SHORTS COLUMN | Jury, Audience, and Industry Buzz Agree: Docs Rocked Aspen Shortsfest 2008
by Kim Adelman (April 17, 2008)
A scene from Pinny Grylls' "Peter and Ben." Image courtesy of Aspen Shortsfest.
The jurors at this year’s Aspen Shortsfest, which took place April 2 - 6 in Aspen, Colorado, were so enamored with the shorts in the documentary competition category that they couldn’t pick just one. Instead, they split the prize between two British films, “Elegy for the Elswick Envoy” and “Peter and Ben.” The ticket-buying public was also doubly impressed and voted two American docs, “Come Back to Sudan” and “One Bridge to the Next,” co-winners of the Audience Favorite Award. Even the industry insiders were abuzz. “This was the strongest doc lineup the festival has ever had,” declared Scott Dwyer, a PBS programmer who has attended Aspen Shortsfest for the past seven years. During its four day run, Aspen Shortsfest 2008 unspoiled 53 competition shorts from more than 24 countries. Among the six world premieres, thirteen North American premieres, and three U.S. premieres, the strongest films were decidedly the non-fiction offerings. “Come Back to Sudan” by Boulder/Denver-based filmmakers Daniel Junge and Patti Bonnet had its world premiere at the festival. The half-hour film, which follows a Colorado woman’s journey with her two adopted children to their native homeland, received a hometown hero’s welcome and the Audience Favorite Award. Another buzzed-about world premiere doc was the 23-minute “Pickin’ & Trimmin’” a look at a barbershop/hootenanny by Matt Morris. Many were surprised when the audience-pleaser failed to win any official kudos at the fest. Clocking in one minute longer than Morris’s film and making its US debut, Nancy Willis‘s “Elegy for the Elswick Envoy” did capture the jury’s eye. An artist with muscular dystrophy, Willis turned her camera on herself and her trusty but dying car. Both Willis and her beloved Elswick Envoy have personality to spare, and her film shines with a sunny disposition. Willis shared the jury doc prize with fellow UK filmmaker, Pinny Grylls, whose ten-minute “Peter and Ben” is also a look at a person and his unexpected beloved—in this case, a sheep called Ben. The eloquence of Grylls’s subject makes the cinematic portrait a delight. Peter and Ben” previously world-premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).
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c’mon, kim. A little obective criticism could go along way here. Some of these films are fantastic…some…not so much. I am sure you agree, so what is the harm in expressing your true feelings about these films?