion, will and unadulterated talent is the cream that makes projects float. The first feature for a young Elana Mugdan, it’s a pleasantly lighthearted comedy (perhaps semi-autobiographical) about a girl with aspirations far beyond her Long Island town. Alas, protagonist Cassie is past college and still at home, frustrated by her lack of prospects she decides to make a movie about the trials of a zombie cannibal vampire pirate queen, that feel-good Middle America stuff.

“Director’s Cut” proved a relatable story bolstered higher with genuine heart and humor. A professional-grade quality belied the not even $20,000 budget, and the director’s natural gift was illustrated with a subtlety that deftly captured frustration, camaraderie and at times slapstick humor. It’s truly the only movie I’ve ever seen where a girl getting punched in the face is met by an audience with uproarious laughter.

Anchored by actress Hallie York, charming and witty, it was little surprise “Director’s Cut” won the Litchfield Hills Film Festival’s award for “Director’s Choice Best Feature.”

Sunday afternoon, back in Danbury, “Wondrous Oblivion” was also wondrous in its delightful surprise. Forgive me if I harbored reservations when entering a movie about a young Jewish boy, living in post-war London, with professional cricket aspirations.

But at a film festival, judging a movie by its description is an awful blunder, as “Wondrous Oblivion” tells brilliantly the rotten human phenomenon of misplaced judgment. A Jewish family in a working class neighborhood was accepted only cautiously by neighbors, but even they the Wiseman’s were chagrined to see a Jamaican family move in next door. However, a relationship was soon to be found by cricket, even as tension mounts on the Anglo-centric block.

Interesting to note, in the opening sequences we see the previous tenants move out. An Englishman comments on that vacating family’s intentions to move to a better class of neighborhood, one with “bigger trees,” which in his cockney accent struck a striking resemblance to “bigotries.”

One last trek up to New Milford for “In a Town This Size,” a documentary about a predatory pediatrician, in a small Oklahoma community, and the awful scars his acts of sexual abuse left on uncounted numbers of children decades later. The content was so heavy and heart-wrenching and graphic in description, made by now-adult victim Patrick Brown, it was at points tough to stomach.

It was the kind of movie that makes you wonder if fantastic and enjoyable are always synonymous. Mr. Malloy was admittedly impressed by the film’s caliber. Then, in regards to these festivals, he promised $15 million for cultural development in his highly-publicized if not highly-appreciated budget proposal.

“That’s up from $1,” he told me.

A 15 million percent increase is massive, but can be quantified. However, the identity independent film festivals bring to a community is far more difficult to gauge.

Seeing the art-deco Palace Theater landmark in Danbury opened once again, like it was still the 1980’s and filled with scores of movie-goers, that’s a beautiful thing. Seeing the shops and restaurants of downtown New Milford cooking with business from Chicago filmmakers, that’s a beautiful thing.

I wish I could’ve seen both at once.

One more thing, if you saw a guy with a remarkable resemblance to Steve Buscemi walking around New Milford this weekend, it wasn’t him. But it was his filmmaker brother Michael.                                                  

The Final Act

And now we watch the toys go winding down.

Today marks the final day for both area independent cinema fests, the Litchfield Hills Film Festival in New Milford and the Connecticut Film Festival in Danbury.

Compared with previous days heavy with workshops, movies and gatherings, Sunday will see a more subdued schedule in both towns. The first film in the Hat City doesn’t air until 1 p.m. “Wondrous Oblivion” is the tale of a Jewish boy in London hoping to be a cricket star. Five hours later the final movie, “The Fields of Margraten: Bitter Harvest,” airs. It’s the story of black soldiers in World War II, and the then menial but ultimately indispensable role they played.

In New Milford a block of short films went on at 10 a.m., and today’s final airing is at 3:45 p.m. with “In a Town This Size,” a heavy tale about childhood sexual abuse scandals plaguing one Oklahoma town. 

Though the festivals end in a similarly softened fashion, there is one inversely notable difference in the overall highlights. The Connecticut Film Festival launched Wednesday night with a visit from Gov. Dannel Malloy, a man whose budget proposal could put him in a festival for how-quickly-can-a-new-governor-make-the-most-enemies, or something like that.

Today, Mr. Malloy will appear in New Milford to close out the ceremony.

By the way, I’ve so far accumulated about 100 extra miles on my car, bouncing between the two events. And there’s more to come today, for sure.

Reel Quick

So it’s a task, but not such a daunting one.

Thus far at the Litchfield Hills Film Festival in New Milford I’ve seen one feature film, Thursday’s opener “Ninja Zombies,” and on Friday a block of shorts.

At the concurrent Connecticut Film Festival in Danbury I watched Friday night’s illuminating and musically superb feature documentary, “Patti Smith: Dream of Life.” Today attended two professionally-taught workshops, the first on acting and the second on screenwriting.

Back up in New Milford, I’m going to check out the second walking dead-themed picture - yes, zombies are so hot right now this one event has two related movies - “Director’s Cut.”

After that, I’ll soon you let you know. Thus far I’ve found that the biggest impediment between attending both events isn’t conflicting movie schedules or the 30-minute commute time between these two two-towns-away towns, but the nearly $4-per-gallon gas prices.

Film Festival Harmony?

Here’s something to ponder this cinematic weekend in western Connecticut. As the Connecticut Film Festival in Danbury and the Litchfield Hills Film Festival in New Milford overlap, will the exclusive entities inevitably work in concert?

It’s not such a preposterous notion, this idea of friendly competition. By many accounts, Litchfield County’s reputed antiques industry often attracts traveling furniture and home accessory aficionados to many, not just one, of the area’s myriad dealerships.

However, if the phenomenon translates to the film fests is still unclear. But those who appreciate the independent and artistic spirit of these community events might find themselves soon sampling the fare of a film festival only two towns north, or south, depending.

Tom Carruthers, who runs the Connecticut Film Festival, has pulled together more than 60 films and more than a dozen film industry and new media workshops for a five-day extravaganza that began Wednesday and will continue until Sunday.

It’s a proverbial steal that for only $7.50, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday a budding Aaron Sorkin can sign up for “Screenwriting 101.” Taking such a class elsewhere, let’s say New York City, Mr. Carruthers said “would be about $50.”

And Frank Galterio, who with wife, Patrice Galterio, runs the Litchfield Hills Film Festival (formerly the Kent Film Festival, but moved to New Milford this year,) has really pushed the Nutmeg State angle of his event, noting that that the feature of “every night is a Connecticut filmmaker.”

The New Milford event began yesterday and Danbury Wednesday, but judging by the itineraries neither festival really calls action until today. With that, already a dilemma arises.

Mr. Galterio is a big fan of tonight’s Bank Street Theater showing of “The Fiction,” a movie by first-time movie maker Dan DiLeo. It’s the tale of a novelist whose writer’s block is so severe it drives him to madness.

“He did everything right,” said Mr. Galterio. “And for me to put it on Friday night, you know it’s good.”

Then again, because the night in Danbury’s Palace Theater belongs to a documentary about punk poet Patti Smith, Steven Sebring’s “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” it may be hard for new wave hobos and elitists to resist.

So if it’s possible to balance schedules, to gauge which short films or feature films or workshops to embrace or to sacrifice, all the while factoring the Danbury-New Milford corridor, I’ll find out this weekend. And I still have to do my taxes.

“Patti Smith: Dream of Life” begins at 7 p.m., tickets for the film are $12.50, plus another $12.50 for the after party. “The Fiction” begins at 8 p.m., tickets are $9.

Stay tuned.