Portland filmmakers hope to build on success at Sundance
Alex Wolf Lewis and Kaitlyn Schwalje saw their short documentary about a turtle, Snowy, premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this year and are now working on films about squirrels and wastewater treatment.
Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
Alex Wolf Lewis and Kaitlyn Schwalje are hoping a 25-year-old box turtle named Snowy will help them with their next two film projects, including one about the havoc wreaked by squirrels and another about the “unsung heroes” who process our wastewater.
Lewis and Schwalje premiered their turtle documentary, “Snowy,” virtually at the Sundance Film Festival in late January. It’s arguably the country’s best-known and most prestigious film festival and getting selected as just one of the dozen documentary short films to be screened – out of thousands submitted – was like “winning the lottery,” Lewis and Schwalje said. The Portland filmmakers set out to find if Snowy – wh
Must-See Shorts from the 2021 Sundance Film Festival
Snowy
After providing coverage on nearly every feature film premiering at Sundance Film Festival this year, today we turn the spotlight on our favorite shorts. With 50 short films accepted from nearly 10,000 submissions, check out our thoughts on a handful of the premiere below, courtesy of Dan Mecca and Shayna Warner.
BJ’s Mobile Gift Shop (Jason Park)
Heartwarming, clever, and well-paced, filmmaker Jason Park builds a fully-realized, hyper-real Chicago in which BJ (Johnnyboy Tellem) is a hustler on the streets with a traveling bag of problem-solving gifts for his many clients around town. He’s strategic in his timing, catching any and every manner of city-dweller at the moment they need a quick snack, a phone charger, a new shirt-and-tie, or something of the sort. Bookended by a precarious skyscraper interview for a “real’ job, Park captures the spirit of his lead nicely. The entire narrative is lifted by a pitch-perf
Films From The 2021 Sundance Film Festival & “A Glitch In The Matrix” A Glitch in the Matrix
One of Sundance 2021’s “Documentary Shorts Program 1”’s most timely selections relies on nothing but archival footage. But in the footage’s characterization of Mexican workers as an invading horde and the claims of needing guns to protect against “rioters,” the distance between that footage’s origin and present day right-wing talking points feels far smaller than is comfortable.
The short in question (and a program highlight) is Sierra Pettengill’s excellent short “The Rifleman.” It’s a mini-biography of one Harlon Carter. As head in the 1950s of the U.S. Border Patrol, he was the man behind the notorious Mexican worker deportation program known as Operation Wetback. Hearing the type of praise heaped on Carter for his work will make the gorges of non-racists rise very quickly.
Indie Film: Snowy the turtle, and his documentarians, are going to Sundance
A Portland filmmaking couple takes interest in a family pet, and it pays off.
By Dennis Perkins
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“Snowy” tells the story of a box turtle who was abandoned by the filmmaker’s cousin and has since been living in a basement.
Photo courtesy of Alexander Wolf Lewis
Imagine you’re trapped in a too-small room, at the mercy of forces outside your control, and you’ve been in there for what seems like forever. Oh, right, that’s all of us for the last year, and we don’t have to pretend anything.
Save this story for later.
When the Sundance Film Festival kicks off on January 28, 2021, in Park City, Utah, there won’t be a long line of people standing outside the Eccles Theater, watching their breath catch in the cold winter air and Main Street surely won’t be packed with revelers and sponsor activations, either.
Instead, on account of the coronavirus pandemic, next year’s Sundance will actually expand amid the contraction of live events. Rather than relying solely on in-person experiences, the festival has plans that extend far beyond the theater: a digital platform where patrons around the world can watch this year’s lineup; drive-in screenings at venues around the country; in-person showings at independent art houses nationwide where indoor events can happen safely and in accordance with public health guidelines; and even a virtual reality space that includes live performances and a lobby where people can digitally congregate.