It was another successful year for the third annual Sun Valley Film Festival. Pass sales doubled from last year with about 3,000 people in attendance, and lines for popular films often wrapped around the block. At the end of each program, moviegoers hustled on to the next venue for the next screening, either at the Sun Valley Opera House, NexStage Theater, Community School, Magic Lantern or Liberty Theater in Hailey. Films were local and foreign, short and long, with budgets both big and small. Industry insiders shared their knowledge in intimate settings at Coffee Talks, Q&As and the Screenwriters Lab. There was something for everyone from film enthusiasts to future filmmakers.
To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the movie Clerks, Kevin Smith gave an entertaining and inspirational Coffee Talk at the NexStage Theater. It turns out Silent Bob just wanted to be heard… In the time before Facebook, Twitter, or even the Internet, Kevin Smith used film to communicate with others and ask, “Does anyone else think the way I do?” He made his early films based on personal experience by “pulling out fatty chunks of my heart,” he said.
In the beginning, he said he felt that “If I don’t make this, I will die.” After the money started coming in, his feelings changed to “If I don’t make this movie, I’ll make another one.” It had become a job and he was pressured to make commercial films that would pay the bills. These days he has found a way to get back in touch with his original creativity. Even though his life now, being more comfortable and less interesting, no longer provides good material for film, he is able to make movies just to see what they look like. It’s no longer about making money.
Making good films isn’t about having a big budget anyway. Less is more, according to Kevin Smith and many of the filmmakers who answered questions after the Short Films Program. Meaning, less money equals more creativity. Less time has the same effect. The film Baby Crazy, which was screened during the Short Films Program, had a budget of $1,000, most of which went to the rental of lenses. It was shot in a friend’s house with friends starring in it.
Pulling favors from friends was a common theme in a lot of the films. Delicious Ambiguity was shot over a weekend with a group of friends in the producer’s home from a script that had been written in a couple of hours. Having a group of people that work well together is essential to the filmmaking process running smoothly, which is why the same group can often be seen in multiple films.
Other projects in the festival were much more intensive. The World Premiere of Nat Geo WILD’s Kingdom of Apes represented over fifty years of Jane Goodall’s research and over twenty years of footage. It chronicled the politics, power struggles and compassion of apes in the Gombe Stream National Park of Tanzania, Africa.
Immediately preceding that film was a screening of the three finalists of the WILD to INSPIRE Short Film Competition. The winner of which was Wolf Mountain by Dan Duran, Sam Price-Waldman and Brendan Nahmias. Their prize was a trip to African Wildlife Foundation’s Maasai Steppe landscape in Tanzania. There, they will apprentice with Emmy Award-winning National Geographic filmmaker Bob Poole and act as documentarian of record for Tarangire National Park, Lake Manyara National Park and Manyara Ranch.
With three successful years behind them, the Sun Valley Film Festival it is sure to become even bigger and better in the coming years. Keep an eye out.
