Buck in a Day

This evening I read a blog post that made me think about one of the best films I saw at this year's TrueFalse Film Fest and I realized I never wrote down anything about that film or this year's fest. Generally speaking, my part of  TF11 went pretty smoothly. The only hiccup was losing our primary panel videographers (and their cameras) a week before the fest. I ended up finding someone and had to borrow Kat's camera, but there was a recording head malfunction and we lost all the footage. Well, I suppose that's not entirely true, I have 20-30 seconds of every minute recorded. so really, I have 6-7 hours of footage, right? .... le sigh.

One of my main goals this year was to actually see some of the films as I was so busy last year, I didn't see a single one in it's entirety...just bits and pieces as I was moving through or setting up skypes. This year we had, I think 5 or 6 Q&A skypes with directors who couldn't make it. Actually I think I'll go into detail about that in another post as there are certainly things I'd like to commit to text sos I have a record for the future.

One of the best films I saw was our opening night film Buck...about a Horse Whisperererer. And I'm thinking...okay, I don't really care anything about horses..or their whispererers. But I trust David and Paul and they consistently choose some really great films so I might as well see it. Also, I'm going to be there anyway as our first skype is with the director of Troll Hunter and that's right after Buck. Anywhoo, here's the trailer:

And It blew me away, it's a beautiful and powerful film. Buck is such an interesting and passionate person...and his story is so well told there were tears in the theatre that evening. For it to be directed by a first time filmmaker is just amazing. It's also a perfect bookend with our closing night film Life in a Day:

which is impressive in it's own right...there's a powerful montage towards the end that brought me to tears - it's amazing what the right music can do. But really, what I liked most about both of them is they did what all great stories do, show us a truth about ourselves or the world around us. Buck showed us what it meant to be human, to really connect with others, even if they're on 4 legs. He showed us how we're all connected..to each other, to the land and how our actions can affect those around us and it forces us to take responsibility for those actions. Life in a Day took that to a broader scope. It showed us a world that was connected through the actions we all took on one single day. Every day people are born and die and get married and play in the park and suffer and try to just survive, and so we can close our eyes and try to imagine that it's only us in our little bubble ranting at the idiots on TV and slowly dehumanizing those who don't agree with us. Or we can see the world as it truly is...made up of people, doing great things, doing horrible things, but people none the less doing things for their own reasons. Both films show us our own humanity through different lenses, and ultimately, I think both are films of hope...and that's something we can always use more of.