
Next week we'll point you toward some of the
Ann Arbor Film Festival's best selections but for now let me drawn your attention to their
opening night festivities. If the past two years are any indication, this indie cinema shindig is probably the best ticket for entertainment this week.
The evening kicks off with a two hour food-filled, beer & wine-laden reception where you get to rub elbows with everyone who's anyone in local moviedom. It's an excuse to get dressed up in your movie premiere finery and act like you've seen everything
Kenneth Anger has every put to celluloid. Don't worry about being found out. Most of the other attendees don't know his work either. Heck, I'm a film critic and I can count what I've seen on two fingers.
At 8:15PM the silver screen comes alive with a cornucopia of short films carefully selected for the party-goers. Think of it as a cinematic sample platter. There will be plenty of tasty movie morsels mixed in with the more challenging experimental selections. You'll partake in a dozen films in all, and executive fest director Donald Harrison says the program will be enjoyable to "anyone with a pulse."
A bold assertion to be sure.
Personally, I can only vouch for three of the selections, but together they make for an entertaining combination of content and style. There's the deadpan camp trippiness of Chema Garcia Ibarra's
El Ataque De Los Robots De Nebulosa, Laurie Hill's delightfully animated
Photograph Of Jesus, where we learn of the ridiculous requests fielded footage researchers at the Getty Image Archive, and my friend Taylor Mali's slam poem-turned-animated-film Missed Aches, which warns of the treacherous errors that await writers who rely on spellcheck.
Tickets are $30 for the whole kit and caboodle ($20 if you're a member). Or, if you're anti-social, you can just hit the screenings for $9.
No matter how you slice it, AAFF offers up film experiences you won't find anywhere else and movies you're unlikely to encounter again. In other words: Don't miss it!