Festival allows viewers, filmmakers to interact
By Daily Bruin Staff
Oct. 24, 2001 9:00 p.m.
By Azadeh Farahmand
Daily Bruin Contributor
At a time when there is a shortage of good news, the DOCtober
festival offers a hopeful alternative to the matter-of-fact small
screen television programs and the large screen melodramatic
Hollywood stories.
DOCtober showcases 18 documentary films that will run for two
weeks, Oct. 17-30, in the Laemmle’s Monica Four-Plex in Santa
Monica.
“The festival is usually a week long,” said Dolores
Richardone, the festival coordinator. “But this year we
extended into two weeks so we’ve got 18 really good
films.”
A group of these films screen in one program for one week,
playing every day with interchanging running times. The rest
are followed in another week of programming, starting on Wednesday,
Oct. 24, with rotating time slots.
“Interestingly enough, we had planned our program, and
then the terrorist attack on Sept. 11 happened,” said
Richardone. “After that happened, we looked at our
program and said, “˜Gosh even our simple little film, like
“A Town of Friendly People,” which is just about a
small-town-Americana-sweet-little-film takes on a different meaning
now.'”
“Films such as the “˜Unfinished Symphony’ were
interesting to begin with and now are even more profound,”
she said.
Offering a critical glance into the notions of American
democracy and foreign policy, “Unfinished Symphony”
examines the 1971 anti-Vietnam War protest in Lexington, Mass.
“There are also some subjects that are very moving for
people,” said Richardone. “”˜Alison’s
Baby’ is the second film in a series about a woman who was
born without arms in a kind of a truncated body.”
Now a painter based in England, Alison Lapper paints with the
brush in her mouth.
The film is about the new physical and emotional reality Lapper
faces as she finds out she is pregnant.
“It is a very uplifting piece actually,” Richardone
said.
The festival also includes “Infinite Shades of
Gray,” about a renowned Little Tokyo studio photographer,
directed by Richard Nakamura, UCLA film professor and associate
director of the Asian and American Studies Center.
The International Documentary Association (IDA), which organizes
the festival, received about 300 films this year submitted both for
DOCtober and the annual IDA awards.Â
According to the festival director Melissa Simon Disharoon, who
is also the IDA managing director, diversity and the mind-opening
capability of the films are priorities in the selection
process.
“We want to show to the average filmgoers that there are
different styles, there are experimental pieces, there are
biographies about everyday people, as well as about Mark Twain and
Stanley Kubrick,” Disharoon said.Â
“Stanley Kubrick:Â A Life in Pictures” blends
scenes from Kubrick’s films with never-before-seen archival
footage of this all-time cinema master and with interviews with his
friends, family and colleagues, many of them renowned Hollywood
figures. “Mark Twain” traces Twain’s
event-filled life through the many places he called home, unveiling
both humor and tragedy of the American author’s
life.Â
For the DOCtober patrons, catching films in different times of
the day in seven consecutive days is an opportunity unavailable in
other film festivals. But there is another merit to the films in
the festival.Â
“They are qualifying for Academy Award nominations,”
Richardone said.
To qualify for an Academy Award nomination, a film must run for
seven consecutive days in a major theater in Los Angeles or New
York.
“Now the festival has some cache attached to it,”
Richardone said. “In four years we have had eight nominations
and two Academy wins.”
The festival also gives people a chance to meet
filmmakers.Â
“It is a good opportunity for the documentary filmmakers
to meet the audience, something they don’t have the chance
(to do) on television,” said UCLA documentary professor and
IDA board member Marina Goldovskaya.Â
“If the filmmakers are here, and they want to do
it,” Richardone said, “I will introduce them as being
here before the movie runs and say, if anybody has questions, they
can just ask afterwards.”Â
Based in Pasadena during the first four years of its operation,
DOCtober moved this year to the Laemmle’s in Santa Monica to
be more accessible. Documentary filmmakers, film and non-film
students, and people generally interested in the genre or specific
issues addressed in the films are the typical attendees of the
festival.
But according to Lisa Tran, the assistant manager at
Laemmle’s, there has been a lower turnout than expected.
“I don’t think we’ve been getting as many
people as we have expected,” she said. “I
don’t think enough people know about it.”Â
Ironically, the events since Sept. 11 have hindered publicity
venues for the festival.
“We used to get coverage from a lot of radio stations and
had live interviews with the filmmakers,” Disharoon said.
“This year they just came out and said that we can’t do
that right now, we are covering the war, we are covering the
anthrax.”
Despite the lower-than-expected festival attendance, Goldovskaya
observes an increasing interest in documentaries. “Students
now turn to burning social problems,” she
said.  “They are interested in political aspects of
life more than before.”
Given the critical and creative options that documentaries offer
to examine historical, cultural and political issues, people who
find out about DOCtober should not let this become a missed
opportunity.
Denise Kaufman, a yoga instructor, came out of a screening of
“In Search of Peace” with tears in her eyes.
“I rarely go to a feature film,” Kaufman said.
“I usually see about three films a year. But if I am going to
see something, I am drawn to documentaries.
