San Luis Obispo International Film Festival

Best of the SLO Film Fest

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Photo caption: The Gaelic thriller AONTAS. Courtesy of SLO Film Fest.

The 2025 SLO Film Fest opens tomorrow. I’ve screened over a dozen of the features, and here are four that you shouldn’t miss:

  • Aontas: This clever Irish thriller opens with three women donning balaclavas, brandishing guns and bursting into a credit union, a heist going wrong. Who are they? Who are they to each other? What is their plan? This is not techie Dublin. They are in a Gaelic-speaking western village, already on hard times when a smug sociopath loots the town by closing its last economic engine. In his second narrative feature, director and co-writer Damian McCann brilliantly unspools the story in a reverse chronology. Carrie Crowley and Brid Brennan are excellent as two estranged sisters with a shared horror in their past.
  • Made in Ethiopia: Businesswoman Motto is the face of a huge, new Chinese industrial park in Ethiopia. How huge? A factory with 3,000 workers is just one of its 130 businesses – and Motto is working on an 18,000-acre expansion. Motto is smart, zealous, charismatic and utterly non-ironic. Along with the other Chinese, she has drunk the Koo-Aid and sees the park as entirely benevolent – bringing large scale employment and investment to a poor and neglected society. A visiting Chinese official exclaims, “it’s just like China used to be!“. All of the workers are Ethiopian, who earn $50 per month in what is essentially a clean and gleaming sweatshop. All of the supervisors are Chinese who have left their families behind in China. The local farmers feel ripped off by their government, and an armed rebellion may be brewing. Apart from a global pandemic, what could possibly go wrong? In their first feature, directors Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan have created a brilliant exploration of clashing cultures and economic imperialism.
  • The Cigarette Surfboard: To raise consciousness about the environmental impact of cigarette butts (which is really, really bad), an activist builds and displays a functioning surfboard made out of 10,000 discarded cigarette butts picked up on the beach.  Backed by a community of surfers, scientists and surfer-scientists, he tours the world, seeking a ban on cigarette filters. Impressively, the Ciggy Board even survives Mavericks. The butt-gathering, surfboard building and local politics happens in Santa Cruz. This doc has racked up awards at many film festivals (even at one in Bulgaria).
  • Coastal: This film documents Neil Young’s most recent tour, a bus trip down and up the California coast for outdoor concerts in LA, San Diego and Berkeley. Young performs almost all new material, alone onstage except for his guitars, harmonica and a series of ancient pianos and an organ, each with its own back story. But the time on the bus is the most fun, featuring the banter between a wry, comfortable Young (with none of his renowned prickliness) and bus driver/raconteur Jerry Don Borden. This is director Daryl Hannah’s third Neil Young doc, and it’s an unusually intimate and authentic film. Neil Young and Daryl Hannah are expected to appear at the fest’s closing night screening at the Fremont Theater.
Neil Young in COASTAL. Courtesy of SLO Film Fest.

And here are two that I haven’t yet seen yet, but I think they’re pretty good bets:

  • The Baltimorons: A cracked tooth sends a guy to an emergency dentist and launches a nighttime adventure through Baltimore that could result in romance. We’re expecting The Baltimorons to reflect the sharp comic sensibility of writer-director Jay Duplass, who will appear to receive an award and present this film at the Fremont Theater. With his brother Mark, Duplass wrote and directed Baghead, Cyrus and Jeff Who Lives at Home, and has been busy directing/producing in television and acting (Transparent, Lynn Shelton’s Outside In). This is the first feature he has directed since 2012. At its world premiere just weeks ago, The Baltimorons won the Best Narrative Feature award at SXSW.
  • Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion: If ever a fashion designer dominated the Hollywood red carpet, it is Bob Mackie. Cher, Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters, RuPaul and Tom Ford are all featured in this biodoc. After Monday’s screening at the Palm, Bob Mackie will appear to receive the festival’s King Vidor Award at the Hotel San Luis Obispo.

There are plenty more experiences at the fest, including features, workshops and six programs of shorts. Peruse the program and get your tickets at SLO Film Fest. Here are the trailers for Made in Ethiopia and The Cigarette Surfboard.

Surf and Skate at the 2025 SLO Film Fest

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Photo caption: Surf Nite in SLO. Courtesy of the SLO Film Fest.

This year’s SLO Film Fest, opening April 24, once again presents the richest Surf/Skate program that I’ve ever seen at a mainstream film festival. In fact, the SLO Film Festival dedicates its Friday night and Saturday night showcase screenings at the Fremont Theater to Surf/Skate events – that’s respect. Here are the highlights.

The always popular Surf Nite in SLO features three surfing short films with gnarly waves. Expect the Fremont Theater to be packed again with surfers enjoying drinks in the lobby and the Riff Tide surf band before the screening. The films are:

  • Making Waves: The Lakey Peterson Story profiles 805-native Lakey Peterson and her experiences on the World Surf League Championship Tour.
  • Creatures of Habit explores extreme cold water surfing,
  • NØ WAY involves even colder water and is described as “an antithesis to The Endless Summer“. It follows a band of surfers in the Barents Sea, which is between the northernmost coasts of Norway, Finland and Russia and the Arctic Ocean
Leandre Sanders in SKATEGOAT. Courtesy of SLO Film Fest.

For the second year, SLO Film Fest celebrates the culture and cinema of skateboarding with its Community of Skate program:

  • The feature film Skategoat profiles Leandre Sanders, whose passion for skateboarding led him to escape a crime-ridden and impoverished environment to become an international skateboarding superstar. Sanders will appear personally, along with the director, Van Alpert.
  • The short film Against the Current airs the reflections of skate icon and filmmaker Stacy Peralta on his own artistic journey. A surfer and one of the pioneers of modern skateboarding, Peralta, directed Dogtown and Z-boys and Riding Giants, wrote Lords of Dogtown, and founded the Powell Peralta skateboard product company. 
  • A post-screening panel with pro skaters Leandre Sanders and Chico Brenes, skate film director Aaron Meza, and Skategoat director Van Alpert.
  • An exhibition of skateboard designs and live-screen printing by the San Luis Obispo High School Advanced Graphic Design class. 
Photo caption: Jack Johnson in THE CIGARETTE SURFBOARD. Courtesy of SLO Film Fest.

The fest’s program also includes the enviro documentary feature The Cigarette Surfboard. To raise consciousness about the environmental impact of cigarette butts (which is really, really bad), an activist builds and displays a functioning surfboard made out of 10,000 discarded cigarette butts picked up on the beach.  Backed by a community of surfers, scientists and surfer-scientists, he tours the world, seeking a ban on cigarette filters. Impressively, the Ciggy Board even survives Mavericks. The butt-gathering, surfboard building and local politics happens in Santa Cruz. This doc has racked up awards at many film festivals (even at one in Bulgaria).

Check out the program and get your tickets at SLO Film Fest. Here are the trailers for Skategoat and The Cigarette Surfboard.

First look at the 2025 SLO Film Fest

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Photo caption: Neil Young in COASTAL. Courtesy of the SLO Film Festival.

The 2025 SLO Film Fest opens on April 24 and celebrates its 31st festival, bringing its characteristic mix of aspirational cinema and sheer fun to California’s Central Coast. This year’s slate is an intoxicating mix of US and international indies and festival hits fresh from their premieres at Sundance and SXSW. Plus the richest program of surf and skate films of any mainstream film festival. The fest will run through April 29.

This is the first festival since the the SLO Film Center came into being as a collaboration of the SLO Film Festival and the Palm Theatre. Fittingly, the Palm will be showcasing some films and celebrity appearances, with the festival’s biggest events at the Fremont theatre. As usual, most screenings will take place at the Downtown Centre 7. One surfing-oriented feature will screen at the Bay in Morro Bay.

Jay Duplass appearing at the SLO Film Fest, Courtesy of the SLO Film Festival.

Here are festival highlights:

  • The opening night film is the Sundance Audience Award winner, DJ Ahmet.
  • The closing night film will be Coastal, Daryl Hannah’s documentary of the latest Neil Young concert tour. Both Neil Young and Daryl Hannah are expected to appear in person.
  • Director Jay Duplass will appear in person to receive an award and present his SXSW hit The Baltimorons.
  • The biodoc Bob Mackie: A Naked Illusion, with the fashion designer Bob Mackie in attendance for a Q&A at the Palm..
  • The Oscar-nominated documentary Porcelain War.
  • The always popular Surf Night featuring three surfing short films with gnarly waves. Expect the Fremont to be packed again with surfers enjoying drinks in the lobby and the Riff Tide surf band before the screening.
  • Skating culture is celebrated with the second annual Community of Skate – skate films, a panel of pro skaters and skate filmmakers, and a skateboard design exhibition.

There’s plenty more, with features, workshops and six programs of shorts. I’m screening my way through the program, and will post my MUST SEE recommendations before the fest opens. Peruse the program and get your tickets at SLO Film Fest.

DJ AHMET. Courtesy of the SLO Film Festival.

CHASING CHASING AMY: origins of love, fictional and otherwise

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Photo caption: Sav Rodgers in CHASING CHASING AMY. Courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment and Kino.

In the irresistible documentary Chasing Chasing Amy, filmmaker Sav Rodgers tells his own highly personal story of finding sanctuary in a romantic comedy, a movie that ultimately spurs a both a filmmaking career and his transition to trans man. Rodgers weaves in parallel tracks, the origin story of the 1997 movie Chasing Amy, and thoughtful discussion of how that film, after 25 years of cultural evolution, has aged. Chasing Chasing Amy seamlessly braids together the fictional love story in Chasing Amy with the stories of real life relationships, including his own.

Chasing Chasing Amy‘s writer-director Savannah Rodgers grew up a bullied lesbian in small town Kansas, and found lesbian representation in an old DVD of Chasing Amy, which became a lifesaver. When Kevin Smith himself heard Rodgers’ TED Talk, he connected with Rodgers and supported her (and then his) filmmaking career. All this is contained in Chasing Chasing Amy along with some revelations.

The novelty of Chasing Amy is a straight man and a lesbian as inseparable soulmates, and we learn that Kevin Smith modeled this after his real life friends, his producer Scott Mosier and the screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Turner had written the lesbian coming of age film Go Fish, which was on the festival circuit along with Smith and Mosier’s Clerks; Turner later wrote the screenplays for American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.

But the core of Chasing Amy’s narrative is a love affair sabotaged by the guy’s insecurities, mirroring Smith’s own less-than-two-year relationship with Joey Lauren Adams, who plays Alyssa, the main female character.

Rodgers meets Smith himself, who becomes a mentor, and we get current on-camera interviews with Smith, Adams and other principals. There’s a shoulder-to-shoulder joint interview with Smith and Adams, followed by a sobering solo interview with Adams. Along the way, Rodgers matures from a gushing fan girl to a grownup who recognizes the personal flaws that complicate other people’s relationships. Smith comes off well here, and if Rodgers seems too adoring of Smith in most of the film, just wait until her final interview with Joey Lauren Adams.

Chasing Amy was director Kevin Smith’s 1997 masterpiece, with a groundbreaking lesbian/bi-sexual leading lady; but, after 25 years of cultural evolution, some elements now seem stale and even embarrassing. The leading male character is Holden, played by Ben Affleck. His buddy and wingman is Banky, played by Jason Lee, and Banky (to Lee’s off camera discomfort) is unspeakably vulgar and homophobic, a whirlpool of toxic masculinity. But of course, Banky is there to highlight Holden’s comparative evolved tolerance and openness. As an exasperated Kevin Smith says, ‘Banky is the idiot“. However, were Smith to make the same movie today, he would certainly still make Banky offensive, but not so over-the-top offensive.

Some viewers saw in Chasing Amy a toxic male fantasy of a “the right” straight male being able to “convert” a lesbian to heterosexuality. But Alyssa is a bisexual character, as is explicitly depicted in the movie when her lesbian friends react to her fling with Holden. She’s just a bisexual who is more than he is emotionally able to handle.

The story of Sav Rodgers winds from Kansas and the TedTalk, through her long relationship and now marriage, and final, the transitioning into a he/him trans man. Rodgers grows from a naïf into a grown ass man, albeit one that is still earnest, sweet and wears his emotions on his sleeve.

That Rodgers tells such a highly personal story along with the origin story of Chasing Amy and subsequent film and cultural criticism is impressive and ever watchable. I screened Chasing Chasing Amy for the San Luis Obispo Film Festival. It releases into theaters tomorrow.

TOKYO COWBOY: he came, he saw, he changed

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Photo caption: Goya Robles and Arata Iura in TOKYO COWBOY. Courtesy of Salaryman.

The charming dramedy Tokyo Cowboy centers on a Japanese corporate turnaround artist, Hideki (Arata Iura). Confident that he has the secret sauce to recharge any stagnant brand, he’s got a slick pitch deck (with a snapshot from his own childhood), and he’s engaged to the corporate vice-president he reports to. His company is about to liquidate a money-hemorrhaging cattle ranch in Montana, when he parachutes in for a quick fix. His Japanese beef consultant goes hilariously native, and Hideki, a smart guy, immediately sees that his idea for a quick fix was mistaken. Now unsettled and off the grid in an alien culture, Hideki recalibrates his values and his life goals.

Arata Iura’s performance is exceptional, especially since the character of Hideki is a restrained man from a very reserved culture, a cypher who is dramatically changing internally. Ayako Fujitani is very good a Hideki’s fiancé/boss Keiko. Robin Weigert (Calamity Jane in Deadwood) is excellent as the ranch manager. Jun Kunimura (222 IMDb credits) is hilarious as Hideki’s cattle expert.

Arata Iura and Ayako Fujitani in TOKYO COWBOY. Courtesy of Salaryman.

It’s the first narrative feature for director Marc Marriott, who, with cinematographer Oscar Ignacio Jiménez, creates a Big Sky setting that could reset any of us in need of self-discovery. Some directors would have ruined this story by making the fish-out-water comedy too broad or the self-discovery too self-important, but Marriott strikes the perfect tone. The screenplay was co-written by Ayako Fujitani (who plays Keiko)) and Dave Boyle.

I screened Tokyo Cowboy for the SLO Film Fest, where it won the jury award for Best Narrative Feature. Tokyo Cowboy opens on September 28 at the Lark in Larkspur and on October 25 at the Palm in San Luis Obispo.

CHASING CHASING AMY: origins of love, fictional and otherwise

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In the irresistible documentary Chasing Chasing Amy, filmmaker Sav Rodgers tells his own highly personal story of finding sanctuary in a romantic comedy, a movie that ultimately spurs a both a filmmaking career and his transition to trans man. Rodgers weaves in parallel tracks, the origin story of the 1997 movie Chasing Amy, and thoughtful discussion of how that film, after 25 years of cultural evolution, has aged. Chasing Chasing Amy seamlessly braids together the fictional love story in Chasing Amy with the stories of real life relationships, including his own.

Chasing Chasing Amy‘s writer-director Savannah Rodgers, grew up a bullied lesbian in small town Kansas, and found lesbian representation in an old DVD of Chasing Amy, which became a lifesaver. When Kevin Smith himself heard Rodgers’ TED Talk, he connected with Rodgers and supported her (and then his) filmmaking career. All this is contained in Chasing Chasing Amy along with some revelations.

The novelty of Chasing Amy is a straight man and a lesbian as inseparable soulmates, and we learn that Kevin Smith modeled this after his real life friends, his producer Scott Mosier and the screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Turner had written the lesbian coming of age film Go Fish, which was on the festival circuit along with Smith and Mosier’s Clerks; Turner later wrote the screenplays for American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.

But the core of Chasing Amy’s narrative is a love affair sabotaged by the guy’s insecurities, mirroring Smith’s own less-than-two-year relationship with Joey Lauren Adams, who plays Alyssa, the main female character.

Rodgers meets Smith himself, who becomes a mentor, and we get current on-camera interviews with Smith, Adams and other principals. There’s a shoulder-to-shoulder joint interview with Smith and Adams, followed by a sobering solo interview with Adams. Along the way, Rodgers matures from a gushing fan girl to a grownup who recognizes the personal flaws that complicate other people’s relationships. Smith comes off well here, and if Rodgers seems too adoring of Smith in most of the film, just wait until her final interview with Joey Lauren Adams.

Chasing Amy was director Kevin Smith’s 1997 masterpiece, with a groundbreaking lesbian/bi-sexual leading lady; but, after 25 years of cultural evolution, some elements now seem stale and even embarrassing. The leading male character is Holden, played by Ben Affleck. His buddy and wingman is Banky, played by Jason Lee, and Banky (to Lee’s off camera discomfort) is unspeakably vulgar and homophobic, a whirlpool of toxic masculinity. But of course, Banky is there to highlight Holden’s comparative evolved tolerance and openness. As an exasperated Kevin Smith says, ‘Banky id the idiot“. But, were Smith to make the same movie today, he would certainly still make Banky offensive, but so much over-the-top offensive.

Some viewers saw in Chasing Amy a toxic male fantasy of a “the right” straight male being able to “convert” a lesbian to heterosexuality. But Alyssa is a bisexual character, as is explicitly depicted in the movie when her lesbian friends react to her fling with Holden. She’s just a bisexual who is more than he is emotionally able to handle.

The story of Sav Rodgers winds from Kansas and the TedTalk, through her long relationship and now marriage, and final, the transitioning into a he/him trans man. Rodgers grows from a naïf into a grown ass man, albeit one that is still earnest, sweet and wears his emotions on his sleeve.

That Rodgers tells such a highly personal story along with the origin story of Chasing Amy and subsequent film and cultural criticism is impressive and ever watchable. I screened Chasing Chasing Amy for the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival where it led my Best of the SLO Film Fest. I’ll let you know when it’s available to stream.

The best of the 2024 SLO Film Fest

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June Squibb and Fred Hechinger appear in THELMA by Josh Margolin. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by David Bolen.

The 2024 SLO Film Fest has opened. I’ve screened over a dozen of the features, and here are four that you shouldn’t miss:

  • Thelma: The closing night film is a hoot, starring 93-year-old June Squibb (Oscar-nominated for Nebraska) in an action picture. Squibb plays a scammed senior who goes on a quest to recover her money from the scammers. Thelma is a lot more than a broad geezer comedy, and the relationship between Thelma and her foundering, Gen X grandson (Fred Hechinger) is very heartfelt. Squibb and Hechinger are both great, and Thelma also features indie favorite Parker Posey and the sweet final performance of Richard Roundtree (Shaft). It’s a surefire audience-pleaser, and I predict that Thelma will become a word-of-mouth hit when released in late June. See it first at the SLO Film Fest.
  • Chasing Chasing Amy: In this irresistible documentary, filmmaker Sav Rodgers tells his own highly personal story of finding sanctuary in a romantic comedy that ultimately spurs a both a filmmaking career and his transition to trans man. Rodgers weaves in parallel tracks, the origin story of the 1997 movie Chasing Amy, and thoughtful discussion of how that film, after 25 years of cultural evolution, has aged. We learn that Kevin Smith modeled the novelty of a straight man and a lesbian as inseparable soulmates after his real life friends; the core of Chasing Amy is a love affair sabotaged by the guy’s insecurities, mirroring Smith’s own less-than-two-year relationship with Joey Lauren Adams, who plays the titular character. Rodgers meets Smith himself, who becomes a mentor, and we get current on-camera interviews with Smith, Adams and other principals. Along the way, Rodgers matures from a gushing fan girl to a grownup who recognizes the personal flaws that complicate other people’s relationships. Chasing Chasing Amy seamlessly braids together the fictional love story in Chasing Amy with the stories of real life relationships, including his own.
  • Tokyo Cowboy: This charming dramedy centers on a Japanese corporate turnaround artist, Hideki (Arata Iura). Confident that he has the secret sauce to recharge any stagnant brand, he’s got a slick pitch deck (with a snapshot from his own childhood), and he’s engaged to the corporate vice-president he reports to. His company is about to liquidate a money-hemorrhaging cattle ranch in Montana, when he parachutes in for a quick fix. His Japanese beef consultant goes hilariously native, and Hideki, a smart guy, immediately sees that his idea for a quick fix was mistaken. Now unsettled and off the grid in an alien culture, Hideki recalibrates his values and his life goals. It’s the first narrative feature for director Marc Marriott, who, with cinematographer Oscar Ignacio Jiménez, creates a Big Sky setting that could reset any of us in need of self-discovery.
  • Riding Giants: Monday, April 29: The movie at the SLO Film Fest’s very first Surf Nite was this 2004 surf doc. Riding Giants focuses on the obsessive search for the best wave by some of the greatest surfers in history. We see “the biggest wave ever ridden” and then a monster that could be bigger.  The movie traces the discovery of the Half Moon Bay surf spot Mavericks.  And more and more, all wonderfully shot. IMO, Riding Giants ranks with Dana Brown’s Step into Liquid as the greatest surf documentary ever. Riding Giants was directed by Stacy Peralta, a surfer, a pioneer of modern skateboarding, and a founder of the Powell Peralta skateboard product company. Peralta, who also directed Dogtown and Z-boys, will attend the screening. Fittingly, Riding Giants screens at the Bay in Morro Bay – only one mile from the surf lanes at Morro Rock.

Here’s the trailer for Chasing Chasing Amy.

Surf and Skate at SLO Film Fest

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DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS

This year’s San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, opening April 23, presents the richest Skate/Surf program that I’ve ever seen at a mainstream film festival. Here are the highlights.

  • Friday, April 26: The always popular Surf Night featuring Trilogy: New Wave. Expect the Fremont to be packed again with surfers enjoying drinks in the lobby and the Riff Tide surf band before the screening. The documentary Trilogy: New Wave profiles three emerging pro stars on the world tour as they travel together to some of the world’s top surf destinations. The young guys are engaging and the audience will be stoked by the cinematography.
  • Sunday, April 28: The award-winning 2001 skateboard documentary Dogtown and Z-boys with the 2023 short 4DWN. The director of Dogtown and Z-boys, filmmaker and skateboard icon Stacy Peralta will attend; a surfer and one of the pioneers of modern skateboarding, and a founder of the Powell Peralta skateboard product company, Peralta also wrote the 2005 Lords of Dogtown. Beforehand, the audience can enjoy custom skateboard designs, with live-screen printing of these custom designs by the San Luis Obispo High School Advanced Graphic Design class.
  • Monday, April 29: The movie at the SLO Film Fest’s very first Surf Nite was the 2004 surf doc Riding Giants, also directed by Stacy Peralta. Riding Giants focuses on the obsessive search for the best wave by some of the greatest surfers in history. We see “the biggest wave ever ridden” and then a monster that could be bigger.  The movie traces the discovery of the Half Moon Bay surf spot Mavericks.  And more and more, all wonderfully shot. Fittingly, Riding Giants screens at the Bay in Morro Bay – only one mile from the surf lanes at Morro Rock. IMO, Riding Giants ranks with Dana Brown’s Step into Liquid as the greatest surf documentary ever.
RIDING GIANTS

Other skate/surf films include:

  • the seminal 1978 skateboard film Skateboard.
  • the 2024 documentary Art and Life: The Story of Jim Phillips, chronicling the most important figure ever in skateboard art (most famously the Screaming Hand and the Santa Cruz Red Dot). Phillips is a very sympathetic guy with an interesting personal journey. It’s well-sourced deep dive into skateboard art, skateboard manufacturing, surfing art and rock poster art, and almost everything happens just up the coast in Santa Cruz.

The entire surf and skate program at SLO Film Fest shreds. Here’s a clip from for Riding Giants:

First Look at the 2024 SLO Film Fest

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June Squibb and Fred Hechinger appear in THELMA by Josh Margolin. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by David Bolen.

The 2024 SLO Film Fest opens on April 25 and celebrates its 30th festival, bringing its characteristic mix of aspirational cinema and sheer fun to California’s Central Coast. This year’s program will be presented at the Fremont, Palm and Downtown Centre in San Luis Obispo, and the Bay in Morro Bay. An encore week will play at at Paso Robles’ Park Cinemas May 1-5. There will also be a Virtual Encore for selected titles, also May 1-5.

Here are festival highlights:

  • The closing night film is a hoot – Thelma, starring 93-year-old June Squibb (Oscar-nominated for Nebraska) in an action picture. Squibb plays a scammed senior who goes on a quest to recover her money from the scammers. . I’ve seen it, and it’s a surefire audience-pleaser. Thelma also features indie favorite Parker Posey and the sweet final performance of Richard Roundtree (Shaft).
  • The opening night film is the family dramedy Ghostlight, also a Sundance hit, with the filmmakers in attendance.
  • The always popular Surf Night featuring Trilogy: New Wave. Expect the Fremont to be packed again with surfers enjoying drinks in the lobby and the Riff Tide surf band before the screening. The documentary Trilogy: New Wave profiles three emerging pro stars on the world tour as they travel together to some of the world’s top surf destinations. The young guys are engaging, and the audience will be stoked by the cinematography.
  • Surf night is only one part of the richest Skate/Surf program that I’ve ever seen at a mainstream film festival (and I’ll be writing more about it this week). Filmmaker and skateboard icon Stacy Peralta will attend the SLO Film Fest, which features two of his films, Dogtown and Z-boys and Riding Giants.
  • Actress/director Heather Graham will appear to receive an award, and present her new film Chosen Family.
  • A screening of Camera, filmed in Morro Bay, with appearances by star Beau Bridges and director Jay Silverman,
  • A 45th anniversary screening of the zombie classic Dawn of the Dead.
  • Audience favorites that reflect the 30 years of SLO Film Fest, including Double Indemnity, Big Night, Muriel’s Wedding, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
  • I haven’t seen this Canadian horror comedy, but it has my favorite title in the fest: Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person.

There’s plenty more, with features, workshops and six programs of shorts. I’m screening my way through the program, and will post my MUST SEE recommendations before the fest opens. Peruse the program and get your tickets at SLO Film Fest.

A LOVE SONG: bittersweet, heartfelt and funny

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Photo caption: Dale Dickey in A LOVE SONG. Courtesy of San Luis Obispo Film Fest.

A Love Song is a welcome starring vehicle for the longtime character actress Dale Dickey, whose every good night and every bad night is etched into the lines on her face. Dickey plays Faye, whom we meet camping alone in her travel trailer in the remote high desert of Western Colorado.

After a decades-long marriage, Faye has been widowed for seven years, paralyzed by grief in the first two. Now she moves confidently around her solo campsite, displaying her serious outdoor skills and an impressive touch for fishing for crawdads.

It is revealed that Faye is waiting for someone. She has invited a high school friend, whom she hasn’t seen for over three decades, to re-connect. That friend is Lito (Wes Studi), who has also been widowed after a long marriage.

A Love Song wistfully explores loneliness and how grief can impact the ability to love again.

Dickey is on screen almost every moment, and she’s great. Dickey has a way of making even her supporting performances unforgettable. She broke through as the scary meth matriarch in Winter’s Bone, and played the flinty bank teller in Hell and High Water.

Wes Studi and Dale Dickey in A LOVE SONG. Courtesy of Bleecker Street.

Studi recently received a deserved lifetime Oscar. His performances as very scary Native American warriors in Dances with Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans sparked a very impressive body of film work.

Dickey and Studi have said that each had their very first on-screen kiss in A Love Song.

A Love Song is the first feature for writer-director Max Waterman-Silver, who uses his debut to show off his native Western Colorado. I found his direction inconsistent, but he delivered two perfect single-shot scenes, both of very long duration, one when Lito and Faye are sitting with guitars, the other when the two are standing outside Faye’s trailer.

Faye is occasionally visited by four Native American brothers with their little sister as their spokeswoman. Waterman-Silver’s sense of comic timing in these scenes is flawless.

Both The Wife and I were periodically distracted by holes or inconsistencies in the screenplay. At one point, the dog inexplicably vanishes (fortunately temporarily). And there’s no way that someone with Faye’s seasoning would hike up a mountain without water, especially when she can’t make it back down by nightfall.

I admire filmmakers who make their films short enough (82 minutes) so they can pace them slowly. The Wife, less patient with slow burns, still thought that it ran long.

The performances by Dickey and Studi are reason enough to watch this bittersweet, gentle, heartfelt and funny film. I saw A Love Song at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival. It releases into theaters this weekend.