PTFF News
Newsletter ArchivesOctober 2005 Newsletter
Contents- 2005 Audience Favorites Films Revealed
- Attendance Increases by 14%
- Surveys online
- "A Moveable Fest" Travels Well
- What's next? The Last Picture Show on November 6
- Mark your Calendars for 2006
- Haiku and Film
1. 2005 Audience Favorite Films Revealed
For the first time in its six-year history, the Port Townsend Film Festival asked its audiences to rate the 2005 films. The resultant ratings were remarkably high. Using a rating system from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent), the average rating for all films was 4.2, with the highest being 4.915 and the lowest 3.402. The top five rated films were:
- Ballets Russes, a do cumentary of the famed dance companies by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine
- Peas at 5:30, a German narrative film about blindness and sight directed by Lars Buchel
- The torrid 1926 silent film, Flesh and the Devil, with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert
- Two shorts, Ride of the Mergansers paired with the juried winner Trout Grass, and
- Director Hank Rogerson's revelatory prison documentary, Shakespeare Behind Bars
The second tier included:
- The remarkable true story of Emmanuel's Gift
- Tempus Fugit, a Spanish fantasy/comedy made for television
- A shorts program entitled "The Creative Process," including four films, Jikken, Caught in Paint, Within and Without, and While I Can: The Art and Attitude of John Craig.
- Going Through Splat, a documentary by Jon Ward about screenwriter Stewart Stern, and
- The Devil's Miner, the jury's choice for best documentary for its exploration of the exploitation of children in Bolivian mines.
With two duplicates, these ten audience favorites joined the four juried films that were awarded cash prizes at the Sunday awards breakfast. Those winners included:
- Hank Wi lliams First Nation, best feature-length narrative film, a first feature by Canadian Aaron J. Sorensen about a Cree Nation family
- The Devil's Miner, best feature-length documentary by Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani that explores child labor in Bolivian mines,
- The Perils of Nude Modeling, the 10-minute short narrative winner about an art student who must choose between art and love, and
- Trout Grass, the short documentary winner directed and photographed by Ed George that walks the viewer through the entire process of transforming bamboo from a birant species of grass to a super-conductive split-cane fishing rod, coursing its way from southern China to the trout streams of Montana.
Most of the 2005 festival films will be available for checkout, in VHS or DVD formats, beginning October 18 - but you must be a PTFF member. Cost of festival memberships begin at $25 per year and may be obtained online at www.ptfilmfest.com, click on "membership," or stop by the office weekdays, 211 Taylor St., #16 (second floor), Port Townsend.
2. 2005 Attendance Increases by 14%
The addition of new venues, a different seating policy at one theatre, and an immensely popular outdoor film brought forth a 14 percent increase in attendance at the 6th annual 2005 Port Townsend Film Festival.
In 2004, some 5,824 of the available seats were filled during the three-day event; in 2005, that number swelled to 6,661. The creation of three new venues--the Upstage Theatre and Restaurant where a short course in how to watch movies, four panel discussions, the awards breakfast, and the broadcast of West Coast Live! on NPR were staged; the Drop-In Theatre screening room at Digital Port Townsend, and the Historic Lynwood Theatre on Bainbridge Island--accounted for most of the increase. Another factor was the new seating policy at the Pope Marine Park Theatre in which anyone in line up to the theatre's seating capacity were admitted whether they were pass holders or individual ticket buyers. Attendance at the Pope increased by 23 percent.
The popularity of the Saturday night Taylor Street Outdoor Theatre presentation of the 1953 3-D classic, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, caught festival organizers unprepared. Organizers had thought 700 pairs of 3-D glasses would be sufficient. They were about 300 pair shy! (Lesson learned.)
Overall attendance at the four standard venues--Broughton Theatre (the high school), the Rose Theatre, Rosebud Cinema, and Pope Marine Park Theatre--increased by only 1 percent this year. Except for special programs, the Broughton actually had reduced attendance, an issue festival organizers will be addressing in the coming months.
3. Festival Surveys Online
We still want to hear about your 2005 festival experience. If you did not get a chance to complete a yellow survey form, telling us what you liked and disliked, you have another opportunity to do so by going online:
Click on "survey," download and then print the "PDF" form. (Unfortunately it cannot be completed online.) Then send it to the Port Townsend Film festival at P.O. Box 594, Port Townsend, WA 98368, or drop it off at the office, in the Mountain Baker Block Building, 211 Taylor St., #16 (second floor). There is also a new volunteers survey for everyone who helped out to let us know what worked and what didn't. Thank you!
4. A "Moveable Fest" Moves Well
Four films from the 6th annual Port Townsend Film Festival traveled this year to neighboring Bainbridge Island on the four days immediately following the 2005 event.
Screened at the Historic Lynwood Theatre, located in Lynwood Center on the island's southeast corner, the mini-festival was called "A Moveable Fest," and included two narrative films and two documentaries. The films shown included: PEAS AT 5:30, LIBERACE AT BAGHDAD, the double bill of OIL & WATER and PEACEABLE KINGDOM, and TEMPUS FUGIT.
Passes from the weekend festival were honored at the Lynwood Theatre whose owner, tj faddis, was sufficiently pleased with the results to sign on again for 2006.
5. What's next? The Last Picture Show on November 6
Larry McMurtry's third novel, The Last Picture Show, published in 1966, was turned into an award-winning film in 1971 starring Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Ellen Burstyn and winning Academy Awards® for supporting actors Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson. Director Peter Bogdanovich used the film to introduce Cybill Shepherd to the movie-going public.
The film will screen on Sunday, November 6, as the second in a series of "Scribe to Screen" presentations begun last year with a screening of the film adaptation of Christopher J. Koch's novel, The Year of Living Dangerously.
The McMurtry story follows the lives of the citizens of a small Texas town in the early 1950s. Its plot turns on the closure of its only movie house which, like thousands of others across the country, has succumbed to dwindling audiences caused by the popularity of television.
The series' prime sponsors, the Port Townsend Friends of the Library and the Port Townsend Film Festival, are joined this year by the Rose Theatre, the Upstage Theatre and Restaurant, and the Jefferson County Historical Society, all of which will provide additional programming around the film
The Jefferson County Historical Society is currently featuring a retrospective exhibit of "Port Townsend in the Fifties." A question-and-answer period will follow the screening of the film at 12 noon Sunday, November 6, with Northwest and National Public Radio film critic Robert Horton discussing the film and the book with Wesley Cecil, adjunct faculty in English at Peninsula College.
After the Q&A, the gathering will adjourn to the Upstage Theatre and Restaurant for fifties-style refreshments.
Three days later, on November 9, Port Townsend theater historian Steve Levin will present at the Port Townsend Library a slide show and talk on classic movie palaces.
Tickets at $12 for the film will be available beginning October 17 at the Port Townsend Library and Quimper Sound, and at the door Nov. 6. For those wanting to both read the book and see the film, the Imprint Bookstore has stocked the novel in a paperback edition. Proceeds from the screening will benefit projects of the Friends of the Library and the Port Townsend Film festival.
6. Mark Your Calendar for 2006
The 7th annual Port Townsend Film Festival will be held September 15-17 in 2006 so mark your calendars. The festival is one week early to avoid conflicting with the Jewish Holiday Yom Kippur.
7. Haiku and Film
While film-lovers reveled in the flickering of light and shadow in downtown and uptown Port Townsend theatres September 23-25, more than 80 devotees of the syllabic pleasures of haiku gathered at Fort Worden for the biennial Haiku North America (HNA) conference. Among four days filled with papers, panels, workshops, readings, performances, book sales, and much socialization among fellow poets, translators, scholars, editors, and publishers from around the continent, one conference highlight was a haiku contest that melded film and poetry.
Prior to the haiku conference, Christopher Herald, Port Townsend organizer for the HNA gathering which was sponsored by Centrum, issued a challenge to attendees: Write a haiku related to film. Dozens of entrees were submitted. Eighteen were selected and on Saturday, prior to the screening of the documentary, JUMP, Christopher introduced Marian Olsen, who wrote two haiku judged at the top of the list and read the entries to the audience. Copies of the haiku were also posted throughout festival venues.
The Haiku North America conference began in 1991 and has developed a rich tradition of being one of the world's leading conferences for haiku poetry outside of Japan.
The reader will note that many of the following poems aren't 17 syllables long, divided 5-7-5 as is taught in North American literature classes. The reason is that, outside of Japan, haiku has evolved in accordance with the syntax of each of the many languages in which is now written.
The top eighteen entries in the HNA contest are as follows:
Psycho
sometimes in the shower
the thought . . .
© Marian Olson
Santa Fe, New Mexico
* * * * *
between god
and a hard place
the sound of music
© Marian Olson
Santa Fe, New Mexico
* * * * *
old movie
the aisle lights
on the red carpet
© Cor van den Heuvel
New York, New York
(Cicada Vol 4, No 4 © 1980)
* * * * *
morning
rain runs down
the drive-in movie screen
© Cor van den Heuvel
New York, New York
(Cicada Vol 1, No 3 © 1977)
* * * * *
alien invasions
and super heroes--
no easier off-screen
© Angela Terry
Lake Forest Park, Washington
* * * * *
oldies in
black and white
no candy coating
© Angela Terry
Lake Forest Park, Washington
* * * * *
She screams!
in the dark our fingers touch
buttered popcorn
© Abigail Friedman
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
* * * * *
rainy morning
after the used bookstores
off to the movies!
© Abigail Friedman
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
* * * * *
The Wild Bunch--
grinning children
stir a nest of ants
© Karma Tensing Wangchuk
Laytonville, California
* * * * *
Last Tango:
the legend exits
stage left
© Michael Evans
Port Orchard, Washington
* * * * *
moths set free--
giggles from the balcony
as the screen goes dark
© Christopher Herold
Port Townsend, Washington
* * * * *
movie set--
the star's poodle
piddles
© Michael Dylan Welch
Sammamish, Washington
* * * * *
summer night--
her cell phone rings
in the theater
© Lenard D. Moore
Raleigh, North Carolina
* * * * *
horror movie--
the babysitter screams when
the parents come in
© Penny Harter
Summit, New Jersey
* * * * *
summer evening--
after the movie, she lets
her hair down
© Penny Harter
Summit, New Jersey
* * * * *
autumn chill--
one piece of popcorn left
on the cinema seat
© Emiko Miyashita
Kawasaki, Japan
* * * * *
summer night--
her cell phone rings
in the theater
© Lenard D. Moore
Raleigh, North Carolina
* * * * *
full moon
the werewolf movie
sold out
© Roberta Beary
Bethesda, Maryland
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