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FILM FESTIVAL
EXPLORES GENDER,
POLITICS, JAZZ AND MORE
10th annual Astoria International Film Festival
ofers ilms at the Liberty Theater Oct. 21, 22 & 23
By KATE GIESE
Submitted photos
Hey, it’s time to get your ilm
groove on! It’s autumn, and the
10th annual Astoria International
Film Festival is taking place Friday
to Sunday, Oct. 21 to 23, present-
ing a wide range of documenta-
ry, feature and short ilms, both
domestic and international. All the
action will take place at Astoria’s
historic Liberty Theater. Tick-
ets may be purchased at the box
ofice: $5 for one ilm or $40 for a
complete festival pass.
As to why he started the festival
here, Executive Director Ron
Craig points to his fascination
with all the history in this area. He
remembers experiencing a kind of
spiritual epiphany that this was the
spot for a ilm festival. (Among
his many ine qualities, Craig
possesses the heart of a mystic, on
occasion open to signs and portents
and things like past lives.) More
importantly, according to him, his
overarching drive to make the fes-
tival a reality came out of a highly
grounded notion. As an African
American ilmmaker, he knew the
power of ilm to tell stories that
need telling irst hand — most
often the stories of women and
minorities, of injustice in general.
These factors get at the very
core of the Astoria International
Film Festival. The nonproit has
quite a lofty mission when you
think about it: emphasizing the
art of movie-making and empow-
erment — as he puts it, “giving
someone back their story” in ilm
and empowering ilm goers, too,
when they see that ilm. Add to this
heady mix 1) encouraging dialogue
and a healthy exchange of ideas,
2) an education component and 3)
lots of local involvement. Voila!
So sit back and enjoy the fruits
of Craig on his yearly mission:
to foster mutual understanding
through ilms, forums and festi-
vals, with a little jazz thrown in for
good measure. Why? Because, as
his grandma used to say, “We all
learn from each other.”
FRIDAY, OCT. 21
Various short ilms
5:30 to 7:15 p.m.
The ilm festival oficially kicks
off at 5:30 p.m. Friday with a
selection of short ilms. Some are
from the 42nd NW Filmmakers’
Festival, which took place in Port-
land last November. The documen-
tary short “Tender,” by ilmmaker
Nurri Kim, follows the interaction
between the carer and the cared-
for in a small Finnish town; the
ilm was an oficial selection at the
Nordic International Film Festi-
val in New York City. Survival
drama “Remain,” directed by 2010
Warrenton High School graduate
Michael Anthony Cain, tells the
story of a mother and daughter in a
disaster-ridden world.
‘Vanport Mosaic’
7:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Built in 1942 on swampy land
near today’s Portland Expo Center,
Vanport was meant to be a tempo-
rary solution to Portland’s housing
shortage. Many minority laborers
who came to live there worked in
shipyards during World War II.
With a population of 40,000, Van-
port was Oregon’s second largest
city and the largest World War II
federal public housing project.
But on Memorial Day in 1948,
one of the dikes surrounding Van-
port broke, looding the city and
wiping it out.
‘Valley of Ditches’
9 to 10:30 p.m.
Chris Lang, a 2002 Astoria High
School graduate and ilmmaker,
will bring his independent survival/
crime/horror thriller “Valley of
Ditches” to the festival. Some may
remember a preview screening of the
then-uninished ilm back in Febru-
ary at the Columbian Theater. This
isn’t Lang’s irst time having one of
his ilms in the Astoria ilm festival;
his ilm “Our Life in Make Believe”
was on the 2014 schedule.
In “Valley of Ditches,” a young
woman bound in the front seat of a
parked car watches helplessly as her
captor methodically digs a grave in
the desert ground, the body of her
boyfriend visible in the rearview
mirror. But it’s only the beginning
of a brutal struggle where survival
could be worse than death.
SATURDAY, OCT. 22
‘Tango’
Noon to 2 p.m.
In his role as festival curator,
Craig says, “I always try to (pick
ilms) that describe what’s going
on socially and culturally in our
world.” Many of the selections are
also relevant to Astoria, the North-
west and Oregon. A case in point is
the musical drama “Tango,” a 1998
ilm by Spanish director Carlos
Saura, who is famous for combin-
ing passion and dance in his ilms.
Showing this foreign ilm is a nod
to an existing tango contingent in
Astoria and the Astoria Arts and
Movement Center’s new October
series of Argentine tango classes,
taking place on Saturdays.
‘Equal Means Equal’
2:30 to 3:40 p.m.
The highly-regarded 2016 doc-
umentary “Equal Means Equal,”
directed by Kamala Lopez and
executive produced by Patricia
Arquette, promises to be a festival
highlight. Through real-life stories
and legal cases, the ilm examines
how women are treated in the U.S.
and uncovers how discriminatory
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