Monday, 1 May 2000

THE OVERLOOKED FILM FESTIVAL DAY TWO

I'm writing this after The Overlooked has concluded. So, I know the ending. But don't worry. I won't ruin it for you. What I have caught onto is a sense of theme this year that seems to reach beyond films that have too small an audience and into Roger Ebert's heart of hearts. But that too I shall leave for tomorrow's wrap-up column, which will be up by noon, e.s.t. tomorrow due to my travel schedule. In the meantime, if you haven't seen the Overlooked pre-game and Day One, click on either to go to them.

What consumed Day Two of The Overlooked were four films: Legacy, The Terrorist, The Castle and A Woman's Tale. Now, you may well be familiar with two of the films on the Friday list. The Castle was released by Miramax last summer and, though it never passed the $1 million mark domestically, it was on as many as 56 screens during its run. And The Terrorist is making its way across America right now, with 7 prints in release. But it has been one of the word-of-mouth buzz art films of the year. Nonetheless, they both made it to Urbana on the simple principle that they deserve major audiences.

But the first film of the day was Legacy, a documentary by Tod S. Lending that premiered at Sundance this year. The film hasn't hit theaters or TV yet, so it hasn't had a chance yet to be overlooked. But virtually every documentary needs and deserves a champion. And Legacy is uniquely appropriate to this festival because it is a Chicago story. The story starts with the shooting of Terrell Collins, a 14-year-old of great promise despite living in Chicago's projects, whose death propelled his family into greater aspirations in their own lives. Documentarian Lending had chosen to do a doc about Terrell, but the young man was killed on the first day of shooting. And somehow, Lending knew that there was a story to be told by staying with the family. And so he did, for five long years, shooting all he could between the TV documentary gigs he does to make a living. And as the time passes, each family member seems to take his or her path towards a better future. Soon it becomes apparent that Terrell's spirit lives on in his cousin Nickcole, who also narrates the film.

Legacy should be required viewing for every inner city dweller. And those of us who curse the welfare class should be forced to watch at gunpoint, if necessary. Because the point is not to say that welfare is good and that this family has made the system work. In fact, the filmmaker believes in the abolition of the welfare system as we know it. But what the film does do is to remind us all of the humanity of those who are lost in the system. Nickcole Collins and her lost cousin Terrell are part of a third generation of a welfare family. And they both wanted out. And their mothers and grandmother all want out, even if they don't always know what they actually want or how to even start. This is a powerful bite of a terrible part of American life. But the nourishment is well worth your time.

The Terrorist is a completely fictional account related to a real-life event in India, the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, which was carried out by a woman with a bomb strapped under her clothes. In western film, the conceit is not so shocking. Movies like The Day of the Jackal and La Femme Nikita are entertainments. But in India, where the huge movie industry is almost 100 percent fantasy, the film and the filmmaker, Santosh Sivan, has to be embraced as revolutionary. The film is an intimate portrait of a woman and her mission of assassination. Unlike the cool professionalism of The Jackal (the original Fred Zinnemann film, not the convoluted remake) or the psychotic rage of Nikita, the assassin of this film, Malli, acts out of passion and is actually honored to be able to give her life for her cause. How does that affect a person? How much humanity can this woman afford to allow herself? These are big questions and we watch them answered in the eyes of Ayesha Dharkar, the actress who plays Malli.

Dharkar attended the festival and charmed everyone she met. (Besides that, she happens to be a babe, all 5' 3" of her.) And like so many of those involved this year, she didn't have that drive that so often turns people in this industry into inhuman machines. She seems to embrace the work before the fame. In fact, she took on this role without ever having met the director. He auditioned her through other representatives and didn't tell her that she had the role until after she was on the set. And on stage with Roger, she promised that she would never sell out and go Bollywood. What's Bollywood? That's the nickname for the Indian film industry that turns out romantic musical adventure after romantic musical adventure. An industry that Ayesha explains makes the tag "actress" an indicator of pure frivolity and brainlessness. None of that for this young woman, who got hired for the next Merchant-Ivory film while at the fest and is rumored to be a likely participant in Star Wars: Episode Two.

Also attending was the film's producer, Mark Burton, who also has a fascinating story. After all, he's a nice American boy who ended up producing movies in India. What happened? Work. Connections were made and opportunities were made from them. But unlike most people, Mark fearlessly took on the challenges. And now, he has an important indie film under his belt and is about to start a new film with Santosh Sivan. In the meantime, he's back home in Los Angeles, sucking back the smog.

Before we got to the 7 p.m. showing of The Castle, the festival celebrated the 28th anniversary of festival co-founding sponsors Joanne and Roger Plummer with a giant cake. Does this really matter to you, the Hot Button reader? Nope. But it does speak to the feel of this event. It is the most personal of festivals and that is a big part of the fun.

"Back to The Castle"