Programmer Rick Hansen talks Sound Unseen 10

Fall inevitably means better offerings in the theaters and right now you don't have to look far to find interesting film choices in the Twin Cities. But next week the 10th edition of Minneapolis' own Sound Unseen kicks off and will far outweigh the other distractions in town. Half music, half film and all fun, Sound Unseen starts Monday with nothing other than Rock n' Bowl at Memory Lanes. It's your chance to get a team together and show your skills against local bands such as Switzerlind, Magic Castles, Total Babe, Lucy Michelle and The Velvet Lapelles, So It Goes, Poor Weather Club, Look Book, Communist Daughter and more. What follows is six days of films, music and parties hosted at various venues around town (Cedar Cultural Center, The Trylon, Oak Street, Walker Art Center, Kitty Cat Club and MacPhail Center for Music) that is sure to sooth any culture vulture's soul.

I will probably find myself sitting in a theater all day, living off soda, popcorn and candy and maybe even burning some midnight oil in order to catch some of these films. (I can't really miss a midnight screening of a documentary about black metal, now can I?) Presenting 11 features and two shorts programs, the films are as thematically diverse as they are stylistically divergent. Although most festivals are likely to boast about the variety of their films, Sound Unseen takes a narrow range—film connected to music—and explores the far reaches of that definition. Beyond the obvious entertainment value, as a voracious music consumer I look forward to learning about artists I know nothing about, specifically Trimpin (Friday, October 2, 7pm at the Trylon) and Ed Thigpen (Sunday, October 4, 1pm at the Oak Street.)

For the inside scoop, program coordinator and ultimate Sound Unseen insider Rick Hansen was kind enough to answer a few questions of this inquiring mind to share with other inquiring minds:

Q: How long have you been programming for Sound Unseen?

A: This is my second year as Director of the festival, but I've had involvement almost right from the beginning.

Do you coordinate the live music as well as the movies?

I've got an outstanding (predominately) volunteer staff who help me with each aspect of the festival. It's strange how things happen, as sometimes it's me who gets excited to book a band or a film, and other times staff members like Music Coordinator Karrie Vrabel gets things going, or Director of Programming Jim Brunzell sees a cool film at Sundance or Seattle, of maybe SU fest producer Vilay Dethluxay has a great angle on something fun...we all just kind of coalesce into one big good idea after another, then everyone takes responsibility for that idea's execution. That's a long answer to a simple question, so yes, I do coordinate all aspects of the festival, but it's not without the help and the bright ideas of the others around me.

There are a couple big buzz films in the line-up, specifically the world premier of R.E.M: This is Not a Show (Tuesday, September 29, 7pm at the Cedar) and the local premier of Ondi Timoner's We Live in Public (Sunday, October 4, 7:30pm at the Cedar). Was there a lot of blood, sweat and tears getting these two lined up?

This is a fun question, because it has a funny answer...One of the films you mentioned was the easiest booking we ever had and the other has been the hardest. I'll let you wonder which one was which!

I can safely tell you though that each of the films and events takes a great deal of research, persistence, luck, and flat out hustle to get into the line-up. Jim Brunzell and Steve Holmgren, our two film programmers this year, have literally trotted the globe to see films for the festival. I went to Berlinale this year, saw a number of films that I wanted and came back entirely empty handed as far as film titles that landed in the fest. I've been clocking a film that I absolutely must have for more than 2 years now...still not sure if I will get it. Not everything is that tough, but we've got our film feelers out at spots around the world.

I've been pouring over the synopses of all the films trying to prioritize. Can you give us some of the highlights of the more under-the-radar films that you've chosen?

For sure. Guy and Madeline On A Park Bench (Saturday, October 3, 6:45pm at the Trylon) is probably my personal favorite. It just absolutely represents the type of filmmaking I enjoy most. Simple, beautiful, smart, elegant, quiet with very unique execution. I'm not the only person to think that way either. Amy Taubin wrote a glowing review of the film in Film Comment, and the film screened at the very prestigious Tribeca Film Fest earlier this year.

I also love Non-Stop: Gogol Bordello (Sunday, October 4, 3pm at the Cedar) because it really gives you insight into this great band's mojo. I love them and their live show is a mind blower, and the film does an excellent job capturing that. Plus a bunch of the live shots were taken when they were at The Cabooze outdoor stage a couple of years back, so it's fun to recognize a local place in an international film.

Stingray Sam (Friday, October 2, 9:30pm at the Oak Street) is another of my favorites. Mostly because I love the way Cory McAbee, who will be present for almost the entire extent of the fest and accepting an award from us, makes films. His way. Period. And really well. Easily the most innovative and interesting filmmakers in America today. Plus it makes me laugh EVERY time I see a man get slapped in the face by another man.

The subject matter of the films are all over the map. The narratives and documentaries touch upon almost every corner of the musical universe! Is it your intention to keep it diverse or do things just sort of fall in place that way?

We want to cover that wide range, always. But the range changes from year to year depending on what's out there and what's available and compelling. We've made it our mission to always try to come in with some things that we know are unique and may not be the most familiar or even comfortable types of musical styles, but we think it's important to screen these types of films for all the right reasons. For this year's fest I've made the joke that we've got titles from Beethoven to Black Metal. We got a little Jazz push this year, because I'm personally very into what is going on with that on the the local music level. I genuinely believe that there are Jazz musicians in town who are completely and totally pushing the bounds of that music genre into some incredible new places...and the world is going to find out about our scene here very soon.

How did Sound Unseen start? What's some of the folklore?!

10 years ago a very smart and hard working young man named Nate Johnson founded the festival. He and I worked together a bit at U Film Society. He approached me about maybe co-producing it even way back then..I ended up going in a different direction, but Nate got it off to an incredible start with some really great programming and smart events. I looked back really closely to our history as it is our 10 year anniversary and I wanted to understand where we've been and I could not believe some of the things I missed. Name anyone of the now Major Label bands that have risen out of Minneapolis and they have been on the Sound Unseen roster in one way shape or form. No joke..Atmosphere, Tapes N Tapes, Solid Gold, DOSH, Doomtree, what used to be Lifter Puller...I could go on and on..all had some sort of relationship with Sound Unseen. 10 years at the heart of the Minneapolis music scene! Are you kidding me? Legends were born in SU's past. That's folklore.

Okay, so I have to ask: can you give us any other hints on the secret screening other than the two letters M and J?

(coyly) mmnn..i don't know..? MICHAEL JACKSON! ...or something...and you ain't seen it before.

As in "like you've never seen him before".....? I guess we will just have to wait and see!

Check out the full program and events to map out your week at soundunseen.com. I'll see you there!

Minneapolis Bicycle Film Festival, July 8 - 12

I'm as much of a biker as I am a movie goer. I may not live to ride, but I certainly ride to live. The functionality of using a bike as my primary vehicle is something I really love. In addition, Minneapolis has one of the most amazing and diverse bike communities around: fixed gears, 29ers, high bikes, road bikes, mountain bikes, BMX bikes, cruisers and bruisers. This is exactly what the Minneapolis Bicycle Film Festival sets out to celebrate: a community of people from all walks of life and the underlying worldwide ethos of riding a bicycle.

In its ninth year, the Bicycle Film Festival now travels to 39 cities worldwide. The BFF was founded in 2001 after Brendt Barbur, Founder and Director, was hit by a bus while riding in New York City. He admirably channelled his energy from this experience into creating a festival that celebrates the bicycle through music, art and film. The Minneapolis leg of the BFF draws some of the largest crowds and best attendance of any city on the tour. It is pretty awesome to attend one of the screenings and just what the bikes pile up around the venue! Plan ahead for parking!

The Festival kicks off Wednesday, July 8 with an opening party at the 501 Club. If you are a brainy biker, try your luck at bicycle trivia at 7pm. The trivia will just be a primer for a free show of blissful punk pop from with our local pride and joy Knife World and Gay Witch Abortion opening for No Age. The film fun starts Thursday at the Riverview opening with the unparalleled The Triplets of Belleville. This is a film that I would gladly see on the big screen again and again. After a full slate of films at the Riverview on Thursday, the Festival moves to the Cedar Cultural Center where an amazing number of titles will be shown Friday night and all day Saturday. Each night is capped off with an after party and the chance to socialize and indulge with fellow bikers and friends of bikers. If you spend too much time in a dark room on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, plan on signing up for the BFF Co-ed Bike Polo Tourney on Sunday at 11:30am.

Opening up the foldout Festival program is pretty daunting. With over 40 titles, many of them shorts, its really hard to find any that don't sound interesting. Personally, I'm excited about Keirin Queen (1956), "a classic Japanese Keirin track film screened for the first time in the United States." Wow. Show me a Japanese film I have never heard of, and I'm happy. (The other thing that I want to point out is the after party on Friday at the Nomad World Pub where they will be hosting Coldsprints, indoor bike racing. For anyone who thinks this is just a beer soaked evening of people on exercise bikes, click on the link above and check out the video. Seriously.)

To help me navigate the program and offer a few highlights, Amy Kuretsky, local Producer of the Bicycle Film Festival, was kind enough to take some time out of her holiday weekend to answer a few questions:

How does the programming for the Twin Cities edition of the BFF differ from others?

One of the main differences in the Minneapolis programing (as opposed to the NYC programing) has always been our inclusion of older films that we show in their original 35mm format. We are lucky to have the opportunity to house our festival in a venue like the Riverview Theater and therefore we like to show feature length bike films in a setting they deserve. This year the 35mm print we are showing is The Triplets of Belleville (Thursday, 7pm, Riverview). Also, this year Minneapolis is really lucky to have three films from local filmmakers: Something Bright to be Seen in Our World (Dir. Mike Hazard & Emily Rumsey; Thursday, 9pm, Riverview), A Gentleman Never Sweats (Dir. Alice Shindelar; Friday, 9pm Cedar), and Down by the Weep Hole: The Story of the Stuporbowl (Dir. Nathaniel Freeman; Friday, 9pm, Cedar). The Stuporbowl movie has already gained a lot of attention in the bike community and we're thrilled to be premiering this local film at the BFF.

There is such a huge number of shorts! Can you highlight maybe two or three that should not be missed?

Wow, this year I think we have some of the best short films we've ever shown at the BFF. Here are just a few of my favorites: Train Trip (Dir. Joe Rich & Ruben Alcantara; Friday, 7pm, Cedar) is beautifully shot on Super 8 and miniDV and documents two of the best in the BMX scene travel through Europe with nothing but their bikes, a backpack, and a camera. Red Hook Criterium (Dir. Kalim Armstrong; Friday, 9pm, Cedar) is shot and edited to look like a segment from ESPN and is one of the funniest shorts we're screening. Broadway Bomber/Bridge Battle (Dir. Lucas Brunelle; Saturday, 9pm, Cedar) weaves the viewer through the crazy streets of NYC on a helmet cam worn by BFF fan favorite, Lucas Brunelle. Anima D'Acciaio (Soul of Steel) (Dir. Daniel Leeb; Sat, 9pm, Cedar) is a fantastic documentary about one of the last living master frame builders from Italy.

The Cedar is a new movie screening venue: how did you get involved with the Cedar?

I'm pretty sure that the Cedar used to be a movie theater way back in the day. When it got turned into a music venue they basically flattened out the floor, built a stage, turned everyone to face the side stage, and built a brick wall right over the old screen. Recently, they've been doing a bunch of remodeling to the Cedar and they came across the original screen behind the wall. The screen still intact! We won't be using that screen (AVS is supplying all our AV equipment) but I thought that the history behind the building was really interesting. We really loved using the Theater de la Jeune Lune last year (unfortunately for the whole city that theater is no longer open) and that opened us up to the option of using stage theaters instead of just movie theaters. I really like the idea of having a home base for the BFF for the weekend and I think that using both the Cedar and the Nomad for event locations just made sense. The West Bank has always been known for being bicycle friendly - the Hub, Freewheel, the Grease Pit are all located on the West Bank - and we thought the BFF would fit in perfectly.

Check out the full schedule of the Minneapolis Bicycle Film Festival here.

And the very cool trailer here:

Interview with Louis Lapat: WIN OR LOSE - A SUMMER CAMP STORY

I always try to have a nose for the smaller films that get overlooked, but when the schedule was announced for MSPIFF, my objective was to find the biggest films in a bucket of small films. Hence, my lame excuse for passing over Win or Lose: A Summer Camp Story, a short documentary by Louis Lapat. I had already mapped out my plan for conquering MSPIFF when Louis contacted me about seeing and review his documentary. Although I was unable to make it to his film, he joined Daniel (from Getafilm) and I for our film goat gathering. Over a drink and a chat, Louis was kind enough to pass along a screener. We went our separate ways and I said that I would be in touch.

Embarrassingly, over a month later I finally got around to watching Win or Lose and I was pleasantly surprised. Like great things that come in small packages, Louis' short documentary, under an hour, is about as engaging as anything that is likely to come down the pipe. Win or Lose takes place at Camp Ojibwa in Wisconsin, an all boys summer camp that focuses on sports. The camp's trademark is a competition among teams called Collegiate Week. As one of the campers says of Collegiate Week, "There is winning and absolutely nothing." What starts out as a frat-boy testosterone driven narrative, slowly morphs into a sensitive and thought provoking real life drama.

Louis was kind enough to talk to me about MSPIFF, his film, summer camp, The Blues Brothers and what it takes to be a Ojibwa boy:

First of all, how did the screening at the Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival go?
My whole experience at the film festival was very positive. My favorite part was meeting so many people in such a short period of time from the festival director Ryan Oestreich to local film bloggers such as yourself. For the screening, I was worried that I wouldn't have a huge crowd because the film was competing against some bigger films that night. Also, I had noticed that the festival was just beginning to hand out programs two hours before the screening. With that said, there was about 60 people that showed up for the screening. It played great. All the laughs came in the right spot. I'm pretty sure most people liked it, they all stayed for the QNA and no one asked really ignorant questions like 'what were you trying to say in the film?' or 'what's the deal with the animation?' They all got it.

Was there anyone at the screening that had been to Camp Ojibwa or had a similar experience?
Yes, there was one person from Camp Ojibwa at the screening. The Camp Ojibwa people always pretty much love the film. There are so many things about camp that stay with you. The sound of morning taps or the way your arms feel after losing a Tug of War. The movie just brings all these emotional memories back. Also, Camp Ojibwa is so hard to explain to people. As someone that went to camp, you want to be able to express how important winning a box hockey match is, but no one would get you, and no one would care. This movie makes these unexplainable camp-concepts understandable.

When is the next chance to catch Win or Lose?
It is being screened twice this Sunday in Highland Park, Illinois. It was just something that was assumed from the get-go. There would always be a screening in Highland Park because everyone that went to Camp Ojibwa is from Highland Park. If you were born in Highland Park, you know about Camp Ojibwa. I think it is going to be an exciting screening. Remember the part in The Blues Brothers before Jake and Elwood go on for their final show at the end of the film? There's like a thousand people in the theater and they are going crazy. That's how I imagine it. We'll see how reality compares.

But aren't people who go to the camp from all over the country?
Not really, there are people from all over the country but a majority, like 90% are from Highland Park, Illinois and the surrounding suburbs just north of Chicago.

What made you decide to make this film?
I went to camp 10 years ago. The first 3 years were fantastic, the last year was tough. During my last year at camp I was 15 and I wanted to stay home that summer. My goals were to sleep in every day and play Madden '94 on my Sega till nightfall, then repeat. My mom thought that plan was not ambitious enough so she sent me away to camp. At camp I had one friend, the camp hippy, we'll call him Jeff. I also had one enemy, the camp bully, we'll call him Steve. I was banking me and Jeff would be best friends all summer and everything would be hunky-dory. But Steve came along and stole Jeff from me. Now I had two enemies. I felt alone and depressed so I quit camp vowing never to return. It turns out when you walk away from things they don't necessarily want to walk away from you. For the next 10 years of my life, I thought about camp constantly and had dreams about it all the time. I knew I had some reconciliation to do. I also just happened to have a thesis film that I had to shoot if I wanted to graduate and I always knew collegiate week would make an exciting story.

I admit I never went to summer camp, but it seems like every component of growing up, both painful and joyful, are magnified at camp, especially Camp Ojibwa where it is so competitive. It's like an intense microcosm of your peers.
At camp there is no MTV, no parents and I'm pretty sure there are no cell phones allowed. It's just you, your friends and a bunch of athletic equipment. Also everyone is very similar: for the most part Jewish and way into sports. The emotions associated with winning and losing are magnified because there is not much else for you to do or talk about. Also, the friendships can be stronger. Some people at camp will argue that a camp friendship is much stronger than a home friendship.

There is a lot of great tension and build up in a very short amount of time. How much footage did you shoot and have to edit down to the current 58 minutes?
I shot 130 hours of footage. All the shooting of the film took about a month and a half. 2 weeks to shoot the camp competition and about a month to film the characters at their homes. I figured in a year I would be done editing. That was a miscalculation. It actually took 3 1/2 years to finish editing the film. Part of the reason it took so long was I had never edited a feature length documentary. I also found editing documentaries extremely challenging. It's very similar to writing except you have a limited pallet. You have to follow all the rules of character development, turning points, climax and resolution but you don't necessarily have the footage to back it up. There were also so many people along the way that helped me make this film that without, the film would have sucked.

Part of me feels that this whole competition is terrible for some of these kids, but then when I see the camaraderie and a real love between these guys, I change my mind. It seems that there are great life lessons to be learned at Collegiate Week, but there is also some pretty messed up psychology behind the whole thing. Where does your opinion fall?
I think in the end, competition is a valuable activity for kids and teenagers. The most important thing it teach us is how to lose. If you learn this early in life while playing a game it's so valuable down the road when you actually do lose something important. The other great thing about sports and competition is it's acts as a kind of social lubrication for boys. After boys share an intense experience like winning or losing, they can't help but have some kind of mutual respect for their teammate or rival. Today I still love sports but tend towards ones that are less competitive like pick-up ultimate frisbee games. I wonder if the same positive lessons at camp could be learned if the competition wasn't as intense? What if Camp Ojibwa was just pick-up ultimate frisbee games and long distance running all summer? Would kids still walk away with the same friendships and lessons learned about losing? Not sure.

I was totally ready to condemn the whole summer camp, but you are very good about being even-handed with the material. Was it hard to put your personal feelings about the camp aside for the process of making the movie?
For better or worst, camp shaped me. Like, I always fantasized about being the best athlete at Camp. It would have been one of the highlights of my childhood to go 1-1 in the camp wide draft. So part of me gets completely caught up in the competition and hype surrounding collegiate week. I still tear up a little bit at the end of the movie when the winners are announced. Another part of me remembers that horrible feeling of loneliness at camp my last year. I don't think camp made me feel like a loser, it was more that I was an insecure teenager who shouldn't have gone to camp that summer. With all that said, if I do have a son, I'm going to be very careful about where I send him to camp. If he can hit 60% of his free throws and can sit through a full Sunday of NFL football he might just be an Ojibwa boy.

Are you still friends with people you met at Camp Ojibwa?
I'm friends with a lot of the characters in the film. The main character, Andrew Robinson, just spent the weekend at my apartment. I'm actually not friends with any one that went to camp when I was a camper unless you count facebook friends.

Can people buy a copy of Win or Lose on DVD?
Not yet, I'm still holding off to find a DVD distributor. The best thing to do now is to become a fan on the facebook page found off the website - http://www.winorlosemovie.com/ - and I'll notify people when it becomes available.

What's on deck for you? Any projects that you are working on or thinking about?
I'm working on writing an episodic comedic internet series. It will be similar in tone to a short film I made a few years ago. The film is here:

Thanks Louis! We'll be watching!

Win or Lose official website.
Louis' production blog