Culture

The Homer Documentary Film Festival celebrates its 12th year of screening the best in non-fiction cinema

Documentary films are to cinema what non-fiction books are to literature. Informative, didactic, sobering, often preachy, sometimes comical, they present windows into how things are or were that feature the actual people involved in the events depicted.

Modern technology has made it easier for almost anyone with a cell phone to record rough documentaries -- YouTube is full of them. But the finest of them, as carefully written as the script of a Hollywood thriller and graced with elegant camera work, can be cinematic masterpieces.

Next week, eight of the best from the past year will be showcased at the 12th Annual Homer Documentary Film Festival. The lineup includes looks at contemporary celebrities like Alaska's Lance Mackey and singer Amy Winehouse, historic personalities Timothy Leary and William F. Buckley, drug cartels, mountain climbing, LEGOs and National Lampoon.

The eight films are rotated so that viewers can catch them all in a two-day period during the eight-day event. They're selected by canvassing directors of movie festivals in major markets around the world, who answered the question: "Which films do you insist we must play if we are to show the eight best?"

A short list of about 25 is then winnowed down to the octet presented in one of Alaska's longest-running film festivals, held in Alaska's oldest continually-operating movie house, the Homer Theatre.

The festival was the idea of Jamie and Lynette Sutton. He's an attorney, she's a designer. They have a cabin in Homer and winter in San Francisco.

"Thirteen years ago the movie theater came on the market and my wife said, 'Let's buy it and fix it up,'" said Jamie Sutton. "Sort of like an old Mickey Rooney film."

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The Family Theater opened in Homer in 1956. Once a busy town hub -- with tickets priced at 50 cents, 35 cents for those 12 and under, and popcorn costing 15 cents -- it had been in slow decline since television arrived on the lower peninsula in the 1970s. The Suttons brought in new seats to replace the old plywood chairs that were patched with duct tape. They added a new screen and put in a Dolby sound system. They made several structural improvements, remodeled the lobby and added the frontier-themed false front to the metal building.

Then they sat down to figure out what to do with their new acquisition.

"If you own a movie theater, you pretty much gotta have a film festival," Sutton said. "We decided we would just show documentaries."

It was a long-harbored dream, he said. "When I was in third grade my teacher showed us the Edward R. Murrow documentary 'Harvest of Shame,' about migrant farm laborers in California. It made a big impact on me. I've always liked documentaries. I think they have a special place in the movie panoply. So we set out to show the best each year."

Each year the Suttons try to include either a national or Alaska debut. The Homer festival was among the first to screen "Blackfish" in 2013. The film about killer whales in captivity went on to receive major national distribution.

This year's "premiere event" is "The Great Alone," about Iditarod champion Lance Mackey. The film has so far received a few one-time screenings in Alaska. The Homer schedule will have it on several times.

"The Great Alone" recently won the Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival and is rapidly getting attention around the country and in international venues. Lance himself is out of state to personally attend film festivals where it's showing. His brother, Jason, will be present at the Homer screening.

"I hope he brings some of his dogs," Sutton said.

Asked for highlights from the past 12 years, Sutton named "Sicko," Michael Moore's look at health care in America and Cuba. The film took the audience by storm at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007, and went on to receive an Academy Award.

"We had it the day before it opened in Los Angeles and New York," Sutton said.

Another memorable show was "Wasteland," a 2010 film about Vik Muniz, a Brazilian artist living in New York who employed slum-dwellers in Rio de Janeiro to pick through trash and find material used in his art. "It was just an inspired film," Sutton said. "Just wonderful."

One of his personal favorites was shown last year. "Particle Fever" was about the massive particle accelerator in Cern, Switzerland, where scientists are credited with discovering the so-called "God Particle."

"It sort of explains how all matter is structured," Sutton said. "The film presented a really high level of science brought down to a level what made you feel excited."

He was surprised at the reaction to "Alive Inside" last year. The film follows Alzheimers patients who become animated when familiar music is played to them.

"I was sort of lukewarmish about it," he said. "But the people just went crazy for it. We called up the senior center and found out they had already been in contact with the director and had him send cassette players. They recorded each of their client's favorite songs and got a playlist. They'd put the earphones on and turn from emotionless, passive people, sitting there vegetating, to getting up and dancing, alive, communicative, transformative."

Alive. Communicative. Transformative. Three words that can define a really good documentary.

The Homer Documentary Film Festival will be held at the The Homer Theatre, starting Thursday, Sept. 24 and run through Oct. 1. Events at the opening night gala include a barbecue dinner at 6:15, a preview of the movies in the festival and a screening of "The Great Alone" with an introduction by Jason Mackey. Entries in a LEGO contest will be on display throughout the festival. Admission to the complete festival is $55, $45 for seniors and military. Admission to the Gala opening is $20, $15 for seniors and military. Individual tickets are $8, $6 for the 2 and 4 p.m. matinees. More information is available at www.homerdocfest.com.

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THE FILMS

The Great Alone

The dramatic story of the sheer perseverance and resounding Iditarod victories of Lance Mackey in the epitome of Alaskan adventure.

Winner of Grand Jury Prize: Seattle International Film Festival

Nominee Best Documentary: Seattle International Film Festival

Amy

A moving, intimate look at the mercurial rise and tragic demise of British Soul Diva Amy Winehouse utilizes historical, performance and home-video footage.

Best Documentary Nominee: Cannes Film Festival

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Best Doc / Audience Award Nominee: Edinburgh International Film Festival

Cartel Land

An eye-opening, on-the-ground look at two violent vigilante groups on both sides of the US-Mexican border sharing a common enemy; the vicious drug cartels.

Winner Best Director: Sundance Film Festival

Winner Best Director: Sheffield International Film Festival

Winner Best Documentary cinematography: Sundance Film Festival

Winner Best Documentary: Moscow International Film Festival

Nominee Audience Award: Champs-Élysées Film Festival

Meru

A trio of daring friends take us on an exhilarating adventure ascending the 21,850 foot Mount Meru and its "unconquerable Shark Fin."

Winner Audience Award: Sundance Film Festival

Grand Jury Prize Nominee: Sundance Film Festival

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Best of Enemies

A "wickedly entertaining" face-off between conservative politician William F. Buckley, Jr. and liberal writer Gore Vidal in a series of 10 debates in 1968, considered by some the beginning of modern television news.

Grand Jury Prize Nominee: Sundance Film Festival

Beyond the Brick: A LEGO Brickumentary

The fun, complete history of how LEGO rose to worldwide success is told in this feel-good doc exploring all the inventive ways these bricks are used.

NOMINEE AUDIENCE AWARD:

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Nominee Audience Award: Copenhagen International Doc Film Festival

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon

The outrageous look at the irreverent, subversive comedy publication and production company from the 1970's to 2010 with rare footage of and interviews with John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Christopher Guest, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray and others.

Nominee Best Doc: Cleveland International Film Festival

Nominee Best Doc: Edinburgh International Film Festival

Nominee Best Doc: Little Rock Film Festival

Dying to Know

A portrait of two complex, controversial friends and Harvard colleagues, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) and how their explorations into the edges of consciousness helped define a generation, featuring footage and interviews spanning over 50 years.

Wolfpack

The story of seven siblings locked and home-schooled for years in their Lower East Side Manhattan apartment with DVDs from the outside world as their principal entertainment.

Winner Grand Jury Prize: Sundance Film Festival

Winner Best Doc: Edinburgh International Film Festival

Winner Best Doc: New Horizons Poland International Film Festival

Winner Best Director: Nantucket Film Festival

Mike Dunham

Mike Dunham has been a reporter and editor at the ADN since 1994, mainly writing about culture, arts and Alaska history. He worked in radio for 20 years before switching to print.

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