From the
bizarrely-named Golden Shower Video Festival to the
campy San Antonio Underground Film Festival to the more professional
San
Antonio Film Festival of this year, the evolution of Rocha’s
labor of love is
evident.
When I judged
the film festival back in 2002, I watched over
150 movies and helped pick those good enough to screen at that
year’s event. Of
the films I saw, I can only slightly recall the very first one I pulled
from
the pile and tossed into my DVD player. It was a three-minute film (I
can’t
remember the name), which began with someone in their backyard
recording their
dog barking. For an entire minute, the camera is pointed at this thing
yapping
away uncontrollably at the cameraperson.
Suddenly, the
shot cuts to a title card with the word
“Intermission” on screen. For another entire
minute, the screen stayed on the graphic
while elevator music (maybe “The Girl from
Ipanema”) played in the background.
Then, for the final minute – you guessed it – the
mangy mutt was back to bark
until the credits ended my agony.
Although a
short film like that one might have had a chance
to make the final cut a few years ago, Rocha and crew seem to have set
a higher
standard for filmmakers looking for a San Antonio
audience.
After being very inconsistent with my
attendance at the
festival for the last six years (I believe I made it out one night for
the
decade celebration), I returned Opening Night of the 14th
annual
SAFF on Thursday and was ecstatic not to see any pissed-off puppies
making
their film debut.
Held for the
first time at the Instituto Cultural de Mexico
in HemisFairPark,
SAFF felt natural in its setting.
The film of the evening was easily a documentary called Crawford.
Made by first-time director David Modigliani, Crawford
tells the story of how the 705 citizens
of Crawford,
Texas
were affected when then-Governor
George W. Bush bought a ranch in 1999 and made it his vacation home
after
winning the presidency the following year.
From
the town’s domino hall where old men pass the time to
the local high school where bashin’ Bush is as bad as
kickin’ your momma,
Modigliani introduced the audience to some of the most colorful,
charming,
naïve, tolerant, and dumb-as-a-barn people this side of the
Rio Grande.
Modigliani is so attentive to all the voices that make up Crawford, he
even
uses subtitles for those country bumpkins who sound a little too much
like
Boomhauer from King of the Hill.
Somebody
– anybody – from a film studio needs to step up and
send Crawford out to the masses
before November rolls around. By then, we’ll be on the verge
of a new
presidency and it’ll be more difficult to grab
people’s attention with
yesterday’s headlines. Give Modigliani a hand. This is an
entertaining film that
really is fair and balanced. Maybe Fox News can put Greg Gutfeld and
the rest
of the morons on Red Eye out of
their
misery and give Crawford their
late-night time slot until next inauguration.
Add this to your news reader.
