Dear Homer film fans,
What was vividly clear at the 11th annual Documentary Film Festival this year was an abounding, enthusiastic curiosity amongst the avid filmgoers. Here are anonymous comments received in the ballot box, while being tallied for the festival awards. All comments and results are now on the way to the nine respective filmmakers.
Voted Homer DocFest Best Doc, the Horned Puffin Grand Jury Prize Winner, “This Ain’t No Mouse Music,” came these comments: “Moved my feet, made me smile and made my spirits and soul rejoice” and “I loved this!! For a music lover of all genres, this was paradise! I want to meet the man!”
An apt reflection follows comparing this musical doc to its genre-partner, the Homer DocFest Forget-Me-Not Audience Favorite Award Winner, “Alive Inside”: “Interesting to show this movie in the same fest as ‘Alive Inside,’ one about the soul in music and the other about music in our soul.” Another audience member inspired by the hopeful, heart-warming film’s message writes, “We look forward every year to the doc festival. TV programming is so bad. This is what humanity needs.”
Another favorite of many was “Battered Bastards of Baseball”: “Another fine portrayal of one person standing up against good-old-boy dominance and succeeding! Refreshing to see this team not conform and just let it all hang out and play rockin’ baseball!” And “Great even if you don’t like the game” as well as, quite literally, “It’s a hit!”
“Internet’s Own Boy,” directed by Brian Knappenberger, is one of the DocFest’s many upcoming Oscar contenders for Best Documentary, and the Homer DocFest Bald Eagle Best Director Award Winner. Sure to inspire change and cause more debate over our technological future, another fan commented: “Super important-enough to be required in my US Government and Economics classes.”
In fact, of more than 2,000 festival attendees, 204 were students of the middle school, high school or community college whose faculty have incorporated the documentaries into their curriculum in a variety of ways.
On behalf of the Homer Theatre, we are so thankful to have the opportunity to share this annual festival with the Homer community. It just keeps getting better and better.
The wonderful thing about good documentaries is their entertainment and educational value. It’s a double whammy. And often, you are not quite sure what you’re going to discover and learn about going into the film. As a scientist remarks when asked in “Particle Fever” about the possible outcomes of the Large Hadron Collider experiment concerning the origin of all matter: “It could be nothing or nothing more than the meaning of everything.”
Roll ’em.
Best wishes,
The Sutton Family
