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In the words of one of the student advisors at my alma mater, “They made a valiant effort.” Dark River Film Festival ran Saturday and Sunday, showcasing a variety of films; shorts and feature-lengths in such categories as horror, comedy, drama, and documentary. Both days kicked-off at 11am and ended after 8pm. Saturday morning and it was cold; see-your-breath-at-high-noon December cold. I navigated my car through the maze that Google maps couldn't get right and arrived at the Art Sanctuary. The Art Sanctuary, off Washington, is a building currently being renovated. From what I could tell they had a talent agency and The Alley Theater, which is where the Fest was being held. The theater overall was nice but lacked heating, so making it through movies from 11am-2:30pm during a cold snap is a challenge. Eric Sharp, creator and host, had the odds stacked against him: he had to change the venue and time from Baxter/Village 8 in November to the Art Sanctuary in December. The cold weather and difficulty in finding and getting to the location didn't help (no offense to Art Sanctuary, but Baxter and Village 8 are more renowned and centralized). Add to that the woes of a first-time festival (limited marketing, bootleg movies on the Internet) and it could've gone badly. But, given these factors, the festival pulled out a few pluses – one of them being Mike Walter, director and producer of the documentary, “Breaking News, Breaking Down.” “BN, BD” discusses the psychological toll on newscasters covering traumatic events. It goes into the DART program, which assists journalists in dealing with their emotional well being, as well as how it helped journalists and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Walter was there to talk about the documentary and was interviewed by the local Fox affiliate and the Courier-Journal. “Breaking News, Breaking Down,” wasn't the only good film in the fest. A crowd favorite was a 2-minute CG-animated short, “Hazed,” about a factory that realizes it's causing pollution so it takes its own life (it's actually funny and very well done). “The Scientist” was a short about a man who travels to another dimension for a second chance with his wife who died 10 years earlier, but what does he do with the “self” of that dimension? “Valley of the Moon,” involved an architect traveling via bus from Omaha to Chicago who wakes to a conversation with a young boy. When the architect tries talking with the boy the next morning he finds himself a victim of a “Twilight Zone” moment: the young boy is autistic and doesn't speak to him. “The Day before Yesterday” involves a woman with supposed amnesia who reunites with her husband, or is she just “trading” into a better life? “Last Son,” is a somewhat long but informative feature on the origins of Superman. Unfortunately no film festival is without its share of turkeys, no matter how many votes it gets past. All style and no substance with Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart” (“Dark Heart”). - “The Death of Elizabeth Dickinson” fell to bad audio, production values, acting and a bad script. - “Trigger” suffered from the short film disease: lack of knowledge on story logic and the fact that a short film shouldn't feel like a scene ripped from a cop show. - “Dead Creek”… outside of milking a shot of steam rising off swamp water, there's nothing here. Quite a few hit the middle B to C ground. “Fairview St.,” about a recently paroled offender James Winton who goes home to his wife and father and promises that he's changed but the guy who he went to jail for (Bobby) wants to go back to “the good ole days.” It was a good movie interrupted by music videos (ergo “montage moments”). The second is “I Killed You 'Cause I Had To.” This movie involves Leo, a parking garage security guard, uses his videocamera to film new next-door neighbor Sima, a beautiful Indian girl. Leo films her at different moments, telling her that he's making a documentary when in fact he's on a train wreck of delusion. Events erupt when he's invited to her “engagement party” and meets her fiancé. Take creepiness and instability to the nth factor and you barely begin to cover this “docu-reality”-shot feature. It is the most uncomfortable movie I've watched in a long time (to which the director responded, “Then I did my job.”) Eric will be awarding the prizes next week, so I can't tell you what won and for what. Despite the weather and locale (of which I've said my piece) it was a good effort. DRFF brought in filmmakers and overall the selection of movies was better than I've seen at some other festivals. If it happens next year I would suggest longer breaks between movies and maybe another viewing room. Just a thought. Thanks to Eric Sharp for creating it and Art Sanctuary for the venue.

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Robert Butler #319047   mon dec 14 2009 at 12:25 pm         ·  I'm the filmmaker behind Dark Heart, its a visual/metaphorical repesentation of the classic story. As a filmmaker I know I will face critics and i'm sorry you didn't like it. I would possibly like to give you copies of my other films to check out titled Retreat and Solitude, that you may find have more "substance".