This year’s LunaFest features a strong showing of short subjects by and about women.
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| Akanksha (Akanksha Cruczynski), who takes her dog-sitting job quite seriously, ensures that the adorable — if overly pampered — Timothée never is out of her sight. |
Although this year’s offerings once again feature a wide variety of subjects and filmmaking styles, several are linked by an artistic response to the norm-shattering arrival of the Covid virus.
This topic is at the heart of Canadian filmmaker Andrea Dorfman’s How to Be at Home, a very cleverly animated “how-to” primer on coping with isolation during the first year’s soul-wrenching withdrawal from public contact. This 5-minute short — adapted from a poignant poem by Tanya Davis, which is narrated throughout — blends two- and three-dimensional animation to remind the viewer that we are united in our misery.
“If you’re really anxious, don’t worry,” the poem begins, “it’ll get worse.”
The subsequent suggestions range from wise to amusing, from “Hug a tree” to (my favorite): “Watch a movie, and watch all the credits … because you have time.”
Covid also influenced the “social experiment” at the heart of Emily McAllister’s Wearable Tracy, which profiles an adorably eccentric Bronx woman named Lee, who indulges in “design thinking.” She decided to wear a goofy “crown” made of pipe cleaners one day, as a means of celebrating her friend Tracy’s birthday.
Intrigued by the response this drew, Lee turned this gesture into a daily event with three firm rules: each day had to feature a new (and increasingly elaborate) “wearable Tracy” pipe cleaner crown; she had to wear it all day, at work and during her subway commute; and she had to ask the name of anybody who spoke to her about her unusual headwear.
As Lee explains, this got her past a life-long fear of judgment; it also broke down barriers, as it provoked — in a positive way — communication with strangers.
She did this every day, for more than a year … and then Covid hit. As for what Lee did next … well, that would be telling.
Samantha Knowles’ Generation Impact: The Coder is a jaw-dropping profile of 13-year-old Jay Jay Patton, who designed and built a mobile app that helps children stay connected — via photos and letters — with their incarcerated parents. She embraced this challenge after the difficulty she had visiting her own father, Antoine, during his prison time.
He learned coding and turned his life around while doing time, and then returned home to find that his young daughter had an astonishing aptitude for this skill. Now, thanks to the Photo Patch app, classes she teaches, and sponsorship by Hewlett-Packard, Jay Jay is determined to help bring 10,000 women of color into tech.
Abi Cole’s Between the Lines: Liz at Large is an engaging profile of Liz Montague, who — frustrated by the lack of character diversity The New Yorker’s cartoons — became the first Black woman cartoonist in the magazine’s near-century run. She’s thoughtful and witty, with an artistic style all her own.
My only complaint is that — at just 5 brief minutes — Cole’s film is too short. We need more time with Montague, and a much wider selection of her cartoons.
Sharon Arteaga’s When You Clean a Stranger’s Home is a contemplative study of the so-called “invisible people.” This little drama focuses on a first-gen high school student (Katy Atkinson) who grows to better appreciate the effort made by her mother (Soledad Bautista), when helping her clean the homes of more financially comfortable clients.
“I wonder,” the teen muses, while narrating her experience, “do [these people] appreciate everything they have?”
Director Shaleece Haas’ To the Future, with Love is an animated self-portrait of 19-year-old nonbinary trans Hunter “Pixel” Jimenez, a Los Angeles resident caught between the expectations of his Catholic Guatemalan immigrant family, and the seemingly impossible dream of living happily ever after with his long-distance boyfriend (who resides in Arkansas). They’ve never met, having found each other via social media, and the future holds nothing but uncertainty.
The cute animation mimics the drawing style of a young child, with figures given movement and personality against a colorful series of not-entirely-static backgrounds.
Akanksha Cruczynski’s Close Ties to Home Country — the longest entry, at 15 minutes (and my favorite) — is her own story: a millennial immigrant from India who, having cleverly outstretched her scholarship, is determined to remain in the United States … but also desperately misses her sister and family, back in India.
She makes ends meet as a dog-sitter, and her two newest clients are Harry and India (Simon Hedger and Cassie Kramer), two wealthy, entitled Instagram influencers. They dote on Timothée — “Don’t call him ‘Timothy’ ” — an adorable, sweater-wearing and immaculately groomed French bulldog with far more sensitivity than his two owners.
The film’s first half is a hilarious indictment of the loathsome Harry and India, who — despite trusting their dog to Akanksha — dismiss her as a non-entity. The tone turns more serious in the heartbreaking second act, as Akanksha tearfully confesses her fears and (quite legitimate) frustrations on the sympathetic shoulder of an older friend (Sophia Rafiqi).
Katherine Fisher’s Proof of Loss, finally, is disappointing. Despite the advantages of a better budget and professional cast — which makes the film look quite polished — Fisher tries to cram far too much plot and melodrama into her 14-minute short.
Although the core story has promise — a young adult daughter (Colette McDermott) tries to re-connect with her father (Dylan McDermott), following the loss of their home and community in a devastating fire — Fisher’s execution and “resolution” feel contrived, rushed and not the slightest bit credible. Both McDermotts look and sound like actors, rather than the characters they’re intended to play.
(The community never is named, but — given the time frame — it’s clearly Paradise, California, destroyed by 2018’s horrific Camp Fire.)
The 2022 LunaFest program will screen at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25, at the Davis Odd Fellows Hall; it also will be available online for 48 hours, starting at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23. Both versions will feature a short introduction Lisa Adda, president of Soroptimist International of Davis, who describes several of this local service organization’s terrific projects and sponsorships.
For further information, visit www.lunafest.org
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