FLIC Recap

We premiered About a Donkey in Montana over the weekend in Polson as part of the Flathead Lake International Cinemafest (or FLIC). Kelsey & I flew in on Friday and immediately jumped into the festival experience via our shared ride from Missoula to Polson with a couple, Ray & Marianne Robison, who grew up in the area. Ray had a short, “An Affair Remains,” screening at the festival. I’d like to give a big shout-out to them for driving & keeping us company throughout the weekend! They made for great car buddies, who consistently shared fun facts about the state and area with us.

When we arrived in Polson, there was a nice Opening Night reception with food and casual mingling with other attending filmmakers and local sponsors. We enjoyed chatting with the other filmmakers visiting from out-of-state and especially clicked with journalists from The Washington Post, Whitney Shefte & Alice Li, who made an incredibly moving & well-done short doc titled “The Next Edition,” which can be watched on the Post’s site.

The opening night shorts were a great mix of films. Overall, I’d say the programming leans most towards narrative films related to family & relationships, short & sweet animations, and docs with a strong focus on environmental issues & Indigenous stories. I was really happy to see Native American stories so represented at the festival, considering the Flathead Reservation right there (and just generally the Native land Polson was formed on). One doc from opening night, “Spirit of Atatice,” told a really important local story that I never would’ve known (or seen told so beautifully & effectively) if not for attending the festival. It was a great reminder of how erased Indigenous stories are from our history books and contemporary culture as a whole, and it acted as an important parallel that showcased how the current situation regarding the border wall and overall exclusionary ideology is rooted in the founding of our country (which Kelsey & I were pleasantly surprised to hear a white audience member astutely point out despite the fact that the audience overall seemed to be more conservative-leaning politically).

Speaking of that, Kelsey & I weren’t quite sure what our screening would be like. I looked up the 2016 election results for Flathead County before we arrived and saw that it voted 65% for Trump, so we weren’t sure how our inclusive family dramedy would go over. Of course, that Trump-majority is part of why I chose to submit to the festival, we have been trying to screen it in red-leaning states to get some conversations going about acceptance and hopefully spread some empathy (even if we’re just planting the tiniest of seeds). But that’s easier said than done. Despite being part of our mission with touring with the film, I can’t say it’s something we’re fully comfortable doing.

However, all that said, we actually had a really lovely, completely non-confrontational experience! For one thing, we had one of the highest attended screenings. The locals really come out because there's nothing else to do in Polson in the winter (that’s how it looked from the outside to us but also a couple locals stated as such). We had over 70 people at our screening for our feature, with no local connections or marketing. And only about 8 of the attendees were other filmmakers; all others were local non-filmmakers. It was really cool. (We had a strong timeslot, but even the features with not-great slots had over 30 people, and most shorts blocks had around 100 people. Overall, that’s way better than many better known fests out there, which you know if you read my recaps.) Even more surprising was that we were programmed up against another feature that was made in Montana and had a lot of the cast & crew in attendance, yet so many people chose to check out our little film from NY! I think our family-oriented synopsis really draws people in, in a community like Polson. It’s something we witnessed in Glens Falls, as well. But unlike with that festival, no one walked out during a sweet moment between two of the women in the film. Maybe some people weren’t fully onboard with the unexpected romance (not really unexpected once you start watching, but it’s not a major plot-point in our marketing), but no one seemed overtly intolerant. The film as a whole got a ton of laughs in the right places, even some vocal affirmations to bits of dialogue throughout, and an overall positive response. It was one of my favorite audience-viewing experiences. I’d say top 3 overall. Also, the picture & sound quality were great. It was so cool screening in an actual theater (and at DCP quality, which the fest made for us from the mp4 file we sent)!


After the screening, we had a nice Q&A (though I wish there had been more time because I feel like people were starting to warm up to questions only towards the end), and we got some nice comments. While exiting, two women said “fantastic job, I loved it!” and many made eye contact with smiles & congratulated us on a job well done. Our car buddy Marianne said she loved the arc of the mom character and generally loved the optimism of the story. At a networking party later on, a local woman came to talk to us and raved about how much she loved it and even asked if it’d be possible to buy the donkey from the film because she loved her so much! Another woman encountered Kelsey and told her she loved it and thought it was “so sweet and cute,” before correcting herself to say “and artistic.” Kelsey said “we’ll take sweet & cute;” it's not not what we were going for! ;)

On the last day, before the awards, a man turned to me and said “we quite liked your film,” and then his wife turned around and got excited to recognize me and said, “we’ve seen almost every film and yours was one of my two favorites.” I was so grateful and chatted with them a bit (her other favorite was the feature Octav.) We didn’t end up winning any awards (though we were nominated for Best Picture & Christina Shea-Wright was nominated for Best Actress for her performance as Cecilia), but we did make the top 5 in Audience Votes (out of 56 eligible films). We were told it was super close, but a local film made by affiliates of the festival won. It’s really lovely that our little movie made in NY resonated with this audience of local Montanans! It shows how much about being human is universal and that we can see ourselves and our wants/needs in each other even if we’re not all exactly the same (#loveislove).


Overall, Kelsey & I had a blast. Flathead Lake is beautiful and the town is small but cute. (Food's not great, though.) The festival directors & staff were really nice & supportive. (And offered solid accommodations, like a free hotel room.) And the locals were super welcoming & truly excited to have us in their town with our film. I’m not sure I’ll ever make another film that suits their audience (they don’t really program genre work), but if I do, I’d definitely love to be back.

-Christina

Local Vegan Treat:

  • Polson is not vegan friendly, but they have a cute coffee spot (it’s like a truck but shaped like a tiny house), called Chipper Chick Coffee that Kelsey & I enjoyed stopping at. And if you’re ever in Missoula, even just passing through, you must find a Tandem Doughnut!

Catch the film next at:

P.S. Since I highlighted some films that screened in this recap (which I typically only do in posts on twitter), here are my other favorite films: shorts “Homecoming” by Jennifer Blair and “This Is Cindy” by Terance Miller. And the feature film “Ginger” is moving & powerful. I’m glad we’ll be screening with it again at Queens World. The filmmakers Melissa & Jimmy Boratyn were lovely and now new friends we have based in Chicago!

IndieWorks - January Recap

Last Tuesday was the January edition of IndieWorks! We screened 5 films and had over 50 people in house. The first set of films were intense & dramatic pieces, focused on past relationships coming back with consequences. The second set were lighter pieces, focused on feeling stuck or halted and unsure of what’s next, portrayed across very different styles & genres. Aside from one of the filmmakers not showing up and us needing to skip a 6th film we had programmed, the night went extremely well. We had a really engaged crowd with a lot of profound questions and comments during both Q&As.

We'd like to say thank you to everyone who came out to support the filmmakers and spend the evening with us & them. We do hope you enjoyed the films, as well as the opportunity to network with other filmmakers and film enthusiasts. We know some connections were made! AND we hope you'll join us again for our February screening on the 12th! It’ll be a sweet, silly, and sometimes sad mix of films about love, sex and relationships.

See photos from the evening:

The Films of the night:

The Long Wet Grass (Directed by Justin Davey, Written by Anna Nugent & Séamus Scanlon)
As dawn breaks over a remote lakeside in the West of Ireland, a car comes to a halt and a man all in black exits. He opens the boot (trunk) and we find there a terrified, barefoot woman. As he leads her to the edge of the lake they start to argue and we discover that they have been there before as children.

My Name is Somebody (Written & Directed by Orges Bakalli)
Bruno is living the 'American dream.' He has a loving wife, owns a bar and is expecting his first child. He is hiding a secret however; one he has spent the last twenty years hoping to hide. When a forgotten figure re-emerges and threatens all that he has built, Bruno must make amends with his past, before carrying on with his future. 

Still Life (Written & Directed by Jennifer Dean)
A short-short film celebrating the art that keeps us sane even when life makes us crazy. 

Cheese Shop (Written & Directed by Sammy Zeisel)
Takes place over the course of one long day at an artisan cheese shop. Ella, an out-of-work actress, struggles to wrap cheese in plastic, build trays, and cut every variety of cheese throughout her first day of work at the shop. Meanwhile, her life outside the shop appears to be falling apart: career failure, a break-up, and...bed bugs.

Future Unknown (Written & Directed by Makeba L. Ross)
On the afternoon of their college graduation, Mannie lets the fear of the future keep her from enjoying the day, while her friend Sunny tries her best to be happy for the both of them. 

Watch our Q&A Recap. *Please know there are some film spoilers - feel free to look for an opportunity to catch the films at a festival or computer screen near you & then come back to watch!

The awards go to...

At the end of the evening, we announced our winning filmmakers for both Audience Choice Award & Silver Whiskers Award. The Audience Choice Award is voted upon by all those in attendance, and the Silver Whiskers Award is judged by the CongestedCat Team based on a rating system of 8 categories:   StoryDialogue/WritingDirectionActingCinematographySoundEditing, and Production Value, along with a nuanced discussion focused on inclusion and originality. The Silver Whiskers winner goes on to screen again at our end of year Best of Fest screening next April. 

The Silver Whiskers winner also receives $50 towards a crowdfunding campaign on SeedandSpark.com should they use the platform and 50% off 4MileCircus' post-production audio cleaning service for a future project. 

For the January 2019 lineup, our winning films were:
    Audience Choice Award:  "Cheese Shop"
    Silver Whiskers Award:  "Future Unknown" 

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