Festing: SDFF37, “Imber’s Left Hand”

If there was one thing that truly captured the American attention over the course of the past year — more so than the fleeting scandals in pro sports, social media memes or the zeitgeist TV shows and films — was the Ice Bucket Challenge fundraiser benefiting the ALS Association.

The ice bucket challenge rushed through every medium and every state just like the gravity-fueled plumes of frigid water onto the heads and shoulders of celebrities, politicos and average folk alike. Hardly anyone could have foreseen its magnificent viral trend.

In much the same way, watching Jon Imber work in his final months at the beginning of director Richard Kane’s moving documentary and then reconciling the great artist and teacher’s fate is like a sobering bucket of ice water to your soul. So many people took part in the trendy challenge, and yet so many may never see ALS up close or personal such as we see with Imber, his wife and his friends and colleagues as he adjusts to painting without the use of his dominant right hand and eventually not so much of his left hand either. We’re not necessarily thinking about the pain or the tremors in his body because Imber subdues them physically and finds them translating into new and unexpected strokes in his work.

In fact, the structure of going back through Imber’s early influences and early works does even more to put distance between the viewer and the ending in store, in such a way that it becomes a true storytelling experience via Imber’s contemporaries and friends rather than a simpler, straightforward exhibition of the man’s struggle toward the end of his life – instead, it’s an exhibition of his very being. Just as Imber describes a painting of his son Gabe as “a way to grab ahold of something that’s disappearing or lost,” this documentary captures a glimpse of a man who seems so vital and invigorated despite knowing he has a death sentence – a man who continues to grab ahold of what he’s about to lose, committing his time to portraits of friends and loved ones, allowing them to live on along with himself as the maker of their canvassed visages.

“Imber’s Left Hand,” beyond being a fascinating look into the life of an artist, also serves as a fine companion piece for another SDFF37 selection – “Cows Wearing Glasses” – in its examination of a storied artist’s choices regarding production and motivation when the former becomes all the more difficult to achieve, even if the latter abounds. Kane shows that Imber had plenty of both, lacking only time.

But for all its somber stakes, “Imber’s Left Hand” is far more in line with the SDFF37 panel reflecting on the work of Roger Ebert, as both men were weighed down by their physical ailments yet remained as strong-minded and strong-willed in their respective crafts right up until the end, and Kane captures dozens of captivating, personal and private moments that contextualize all the work Imber did before being unable to do any more.

“Imber’s Left Hand” gets its first SDFF37 screening at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15, at the Sie FilmCenter, followed by a 9 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 16, screening and another at 2 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17, also at the Sie.

Festing: SDFF37, Friday, Nov. 14

I will admit to being somewhat ill-prepared to talk about the slate of films showing Friday, Nov. 14, at the 37th Starz Denver Film Festival. As the festival heads into its big weekend, I can only attest to having seen three of the day’s offerings (save for “A Dangerous Game,” which was discussed yesterday): “Traitors” (4:30 p.m. at the Denver Pavilions), “El Critico” (4 p.m. at the Sie FilmCenter in the Maglione Theatre), and “The Midnight Swim” (9 p.m. at the Pavilions).

Of those three, I recommend both “El Critico” and “The Midnight Swim.”

“The Midnight Swim” is a very well-crafted, atmospheric tale of sisters who convene at their mother’s lakeside home after she’s gone missing and is presumed dead. Although the reliance on a found-footage style undermines a bit of what’s going on here with unnecessary contrivances, it remains a well-acted and intense watch.

Director Hernán Guerschuny’s “El Critico” is a fun take on an Argentinian film critic’s dogged search for an apartment and his work to avoid becoming a romantic-comedy cliche as he pursues a love interest who makes him rethink his views on the more-sentimental features he regularly pans in his paper. It plays at 6:45 p.m. at the Sie FilmCenter.

As for the titles worth checking out sight unseen, I’m keen on checking out Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Look of Silence” (a follow-up to his magnificent documentary “The Act of Killing”) at 6:15 p.m. at the Sie FilmCenter, and “Charlie’s Country,” which garnered Best Actor honors in the Un Certain Regard category of this year’s Cannes festival for Aboriginal actor David Gulpilli. “Charlie’s Country” has its first screening of the fest at 9:30 p.m. at the Sie.

Anton Yelchin’s “5 to 7” named as Opening Night film of 37th Starz Denver Film Festival

Somebody in the programming offices for the Denver Film Society really has a thing for Anton Yelchin.

After his 2011 romantic drama “Like Crazy” played Opening Night of the 34th annual Starz Denver Film Festival, the “Star Trek” actor’s newest film will be back in that same red-carpet spot for the 37th annual Starz Denver Film Festival with “5 to 7,” starring opposite Berenice Marlohe as a down-on-his-luck writer who falls for the wife of a French diplomat.

The film is the debut feature of writer-director Victor Levin, who has been a writer and producer on AMC’s “Mad Men” in recent years. The red carpet proceedings are followed by an 8 p.m. screening Wednesday, Nov. 12, at the Buell Theatre in Denver.

For information on VIP Opening Night ticket packages, visit DenverFilm.org.

“Hanna Ranch” does justice to a crucial piece of modern Colorado history

Note: If perhaps there were more distance between my viewing of “Hanna Ranch” and the Nov. 5 election, I’d probably have done a better job of keeping politics out of this writeup and doing better service to discussing the film itself. But I tend to think a lot of the issues explored in “Hanna Ranch” naturally lend themselves to ongoing political debate across Colorado – so please forgive the unnecessary rant that opens this piece and enjoy.

For months, a collection of politicians have been throwing around concerns about rural Colorado being ignored by urban interests in the state Capitol.

They’ve stated time and again how vital the least-populous areas of the state are for agriculture and commerce and sustaining the traditions of the first pioneer families that came to this land in the 19^th century.

They have a point about that vitality of the agrarian way of life that helps sustain modern society – but in reality, they’ve been using those facts as rhetorical devices in a political hissyfit thrown by Big Oil, Big Gas and the corporate iterests represented by the National Rifle Association over various legislative battles lost with a Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in both houses of the Legislature.

The solution these politicians have proposed? Ballot measures to secede from Colorado and start their own state.

That’s not how Kirk Hanna saw it. He lived and fought for the preservation of open lands and maximizing the value and continued strength of Colorado’s ranch and farmlands. Although something of an outsider in his own family in the early years while studying holistic resource management in Denver while his brothers worked on the family farm south of Colorado Springs, he rose to work within the system to promote open space, conservation easements and awareness among municipal leaders and planners of the consequences their actions have. His struggle is one of the crucial stories that defines modern Colorado and remains a constant struggle between burgeoning development of the Front Range and the desire among the state’s many farming and ranching families to hold onto the lands and lifestyles that have defined them for generations.

It’s a story that’s well told in the documentary “Hanna Ranch,” which plays at 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9, at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, and 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13, as part of the 36^th annual Starz Denver Film Festival.

Director Mitch Dickman manages very compelling and intimate interviews with Kirk’s family members, neighbors and others that knew him to explore his life growing up on the ranch: his father’s death in 1957, the merging of families after his mother remarried, the turmoil associated with simply managing their land and the external forces of development and those who doubted Kirk’s new methods of managing his cattle and resources.

Those who have read Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” are already familiar with the “eco-rancher” label Kirk gained over the years – “Hanna Ranch” does a finer job of illustrating the stakes in Kirk’s crusade: A population explosion from 2 million to 5 million between 1970 and today in Colorado, facilitated by major homebuilders and the ever-expanding collection of vaguely vanilla subdivision names doting the landscape that was once pristine grassland.

The film never strays too far into tangential territory – part of the reason it only clocks in at 73 minutes – but almost suffers slightly in not delving deeper into how Kirk – as described by his step-brother Jay Frost – became a “beehive thumper” in upsetting the status quo in the many organizations he joined over the years, including the Colorado Cattleman’s Association.

But if “Hanna Ranch” is leaving out too many details(and there are plenty if you go back into the Colorado Springs Gazette’s archives), it does so in service of two simple messages: There are some very modern solutions to maintaining centuries-old ways of life, and there are people out there with the courage to pursue them, whatever the cost.