Sedona: Many Firsts on the Slate in 2008

A full week of outstanding independent film marked the emergence of the once-obscure Sedona International Film Festival (SIFF) into the limelight. Several films chose Sedona, Arizona, as the forum at which to unveil their world premieres. The charming family entertainment of Jake's Corner was one - fittingly, as it was filmed in its namesake town in Arizona. Others inlcuded The Big Shot-Caller, the first feature from award-winning shorts filmmaker Marlene Rhein; The Big Question, a documentary produced by Paulist Productions, the Vatican's official production company; and Brothel, an exquisite art film from Sedona native Amy Waddell.

From a young fest that had to beg studios to submit their movies, SIFF has grown to a respected film event to which studios now beg admittance. SIFF screened 150 films, offering movie lovers a varied slate of features, documentaries, shorts and foreign films jury-selected from more than 1,000 submissions, as well as a handful of selections from the Sundance Film Festival.

"Our audiences know by our track record that they will see new, cutting-edge and exciting cinema, in most cases before anyone else in the world gets the same chance," says Patrick Schweiss, SIFF's executive director. "Filmmakers know that festivals, particularly ours, look for films that are technically sound and thought-provoking that movie bookers may shy away from, for one reason or another. That could include being too cutting-edge, [having] low box-office expectations and even no star power.

"We tend to look at films from the 20,000-foot level in making selections because we believe the Sedona Film Festival is a double-sided platform: one for filmmakers looking for opportunities and the other for our audiences looking for unique, edgy and stimulating movie experiences." Not to mention workshops and panels with their own all-star casts that included Tom Nunan (founding partner of  Bull's Eye Entertainment, which produced Academy Award winner Crash), Barry Morrow (Emmy-winning writer of Bill and Oscar-winning writer of Rain Man) and Mary Stuart Masterson (who brought her directorial debut The Cake Eaters to the festival).

Music from the festival pavilion, punctuating the night air, and trails through Sedona's famed red rock country offered festival-goers some alternate entertainment options, but sold-out screenings from morning to midnight on even mid-week days were proof this was a seriously cinema-centric set.

Audience voting for the festival awards revealed how well-chosen the festival's film fare had been. Schweiss, presenting the awards on the festival's closing day, announced that, within many categories, scores differed by only tenths of a percentage point. These are films that are likely to continue amassing awards as they are accepted for screenings at other festivals.

New this year were the Georgia Frontiere and Bill Muller awards, founded in memory of, respectively, owner of the National Football League's St. Louis Rams who had been a longtime supporter of the Sedona International Film Festival, and the former Arizona Republic film critic, both of whom have recently passed away. Schweiss presented the inaugural Georgia Frontiere Memorial Scholarship to The Music In Me, a moving Australian documentary about The Merry Makers, a group of mentally challenged performers ranging in age from 6 to 56. The film also won the Director's Choice Award for Most Inspiring Documentary. Schweiss also presented the first Arizona Republic Bill Muller Award for Excellence in Screenwriting to Fields of Fuel, a riveting documentary by Josh Tickell about America's addiction to oil and the rise of the petrochemical industry. The film also won the Director's Choice Award for Most Compelling Documentary.

Directors' Choice Award Winners were: Best Feature - Ripple Effect; Best Documentary - Semper Fi, One Marine's Journey; Best Foreign Feature Film - Ben X; Best Short Film - Validation; Best Foreign Short Film - The Kolaborator; Best Foreign Language Short - VODA (Water); Best Humanitarian Short Film - In the Wake; Best Humanitarian Film - The Human Experience; Best Animation - Papiroflexia (Origami); Discovery Award-Winner - The Cake Eaters; Most Inspiring Documentary and winner of the Georgia Frontiere Memorial Scholarship - The Music In Me; Most Compelling Documentary and the winner of the Arizona Republic Bill Muller Award for Excellence in Screenwriting - Fields of Fuel; Best Director - Roger Donaldson, The Bank Job.

Audience' Choice Award winners were: Best Feature - The Flyboys; Best Documentary (tie) - Water Flowing Together; Best Documentary (tie) - Standing Silent Nation; Best Foreign Feature Film - Ben X; Best Short Film - Milk Bum; Best Animation - Papiroflexia (Origami); Most Requested Film - Dalai Lama Renaissance.

Also see MPM's exclusive 2008 SIFF From-the-Filmmaker article:
From Director Peyton Wilson - "When Speed and Angels Took Off"

Photos, from the top:
Sigourney Weaver in Girl in the Park; courtesy of Sedona International Film Festival
Forest Whitaker in Ripple Effect; courtesy of Sedona International Film Festival
Jump (documentary); courtesy of John Fletcher/Nutshell Productions
Dalai Lama Renaissance (documentary narrated by Harrison Ford); courtesy of Sedona International Film Festival