Aliens! Will Land on October 30
A film like The Brother From Another Planet by last year’s VFF guest John Sayles makes the alien/immigrant connection clear and would be a perfect selection (although I’m also open to less explicit sci-fi allegories!).
I’m very interested in the kind of films our visiting Festival Fellow Hamid Naficy
calls “accented” in that their filmmakers’ styles and subjects reflect a double consciousness of their native and host societies (among Naficy’s examples are Atom Egoyan, Mira Nair, and Luis Bunuel). And films about immigrants and outsiders will be welcome…including new work on the illegal immigrant debate, such as the work-in-progress by the Virginia-based filmmakers at the YouTube channel 9500 Liberty.
What other titles, guests, and events should I consider? Post your suggestions by sending a reply here, and help me program a great and timely festival.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 am
Fantastic Planet (Laloux)
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:01 am
The first thing I thought of was the early films of Jim Jarmusch. Permanent Vacation, Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law and Mystery Train all fit the bill. Maybe you’ll invite Jim to attend and make him the featured guest?
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:11 am
Several candidates come to my mind, but one stands out to me as particularly apt: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “Angst essen Seele auf,” “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.” In following the story of an Moroccan guest worker in an alien Germany city, it explores both the potential for attenuating exclusion through human compassion and, perhaps more poignantly, the dangers of alienation that can befall even those native to a land: estrangement from one’s own economic system, social circles, and familial ties. In rich and complex ways it seems to subvert the normal expectations one might hold regarding the possible effects of an alien encounter by at once suggesting the hidden redemptive qualities of such an encounter and hinting at how alienation can seep into modern life through avenues other than just breaches of national borders.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
David Icke’s “The Reptilian Agenda”
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Hi,
I’d like to suggest “An Island Calling”, about the gruesome 2001 murder of an openly gay white couple in Fiji. I watched it last night here in Wellington and immediately thought that I’d like my C’ville friends to see it. Plus, it fits perfectly with the ‘Aliens’ theme. It’s a great story and the movie itself is well crafted.
http://www.worldcinemashowcase.co.nz/titles/ISLAND.html
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April 3rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Walkabout (Roeg), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Schepesi), or any of several other movies which dramatize the “white” Australian view of the landscape and indigenous people of Australia as completely “alien”
April 4th, 2008 at 11:19 am
If you can find a copy of Uforia, about a grocery store clerk who has a vision that aliens are coming, you should show it. The 1984 film is not on DVD, so almost no one has seen it. Hilarious. Despite a hoked-up Hollywood ending, it’s a classic, with iconic Harry Dean Stanton as a crooked evangelist (”Everyone needs to believe in something; I believe I’ll have another drink”) stealing every scene he’s in. Highly recommended and perfect fit for the theme.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I suppose “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is too obvious or maybe everyone’s already seen it before? same for the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”? How about a min-festival of 1950’s BEM (”bug-eyed monster”) & giant insect Cold War paranoia? I think seeing all of these on the big screen would be a blast.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Has Steven Spielberg ever visited the Festival? Perhaps he’s another too obvious thought — and presumably unsnareable — but, oh, what a fertile connection with this theme (ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and A.I.)!
April 20th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Wim Wenders and/or HARRY DEAN STANTON (please) for Paris, Texas–about social/personal alienation.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 am
Werner Herzog’s Stroszek–three German social misfits look for the American Dream in Wisconsin (funny, sad, poignant…perfect for this year’s theme).
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Please let me weigh in once more, and suggest “Aliens” include works (and the possible presence) of the great Australian director Peter Weir, perhaps best known on a mass level for “Master nad Commander” and “The Truman Show” but most admired by me, at least, for the eerie spell he casts in such richly varied occult films that predated those as “The Last Wave”, “Picnic at Hanging Rock” and “Fearless”. The Festival’s defining themes in the past have often been stretched a bit in the spirit of things, so why not for mysteries involving aborigines in catastrophes, people whose disappearance from the face of the earth is utterly unexplainable, and the afterlife-ish story of the miraculous survivor of a horrendous jetliner crash? Plus…I believe Weir may be in postproduction work on a sci-fi thriller (?…I’ve not read the William Gibson novel on which it’s based) by the promising-sounding name of “Pattern Recognition”.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I immediately thought of obvious choices such as “Babel”, “Independence Day”, or even “Rocky Horror Picture Show” for the fun of it, but the more I thought about the theme of alien-ness the more I was drawn to the work of Deepa Mehta. All three of her films about being an outsider within your own society for various reason. “Fire”, “Earth”, and “Water” are powerful films. So powerful in fact, that after the first was released in her home country of India, riots broke out, theater windows smashed, posters torn down, because even in today’s Indian society, her ideas are still so alien to them. Something that would cause so strong a reaction, is definitely worth a look by you for consideration.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
For social commentary: Lost in Translation
For a bit of scifi: The Man Who Fell to Earth