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Slumping Economy Doesn’t Slow Down Wisconsin Film Fest

9.May.09 | Channel3000/WISC-TV

Arts organizations might be struggling for support but the troubled economy didn’t put a damper on the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival, which had another record-setting year for attendance. ¶ In its 11th year, the festival kept ticket prices the same, $7 or $4 for students, and it’s a testament to the hard work of festival director Meg Hamel and her army of volunteers, as well as the loyalty of area movie lovers, that the festival this year drew an attendance of 32,645, based on ticket stubs counted at the door. That's up from 30,028 at the 2008 film festival. ¶ For the 2009 festival, 108 features and 91 short films were shown at 10 venues in downtown Madison from April 2–5. ¶ One of the pleasures of the Wisconsin Film Festival is surveying the smorgasbord of offerings and taking a chance on some films that likely won't be shown at a nearby movie theater and might not make it to DVD anytime soon. ¶ With the goal of discovering some unique and surprising films, I plunged in the film festival and, as with past years, my curiosity was rewarded.

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The Absolute Wisconsin Film Festival 2009 Review Compendium

10.Apr.09 | Dane101

The 11th Annual Wisconsin Film Festival has come and gone and we are now left with flickering memories in our minds and an Internet chock full of comments and reviews of a great many of the films that showcased throughout the city. Thanks to the Twitter insurgency this year's fest has been the most commented on in the history of the festival's history. Dane101 has spent the last week collecting all of those Twitter comments and surfing local media and blog sites to create this Absolute Compendium of Wisconsin Film Festival coverage. This compendium collects "reviews" for 66 of the 108 feature length films shown at this year's festival. We hope you can use this information next time you head to the local video store to check out some of the film's at the festival you may have missed. A big thank you to Meg Hamel and all of the volunteers for the hard work and dedication.

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Wisconsin Film Festival Announces 2009 Audience Awards, Attendance Up Once Again

9.Apr.09 | Isthmus/The Daily Page

The filmgoers have spoken. Audiences at the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival rated their favorite flicks, and here are the results of the tallying. In the narrative category, the winner is the Oscar-winnning Japanese film Departures [more], about an accidental funeral professional, and taking the documentary prize is Being Bucky [more], about the guys who run around football fields dressed as the UW mascot Bucky Badger. The films could hardly be more different. That's perfect, according to festival director Meg Hamel. "It's great to have an audience that's broadly appreciative," she says. "It's cool that there is both a film that's extremely local — could it possibly get more local, more Wisconsin than Bucky Badger? — and that the narrative film is something so exquisite from Japan, a story that's an example of the best cinema can do."

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U-rah-rah! Being Bucky is Fan Fave at Wisconsin Film Festival

9.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Being Bucky, the mascot, is already a good thing for the guys who get the job as the state's most famous furry face. Being Being Bucky [more], the film, is a good thing these days, too. ¶ The documentary about the Wisconsin mascot and the seven students who wear the costume was named one of the Audience Award winners at last weekend's Wisconsin Film Festival. Being Bucky was named best documentary; Departures [more], a Japanese film about a funeral professional, was named best narrative film. The film, which won an Academy Award earlier this year for best foreign language film, was a last-minute addition to the festival. ¶ "What I like is the two films couldn't be more different," said festival director Meg Hamel. “Maybe it's a metaphor for what the Wisconsin Film Festival is trying to do. I work really hard to try to bring significant stories from around the world and give the audience a chance to see films that represent other cultures. And then there's also this really wonderful foundation that exists to show and promote Wisconsin films and stories. Being Bucky is as Wisconsin as it gets.”

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Fur Real: Being Bucky Shows What It Takes to Wear the Suit

8.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Everybody knows Bucky Badger. Then again, nobody knows Bucky Badger. ¶ That's why the documentary Being Bucky [more] will likely open a few eyes as to what it's like — and what it takes — to be the live version of the state's most visible symbol. ¶ The film, which played to a sold-out theater at the Wisconsin Film Festival and will return Friday, April 10, to Point Cinemas, tracks the lives of the seven guys who play Bucky. It begins with the tryouts and continues throughout a busy, busy year.

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Day Four: As the Snow Flies

6.Apr.09 | Isthmus/The Daily Page

Nothing more Wisco than a blizzard in April, but clutching a handful of festival tickets, we bundle up and get moving. We like it here, remember? The snow never materializes in any significant way, but birds and buildings do, memes that have popped up in all the movies we've seen this weekend. ¶ The Bartell is our first stop, for Wings of Defeat [more], which plays to a packed house. In the film, Risa Morimoto tells the story of Japanese suicide bombers in World War II. Talking with the gentle old men who were compelled to serve yet had somehow survived, Morimoto highlights their incredible humanity.

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Irish Movie Gives Fest-goers a Wonderful Farewell Kiss

6.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Some good things come only after you're very, very patient. And other good things get dropped in your lap at the last minute, and you don't question why. ¶ At this year's Wisconsin Film Festival, which wrapped up on Sunday, the Irish film Kisses [more] was definitely the latter example. Festival director Meg Hamel found out last week that a film she had booked to play the Orpheum Theatre on Sunday afternoon, the black comedy Special People, would not be available after all in a 35mm print. ¶ That left festival organizers scrambling to fill a fairly major hole in their four-day schedule. On Thursday, the first day of the festival, the festival announced that Kisses was going to be screened in place of Special People.

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Foreign Films Play by Own Rules

6.Apr.09 | 77 Square

One of the appeals of foreign films is that they don't need to play by the rules of Hollywood cinema. Even the most low-budget American indie film many times still adheres to basic mainstream movie conventions — the guy gets the girl, the underdog prospers, good triumphs over evil. ¶ But foreign filmmakers don't need to play by those rules, which can lead to that thrilling, unnerving moment midway through a film where the viewer realizes, "I don't know where this is going." ¶ Mermaid [more] and Fear Me Not [more] were two films, one from Russia and the other from Denmark, that definitely provoked that moment in audiences at the Wisconsin Film Festival on Sunday.

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Day Three: The Wisdom of Crowds

5.Apr.09 | Isthmus/The Daily Page

The campus seemed a little empty Saturday as I hopped from film to film, all west of the Library Mall. All three films were about art and artists: Chuck Close [more], Between the Folds [more], and Immortal Cupboard: In Search of Lorine Niedecker [more]. The greatest concentration of excitement was at the showing of Between the Folds at the Chazen Museum, and the auditorium was sold out, with ushers hunting down every last seat. ¶ Why would Between the Folds generate so much more appeal than the documentary about Chuck Close, which showed only a few hours earlier to a sparsely populated Wisconsin Union Theater? Especially when you might think that both films would attract similar audiences? ¶ “It’s because people can do origami. People can’t paint like Chuck Close,” suggested filmgoer Scot Ross. That was before the film. Between the Folds, an exhilarating documentary about what might be described as extreme origami, should have quickly disabused audience members of their ability to create origami anything like these complex, kinetic sculptures. It would be much easier to come up with an approximation of a Chuck Close portrait.

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Sparrow Scores Style Points

5.Apr.09 | 77 Square

For fans of elegant, light-footed caper movies, Hong Kong director Johnnie To's Sparrow [more] is like a rich dessert. There's no nutritional value and it might make you a little ill if you ate too much of it. But in the right portion, it's sensational. ¶ Director To is best known as a maker of violent but incredibly stylized action movies (like Exiled, a Wisconsin Film Festival selection a couple of years ago). That makes Sparrow quite a departure; nobody gets shot or otherwise killed in the film. ¶ Instead, To has channeled all his considerable filmmaking style into a delicious movie about a quartet of professional pickpockets, led by Kei (Simon Yam, who seems to be channeling Cary Grant). They seem like a carefree group, tooling around Hong Kong on Kei's bicycle like a bunch of kids. But they're also very good at what they do; in a beautifully choreographed early scene, we see the pickpockets deftly relieve several unsuspecting passers-by of their wallets in a ballet of larceny.

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Get to Know a Film Fest Volunteer: Ryan Day

5.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Ryan Day hasn't skipped a year since he started volunteering at the Wisconsin Film Festival 10 years ago while a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ¶ Even after he graduated with a degree in art in 2003 and moved back to his native West Allis, he's come back to Madison year after year to volunteer. He has saved all his badges, and collects the festival shirts and buttons. ¶ While an undergrad, Day volunteered on the film committee in the Wisconsin Union Directorate, the student-run group that books entertainment and cultural happenings on campus. He originated the midnight movie showings at Union South (now held at the Memorial Union).

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Toyoda Takes Audience on Carousel Ride

5.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Last week, a few members of the Wisconsin Film Festival crew went down to Chicago to get some rented high-definition video projection equipment to use in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Union Theater. ¶ I'm guessing they didn't have to go that far to find the twin slide projectors that powered Saturday night's screening of Nazuna [more] at the UW Cinematheque. Any junior high AV Club storage room would suffice. ¶ New York artist Hitoshi Toyoda presented what had to be one of the oddest programs in the 11 years the festival has existed, a completely silent, 90-minute, 580-picture slide show of his photographs. Before the lights went down, Toyoda told the crowd that he liked the slide-show format because of its impermanence; a photo comes up on screen and you have a few seconds to digest it. Then the carousel turns and it's gone forever.

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Joe Zopp Gets by on Zany One-liners and Dingos

4.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Back before Facebook, people actually got together face-to-face and gossiped about their old high school classmates. Nowadays, it's so easy. Where's Mandy? Three kids, divorced and on Match.com. Eric? Working the night shift in an emergency room on a South Pacific Island. And his favorite movie is still Pulp Fiction, he's going through a David Bowie phase recently and just made banana pancakes for breakfast. ¶ The best part of the Sconnie-made comedy Illegal Use of Joe Zopp [more], which screened Friday night at the UW-Madison Memorial Union's Play Circle, is its use of a quaint throwback to that pre-Facebook era, "The Dingo Game."

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Well-intentioned Rhythmic Uprising Lacks Cohesion

4.Apr.09 | 77 Square

A thunderous, rhythmic pounding could be heard emanating from the Fredric March Play Circle theater. Had the University of Wisconsin Memorial Union gone a little overboard and equipped the charmingly dinky theater with a THX sound system? ¶ Nope, it was live, not Memorex. Prior to Friday night's screening of Rhythmic Uprising [more], members of the Madison drumming group Handphibians and three dancers from Massamba Dance Company took to the stage to pull off a little percussive revolution of their own. As the eight or nine drummers laid down galvanizing, complex rhythms, the three dancers shimmied and swayed with exuberant precision.

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32A a Mature Take on Adolescence

4.Apr.09 | 77 Square

A coming-of-age story about four young girls struggling with family, romance and each other is not a particularly original story. But the Irish film 32A [more], which played at Orpheum Theater Friday night as part of the Wisconsin Film Festival, manages to give it a poignant, pretty makeover. ¶ Set in 1979, the film centers on Maeve Brennan, a 13-year-old girl from a relatively wholesome Irish family. Maeve begins experiencing several hallmarks of adolescence — from bodily changes to first kisses to first betrayals — at a rapid pace. The changes initially set her apart from her three closest friends, who demonstrate a mix of jealousy and concern that both causes the initial rift and helps mend it when Maeve finds herself alone not too long into the film.

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Get to Know a Film Fest Volunteer: David Mandehr

4.Apr.09 | 77 Square

When a long line of eager filmgoers is hoping to cram just a few more people into a popular screening, nobody wants to get reminded about fire codes and capacity limits. ¶ But someone's got to do it. ¶ It's one of David Mandehr's many duties at the Wisconsin Film Festival this weekend. Friday night he coordinated a small crew of other volunteers at the Fredric March Play Circle in the Memorial Union. His wife tore tickets and helped pick up trash and gather forgotten hats and jackets between screenings.

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Departures arrives for special showing

4.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Because 198 films somehow just wasn't enough, the Wisconsin Film Festival went ahead and booked Film No. 199. ¶ A week ago, the festival announced that it was adding one more film to the schedule, a special lunchtime screening on Friday, April 3 at the UW-Cinematheque screening room. But the last-minute booking was worth it (and sold out fast), because the film was Departures [more], a Japanese movie that somehow won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year despite hardly being seen in the United States. ¶ Departures beat out better-known foreign films like France's The Class and Israel's Waltz With Bashir for the Oscar. And it deserved to.

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Decider’s Wisconsin Film Festival Live-Blog: Thursday

3.Apr.09 | Decider

John (1:30 a.m.) Not Quite Hollywood [more] has to be the stupidest name possible for this documentary. Although the secondary title “The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!” makes up for it a bit, in a perfect world the actual title would be Breasts, Blades, Blood, Bullets, Blazing Speed…and More Blood. First off, 100 minutes was way too long for this mostly chronological mash-up of scenes from and commentary on some of the best/worst films from Australia, and I could have done with about half of the Quentin Tarantino commentary (sample bad quote: “The movie fuckin’ kicks ass, man!”)

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Day Two: 'We Like It Here'

3.Apr.09 | Isthmus/The Daily Page

The Wisconsin Film Festival doesn’t usually have events on Friday afternoon, but the fest made an exception for Stephen Jarchow, a Madison native, UW grad and very funny film guy. Jarchow is the chairman of Here Media and Regent Entertainment, whose sister company Regent Releasing is distributing the Academy Award-winning Japanese film Departures [more]. It screened at 12:30 p.m. at the UW Cinematheque, and Jarchow gave a talk at a 3 p.m. He answered questions from moderator Tino Balio and a classic Madison audience — smart and just a bit too talkative.

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Day One: Recession Proof? Waterproof?

3.Apr.09 | Isthmus/The Daily Page

To die. In the rain. The facetious conjecture about how Hemingway might have answered the question regarding the chicken's motivation for crossing the road sprang to mind as the line to get into the Orpheum to see 500 Days of Summer [more] grew longer and longer and lo-o-o-o-onger Thursday night. The line for the 6 p.m. screening was already well established by 4:30 p.m. last night. ¶ From the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art's rooftop sculpture garden, the sight was impressive — people dashing across State Street at mid-block between the cross-traffic of bikes and Madison Metro buses, and growing numbers of pedestrians crossing the Dayton and Johnson street intersections as if drawn by some cinematic gravity. By 5 p.m., the line extended from the Orpheum's front door up State Street, turned the corner at Dayton and continued to the State Street Capitol parking ramp, where the line's tail found shelter.

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Earth Days unfocused but a good lesson for today's activists

3.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Earth Days [more] bites into a lot. ¶ Director Robert Stone admitted as much in the Question & Answer period after it screened Thursday evening in the Wisconsin Union Theater. The University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate has been making historical documentaries for 25 years, but Earth Days is a different kind of project. Its genesis goes back to his youth. ¶ "It's been with me my whole life," he said. While his past projects have focused on "succinct little ideas, Earth Days is "going for the big idea. It's tackling the subject of kind of making a movie about everything."

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500 Days a Movie-lover's Movie

3.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Marc Webb's movie is wrong. The opening narration to the Madison native's first film, 500 Days of Summer [more], says that it is not a love story. ¶ But 500 Days of Summer, which opened the 11th Annual Wisconsin Film Festival on Thursday night, is most emphatically a love story. It's just not necessarily a love story between a guy and a girl (although it's also that, more or less.) ¶ The purest love affair in the film is really between the movies and their audiences. The film is jam-packed with cinematic allusions — the characters go to movies, quote from movies (sometimes unconsciously), and 500 Days even draws from the silver screen every now and then to fancifully express the characters' emotions.

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Get to Know a Film Fest Volunteer: Melissa Mamayek

3.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Wisconsin Film Festival director Meg Hamel is often the face of the event in the media — overseeing film selection, granting interviews and hopping from theater to theater this weekend introducing screenings. ¶ But an army of lanyard-wearing volunteers keep the festival humming at a less glamorous level. They answer questions, tear tickets, herd crowds, count ballots, look after the visiting filmmakers and generally do all the grunt work that keeps the festival together.

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Art & Copy Not a Commercial Interruption

3.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Talk about a mixed message. ¶ Art & Copy [more], an entertaining documentary about advertising that showed Thursday night at the Wisconsin Film Festival, makes me either want to smash my satellite dish or drink milk. ¶ Such is the power of the images we see before us on a constant basis. Done right, they make us want to act. Done poorly, even the people who make ads for a living want to keep them away from their kids. ¶ Filmmaker Doug Pray was at the festival to show the film to a hometown crowd on Thursday, thrilled that people filled the seats at the Wisconsin Union Theater and laughed in all the right places.

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Here On Earth: Cheese Wars and Milk in the Land

3.Apr.09 | Wisconsin Public Radio

Host Jean Feraca talks with Taylor Pipes, director of Cheese Wars [more] and Ariana Gerstein, director of Milk in the Land [more], both featured at the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival.

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A Last-Minute Guide To Wisconsin Film Fest

3.Apr.09 | Channel3000/WISC-TV

The 11th annual Wisconsin Film Festival runs through Sunday in Madison, and latecomers or procrastinators are in luck — there are still tickets available for many intriguing films this weekend. ¶ Just a week ago, the festival announced a last-minute, high-profile booking of Departures [more], the 2009 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language film. ¶ With the booking, the Wisconsin Film Festival will be the second U.S. film festival to show Departures, an acclaimed Japanese film that has won dozens of awards, including 10 Japanese Academy Awards and Audience Awards at both the Hawaii International Film Festival and Palm Springs International Film Festival. ¶ Getting Departures for the Wisconsin Film Festival is the latest notable achievement of the event that over 10 years has grown into possibly the largest campus-based film festival in the country.

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BHS Grad Wins Prize at Wisconsin Film Festival

3.Apr.09 | Racine Journal Times

Dan Wiersgalla enrolled in film school partly to set an example for his son. ¶ The 34-year-old Burlington High School grad has a 4-minute short film he shot for school that will be shown during this weekend’s Wisconsin Film Festival in Madison. The film won a prize in the festival’s “Wisconsin’s Own” category. ¶ The festival opened Thursday and runs through Sunday. Wiersgalla, a 1993 BHS graduate, entered his film Beelin’ [more].” It is a “no budget” film he shot in Hayward, Wis., with a cast of family and friends, including former Racine and Burlington residents.

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Do You Know Your Wisconsin Film Festival 2009 Character?

2.Apr.09 | Isthmus/The Daily Page

Decoding the Isthmus cover:

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State Film Fest — 500 Highlights

2.Apr.09 | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

I’ve got a ticket and press pass to the Wisconsin Film Festival, but will have to miss what could be one of its highlights tonight; the Midwest premiere of 500 Days of Summer [more]. The flirtatious boy-loves-girl, girl-doesn’t-love-him-back romantic comedy is the directorial debut of Madison native Marc Webb.

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Tracks follows issues two teen friends face

2.Apr.09 | 77 Square

The drama Tracks [more] rings so true about the experiences of teenage girls that a viewer has to assume that the filmmaker either was one, or has spent a lot of time around them. ¶ Neither is true. Josh Rosenberg is a young writer-director who drew largely from his own experiences and imagination in creating Tracks, the story of a budding friendship between two girls that gets tested by traumas in their lives. ¶ "For me, I never really kind of looked at it as a male-female thing," Rosenberg said in an interview from his home in Chicago. "There are certain aspects of my personality that influenced every character."

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Threading WFF2009: Reviewing the Preview Coverage of Wisconsin Film Fest 2009

2.Apr.09 | Dane101

At this moment films are being delivered and lined up at screening rooms around the city of Madison as cinephiles count the hours left in the workday before they can begin marinading in moving pictures. That also means coverage of the film fest will go into overdrive on various media publication websites and blogs, but there has already been a steady stream flowing. That's what this entry is, the first of what we do every year during the film festival: collect the coverage to help you digest everything that is happening. ¶ Of course, to start, you can track all of our coverage at this Wisconsin Film Fest 2009 link. And join in the fun by tagging your twitter posts about the film fest with #wff2009. We will be pulling your comments from our twitter feed as we do these daily updates.

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Wisconsin Film Festival a Treat for All Due to Hard Work and Dedication

2.Apr.09 | Daily Cardinal

Today marks the beginning of the Wisconsin Film Festival, four days and nights worth of wonderful, yet obscure films that would normally not reach a wide audience. Established in 1999, the festival was actually originally conceived by the Wisconsin Board of Tourism as a way to attract film buffs to the campus. In the process, the state contacted the two major film groups, the Wisconsin Union Directorate (WUD) Film Committee and the UW Cinematheque. Although the first film festival was a bit of a logistical mess, the films were still shown, and a tradition was born. ¶ A festival of such scale certainly can’t function without a group of hard-working individuals. Meg Hamel, the director of the festival, has worked tirelessly almost year-round to select the films that will screen for the audience. In terms of picking films, Hamel has a few different criteria. “We first look for a lot of Wisconsin-made films because we want to include a local flavor,” Hamel said. Several prominent Wisconsin-made films will be shown, and many of their directors will attend the screenings to discuss the movies.

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Wisconsin Film Festival

2.Apr.09 | Isthmus/Daily Page

It started as an experiment in 1999. Now in its 11th year, the Wisconsin Film Festival has grown so popular that it's taken over Babcock Hall. ¶ Well, not quite. Still, a limited-edition Babcock Dairy ice cream flavor (called, naturally, "In the Dark") is just one of the offerings that makes the Wisconsin Film Festival one of Madison's top cultural highlights. ¶ The Wisconsin Film Festival takes place from Thursday, April 2 – Sunday, April 5, in 10 theaters around downtown Madison and the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. ¶ Tickets for the Wisconsin Film Festival went on sale March 7, and several films have already sold out. Notable on that list: Being Bucky [more], a documentary about the students inside the costume of Wisconsin's favorite mascot. Still, you may not be out of luck; try a rush ticket for last-minute opportunities.

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Director Returning for Madison Film Debut

1.Apr.09 | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The last time Marc Webb was at the Orpheum Theatre, it was to see Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with his buddies from Madison West High School. ¶ The next time he goes to the theater on State St. in Madison — Thursday night — he will be attending the area premiere of his directorial debut at the Wisconsin Film Festival. ¶ The romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer [more] opens nationwide July 17. ¶ Webb’s parents, Norman and Mazie, who still live in Madison, some friends and his high school drama teacher plan to attend the sold-out showing at 6 pm, kicking off the festival.

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Music Documentaries Worth Checking Out

1.Apr.09 | 77 Square

In darker moments, I wonder if all human creativity has dried up into a self-referential black hole of recycled music and pop culture. After This is Spinal Tap, what more can really be said about a struggling, spontaneously combusting heavy metal band? Seen one documentary about the quirky fanatics of a bizarre, obscure phenomenon, seen ’em all. Concert footage, meh. ¶ The selection of music-related documentaries at this year’s Wisconsin Film Festival offer hope that life is still rich with stories and imagination. Here’s a round-up of four recommended films to check out.

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Football Under Cover Looks at Life Between the Goalposts for Iranian Women

1.Apr.09 | 77 Square

The scenes are familiar: Women who love their sport but don't really get a chance to participate because the powers that be think they shouldn't be playing. ¶ The U.S. before Title IX? The women's boxing circuit? Women's pro football? ¶ No, these athletic dreams live in a faraway place under the cover of a burka and under the pressure of a strict society. A love for soccer burns in the women of Iran, and a documentary about an unusual match there will be shown at the Wisconsin Film Festival.

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New Yorkers in the Breakdown Lane

1.Apr.09 | 77 Square

If someone wants to make a movie about somebody rapidly becoming unhinged, they really ought to set it in New York City. From Midnight Cowboy to Taxi Driver, from Bad Lieutenant to The Caveman's Valentine, the Big Apple has become a cinematic home to all kinds of bizarre characters suffering all kinds of upheaval. ¶ The Wisconsin Film Festival is screening two very different dramas, Frownland [more] and Momma's Man [more] that focus on two very different characters both going through very different dark nights of the soul. What ties the films together, aside from the city and the subject matter, is the gritty, low-budget approach of both movies, which allows audiences to really get inside the protagonists' jumbled heads.

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Don't Have Tickets Yet? Don't Worry About It

1.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Procrastinators of the world, unite! We do our taxes April 14. We eschew primp time for sleep time in the morning. We didn't write papers in college until the night before they were due (or maybe set the alarm for 6 a.m. and finish it before class). ¶ And the Wisconsin Film Festival — that's this weekend? Drat! ¶ Many big-name shows sold out weeks ago, and the festival's 199 films, spread out over 10 venues in four days, collectively look intimidating enough to require a calendar matrix and stopwatch.

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VO5 Brings Dollop of ’70s Glam to Film Fest Weekend

1.Apr.09 | 77 Square

Even the most dedicated filmgoer needs a break from those long hours sitting in the dark. The cure: VO5, Madison's ambassadors of disco, glitter and platform shoes. The band is headlining a Wisconsin Film Festival afterparty at 9 p.m. Saturday, April 4, at Cafe Montmartre. ¶ A few members of VO5 shared some film-related insights with 77 Square recently.

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Film Lovers of a Feather Flock Together

1.Apr.09 | 77 Square

So, what's the deal with the chickens? ¶ Our feathered friends are everywhere in the promotional materials for this year's Wisconsin Film Festival — on the posters, on the T-shirts, in the TV ads. What's the underlying rationale for featuring chickens so prominently in the marketing campaign for a film festival? ¶ "I don't know," said film festival director Meg Hamel with a mock shrug. "I just like chickens." ¶ It's a little more involved than that. Hamel came across a calendar of poultry portraiture by photographer Stephen Green-Armytage — "I just loved the way these images looked, these glamour shots of chickens" — that she thought they would be cool to use with the film festival.

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Slow Economy Not Expected to Stop Film Buffs

1.Apr.09 | 77 Square

The economic slowdown isn't expected to stop movie goers this week at the Wisconsin Film Festival.  Festival Director Meg Hamel says they're expecting a strong showing with ticket interest being about where it was last year, which was a 10th anniversary for the event. ¶ Hamel says the biggest thing they worry about is it being too nice outside. ¶ "Weather can really affect our crowds but I'm expecting a really good turnout and a really good audience for our films," she says. ¶ Nearly 200 movies are scheduled ranging from two-minute shorts to full length features. Hamel says don't expect to see these titles on a multiplex marquee, as most of which will never play in theaters around Wisconsin. There's plenty of talent from the Badger State as well. ¶ "We all get the chance to support some of these young artists here in the state that are just developing their craft as they are becoming filmmakers," says Hamel.

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With Nearly 200 Options, The Badger Herald Chooses 5 Top Films to See This Weekend

1.Apr.09 | Badger Herald

The month of April is like film purgatory. You can see the light up ahead where the summer blockbusters and Oscar hopefuls roam, but you are not yet able to attain this celluloid ecstasy. Fortunately for us Wisconsinites, we have the Wisconsin Film Festival to temporarily fill the void. With nearly 200 films playing at 10 theaters, this four-day film heaven is sure to sate just about any moviegoer’s appetite. ¶ Determined to provide a wide variety of films to choose from, Wisconsin Film Festival Director Meg Hamel has been studying and learning about the world of contemporary filmmaking since last July in order to get this year’s festival just right. ¶ “I wanted to find films that explore social justice issues,” Hamel said. “I wanted to find films that explore arts and humanities. And I wanted to find comedy, films that are just plain funny.”

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Wisconsin Film Festival preview: Green Constructs; This Documentary from the Makers of King Corn Tackles “Green” Building

31.Mar.09 | Decider

Filmmakers Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis last hit the Wisconsin Film Festival in 2007 with their documentary King Corn. This year they return with The Greening of Southie [more], which, while far less entertaining, takes an evenhanded and incisive look at the contradictions involved in “green” building. Greening tells the unlikely story of the Macallen Building, the first green building in the traditionally working-class neighborhood of South Boston, or “Southie.” Cheney examines in detail how the project earned enough environmental-friendliness “points” to achieve a gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating, breaking down a complex process into its constituent parts.

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Plenty of Food for Thought on Screen

31.Mar.09 | 77 Square

There’s always plenty of food for thought at the Wisconsin Film Festival, but this year there’s also an abundance of thought about food. ¶ Whether it’s a quirky focus on the inner life of an avocado in a Canadian short called Avoca-Do [more] or a 93-minute documentary exposing the underbelly of America’s industrial food system — Food, Inc. [more] — food provides subject, metaphor or setting for more than a dozen of the films included in this year’s festival. ¶ The most ambitious of all is Food, Inc. which will have a theatrical release in June. It screens this week in Madison at the Orpheum Theatre.

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Win or Lose Could be a Summer Camp Classic

31.Mar.09 | 77 Square

It’s a good thing Win or Lose: A Summer Camp Story [more] has already earned a Wisconsin’s Own jury prize for the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival. Otherwise, the notion of not winning might have destroyed the psyches of the subjects of the hour-long documentary. ¶ Filmmaker Louis Lapat didn’t have to fret much about that, though. Because of the camp featured in the film, he long ago came to terms with the concepts of winning and losing.

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Top of the Queue: If You Miss Wisconsin Film Festival, You’re Not Out of Luck

31.Mar.09 | 77 Square

People like to say there are few second chances in life. In film, however, second chances are what DVD and home video are all about. ¶ Few people get to see everything they want to see at the Wisconsin Film Festival; some movies do sell out, and it’s also impossible to be in two places at once. Fortunately, many of the popular films from last year’s festival have since trickled out on DVD.

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Anvil! brings Obscure Metal Band Back to Life

31.Mar.09 | 77 Square

With national buzz growing as loudly as feedback from a concert speaker, the hilarious and endearing Anvil! The Story of Anvil [more] comes to the Wisconsin Film Festival Thursday, April 2, still just a bit under the radar. But that changes once audiences get wind of a film that’s like This is Spinal Tap, but true. And Canadian. ¶ Anvil! follows a once-fledgling heavy metal band (called, naturally, Anvil) who peaked briefly in the 1980s, but whose two original members have toiled in Canadian obscurity ever since. As the film chronicles the ups and downs of a pair of aging headbangers, there’s more than a whiff of the 1984 mockumentary Spinal Tap to Anvil! Moviegoers are excused if they think this documentary is fiction, especially when the drummer’s name is Robb Reiner, the same name of Tap’s on-screen host and director Rob Reiner. ¶ But it’s true. All of it.

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Origami Documentary Better Than It Looks on Paper

31.Mar.09 | 77 Square

At first glance, a documentary about origami doesn't exactly sound like it should be added to a Wisconsin Film Fest moviegoer's "must-see" list. The topic calls to mind conventional images of kids folding paper cranes for an elementary school project. ¶ But like the surprising, diverse artistic creations that can emerge from one piece of folded paper, Between the Folds [more], is an unexpected and fascinating look at the art form, and the characters who are drawn to it. In addition to artists, the film profiles mathematicians and scientists whose paper folding has led to complex problem-solving and new ways of teaching, in addition to beautiful art. ¶ Vanessa Gould, director and producer of the award-winning documentary, acknowledges that it has taken some creativity to market the film. She credits festival director Meg Hamel for being willing to program a film where moviegoers tend to think they already know the topic and might have "mildly underwhelmed notions about it."

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Crafts Go Indie in Handmade Nation

30.Mar.09 | 77 Square

Once dismissed as frivolous pastimes, crafts like knitting, embroidery, jewelry making and sewing have enjoyed a flourishing revival in the past several years all around the country. ¶ Milwaukee filmmaker Faythe Levine captures the excitement and enthusiasm for these traditional women’s pursuits — and those crafters who give the arts a decidedly modern spin — in her documentary, Handmade Nation [more], which screens at the Wisconsin Film Festival in the Play Circle Theater.

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Here On Earth: Football Under Cover

30.Mar.09 | Wisconsin Public Radio

Host Jean Feraca talks with Marlene Assmann and David Assmann, filmmakers of Football Under Cover [more], featured at the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival.

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Best Foreign Language Film Departures Added to Festival Line-up

28.Mar.09 | 77 Square

This year's Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Departures, is a last-minute addition to the Wisconsin Film Festival line-up. The festival just announced the screening via Twitter on Friday afternoon, and tickets go on sale at noon Sunday through the festival box office and online at wifilmfest.org. The film is coming to Madison thanks to Stephen Jarchow, chairman of the board at Regent Entertainment, an independent film distributor. Jarchow, a UW-Madison graduate, was already scheduled to give a free talk on his experiences in the film industry at 3 p.m. Friday, Apr. 3 in the UW Cinematheque screening room.

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Wisconsin Festival Nabs Rare U.S. Screening of Oscar-winning Foreign Film

27.Mar.09 | Isthmus

Less than one week before the Wisconsin Film Festival begins, the 11th annual event added another movie — and it’s one of the fest’s most prestigious bookings ever. ¶ Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language film, Departures [more], will have its first screening in the United States (and only third overall) since the film’s Oscar win last month. Already one of the most honored films in Japanese history, the sentimental drama will be shown at 12:30 pm Friday and a few weeks before it makes its East Coast premiere at a renowned New York festival.

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Join the Crowd: The Wisconsin Film Festival Entertains Onscreen and Off

27.Mar.09 | Isthmus

For over a decade, the Wisconsin Film Festival has been transforming us through films that go beyond standard cinema fare, movies we might not otherwise have the opportunity to see. The films at this year’s festival, April 2–5, are risky, hilarious, devastating and so fascinating that you might sacrifice a popcorn refill to stay in your seat. Each one is an adventure in learning something new, connecting to the community and growing. ¶ I have often thought of watching a film as a solitary experience. Going to the movies makes a terrible first date or outing with a rarely seen friend. Sure, you show up together, sit next to each other, but then you immerse yourselves individually in the action on that big screen. So last year — my first Film Festival experience — I headed out to the festival unaccompanied. I was expecting a lot of silence: waiting in line, finding a seat, reading a book until the film started and quietly watching the shadows on the screen. Boy, was I wrong.

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Being Bucky is a Badger of Honor

27.Mar.09 | 77 Square

Being Bucky Badger just suits some guys better than others. It takes a lot of time. It takes an ability to wear a big clunky smelly thing on your head. It takes an ability to remain silent. And it takes an ability to lose one's self and be one's self at the very same time. That's the world filmmakers John Fromstein and Scott Smith dived into with their documentary Being Bucky [more], which screens at 6:15 p.m. Saturday, April 4 as part of the Wisconsin Film Festival. Advance tickets are sold out, but some rush tickets should be available at the door, and the film is coming back for a regular theatrical run at Point Cinemas beginning on April 10.

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Daytime Drinking finds laughs in the cringe-worthy

27.Mar.09 | 77 Square

The best way to describe Daytime Drinking [more], a Korean film showing at the Wisconsin Film Festival at Wisconsin Union Theater is as a nihilist comedy. Every time it seems like main character Hyuk-jin’s luck might change for the better, some misadventure plunges him right back to where he started from, and he never quite finds what he’s looking for. ¶ While getting drunk with some buddies in Seoul after getting dumped by his girlfriend, his friends convince him to take a relaxing trip with them into a Korean village. He waits for them the next day only to find that they’ve dumped him in order to nurse their hangovers, and he ends up making the journey on his own. And unfortunately, it only seems to get worse for Hyuk-jin there-on out.

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Lads and Jockeys Tells of Boys, Their Horses, Their Dreams

27.Mar.09 | 77 Square

The teen students at Le Moulin a Vent near Chantilly, France, do their lessons, quite literally, at breakneck speed. ¶ They are young jockeys-in-training at a unique boarding school, and learning to ride fractious thoroughbred race horses is part of their vocational training. ¶ Anyone who loves horses, racing or stories about what it takes for gifted young athletes to perfect their craft should enjoy Lads and Jockeys [more], a 100-minute French documentary that will be shown as part of the Wisconsin Film Festival at the Orpheum Stage Door theater.

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It’s Not Easy Being Green in South Boston

27.Mar.09 | 77 Square

“Compelling” and “fun” are not words that are often used together to describe documentary films, or construction projects. ¶ The Greening of Southie [more] follows the creation of the environmentally innovative Macallen Building, Boston’s first large-scale LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) residential project. The film is a uniquely charming, thoughtful and amusing entry at the Wisconsin Film Festival. It’s 73 minutes long and will be presented at Monona Terrace at 1:30 pm on Sunday, April 5. ¶ Created by Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, the directors behind the very popular King Corn, which played the festival in 2007, Greening tells the tale of efforts to build something new and different in South Boston, one of the Northeast’s most emphatically tradition-bound, blue collar communities.

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Schenectady Gets a Close Up in Winter of Frozen Dreams

27.Mar.09 | Schnectady Times-Union

It’s debatable whether the residents of Schenectady should feel flattered to have had their city chosen as the backdrop for Winter of Frozen Dreams [more]. The film, while riveting in its drama, is purposefully stark and dreary, set in the dead of winter in the late 1970s, small town Wisconsin. ¶ The city is practically a character in the movie. And it is not a protagonist. ¶ The movie tells the true story of Barbara Hoffman, a University of Wisconsin dropout and prostitute, who was charged with the murder of two men, both of whom had named her as beneficiary to their life insurance policies. Police discovered that she had been living a double life, seducing her clients into thinking she planned to marry them. Hoffman and another man (who later ended up dead himself) buried the body of one of her paramours in the snow, with only his blue toes visible to the world.

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Friendly Rivalry Spurs Two Filmmakers with Madison Ties

26.Mar.09 | 77 Square

For the last 10 years, Doug Pray and Marc Webb had a semi-serious bet going between them — who would be the first to make a dramatic feature film that would land on the big screen? ¶ The two filmmakers, both with strong Madison ties, have been successful in their fields. Pray has made several acclaimed documentaries, including Scratch and last year’s Surfwise, while Webb is one of the most prolific music video directors in the country. But they still egged each other on to take the next step and make a narrative feature. ¶ “The bet was that whoever’s movie reaches Madison first, the loser owes them the amount of the opening night box office at Hilldale,” Pray said. “It’s hysterical.”

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The Return of Ozploitation

26.Mar.09 | 77 Square

In one interview in Not Quite Hollywood [more], a documentary on “Ozploitation film” being shown at the Wisconsin Film Festival, a director in a Hawaiian shirt is sitting in a dimly lit room. A stripper is dancing on a pole behind him, seemingly oblivious to the fact that someone is filming nearby. ¶ The scene symbolizes what Not Quite Hollywood is all about, namely celebrating the outrageousness and vulgarity of Australian exploitation films in the 1970s. Directors, actors and critics talk frankly about chauvinistic sets, reckless stunts and even how awful some of the movies are without ever appearing apologetic. All seem to agree on the declining quality of exploitation film from the time it was made possible with the establishment of an R rating to its demise at the end of the decade, yet they never question its spirit of fun.

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Paper or Plastic? has it in the bag

26.Mar.09 | 77 Square

“It doesn’t matter what you do, but how you do it.” ¶ These are the words of Justine Jacob, producer of Paper or Plastic? [more], a documentary on the National Grocers Association’s Best Bagger competition showing at the Wisconsin Film Festival next week. ¶ The documentary follows eight of the 23 state champions who competed in the 2007 nationals, candidates from all different backgrounds who share a common ambition to be the best and fastest grocery bagger in the country. Whether it’s 17-year-old Jacob Richardson, the Virginia state champion, or Jon Sandell, the 60-year-old Minnesota winner, all competitors share a tenacity and perfectionism that would make even the most successful CEO shy away in intimidation.

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Cinema Day Highlights German, Iranian Cultures

25.Mar.09 | UW–Madison News

On Friday, April 3, Wisconsin high school students and teachers will participate in World Cinema Day, with an educational screening of Football Under Cover [more], a film that documents the efforts of both the Iranian and German teams to cross cultural and national borders to play the match of a lifetime. After watching the film, students will meet one of the directors, David Assmann, from Berlin, Germany.

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On WFF #5: Lighten Up, Korea

25.Mar.09 | Decider

Comedy isn’t the first genre that comes to mind when people think of Korean cinema. Most people get exposed to the nation’s films through the stylized violence of Park Chan-Wook’s Vengeance Trilogy or of the oft-brutal offerings of the Sundance Channel’s excellent Asia Extreme series, which features movies like R-Point and Bad Guy. Young-Seok Noh’s Daytime Drinking [more] provides a more whimsical alternative to such morbid, eye-gouging fare—at times erring on the side of slowness.

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On WFF #4: A cat, a baby, or something violent

24.Mar.09 | Decider

What is the fallout when a person’s most private moments are recorded and posted online? And can this act be even more damaging for those doing the watching than for the subjects being filmed? Afterschool [more] attempts to answer these questions through a relentless and creepy meditation on the pains of growing up in a voyeur culture. The movie follows a detached misfit named Rob (Ezra Miller), whose dreary existence at an East-coast boarding school gains purpose after he joins the A.V. club. His camera initially gives him the confidence to make the connections he’d been struggling to find through his computer, but after his lens inadvertently captures a tragedy, the film becomes a hall of mirrors where movies-within-movies reflect a world more nuanced and fractured than any single camera can document.

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On WFF #3: Big Bad Food, Again

23.Mar.09 | Decider

Maybe it’s because this is Madison, home to the nation’s largest farmers’ market, CSA farms galore, a thriving food co-op, and emphasis on local foods that nothing in Food, Inc. [more] seemed new to me. The documentary, from the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, explores the mechanized underbelly of the nation’s food industry and includes graphic shots of confined animal feeding operations, meatpacking plants, and poultry sheds. It’s a disturbing look at the way the American food system works and the effects this system has on anyone who eats as well as the farm workers, animals, and planet.

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The New Year Parade

22.Mar.09 | JJ Murphy on Independent Cinema

This year’s Wisconsin Film Festival features its strongest-ever lineup of independent narrative features. The most notable ones include Ronnie Bronstein’s late-addition Frownland [more] (the director will be here in person), Antonio Campos’s Afterschool [more] — both of which I’ve written about previously and made my list of best indie films of 2008 – Ramin Bahrani’s Goodbye Solo [more], Azazel Jacobs’s Momma’s Man [more], Sean Baker’s The Prince of Broadway [more], So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain [more], and Tom Quinn’s remarkable The New Year Parade [more]. The New Year Parade won the Grand Prize at the 2008 Slamdance Film Festival and it’s no surprise in these tough economic times that the film still hasn’t found a distributor, so locals would be wise to catch it at the festival. The New Year Parade represents a terrific debut effort, and it may be another year before it sneaks into a local theater, turns up in your Netflix queue or the rack of your video store. In the current world of indie cinema, blink and you run the risk of missing out on the best new films being produced out there.

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The New Great American director

22.Mar.09 | Roger Ebert/Chicago Sun-Times

Ramin Bahrani is the new great American director. After three films, each a master work, he has established himself as a gifted, confident filmmaker with ideas that involve who and where we are at this time. His films pay great attention to ordinary lives that are not so ordinary at all. His subjects so far have been immigrants working hard to make a living in America. His fourth film, now in preparation, will be a Western. His hero will be named Tom. Well, he couldn’t very well be named Huckleberry. ¶ The Old West, too, was a land of immigrants, many of them speaking no English. But Bahrani never refers to his characters as immigrants. They are new Americans, climbing the lower rungs of the economic ladder. There is the Pakistani in Man Push Cart [WFF07], who operates a coffee-and-bagel wagon in Manhattan. The Latino kid in Chop Shop [WFF08], surviving in a vast auto parts bazaar in the shadow of Shea Stadium. The taxi driver from Senegal in Goodbye Solo [more], who works long hours in Winston-Salem, N.C. [Solo opens March 27 in Chicago and New York.] These people are not grim and depressed, but hopeful when they have little to be hopeful about. They aren’t walking around angry. Wounded, sometimes. They plan to prevail.

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Whimsical Short Film Accepted into Wisconsin Film Festival

20.Mar.09 | Dunn County News

76% Chance [more], a four-minute film created by locals Sally Velleux and Nick Meyer, has been announced as an official selection of the Wisconsin Film Festival. Filmed in Elk Mound, on a chilly spring day in April of 2008, the film marked a first-time artistic collaboration for the long-time local couple.

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Wisconsin Film Festival 2009: What to watch?

20.Mar.09 | The Daily Page

The Wisconsin Film Festival can be daunting. It features close to 200 movies at 10 venues over four days from April 2-5. Most of the movies are unknown quantities. How are we supposed to pick the ones we’d like best? ¶ I don’t agree with festival director Meg Hamel, who simply suggests throwing a dart at the schedule. ¶ “I tell people not to worry too much about which films they choose,” she says. “People always get hung up trying to figure out what the best movies are. But it’s not possible. There’s no way to look at the festival and say, ‘This is what I’m going to like more than any other film.’ The most successful way to go through the fest is to do it a little more randomly.” ¶ I see where Hamel is coming from. She wants festival-goers to experiment, try new things, be surprised. For some people that’s fine, but I’m the type who wants to know what he’s getting into. So I pressed Hamel — the only person in town who’s seen every one of these films — to provide recommendations in different categories. ¶ It wasn’t easy, given the fact that Hamel feels affection for every movie she chose for the festival. But under duress, she came up with a few suggestions in various categories.

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On WFF #2: A Griot Divided

20.Mar.09 | Decider

As more and more African music captures American ears, it’s hard not to feel like a hopelessly unqualified dabbler. Chances are the first few world music records an American pop listener hears will open up an exciting melodic richness, a willingness to blend sounds and instrumentation from across continents. But the first few minutes of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s documentary Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love [more] should also remind us of a certain disconnect. As the Senegalese singer, bathed in blue stage lights and soothing synthesizer chords, opens a concert with his song “New Africa,” it’s hard to reconcile his fluid vocal melodies with the multisyllabic translations in the subtitles: “Without borders, let’s pool our resources and work together”; “When I think of how our grandparents suffered, I cry / But our past must not stop us from moving forward.”

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In Lean Times, Wisconsin Film Fest Still Goes for Broke

20.Mar.09 | The Daily Page

It’s a lean year for local arts organizations, with Madison Ballet canceling performances, the Overture Center laying off staff and the Madison Repertory Theatre shutting down altogether. By contrast, the 11th annual Wisconsin Film Festival will be as big as ever. It features close to 200 films at 10 venues over four days, April 2–5. There will be even more talks and panels than in previous years. ¶ “The festival means so much to so many people in Madison,” says director Meg Hamel. “Not for a second have we considered changing what it is.”

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Film101: Episode 7

20.Mar.09 | Dane101

In an alternate 1985, Film101 dons masks and reviews the most unfilmable movie of all time, Watchmen. Our views were largely colored by having read the graphic novel; we greatly look forward to your comments. We also interview show favorites Rob Matsushita and Will Gartside about their upcoming movie project, read some brilliant listener feedback, and share our schedules for the Wisconsin Film Festival.

podcast mp3 | podcast m4a

Two Local Films Among Those to Screen at Annual Festival

19.Mar.09 | Volume One

The Wisconsin Film Festival showcases some of the best animation, documentary, narrative, and short films in the state, region, nation, and world. And of the more than 200 films the festival will screen this year, two of them are coming from right here in the Chippewa Valley. “Our landmark goal was to get into this one,” said Nick Holle, a writer, editor, and star of Illegal Use of Joe Zopp [more]. “We were hoping to get the chance to show it in another city and in front of new faces.” The feature-length comedy premiered last fall, and was the first cinematic venture for Chippewa Falls-based production company Wut Wut Alma Moving Pictures. The film has played in three other festivals, but this one is the biggest, so the creators are excited to be on site for the screening at 10:15pm on April 3.

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Blog: Cinefowl!

18.Mar.09 | Decider

So far, this has not been a proud week for Wisconsin-related design projects, but all is not lost. When Decider stopped into the Wisconsin Film Festival office this afternoon to pick up some more DVDs for our recently launched preview coverage, festival director Meg Hamel shared some of the festival’s new promotional buttons, hot off the presses. They involve neither cartwheeling ghost-men nor over-used slogans, but instead…chickens! Fluffy white chickens, saucy salt-and-pepper chickens, and of course a fuzzy yellow chick. (There are also buttons with just the festival logo on them.) The chicken theme might have something to do with the festival’s strong focus on agriculture, the environment, and food, as reflected in this year’s series “The Cream Of The Crop: Farming and The Land On Film.” Several of those films are already in our pile of preview DVDs, so expect to hear Decider’s take on a few before too long.

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On WFF #1: Of Pipes and Playfulness

16.Mar.09 | Decider

Absurdistan [more] is really a misnomer for German director Veit Helmer’s coming-of-age film, which adds idyllic magic realism to a true story from an isolated modern-day village in Turkey. Whimsystan or Irrepressistan might have been a better title—any fan of Berkeley Breathed would feel right at home here. The women of the village are vivacious and hard-working. The men, however, spend most of their days sneaking out of work to gather at the teahouse, where they brag about their sexual prowess before returning home to make good on their boasts. ¶ Protagonists Aya (Kristyna Malerova) and Temelko (Maximillian Mauf) wed when they are 8 years old, but the consummation of their marriage a decade later is interrupted by a village-wide water shortage. A battle of the sexes erupts over the men’s failure to repair the town’s broken water pipe and the women’s subsequent decision to withhold lovemaking (insert euphemism here). It’s up to the young lovers to set things right—you get the idea.

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WFF2009: An Interview with Handmade Nation Director Faythe Levine

16.Mar.09 | Dane101

Madison isn’t exactly a stranger to the DIY craft movement. Especially around the winter holidays, it’s nearly impossible not to stumble across one craft fair or another, and several shops have come (and a few gone strictly online) onto the scene bearing a wide array of goods created by local artists. ¶ But these aren’t your grandma’s designs. Though most newly minted crafters will readily pay their respects to those who came before — people have been making things by hand since they first created tools, after all — this new generation of sewers, welders, gluers, collage makers, weavers, paper artists, and jewelers are all blazing trails uniquely their own, applying a sort of punk, indie ethos to it all. (Handmade Nation [more])

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WFF2009: Fox Searchlight Caps Ticket Sales for 500 Days of Summer

12.Mar.09 | Dane101

Dane101 has been following the “sold out” shows for the Wisconsin Film Festival and we have a new one for you…sort of…Fox Searchlight has asked the festival to cap remaining sales for 500 Days of Summer [more]. The film, showing at the 1700 capacity Orpheum Theatre, had already moved roughly 1000 tickets according to festival director Meg Hamel (via Twitter). I guess Fox is concerned about generating too much buzz around the sure fire quirky romantic comedy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel? The Sundance Film Festival hit is set for wide release on July 17 of this year, so if you miss it this time around our money is on it returning this summer. The movie was directed by Madisonian Marc Webb who will be on hand to answer questions after the screening.

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Schabow: Preserve Wisconsin’s Film Tax Credit

12.Mar.09 | Dane101

Back in 2004, when I was a movie critic for The Wisconsinite, one of my first assignments was partnering up with a veteran filmmaker to cover the Wisconsin Film Festival. This other film critic was older and smarter about movies than I was and took me under his wing. During that weekend he discussed how the other prominent film festivals are nice but that, logistically, Madison is a much better place for these types of events. ¶ After thinking about it, that made sense to me. After all, the scenery here is spectacular, there are quaint coffee shops and tasty restaurants to hang out in between movies, and most importantly, almost all of the theaters are within walking distance during a time the weather is nice and springy out. That conversation, and the walk outside to the next movie, sparked a vision. Not only could Madison compete with the bigger film festivals (Cannes, Sundance, New York Film Festival) because if its great location, but it also could be a great place to make movies.

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WFF2009: Wisconsin Film Festival tickets break 18,000; slightly ahead of last year

11.Mar.09 | Dane101

The recession may be causing the Tribeca Film Festival to flinch and cut back, but it doesn’t seem to be having an impact here in Wisconsin where ticket sales for the eleventh annual Wisconsin Film Festival broke 18,000 on Wednesday, slightly ahead of the same time last year when sales were at 17,600. ¶ Below is an updated list of screenings that are sold out. Just a reminder that a sell out doesn’t mean you won’t get in and if you really want to see a “sold out” film you are encouraged to hit the rush line.

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German Drama a Surprise Film Fest Sellout

11.Mar.09 | 77 Square

So if you were a Hollywood studio head, and wanted to deliberately craft a movie that would be the top ticket-seller at the Wisconsin Film Festival, what kind of movie would it be? ¶ Based on how tickets are selling for this year’s festival, it would be a thriller in which a masseuse murdered a beloved campus mascot. And it would be in German.

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WFF2009: Day One Ticket Sales for Wisconsin Film Fest Brisk; Handful of Sell Outs

8.Mar.09 | Dane101

Day one ticket sales for the Wisconsin Film Festival were brisk. Festival director Meg Hamel reports 11,082 tickets had been sold by time the box office closed on Saturday. Here is a list of sell outs (reminder, sold out does not mean there are zero tickets. Tickets are often set aside for filmmakers and people often simply no show with purchased tickets. WFF sets up a rush line on the day of the show and typically there is rarely a problem for people trying to get in to a “sold out” show) : Being Bucky [more]; Cherry Blossoms [more]; Winter of Frozen Dreams [more].

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WFF2009: Tickets for Wisconsin Film Fest 2009 On Sale at Noon

7.Mar.09 | Dane101

Tickets for the Wisconsin Film Festival go on sale at noon today. Check out the guide online or in this week’s Isthmus. If you head to the box office be sure to pop by Babcock Hall Dairy Bar and pick up a pint of the limited edition ice cream flavor “In The Dark.” The flavor sounds absolutely decadent: chocolate malt ice cream includes truffles, fudge swirls and pecans. Meanwhile, check out some of dane101’s coverage of Wisconsin Film Festival 2009 below and Isthmus coverage here. Starting on Monday dane101 will be bringing you previews of films and interviews with the men and women behind the lens.

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WFF2009 Guide to the Guide: Restorations & Revivals

6.Mar.09 | Dane101

In the era of Blu-Ray, certain movie fans might be inclined to file everything in the festival’s Restorations & Revivals program into their Netflix queue and call it a day. But a healthy part of festival culture is reveling with your fellows in a classic movie seen the way it was meant to be seen, and the fest offers up a whole bouquet of curious options this year. The Wisconsiniest choice is Stroszek [more], Werner Herzog’s 1977 movie borne out of the director’s enchantment with Plainfield, Wis., which he visited while researching the life of Ed Gein. (Check out this interview with Herzog and Errol Morris to get the full skinny.)

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WFF2009 Guide to the Guide: The Many Languages of the Wisconsin Film Festival

5.Mar.09 | Dane101

One of the many exciting parts of the Wisconsin Film Fest is an attendee can often build a personal festival around one of many languages. Below I’ve broken the fest down by non-English (or minimal English) speaking films. Want to spend all weekend watching French films? It can be done. Korean? Yep. Spanish? Of course. What if you are seeking a diverse world tour of languages and want to skip out on some of the more common heard in films? The Wisconsin Film Festival has Tagalog, Estonian, and Hindi. Showcasing a true representation of Wisconsin’s diversity the fest features a film in Hmong and another film in the language typically used by Mennonites, Plautdietsch. See below and maybe you can map yourself out a world tour of language.

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WFF2009 Guide to the Guide: Filmmakers Galore! (with trailers galore!)

5.Mar.09 | Dane101

In my Wisconsin Film Festival memory, which goes back four years, I can’t recall a year where so many filmmakers are scheduled to attend. In the guide out this morning (check the website and pick up a copy of this week’s Isthmus) 22 films have “Filmmaker(s) scheduled to attend” tacked onto the listing. If you wanted to plan a festival themed around filmmaker appearances you could easily pack your schedule. To help you out I’ve pulled all of the films that are expected to have filmmakers attending and listed them below. If we were able to track down a trailer (or some sort of equivalent) we posted it below.

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Of Film and Food

5.Mar.09 | Isthmus

As hints of spring begin to appear — ’tis the teasing season, to be sure — we begin to anticipate the local rites, one of them being the annual Wisconsin Film Festival. Take this as a hint that the program for the film fest accompanies your Isthmus this week. ¶ The program comes out about a month before the event in order for you to make your preparations. This year’s film fest runs April 2–5 and, as usual, presents you with a nearly overwhelming number of options to sate your viewing desires. You’ll need the time to review the choices that the presenting UW Arts Institute has given you, to plan your schedule and to buy your tickets. You’ll find everything you need to accomplish that in the program.

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Sundance Fave to be Screened at Film Fest

4.Mar.09 | 77 Square

Madison West grad Marc Webb’s first feature film, 500 Days Of Summer [more], was the toast of the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Now Webb is bringing the film back home to Madison for the opening night of the Wisconsin Film Festival. ¶ The full schedule for the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival, which runs April 2–5, was posted online March 5 at wifilmfest.org. It features more than 100 feature-length and short films, including a healthy dose of Wisconsin-connected filmmakers like Webb.

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Dairy Store, Film Festival Create New Ice Cream Flavor

3.Mar.09 | WISC-TV

The Babcock Hall Dairy Store on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus is teaming up with the Wisconsin Film Festival to create a new ice cream flavor. The flavor, called In The Dark, was unveiled on Monday morning and is a chocolate-packed concoction. The chocolate malt ice cream includes truffles, fudge swirls and pecans, WISC-TV reported. The Babcock store began making the flavor on Monday and the new ice cream will be available for sale starting Saturday.

VIDEO: watch the report

Wisconsin Film Festival brings JCVD back to Madison

1.Mar.09 | Dane101

Film101 has learned that JCVD [more], the featured film in our fifth episode, will come back to Madison next month as part of the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival. Probably the least predictable Jean-Claude Van Damme movie ever, JCVD features an intriguing concept and style and is a great fit for Madison and the Festival. Our JCVD discussion begins one minute into episode 5: (mp3) (m4a)

New Film Portrays Notorious Madison Killing

23.Feb.09 | Wisconsin State Journal

The lineup of movies for the Wisconsin Film Festival will be announced next week, but here’s a sneak preview: Winter of Frozen Dreams [more], a noir thriller based on one of Madison’s most notorious murder cases, will play during the festival’s April 2–5 run. ¶ Festival director Meg Hamel confirmed Friday that the film, adapted from Madison writer Karl Harter’s 1990 book of the same name, was accepted into the festival in the “Wisconsin’s Own” category. ¶ A jury of three film professionals pick the films in that category, Hamel said. ¶ She also noted that while the festival routinely showcases documentaries, Winter of Frozen Dreams may be the festival’s first fictional film based on real Madison events.

original page | pdf

Film101: Episode 5

17.Feb.09 | Dane101

It’s Film101’s sexy, sexy fifth episode, where we passionately review JCVD [more], recite poetic Letters to Movies, give Tips to Please Your Man at the Wisconsin Film Festival, pine over our favorite romantic films, and whisper sweet nothings about Auteur Theory.

podcast mp3 | podcast m4a

Wisconsin Film Festival 2009 Trailers: Idiots and Angels

14.Feb.09 | The Daily Page

Independent animation has become readily accessible with the popularization of online video, but there’s still nothing like seeing this visual art on the big screen. Fans get a special treat in Idiots and Angels [more], the new feature-length work by legendary cartoonist and animator Bill Plympton about a jerk forced to confront his good side after growing wings. ¶ The movie premiered last spring at the Tribeca Film Festival, and has since played at animation-focused and general fests around the world, racking up awards as well as fans for Plympton. Its busy run continues through the winter and this spring, and is now confirmed to screen in Madison at the Wisconsin Film Festival come April.

original page | pdf

Wisconsin Film Festival 2009 Trailers: Paper Or Plastic?

7.Feb.09 | The Daily Page

Contests of speed and skill offer a natural attraction for documentarians looking for a story, particularly when serious competitors transform a seemingly mundane action into something extraordinary. Directors Justine Jacob and Alex D. da Silva found a good one for their new film Paper or Plastic? [more], which follows eight grocery store workers vying to win the 2007 National Grocers Association Best Bagger Championship in Las Vegas. ¶ This documentary premiered last June at the Los Angeles Film Festival, went on to screen at fests in Austin and Indianapolis and is scheduled for others in Hawai’i and Arizona before coming to Madison for the Wisconsin Film Festival this spring. It was made after Jacob won the best pitch award at a Sundance Producers Conference shortly after learning about the nascent competition; the filmmakers subsequently visited with the winners of 21 state competitions before selecting the characters featured at the heart of the story.

original page | pdf

Wisconsin Film Festival 2009 Trailers: Between the Folds

6.Feb.09 | The Daily Page

One beautiful and unexpected intersection between art and science is crossed in Between The Folds [more] from Green Fuse Films. Directed by Vanessa Gould, this is the first documentary to explore the realm of origami, a onetime folk craft has blossomed into a global art form. ¶ Premiering last year, Between The Folds won audience awards at the Rhode Island International Film Festival and New Hampshire Film Festival. The documentary is currently finishing a run in Santa Fe, and its calendar for this year includes stops in Cleveland, San Diego, and elsewhere before screening this April at the Wisconsin Film Festival in Madison.

original page | pdf

Wisconsin Film Festival 2009 already a hit with volunteers

5.Feb.09 | The Daily Page

Barely two months remain before the opening of the eleventh Wisconsin Film Festival, and preparations for it are in high gear. Though the final selection of films has yet to be determined and ticket sales are a month away, there has already been a tremendous response from persons interested in volunteering for this celebration of cinema. ¶ “After ten years, it’s clear we have wonderful volunteers,” says festival director Meg Hamel. There were 32 people who signed up to volunteer within an hour after she started accepting requests on Tuesday. After less than two days, that number had climbed to 147 prospective volunteers. “It is an astonishing response from that many people so quickly,” she continues.

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Bizarre Stroszek Coming to Film Festival

29.Jan.09 | Wisconsin State Journal

Maybe the only thing weirder than famed German director Werner Herzog’s deeply weird 1977 film, Stroszek [more], is the circumstances of its making. ¶ Another famous film name, documentary director Errol Morris, is involved, and so is Ed Gein, the late resident of Plainfield who dug corpses out of the ground and danced with them. ¶ Did I mention this was weird? ¶ It is of interest now because Stroszek, in all its bizarre glory, is going to be featured at the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival, which runs April 2–5 in Madison. ¶ Festival director Meg Hamel was aware of the film’s interesting history — and its many Wisconsin ties — so when she heard that a new print of the film had recently become available in Germany, she made inquiries and secured it for the festival. [more]

original page | pdf

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Please note that the correct name of the event is the “Wisconsin Film Festival,” not the “Wisconsin International Film Festival” or — shudder — “WIFF.”

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