Festival Guide: Day 5

Today’s a great day to stay at the Regal Hollywood 20, with a solid line-up of films dominating the schedule. Here’s a few that we think will be worth your while.

3:30 — Love and Mercy  If you enjoyed the directing of Oren Moverman in Opening Night Film Time Out of Mind, come get a taste of his writing in this biopic of Beach Boys genius Brian Wilson. This is one of the festival’s spotlight films, and has a cast led by John Cusack in the main role.

6:15 — Finders Keepers  There are creepy documentary topics, and then there is Finders Keepers. Michael Dunaway such an enthusiastic sell on this movie when the programming was unveiled we started to worry about his sanity. Then we learned the topic, the true story of a man who loses a leg and has to sue the man who found it packed with his new grill and now wants to keep it, and it sounded so cool we worried about our own state of mind.

8:15 — Homeless  This story, shot in a real North Carolina homeless shelter and cast largely with real transients and social workers, follows a similar story to Time Out of Mind with a protagonist stuck in a cycle of poverty and insecurity. But it may actually feel more believable if only for the fact its cast with a convincing first-time actor in Michael McDowell.

SFF Opening Night Red Carpet

Opening Night for the 2015 Sarasota Film Festival at the Sarasota Opera House.

Homeless Coast to Coast

I had the pleasure of meeting the director and subject of Homme Less, Thomas Wirthensohn and Mark Reay respectively, after the Sundance/Gates Foundation Shorts Selection and the panel discussion on homelessness, which followed. Both had great things to say during the discussion, and were just as amicable at the film’s first screening. I was also able to meet the director of Queen Mimi before it screened that evening, and sensed the labor of love that the film was for Yaniv Rokah.

Vereen Hopes Work Starts Dialogue on Homelessness, Human Compassion

As Ben Vereen sits in a Sarasota restaurant wearing a cap that reads “Spiritual Enforcer,” intermittently piping pleasant sounds from a wood recorder, he waxes about the promises Baby Boomers made for the future, recounting his hopes from the past to a reporter born well after the Vietnam War. “Taking things back to the ’60s,” he recalls, “we were going to make it a better world for you guys.” He ponders that promise for a moment, then speaks up again. “I’m sorry.”

But whatever ills of humanity his generation failed to expunge, whether by negligence or because such goals were futile to start with, Vereen himself has never given up. Today, he takes a break from preparing a production of Hair—his revival of the musical his the stage at the Venice Theatre in the fall—and discusses his role in Time Out Of Mind, a drama about homelessness set to open the Sarasota Film Festival this evening. “We need a dialogue,” he says. “That’s the first solution.”

The Game Plan

As yesterday’s blog mentioned, I will be covering the Sarasota Film Festival regarding the theme of homelessness. I had the good fortune to speak with Michael Dunaway about the intentions behind choosing a theme on my radio show, Renaissance SRQ, and we both agree that art is a conduit for social change, especially the medium of film. That is, after all, the reason I started the Home Free project in the first place.

When I went to film school, it was because I wanted to be a storyteller, and based on how much television I watched as a child and a four year career as a cinema box office attendant, film has been very influential in the way I think that stories should be told. As I’ve discovered already with the Home Free project, there are many stories to be told about the homeless experience. Ultimately, it is my hope for the Sarasota community to embrace these films so that we will be more able to embrace those who have stories that are yet untold.

Mark Famiglio Discusses Homeless Theme at 2015 SFF

When the Sarasota Film Festival opens tonight with a screening of Time Out of Mind, an Oren Moverman film starring Richard Gere as a transient estranged from his daughter, it will be just the first of many features screening at the 10-day-festival focusing on homelessness. Sarasota Film Festival president Mark Famiglio said it is no coincidence the programming has taken that bent at the same time leaders in Southwest Florida struggle with the issue themselves.

Michael Dunaway on Renaissance SRQ

I’m very excited to be writing for the Backlot, and was thrilled to have our intrepid Sarasota Film Festival creative director Michael Dunaway on my radio show Renaissance SRQ on WSLR 96.5 LPFM. Cutting right to the chase, I asked him about why homelessness was chosen as a central theme this year to discover that it was an idea that Mark Famiglio started developing during last year’s festival.

VIDEO: Salt and Light Shines Light on Homelessness

A Sarasota production company seeks to put a face on the homeless epidemic in its newest short film, “Angela’s Story.” Documenting the story of “Angela,” a woman who found herself on the streets after losing a job but is trying now to become a licensed massage therapist, has been offered up to ministries and organizations committed to helping the homeless. Salt and Light Productions, the film arm for the Center for Faith and Freedom, released the video last week.

VIDEO: Steve McAllister Documents Homeless Experience First-Person in Home Free

No single political issue in Sarasota County, Florida has lingered so large in local politics as homelessness. Debates about shelters, housing programs and the balance between commerce and compassion have led to friction and volatile discourse between various government agencies in the region.

For local filmmaker Steve McAllister, the homeless experience is one he knows first hand. Through the creation of a web series dubbed Home Free, the Sarasotan documents both his own experiences choosing to live without using money and chronicles the evolving debate on handling homelessness in Southwest Florida.