CIFF: 'Love Is All You Need?' Flips Our World To Confront Prejudice

Jacob Rodier and Kyla Kenedy in Love Is All You Need?
Photo courtesy of Genius Pictures

The 40th Cleveland International Film Festival closed this weekend with a record-breaking 102,255 attendees and 500-plus film screenings throughout the region. This weekend, filmgoers saw Love is All You Need?, a follow-up to the acclaimed short that has been translated into 15 languages. 

Love Is All You Need? shocks and convicts its viewers by telling a classic love story in an upside-down world where same-sex couples are the norm and heterosexual couples are bullied. Gender roles are also flopped, so the townspeople watch women play football as boys hustle them water from the sidelines and the sinister minister is a woman (Joy’s Elisabeth Rohm). The film follows the picture-perfect football player, Jude (Step Up’s Briana Evigan) as she falls for the forbidden Ryan, a reporter (Pretty Little Liars’ Tyler Blackburn). The discovery of their love is met with brutal attacks, so difficult to watch that a few people even walked out of the movie. This emotional intensity is coupled with the storyline of a young girl, Emily (The Walking Dead’s Kyla Kenedy), who is bullied ruthlessly and called a ‘Ro,’ slander for a heterosexual, for merely befriending a boy.

What’s most chilling about the hateful texts, merciless beatings and public embarrassment portrayed in this film is that it’s all based on real events. Except the hate in reality was directed toward LGBT people like Matthew Shephard, a gay college student tortured and left to die, and Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide after a college roommate used a webcam to tape Clementi with a man.

Flipping the sexuality norm, makes seeing each one of these ruthless acts even more wicked because the heterosexual audience is now watching themselves get name-called, judged in the hallways and dragged down for being who they are. The film is masterfully effective in allowing everyone to understand the struggles that the LGBT community still faces, and seeing that suppressing someone’s ability to love another person is inhumane and can cause someone to break down to the point of no return.

Director K. Rocco Shields plans to introduce the full-length film into schools as part of anti-bullying education. Since the short was introduced in 2013, a teacher’s contract was not renewed in Florida and a Kansas teacher was asked to resign but eventually got reinstated after showing the film.

The pushback shows that now more than ever, this message that love is universal and essential to our well-being, no matter who you are or who you love, is critical.

CIFF: 'Hooligan Sparrow' exposes corruption in China

Activist Hooligan Sparrow protests sex crimes in China.
Photo courtesy Hooligan Sparrow

Ye Haiyan aka Hooligan Sparrow posted pictures of herself online offering free sex to migrant workers as a way to get into a brothel and expose the injustices she witnessed. This fearless activist is the centerpiece of a jarring film by the same name that follows Sparrow as she fights for justice for six students sold to an elementary school principal and raped as part of a government favor. In China, a man who rapes a young girl can get a life sentence, but if money was exchanged, the sentence is more lenient. 

Sparrow and her band of activists are constantly blocked by the Chinese government — getting arrested, evicted from her apartment and having her things dumped roadside. As more roadblocks pop up, another dark presence emerges. Plain-clothed government officials appear in several of young filmmaker Nanfu Wang’s footage, leading her to realize every shot she captures is being monitored. She hides audio recorders and even wears glasses with a micro-camera to record whatever she can when filming in public is too dangerous. The tension boils over when spies threaten to beat up Wang, take away her camera and even murder her.

The confrontations make the viewer appreciate the courage of the young filmmaker to keep rolling even when threats loom and expose the oppression for all to see. Although the circumstances also mean viewers are watching overlong shots of the ground, shaky camera work during struggles and first-person explanations from the filmmaker as to how the footage was obtained. These extraneous elements could have been edited out for a smoother final cut.

Despite the constant pushback these brave women are met with, their determination to keep challenging the system is commendable. Some activists may still be jailed, but the group has one protest the Chinese government can’t stop: a lasting document of the atrocities in this daring film.

The Cleveland International Film Festival runs through April 10. For a complete listing of films, visit clevelandfilm.org.

CIFF: "Gasland" Director Josh Fox's New Film Takes on the World

Josh Fox's How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change shows April 4 at 7:10 p.m. Photo courtesy of film

Director Josh Fox's thought-provoking 2010 film Gasland appeared just as energy companies were making hydraulic fracturing a household phrase in the United States. It was a damning indictment of the process and was nominated for an Academy Award. Gasland 2 followed in 2014, looking even further into the industry and its potentially devastating long-term effects.

How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change is different than those films and also a logical progression from them. It seems borne of Fox's realization that despite the notoriety Gasland achieved, hydraulic fracturing has only increased across the globe. He arrives at the conclusion that one man can do little to stop the march of huge corporations, rampant consumption and the consequences they bring. At one point he asks, "Can a person stop a wave?" and it's clear the question weighs heavy on his mind. 

Fox's film starts at his family's home in New York state, where predatory beetles are wiping out a beloved hemlock tree. It then moves on to the devastation brought by Hurricane Sandy. It's explained that both are due to global warming, and Fox skillfully lays out his frightening argument that although the Earth will survive, the living things that call it home will forever be changed. Temperatures will rise. Animal species will die off. Coastal communities will ultimately be underwater. There is nothing we can do to stop it, he asserts. It's too late. 

It's all enough to make you want to watch some cat videos on YouTube, and Fox playfully obliges with a few quick clips after laying out his dire diagnosis. But the problem gnaws at him. Despite his success as a journalist and an activist, Fox feels hopeless. He wants to give up. 

But that's when How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change switches gears. It's that moment of hopelessness that prompts Fox to set out to find those who are fighting back in the face of such long odds. He finds hope in a smog-filled Beijing where the city's 20 million residents can't open their windows and many check the day's particulate-matter report on their smartphones like it's the weather. He travels into the Amazon rain forest with those who are cleaning up oil spills by hand — one bucket at a time. 

In one of the film's most poignant segments, the filmmaker joins protesters who are trying to block an Australian coal freighter the size of the Empire State Building. Leading the charge are representatives of small Pacific islands that are slowly being swallowed by rising waters caused by global warming. They paddle out to meet the freighter in hand-carved, traditional wooden boats. 

In each of these stories, the message is clear: Our humanity is most apparent when we stand together. It's not that the people Fox encounters around the world have no choice but to fight back in the face of long odds, it's that they are confidently making one to do so. 

How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change will show again April 4 at 7:10 p.m. For more information and a full schedule of Cleveland International Film Festival films, visit clevelandfilm.org.

CIFF: Believeland

You think you know how Believeland ends. You don't.

The ESPN Films 30 for 30, which premiered at the 40th Cleveland International Film Festival last night, doesn't begin with Earnest Byner collapsed on the turf of Municipal Stadium or Michael Jordan hanging in the air over Craig Ehlo's outstretched arm. Of course, those agonizing scenes of our sports misery play out in all their cursed disappointment in Northeast Ohio native Andy Billman's film. And all of our civic ghosts rattle their chains like so many action-movie villains: the burning river, Default, Mayor Perk, the Cleveland Joke, Denny the Kid.

Instead, the story begins in downtown's Huron Square Deli — fittingly, now closed — with a father and son.

If there's a hero in this film, Scott Raab, the former Esquire writer and Cleveland native, is it. A stand-in for tortured Clevelanders everywhere, Raab wears a T-shirt with a faded American flag and still carries the ticket stub from the Cleveland Browns 1964 championship. In scenes at the deli counter with Judah, Raab tries to explain us.

"All these hopes and dreams of a renaissance in Cleveland," Raab tells Judah, "everyone looks to the teams to somehow represent the city in a way that doesn't reinforce that image that it's a Loserville, it's a joke, it's a Mistake on the Lake."

If you focus on Red Right 88, The Drive, The Fumble, The Move, Game 7, The Decision — and this film goes through them all — then maybe it would feel like a reflection of all those stereotypes. But Billman's movie and Raab's narration make it so much more.

"It's about faith and family, loving and longing," says John Dahl, vice president and executive producer of ESPN Films and Original Content, in his introduction at the Connor Palace premiere.

That comes through in interviews with the vanquished heroes — Byner, Ehlo and Indians Mike Hargrove, Kenny Lofton and Jim Thome — and those who covered them.

In maybe the film's most poignant moment, a teary-eyed Byner looks straight into the camera and describes the fumble in the 1987 AFC Championship Game.

“I loved the game,” Byner says. “I loved playing for you all. And I’m sorry for letting you down.”
It dissolves into Browns coach Marty Schottenheimer with tears filling his own eyes: "I've never been around a player that got more out of his talent — and he was talented — than Earnest Byner. And he gave it to you every single play."

That connection among players and coaches, fans and players, players and their teammates, teams and the community and one generation and the next make Believeland special.

[Spoilers from this point forward.]

Toward the end, Browns legend Jim Brown offers a rye chuckle as one who knows what a championship is like, "Every year's next year, all they're askin' for is another '64 — an experience."
Raab knows it's more than that. "You didn't grow up here," he tells Judah at the lunch counter, "I don't expect you to be emotionally invested in this city."

"Well, I think I am," Judah says. "I like Cleveland. I love Cleveland."

A smile sneaks across Raab's face and he pulls his son closer, briefly kissing him on the head.
That's what a championship will feel like, Cleveland.

Believeland will screen again Saturday at 11:35 a.m., Sunday at 10:15 a.m., Monday at 7:30 p.m. and Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., all at Tower City Cinemas.

CIFF: "Good Ol' Boy" Provides Nostalgic Open to 40th Fest

Jason Lee (left) and Roni Akurati (right) star in Good Ol' Boy, which opened the Cleveland International Film Festival. Photo courtesy of Good Ol' Boy

From the opening credits of director Frank Lotito's Good Ol' Boy, it's clear that this kid-falls-in-love-with-the-girl-next-door story is going to hook us with its metal Star Wars lunchboxes, odd-colored rotary telephones and plastic kitchenware that serve as instant shorthand for 1970s America.

Set in the final year of that decade, the film merges that nostalgia with the tale of an Indian couple trying to navigate a new land after immigrating to the American suburbs with their two children. The opportunity available to them is obvious, as are the perils of keeping their traditions alive, which all sounds a lot heavier than the movie actually feels. But that thread of tension becomes ever more taut as the film progresses. 

Early on, we meet 10-year-old Smith (his father wanted to give his son an American-sounding name) riding through his neighborhood on a bicycle with a woven flower basket and streamers while calling out to his neighbors through a loudspeaker hooked to the back fender. He is cute and charming and, yes, completely out of his element, even though America is the only land he can recall living in. (We later learn he was 3 years old when his parents left India.)

What follows is a funny, heartwarming and sometimes sad tale that recalls the memories of how adrift we often feel as kids and how our closest friends (In Smith's case, Amy Brunner, the girl-next-door played by Brighton Sharbino, who many will remember as Lizzie from The Walking Dead) become our entire world.

Although the story centers on the kids, it's as much about the parents and the choices they are faced with, and how the simple act of being neighbors soon intertwines their lives. By the end, it's clear that Good Ol' Boy is an American story — one that plays to our hopes, memories and belief in love. 

The Cleveland International Film Festival is at Tower City Cinemas through April 10. For a film lineup, ticket information and more, visit clevelandfilm.org. Good Ol' Boy will have a theatrical release in September. 

I Am Trans* Films and Arts Exhibit Encourage Self Expression

No matter who you are or where you come from — you should always honor your true self. This lesson comes across brilliantly in I Am, Ohio's first ever transgender art exhibit at Waterloo Arts gallery, open until May 25, where 15 artists from around the country share their experience as transgender individuals. In conjunction with the exhibit, Sistah Sinema is premiering Stealth and Kuma Hina: A Place in the Middle, both of which were previously shown at the Cleveland International Film Festival, that capture the transgender experience through a younger generation.

"It's encouraging and emboldening these young children to be themselves," says Deidre McPherson, founder of the Cleveland chapter of Sistah Sinema. "Both films are positive examples of young people being supported by adults and showing them how we as adults are mentoring and raising the next generation — how we can support them, and love them, and encourage them to be happy and see themselves."

The films will be shown back-to-back Friday, May 1 beginning at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a panel discussion led by activist Zoe Renee Lapin, one of our Most Interesting People of 2015. The event is free, but donations are encouraged to Margie's Hope, a local nonprofit dedicated to helping transgender people find secure housing and employment. Here's a sneak preview of tomorrow night's films.

Stealth follows a young transgender person in her search for acceptance.

Stealth, which won this year's best student short film award at CIFF, stars Kristina Hernandez as an 11-year-old who goes by the name of Sammy. As the new girl at school, she reveals her secret to her closest friends — that she was born a boy but living life as a girl. When she's betrayed and her identity is publicly revealed, she's faced with the decision to stay masked or to live out her true identity. "I actually heard people gasp in the audience [at CIFF] as they watched the film and be surprised, not knowing what the film was going to be about," says McPherson. "It's a reminder of the rejection, the bullying, and the harassment that some people face in school just to be different in any way."

Kuma Hina: A Place in the Middle is a documentary that captures a teacher's journey to educate her students on the acceptance and appreciation of gender fluidity.

An honorable mention for the Spalding and Jackson award at CIFF, Kuma Hina: A Place in the Middle captures the complexity journey of a classroom navigating the thin line of gender expectations. When 11-year-old Ho'onani decides she wants to participate in the traditionally masculine hula troupe, her transgender teacher, Wong Kalu finds a way to make it happen while explaining the importance of embracing the male and female characteristics that reside inside of everyone. "Wong Kalu uses her native Hawaiian culture to empower her young students," says McPherson. "This film brings to life a diverse gender spectrum that challenges people to think about gender identity in a better way."

CIFF: 'Move On!' Shows the Heart of Near West Theatre

Photo courtesy of Move On!

One member was discriminated against for her race. Another was rejected by a casting director for her weight. But not here. These actors are accepted at Near West Theatre. That's the kind of place it is — one where people, whether they may be black, white, gay, straight, disabled or able-bodied, can have a turn in the spotlight.

Move On! captures the heart of the diverse community theater by chronicling the group's farewell show in its former location on the third floor of the Club Building at St. Patrick's Church. Since 1978, the theater has had incredible reach — more than 15,000 adults, teens and children have been a part of its productions. What they do is so impactful that former members, including one battling cancer, came from as far as Iowa and New York to be a part of the final show.

Artistic director Bob Navis Jr. steals the documentary with his colorful comments — This is assaultive theater! — and unconventional teaching methods — pulling out a candle that inspires members to discuss problems group-therapy style. It's soon apparent that while Navis encourages members to build a character onstage, he's really teaching them to use theater as a way to find themselves.

While much of the film mourns a place that became a home for so many budding artists, it also opens the door for another era in Near West's vibrant new $7.3 million space anchoring Gordon Square Arts District and makes the argument that  — if for heart alone — you'll want to grab a seat for their shows.

The Cleveland International Film Festival runs through March 29. To view a schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org. Near West Theatre opens its season with Shrek the Musical April 24.

CIFF: 'Just Eat It' Examines Food Waste

Grant Baldwin looks out over a dumpster of perfectly good hummus
(photo courtesy of Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story).

If you've ever avoided an imperfect-looking apple at the grocery store, filmmaker Grant Baldwin's examination of food-waste culture will make you realize that desire for aesthetic perfection is part of the problem. But it's only one dimension of a multifaceted quandary that Baldwin's quick-moving and insightful 74-minute film Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story does an excellent job explaining for those of us with last week's leftovers still hanging out in the back of the refrigerator. 

The Canadian filmmaker's documentary is built on a simple premise: Baldwin and his wife eat nothing but discarded food for a full six months. They start with a box of leftovers supplied by Baldwin's brother as he's cleaning out his home prior to a move, but it's not long before the couple are dumpster-diving for their daily menu. What they find extends far beyond the expected questionable-looking bags of lettuce and reveals a much deeper and disturbing side to the amount of perfectly fine food that is tossed away due to either store policy, appearance or mere convenience. In some cases — such as the discovery of a "small swimming pool"-sized dumpster full of hummus that still has more than three weeks of shelf life left — Baldwin can't decipher the reason for the waste. 

But the film goes beyond the food experiment at its core, talking to farmers, food processors and the like about the waste that is inherent in our food production. It starts in the field and wasteful practices continue up the chain to our homes, where an estimated 25 percent of the food we buy from the grocery store ends up in the trash.

Just Eat It is an eye-opening examination of our attitudes toward food. By the end, you'll never look at that bumpy grocery store apple the same way again. 

Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story screens at 12:20 p.m. March 26. The Cleveland International Film Festival runs through March 29 at Tower City Cinemas. For a full film schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org. 

CIFF: 'Bread and Butter' Awkwardly Approaches Dating

Photo courtesy of Bread and Butter

"I have a couch," virginal Amelia points out to her date Daniel as he plops down on her single bed. Instead of moving, the gecko-owning, life coach-going Daniel stays put like he's completely frozen. Amelia uncomfortably slides in next to him, stacking pillows to make a barrier between them. This painfully awkward exchange is relatable enough to make audiences chuckle at indie rom-com Bread and Butter.

Thirty-something Amelia (Christine Weatherup) has never dated but suddenly finds herself balancing two guys — Daniel (played by Saturday Night Live's Bobby Moynihan) and the poetic, jobless Leonard (Micah Hauptman). Each character is plagued with eccentricities, from Daniel's odd tendency to pause at least three seconds before responding in any conversation to Leonard's habit of making video wills for friends and families.

The film is endearing in its quirkiness. Despite the fact that Amelia is in her 30s, it makes us feel nostalgic for clumsy first kisses, bumbling dances and nervous hand-holding. It is evident, however, that this is director Liz Manashil's first film as the story's momentum slows two-thirds of the way through. Despite an underwhelming third act, it's good for lighthearted laughs and makes us — hopefully the majority — thankful that we are past those incredibly uncomfortable dating firsts.

The Cleveland International Film Festival runs through March 29 at Tower City Cinemas. To view a full schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org. 

CIFF: 'Traficant' Offers a Portrait of an Unforgettable Character

James Traficant gets his due in director Eric Murphy's insightful and entertaining documentary (photo courtesy of Traficant: The Congressman of Crimetown).

Those who are not from Mahoning County, Ohio, may not fully understand how James Traficant became a fixture in the U.S. House of Representatives for 17 years. Eric Murphy's documentary Traficant: The Congressman of Crimetown gleefully examines the phenomenon that was the Youngstown area's charismatic, entertaining and embattled sheriff-turned-congressman.

Known for sporting bell-bottom pants and a long-on-the-sides, who-knows-what's-going-on-up-top hairstyle, Traficant rose to prominence in the Mahoning Valley first as a maverick high school quarterback and then as a candidate for sheriff. The son of a truck driver could easily identify with the region's blue-collar population and embodied a swagger that got their attention. 

Taking on the area's established Democratic machine, he won the job of sheriff but ran up against the Cleveland- and Pittsburgh-area mob families, which both had their hands in the industrial city located between them. That's just the opening salvo in this film, which makes wonderful use of historic footage of the charismatic and blustery Traficant to show off his larger-than-life persona. 

It's easy to see why voters were so drawn to Traficant. Even when he's spinning what seems the tallest of tall tales to get himself out of a jam, you want him to prevail. Even when he's making bad jokes on the floor of the House of Representatives, you snicker. Along the way, you find out that was a large part of his allure ... and his downfall. 

Traficant: The Congressman of Crimetown screens again at 11:55 a.m. on March 23. For more information and a full Cleveland International Film Festival schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org.

CIFF: '1971' Offers Inside Look at Historic Heist

1971 uses filmed re-enactments to help tell the tale (photo courtesy of 1971).

Living in a time when a government contractor can steal 1.7 million documents from a computer and fly to Hong Kong with them, what happened in Media, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 1971, shows just how different our world has become in the past 44 years. 

As Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier squared off for the "Fight of the Century" on that night in 1971, a crew of eight people broke into a small, suburban Philadelphia FBI office and made off with every document stored there. The file-folder-in-suitcase heist seems startlingly analog in these days of digital data. Even more surprising is how what started as an act of government disruption ended up revealing evidence of the FBI's far-reaching practices of spying on and intimidating U.S. citizens. 

Those who broke into the building that night were never caught and their identities remained a mystery for more than four decades. Johanna Hamilton's film 1971, a documentary that includes re-enactments and news footage from the time, tells the story with efficiency and style. It is fascinating not only because of how unbelievable this corner of U.S. history seems today, but because — for the first time — those responsible for the break-in step out from the shadows to tell what happened in their own words. 

The film works as both a dissection of a heist and a portrait of the people behind it. When you find out who they are and the reasons why they risked so much, the story becomes all the more engaging. 

1971 screens again at 12:20 p.m. on March 20 at Tower City Cinemas and at 2:15 p.m. on March 21 at the Akron Art Museum. For more information and a full Cleveland International Film Festival schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org.

CIFF Opening Night: 'I'll See You in My Dreams' Adds Dimensions to Aging

Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street Media

The echo of deep-belly laughter swirled with sounds of sobbing at the CIFF opening night screening of I'll See You in My Dreams. From retirees getting stoned to Blythe Danner prodding, "People talk about living in the moment like it's some kind of goal. What does that even mean?," the film adds dimensions to aging that go beyond the usually flat Bingo-playing, crotchety senior often seen on-screen.

Danner portrays Carol, a 70-something with a 6 a.m. wake-up time and days filled with reading the paper and swigging  generous amounts of white wine. She's lonely but detests the thought of being cooped up in a retirement community with her busybody friends. Her predictable existence gets shaken up when she meets a sparky senior Bill (played by Sam Elliott) with a similar dislike for stereotypical aging and a young pool boy Lloyd (Martin Starr) who's in a similar stage of restlessness in his life.

While it starts admittedly slow and tears flowed within the first 10 minutes, the story is smart and honest — especially when it comes to addressing an older woman's deepest thoughts. Life is in the past tense. What's the point of getting close to people if they leave you? Despite all the questioning, we are certain this is a journey worth witnessing — and a testament that it's never too late for new beginnings.

The Cleveland International Film Festival runs through March 29. To view a schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org. I'll See You in My Dreams has a theatrical release May 15. 

Get a Sneak Peek of Three Short Films Chosen for CIFF

A worldly young man, two mismatched would-be thieves and a pair of curious little sisters star in three shorts selected by Get Shorty attendees to screen at the Cleveland International Film Festival March 18-29.

Film fanatics packed the Capitol Theatre in the Gordon Square Arts District for the Film Feast last night to spend an evening as a CIFF programmer watching 10 shorts and ranking each. The winning  23-minute short, The Hyperglot, is a charming tale that follows a young man who has a unique verbal talent but struggles to communicate with the ladies. 

In second place, the 9-minute Sequestered zooms in on two would-be robbers who wear opposing presidential masks and debate policy matters and cross-the-isle issues. Stars Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas' funny on-screen chemistry will be familiar to fans of ABC's Castle — where they play partners enforcing the law instead of trying to break it.

The third pick is the French 6-minute Dad in Mum, about young sisters who hilariously try to figure out what that thumping noise coming from mommy and daddy's bedroom is. 

Some other standouts that I personally enjoyed were Yearbook, a poignant animated flick about an oh-so-average man charged with chronicling the history of humans, and the quirky French People of Mylonesse, Mourn Thy Queen Naphus about a bumbling actor who just wants to see his bit part through. 

So how do the CIFF staff program the mammoth cinematic fest? Each of the 2,065 feature films and 1,600-plus shorts submitted are rated by at least three viewers. To get an idea of how many make it into the Oscar-nominating festival, 10.9 percent of submitted features were programmed last year as well as 11.6 percent of the shorts.

If you want to feed your appetite for films once more before opening night in March, get in on the Oscar conversation at the final Film Feast Feb. 19 at the Bop Stop with Plain Dealer film critic Clint O'Connor and Cleveland Cinemas marketing director Dave Huffman. 

Action: Direct a Short Film to Win Tickets to CIFF's Get Shorty

Shorts often get overlooked at the Cleveland International Film Festival. There’s always a hot Sundance flick to see or a film with a cameo from a favorite cult star or an ultra-quirky indie that’s too intriguing to pass up.

But thanks to the Get Shorty Film Feast at 7 p.m. Jan. 29 at the Capitol Theatre, film buffs feed their appetite for shorts. Guests watch shorts exclusively all night and vote on which ones they’d like to see at CIFF. The top scorers join the more than 350 films screened at CIFF March 18-29 at Tower City Cinemas and off-site venues including Playhouse Square, Cedar Lee Theatre and new location, the Cleveland Art Museum. Get Shorty attendees can satisfy actual hunger with food and beverages from Culinary Occasions. Tickets are $100 and can be purchased at clevelandfilm.org. 

But aspiring short filmmakers can win tickets from Cleveland Magazine by making a 15-second short film on Instagram. We’ll send the best filmmaker and a guest to Get Shorty. Need some reel creative inspiration? Watch our short. 

Submit your film via Instagram tagging @Clevelandmagazine and @CLEFilmFest. Or Tweet us the link @ClevelandMag and @CIFF. Use the hashtag #clesupershort. We’re accepting films until Jan. 23 at noon. Winners will be notified that day. Action!

The 3 F's

In January, Julia Moskin wrote an article for the New York Times about female chefs starting to get their due in the kitchen. I actually explored the same topic, with a focus on Cleveland's culinary lady lights, in a piece published back in 2006. Three of the women I wrote about — Karen Small, Pamela Waterman and Donna Chriszt — along with Ruth Levine and Britt-Marie Culey, will come together Dec. 4 to show off their prodigious talents in support of the Cleveland International Film Festival. They'll be serving dishes inspired by childhood favorites, playing off the theme "just like mom used to make." Dubbed Chef, the event will be a night to celebrate food, females and film. And it's also great fun.

Photo, Taxel Image Group

Karen Small, longtime chef and owner of the Flying Fig in Ohio City, really needs no introduction. Pamela Waterman left the restaurant world and now runs Duet Catering in Rocky River. I recently blogged about Chriszt and her new gig running the kitchen at Table 45, as well as about Culey and Coquette Patisserie, which she opened at the start of the year in Uptown. Levine, almost always seen in a white coat and apron, owns Bistro 185 with her husband, Mark, in Collinwood. Janine Poleman,​ founder and director​ of Agencie Campaine​, a wine sales and marketing company, also joins the lineup.

Photo, Taxel Image Group

My husband and I are hosting this shindig at Taxel Image Group, our Prospect Avenue photography studio and culinary prop heaven, something we've done seven other years. After everyone's had time to mix, mingle, eat, and drink, I'll introduce the women, give them a chance to talk about themselves and then lead them in a conversation on the theme and down memory lane with lots of audience participation.

This is part of the Film (and other Arts) Feasts series. We always get a full (and enthusiastic) house — and all the programs sell out fast — so the time to get your tickets is right now.

CIFF: “The Sax Man” delivers a satisfying performance

What began as a 20-minute short film about saxophonist Maurice Reedus Jr. turned into a three-year project for local filmmakers Todd Bemak and Joe Siebert. Known to Clevelanders as “The Sax Man,” Reedus has been entertaining audiences for more than 17 years with his alto sax outside plays and sporting events. He was selected as one of Cleveland Magazine’s Most Interesting People in 2013. The Sax Man premiered March 22 at Cleveland International Film Festival and has an encore showing at 4:45 p.m. March 30 at Tower City Cinemas. Cleveland Magazine talks to the filmmakers about the  festival experience and Reedus’ influence on our city.

Cleveland Magazine: How did it feel to watch The Sax Man on the big screen for the first time?
Todd Bemak: Premiering here in Cleveland was a very special thing because everybody knows Maurice, and the intent of the film was to show the connection Cleveland has to Maurice. The audience was clapping along to the music and interacting with the film more so than I’ve ever seen. It was almost like it was a live event in front of them, and that was quite amazing.

CM: What did you take away from your time with Maurice?
Joe Siebert: Success isn’t necessarily about becoming rich and famous or being the best at what you do, but it’s about being true to who you are and figuring out a way to contribute that to the world around you. At one point, Maurice could have made it big, but life didn’t work out that way. Instead of giving up on music, he stuck with it even when he had to play on the street to do it. What he ended up creating with that was becoming this essential part of Cleveland that everybody recognizes and has an attachment to that has made a difference in creating an experience in Cleveland.

CM: What are your plans for the film?
TB: We’ve been entering the film into festivals, and we’re just starting to hear back from some. In April we’re taking it to the Memphis International Film and Music Festival, the Arizona International Film Festival, the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival and Beverly Hills International Film Festival. We expect to hear about the May and June festivals soon, so hopefully we get into some of those.

The Cleveland International Film Festival runs through March 30. To browse the full schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org.

By Christina Bucciere

CIFF: "The Winding Stream" Charts the Path of Country Music's Origins

Sara Carter, Maybelle Carter and A.P. Carter

While scientists and physicists debate the universe's origins, there's no debate about the big bang of country music. Recording sessions held in 1927 in Bristol, Tenn., resulted in the debut of the Carter Family, made up of A.P. Carter, his wife Sara and her cousin Maybelle. The family from Maces Spring, Va., would go on to impact country, folk, bluegrass, gospel and even rock music.

June Carter and Johnny Cash

The Winding Stream takes a loving, musical look at the path carved by the family, whose music influenced a young Johnny Cash, who himself would go on to marry June Carter — one of Maybelle's three daughters. (Read our March article about the film here.)  The documentary is layered with classic recordings of Carter Family songs such as "Keep on the Sunny Side" and "Can the Circle Be Unbroken" and new and archived interviews with members of several generations of the family, including Johnny Cash. New recordings of Carter Family classics are performed throughout the movie by musicians such as Sheryl Crow, George Jones, Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson and more.

The Cleveland International Film Festival runs through March 30 at Tower City Cinemas. To browse the schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org. The Winding Stream screens March 26 at 7 p.m. at the Cedar Lee Theatre and March 27 at 11:25 a.m. at Tower City Cinemas.

CIFF: "Oliver, Stoned" is Baked with Laughs

Oliver, Stoned has some high expectations to live up to in the stoner comedy genre. But it fits right in with Half Baked and Pineapple Express, both of which are sidesplitting classics in the subversive category centered around glorifying marijuana.

Oliver is a 26 year old living in his father's garage. A bit of a loser who can't seem to keep from screwing up in life — it might have something to do with smoking a bunch of pot —his shenanigans take a serious turn when a classic car he was driving for a customer to his father's car wash gets stolen. He steals an ice cream truck, believing the truck's driver had stolen the classic car and goes on a weed-empowered adventure to find the car. He gets some help along the way from Megan, who he met after destroying her scooter with the ice cream truck, and his paranoid pot-dealing friend.

The movie is full of laughs, including a hilarious dance montage in front of the ice cream truck and a generally crazy cast of characters who need to be seen to be believed, such as Oliver's dad, who thinks he is a rad 20-something bro dating someone half his age, or a sexually depraved blind clown. And a young kid riding around on his bicycle periodically shows up between scenes to move the film's plot along. Keep an eye out for pop-culture references throughout to movies such as Memento or the Veronica Mars television show.

The 38th annual Cleveland International Film Festival runs through March 30. To browse the schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org.

CIFF: “The Cooler Bandits” Breaks Free

It’s been more than 20 years since the four Akron teenagers dubbed, the Cooler Bandits, committed the 17 restaurant robberies that resulted in harsh prison sentences. While Charlie Kelly, Donovan Harris and Richard “Poochie” Roderick have been able to regain freedom, Frankie Porter, the ringleader of the four, will not be up for a parole hearing until 2035. None of them injured anyone so the rough sentencing shocked many, including filmmaker and Cuyahoga Falls native John Lucas, who has known two of the men since they were young. In 2007, Lucas began making his documentary, The Cooler Bandits. It follows the four as they survive prison and deal with re-entering society as branded felons, and will be screening at the Cleveland International Film Festival at Tower City Cinemas at 2 p.m. March 26 and 11:20 a.m. March 28.

Cleveland Magazine: Why did you choose to make this film?
John Lucas: It’s not a prison story for me, and it’s not an unjust story about lengthy prison sentences. It’s really a story about the friendship of the four. …The three of them [Charlie, Donovan and Poochie] were sent to the same prison together and they grew up in prison. …They held each other down and helped facilitate their growth into who they are now. I thought it was an interesting story on survival and redemption and friendship and juxtaposed what happens when you isolate somebody and send them away basically for life.

CM: What did you learn from these men?
JL: I admired their strength and their resolve and their perseverance and their willingness to accept what they did and try to make up for it and try to move on with their lives. I just learned that friendship can really overcome a lot of things. The bonds that are formed are important.

CM: How did this experience affect your perspective on crime and the justice system?
JL: It just reinforced my belief that we can’t sustain our system with just incarcerating people. … When individuals come back...it’s hard to find housing. It’s hard to get a job…When I grew up it was you did the crime, you did the time. You know, you paid for your crime. That’s not necessarily true. Once you have that felon label, it can be very difficult.

To learn more about the film, read column Stuart Warner’s “Icing the Cooler Bandits” here.

By Cassie Smith

CIFF: A Fond Farewell in "Adieu Paris"

Patrizia Munz could finally see her future. Her first novel is a smash and her French lover Jean-Jacques Dupret is ready to start a family with her. As she relays these joys over a phone call with Jean-Jacques, he crashes his car and soon is deep in a coma. She rushes from Dusseldorf, Germany, to Paris to attend to her love, but is confronted by his cold wife Francoise.

When the decision about Jean-Jacques’ life gets passed to Patrizia’s hands, the free-spirited German must decide whether to hold onto to the 1 percent chance that her lover will survive or pull the plug and face a future alone. She finds solace in a fellow traveler, but her new friendship only reminds her of the life-altering decision she has to make.

Adieu Paris confronts life’s most difficult situations with honest, raw emotions while still embracing a few pockets of laughter. It offers viewers a look at what we are capable of when pushed to the extremes. Moments of utter brokenness result in unlikely friendships and ironic laughter. Although devastating, the film subtlety reminds viewers that a life thrown off course can still be sweet.

The 38th annual Cleveland International Film Festival runs through March 30. To browse the schedule, visit clevelandfilm.org.