Rambling: More about the Ashland Independent Film Festival (AIFF)

I posted about Day One of the film festival. I chose to get enough sleep, instead, on days Two, Three, and to some extent today on Day Four.

So wanted to point you to Himself's posts on Friday and on Saturday, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he's posted today by the time you read this. So you can go read further film goodness there.

Meanwhile, some (unorganized) rambling of my own:

The awards came out tonight, which is all very well, but I'm choosing to declare my favorites:

Four Faced Liar remains my very favorite film of the festival in any category. It was the very first movie we saw, in the very first slot of the festival. It was so good that I was reminded of a Calvin Trillin quote from Alice, Let's Eat:

"... that anxious feeling I get sometimes in parts of the American South when, after finishing a fine Southern breakfast of eggs and grits and little country-sausage patties made into sandwiches with biscuits, I realize that the high point of the day may have passed before nine in the morning."

And, yep, that showing was the high point of the festival for me. But there were plenty of other good moments.

Salt comes second in my list, somewhat to my surprise, because I'm not usually the documentary type. But as I burbled before, the mix of beauty and quirkiness and otherworldliness has me sold.

As of today, The Mouse That Soared is my third favorite, though I did just see it today, so it's difficult to be absolutely sure that I'll remember it as clearly and fondly as I do now. But I think I will. It was wonderfully funny, and sweet, and clever, and packed with funny details, and it accomplished all of that without going overboard in any of the ways that it could have. I don't do sweet, and I loved it.

It was accompanied by a big batch of other extraordinarily good animated shorts, many of them created with a drastically smaller cast and crew. If Himself doesn't talk about them, I'll return another day to do so.

Image: By loonboy2. Wikimedia Commons.