"Roll Out Cowboy," documentary feature
Indie films give character actors the chance to star, film editors the chance to direct and young actors the chance to enter the industry.
“That’s why they’re so interested in it,” says Mary Blackwood, 53, of Iowa City, president of the Landlocked Film Festival running tonight through Sunday (Aug. 26 to 29) in downtown Iowa City.
Indie film festivals give their work a chance to be seen. That’s why so many of them are converging on Iowa City, toting more than 80 films from narrative features and documentaries to music videos and animation.
Industry insiders are making the Los Angeles to Landlocked trek this year, bringing their expertise to workshops and panels. Many have Iowa ties, including “First Stop, Iowa,” an Australian documentary that follows at the 2008 presidential caucus trail in Iowa. Others have Iowa natives at the helm or in starring roles.
All are anxious to hear audience reaction to their creative endeavors.
“With big film festivals like Sundance, all the people who come are filmmakers or in the business,” says Fort Dodge native Christopher Hutson, 45, who directed and produced “Ashley’s Ashes” with college friend turned business partner Chris Kazmier, 47. “With Landlocked, it’s an audience who comes — people who go to watch the movies. That’s what this film is for.”
Hutson and Gress will be at the Film’s Green Carpet festivities at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Englert
Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., and will answer audience questions afterward.
While “Ashley’s Ashes” tells a fictional tale reflecting on life, “From the Badlands to Alcatraz” reflects life-changing lessons gleaned from a factual journey of discovery.
The 56-minute documentary follows a group of American Indian youths as they plunge into unknown territory to swim from Alcatraz Island to the San Francisco shore in September 2005. One young woman didn’t even know how to swim at the start of six days of intensive training in the Bay Area.
The program is the brainchild of Dr. Nancy Iverson, 58, of San Francisco. Born in South Dakota, she graduated from Ottumwa High School, earned her medical degree from the University of Iowa and spent several two- to three-week stints working in a hospital on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in the mid-1990s.
Iverson will join a panel from the UI college of Public Health to answer questions and discuss issued raised in the documentary following a screening at 5 p.m. Friday at the Englert.
This was her first foray into filmmaking. She is thrilled with audience reaction to the film, which has been garnering awards at various festivals since it’s November 2009 premiere at the San Francisco American Indian Film Festival.
— DIANA