The Fargo Film Festival would like to thank all the volunteers, audience members, panelists, visiting moviemakers, board members, projectionists, theatre staff, and everyone else who helped to make 2009 another successful and rewarding experience.

The quality and breadth of the movies showcased in the Fargo Film Festival continues to impress cinema devotees from the community, the region, and beyond. We plan to make our tenth anniversary year our best ever. If you are an audience member, we thank you for your support and look forward to seeing you next March. If you are a moviemaker, we can’t wait to see your next project; submissions are open year-round, and an early bird discount on entry fees lasts from now until September 1, 2009.

Interview by Greg Carlson

Director Mark Wihak’s feature narrative “River” will be screened at the Fargo Film Festival’s closing evening session on March 7, 2009. In addition to winning Best Narrative Feature at the festival, Maya Batten-Young was named Best Actress and Adam Budd was named Best Actor.

Fargo Film Festival: You divide your time between teaching and making movies. How do you balance university commitments with filmmaking projects?

Mark Wihak: The window for filmmaking is tight. Essentially I have four months a year to concentrate full time on working on a film, but at least I know I have that window and opportunity. I find teaching really feeds my filmmaking too; part of the inspiration for making “River” the way we did it came from seeing students do some terrific work with very little in the way of resources. I thought, well if they can do it, I have no excuses.

MW: Prior to “River,” on the dramatic films I’d made, I had a very clear idea of what I wanted. I wrote a script, cast the actors, then designed the shoot around being as faithful as possible to that script. In the edit suite, the cut would work towards trying to realize that original idea. But with “River” we didn’t really have a script and so there wasn’t a tightly defined path we were on. We had the freedom to drop scenes if they didn’t seem to be working or no longer seemed interesting and we could add scenes at a moment’s notice if we had the inspiration.

Working from improvisation rather than a script, and with Adam and Maya not being trained actors, I couldn’t ask them to deliver really detailed things in a scene or to repeat a specific line or gesture. So I was giving up a lot of that traditional directorial control. And because we were improvising, it wasn’t possible to do too much pre-planning, I couldn’t even develop a shot list in advance because we didn’t know exactly what scene we’d be shooting until we were doing it. I found the whole thing kind of liberating and even when I work with scripted material again I will allow a lot more improvisation and flexibility with the material because there’s so much to gain from that.

MW: I tried to borrow from the English director Mike Leigh’s method as much as I could. At first I worked with Maya and Adam, one on one. We talked about the background of their characters and what their characters were interested in and about what they wanted in their lives. When I brought the two actors together, I wanted them to find out about each other by improvising in character - we didn’t stand outside the characters and talk about what they would do. I’d set up a situation; Stan sees Roz over the course of several nights at a late night coffee shop, he wants to talk to her, how does he approach her? Or, Stan is going to tell Roz about his relationship with his father, and I want to see how Roz would react.

We worked together for about two months prior to shooting and by then I could kind of throw anything at Adam and Maya and they had developed good instincts about how Stan and Roz would react to a situation. Mike Leigh writes a script based on his actors’ improvisations and when he shoots they stay faithful to the script, but with the tight timelines I had to work with there wasn’t time to write a script and with Maya and Adam not being trained actors, it didn’t seem like a good idea anyhow.

I don’t know if their performances would have had the same quality if they were working from a fully written screenplay - they would have been thinking too much about interpreting lines of dialogue rather than being in the moment and listening closely to what the other character was saying to them. In the end, we had a 15 page outline, which had brief scene descriptions, and we used that as a rough guide rather than something we needed to stick closely to.

MW: Maya was a film student I taught at the U of R, and Adam was an alumnus of the U of R film program, as am I, who graduated before I started teaching there. I think both of them being filmmakers allowed them to be very comfortable with the whole process of filmmaking. The characters of Roz and Stan share some things with Maya and Adam, and sometimes it’s hard to know exactly where the dividing line was. At times, one of them would be telling a story and I wasn’t sure if it was the character’s story or the actor’s story. I also gave them a few biographical details of my own that they worked into their characters, so in the end, I think there are at least three biographies at work in Roz and Stan, as well as a great deal of fictitious material.

MW: We didn’t have a lot of time to develop Roz and Stan’s creative work. Maya is a filmmaker and so working with a camera is something she’s comfortable with. We talked about Roz’s photos growing out of the isolation she felt in the city; she’d photograph things that didn’t quite fit. At the beginning of the film at least, Roz couldn’t even begin to think of herself as an artist, she took photographs because she felt compelled to but she didn’t do this for anyone other than herself. Roz had a few artists she really loved, and those artists created a web of connections that she’d follow - PJ Harvey to Patti Smith to Rimbaud.

Adam has a range of interests, but in the end we decided Stan would be a writer. The poems that Stan posts on vacant building around town are poems Adam had written prior to becoming Stan, so writing is something he does. Adam developed a synopsis of the novel Stan was working on so he and Roz could talk about it; the novel dealt with things that came out of Stan’s background - growing up in a small town, an accident, guilt, dreaming of getting away. I can believe Stan would have a novel like that in him.

MW: The real benefits are the flexibility it gives you. We could change plans of what we wanted to shoot very quickly and try something else out. The entire cast and crew fit into two vehicles along with all our gear, so it was easy to move about. If an idea for a new scene came up over lunch, it was easy to swing into that. When we heard that the Shriners were having a parade we hustled over and put Roz amongst them. We also didn’t look like a film crew, so we could go into public situations like the Regina Folk Festival or an art gallery opening and people weren’t really distracted by us, we kind of blended in.

“River” was the least stressful film I’ve ever worked on because we didn’t have to worry about all the logistical problems a large cast and crew creates. The challenges were probably felt most by the actors who had to do a lot of the art department and take care of all of the hair, makeup and wardrobe on their own, and by the editor Vanda who had to work with the most rudimentary of production notes, no transcription of these hours of improvised dialogue and no script per se to cut to.

The main thing is if you want to make a film, you have to be persistent. You’re going to hear “no” a lot en route but if the film is important to you, you’ll find a way of getting it made. And you should really only make films that are important to you.

I’m hoping there will still be some festival plays out there, and we’re working towards a DVD release to coincide with it being broadcast in Saskatchewan on the Saskatchewan Communications Network, who were a very early sponsor of the film.

MW: “River’s” editor Vanda Schmockel and I are pulling together a collaborative group feature called “I Heart Regina,” which will enter production this spring. It involves 16 directors. And I want to make a long form film over the next 12 months; it’s seeming more likely it’ll be a kind of documentary rather than a dramatic feature, though I definitely want to work in that form again.

FFF: You can learn more about “River” at www.riverthemovie.com

The Fargo Film Festival’s popular 2-Minute Movie Contest returns tonight, March 6, 2009, beginning at 9:15pm at the Fargo Theatre. Admission is free.

More than forty very short movies will be screened and judged this year, and the winner will have the honor of being shown during the festival’s closing night session on Saturday, March 7, 2009.

From parodies to fantasies, the 2-Minute Movie Contest showcases a wide range of content in a program where anything can - and often does - show up on the screen. You might cringe, you may roll your eyes once or twice, and you’ll almost certainly laugh at some of the movie snapshots on parade. Remember our motto: if you don’t like the movie on the screen, just wait two minutes and there will be something else to see.

FAIR WARNING: The 2-Minute Movie Contest features adult material, including profanity and violent and sexual content, that would typically be rated R. Viewer discretion is advised.

Interview by Greg Carlson

Independent animator Don Hertzfeldt is modest and approachable for someone with dozens of awards from many of the most prestigious film festivals and venues in the world. A Palme D’Or nomination from the Cannes Film Festival for “Billy’s Balloon” arrived when Hertzfeldt was only 21 years old, and that remarkable feat was followed by an Academy Award nomination for “Rejected” in 2000.

Seven years later, “Everything Will Be OK” won the Sundance Film Festival’s Jury Award for Short Filmmaking. “I Am So Proud of You” presents another chapter in the ongoing story of contemplative stick-figure Bill, and is currently playing in film festivals, including the Fargo Film Festival. It will be screened at the Fargo Theatre on Saturday, March 7 during the “Best of the Festival” closing evening session, which begins at 7pm.

In addition to being named Best Animation at the 2009 Fargo Film Festival, “I Am So Proud of You” also received awards for Best Screenplay and Best Picture.

Fargo Film Festival: Your fierce advocacy of independence and do-it-yourself spirit has inspired many movie lovers and animators. How do you do it and still find the time to produce your work?

Don Hertzfeldt: It seems like lately the challenge isn’t to find time to produce the films, but just to find time for regular life. Every production is a 7-days-a-week thing, each one often taking a couple years. I only had my first real vacation since 1995 last year, but I feel so lucky to be able to do this for a living. I still feel like every day I’m not working on something is a waste of time, there are so many films backed up in my head to still make.

FFF: You save all your drawings and materials. Have you ever had to think about making room for everything that you produce?

DH: Every sketch and piece of animation art from all the films is just stashed into plastic bags and cardboard boxes. They see the light of day every now and then for DVD releases and archive material but by and large they just live in my closet now.

FFF: You continue to make your work on traditional, painstakingly photographed 16mm and 35mm motion picture film. Have you ever been tempted to use computers in your process?

DH: I try to work with hybrid film-digital methods to get the best of both worlds. It’s all drawn on paper by hand of course and shot traditionally on film, but I’m meanwhile editing and mixing sound digitally. There’s not been any temptation to introduce computers to the visual part of it simply because it wouldn’t look as good and often would be more difficult for me to produce.

There are endless misconceptions about digital filmmaking. It may often be a cheaper and easier route, but that’s not always the case. Of course you can produce many miracles that way, but film cameras produce miracles of their own. My last few films would have been visually impossible to produce without film; they’re composed so much through blended multiple exposures and experimental light effects.

FFF: On your recent tour to present “I Am So Proud of You,” did you visit anywhere you had never been before? What city surprised you?

DH: It’s kind of hard now to think of a city that didn’t surprise me in some way… I’d never toured to that extent with just my own movies before, and I had no idea what would happen; there’s always that rather convincing thought that only a dozen people will show up. Even when venues had sold out weeks in advance I was always still weirdly surprised the night of the screenings to see people actually there.

I think it’s a little harder for animators to be in tune with what their films are off doing in the world or whether connections are being made since we’re always just squirreled away in dark corners somewhere. It was a big contrast from making the movie in quiet, near-solitary confinement for about two years and then suddenly you’re jetting around and people are everywhere and there’s energy and excitement… I didn’t want to stop touring and talking to people. And also, Omaha has the most fantastic zoo I’ve ever seen.

FFF: You accepted an invitation from the George Eastman House to preserve the original film elements and camera negatives of your films. Had you done any preservation prior to this?

DH: I’d known Jim Healy at the Eastman House for years and I guess they must have a solid understanding of how difficult it can be for so many independent filmmakers to afford to properly take care of their stuff. It was really kind of them to make room. My old negatives were either getting the box-in-the-closet treatment or were stored at film labs, which are notoriously irresponsible… One lab destroyed the original camera negative to “Lily and Jim” and other elements were getting misplaced. That was kind of the signal for me it was time to gather up every last piece from around the world and find a proper home.

FFF: When the restoration on your films was undertaken, were high definition transfers made?

DH: Yeah, once we had everything together it was all re-mastered for the big Bitter Films DVD in 2006. The process took about a year and was very expensive, but again it’s just something that has to be done. Every film was transferred to high-def tapes from their original elements. I supervised all of the transfers and colors, and then every frame was carefully cleaned of dirt and scratches. Some of them were so damaged it was a bit like a silent film restoration, and when you’re working with old 16mm negatives, every little piece of dust shows up on there like a meteor.

So it’s a maddeningly meticulous job where they digitally “paint” out the blemishes one frame at a time… some frames requiring thousands of brush strokes to restore. After we finally got the films beautiful, we then dove into those artwork archives for all the special features and came up with hours of stuff. After all the years of support I really wanted to throw the kitchen sink into the DVD and make it as much of a fan’s dream as we could.

FFF: Are there any plans for your DVD collections to be offered on Blu-Ray?

DH: Well the high-def elements are all there - they were just down-converted for the regular DVD - but I wouldn’t hold my breath yet for a Blu-Ray version. I’ve got too many irons in the fire right now to revisit the old titles again and moreover, the cost of Blu-Ray production needs to go down quite a bit before you’ll probably see a lot of independent films throwing their hats into the ring. Who knows, by the time Blu-Ray is looking doable, the next format may already be rearing its head.

FFF: Hertzfeldt’s work is available on DVD at www.bitterfilms.com.

Interview by Greg Carlson

Zachary Stauffer’s documentary “A Day Late in Oakland,” named Best Short Documentary at the 2009 Fargo Film Festival, will be shown at the Fargo Theatre on March 4 at 7:15pm.

Fargo Film Festival: Is it true that “A Day Late in Oakland” was the project you completed as your master’s thesis at the University of California Berkeley? How did you find the project and settle on your approach to the story?

Zachary Stauffer: Exactly. I was a master’s student at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. It’s a two-year program and I was one of the students concentrating on documentary production. I was actually wrapping up my summer internship when Chauncey Bailey was killed. I was at my desk at Al Jazeera English in Washington, DC, when I saw on the news that he had been killed and that the raid on Your Black Muslim Bakery had taken place. All of this, right back at home.

The first meeting of the documentary class was about a month later and we all had to come in with three ideas, each with a simple two sentence description, to pitch to the class. I pitched some version of this story at the time and considered it and several others for the first six weeks or so of the term. Stanley Nelson, an excellent filmmaker and one of my professors, was the first to suggest following two paths: Bailey’s and the bakery’s, and see how they come to intersect with each other. That proved to be much more interesting and challenging to the audience than some sort of who-done-it piece or a mere eulogy. I think somewhere in mid to late October, I finally settled on doing this film, wrote the treatment, and started shooting.

ZS: The spring semester in the documentary production class was pretty much all post-production. We’d screen our assemblies, rough, and fine cuts to the class. So every few weeks, we’d get comments from 10 other talented students, plus input from Jon Else, the head of the documentary program at UCB, and Jean-Philippe Boucicaut, a documentary editor who joined us for the term. After each screening, everyone chimed in and noted those places in the story that were working well or the problem areas.

The advice was invaluable. The other thing that I think helped a lot was adding narration. Once I decided that I was going to use it - like many filmmakers, I resisted for a while - I realized that I could hustle certain sections along with concise writing, rather than wait for the interviewees to explain things. Done this way, I could state the facts and have people elaborate upon them. Our projects could not be any more than 26:40 in length, the standard PBS half-hour, and I used every frame of it. Had I not used narration I never would have gotten as much substance into the film.

ZS: Briefly, but never seriously. I had time limits for the thesis version of the film. Some students graduate from the program and talk about expanding their projects, but I was pleased with what I had done and felt it complete. The film did things that the newspaper coverage wasn’t doing; it made a point that I wanted to make; and it makes people think. Sure, I could have delved into the trial, but that still hasn’t happened yet and I’d have to worry about scraping together the funds for additional production. Once I graduated, I lost access to the school equipment. I’ve left a little room at the end of the film to add another title card to say what happens at the trial, but I don’t expect to pick up this project again and expand it. I’m proud of it. I want to let it go and figure out what I’m doing next.

ZS: The most challenging single day was when I went out for a day of shooting in Oakland and my tires got slashed. Some local drug dealers didn’t like the fact that I was hanging around with a camera. I got towed out and hung it up for the day.

I tried really hard to get members of the Bey family in the film. I spoke with Ali Saleem Bey, Bailey’s source, a couple of times on the phone. We had good conversations and I felt I was making progress. He seemed open for an interview, but would make it seem like now wasn’t a good time, that if I try back in a couple days, he’d have a better sense of his schedule and would be able to sit down with me. Then he wouldn’t pick up the phone for another six weeks.

A similar thing happened with Yusuf Bey, Jr, the oldest of Yusuf Bey’s children. He runs an auto detailing shop in Southern California. Again, we spoke by phone and had a good conversation. I told him that I was trying to figure out what good actually came out of the bakery and I needed someone to talk about Bey Sr. and felt that family was the way to go. For a stretch of a few weeks, I was leaving messages for him every day to try to schedule an interview.

Then with the advice of Lowell Bergman, a top notch investigative reporter - Al Pacino plays him in “The Insider” - and professor at the school, I went down to Yusuf Jr.’s house. He was at work and I spoke with his wife for a bit. She said, “Oh, you’re the guy that’s been leaving all the messages.” She invited me inside. She showed me old family pictures that were really interesting, talked my ear off about how Yusuf Sr. was such a great guy, and we waited for Yusuf Jr. to get home. When he did, I explained again what I was doing and why I thought it was important for him to sit for an interview. This isn’t the kind of film that would include an ambush-style interview. I tried to be as non-threatening as possible. He said maybe in December. We shook hands, I left, and when I started making calls to set up the interview, he didn’t pick up. I tried a handful of other Beys, including trying to set up an interview in jail with Yusuf Bey IV, but no one came through.

ZS: I did not know Chauncey. But, yes, I got to know him later through other people. It was really interesting to talk with so many people about him. Obviously his siblings will have one view of him, but his former wife elaborated in different ways. Oakland Tribune reporters knew him one way, but Chris Thompson of the East Bay Express presented almost a completely different person. In my reporting, I realized how complex of a guy Chauncey was. Yusuf Bey was too. With both men, I could not help but wonder that if a few decisions had been made differently in their lives, what could have been? Would I even have made this film?

ZS: The Chauncey Bailey Project, a coalition of journalists and journalism organizations, have released some powerful stories since I completed the film. There was some footage that I knew existed, but couldn’t get my hands on, that they reported about. It’s of Yusuf Bey IV and some of his friends being secretly recorded in a police holding cell. Bey IV is describing - and laughing about - the Bailey murder scene in incredible detail. The Bailey Project also wrote a great article that used cell phone records and info about a tracking device on Bey IV’s car to chart his activity before and after the murder. He apparently was on the phone quite a bit both immediately before and after the killing and was stalking Bailey’s apartment.

ZS: Next up is a screening at the Cleveland International Film Festival on March 20. That same weekend is the College Television Awards gala and screening. I’m one of the three winners in the Best Documentary category, but I won’t know until the night of the gala which place I got. I was fortunate enough to shoot one of the other winners, so I’ve got a good chance to be involved with the first place film. There are a couple other festivals I have lined up for April. But one road I still need to go down is finding a broadcaster and a distributor. I think “A Day Late in Oakland” will play well in classrooms.

The ninth annual Fargo Film Festival is ready for launch, with dozens of excellent movies, exciting special guests, informative panels, award announcements, and great conversations awaiting each and everyone. Whether you plan to come for a single session or the whole festival, we welcome you.

Please take some time to explore the schedule, investigate some of the movies that will be showing, and prepare for the top-notch programming the Fargo Film Festival provides. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to call the box office at 701.239.8385. We’ll see you at the festival!

The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce its collection of invited movies for 2009.

African Soul, American Heart (Deb Dawson, Fargo, North Dakota)

American Herro (Kirk Roos, Fargo, North Dakota)

Come Back to Sudan (Patti Bonnet & Daniel Junge, Louisville, Colorado)

A Different Kind of Gun (Peter Jordan, San Francisco, California)

The Fargo Theatre (Nikki Willhoit, Moorhead, Minnesota)

575 Castro St. (Jenni Olson, San Francisco, California)

Ice People (Anne Aghion, New York, New York)

In Rwanda we say…The family that does not speak dies (Anne Aghion, New York, New York)

Mr. Brown (Tom Brandau, Moorhead, Minnesota)

Old Dog (Tyler Schwanke, Moorhead, Minnesota)

If you are planning to attend the Fargo Film Festival and are traveling from out of town, one excellent and affordable option is the Howard Johnson Inn, located at 301 3rd Avenue North in Fargo, just a short walk from the Fargo Theatre.

The festival has arranged for a discounted rate of $68 dollars per night at the Howard Johnson Inn, which includes a hot breakfast. Be sure to mention the Fargo Film Festival when you make your reservation.

You can contact the Howard Johnson Inn by phone at either 888.407.4656 or 701.232.8850 or online here with direct link to their website which is also available under the CONTACT tab above.

The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce its official program of animation for 2009. Congratulations to our outstanding group of moviemakers.

WINNER BEST ANIMATION:

* I Am So Proud of You (Don Hertzfeldt, Goleta, California)

HONORABLE MENTION:

* Rabbit (Run Wrake, London, United Kingdom)

HONORABLE MENTION:

* Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley, Urbana, Illinois)

OFFICIAL SELECTIONS:

* The Circle of Life (Ilias Sounas, Athens, Greece)

* Crank Balls (Devin Bell, Santa Monica, California)

* Dear Fatty (Hsin-I Tseng, Los Angeles, California)

* Doxology (Michael Langan, San Francisco, California)

* Flute Babies (Gretta Johnson, Chicago, Illinois)

* Hot Dog (Bill Plympton, New York, New York)

* Idiots and Angels (Bill Plympton, New York, New York)

* I Met the Walrus (Josh Raskin, Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

* Kanizsa Hill (Evelyn Lee, Los Angeles, California)

* The Painter of Skies (Jorge Morais Valle, Vigo, Spain)

* Seeking You (Jean-Julien Pous, Paris, France)

* Space Alone (Ilias Sounas, Athens, Greece)

* Swimming Moon (Nahomi Maki, Los Angeles, California)

* Tyger (Guilherme Marcondes, New York, New York)

The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce its official program of documentary features for 2009. Congratulations to our outstanding group of moviemakers.

WINNER BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:

* Abel Raises Cain (Jenny Abel & Jeff Hockett, Los Angeles, California)

HONORABLE MENTION:

* One Water (Sanjeev Chatterjee, Coral Gables, Florida)

OFFICIAL SELECTIONS:

* Alaska Far Away (Paul Hill & Joan Juster, San Francisco, California)

* Fritz: The Walter Mondale Story (Melody Gilbert, St. Paul, Minnesota)

* Indestructible (Ben Byer, Winston Salem, North Carolina)

* Small Town Silver Screen (Bryce Jarrett, Sioux Falls, South Dakota)

* This American Gothic (Sasha Waters, Iowa City, Iowa)

* When the Landscape Is Quiet Again: The Legacy of Art Link (Clay Jenkinson & David Swenson, Washburn, North Dakota)