Bend Film Festival - Friday

Volunteering for the Bend Film Festival is a nice gig.  I was assigned the job of checking everyone in.  They gave me an iPad loaded with software to check tickets.  It was very easy to use and it took me about 30 minutes to get everyone into the theater.  For that 30 minutes of work, I got to watch a 2 hour movie.  Each of my shifts include 2 movies.

The first movie I saw was “Kite Zo A”.  This movie was a documentary about Haitian culture.  Singing, Dancing, Poetry, even roller skating.  I have to say that I was not wowed by this movie.  It wasn’t bad, I would probably give it some type of middle grade.  I thought two things were interesting.  

First, it presented Voodoo (spelled Vodou in this movie) as a religion with beautiful ceremonies rather than some scary eccentric rites.  It argued that Vodou was just as valid a religion as Christianity or Catholicism.  

Secondly, it looked at Carnival in Haiti.  They interviewed a man who is a policeman the other 51 weeks of the year.  During Carnival, he wears face paint, a mask and a costume.  He says that this is the one time of the year that he can be a completely different person.  He says that no one recognizes him and he can just let go.  They also interviewed an elementary school teacher who had similar experiences during Carnival.

One thing I did not enjoy was that a fair portion of the culture was based on oppression and despair.  Haiti was the first black republic in North America.  Many blacks went to the country hoping for a better life.  Unfortunately they found corruption and violence.

As I was leaving the theater, a lady behind me commented about how powerful the movie was.  I spoke with another volunteer and she loved the movie.  I researched the movie online.  It has a couple of awards at major film festivals.  Just goes to show that no one should listen to my movie reviews!

I really liked the second movie I saw on Friday, “Dusty and Stones”.  Two cousins from Swaziland (now known as Kingdom of Eswatini) in Africa developed a love for country music.  Through happenstance they get invited to a “battle of the bands” in Texas.  

If you think you will see this movie, please read no further.  I would like you to be surprised and entertained by the events of this movie.  The film festival has a virtual portion where you can view these films online next week.  Also, some of their songs are on Youtube.

The two cousins are very relatable.  I was rooting for them during the whole film.  I felt joy in their successes and sadness in their losses.  I was completely engaged in the movie.  The cousins had been performing in Africa for over 10 years with little success.  There is a scene with their manager.  He is exasperated, no matter what he does, the band finds little success.  It seems there is not much demand for country music performers in Africa.

One day out of the blue, they get an email inviting them to the Texas International Country Music Awards.  Someone had seen videos of them on Youtube and invited them (along with country performers from 16 countries) to Texas.

On their way to Texas, they are invited to record their music in a professional studio in Nashville.  Professional musicians created the arrangements for backing music for their songs (Note, I just butchered the last sentence.  I am not a musician and don’t know how to phrase it).  They had never performed with anything other than two guitars.  Now they had drums, fiddles, harmonicas and other instruments supporting their songs.  The cousins were completely blown away and so incredibly grateful for the help.  One cousin looked to the ceiling and said “Thank you God”.  It was very touching.

The actual Texas International Country Music Awards was very disappointing.  It was held in a small town in a ratty tent.  The tent could hold maybe 50 people and was never more than half full.  They were provided a backup group that either couldn’t or didn’t want to play the songs correctly.  When it came time to perform, one of the cousins thanked the hardworking backup band and then said that they were going to give the backup band a rest for a couple of songs.

I need to stop here.  I can think of about 10 other incredible scenes.  As you can tell, I thoroughly enjoyed this film.