This year’s Montana Film Festival at The Roxy features feature films with mega names. Montana’s own soon-to-be Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone is amazing in Fancy Dance, which had its premiere at Sundance and will be all the buzz when Killers of the Flower Moon makes people who aren’t us wonder, who is this Lily Gladstone? Ethan Hawke and Internet daddy Pedro Pascal depict a Strange Way of Life, a movie Vulture’s calling “a soapy gay Western!” (exclamation theirs). Julia Garner, the greatest screamer in the history of acting (Ozark), stars in Aussie thriller The Royal Hotel; and there’s also Eastwood and Unforgiven in 35mm, which is a whole thing.
In all that marqueedom, the shorts can get lost, but here’s a theory: Shorts is why film fests. They sparkle on a big screen! (exclamation mine). Shorts blocks spin you around on all your feels like an amusement park ride worth the wait. They’re the art these filmmakers want to make, where the budget is never as big as the intention, and the movie’s better for it. So get in line for both MTFF shorts blocks and hurry because tickets are going fast.
Shorts Bock 1 is Thursday and Sunday at 5:30 and Shorts Block 2 is Saturday at 7:45 and Sunday at 7:30. A few are also paired with feature films, including one we told you all about, Double Nickel, shot in Missoula, and running with a made-in-Montana feature, Blood For Dust, Friday at 8:15.
Here are five shorts I loved and, happy bonus, they are all directed by strong women in the film industry you may not know … yet.
Leaving Yellowstone
This 22ish-minute film starts with a landscape like no other and a flirtation between an attractive woman and a hunky dude that seems less unique–until some Polaroids show up in their weekend cabin, accompanied by some Get Out vibes. Leaving Yellowstone blends horror and female cunning with the beauty of our first national park. It feels like a wholly original combo, written and directed by Kayla Arend and executive-produced by Spike Lee. Arend, who grew up in Rochester, N.Y., graduated in 2013 from Montana State in Bozeman as part of its film program (fun fact: she also studied entomology there). As she made her way back east, she worked with Wyoming’s Jeff Hogan, who’s shot for National Geographic and the BBC and this movie, too, where he’s the wildlife cinematographer. His skills come into play with a hungry grizzly and a not-as-hungry mountain lion, who show up as sentinel bookends in Arend’s film. She now works as an adjunct at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where Spike Lee is a tenured prof apparently paying it forward. This film was Arend’s graduate thesis and it’s a solid example of her stated commitment to put memorable women at the center of her work. See it alongside Blood for Dust Saturday at 5:15 p.m.
Cherubs
Here’s a fantastic short that shows it’s not any easier to be a 13-year-old girl at a bougie arts camp in California than it is to be a 13-year-old girl anywhere. In Cherubs, Basia is the kind of 13 that hasn’t tipped over to recklessness, but she’s looking around for a chance to get there. She’s especially eyes-on with her roommate, Taylor, who shows up as a pick-me girl, but develops into a character more complicated. The tension quietly builds between Basia and a camp counselor, 19-year-old Matthew, who’s taken a shine to her that turns a sort of gray. What happens between them isn’t black and white, making this a pretty great window into the simmering reality of being an unsure, newly teenage girl in a post-MeToo world. The film’s edited by Marshall Granger, former co-director of the Montana Film Fest and maker of killer trailers for The Roxy and Big Sky Documentary Film Fest, along with lots of other interesting films (The Pulp’s working on a piece around a new one of his in the works about talk radio in Eastern Montana). Cherubs is written and directed by Anne-Sophie Bine, whose work revels in sexually ambiguous situations. Bine and Granger were both fellows at the AFI Conservatory Master of Fine Arts program. See it Thursday and Sunday as part of Shorts Block 1 at 5:30; both screenings followed by a Q&A with Granger.
Blue Hour
The photographer we meet in Blue Hour is a couple of things: broke (she’s trying to sell what’s clearly a prized possession, a Yashica-A camera with an 80mm lens) and savvy (she says no-thanks to a condescending guy trying to buy it for a lot less than it’s worth). After that cringe, Craigslisty exchange on the street, she gets back in her car and is about to pick up a rideshare when she gets a call. A woman who hired her for a $100 portrait session would like her to come sooner. When the photographer checks the address, she sees it’s a children’s hospital in L.A. And that’s where these women, both strong and in transition and seemingly solo, negotiate what can happen in an unforgettable few minutes. It’s a beautiful film written and directed by J.D. Shields from Atlanta and supported by Women In Film. See it as part of Shorts Block 2 on Saturday at 7:45 and Sunday at 7:30. Both screenings will be followed by a Q&A with Shields and producer Maya Korn.
The Glasses
Frances Chewning, who co-directs, produces and also plays the daughter in The Glasses, dedicated the film to her dad, Larry Lundy. He must have been like this short: smart and lovely. In the film, her dad is Joseph, played by John Pleshette, who was for many years Richard Avery on Knots Landing and, at one point, Lee Harvey Oswald in a different film. In these 15 minutes, he’s struggling some with Parkinson’s 20 years after his diagnosis. He’s still pretty strong, though not as energetic as his wife, Liz, who bounds down the stairs to greet their daughter, her husband and their toddler (played by Chewning’s actual daughter). Mainly, Joseph’s feeling “woozy.” His new doctor thinks it’s not so much a worsening of what exists, but a new and solvable problem: He needs new glasses. That’s it. That’s the premise, which bounces along with a fun minor character at “LensMakers” and an infectious, jazzy soundtrack. The most memorable scene involves a dad, his daughter, a carton of ice cream and a tender rendering of Shakespeare. See it as part of Shorts Block 2, Saturday at 7:45 and Sunday at 7:30 with Chewning in attendance for the Q&A.
Neo-Dome
Off in the distance is something worth maybe dying for, though what that is won’t be a mystery solved in this 15-minute film. Like the long, straight road leading to whatever promise or oblivion the Neo-Dome holds, this film needs to keep going. That it ends with wanting another 90 or so minutes is a credit to the direction, cinematography, the tension and, especially, the acting in this fabulous short. Anna Camp stars here and if you’re sitting there wondering if that’s Aubrey from the Pitch Perfect movies, let me be your IMDB–it is. She’s got some great chemistry with a driver who talks with his doofus brother and reluctantly agrees to let her in the backseat on the road to the dome. More IMDBing tells me the guy behind the wheel is Camp’s real-life ex-husband Mike Mosley (you might recognize him as Drew from Scrubs or the unlucky pastor from Ozark, but probably you won’t because he’s not so squeaky-looking in this role). From the opening shot of Camp in a sky-blue suit carrying a red gas can to the holy-shit close I won’t spoil, this one’s a ride. It’s written by Matt Pfeffer, co-produced by Camp and directed by Bonnie Discepolo, who’ll attend and answer questions after Shorts Block 2, Saturday at 7:45 and Sunday at 7:30.
