Father Geek here in the middle of the Texas Hill Country with a report from our lovely island girl editor Ms. Moon Yun Choi and her ace #1 reporter Albert Lanier on the current Hawaiian Film Festival in phantastic Honolulu... Ahhhh, our on-the-scene reporters and editors have it pretty damn cool sometimes... ol' Quint's down in New Zealand for a month, and now this... Aint it cool?

INDIE FILM FEST UNVEILS ITS FALL SELECTIONS

by Albert Lanier

The opening day of the third edition of Cinema Paradise-Hawaii's Independent Film Festival- on Friday, September 17th felt more akin to the launch of a fashion show than a film festival.

By that, I do not mean that there were leggy, anorexic model types running around, getting the hair done, their faces painted, slipping into dresses that cost more than the operating budget of the City and County of Honolulu or say, an season worth of episodes of THE APPRENTICE.

What I am referring to is the sense of newness, of freshness that seems endemic to the world of fashion ( after all, how do you sell yesterday's type of dress in today's market? Make it sound fresh and exciting even though its old and boring) and is really transparent once one is able to see clearly.

However, Cinema Paradise really does seem different this year.

For one thing, the festival has moved to a different venue this year: the Varsity Theatres located on 1106 University Avenue several blocks down from the main campus of the University of Hawaii.

Varsity only has two theatres compared to the festival's former home for its past two years of existence: the 9 screen Wallace theater complex at Restaurant Row not far from Downtown Honolulu. Still, both Varsity's theatres have more seats compared to Wallace's tiny "screening rooms."

Another change this year is a "filmmaker's lounge"-actually its a box office and a lounge type area with tables and chairs not to mention a large screen and a couple of tv screens inundating ticket and pass buyers in line with images from surfing or time-lapsed experimental films which serve as the cinematic equivalent of elevator music-located on the same block and directly adjacent (a couple of paces maybe) to Varsity Theatres in the round Varsity Building.

The lounge is actually located on the bottom floor-a space formerly occupied years ago by one of the larger local banks, First Hawaiian, and most recently by Gubernatorial candidate Andy Anderson in 2002.

This year's basic thematic motif for Cinema Paradise is "What is Real, What is Unreal". An appropriate theme since what was real was my anger at having to wait over an hour to get all my tickets for this festival due to slightly slow computer systems and a measure of disorganization.

Even though I was really pissed (actually, I was slightly pissed to be honest with you) with the wait, I settled into a happier film watching mood as the screenings began.

Cinema Paradise 2004 officially began at 6:19 p.m. as Festival co-founder and co-Director Sergio Goes greeted the audience and introduced filmmakers Vilsoni Hereniko and Tomas Casas who directed the first films of the evening, the 87 minute feature THE LAND HAS EYES and the 6 minute experimental short SWEET SAMOA and both were mercifully short in their prologues to the films.

SWEET SAMOA was shown first. The short basically focuses on a Samoan fire-knife dancer in native garb in New York City but the film due to its experimental nature is visual not verbal. In fact, there are at least a couple of arresting images-a tattooed face juxtaposed off the back window of a subway car as a subway terminal comes into view and the Samoan dancer emerging on the street from a subway entrance/exit.

Perhaps the highlight of the film is the dancer performing the fire-knife dance with Manhattan or some part of the city as a backdrop (hard to tell, the background is too dark and hazy) while jazzy music pours forth on the soundtrack.

SWEET SAMOA is mildly diverting but nothing more. The contrast between so called "primative" and "civilized" cultures has been captured on film more times than I've had hot dinners and Casas treads ground walked by countless others with nothing new or interesting to offer here.

Also, the specific juxtaposition of Pacific Island over North America shown here is once again, nothing to write home about.

Still, the fire knife sequences are nice here-vivid and energenic even with heavy sax music and the disjonted otherworldly atmosphere created by the cinematography.

Casas also does a nice job layering some of his images, juxtaposing visuals to show contrasts that though often simplistic are at least interesting to watch.

I had already seen the next film THE LAND HAS EYES at this year's Hawaii International Spring Film Festival so I won't give a lengthy detailed review here other than to say that THE LAND HAS EYES is an intriguing through uneven first feature for UH Professor and Playwright Hereniko.

The film's folkloric core-revolving around ancient story of the rape by one of her brothers and abandonment of the Warrior Woman played effectively here by Rena Owen of ONCE WERE WARRIORS- is powerful and fascinating but the picture's overall story and plot centering on a young girl named Viki and her family who live on the island of Rotuma (located at least 300 miles from Fiji) is forced and uninteresting, a rather disapointingly simplistic melodrama.

Still, Iam hoping that Hereniko's next feature will be stronger and more potent stuff.

The last two films of the night for me were the short ESTILO HIP HOP and one of the festival's opening night films (the South African feature WOODEN CAMERA was the other screened that night) POINT AND SHOOT screened after 8:30 p.m. Both directors were in attendance.

ESTILO HIP HOP is a terrific documentary short (actually a work in progress doc that should be longer) that examines rap music culture in South America as a explicitly political phenomenon.

This work in progress film directed by Vigilio Bravo and Loira Limbal skips about from Chile to Brazil showing talking head interviews with rappers who discuss their musical passion as way to rhertorically support the poor and underprivileged, to criticize the prevailing political orthodoxies and establishments in Chile and Brazil and to provide not only a musical culture but a political one that embraces the youth of a number of South American nations.

Frankly, this was the most exciting film of the evening for me. I can't praise this film enough for showing a youth subculture that is vibrantly political and yet artistically alive.

Unlike American Hip-Hop and Rap- which I largely detest- that is (with the exception of Eminem and maybe a couple others) largely about gang murder, preening self-aggrandizement and misogyny, this is music and a musical culture that matters and that hopefully is flourishing in South American nations where there is clear and demonstrable oppression of poor and disenfranchised.

ESTILO HIP HOP certainly put me in the mood for the feature POINT AND SHOOT directed by photographer Shaun Reguto.

Revolving around the modeling subculture in New York, POINT AND SHOOT largely follows the relationship growing between model Athena Currey and the film's director Shaun Reguto.

I will review POINT AND SHOOT seperately but I will note that this feature which transgresses real-life and cinematic fiction does work though largely as a messy Cassavetes-type entertainment that as a meaningful look at the demimonde of the fashion world.

POINT AND SHOOT serves of course as a perfect example of the "What is real, What is unreal theme of Cinema Paradise this year but also buttresses the fashion world type feel of this year's fest.

And that's it for Day One, this is Albert Lanier pointing and shooting at many films as I can.

And of course, keeping it real.

TAKING AIM AT THE DENIZENS OF THE FASHION WORLD...

A "POINT AND SHOOT" REVIEW by Albert Lanier

It is apparent to all but the clueless that the highly charged and media saturated world of Fashion lends itself easily to filmic portrayal.

The question is: What kind of portrayal? Boisterous, comedic and entertaining or sobering , dramatic and disturbing?

POINT AND SHOOT-an independent feature which was screened in Honolulu, Hawaii as one of the opening night films of the Cinema Paradise indie film festival on Friday, September 17-sort of straddles both extremes though not always successfully in looking at the backstage lives of its fashionistas

Set in fashion conscious New York City, POINT AND SHOOT opens with a fashion shoot with a model named Athena (played by-what else?- an actual model named Athena Currey) who is posing for photos being snapped by Shaun Reguto ( who-shock of shocks- is an actual photographer) who also directed the picture.

The film then takes us on a video verite journey that largely focuses on Athena and Shaun as they find themselves falling for each other and becoming a couple.

While Athena and Shaun's relationship is the ostensible focus of POINT AND SHOOT, the heart of the film lies in its nakedly voyeuristic obsession with observing its subjects in their native habitat and the broaching the cinematic fourth wall by having its characters directly address the camera.

Whether its Shaun and Athena taking turns talking on camera to each other in a small urban playground, models doing heroin while hanging out and relaxing after a fashion show, Shaun's friends boasting about the models they've gotten in the sack as well as and Shaun getting chewed out by an executive during a photo shoot for the lackluster quality of his photos, POINT AND SHOOT strives for intimacy and a slight rawness by making us ever so conscious of the camera as well as a certain "arty" feeling by mixing still photos of Athena alongside the assemblage of episodes.

There are times when POINT AND SHOOT seems like an artifact from the 1960's-not in terms of the behavior of its characters but in the spirit behind the camera that animates it-especially in its choice of the people clustered in and around the fashion world for filmic examination.

For example-the idea of the photographer as artist seems as important here as it was in the 60's whether the photog was David Bailey or Diane Arbus.

However, this is the 21st century not the 20th and in this day and age, POINT AND SHOOT does work as a feature though barely.

What Regruto is good at in this his first feature is capturing the sort of raunchy, drugged out atmosphere of the backstage modeling world.

POINT AND SHOOT largely works as trashy entertainment, a vulgar good time. Take for example, a scene where a spirited session of truth or dare is indulged in after a fashion show and one of models is egged to give a blowjob to the person she's always wanted to orally satify and the model picks Shaun who then begins to have second thoughts since his girlfriend Athena is the room.

Athena is having none of it however and she eggs Shaun on, urging him to get his blowjob and stop wimping out.

This scene is one of the best in the film since it captures a certain behavioral immediacy and comes close to being an authentic moment.

Regruto is not as successful when he stages and shoots more dramatic material such as a one-shot scene with a model who admits she was raped in the past.

This confessional scene seems a little too formulaic and much too forced. Indeed when the ther characters try to get serious or thoughtful, their scenes just end looking a little too conscious and thought out.

This is a problem since POINT AND SHOOT aims for spontaneous, loose and relaxed performances in its actors so that don't seem like they are obviously acting. So, the more hamhanded dramatic scenes often end up fracturing this seemingly improvisational approach (even though the film was scripted) and making its participants seem a little more like actors and not actual persons who happen to be captured on camera.

In the end, I liked POINT AND SHOOT when its characters were freewheeling, funloving and pleasureseeking. When the film engages in naughty mirth, its a frigging good time because the characters and the scenes keep your attention and keep you laughing.

But the film fails when it plunges in sordid melodrama primarily because you see the strings and can tell this is a homemade "puppet show".

POINT AND SHOOT is a okay first effort, a so-so shot at cinema.

The great French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard noted that the history of the cinema is that of boys photgraphing girls. This quote is certainly true when Regruto captures Athena Massey's luminous blond beauty on Digital Video and in still photos.

Although I don't think Godard had the last image of this film in mind when he uttered the aformentioned statement.