"Lightbulb"
"Chuck Close"
"Sita Sings The Blues"
"Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love"
"Fishin' For Tradition: The Lutefisk Saga"
"Tulpan"
"Vincent: A Life In Color"
"Lads And Jockeys"
Meg Hamel, Director, Wisconsin Film Festival
Recorded March 10, 2009
Wisconsin Film Festival
www.wifilmfest.org
Wisconsin Filmfest
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Watch Flash videoThis four-day annual festival takes place each spring in 10 downtown Madison theaters, all within walking distance. The Festival presents new American independent and world cinema (narrative, documentary, shorts, experimental,) restored classics and the work of Wisconsin filmmakers. More than150 films and an attendance getting close to 30,000 make this a lively event that’s become a major part of our state’s cultural calendar.
The Festival is a program of the UW Arts Institute, a nonprofit educational unit of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Governed by arts faculty and staff, the Arts Institute represents the collective voice and strength of the arts at the university, and works to make the campus arts more visible and effective. The Arts Institute funds and supports projects with university- and community-wide impact, including artist residencies, awards and fellowships, public programs, and arts marketing and outreach.
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Biography
Meg Hamel - After being born, raised and educated in Madison, the former history major developed a very cultured and global taste in film in the '90s when she went to film festivals with friends she was visiting in New York and San Francisco. Since then, she has attended festivals around the world.
Meg became involved with the Wisconsin Film Festival as an event's venue and logistics manager before becoming interim festival director in 2006 and full time director in 2007.
The films
"Lightbulb" - Two best friends, Matt and Sam, are creators of novelty gift items like the wristwatch that spins random lottery numbers. Their company isn't exactly successful and the financial strain is being felt in Matt’s marriage to Gina (who has been remarkably tolerant of Sam's get-rich-quick schemes but has a limit.) Written by Mike Cram, an inventor who lived the life that provides the loose inspiration for the story, Lightbulb is a richly atmospheric comedy that absorbs the color and character of Tucson. The three-member central cast succeeds in a balance of the bittersweet frustration of delayed dreams and the effervescent hopefulness that ultimately drives each of them forward. Dallas Roberts, Jeremy Renner, and the luminous Ayelet Zurer are emerging actors that we’ll see more of in the future. "A terrific little yarn about luck, perseverance and friendship overcoming the odds, Lightbulb is exactly what's needed in these troubled times….What sets [it] apart, and what keeps it aloft, is its tone, which privileges populist wit and wisdom over sappy self-indulgence. It's a seriocomic story in which ill-advised actions can and do have dire consequences, but persistence, humility and good humor ultimately find their own reward; a lean, economical indie film that, in the end, is its own best example." — Lael Lowenstein, Variety.
"Chuck Close" - The details of creating a massive portrait painting are exquisitely rendered on screen in this documentary of famed painter Chuck Close. His best-known works are very technique driven and this film captures the process very effectively. First is the photo session of his subject. Then a grid of squares is laid over the photo, each square to be transferred to the full-size canvas. But Close, who relies on aides since a spinal injury 20 years ago, resists a strict realism in recreating the photographic images. As his brush hits the canvas he fills each square with odd colored marks – utterly mystifying close up – brilliantly forming a recognizable face from a distance. "[Director] Cajori signally refuses to ascribe to a one-way artistic progression in Close's career output — often revisiting his disturbing early pieces. A still shot of Close lounging between two gray-toned paintings, which creepily mime the uber-realism of photography, brings home the visceral shockwaves these works must have sent through the art world of the time. Cajori also eschews any My Left Foot vision of the artist as heroic survivor: Whatever the method, from airbrushing to meticulous thumb-printing, Close's vision remains remarkably, inventively consistent, in and out of a wheelchair." — Ronnie Scheib, Variety.
"Sita Sings The Blues" - "A delightfully subversive feminist musical version of the Ramayana spans continents and millennia in parallel stories of two wives being unfairly dumped, one in the American autobiographical present the other in the mythical Indian past.” It starts with Nina, an artist in San Francisco, drawn in a squiggly modern style. Nina's husband has temporarily moved to India for a work project, but the distance becomes permanent when he extends his assignment for a year and then dumps her via email. Roger Ebert says, “No ex-husband has inspired a greater cultural contribution since Michael Huffington." For in Nina's despair, she picks up a copy of the Ramayana and reads about Sita, a Hindu goddess who is put through many tests of fidelity to her husband Rama. Paley tells Sita’s story through three strands, the main adventure unfolding as Sita dutifully follows Rama on a 14-year exile to a forest. As Sita laments her fate, the animation style shifts and Sita becomes a brightly rounded Betty Boop, singing with the voice of 1920s jazz singer Annette Hanshaw (songs like "What Wouldn’t I Do For My Man," "Why Are You So Mean To Me?"). Most hilarious is a third, no fourth strand – a Greek chorus of three witty Indonesian shadow puppets who narrate the storyline of Sita, forgetting parts, disagreeing about what happens next. Paley, a native of Urbana, Ill., wrote and drew the entire film herself. Debuting at the Berlin Film Festival last year, Sita is a brilliant adventure, an astonishing technical achievement, and evidence that 2D animation is robust, energetic and satisfying when drawn with enough heartache.
"Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love" - Senegalese pop sensation Youssou Ndour has spent the last 20 years in the spotlight as a world-renowned musician and iconic "voice of Africa." At the height of his career, Youssou became frustrated by the negative perception of his Muslim faith and composed Egypt, a deeply spiritual album dedicated to a more tolerant view of Islam. It was a critical and career-defining moment. Ndour’s brave musical message was wholeheartedly embraced by Western audiences but ignited serious religious controversy in his homeland of Senegal. Combining unprecedented images of Senegal’s most sacred Muslim rituals, vibrant concert performances filmed around the world and intimate access to Ndour and his family, I Bring What I Love chronicles the difficult journey Youssou must undertake to assume his true calling. Youssou Ndour is a voice of hope and tolerance, a modern day moral and political leader whose message transcends music but remains grounded in the universality of faith. Produced by Milwaukee filmmaker Sarah Price ( American Movie).
"Fishin' For Tradition: The Lutefisk Saga" - The joy of lutefisk, the Norwegian cod treat preserved with caustic soda, is captured through interviews with dozens of diners at Sons of Norway lodges, church suppers and other gatherings. Madison, Minn., is the lutefisk capital of the United States (the mayor says that no one else was challenging for the title so they just took it), which holds a lutefisk-eating contest each year. You know you’re in the heart of the Lutheran Upper Midwest when squeezable bottles of "I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter" are the official condiment. The history of this noble fish is told with animation, music and exuberant enthusiasm. Director Eric J. Nelson is a Madison resident, a frequent collaborator with Kipp and KC Norman, and has worked on several films shown at past Wisconsin film festivals.
"Tulpan" - Winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, acclaimed Kazakh documentarian Sergey Dvortsevoy’s first narrative feature is a gorgeous mélange of tender comedy, ethnographic drama and wildlife extravaganza. Following his Russian naval service, young dreamer Asa returns to his sister’s nomadic brood on the desolate Hunger Steppe to begin a hardscrabble career as a shepherd. But before he can tend a flock of his own, Asa must win the hand of the only eligible bachelorette for miles—his alluringly mysterious neighbor Tulpan. Accompanied by his girlie mag-reading sidekick Boni (and a menagerie of adorable lambs, stampeding camels, mewling kittens and mischievous children), Asa will stop at nothing to prove he is a worthy husband and herder. In the tradition of such travelogues as The Story of the Weeping Camel (WFF04), Tulpan's gentle humor and stunning photography transport audiences to this singular, harshly beautiful region and its rapidly vanishing way of life. 2008 Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Toronto, New York, and London film festivals.
"Vincent: A Life In Color" - Vincent is a man who has chosen to make Chicago's famous bridges his own personal stage. Throughout boat season, Vincent can be seen, in his bright technicolor suits, on the various bridges around town waving, spinning and twirling his jacket over his head to the delight and confusion of the tour boats that cruise the Chicago River. He's an icon, a regular in the audience crowd outside the TV news studios, a figure instantly recognizable to those who live in the city. Vincent also was born legally blind and has spent a rich life finding his way in the world. As a computer programmer, as a disco DJ and as Fashion Man, Vincent reminds us that everyone has a story to tell. This playful documentary matches Vincent's humor and delightfulness. Director Jennifer Burns is a graduate of the University of WisconsinW–Madison Political Science and Latin American departments.
"Lads and Jockeys" - As schoolchildren return to classes in September, a select group of 14-year-olds is passing through the doors of Le Moulin à Vent in Chantilly, the boarding school and training center for future stable-lads and jockeys. For these young pupils, the shock is often intense. They leave their family cocoon for the hard reality of a world of long hours where the comfort of the horse is more important than their own. The film follows three boys in the class of first year: Steve, Flavien, and Florian. In the dorm rooms they have posters of famous jockeys on the wall instead of rock stars. They hang out at the bookies’ in town, placing bets on the horses they know will win. Completely submerged in the world of racing, the film at times reaches the kind of quiet contemplation shown in Into Great Silence (WFF '07), an insider’s view of the routines of a place not normally open. The most moving scenes are those on the gallops. With cameras set on speed rigs that keep up with the racehorses, the footage is exhilarating. These tiny boys hurtle along on massive beasts, unable to rein them in. Coming to terms with the skills needed to be a jockey is only part of the story. These teens flirt and toy with budding romances contending with the usual difficulties that come at this age.