2008 Forx Film Fest Starts Friday

Area moviemakers, whether professional, student, or amateur, will have the opportunity to network and view each other’s work in Grand Forks this Friday and Saturday.

For the seventh year in a row, a variety of local and regionally made movies can be seen on the big screen at the Empire Arts Center in downtown Grand Forks.

This is the weekend of the annual Forx Film Fest, with screening sessions of close to four hours each running Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday night. Admission is $10 per session ($8 for students) or $25 for the entire festival ($20 for students). A Saturday morning (10am) roundtable discussion with filmmakers is free and open to the public.

A large percentage of the movies are student-made, with examples by students from the MSUM film studies program, by students of UND’s moviemaking classes and workshops, and others.

Subjects include comedies, dramas, music videos, and documentaries. Running times range from a couple of minutes to almost an hour. Most are shorts in the five-minute to twenty-minute range.

Several of the moviemakers plan to be present to introduce their work or answer questions afterwards. Saturday night there will be an awards presentation for the winners in each of the festival’s submission categories.

This year no narrative feature-length movies were submitted, but each of the three screenings will nevertheless have one feature in its schedule.

Friday night continues the tradition of opening the festival with a film that played at the historic Empire Theatre during its first year or so of operation. As this year’s festival is being held just one week after Halloween, it was felt appropriate to kick off the weekend with the horror fantasy, “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.” The classic John Barrymore film version of the famous story originally played at the Empire September 27 and 28 back in 1920.

Its plot, of course, chronicles the experiences of an idealistic scientist who discovers a way to split the good and bad sides of a human personality, with disastrous results. At its heart, the story could be interpreted as a literal manifestation of human nature’s eternal conflict of the id and the superego, or as a parable on the dangers of drug and alcohol addiction thinly disguised in science-fiction trappings. Barrymore’s critically acclaimed performance blends theatrical flamboyance with cinematic subtlety.

Saturday afternoon’s session will close with a screening of my own first digital feature, another Halloween season title, “The Threat of the Mummy” (2002), starring area theatre favorite Darin Kerr in the title role. More of a sociopolitical satire and supernatural fantasy than a horror film, it features comedy troupe Nine and Numb director Kelly Clow (who also puts on the Empire’s annual “Rocky Horror Picture Show” screenings) in a prominent role. Other key roles are played by Paul Kelly, Dawn Kidle, Sarah Davis, and the late Walter Ellis.

The plot depicts what happens when a history student wants to unwrap an Egyptian mummy for her dissertation, inspiring a group of protestors to steal the body. When they try to perform the ancient burial rites, however, they inadvertently bring it back to life and discover it has plans of its own that it’s ready to resume where they left off 2000 years earlier.

Wrapping up the festival after the awards ceremony Saturday night will be the third annual screening of another movie I happened to direct, “Music to My Ears” (2006). This backstage musical comedy-drama was co-produced by the Empire and shot largely in the theatre, featuring a variety of local acting, singing, and dancing talent in a story loosely inspired by some actual incidents in the Empire’s past, as well as lots of classic movie musicals.

The story is an updated variation of popular movie musical formulas, alternating plot development with song and dance numbers, with a couple of larger production numbers towards the end. Small-town citizens band together to put on a stage show so they can raise the money needed to save a local landmark from demolition by unscrupulous developers.

The cast of “Music to My Ears” includes Jenny Morris, Karly Anderson, Lori Barrett, Paul Kelly, Chris Hargreaves, Marjorie Morris, Royce Blackburn, Louise Pinkerton, Gordon Dexheimer, Betty Gard, Lee Barnum, Marc Arnason, and features many other familiar names from Grand Forks arts community.

Forx Film Fest Schedule

Friday, November 7

7:00 pm: Welcome
7:10 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), John S. Robertson
8:30 Duck, Duck, Goose, Debra Pflughoeft-Hassett
8:40 The Jury is Relieved, Michael Harvey
8:45

Elusive Shane

, Shane Barrett
9:15 Manito, Deena Davis
9:35 UND Student Shorts
A Day in the Life Of, Tim Haas
Laundry Day, Jonah Andrist
For the Least of These, Charity Reitmeier
Some Kind of Woman, Alex Cavanaugh
Safeguard, Brandon Lewis
Don’t Stop Me Now, Charity Reitmeier
10:10

UND Art Department

Visual Music, Tara Morin, Kelley Barry, Michael Hoeft
Morte Carnet Anime, Nick Tuinstra
The Purse Chase, Sarah Amungaard, Sarah Winger
True Story, Michael Hoeft
High Noon, Sarah Schlagel
Me Stew, Tara Morin
Romeo and Juliet, Jon Porter, Adrian Popescu
Rain, Kelley Barry
Letters of the Alphabet, Sarah Amungaard, Sarah Winger, Jon Porter, Adrian Popescu, Jessica Poppke, Lacey Thieschafer
Alice in Wonderland, Chapters I, V & VIII, Michael Hoeft, Kelley Barry, Tara Morin
Flicker Film, Nick Tuinstra
10:35 End of Night

Saturday, November 8

10:00 Roundtable discussion group
1:00 Whiskey Sam Performance Videos, Christopher P. Jacobs
1:40 Thurston, Tyler Schwanke, Mark Wickline
1:52 Para Nora, Maxwell Heesch
2:00 The Pixels, Nikki Willhoit and Lucas Dooley
2:15 Carpe, Amber Johnson
2:25 Heavenly Sent, Tom Brandau
2:40 Back Country, Tyler Schwanke, Mark Wickline
2:55 Grand Forks Student Workshop Shorts
A Stroke of Insight, Barb Gregory
The Decision, Olivia Longie
A Man, His Stapler and the Witness Protection Program, Gary Edwards III
Unsolved, Halie Nettleton
Behind the Scenes with UND’s English 299 Movie Production, Christopher P. Jacobs
3:30 Threat of the Mummy, Christopher P. Jacobs
5:10 End of afternoon session

7:00 When the Landscape is Quiet Again, Clay Jenkinson and David Swenson
8:00 A Day with Mom, Tyler Schwanke
8:25 Lone River, John Beaudine, Stephanie Morse
8:32 Awards
8:45 Music to My Ears, Christopher P. Jacobs
10:45 End of Forx Film Fest