New direction for Film Fest New Haven

Courtesy of New Haven Film Fest.

Since 1996, they've been coming to New Haven.
Every April they show up, drink free wine at the
reception, introduce themselves to one another, and spend the weekend watching each other's movies. Some of them are directors and some are writers. Some are teachers, actors, and web designers. But this weekend, their films will be showing at Film Fest New Haven. Some of them have established themselves in the independent film industry; others have struggled to put together the funds necessary to shoot five-minute short films. This weekend, they'll all be here with their films in tow, looking for acclaim, a wider audience, or the promise of financial backing for future projects.

Films with brains

"The moviegoing audience is a hell of a lot smarter than Hollywood thinks," DeSales, a Baltimore-born graduate of NYU's film school, said. "I feel like there's a need to put stuff out that's both entertaining and intellectually stimulating. It always bugs me when people say movies like Terminator 2 are `political.' They're not even close. And when you have films that have budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars, you should give something back to the people who are going to go see it. It can't be just product. Artists have a responsibility to make the world a better place."

Before entering the world of independent film, DeSales was a hot-shot civil rights attorney. "I wanted to change the world, make it a better place for women," she said. In her final case, she defeated Charles Ruff, who later became White House Counsel to President Clinton. DeSales claims she wants "to add to our notion of what makes a hero" and obviously means it--her seven-page press kit opens with an article entitled, "DeSales: Girl Action Hero," which describes her experience as a basketball star and Olympic-level cyclist.

The article also cites the impressive amount of praise that kalin's prayer, the film she's showing at Film Fest, has garnered from critics and audiences. "It's the story of a girl who grew up in Tulsa, endured sexual abuse, became a model, and fell into drugs," DeSales said. "Women out there in the Bible Belt, if they're good-looking, get pushed into things like beauty contests. There really aren't too many options for women, and that's the kind of thing I wanted to deal with." The movie has won prizes everywhere from Minneapolis to Manchester, and will be showing at the Ezra Stiles Little Theater this Sun., Apr. 11, at 12:45 p.m. "Film Fest, from the New York point of view, has received good, solid word-of-mouth," DeSales said. "They're not afraid to pick non-commercial films to show."

Barbershop romance

"Non-commercial" may or may not accurately describe Brian Averill's film Haircut, which is having its world premiere at 5:30 p.m. on Sat., Apr. 10, at York Square Cinema on Broadway. "It's a scene from a larger feature that I wrote," Averill said. "I didn't have the financing I needed to make the whole thing, so I picked the tightest, funniest scene in the film and shot it. Hopefully, it'll drum up some more interest, and I'll be able to shoot the rest of it in the fall. The financing has been a slow but steady process."

Averill, originally from New Haven, says he grew up watching films at York Square. After attending Fairfield College and film school, he moved to New York, where he found work teaching and directing the second units of larger movies, including some for legendary B-film mogul Roger Corman. "It was mainly typical New York pickup shots for foreign directors,"Averill said. "You know, stuff like Fifth Avenue and the sun setting over Central Park. And then I figured that I could only shoot the Statue of Liberty for so long, so I struck out on my own."

Haircut has won acclaim from audiences in New York. "Everyone who's seen it seems to be digging it," Averill said. "It's about an Italian immigrant in New York who's got this wild, crazy hair. He goes downtown to the Atlas Barber School and gets it cut by a Polish immigrant. They fall in love in the mirror. She ruins his hair, but he doesn't say anything, because, hey, it's love."

Filmmakers of Yale, unite

One of the larger movies showing this weekend is Susanna Styron's, SM '76, Shadrach. Based on a short story by her father, author William Styron, the film stars Harvey Keitel and Andie MacDowell, and was distributed nationwide by Columbia Pictures. It tells the story of a 10-year-old boy whose family comes to grips with poverty and prejudice in the Depression-era South. "A 99-year-old black man comes to the family's farm, claiming that he was the slave of their ancestors, and wants to be buried where he was born," Styron said. "The film's about the process of how he becomes one of them."

Styron got her start in film here at Yale. "As far as I know, I was the first undergraduate film major," she said. "I had to piece it together from courses in American Studies, Art History, French, you name it." Later, she worked as an assistant to Ken Russell on his bizarro epic Altered States, and to Luis Buñuel on his even weirder final film. She made an award-winning documentary, In Our Own Backyards, for PBS, and a short film, A Day Like Any Other, which was bought by the A&E network.

Then why is Styron bringing Shadrach to Film Fest? "When I was at Yale, [famed animator] Faith Hubley was one of my professors, as well as a dear friend," she said. "I've always wanted to show one of my films alongside Faith's." At 2 p.m. on Sat., Apr. 10, she'll get her wish, when Shadrach is shown after Hubley's animated films.

A Festival of Diversity

These directors, along with over 100 others, will be in New Haven this weekend to watch and discuss their ambitions as well as their films. The program runs the gamut from serious to silly, from standard to surreal. It features everything from Maxwell's Demon, David Coole's retelling of the Oedipus story, to Hermit Crab, Adriann Vita's hand-drawn, abstract animated short. With such an eclectic collection of films this year, there will definitely be something for everyone.

Graphic by Sara Edward-Corbett. Photos courtesy New Haven Film Fest. For Film Fest screen-times, see Calendar, p. 15.

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