New Mexico’s film future got a little brighter after last weekend’s first annual Santa Fe Independent Film Festival.
About 300 people attended the three-day event to watch provocative and politically controversial films from around the world.
Six weeks ago the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival was merely the pipe dream of two UNM alumni and filmmakers, Jacques Paisner and David Moore, Paisner said.
The indie festival is a grassroots alternative to the 10-year-running Santa Fe Film Festival held at the same time.
“We want to speak to filmmakers and tell them to never compromise their vision by doing something safer, just to get into some festival,” Paisner said.
Paisner and Moore also presented awards to filmmakers in their festival.
Lisa Hill won the Best Short award for her film “Dear John.” Hill said her film was about “the difference one woman, one lottery ticket and $111 million can make.”
The filmmaker said she started directing as a child.
“When I was a kid I would play Barbies and invent these long stories and tell people what to do with their Barbies,” Hill said. “Filmmaking is like playing Barbies. It’s just a lot harder.”
Hill said she wants to create another independent film in the next year. She said it would be about 30 minutes long and would retell the story of Calamity Jane, the wild woman of the West.
Norman Patrick Brown, a critically acclaimed Navajo filmmaker, screened his short film “Rez Hope,” which was funded by the New Mexico Department of Health and was part of PBS’s “Independent Lens” series.
Brown said he uses his camera to heal communities and to wake up young people to realize the value of their cultural background. He said his films are unique in that they are in the Navajo language with English subtitles.
“Basically I just integrate my ancient Navajo storytelling process with the Hollywood formula, and I use my language,” he said.
Brown played the teaser for his newest feature-length film, “Rainbow Boy,” which will come out next spring, at the awards ceremony on Saturday. He said the film is a message to the world that Mother Earth is going to rebel and we have to get our act together.
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Paisner said Gary Farmer accepted the best Body of Work Award for an Actor. Farmer is a veteran in the film industry who appeared in the 1989 comedy “Powwow Highway” and co-starred with Johnny Depp in “Dead Man.”
Farmer said finding truth in life comes from multiple voices telling their stories, and it’s good for filmmakers to have another place to submit their films and have their voices heard.
“Stuff that doesn’t get accepted there (Santa Fe Film Festival) still has an audience, and I think there is a place for both,” Farmer said.
Farmer directed a short film called “Powerball,” which was screened at the festival on Saturday and appeared in over 10 film festivals around the country.
The Santa Fe Independent Film Festival will show movies year round at the Santa Fe Complex on 632 Agua Fria St., which is the organization’s headquarters.
Paisner said UNM students get a discount on the entry fee if they want to have their films screened at the SF Complex. The group will also host a screenplay competition this spring, he said. *
For more info, visit
SantaFeIndependentFilmFestival.com*
