Independent and art films win awards, seek audiences

The 9th annual Fargo Film Festival is next week, so be sure to set aside time to see some of the new independent movies from around the world that will be screening at the Fargo Theatre Tuesday, March 3 through Saturday, March 7, as well as the noon lunch panel discussions with filmmakers.

Most of the award-winning titles are scheduled for Saturday night, and Saturday morning is devoted to animated shorts. For more details, see the separate coverage on this in other articles of this week’s HPR or check out the website at http://www.fargofilmfestival.org.

Hollywood just held its 81st annual Academy Awards. The ceremony actually seemed more film and filmmaker-oriented than usual, possibly due to the films nominated. As has become more and more common over the past decade or so, a large percentage—if not a majority—of the nominees were limited-release special-interest films aimed at thinking viewers rather than mass markets. As a result, many of the films never even played in Grand Forks or ran for only a couple of weeks before quietly disappearing.

Despite having seen only six of the nominated features and one of the shorts (and half of those after they came out on DVD), I was able to guess 15 correct winners, a few more than my usual and nearly double my correct guesses last year. Many of those were for obvious Academy and audience favorite “Slumdog Millionaire,” well-deserving of its best picture, director, and editing awards at least.

I was hoping “The Reader” would win the adapted screenplay award since I figured “Slumdog Millionaire” would get picture and probably director, but Kate Winslet certainly earned best actress with her moving performance. Penélope Cruz was also a good choice for supporting actress, although she may have won because she lost for “Volver” two years ago.

The wins for “Milk” were not unexpected and perhaps may get the film booked into towns like Grand Forks. However, the other serious dramas and issue films that were nominated but lost out may never be available to local viewers until they hit home video (as several already have).

For independent film fans in Grand Forks, as well as Bismarck, Minot and 90 other cities that have Carmike operated theatres, there is a weekly limited-release film series starting March 2 at local multiplexes, with a special price of only $5 per film. The ailing Carmike Cinemas Corporation is finally trying to take advantage of its digital projection facilities by showing a few non-mainstream films with the apparent hope of attracting some new customers, since the latest Hollywood hits tend to draw much bigger crowds at whatever competing theatres are playing them (especially in Grand Forks).

Meanwhile, Carmike is currently playing the above-average independent family feature, “The Velveteen Rabbit,” another film showing exclusively at this chain in selected cities before its mid-March video release. While “The Velveteen Rabbit” was independently produced on a relatively low budget, it is targeted at families seeking wholesome entertainment and obviously hopes for a wider mainstream audience. On the other hand, the movies in the new independent film series, while perhaps not the edgiest or artiest of indie fare, tend to be aimed at more sophisticated film-festival audiences than at typical multiplex moviegoers.

It is an admirable and rare attempt by a theatre chain to bring independent films to small towns and mall audiences rather than only big city art cinemas or film festivals. If box office returns look promising, no doubt the experiment will continue, and local film fans can look forward to more non-mainstream titles being offered as a welcome alternative to Hollywood’s slickly packaged formula pictures. With any luck, the general public will gradually acquire more of a taste for variety and for story content, instead of favoring recycled plots with celebrity stars and ever more elaborate special effects.

According to press releases, the independent films are supposedly a nationwide, 12-week series, but Grand Forks Carmike employees were only aware of the first six weeks being booked at the local Carmike 10. Oddly, the scheduled play dates do not mesh with standard Hollywood release practices. Instead of the traditional Friday or Wednesday opening, each film will open on a Monday and play through Saturday and will have no showings on either Friday or Sunday.

The first film in the series opens March 2. “Remarkable Power!” is a 2008 comedy starring Kevin Nealon as a talk show host who plans an outrageous media stunt in the hopes of saving his fading career and getting revenge on his unfaithful wife at the same time. Tom Arnold also stars and was one of the executive producers.

Next up on March 9 is “All Along,” a 2007 production that won some awards at a festival last year. Another comedy, it follows a married father of two in a midlife crisis who finds himself acting out his daydream fantasies with embarrassing results. Bill Page stars along with Erin Brown, better known over the past decade for starring in a series of soft-core nudie movie spoofs under the name Misty Mundae.

Starting on March 16 is an off-beat romantic comedy from 2007 called “Bad for Business.” In this one a guy runs a service to help women who’ve recently been dumped regain their self-esteem. His business plan is to stalk them, but this soon backfires.

Opening March 23 is “Altered Courses,” a 2004 production that, like many low-budget indie films, is difficult to fit into one genre. It is a coming of age drama set in the year 2042, revealing a couple’s life with flashbacks that involve a detective and the survival of a little girl.

On March 30, the new Christian-themed film “The One Lamb” opens, produced as an inspirational story of a promising young politician who discovers he has cancer and is befriended by a black preacher.

April 6 is the opening date for “Waiting for My Real Life,” an acclaimed 2008 Canadian documentary about a massively overweight 23-year-old man’s struggle to survive a disastrous gastric bypass surgery. Playing with it is an award-winning 2007 Irish short called “The Lonely Stag,” which uses poetry and song to tell the tragic struggle of Ireland through a child’s eyes.